Again, do you have a system in mind where wages are paid on the basis of effort? — Isaac
Unfortunately communism, like it's foundational father socialism, is grounded in covetousness and theft. Regardless of whether or not those in authority in this form of government were hypothetically not greedy or unable to er, the moral-ethical dilemma still remains. Theft. — Contra Mundum
Our ancestors could walk the land and hunt to provide for themselves and their families until someone had the wicked and clever idea of saying, "Actually this is mine now. If you want to eat, work for me." — Kenosha Kid
More like people started congregating in permanent villages, giving rise to the city state. Once people have permanent digs, ownership becomes more meaningful, as does the division of labor, money, accounting, governments and so on. — Marchesk
I think you'll find that generally means of survival are seized by force and force alone. — Kenosha Kid
You're still thinking in the mindset of people whose finest accomplishment was defecating in holes surrounded by wooden barriers. It's easy to take something, sure. I can snatch a hat off a professional wrestler in a casual setting. Keeping it however, especially from others who would do the same, is a whole nother ballgame. — Outlander
But there's no going back. It just goes from thieving bastard to either offspring or another thieving bastard. It's still theft. — Kenosha Kid
From which pious innocent saints was land stolen from first? Or is this an original sin that you are talking about?But there's no going back. It just goes from thieving bastard to either offspring or another thieving bastard. It's still theft. — Kenosha Kid
From which pious innocent saints was land stolen from first? Or is this an original sin that you are talking about? — ssu
From which pious innocent saints was land stolen from first? Or is this an original sin that you are talking about?
And from who have you stolen your wealth, Kenosha Kid? — ssu
I am one of the multitude who must labour for others in order to provide for my family. I am a peasant — Kenosha Kid
If you are a peasant, then you farm land. And so, from who have you or your family stolen the land?I am one of the multitude who must labour for others in order to provide for my family. I am a peasant :) — Kenosha Kid
If you are a peasant, then you farm land. And so, from who have you or your family stolen the land? — ssu
Should your children's bakery be considered some form of theft because of that? — Marchesk
If you say YOU are a peasant, then really, do you or your family own the land?
As subsistence farming has long gone except in Third World countries, fewer and fewer people actually farm. Or are genuinely saying that you now farm rented fields without any fields of your own? Renting land a profession for few farmers and mainly large company-like farms. The 2 million farms in the US employ only 2,6 million people. Agricultural production is really transforming to an industry just like others. — ssu
Right. I thought you were being poetic as a peasant is a more of a historical name, but the correct definition is simply that you are an employee either working in the private or public sector. And of course you don't have to work for someone else. You could be the most annoying type of person to communists, social democrats and trade unions: namely an entrepreneur, a plumber or carpenter working for yourself. So your profession isn't really chained to the ground as with some historical peasant. (And do notice, peasants could own their lands, just like here in Finland and usually in the Nordic countries.)No, I'm a peasant only insofar as I must labour for someone else in order to feed and house my family. — Kenosha Kid
You could be the most annoying type of person to communists, social democrats and trade unions: namely an entrepreneur, a plumber or carpenter working for yourself. — ssu
Or are genuinely saying that you now farm rented fields without any fields of your own? — ssu
All people who provide any service to others do work for someone else. Plumbers, carpenters, lawyers, personal trainers, engineers. Whoever. Remember that theoretically there's not much difference in you buying a haircut and you employing a barber.Plumbers and carpenters do work for someone else for the money they need to feed their families. It's just nicely abstracted now. — Kenosha Kid
Thanks to capitalism, obviously you can CHOOSE a person or a firm, big or small, you want to provide the service you need. Or better to have that state plumber to fix your pipes at your home, who comes 5 months from now?There aren't many self-employed plumbers left here, don't know about where you are. — Kenosha Kid
Yes, you do need things like a free market, the ability to choose a profession and be an entrepreneur in the field you want. Some professions naturally need regulation like doctors, pharmacists or layers. But training and official certificates aren't the major way to control a market as feudal corporations were or what limits a centrally planned economy creates.As for entrepreneurs, it's a myth that you can just decide to become a successful entrepreneur. — Kenosha Kid
