think a good divide would be with social democracy and with the more communists and marxist-leninist. Social Democratic ruled Sweden is quite different from Cuba (or Venezuela) are quite different. — ssu

Is it about state controlled economies with just different degrees of control?

Sorry, a bit of confusion there. I mean globalism has destroyed so much. It’s not the great success story overall, i.e. American jobs, sweat shops, etc. — Brett

Yet one cannot deny that countries like China or India do have benefitted from the current era of globalization. The US has been the loser here, and we can see it now in the current situation the country is in.

Is it about state controlled economies with just different degrees of control? — frank

Yes and no.

If you argue that Sweden is state controllled economy, then I guess the US is also a state controlled economy with it's resorting to using the Defense Production Act and subsidizing heavily various industries and companies. Yet I don't think anyone here thinks Trump's USA is socialist.

A good measure is if the government start nationalizing industries and starts rationing products. Let's look at for example Venezuela has done:

So not only oil production is nationalized (which is more like the norm today in many countries). Chavez himself went to nationalize either totally or certain companies from the steel industry, gold mining, telecom, electricity and agriculture.

Needless to say that Sweden hasn't gone in a similar way and nationalized industries with such fervor. Last time they had to do that was during the banking crisis in the 1990's, where state took an active role in rearranging the banking sector (unlike in the US). However there are and have been state monopolies in Sweden (System Bolaget for liquor stores or prior Apoteket AB for pharmaceutical retailers and so on). Yet that some industries or service have been deemed so important or so costly that the state takes responsibility of them isn't something only connected to socialism. For example, you can find state owned railways in many capitalist countries.

Last time they had to do that was during the banking crisis in the 1990's, where state took an active role in rearranging the banking sector (unlike in the US — ssu

Banks were temporarily nationalized in the US, though. I think the US is on the socialist spectrum, it's just that no one, including Americans, wants to think of it that way.

Globalization keeps it from becoming more socialist. US corporations have one foot off shore as it is. Any attempt to control them further would just drive them further away.

The US seems like a sinking ship. :groan:

If this imaginary audience wants to read a more civilised and in depth discussion of related issues; which includes citations; I invite them to read here. — fdrake

I wouldn't presume to discourage the imagined audience from doing so, but would merely point out that it is assumed that any disparity is the consequence of discrimination - conflating effect with cause. It is not assumed that person Y has a personal responsibility to qualify for the loan, or the job, or not commit the crime. It is not allowed that X doesn't have a discriminatory opinion of person Y. If it's not explicit, it's implicit, it's institutional, it's subconscious, but it's definitely discrimination. The one thing disparity cannot be, is the consequence of person Y being judged fairly on merit - even while, disparities are bound to result from people being judged fairly on merit, because any one person is different from any other.

Say and Say's law isn't part of the economic theory of supply and demand on which modern mainstream economics is based on. I'm not familiar with what Bastiat has said on this. — ssu

I didn't say Say's Law, I said supply and demand.

Which doesn't take into the account of demand in the equation. — ssu

Because if those costs the capitalist faces, the proletariat she has to keep alive at the bare minimum to gather those raw materials and to produce the good, is only one part of the equation — ssu

The idea that the work put into the production is a one sided model which doesn't take into account how the market mechanism and pricing works. — ssu

Holy shit, did every single word I wrote go over your head? Are you illiterate? Should I bold every crucial line I write to ensure it gets your full attention and cross my fingers in the hopes that it's absorbed into your reptile brain where it has a chance to settle?

The price of a commodity constantly stands above or below the value of the commodity, and the value of the commodity itself exists only in this up-and-down movement of commodity prices. Supply and demand constantly determine the prices of commodities; never balance, or only coincidentally; but the cost of production, for its part, determines the oscillations of supply and demand

Does this help? Can you better understand now? The "Marxian Model" isn't the cost of production tout court. The pricing via the market mechanism i.e. consumer demand is explicit in his analysis, it is "part of the equation" as you so demand it be. On the contrary, it is Menger's analysis that is one-sided by focusing exclusively on the consumer perspective and not the fact that the capitalist has a minimum price floor, otherwise there is no profit. The former, per Menger, can ignore the productive origins of the commodity, but the latter, per Marx, can't.

