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The Forum > General Discussion > Government is the sprit of conquest

Government is the sprit of conquest

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Looking at the Four Corners report on Secret Iraq, it is hard not be impressed by the desperate guts of civilians willing to fight the US army to the death.

While the US Marines were killing men, women and children by the thousands in Fallujah, the British, like the cat that swallowed the canary, were smug at how well they had done at pacifying the south. Until they started getting blown up badly, so they decided they’d better pack up and take their traveling death team to pick on … Afghanistan!

The sheer flagrant criminality of the State is so breathtaking. The ethic is always the same double standard: I have a right to be violent to you, you don’t have a right to be violent to me.

One of the marines explained, as if to a moron, “If you order a marine regiment to attack a city, they attack a city.” That’s as far as their ethics go. They don’t the question the ethics of orders to kill. They just kill and assume that the justification comes from the political process.

But what could possibly justify such high crimes on such a large scale? Obviously the pretexts given for war, the weapons of mass destruction and such, were lies and it was later proved that the politicians knew them to be lies at the time.

What about democracy? Here we see the entire justification for democracy stripped bare. Could a majority vote of the American people justify such blatant mass murder against the Iraqis? No! Could a majority vote of the Iraqi people justify it? No!

That being so, how could democratic government be in any better position than that of a majority using force and threats to coerce the minority into obedience and submission?

In war we see the essence of the State. For all States originate from armies and conquest somewhere along the line: all democracies originated from monarchies, and all monarchies originated from conquest. Government is the ethic of conquest carried forward against the subject population, democracy or no. Government is the spirit of conquest, institutionalized.
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 11 October 2010 9:27:15 PM
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Peter, you are plain wrong on facts.

//But what could possibly justify such high crimes on such a large scale? Obviously the pretexts given for war, the weapons of mass destruction and such, were lies and it was later proved that the politicians knew them to be lies at the time. //

1/ They are not 'crimes' they are war.
2/ The Insurgents murdered 100s if not 1000s of civilians in Falluja
3/ Weapons of mass destruction. DID exist, but were shipped to Syria by plane. (General Georges Sada, Iraqi Air Force)

You've been reading your socialist/progressive rubbish for so long, and have not 'got out' to look at the bigger picture, you have simply been sucked in and swallowed the 'correct' line without even tasting the bait first.

Please don't insult our intelligence by trying the 'crimes' thingy.... we are brighter than that. It's freaking WAR Peter...and stragically, has had a good outcome. Saddaam was killing and slicing and dicing his own people by the 10s of 1000s without any help from outsiders, so don't further insult is by suggesting that it all started to happen when the Allies went in.

P.S.. are you a member of the Fabian society? You are quacking, waddling, and seem to have the appropriate 'apparel' to be one.
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 8:48:25 AM
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ALGOREisRICH

LOL That's the first time anyone's called me a socialist!

"They are not 'crimes' they are war."

You are only proving my point. So if you or I go around killing people by the hundreds or thousands, that's crime. But if government does it, that's not crime.

Right
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 8:53:14 AM
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Peter Hume, quite so.

I recalled the stories of WW2 that were part of my youth, all those German atrocities that sounded very much like last night's show.

As for that lowlife Tony Blair, now a 'devout' xtian, to cleanse hisself of his war crimes, he and Bush, as well as Howard for that matter, need to be in The Hague, and then doing their porridge.

While we wring our hands over 'our boys' up on charges in Afghanistan for killing civilians, what we saw last night was probably exactly what they were up to.

The mild mannered airforce jerk that appears on our TV news with trembling lips and tears welling in his eyes every time one of 'our boys' is blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb needs to explain what our taxes are really paying for....as do Gillard and that horrible pretender, Abbott, since they both stand behind the war crimes our soldiers are engaged in.

AGIR should consider signing up himself, if he thinks this is all such good, and honourable, fun.
Posted by The Blue Cross, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 9:54:27 AM
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All the actors in this debacle need to be held to account.
Shrub, Coward, Bleagh, et al representing the state.
Halitosisburton, Rootbrown and all the weapons manufacturers and the rest who have grown fat off this war representing the capitalists.
Any soldier (or terrorist) who has killed a civilian. They must justify their actions. They cannot "just follow orders" and expect immunity.
That is what the ICC is for. This is what the Geneva conventions are for.

Charge them all and let the court decide if they are criminals or not. To not do so reeks of war crimes and cover up and will forever be seen as another case of the west and its perfidious use of "the law" only when it suits them.
And people wonder why "they" hate us! sheesh.
Posted by mikk, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 12:20:03 PM
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As to Pete and his Mises inspired fantasy of privatised states.

Show me a single example of an improvement in service and utility of something that was once the sole province of government that has been privitised?

<<Government is the ethic of conquest carried forward against the subject population, democracy or no. Government is the spirit of conquest, institutionalized.>>

And capitalist firms, private property, patents, copyright etc etc are all exactly the same. The ethic of conquest and exploitation carried forward against the subject population and no democracy whatsoever. At least we can vote governments out. You cant vote out the boss. Capitalism is the spirit of conquest (and usury, exploitation and dominance) intitutionalised.

That people like Pete here cant see how much the capitalists rely on the state to keep them rich and in positions of power just beggars belief. Along with the church, the state and capitalism form a holy trinity dedicated to subjugating the vast majority while the privileged few live the life of luxury and get to make all the decisions for the rest of us.

Wake up Peter. I hate the state as much as you do and for pretty much the same reasons. It is just that to me the same reasons apply even more so to capitalism and its defining characteristics of wage slavery and private "property". If the state usurps your freedom and that is bad then how can you not see that the same applies to the capitalist system.
Posted by mikk, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 1:03:41 PM
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TBC...sign up ? mate..I did.. long ago..and it is not the best feeling flying in to Vung Tau watching all the boats down below to see who is shooting at you.

Peter...glad you took that hit from me on the chin...but that was just an opening jab :) now for the left hook and the right sweeping round kick.

