- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Agreed.

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on July 09, 1999 at 17:27:56:

In Reply to: its always worth summarising posted by Gee on July 09, 1999 at 15:34:53:

: And people who achieve income from both methods (yes, they do exist and are increasing, early retirees are the biggest group, but so are various stockholders who work aswell)?

So long as they *need* to work to sustain/keep their investments they are working class, at the point in which they can live by investing for profit alone, they become capitalist class.

: If the market is natural it is because man is natural (hence not 'beyond control' per se), really it is naughty of me to say the government 'artificially' does this or that to the currency rates, it is also 'natural' but some words carry ones meaning more succinctly.

Ah, well I always understand 'natural' to implictly mean 'that which exists without the active agency/will/intervention of human consciousness'- everything humans can do is natural. Specifically, when you compare comparative advantage by birth (.e. born rich) with genetic factors (hieght, skin colour, athletic potential), you are de facto implying that the economy is likewise an accident of 'nature'.

: The idea of what a market or anything would look like without counter liberty interventions is to ask whether an action initiates the use of force against others

Classic Liberalism, as espoused by the anarchist/libertarian socialist Chomsky, who says we should operate a running bias against force (guilty until proven necessary).- His example is teh forcible restraint of a child near a road...

: Privilege at birth is guiltless just as more intelligent parents may better teach a child, the child is not guilty of learning more.

What structures *allow* those parents to have learnt more, and be able to teach? If teh difference is based on social structures of wealth within an economic totality, then doesn't justice demand that we act *where we can* to alter that totality?

:He is not beholden to the other. In a society which has private property (which I consider as natural as one that considers your body and mind as yours, property being meaningless without the above two) is held then a child receiving more of it from parents is guiltless and not beholden.

But by moving it onto a question of personal ghuilt, your are effectively absolving the parents and the entire social structure, the totality, that permits privillege. Suely, as a radical liberal, you should want to see an even playing field, in which *everyone* has a full chance to develop their potential- 'some mute inglorious Milton' (Gray)?

: I dont think thats particularly conservative in the political sense, as conservatives still tend to proceed from the premise that your body/mind (and thus the rest) somehow 'belongs' or is beholden to others whether that be your lovely racial community, your 'nation', a god or whatever.

There is another conservative sense- that of the immutable human nature, and that we must behave according to that immutable nature- the belief in orgininal sin, inherent in your ideas about crime and power-mogering groups being a constant throughout all soceties.

To put it bluntly- although you are a radical liberal, you seem not to believe in enlightenment 'human perfectability.'



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