If that doesn't cover it, then the good won't be manufactured in the first place. — ssu

Well no, this is putting the cart before the horse. The upper limit cost of what the general consumer is willing to put up is only known in the last instance, i.e. the products have to be produced and in market for sale. This requires that the wage labors have already been hired and have done the work and need to be compensated, the machines have been bought the land rented etc. and everything has been put into use. The capitalist doesn't have otherworldly foresight into what the general population within a market is going to purchase and what they are willing to spend. And, more often than not, this is a crises that occurs for pre-existing markets, e.g. a consumer technology is that suddenly rendered obsolete by new technology so that demand sudden falls for the older product.

Yes you can. They're called co-operatives. — Kenosha Kid

Co-ops work well in distribution (especially food) but not so much on the production end. History has revealed that people need motivation (other then benevolence) to put in the kind of work necessary to produce leading edge innovation (which drives productivity).

I wouldn't presume to discourage the imagined audience from doing so, but would merely point out that it is assumed that any disparity is the consequence of discrimination - conflating effect with cause. It is not assumed that person Y has a personal responsibility to qualify for the loan, or the job, or not commit the crime. It is not allowed that X doesn't have a discriminatory opinion of person Y. If it's not explicit, it's implicit, it's institutional, it's subconscious, but it's definitely discrimination. The one thing disparity cannot be, is the consequence of person Y being judged fairly on merit - even while, disparities are bound to result from people being judged fairly on merit, because any one person is different from any other. — counterpunch

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Systemic discrimination is absolutely explicit. See this World Health Organisation report charting systemic sexism and its causes; gender stereotypes make glass ceilings and maternity is an employment opportunity "tax"; gender as a societal process apportions men and women differentially into different jobs and gets them treated differently within them regardless of individual merit.

And I have no idea how you've come through COVID and BLM without gaining even a cursory understanding of the empirical realities that systemic racism refers to.

Your position requires sanitising history, something you allegedly dislike; it begs you to answer the question of how we could emerge from an imperial history, a global slave trade, and enter into a post-colonial present without the expropriated, undermined groups of all that suffering under the weight of that history. It beggars belief that all of this can neatly be explained by differences in individual merit.

Well no, this is putting the cart before the horse. The upper limit cost of what the general consumer is willing to put up is only known in the last instance, i.e. the products have to be produced and in market for sale. This requires that the wage labors have already been hired and have done the work and need to be compensated, the machines have been bought the land rented etc. and everything has been put into use. The capitalist doesn't have otherworldly foresight into what the general population within a market is going to purchase and what they are willing to spend. And, more often than not, this is a crises that occurs for pre-existing markets, e.g. a consumer technology is that suddenly rendered obsolete by new technology so that demand sudden falls for the older product. — Maw

:up:

Anwar Shaikh's work found that Marxian "prices of production" actually track market price extremely closely; less than 0.12% relative deviation between the two in the analysed time series.

Discouraging the tendency toward consolidation would be precisely fighting against capitalism, because capitalism just is that consolidation; which is why, just as you say, capitalists fight so hard to destroy the competition that threatens it. Competition is only possible among peers, which is to say, people who are roughly equals. — Pfhorrest

Not necessarily. For example, anti-trust laws and other methods of preventing monopolization (reduced political corruption). It seems as if almost every industry is dominated by two or three players (at most) anymore. Keeping competition vibrant is where most trade law should be keenly focused.

My personal pick for the big bad behind capitalism is rent, including rent on money i.e. interest, precisely because that creates a tendency toward consolidation. — Pfhorrest

I hear ya, but many people are not in a position to own (just starting-out or whatever) so there must a supplier of all things that rent involves (pretty much everything in this hyper-financialized economy).

My own pet peeve is the stock market where people "earn" money passively (rent, again). Getting paid for doing nothing is perhaps the greatest con of all-time!