Kidding of course.

War is war..and within that crimes can indeed occur..but you jammed so much separate information into your sentences and then "declared" them as 'crimes' that I thought I better jar you out of your trance for a bit.

For example:

"Could a majority vote of the American people justify such blatant mass murder against the Iraqis?"

Mate..if I was into weed I'd ask you what ur smoking and beg you for some.

Where in this wide world do you get 'mass murder' ? ? ? ?

You would need to scrutinise every bit of intel and event of the Falluja campaign and 'then' form a reasonable conclusion, but I hazard a guess that NONE of us have access to that so... we are left with the 'official films' and the left wing/progressive sleaze machine which cares as much about truth as a King Cobra does for your eyesight after it's launched a blob at you.

BUT....you do say a few things I can agree with... in your last paragraph.

//In war we see the essence of the State. //

*bingo* 100% agree.

But what do you propose as a solution? After all..'States' comprise flawed human beings.. I prefer the term 'fallen'.

I have a solution :) Acts 2 the whole chapter specially the last few verses. 42 to end.

I invite and challenge you... seriously.. read that whole chapter in 'careful' detail..and see what you come up with.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+2&version=NIV
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 1:21:39 PM
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PETER....one more addition.

You said:

"So if you or I go around killing people by the hundreds or thousands, that's crime. But if government does it, that's not crime."

Where the rubber meets the road.. yep..that's how it is.

What is your external standard for right and wrong by which you determine the actions of a government are so ?

Remember.. the Nazi's were 'right' until they got their butts kicked by a bigger foot.
Only 'then' were they wrong......

The Nuremberg trials had to determine that very issue.

//In "moral choices" or ethical dilemmas an ethical decision is often made by appealing to a "higher ethic" such as ethics in religion or secular ethics. One such "higher ethic," which is found in many religions and also in secular ethics, is the "ethic of reciprocity," or the Golden Rule. It states that one has a right to just treatment, and therefore has a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others. "Higher ethics," such as those, could be used by an individual to solve the legal dilemma presented by the "Superior Orders" defense.//

It should be noted though, that 'international' law would have simply been the laws of the 3rd Reich had it been successful.

Boils down to 'winners are grinners' :)
Posted by ALGOREisRICH, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 1:27:44 PM
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There you go blaming capitalists for the actions of governments exercising their monopoly power again. Who paid the companies that participated in the war? Where did governments get the money that they paid for people to produce weapons? How did they get the money? Did anyone who paid consent? Prove it.

We have already seen that your concept of property being unjust, because exclusive, must mean that thousands of millions of people would starve to death because no-one would the right to exclusive use of any resources that is currently supporting the world's population above the level that could be supported by everyone working in isolation. It is an anti-economic, anti-human view, that would be posing as concern for human beings, if it wasn't just blind anger.

And your Marxist concept that private ownership involves "exploitation" comes from Marx's labour theory value. You have been completely unable to either prove it, to show why future goods should not be discounted against present goods, to show why workers should be paid for risk they are not undertaking, to show why value is nothing but the embodiment of labour, to refute the argument showing that the LTV is rubbish.

"Show me a single example of an improvement in service and utility of something that was once the sole province of government that has been privitised?"

Agriculture in Russia. Or did you think mass starvation was better.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are authorised primarily by the American government in breach of their Constitution, in violating the private property rights of the taxpayers who are being forced to pay for it all. Absent that, the whole thing wouldn't be taking place.

And I note you didn't mention Obama or Gillard in your list of war criminals? Bias to the left.

Only libertarians are consistent in criticising the violations of the State across the board. The socialists are no more opposed to them *in principle* than the neocons. Only libertarians support freedom from hegemony, and the socialist impression to the contrary derives from their profound ignorance of economics that killed millions.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 1:44:52 PM
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Al
Actually your argument is ethically no different than the ethics of the Nuremberg defence. You are only proving my point and displaying your moral confusion.

mikk
You say that you are opposed to the state. But you don’t apply against state ownership the same standards for which you criticise private property, even though they apply equally to states. You constantly urge for higher taxes. You continue to believe that the state can provide goods and services more economically than private owners, as well as more fairly. And you allege against capitalism exactly the same reasoning as Marx did – “exploitation” - without once every having proved or even tried to prove it. And your communism extends not only to capital goods, but to some undefined round of consumer goods as well.

Thus you are not anti-state at all. You are a thorough-going totalitarian communist who has somehow managed to convince himself that he stands for the freedom and wellbeing of the little guy against institutionalised hegemony.

The thing is, while you remain clueless about economics you really won’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. That’s why you keep on advocating policies that would result in mass starvation while pretending to moral superiority, without realising that that’s how stupid your pretensions actually are.

You could do worse than to read the first chapter of Rothbard’s Man, Economy, State, Market and Power: http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf .

Let us know if there’s anything in it you can disprove. Disprove, not have a childish little tanty about.

If you allege "exploitation" one more time without proving it, proving the labour theory of value, and disproving the theory of marginal utility, it means you lose. Get with the program.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 2:06:14 PM
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How can you separate the actions of the American government and it's close association with big business in the Iraqi invasion?
Starting way back in Bush Snr's administration, Dick Cheney was scouting around trying to find ways to outsource the military. According to Naomi Klein in "The Shock Doctrine" - "...he scaled down the number of active troops and dramatically increased reliance on private contractors. He contracted Brown and Root, the engineering division of Haliburton, to identify tasks being performed by U.S. troops that could be taken over by the private sector for profit."
Klein points to the outsourcing of war for profit and adds that: "Haliburton in particular all but took over organising the entire infrastructure of U.S. military operations overseas during the Balkans War.
According to the congressional Research Service, The Department of Defence these days increasingly relies upon contractors to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Contractors make up to 54 percent of Department of the Defence's workforce in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The administration under George W. Bush was especially famous for parcelling out various functions of government to private interests.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 12 October 2010 9:16:04 PM
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Peter I did not agree with you, not with Boazy, but gee I liked it.
Not the content ,intent as it is on a one sided view of mans inhumanity to each other.
But the comrades rushing out to put the boot in to America and the halo on the head of any one they confront is a hobby.
The true very left emerges from its phone box HQ armed with such and gives me reason to laugh, at them.
Posted by Belly, Wednesday, 13 October 2010 5:24:54 AM
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There’s no question that big business and big government are in it up to their necks, and shouldn’t be.

