- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Lets all stand still.

Posted by: Gee on March 23, 1999 at 13:22:42:

In Reply to: Profit by another name would still be capitalist posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on March 23, 1999 at 11:04:17:

: I still don't understand why we have to assume such assumptions under capitalo-fantasism

Oh, socialist-infantile-dreamism

See, name calling is not a constructive method of discussion.

: There are all sorts of reasons compelling renters to pay rent, to live in the same places for extended periods of time over moving whenever "the market" might justify looking for a place with cheaper rent.

"the market" means those compelling reasons.

: SDF: Because it's difficult to move, and because it's more profitable just to charge high rents and compel the tenants to pay them.

The all your arguing is that rent can be high because its expensive to move. That doesnt really constitute any more than an observation. It still holds that charging too much means people move on.

: and evict people willy-nilly for the sake of profit.

So good stable contracts are of market value to consumers.

: SDF: Look, at the beginnning of the 19th century,

Without which the west would not have its abundance, it longevity, many of its medicines and technologies. Dont even attempt to persuade me that life in the middle ages was better. People in the future will shreek in horror at 40 hour weeks in those dreadful office buildings with germ infested air conditioning. Relative to now, the past always looks worse, humanity is a progression.

: SDF: Profit, or have you forgotten the purpose of capital accumulation?

Better made by actually accumilating it in selling the use of the road, not holing up.

: SDF: I didn't say it was. (Maybe if you actually read E.P. Thompson's THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS you'd find out about the statist historical origins of capitalism.)

And that would make me reject liberty in property?

: I don't think one has to have any philosophical objection to "liberty based capitalism" to understand its impracticality in the present day.

If you mean that statism grows arounf abundance like a weed then I agree there is need for a weed killer, but not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

: To summarize -- to make people behave like capitalists

you mean like the 'capitalist' state wanted, ie state dependant state feeding.

: Merely removing the state does not abolish the repressive context of capitalism, the context created by statist capitalism -- and, as I have already explained time and time again, those with a business interest in the state will re-invent the state if, supposing some feat of magic with the power to abolish Earth's enormous nuclear stockpiles, the state is abolished without removing its capitalist context.

Yes thats a good point, I fear the same - the second rate wealthy would try to shore up against superior up and coming ability and state makes the job oh so easy. But socialising property does not resolve the problem of state creation, in fact I believe it makes it, sadly, inevitable.

: If you really want to abolish the state, you'll have to radically re-distribute power, wealth, and resources in favor of the working classes of the world, by organizing a popular revolution against the state.

Yes, the unholy marriage of liberty and state has resulted in a status quo. I would prefer to remove the protectors of the power brokers, not to distill each persons interest into a collective for the sake of a few.


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