You seem to be under the impression that the politicians need to be kept "under control", but they aren't the ones who have all the capital, are they? What about keeping the capitalists under control? — Echarmion

In theory, the market should control the capitalists. If they do something wrong (economically), the market should punish them. If they do something illegal, then the political system should penalize. Several thousand years of human history suggests that we need to keep our expectations pretty darn low when it comes to the political class. Politicians sell favors and little else.

Capitalism takes the very natural inclination of humans to accumulate resources and turns into a tool to drive the economy.

How so? It would seem that the most productive form of capitalism is where resources are being used optimally, that is, the correct marriage of resources and labor. As well, wouldn't accumulation slow innovation/productivity through anti-competitiveness?

There are, however, other approaches that are also meritocratic and market based and not top-down economies. There are already businesses right now that are not capitalist and yet compete in the same market as everyone else.

I would be interested in a couple of examples. Thanks.

Does this help? — Maw

Great, seems that you've found to copy paste the crucial part from Marx (I remember one Lizard brain berating me on an internet quote, but anyway).

OK, let's dissect what Marx says there above and especially this part:

but the cost of production, for its part, determines the oscillations of supply and demand — Maw

Even if Marx doesn't use the name "labour theory of value", I guess this comes close to it.
So how does the cost of production determine changes (oscillations) in demand? This is the basic question I have with the labour theory of value. Yes, I guess Marx doesn't start from the viewpoint of one transaction, but from an aggregate viewpoint, yet still this is left open.

Of course the problem here I guess is the antiquated theory from Ricardo that Marx uses, even if Marx refines this.

Yet a change in demand can perfectly happen without any link to the cost of production. This is modelled in neoclassical economics as simply the demand curve moving. (And that is btw was the Menger's point: if a diamond is just picked up by accident by a passer by (with no work) or is found after a large diamond mine operates for ages (with a huge amount of work), the price of the diamond is the same).

Well no, this is putting the cart before the horse. The upper limit cost of what the general consumer is willing to put up is only known in the last instance, i.e. the products have to be produced and in market for sale. — Maw

Yes. And there's a lot of products of which price can already be quite well known in the market when the capitalist makes the calculation to invest or not. If your planning to mine a natural resource or start a dairy, I guess the price of milk or the price natural resource is quite well known to you. One dairy or mine will likely not alter the price so much.

What you refer (if I understand again correctly) would be true in a product that has never been on the market, I guess. That is the case very seldom.

Systemic discrimination is absolutely explicit. See this World Health Organisation report charting systemic sexism and its causes; gender stereotypes make glass ceilings and maternity is an employment opportunity "tax"; gender as a societal process apportions men and women differentially into different jobs and gets them treated differently within them regardless of individual merit.

And I have no idea how you've come through COVID and BLM without gaining even a cursory understanding of the empirical realities that systemic racism refers to.

Your position requires sanitising history, something you allegedly dislike; it begs you to answer the question of how we could emerge from an imperial history, a global slave trade, and enter into a post-colonial present without the expropriated, undermined groups of all that suffering under the weight of that history. It beggars belief that all of this can neatly be explained by differences in individual merit. — fdrake

When it comes down to it, each and every person is guilty of everything. We are human and that's just they way we are. As well, history reveals that the vast majority of people are more comfortable with those that share similar experiences, be it on the playground, on the job, or in social situations. This is natural.

The problem isn't that people have preferences (based on their experiences), but when people are willfully discriminated against and opportunity is lost, because having the chance to succeed is all that we can hope for in life.

What BLM and others miss is that every group throughout history has been discriminated against (and this will exist even in a perfect world due to natural preferences). It seems to be what social humanity does, but things have been improving in that regard. The answer to discrimination is not reverse discrimination. The answer to any social wrong is not to double down, instead, it is to end the cycle.

American society should do whatever it can to support equality of opportunity, but it comes down to the individual and what factors allow this individual to gain access (and support) to these opportunities. You cannot legislate individual success.

