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There are no classes in capitalism. Capitalism abandons the concept of 'classes'. How do you call a factory worker who owns microsoft stocks and plans to retire? I knew such a guy. There is no split like: The class that owns and the class that works. If you sit in front of a computer screen and read this, then you most probably own that computer, the screen, the mouse in your hands and the keybord before you. That's the basis of capitalism. Protection of ownership. The only economic theorist mentioned who supported the idea of classes was Marx. All the others strongly opposed such a view. I very much doubt that Milton Friedman splits the population into proletariat and bourgeoisie. Please remove general references to a 'class structure' or at least don't attribute them as truth or even as a consensus among economists. Attribute class splits in capitalism to the man who invented them: Karl Marx. (Or at least let me do it :))
"Brazil? China? Mexico? Even in the USA there are heavy divisions, between places like Compton and Beverly Hills." Im sorry but i think many would agree that compton is the result and victim of capitalism and neoconservatism rather than in opposition to it...
I disagree with most of the above. The three great classes, as described by Adam Smith, Ricardo, Ferguson, et al among the classical economists, are landowners (i.e. those who rely primarily on rent from tenants), capitalists and wage earners. The landowning class per se has become all but extinct, in developed countries, since the time of the above-named writers. There are also minor classes such as the petty bourgeosie (shopkeepers, self-employed tradespeople etc), small commodity producers (farmers, fishers, etc), but these are also now small numerically in developed countres and getting smaller all the time
There is a big difference in economic roles/interests between a wage earner who probably has some real estate/shares/etc but still relies on their wage to make a living, and the small minority who can live off the proceeds of share ownership/directors fees/etc. If Friedman etc didn't mention class, it's because class is irrelevant to their theories. Grant65 (Talk) 04:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Just remember our NOR and NPOV policies. Most scholars characterize capitalist societies as class-stratified. How they define "class," what they consider the specific classes to be, and how they see classes as similar/different or related, is something scholars debate and we ought to represent all the major points of view, properly sourced. And if there are well-established scholars who claim that capitalism is not — or is no longer — class-stratified, well, that opinion should be included too ... properly sourced, of course. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, economists represent only a partial group of scholars studying capitalism; there is a great deal of scholarship by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not disputing what directors do; what I'm saying is that their personal material interests are clearly different to those of wage earners. That is what "class" originally meant, not the vulgarised notions of ones neighbourhood, what kind of car one drives, what colour socks one wears, etc.
What I mean about non-proprietorial managers is that they are "capitalists" only by virtue of a paradox, i.e. they are actually wage earners (salary if you wish, there is no significant difference). However their job description requires them to act as total surrogates for the proprietors. Obviously a truck driver is a surrogate for the owners of the trucking company in terms of the acts that he/she performs. Many wage earners identify with their employers, whether it is a corporation or an individual. But managers spend a large proportion of their working time, possibly the majority of their time, thinking about other wage earners and how to make them work more productively. That is what I mean by "thinking like a capitalist". Grant65 | Talk 05:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
"The only economic theorist mentioned who supported the idea of classes was Marx" huh? Isn't MArx's whole system aimed at abolishing classes?
This seems to have degenerated into an argument about what editors think. Please remember NOR: it does not matter what any editor thinks. Many social scientists writing about capitalism have written about class. Therefore, class must be part of this article (it simply does not matter whether or how many economists talk about class, though of course any major economist who has talked about class should be mentioned in the article). It is the views of these scoial scientists that should be represented in the article -- not mine, not Luis rib's. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 21:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear person who wrote the Classes in Capitalism?, you said that that lots of workers own computers as "proof" that workers own capital (private property). I have several questions for you:
P.S. Many serfs during feudalism owned small plots of land.
Oh and one more thing. This worker who owned stocks. What percentage of the company did he own? And was he a worker or a foreman?