Original theft or original sin? It's correct actually to put it in religious terms as the issue is quite religious in my view. The viewpoint comes more from a religious aspects than from practical measures of making the World better.It is without doubt much more fair than the feudal system, which is why I'd prefer to be an honest capitalist than a communist. But all of this is still based on that original theft. People who inherent wealth believe they deserve it, but they don't. They are no more deserving of their inheritance than a trouserless scally playing in a gutter in a street, not entirely sure if its mother is home or not. — Kenosha Kid
Why?Welfare is a partial repayment of that theft, — Kenosha Kid
Just like a serf?Just like a serf had to give a portion of his crops to the lord in order to be permitted to live and work on the lord’s land. — Pfhorrest
What is lacking typically is the understanding just how feudalism was abolished by modern commerce, which is only replaced by very eager figures of speach of "modern day feudalism". As if our current time in the prosperous West with it's democratic structures and welfare state resembles the feudal past. We may have problems today, but they don't anything like under feudalism. Just as our present day farmers, those usually old people who work still with agriculture, are far away from the subsistence farming peasant of the past. — ssu
Or better to have that state plumber to fix your pipes at your home, who comes 5 months from now? — ssu
Yes, you do need things like a free market, the ability to choose a profession and be an entrepreneur in the field you want. — ssu
Original theft or original sin? It's correct actually to put it in religious terms as the issue is quite religious in my view. The viewpoint comes more from a religious aspects than from practical measures of making the World better. — ssu
What is so utterly wrong in the fact that the seller of a service and the buyer of a service can reach an agreement what the price of the service is? — ssu
Sorry, did the vagabonds or, ahem, Luddites own the land? Who was it stolen from? Or is the argument, as Proudhon put it, that property is a theft?It's hardly debatable that the concentration of the ownership of land, and capital in general, can be traced back to theft in the form of such legal measures as enclosures and clearances, with accompanying punishment and repression of the victims (vagabonds, Luddites, etc). — jamalrob
This is a different and vastly complex issue starting from things like annexation of whole countries or whatever, are the rights of small landowners or actual dwellers on the land upheld or not. When have people the right to own land or do they even have the right in the first place.The question we have to address is: radicalism or reform? That land ownership originates in theft might not justify the wholesale dispossession of the owners in one fell swoop. — jamalrob
And capitalism surely has had it's problems too. But with forgetting that anything actually has happened between the time of feudalism and the present day, we don't look at the present problems, and possible solutions (especially from history) correctly.Feudalism was "abolished by modern commerce" in a specific way that I think justifies drawing a parallel between feudalism and capitalism in terms of the inequality of ownership, property relations, and the relations of production, despite the huge differences between the two systems in other ways. — jamalrob
Have you read Adam Smith? I think so, but I can be wrong.The bourgeoisie didn't simply cry "feudalism is unfair and we hereby abolish it!", even if it seemed to take that form in certain places and historical moments (where the Enlightenment took its most radical and progressive form (jeez I do sound like a boring old Marxist eh)). What happened is that nobles, even e.g. Scottish clan chiefs, gradually began to find the benefits of capitalism more attractive than their traditional obligations as patriarchs, nobles, or vassals, and became capitalists, alongside and competing with the new capitalists who arose out of commerce. The peasants were out of luck: thus the working class was born. — jamalrob
OK. And thus even my conservative party here is an adamant supporter of the welfare state.I don't think anyone is denying that there are huge differences, or that we formally have freedoms that are often beneficial. They key point is, despite that, each of us is thrown into a world in which a small part of the population holds the land and capital, thanks to inheritance and class dominance. Whether one is an owner or, on the contrary, depends on the owners for one's livelihood, with virtually no say over the situation, is an accident of birth--also rather like feudalism. — jamalrob
How is capitalism responsible for colonialism or land ownership? — Judaka
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