Nobody is sanitizing history as those who have studied it learned and conditions have improved drastically over the past decades for many, but not all. The discussion that needs to be had is what happened to the rest and what factors resulted in them being left behind. There are many and they affect every institution in this country. As well, there is a great deal of personal responsibility that must be taken for the conditions on the ground as they exist today.

Not necessarily. For example, anti-trust laws and other methods of preventing monopolization — synthesis

“Not necessarily” what?

Anti-trust laws are a check against capitalism.

It seems as if almost every industry is dominated by two or three players (at most) anymore. — synthesis

As is the natural consequence of capitalism.

many people are not in a position to own (just starting-out or whatever) so there must a supplier of all things that rent involves — synthesis

People not being in a position to own is precisely the problem, and the existence of rent exploits and exacerbates that problem.

If rent was not a legally enforceable arrangement, everyone who owns properties to rent out would have no better use for them than to sell them, and nobody to sell them too but the people who would otherwise have been renting (since nobody else is going to buy just as an investment when they in turn can’t rent it out either). This creates incentive for landlords, banks, etc, to sell off properties on terms that are as affordable as renting.

Conversely, compared to that kind of market, the existence of rent creates an incentive for the rich to own more property than they need for their own use, and gives them a means of accruing more and more, which raises prices, and leaves everyone else unable to afford to buy.

My own pet peeve is the stock market where people "earn" money passively (rent, again). Getting paid for doing nothing is perhaps the greatest con of all-time! — synthesis

Stocks are actually qualitatively differently from rent and interest and I have no objection to them. That is the legitimate way to invest, rather than lending at interest.

With a loan, you give someone money and in return they owe you back more money, regardless of whether the loan actually benefits them or not: if they borrow and fail they still owe you even more than they borrowed. That’s really money for nothing.

With stock, you’re literally going into business with them, becoming a co-owner of their business in exchange for funding it, and only if their business succeeds do you succeed. For smart stock owners with diverse holdings, like with index funds, your success is tied to the overall success of the market, so the good of the whole economy is in your best interest.

Because they cannot alter change, and due to a fondness for authority and order, conservatives are often the hand-maiden of socialism, insofar as compromises and appeasement have led to greater state control (See Bismarck and the foundation of the modern welfare state). — NOS4A2

I'm not certain about conservatism leading to socialism, but it seems clear enough that here in our Glorious Republic, it has come to encourage the restriction, through the power of the state, of the thoughts, conduct and influence of people who are different from what conservatives have become.

It's no longer a question of controlling the power of the state, but assuring that power is exercised only for the benefit of particular people.

Great, seems that you've found to copy paste the crucial part from Marx (I remember one Lizard brain berating me on an internet quote, but anyway). — ssu

No, I actually pulled this quote because I actually read Grundrisse, and the quote shows how Menger misreads Marx. Your Menger quote can be found in the Wikipedia entry for
"Criticisms of the Labor Theory of Value", which is safe to say the farthest you have read up on the subject.

Yet a change in demand can perfectly happen without any link to the cost of production. This is modelled in neoclassical economics as simply the demand curve moving. (And that is btw was the Menger's point: if a diamond is just picked up by accident by a passer by (with no work) or is found after a large diamond mine operates for ages (with a huge amount of work), the price of the diamond is the same). — ssu

It's hilarious how you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You can't help but speak in the most vacuous and vague terms because you don't know enough to go beyond it. You say a change in demand is modelled in neoclassic economics by "the demand curve moving". So when the demand changes the demand curve changes?! Wow! Holy shit Marx defeated.

Otherwise, Menger's diamond example fallaciously attempts to conflate an explicitly non-capitalist exchange with a capitalist one, whereas Marx is only interested in analyzing the latter and the value creating process within it. As I explained, price and value are two distinct technical terms for Marx. It's no different than the asinine "mud pie" argument.