The flaw is in thinking that, just because government has outsourced functions to corporations, therefore you have established anything relevant. It’s a complete red herring. The cause of peace and freedom would not be better served if these corrupt functions were, as usual, performed by monopoly government agencies instead.

If the actions would not take place but for government’s monopoly, authority, decisions, funding, and direction, then it’s no use blaming companies for being more efficient at producing munitions, any more than we blame alcoholism on the efficiency of wineries.

The distinction between the left and right on this is a distinction without a difference. Obama and Gillard have in no way been an improvement on Bush and Howard provoking and waging aggressive imperialist wars that should not exist in the first place.

These wars show that socialists and neocons have far more in common with each other than either has with libertarians. Both socialists and neocons stand four-square behind big government’s arbitrary powers at home and abroad. They only differ on what they think everyone else should be bullied, invaded and humiliated for.

The following opinions are common among the centre-left:
• capitalism in general, and employment in particular, are intrinsically exploitative
• profit is an immoral quantity
• profit tends to show the misallocation of resources
• government has a legitimate right to take as much of the individual’s income and property as the government arbitrarily decides
• the purpose for which government spends tax funds, is presumptively more social, more fair and more productive than the purpose for which its private owners would spend them
• government has a right to rule by decree, so long as it complies with legislative formality
• government is more representative of the people, than the people are of themselves
• government has a legitimate right to compel the whole population to undergo 10 years of compulsory education, compulsorily funded, and the content of which is to be decided by government
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 13 October 2010 4:03:26 PM
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(cont.)
• government has a legitimate right to “manage” the economy, and to run massive coercion-based property redistribution schemes
• government has a legitimate right to control the money supply and the financial markets, and manipulate interest and employment rates
• government has a legitimate right to regulate or direct any given detail of primary, secondary or tertiary industry
• government has a legitimate right to restrict and control international trade and impose trade restrictions if it thinks fit
• government has a legitimate monopoly of all questions to do with the security of the nation
• and so on and on and on.

(And then they have the gall to blame the resulting mess on “unfettered capitalism”.)

Now the point is this: you cannot possibly hope to have these beliefs carried out in practice, and for government not to be empowered to provoke and carry out perpetual war. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that.

*These wars are caused by the policies you are in favour of!* You cannot be in favour of perpetually coercing everyone at home in favour of big government, and expect any different result in foreign policy. That’s *exactly* the argument against fascist economics.

War is the health of the State. The more the State expands in response to these supposed external threats, the more it will take over the liberties and properties of the subject people inside the country. Hence the slide from social democracy to a fascist police state that we are witnessing in the USA and everywhere in the western world.

If I oppose the State invading my property, what different option do I have than the Iraqis exposing their lives to injury and death in opposing the coalition military?

Only libertarians are consistent in defending freedom, peace, and a general ban on initiating violence across the board. The leftists are either fake or confused in opposing the war: for they favour the permanent war of the State against its subjects that is the origin and driving force of all of it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 13 October 2010 4:03:50 PM
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Wow! Peter you have excelled yourself! Go boy, lettem havit!

Who said we have no role models? He's a real, live, breathing one right here!

And I thought your were extinct, how wrong was I?
Posted by RawMustard, Wednesday, 13 October 2010 4:31:50 PM
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Peter Hume,

The issue with the neocons in the situation preceding the push into Iraq was that the people at the top of the pile had vested interests in going to war as a profitable undertaking.
Not only would the "state" be served by stamping its authority and influence on a resource rich region, but also war would enrich engineering firms and arms manufacturers, to name but a few beneficiaries.
In short, profit was to be made by private interests in every facet of the operation - in knocking things down and in building them up again.
The people that were in charge of government were representative of the interests of those that would profit from such undertakings - they fitted like a hand in a glove.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 14 October 2010 12:40:22 AM
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Poirot

Yes.
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 14 October 2010 8:32:06 AM
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It is difficult to argue with the truth Peter.
And it ought to be made compulsory to resight at the start of every Parliamentary day; “ It is Not mine to Give”; and : “Though shall not Steal” ; I am Not Omniscient and Not a God, (Fallen Angel maybe) yes, that is already a conflict with the Definition of Government.
Posted by All-, Thursday, 14 October 2010 8:33:28 AM
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Peter Hume,

Took a while to get back - I'm not used to us agreeing (to a point) and was momentarily stunned, Lol.

The U.S. Department of Defence appears to have been used as a conduit to transfer money from government resources to private interests under the banner of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq. An inordinately high percentage of Defence Department funds were provided in supplemental and additional appropriations. Emergency funding is exempt from the usual ceilings making it difficult to track.

Are you suggesting that this is entirely the fault of the U.S. government? Because it appears to me that big business on this occasion infiltrated and influenced government to such an extent that the two were almost indistinguishable - hardly the sort of behaviour to inspire confidence in a utopia controlled by private enterprise..
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 14 October 2010 4:27:38 PM
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Yes LOL. Didn’t recognize ourselves.

What you say is true but that hardly vindicates the government, does it?

Government and business weren't indistinguishable. Government was the one with a legal monopoly of lethal force, taxation, and ultimately decision-making. It first took all the money from the citizenry that it gave to the corporations. It launched, sponsored and directed the aggresion. Big business's ability to profit from the war was entirely derivative from government's commanding role in it. The fact that corporations could profit from it only begs the question why government should have had the power to enrich them in the first place.

"More bang for the buck" - that's government's idea of defining efficiency!