Leon Trotsky 5:58 PM November 17, 2005
--- My answer (btw. my name is Felix. I forgot to mention.): Those who own banks today are not "workers" today. But they might have been before. (I don't know) I am sure that their parents or grandparents have been. This is even more true for factories, transportation systems and telecommunication systems. Besides, many of these are publicly traded and you can buy your part of them if you like. What I wanted to say was that there is no structural barrier, no law that forbids one man to get rich and provides goods to the other, in free capitalism. Warren Buffett started out as a paper boy. Nobody stops you from starting a company. You can make as much money as you wish. What about Google? Microsoft? McDonalds? KFC? What about J.K. Rowling? She was an unemployed ex-teacher when writing Harry Potter and now she is richer than the Queen. And it is only in capitalism where this sort of change is possible within your lifetime. One thing about owning transportation systems: What do you do when you just bought (or inherited from your rich ancestors for the sake of the argument) a railway system and someone (a 'worker' perhaps) starts an airline. Then that 'worker' becomes a 'capitalist' and the 'capitalist' becomes a 'worker' in your arbitrary definition game. The problem is that this just means that some people have more money than others. It doesn't mean that you can define 'classes' of people where people are stuck and can't come out. And there is also no exploitation. You can change jobs, you can start your own company, you can work as a doctor or lawyer or plastic surgeon and live from your own work without a capitalist or a worker. Of course, this is also only possible in capitalism.
The worker I knew was at the lowest point in the food chain of that company. I know it because I worked with him. I don't know the percentage but it was enough to retire. You only need .1% to be a millionaire several times over. That's because Microsoft is a very rich company. Felix.
Well, actually the people in Ethiopia and Haiti and all the starving people have horrible living conditions precisely because they do NOT live in capitalism. Read Hernando de Soto's brilliant book 'The Mystery of Capital' on that. I really mean that. It's brilliant. It helped me resolve this issue. They don't have enforcable property rights in these countries. And without these there is no usable capital and therefore no capitalism. The problem is not an unequal distribution of the products of capitalism but an unequal distribution of capitalism. If all poor countries on this planet would vanish suddenly, our standard of living in the rich countries would not change dramatically. If one man builds a house it is his. Is it his fault that others don't have one? No it's not. One man being rich doesn't mean that another man has to be poor. Humans survive by production, not by theft. And Capitalism is the only system that acknowledges this fact. If you earn money, it is rightfully yours. You have earned it. You have worked for it. Therefore it is yours. It doesn't belong to some king or count, it doesn't belong to your country or your fellow man, not even a single part of it. It is yours completely. That's the only thing that is ensured in capitalism. If you work you get to keep the money you earn. Yes, it is true that if you own a company or stocks, it is possible to make money by employing other people to do most of the work. But you still need to have the money, and where did that come from if not from working and saving? And then, still, you can lose your money. Take Enron for example. And the only way to really make more money with the money you already have is to spend it on the tools of other people. Nothing else is owning a company. You own the tools and have the responsibility. Then you hire people to do the work. That, too, is work. But it is also done for you if you just buy stocks. But these CEO are fucking expensive. Yet, they are hired. You can't just hire people in America for a cent an hour. Why? Nobody would do it. Because there is competition between employers for the best work force. Why let someone work for your competition when he can work for you? A CEO is an employee, not an employer. Why doesn't he earn minimum wage, then? Because this is a key position and the competition among companies for the best people is fierce.
Before the advent of capitalism, we in the west were as poor as today's third world countries. At the beginning, children had to work under horrible conditions just to make ends meet for their families. Today, the average 'poor american' owns a TV while people in Africa still suffer hunger. Yes, this is horrible. I can only agree. But the solution is not to steal the TV, but to allow Africa to earn its food. All the wealth we have on earth has to be created and we'd see a real boost in the world economy if todays totalitarian regimes would vanish and be replaced by a country where the basic human right to your own life would be appreciated. Yes, it is right that you have more opportunities if you are rich. And if you are born as Paris Hilton, you have made it without breaking a sweat. But to deny people the right to become and be rich doesn't help anyone. Why can't a parent give all he has to his children? It's rightfully his. He can do with it as he pleases. The fact that there is someone out there who had less luck than you did doesn't give him the right to your money. What do you do with lottery winners, then? That you get rich merely by luck is just as rare as winning the lottery. Wealth, before it can be inherited (or unevenly distributed to the lottery winner), has to be earned. Therefore one man's wealth is not another man's misery.
Okay, let's do this more slowly. In the 1800s there was less wealth available. People just didn't have much in general. The pie to be divided was much smaller. Yes, there were some who had more than others. Even way more than others. Same as today. Same as always. But unequal distribution of wealth doesn't exist because of unequal distribution of rights. That's my point. A class structure would mean that some people have more rights than others, by corruption or before capitalism also by birth and by law. And this is the case in the poor countries you have mentioned, which is why they are not capitalist countries. Capitalism means equality in rights. And that's what they don't have. The reason you can't start a company in these countries when you are poor is because it takes 10 years of buerocracy(no kidding, de Soto tested this) and about five times the average yearly income just to legally open a little street store in Haiti. Same with the other countries.