Let's say that two people, one a capitalist who owns a mining operation and the another, a non-capitalist, have in their possession each one identical raw diamond. The capitalist extracted the raw diamond from his mining operation using wage labor and machinery, while the non-capitalist just happened to stumble upon it. Now both go into the market to sell. The non-capitalist does not have a price floor because there was no cost in extracting the diamond for him. He can sell for a $1 and therefore profits $1. However, capitalist does have a floor price because there is a cost to the extraction process. In this one instance of a competitive transaction, the non-capitalist can therefore undersell the capitalist, but then what? He can't create any additional demand, he doesn't have a mining operation to continue to extract raw diamonds. He created one instance of demand which was concluded at point of sale. That's it! But the capitalist, while not making a sale in this one instance, can continue putting raw diamonds up in the marketplace and finding demand (safe to assume non-capitalists aren't continuing to randomly come across raw diamonds on the ground) because she has a mode of production in place that can continue this process. But Marx isn't talking about the non-capitalist sale and he doesn't need to because he's analyzing the supply and demand in a capitalist economy which requires taking cost of production into account when determining price.

I guess the price of milk or the price natural resource is quite well known to you. One dairy or mine will likely not alter the price so much. What you refer (if I understand again correctly) would be true in a product that has never been on the market, I guess. That is the case very seldom. — ssu

I'm just going to quote and bold what I already said, "And, more often than not, this is a crises that occurs for pre-existing markets, e.g. a consumer technology is that suddenly rendered obsolete by new technology so that demand sudden falls for the older product."

I guess the English term is shift. Sorry, I learned economics in my own language.

So when the demand changes the demand curve changes?! Wow! — Maw

Not:

In all countries over the course of recent history they have benefitted from capitalism in that it has brought people out of poverty. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not, I’m just making myself clear. — Brett

Ah, I thought you'd recanted this point already, although I suppose it depends what you mean by "recent". In the last 50 years, capitalism has drawn people out of poverty when markets are good and dumped them back into it when markets are bad, leading to no net gain in most capitalist countries and something of a disaster during, say, a lethal viral pandemic.

Going back much beyond that you're going to struggle, since poverty statistics become more scarce the further back we go.

You'd enjoy the paper I linked to @Maw. It concludes:

Even without any mediation, labour values capture about 91 per cent of the structure of observed market prices. This alone makes it clear that it is technical change that drives the movements of relative prices over time, as Ricardo so cogently argued (Pasinetti, 1977, pp. 138-43). Moving to the vertically integrated version of Marx’s approximation of prices of production allows us to retain this critical insight, while at the same time accounting for the price-of-production-induced transfers of value that he emphasized. On the whole these results seem to provide powerful support for the classical and Marxian emphasis on the structural determinants of relative prices in the modern world.

Co-ops work well in distribution (especially food) — synthesis

And finance. The most successful co-ops are banks, insurers, etc. Energy too.

not so much on the production end — synthesis

Tbf they haven't been tried that much in factories, but there are some, here in Glorious Communist Britain anyway.

It's hilarious how you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. — Maw

What is quite presumable is your condescending attitude. But I guess that's the style here now. Anyway, and it's an interesting discussion.

Menger's diamond example fallaciously attempts to conflate an explicitly non-capitalist exchange with a capitalist one — Maw

The way I see it, It's basically a critique of the theories of Ricardo. But to your example:

Now both go into the market to sell. The non-capitalist does not have a price floor because there was no cost in extracting the diamond for him. He can sell for a $1 and therefore profits $1. However, capitalist does have a floor price because there is a cost to the extraction process. — Maw

True, but you are forgetting that you need a buyer here also.

Sure, the non capitalist might give the diamond away for 1$, but likely he or she would simply ask what the buyer is willing to pay for it. The fact is that buyer hardly is interested on how much work was put into finding the diamond. The diamond has subjective value to the buyer(s), either he might be looking for diamonds used by industry or interested in it as a luxury item or an eccentric store of wealth. This value has nothing to do with the amount of work put into mining the diamond (or the luck finding of it). In short, you need both the capitalist/non-capitalist and the buyer(s) to get a market and a price.

In this one instance of a competitive transaction, the non-capitalist can therefore undersell the capitalist, but then what? He can't create any additional demand, he doesn't have a mining operation to continue to extract raw diamonds. He created one instance of demand which was concluded at point of sale. That's it! But the capitalist, while not making a sale in this one instance, can continue putting raw diamonds up in the marketplace and finding demand (safe to assume non-capitalists aren't continuing to randomly come across raw diamonds on the ground) because she has a mode of production in place that can continue this process.