Government is the only party that can grant itself exemption from the general rule against force and fraud. In the absence of such a (massive) diversion of confiscated funds, capitalism would have produced something else:
a) that people voluntarily pay for, unlike tax, and
b) that doesn't involve blowing up men, women and children – like producing toys, or kitchen appliances, or engines.

I disclaim 'utopia' and unlike the left and right wing, I don't pretend to know what other people should be forced into doing. But in a society with only a small State, or even no State if that can be imagined, obviously there is no question of big business enriching itself via big government. The problem we are looking at isn't liberty and private property; it's the lack of it.

The neocons are all for wealth redistributions to big corporations; but the socialists aren't *against* wealth redistributions. They differ only in who they think other people's wealth should be given to. They are equally vulnerable to a critique that they have enabled this kind of imperialist abuse and crime.

What kind of criticism can the leftist make of Republicans outsourcing military contracts? That these functions should have been performed by government? That government should have more power to control them? How is that any improvement?
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 14 October 2010 9:26:29 PM
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No, it won't do. It is a complete error to see private corporations profiting, and identify the problem with “capitalism”. If the problem is funded with tax, don't blame capitalism, which stands for the *private* ownership of the means of production, not the public confiscation and handouts of the means of producion.

The problem cannot be solved by giving government more power.

Liberty is the only solution that hasn't been tried. I am anti-left and anti-right. I think they offer a fake alternative. The major parties in the USA, here, in the UK, are pretty much 95 points of similarity, and 5 of difference, if that; more like 99:1.

The problem is caused by a belief in government on which left and right wing are identical. They all believe in its presumptive wisdom, goodness, capacity; they believe forced redistributions are justified, necessary, desirable. Government does wonderful social good, creates net benefits, heals the sick etc. etc. etc. When it blows up cities full of civilians, it is all necessary, for the greater good, etc. etc. etc. It's sickening.

I had to shake my head with disbelief looking at what is going on in Iraq – it’s like, “In this day and age!”

But of course it’ll be going on in this day and age while ever people believe that the State is just a convenient machine for them to violate other people into doing whatever they want!

I repeat my question: if I oppose the State invading my property rights, how are my options any different to those of the Iraqis opposing the armed force of the western States?

We need to see the essential criminality of what is being perpetrated; and call it as such.

Okay what about this one Poirot:?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard62.html
Please let me have your critique of it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 14 October 2010 9:33:04 PM
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Peter Hume,

I read most of your article - and I acknowledge that the whole question of government is one for humanity to constantly ponder.
And while I'm not a supporter of a totally homogeneous society,I can't help but look back to the beginnings of the society that we live in now for an indication of the sort of thing that unfettered capitalism is capable of.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain exploded onto the scene, for the most part, independent of government. The horrendous factory conditions that rapidly arose and consequent degradation of the populace are testament to an unrestrained capitalistic ethos. People should really take the time to closely examine the conditions that abounded in the factories and mills during that time - most would be shocked at what they find.
The wanton abuse and exploitation (there's that word again) of workers made it necessary for some form of government intervention and control - and ever since the two have found it mutually beneficial to work in tandem to control society.
One would like to think that the same thing could not occur in these enlightened times, but we only have to look overseas at the third world to see that it "is" happening now. That is/was what capitalism looks like when it is unleashed with little thought for human dignity and welfare - when profit is the only motivation.

Do you suppose that somehow if government were magically removed, that the same situation would not arise again
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 15 October 2010 7:26:38 AM
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A common response to the arguments showing the State’s corruption and criminality are to acknowledge the force of the arguments, but still to hold a flame for the State, because it is hard to give away the established idea of its beneficence. At a gut level it is hard to think that we are faced with such blatant mass murder and institutionalized fraud and injustice, right under our nose, but at a rational level it is hard to deny it too.

When Marx wrote about the industrial revolution he did not know the population demographics of the period. Later scholarship showed that from about 1760 to 1830, the population of Britain had doubled.

Looking on the condition of the new proletariat, Marx mistakenly thought that the capitalist system was degrading these people down to the level of subsistence. Actually it was elevating them up from death.

It is mistaken to think that, in the absence of capitalism, they would have been living at a higher standard. The characteristic of modern capitalism is mass production for the masses. The scarcity causing the original problem is not caused by capitalism, but by nature. Capitalism more than any other system alleviates it.

Marx’s theory that employment is exploitative depends on the labour theory of value, which cannot be sustained. The reason workers do not get the full amount that the final product is sold for, is because they have not contributed the full value as Marx mistakenly theorized. Capital does not beget profit, as Marx said. Often it begets loss. Profit shows that the capitalist has combined the scarce factors of production in such a way that the masses as consumers value the end product more highly than the alternative possible uses of the factors. This is actually quite difficult to do. Only a small minority of the population can do it. About 80 percent of businesses go broke in the first year, and 80 % of the rest in the following five years.
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 15 October 2010 9:49:07 AM
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Profit and loss are the means by which the masses exercise unconditional control over the course of production, so the system satisfies their most urgent and important wants as *they* judge them, not a bureaucrat. It is not for us or capitalists to judge their tastes.

The capitalist pays workers now for something that will not be sold until some time in the future. The capitalist gets something for a) risk, b) delayed grat, and c) correctly predicting the future state of the market, *if indeed he gets anything at all*.

If Marx was right, the condition of the proletariat would have got worse and worse as he predicted. Instead, the standard of living of all, the working class more than any, has risen to the highest levels in the history of the world. That being so, the charge of exploitation cannot be sustained. Capitalism does not cause or exacerbate poverty, and employment at the market rate is not exploitative.

Hayek studied the history of the idea of the dark satanic mills. He found that it was largely inaccurate.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=dcCVcr6biTAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hayek+capitalism+historians&hl=en&ei=9o63TMjxBcGrceyu4NgG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
On the contrary, the English proletariat at the time were better off than their pre-capitalist peers elsewhere.

