- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Leave your door open

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on August 25, 1999 at 14:24:15:

In Reply to: It's called 'illusion' posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on August 24, 1999 at 18:37:53:

: SDF: And if I violate your "right," my punishment?

That the one you violate would respond accordingly, or in any state which observe that 'rule' that you could be penalised by state for doing so. No guarantee that you couldnt get away with it.

: SDF: Nope, you're refusing to recognize that the "force" you so despise is a legitimate commodity under the rules of "free trade".

It doesnt matter if force is initiated when 'bought or sold' with posessions or with whims and favors. It is of no consequence to 'force' whether it is enacted in a culture of private ownership, dictatorial state ownership or RD style collective ownership. It is folly to imagine that getting rid of private ownership and free trade as legally supported rights would get rid of the initiation of force.

: See, under capitalism, people are compelled to be entrepreneurs, there's no other way to eat, and people have to eat.

Under any situation a person is compelled to seek those values which enable him to survive. Those values are created not found under rocks so anyone who wishes to obtain them must do so, or acquire them form those who can. In the latter a person may offer a return value of some kind, or simply take it away and await the consequences of doing so.


: You're still under the illusion that capitalists don't want to commodify "force," that slums, racism, etc. will just "go away,"

No SDF, you appear to labor under the misapprehension that the above conditions and uses of force are *caused* by private ownership, and would absent if private ownership were not protected by law.

: SDF: Who's serving time for not lobbying officials? Evidence please? Another illusion? Look, we pay taxes, which you don't agree with, and we get government, which you don't like. But nobody is threatening anybody with a jail term if they don't support a $1.5 billion per year lobbying industry.

You get jailed if you dont pay the taxes levied upon you.

: SDF: I want to take food, clothing, and shelter from grocery and department stores and unoccupied buildings, without paying. I need these things for biological survival.

In doing so you are taking what others have produced without offering anything in return. These others may accept you doing so or they may not. I would suspect the latter. Just as you might begrudge someone rifling through your house everyday and removing what they decide they should have without regard to you.


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