- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Lickspittle.

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on March 25, 1999 at 13:16:15:

In Reply to: Greetings, lackey posted by Joel Jacobson on March 24, 1999 at 11:29:26:

: What an amazing point!!! You've pointed out that Marx's 'means of production' were a idealized simplistic definition. Anything involved in the production process is a means of production. And having access to another's time is exactly what Deathy is decrying.

The means of production are the *material* assets required for production, be they a field a factory or, a screwdriver, they are any object which, when human labour and skill is applied to them, they can help produce other objects.

Now, my critique of exploitation, is actually:

1:That Capitalism socialises labour, and privatises the gain.
2:That the capitalist gains solely upon the basis of their ownership of the mneans of production, i.e. of their wealth, and not from any human need or relationship.
3:That the relationship between the capitalist and workers is purely one of Commodity exchange (in an uneven contract). Not a human relation.

Further:
1:The sick and disabled recieve their living socially, through means of human relationships, and social life.
2:Exploitation means use- humans are used in the same way as a screwdriver, or coal, or flour.
3:Exploitation under capitalism 0occurs under compulsion of social exclusion and poverty- work under socialism would be voluntaristic.

For the above reasons the sick and disabled would not be exploiting their fellows- they would be recieivng their due, their needs, as a part of society, not extracted out of it.

: This does not follow and displays the whole force of Deathy's arguements as the moralizign it really is.

: I am not denying moralizing as I do it as well. However, the whole Marxist historical dialectic was expressly for the purpose of avoiding simply applying morality to economics. Stuck in all their verbiage and theories Marx, and Deathy, are just applying their moral outlooks to an economic analysis.

No, the working class understood and experienced the exploitation, and felt it, Marx merely described how it happened, and how it works.

Might I ask, BTW- how the sick and disabled would be cared for under anarcho-captitalism?


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