Most of the legislative reforms actually followed prior market initiatives and developments; just as superannuation and parental leave have more recently.

But in any event, it is not valid to applaud a legislative reform if by banning a visible problem that keeps people alive, it condemns them to an obscure death.

Passing laws and confiscating wealth does not make the masses wealthier. The centre-left’s hope of achieving social justice by redistribution cannot work, because the same political process redistributes wealth to the rich and powerful, who always have the advantage over the poor. It only makes matters worse than they would be under a regime of liberty and property.

However I’m not calling for the abolition of the State. I just think it could be beneficially trimmed by at least 20 percent, and probably 50 or more.

Okay, trimmed *to* 20 percent and that’s my final offer!
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 15 October 2010 9:49:39 AM
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Peter Hume,

It seems that here we come to the crux of your argument - in desiring to dismiss government to a greater extent from the equation.
My point was that some sort of "governing" intervention was required to halt the sort of oppression practiced in the name of capitalism in the mines, mills and factories of that time. I disagree that the proletariat who toiled in those situations were better off than their pre-capitalist peers elsewhere. Capitalism without restraint did exacerbate poverty and misery. (if you can, try and get hold of original documents pertaining to conditions during that time - E. Royston Pyke compiled a book title "Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution" - it is mind boggling).
The theories of men like Marx and Engels were born in response to the depravity that existed in the circumstances of the time.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 15 October 2010 10:26:44 AM
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> It seems that here we come to the crux of your argument - in desiring to dismiss government to a greater extent from the equation.

Yes.

> I disagree that the proletariat who toiled in those situations were better off than their pre-capitalist peers elsewhere.

That's because you're not counting being alive as better off than dying in infancy, or not having come into existence in the first place.

>My point was that some sort of "governing" intervention was required to halt the sort of oppression practiced in the name of capitalism in the mines, mills and factories of that time.

Ignoring the demographics, and repeating the labour theory of value, doesn't make this view true.

> The theories of men like Marx and Engels were born in response to the depravity that existed in the circumstances of the time.

That doesn't make them true.
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 15 October 2010 11:18:51 AM
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Peter - you said...""That's because you're not counting being alive as better off than dying in infancy, or not having come into existence in the first place.

I don't know exactly what you mean by the second part of your statement, but you seem to be suggesting in the first part that infant mortality "improved" amidst the dirt, squalor, pollution and overcrowding (one tenement often housed several families) of the mill and factory towns. These people lived in an environment with no drainage or running water and were surrounded by dung heaps. Every sort of pestilence and epidemic preyed upon their miserable lives.

Children who were the cheapest to employ were regularly procured from workhouses in the cities to supplement scarce child labour.
John Fielden MP wrote in 1836 that: "They were harassed to the point of death by excess of labour, that they were flogged, fettered and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty: that they were in many cases starved to the bone while flogged in their work."

The sad thing is that the above example is not an unusual instance, this was pretty much the standard mode of operation, to one degree or another, before (and even after) Factory Acts were instituted. Under this system of unregulated capitalism, the working-class were provided with just enough sustenance to keep them alive and in servitude.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 15 October 2010 5:51:40 PM
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Peter, on the point of democracy I would argue that an absence of democratic input is to blame;

How many people would sign themselves up to go to war? In most countries- I imagine including America- much less than 50%.

How many leaders on the other hand would want to sign their people up to fight on their behalf, knowing that the only consequence for them is that it makes them look bad (disregarding many electoral impacts that might get them voted back in)?
So far, in the past 30 years, quite a lot, and that's only between the past leaders of the US, UK and Australia alone.

Further evidence- Switzerland- longest history of peacetime ever and smallest record of armed conflict of any nation (despite being around since the late middle ages). This can be attributed to the fact that no declaration of war may be made by the Swiss government unless it passes a majority in a referendum of the public.
Posted by King Hazza, Saturday, 16 October 2010 5:31:05 PM
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Hi King Hazza

I wouldn't put it down to absence of democratic input. I reckon it's more to do propaganda, the old problem, reaction, solution thingy.

This is how the state can manipulate democracy for it's own ends and why we have a war on terror, keep em scared and they'll beg to fight the bad guys.
Posted by RawMustard, Saturday, 16 October 2010 6:33:47 PM
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King Hazza
Good point. We should have that here. Then we wouldn’t be (forced to pay for "our" government) shooting children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I also liked the idea of the ancient Greek city state which required anyone proposing a new tax to stand in the town square on a stool with a noose around his neck. If the motion was not carried, the stool was kicked away.

Poirot
Well I think it’s a good question.

Obviously to the extent that these abuses were already illegal, the State cannot be presumed a solution. And the same if they were later illegalized without effect.

I’m not justifying the abuse of children any more than you are. But it is simply invalid to presume that the State is better, either at caring for children, or manufacturing goods for that matter.

It’s a question of comparing apples with apples. The only way State intervention is ever able to look good is because people employ a double standard.

A classic example of the statist mindset is the popular press’s reaction to recent news of the prosecution of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan for shooting a baby, three children, and a teenager: they cry sympathy for the soldiers!

Abuses in state care are notorious. Even today, by any indicator of a child’s wellbeing: mental health, suicide, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, unemployment, self-harming, rates of abuse, welfare dependency, or whatever, the standard of parental responsibility exercised by the State for children in state care is much lower than the ordinary standard of parental responsibility in the community.

For obvious reasons, all societies in all times place children in a different legal category. This is not a defence of abuse. But even in our own times, with multiple, big, full-time, permanent, government child protection agencies, a child’s guardians can do to a child what is an assault to anyone else. Is that the fault of capitalism?

It is a double standard, to see a problem, and conjure benefits out of thin air by the State’s presumed goodness and capacity. There is always a downside.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 16 October 2010 6:57:47 PM
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Nature imposes scarcity on mankind, but the miraculous State, by passing laws, can make people better off without any corresponding cost. It’s false.