Yet his production is dependent on the demand of (mined) diamonds. The idea of not thinking about the demand side (and the reasons for the demand) here, but making this economic model using just the supply side costs and labour doesn't catch many important aspects. The so called input costs don't determine the final prices.

If by a new method artificial diamonds can be made by robots for that price of 1$ per carat (not thousands of dollars), industry will start a frenzy on how and where to use the new resource with likely many cutting tools having diamonds. And diamonds would fall from being a luxury item and an eccentric store of wealth. Yet the capitalist will shut his mine down or start digging up something else precious there.

You'd enjoy the paper I linked to Maw. It concludes: — fdrake

Thanks, have to look at that.

The way I see it, It's basically a critique of the theories of Ricardo. — ssu

????? We are talking about Marx

but likely he or she would simply ask what the buyer is willing to pay for it. The fact is thatbuyer hardly is interested on how much work was put into finding the diamond. The diamond has subjective value to the buyer(s), either he might be looking for diamonds used by industry or interested in it as a luxury item or an eccentric store of wealth. This value has nothing to do with the amount of work put into mining the diamond (or the luck finding of it). — ssu

Here you go again, ignoring previous posts of mine and conflating price and value.

making this economic model using just the supply side costs and labour doesn't catch many important aspects. — ssu

This is incredible, do you have the memory of a fly? I explained how this isn't the case 6 hours ago. Once again you and I go around in circles because you are either unable to understand what is being said, or you are simply refusing to do so because you can't admit you're wrong.

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. — fdrake

If you think providing the title of a book - not even a passage from that book, just the title: 'Debt: the first 5000 years' - constitutes evidence that slavery was not endemic until the West ended it, I have a book title for you: "Despised" by Paul Embery. Run out and get it and see what it says about your left wing, politically correct, North London intellectual circle jerk. Spoiler alert - you are the reason Labour will never be elected again.

...it begs you to answer the question of how we could emerge from an imperial history, a global slave trade, and enter into a post-colonial present without the expropriated, undermined groups of all that suffering under the weight of that history. It beggars belief that all of this can neatly be explained by differences in individual merit.[/quote]

You demand I answer for the actions of my ancestors? My working class ancestors built the Labour Party from nothing to represent their interests relative to the owners of the means of production. And you've abandoned us, to weep bitterly and constantly on behalf of everyone but us - while the owners of the means of production have privatised everything, sold off council housing, destroyed the unions, cut pensions, ended job security, imposed zero hours contracts...etc, etc, and I'd still vote for them before a Labour Party overrun by people like you!

Not necessarily. For example, anti-trust laws and other methods of preventing monopolization
— synthesis

“Not necessarily” what?

Anti-trust laws are a check against capitalism.

It seems as if almost every industry is dominated by two or three players (at most) anymore.
— synthesis

As is the natural consequence of capitalism. — Pfhorrest

Let me draw an analogy. Everybody has a tendency to go towards death. But what people do in their lifetimes can greatly affect the quality as well as the quantity of time they remain their present form.

Capitalism certainly tends towards accumulation, no doubt about it, but there are things that can be done to attenuate this tendency. As you know, nothing is black and white, so this is where doing the right things will make a considerable difference in the lives of the majority.

many people are not in a position to own (just starting-out or whatever) so there must a supplier of all things that rent involves
— synthesis

People not being in a position to own is precisely the problem, and the existence of rent exploits and exacerbates that problem.

If rent was not a legally enforceable arrangement, everyone who owns properties to rent out would have no better use for them than to sell them, and nobody to sell them too but the people who would otherwise have been renting (since nobody else is going to buy just as an investment when they in turn can’t rent it out either). This creates incentive for landlords, banks, etc, to sell off properties on terms that are as affordable as renting.