We must instead consider the possibility, which you seem to keep ignoring, that, if the State interventions in industry imposed costs greater than the market rate, then the children would not be employed in improved conditions as you keep imaginging, but rather, would go back to doing what they did before capitalism ever employed them, namely, dying.

If the benefit of halving infant mortality counts for nothing in favour of capitalism; while the State’s failure to perform its own self-proclaimed obligations to protect children, or its own abuses of children count nothing against the State, then the whole discussion is biased from the start.

You’re using one standard to judge capitalism, and a completely different one to judge the State. Capitalism must account to you for its benefits *and* its costs. But not the State. People applaud the benefits that are seen, and ignore the costs which are usually unseen.

There must be an even-handed weighing of the positives and negatives of private, versus the positives and negatives of State action. Then we keep seeing that the State is a protection racket, that’s all. There is no more reason to presume its effectuality in caring for widows and orphans than there to presume the same in favour of Al Capone or the Somali pirates.

The only way people conclude in favour of State action is to perpetually ignore the costs and disadvantages of State action, and presume the benefits. But obviously if we do that, anything will seem beneficial. Its unfalsifiable: irrational: divine right of kings stuff.

So let’s cut to the chase. There has to be the possibility of my proving to you that the downside of state action outweighs the upside, otherwise it’s not a rational discussion.

What reason or evidence would you accept as proving that the State’s interventions always entail a net negative consequence worse than the original problem they were intended to solve?
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 16 October 2010 6:59:42 PM
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Thankyou Peter- I would add to you next question about difference of ethics that it would also open up the ability to actually debate them as a nation with more direct democratic input- with the added emphasis on a need to accommodate more views to set some standards that actually reflect those of the people.

Rawmustard- but that is the problem isn't it?
In America, Australia and the UK, the president/prime minister can call the shots at his own discretion, and may only need to get about 30-50 of his colleages in congress or parliament to allow it.
The public, in this circumstance, had zero actual say, and were put in a position to decide if this is worth voting in the other guy over and risk any negative policies he could be packing- or else grudgingly tolerate it (not to mention if the guy in charge makes a mess of the place, they may put him in a second time hoping he will finish the job and put the country together again, as opposed to cut and run, leaving the place in a shambles).

With that in mind, the results of an indirect representative-only democracy, and a direct democracy where the people would have decided specifically if they DID or NOT want to go to the war in question may be very substantial.

As of now, we are making a potential mistake in assuming that our masters going ahead and doing what they wanted at their own discretion, had anything to do with getting the public to actually believe it, as opposed to tolerate it knowing that the alternative was to vote Labor into government and submit to their way of doing things instead (which at the time seemed to not be an option).

Or for that matter, that (in our system) the party that wins the election actually had the support of over 51% of the people- when in fact both major parties get only 30-40% every election and our country does not demand an actual voter majority)
Posted by King Hazza, Saturday, 16 October 2010 10:39:37 PM
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Peter,

My opinion is that the State and capitalism in modern Western society go together like horse and carriage. Each sanctions and facilitates the other's behaviour.
They have a mutually beneficial relationship - and I believe the reason it has seen such longevity (despite Marx's predictions) is because the two have joined together so fulsomely in the party.
The State provides a certain amount of social "conscience" while at the same time providing the apparatus - both material and diplomatic - for capitalism to roll out it's wares.
The fact that the State takes such a hefty cut is part of the deal - it's a very finely balanced arrangement.
If capitalism was allowed to run the show by itself, it would only be a matter of time before the proletariat would find themselves in dire straits and the whole thing would collapse. It's important for the bulk of society to keep buying superfluous stuff.
The reason capitalism grew stronger is that the State increasingly ingratiated itself and intervened to create optimum social conditions for the system to continue.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 17 October 2010 3:59:56 AM
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""" but that is the problem isn't it? """

Yes it is!

Sorry Exalted one. I don't understand what you're trying to say?
Do you want the public to directly vote on whether we should go to war via a direct democratic vote as you suggested the Swiss do?

If so, that's what I see as a problem as Peter has demonstrated in his original post.

""" But what could possibly justify such high crimes on such a large scale? Obviously the pretexts given for war, the weapons of mass destruction and such, were lies and it was later proved that the politicians knew them to be lies at the time.

What about democracy? Here we see the entire justification for democracy stripped bare."""

I don't agree that our representatives should decide for us either.

How about we just don't go to war unless we are directly attacked!? Then there's no need for a vote, the citizens will automatically decide what's best for them I'm sure!

This preemptive strike nonsense sinisterly executed is why we're in the mess we're in and why we're discussing this grouse injustice.
But more to the point. How the state manipulates democracy for its own ends.
Posted by RawMustard, Sunday, 17 October 2010 3:35:01 PM
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Poirot
Looks like our conscience is indulging its chronic bad habit of killing innocent men, women and children without mercy, paid for with funds it got without the owners’ consent by threatening them with violence.

Not much of a conscience, and anyway, I thought you were opposed to such abuses?

You are presuming the beneficence of the state again. What I mean is, what reason or evidence would you accept as satisfying you that the State is not presumptively beneficent or virtuous, but is a criminal, destructive association through and through?

Hazza
If all the people have an interest in common, only then would it make sense for everyone to have an equal vote.

When a country is being invaded by unprovoked aggressors, such as when Japan invaded Australia in WWII, committing atrocities throughout South-east Asia along the way, like cutting the babies out of pregnant women and so on, that is one of the few times when everyone has a common interest, and it makes sense for everyone to have an equal say.

But what about if, as has happened so many times in Africa, two antagonistic groups have a democratic vote on whether the majority get to oppress the minority?

That is ethically no different from democracy in the West? Since government’s power to tax is taken for granted, everyone becomes involved in a scramble for mutual plunder. If you take an ordinary sample of Australians, everyone is involved in getting myriad unknowable forced handouts from everyone else, via the State.

These handouts cancel each other out and the result is only that the State makes everyone worse off, except its own functionaries and anyone who parasitise a net benefit. It gives everyone the choice of being exploited or exploiting, that is all. It punishes work, savings, delayed grat, initiative, family, responsibility. It rewards speculation, debt, instant grat, rules and regulations, victim status, and trying to live at everyone else’s expense. Deciding everything and anything by democratic process is unethical, anti-social and unsustainable.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 17 October 2010 5:33:17 PM
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Peter,

I am opposed to "our conscience" acting in such a manner. My opinion, for instance, is that the Iraq invasion was an abomination.

I'm not excusing the aggression of government by any means, only noting that it has a partnership with capitalism.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 17 October 2010 5:58:12 PM
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Rawmustard, my point is that all the examples of a government 'duping' the public into going to war were in fact, a government practicing exclusive power to send the country to war by ITSELF- the people were never, in any way, shape or form, capable of affecting this decision.
Yet one of the only countries in which the people actually DO have a say happens to be one of the only countries that is politically neutral and has a long peace record to boast.
My argument is that democracy is hardly to blame when all the nations went to war without the consent of the people and more democracy in the country points otherwise.
You do have a good point about limiting circumstance only to an actual direct attack though.

Peter- the problem with the argument about what if the majority goes nasty is to ask what happens if a politician decides to instead?
They would be bound by the same rules of the constitution, and the only difference is the need for a bigger concensus of agreement, and the likelyhood that the voters would understand the policy would, effectively, likely be enforced unto themselves among everyone else, and more likely to do so on moral grounds- while a politician stands more likely to exclusively benefit and isolate themselves.
Posted by King Hazza, Sunday, 17 October 2010 10:06:56 PM
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Poirot
I have asked how your belief could be falsified and you have not shown how it could be. If a belief can’t be falsified it means it’s not rational.

A state is defined by
1. its claim of a legal monopoly on the use of violence
2. taxation, which for anyone else is the felony of demanding money with menaces, etc.
3. a claim of a right to ultimate decision-making. This gives it an interest in entering, or even provoking, conflicts which it then decides in its own interest, of which the current wars are a classic example.

It is these violations of everyone else’s liberty and property that enable all the downstream abuses, such as the wars.

So while you may not excuse these abuses, you continue to justify the original violations that make them possible and inevitable. That’s the whole point.

And the justifications cannot withstand critical scrutiny. The state’s claims to superior morality are completely baseless, as are its claim to superior knowledge or capacity.

Your method consists entirely of seeing something you don’t like and a) blaming capitalism regardless of the state’s role, and b) assuming the state’s superior virtue and efficacy.

As to its inputs, while ever the state’s revenue comes from taking other people’s property without their consent by threatening to lock them up, it is false to say that it has a “partnership” with any of its subjects.

As to its outputs, these consist entirely of giving away other people’s property as bribes for votes. It has no more of a partnership with capitalism than it does with religion, single mothers, or farmers.

As I have demonstrated, your assumptions that employment is intrinsically exploitative, and that the state is presumptively virtuous, are completely circular and irrational. You have been unable to either defend your argument, or refute my critique of it; other than by endlessly re-asserting the tenets of neo-Marxism.

While ever people’s defence of the state is thus immune to evidence and reason, its gross abuses are inevitable. The fault lies not with private property, but uncritical worship of the State.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 19 October 2010 8:35:46 AM
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Peter,

Some people might not define the State as violating everyone's liberty - they might instead consider that it avails a modicum of liberty to a portion of the population that otherwise would be more enslaved than they are.
Depends on your standpoint.

In any case, my argument here is not to defend the apparatus of government or to extol its virtues. It has to do with the State as a mechanism to keep the population within its borders in a relatively contented mindset.
If the standards hadn't been elevated by state intervention, then the proletariat wouldn't have been able to participate to the fullest extent in the consumption of goods - aside from the fact that without the cotton wool of social protection, they would have eventually revolted (the huddled masses and all that)
The reason it all keeps rolling along in such a wasteful and wanton fashion is because Western societies are insulated and fairly comfortable - this would not have occurred without protective social mechanisms.
That is the basis of my argument that there is indeed a partnership between government and capitalism.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 19 October 2010 12:17:46 PM
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You still haven't shown how your view could be falsified, so your method continues to be to presume that the state has a superior morality or conscience, and beneficence. This underlies your belief that it raised the standard of living of the masses. I don't know whether you are aware of this, but that is actually in issue. It comes out of Marxist and neo-Marxist theory. But Marx's theory was wrong.

So the problem is, we're not having a dialogue of reason. You do not give any reason why anyone should believe that
- the state represents a higher morality
- the state represents society
- it is more representative of the people than the people are of themselves
- it can conjure benefits simply by passing laws
- it is not greedy or exploitative, but the consensual transactions it violently overrides are
etc. etc. etc.

You merely assume these premises. And when they are disproved, your response it to just keep on repeating them.

The state didn't elevate standards *when all costs are considered*. That's the whole point. If it did, there would be no need for anyone to engage in productive activity. We could just pass laws that everyone is a millionaire and hey presto! It's an irrational belief.

Thus as against the reason and evidence to think that the relation between state and society is one of parasite and predator to host and prey, you do not give any reason to think that it is beneficial, apart from mere circular presumption without basis in reason or evidence.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 19 October 2010 4:13:24 PM
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Hello Peter,

I'm not defending State morality...really, I'm not....In fact, I'm inclined to agree with you that government acts with dubious integrity at the best of times and doesn't have any substantive morality above its own survival.
You said - "The State didn't elevate standards" - my point is that it acted as "regulator"...no doubt, the cost incurred by the raising of standards was procured from taxes.
My only point (she says, visibly wilting) is that, in my opinion, the State has aided and abetted the flourishing of capitalism.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 19 October 2010 5:55:42 PM
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Thanks for keeping an open mind LOL.