Conversely, compared to that kind of market, the existence of rent creates an incentive for the rich to own more property than they need for their own use, and gives them a means of accruing more and more, which raises prices, and leaves everyone else unable to afford to buy. — Pfhorrest

Then how would folks acquire property or any business tools when first starting off? Most of the problems that have to do with housing are caused by a combination of government mis-regulation and banking. Back in the day, nearly anybody with a job could afford to buy a house. There were reasons for this (it was a priority of American society). Houses only went up with the inflation rate and people looked at their purchase as a place to save (for retirement or whatever) while keeping up with inflation.

For those who are unable to purchase a house, a rental market makes a great deal of sense. Many times, renting is the better option. Again, you need regulations in place that will prevent the housing market from becoming a subsidiary of the greater casino.

My own pet peeve is the stock market where people "earn" money passively (rent, again). Getting paid for doing nothing is perhaps the greatest con of all-time!
— synthesis

Stocks are actually qualitatively differently from rent and interest and I have no objection to them. That is the legitimate way to invest, rather than lending at interest.

With a loan, you give someone money and in return they owe you back more money, regardless of whether the loan actually benefits them or not: if they borrow and fail they still owe you even more than they borrowed. That’s really money for nothing. — Pfhorrest

Apparently you've never received one of those letters from a bankruptcy court telling you that the money owed to you has gone up in smoke.

With stock, you’re literally going into business with them, becoming a co-owner of their business in exchange for funding it, and only if their business succeeds do you succeed. For smart stock owners with diverse holdings, like with index funds, your success is tied to the overall success of the market, so the good of the whole economy is in your best interest. — Pfhorrest

You're only going into to business with them if you own a huge block of stock. Otherwise, I see little difference between the two besides agreeing on a return up-front. You can buy bond funds, as well.

Regardless, the ultimate human fantasy of making it possible to get "something for nothing" is (IMO) the greatest impediment to capitalism being accepted by a larger percentage of the population. Any something for nothing scheme stinks and people can smell it a mile away.

Hopefully the next system (another fantasy) will reward its participants proportionally for the their labor-value added while cutting all parasites out of the deal.

You demand I answer for the actions of my ancestors? My working class ancestors built the Labour Party from nothing to represent their interests relative to the owners of the means of production. And you've abandoned us, to weep bitterly and constantly on behalf of everyone but us - while the owners of the means of production have privatised everything, sold off council housing, destroyed the unions, cut pensions, ended job security, imposed zero hours contracts...etc, etc, and I'd still vote for them before a Labour Party overrun by people like you! — counterpunch

This reads like you frame the struggle against systemic discrimination as a separate struggle from class struggle; overwhelmingly those who get the short end of the stick demographically are economically disenfranchised - working long hours for too little pay and too little security. Programs that benefit those groups tend to benefit the worst off.

A working class politics that emphasises social programs but can't stand in solidarity with those who would benefit most from them loses its base. Get with the times, race+class+gender are aspects of the same struggle.

I will, however, join you in lamenting the death of class politics in the UK's "Labour party", I simply hope that the Corbynite wing wins out soon.

And finance. The most successful co-ops are banks, insurers, etc. Energy too. — Kenosha Kid

I suppose just about anything would work in banking, after-all, creating one's product out of thin air would seemingly open up a great deal of possibilities.

I am not that familiar with the energy consortium other then paying the various energy pipers monthly. I fear its not much better here in the People's Republic of California.

I suppose just about anything would work in banking, after-all, creating one's product out of thin air would seemingly open up a great deal of possibilities. — synthesis

I'm not sure it's really easier or harder in different industries. After all, the roles in co-operatives aren't any different than in a capitalist organisation: it's simply that everyone is on the same pay, everyone had the same stake, and people move around more, which happens at the top anyway, just between companies rather than within.

Let me draw an analogy. Everybody has a tendency to go towards death. But what people do in their lifetimes can greatly affect the quality as well as the quantity of time they remain their present form. — synthesis

Right, and those things people do are fighting against death. Mitigating death.

Capitalism certainly tends towards accumulation, no doubt about it, but there are things that can be done to attenuate this tendency — synthesis

And those things are fighting against capitalism, mitigating it.