The state has aided and abetted capitalism in the sense that it has paid companies to provide goods that the state wanted, and those companies profited and grew. The military-industrial complex, the space industry, surveillance, security, tazers, handcuffs, tanks, aircraft carriers. And the banking/inflation industries: the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the industries which flourished because of credit expansion, McMansions – bubble industries: followed by dreadful misery, bankruptcy and unemployment.

But all this means is that the state has distorted a large part of the structure of capital, or production, in favour of violent aggression and fraudulent activity, and spending on boondoggles which while grand, are not what people consider the most important and urgent needs.

So we have to ask, what benefits might have come into existence if that vast amount of treasure had been left in the hands of the population, subject to a general law against aggressive violence and fraud? What developments in *peace* not war, in arts, technology, sciences, medicines, hospitals, appliances, improvement of the lives of the poor, fashion, leisure, entertainment, what wonderful benefits would have taken place, that were utterly wasted by states with their infernal bad habits of warring, empires, aggression, extortion, privileges for favourites, and meddling in everything?

We will never know, precisely because they have never come into existence. The only thing we do know is that the people preferred them, they were a higher value than what the state produced – otherwise tax would not have been necessary.

Yes there were benefits, in the sense that if I take money from you, and give it to me, there is a benefit. Yes companies profited. People receiving favours and handouts benefited.

But there is not a *net* benefit. We as a society are not better off; but much worse off.

People criticise the greed of capitalism but the shoe is on the other foot. The spectre of eternal war and corruption will continue until people can renounce the greed of using the state to get a coerced benefit by violating others.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 9:38:43 AM
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Peter,

I can see you believe that without the machinations of government and its accompanying coterie of hangers-on, that those at the bottom of the pile would would be looked after - or even have their lot improved.
But, at the risk of going around in a huge circle, that's not what happened when capitalism streaked out of the box. What happened was that that those on the lowest socio-economic rung in many cases were exploited literally to within an inch of their lives. The same thing goes on today in third world countries where governments don't have appropriate regulations in place to protect, even to a minimum standard, the welfare of workers - where profit is the only language spoken.
If you give free reign to a system that places profit above all else - what could one realistically expect to happen?
And do you not suppose that people would somehow be unable to resist the temptation to arrange themselves into hierarchies and pseudo-governing bodies if an official government was not in place? I think that is exactly what they would do.
I realise that I'm repeating myself here - don't mean to have a closed view, but this is how it seems to me.
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 1:12:02 PM
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Even if all your premises were conceded (theory of exploitation), and even ignoring all questions of ethics, still the intervention has to produce a result that is better than worse for the masses.

Government interventions don’t satisfy any of these conditions. At best they make particular beneficiaries visibly better off, by a corrupting process that makes everyone much worse off.

Let us assume temporarily for the sake of argument that the interventions made the masses worse off. Then obviously they wouldn’t be justified.

Whether they made the masses worse off cannot be judged just by looking at the benefits that are seen. We have to also consider the detriments that are not seen.

This cannot be done with the standard statist spectacles because, somewhat like a religion, they assume that in the state we have found a superbeing that can suspend the scarcity of nature, and confer benefits without corresponding costs. Once we adjust for the costs, the claims of the state to provide net benefits for society are always disproved – otherwise they wouldn’t need violence to achieve them!

The process by which capitalism raises the living standards of the masses is an unequal process.

At the most basic level, if you buy milk for $1, it means you value the milk more than the $1, and the seller values the dollar more than the milk. Otherwise no exchange would take place. So it is precisely the *inequality* between the parties that motivates them to trade up.

(But you might say, people shouldn’t be unequal in the first place. However:
a) it’s a universal fact
b) it’s caused by nature, not capitalism
c) it can’t be made to just go away, and
d) the least inequality between the state and the individual is greater than the greatest inequality between individuals under capitalism, because the state claims a monopoly of aggressive violence.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 3:21:31 PM
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Remember since violence and threats are illegal under capitalism, we are talking about *voluntary* transactions. Since profit is what is left over after the costs have been subtracted, the necessary implication is that the buyer valued the product higher than he valued the factors of production that went into it. Combining the factors of production was the work of the entrepreneur.

Since inequality is what motivated the parties to trade, therefore the greater the profit, the greater the maladjustment of the factors that has been removed, the greater the inequality removed, the greater the creation of value, the greater the satisfaction of the wants of the masses.

(Remember, the profits continuously disappear; but the benefit of knowing how to combine the factors that way accrues to the masses. And this is to say nothing of the further creation of value by reinvestment of profits to satisfy still other human wants.)

I repeat, Marx’s theory that profit is an immoral waste is wrong, and employers are not exploiting employees. If it was true, the condition of the working class would have got worse under capitalism as he predicted. The opposite happened.

One man’s profit is not another man’s loss. It’s not a zero-sum game, it’s a win/win. The rise in the standard of living was not the work of the state restricting production, confiscating property and forced redistributions. The rise in the standard of living is the result of a system based on profit and loss.

You might say, but why can’t we take some of the profit, and give it to the workers at subsistence level? You can. But what you can’t do, is provide a net benefit in this way. The capitalists are themselves in competition, and cannot operate on the basis of losses or the masses will send them broke. The intervention can’t and doesn’t make society as a whole better off. It makes us worse off.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 3:21:54 PM
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And it doesn’t make the allegedly “exploited” workers better off. If it imposes costs *above* the market rate, it makes them unemployed. And if it imposes costs *below* the market rate, it simply means you’re forcing the employee to take money as *conditions* when they would prefer it as *wages*, that is all.

Although you might like to think you could adjust it to make things more equal, you can’t, because the process of adjusting things itself has unavoidable economic consequences.

People placing themselves under hierarchies is not the problem. It’s people being forced under hierarchies that they don’t want to be under that’s the problem.

Charity is good, but the entrepreneurs of India have done far more to raise the living standards of the poor than Mother Theresa ever did. But why should coercion be the preferred way of helping the poor? Why not voluntary help?

And that is to say nothing of the ethics, on which the following discussion is thought-provoking
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/hoppeintro.asp
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 3:22:29 PM
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