Then how would folks acquire property or any business tools when first starting off? — synthesis

They would pay for them, just like they currently pay to rent them. The only difference being that in exchange for those payments they accrue ownership.

And in the long run, as this leads to the widespread distribution of capital, everybody would be starting off as what we would consider rich today, being born into families that have enough capital left from the most recently dead generation to pass on to the most recently grown generation.

There is already excess capital that someone else has lying around for you to borrow to get started. Imagine a world where instead of asking someone else to borrow their excess capital, you just had that excess capital lying around yourself, because you were born into a family that just had it lying around, because every family has a share of the unused wealth of society, instead of just a tiny fraction of them.

Most of the problems that have to do with housing are caused by [...] banking — synthesis

Yes, which is why I pointed out that interest is a kind of rent.

For those who are unable to purchase a house, a rental market makes a great deal of sense — synthesis

Why should anyone be unable to purchase a house, yet able to rent? You're paying money either way, you just don't get anything to your name for that money in the latter case.

Which raises the obvious question: why does anyone rent? Because owning is priced out of their range, because owning is not just a place to live, it's a way to get free money from other people who need a place to live, so people who have more money than they need for their immediate expenses are incentivized to buy housing just to rent it out, which makes owning more expensive, making more people stuck renting, which makes owning even more valuable to those who can afford it, raising the price of ownership, etc in a vicious cycle.

Imagine a world where you start "renting" a house and eventually, you get to stop paying rent and just live there forever, and your great-grandkids can live there after you die, because in exchange for all that money you paid for housing, you actually got a house!

Apparently you've never received one of those letters from a bankruptcy court telling you that the money owed to you has gone up in smoke. — synthesis

That's a necessary mitigation of the problems that lending at interest would otherwise cause.

In a world where rent and thus interest wasn't a thing, borrowing and not returning something could just be treated as the theft that it is. Of course that would make people a lot more hesitant to borrow, and the lack of interest would make people a lot more hesitant to lend anyway... so instead of lending at interest, investors could buy equity in the ventures they're investing in, and then either win or lose together with the people running those ventures.

You're only going into to business with them if you own a huge block of stock. — synthesis

A quantitative different doesn't amount to a qualitative difference.

Otherwise, I see little difference between the two besides agreeing on a return up-front. — synthesis

That is the all-important difference.

Regardless, the ultimate human fantasy of making it possible to get "something for nothing" is (IMO) the greatest impediment to capitalism being accepted by a larger percentage of the population. Any something for nothing scheme stinks and people can smell it a mile away. — synthesis

I don't follow this. Getting something for nothing (nothing of their own at least) is exactly what capitalists do capitalism for. Being able to generate profit just from owning things that other people have to pay you to use is the core of capitalism. That's "something for nothing" as far as the capitalist is concerned; because the suffering of the borrowers at whose expense that something really comes is hidden from them behind a Just World Fallacy that says they deserve that free ride because they're the good people, while the poor whose backs they're riding on must deserve that burden because of something they did wrong. And the only reason so many of the poor at the bottom actively support the perpetuation of this system is because they have aspirations of some day being the one getting something "for nothing" (at someone else's expense) instead.

Hopefully the next system (another fantasy) will reward its participants proportionally for the their labor-value added while cutting all parasites out of the deal. — synthesis

That would be socialism.

Which raises the obvious question: why does anyone rent? — Pfhorrest

I understand where you’re coming from in terms of your posts about capitalism, but not everyone wants to own a property, and there are many reasons for wanting to rent. There’s no doubt that landlords are hurting people, but on the other hand without their investment there wouldn’t be places to rent for those who don’t want to buy. Not to mention the fact that a small business may view renting as a better option than buying.

not everyone wants to own a property — Brett

the fuck they dont. why would you want to keep paying for something when you could instead just have it and stop paying? you can keep paying someone else to do maintenance of that’s what you want. your landlord does anyway.

and landlords dont invest in shit. houses would still be built for purchase even if nobody was buying them to rent out.