And when you can't do that, you have no choice but get a job somewhere. But it gets even worse. Because these people have no legal title to their property, they can't use it as a collateral for credit. Besides, in unstable countries where property rights are hardly enforced and corruption rules, no outside investor is likely to invest.
This naturally (well, rather unnaturally) leads to a lack of entrepreneurs and therefore to a better position for the companies already in existence. Yes, this is exploitation. I can only agree. But the solution is not to end capitalism, but to start it. That's not capitalism. If the rich have more *rights* than the poor, that's the beginning of injustice. The rich can use their money to expand their power because they can buy their way through law. That's what's wrong and here, I think, we are on the same side. But my argument here is that this is not capitalism. Capitalism doesn't mean that there are companies where some people work and others profit. You have the same in every socialist country. It means that everybody has the legal right to his property and then can start his own company to make those at the top right now live in fear. Saunders (the KFC guy) started out with a small retirement check and an chicken recipe. He was lucky that he lived in America, because had he lived in Haiti, he would have worked his ass off in a government-protected factory for 37 cents. That's the difference between capitalism and a class system.
About equal opportunity. There is none. Never was. Even if you redistribute all the money in the world evenly among people, about five years later, you'll find the same distribution. With other people at the top maybe, but still it is unequal. Why? Because people are different. They are not equal. Some work more. Some have better ideas. Some prefer enjoying their lives. Some are workaholics. Some lust for money. Others don't.
You will never be able to make all people the same. Simply because this is not a good thing. All you need is a good idea, the persistence to realize it and the right to do it. That's all. The money you have is a minor factor.
Ok. Let's start with inheritance. Yes, if you inherit something, then you haven't earned the money. Someone else has. And he, who owns the money, decides to give it to you. He could also decide to give it to charity or someone else, but he didn't. What's the problem here? It's not your money they distribute, it's theirs. They can do with it as they please.
Just out of curiosity, what should they do?
Alright, now exploitation. I already agreed with you that the rich government protected company owners exploit the workers of Haiti. What else do you want to hear? But they can only exploit them because these people are not given basic rights. If they were, there would be no exploitation.
I brought up the capitalist/communist-issue because as far as I see it, capitalism means just that: Granting everyone basic rights to property and freedom and leaving these people alone, then. Our current system, then, is not capitalism as I see it, but socialism to a great extent, where it is possible to make money by force legally. Like agriculture subsidies for example. Europe pays enough for this to pay a flight around the world for every single cow in Europe. All this with stolen money. This is clearly wrong. But calling this capitalism means attacking the wrong side.
I think we just have different definitions of capitalism. Please name yours. Maybe we can get rid of some of the confusion that way.
Again. If you are not allowed to decide what should happen to your belongings after you're dead, what exactly should be done with it? Explain this further. You said that extra assets should be distributed among the public. What are extra assets and who decides this. You? And who is the public? Are families to move out of their houses to move to an appartment? Who gets the cars? What about the playstation? How much wealth do you allow people to have? And why?
Yes, there is no equality of opportunity. I already said that three times. There is equality of rights. There's a difference.
You can't force companies into higher production. It doesn't work. If you had sent today's politicians to the beginning of the 1900's, do you really think they would have been able to raise the general standard of living? With what? Redistribution never creates additional wealth. They could have stolen some money from the rich and given it to some poor people, yes. But they would never have been able to raise the general standard of living. It was low back then. That's not capitalism's fault.
I think here we have opposing views. You think that forcing companies to share is the way to go. I don't. That's because you believe it is exploitation and I don't, I suppose.
I read parts of Das Kapital, but I think that the theory of exploitation in capitalism is false. So, yes, please explain this to me again. Thanks.
As to the rich buying extra rights, yes, that one is wrong. (Something else I already said three times.) It is corruption and it is a crime. You see this as the definition of capitalism, I suppose: The rich do whatever the fuck they want. You never stated it explicitly, so I just have to assume. But that is not the definition any liberal thinker has clung to. And it is not my definition. Corruption is a crime because it is against the principles of capitalism. It's not part of it.
On the socialism/capitalism-thing: We live in a mixed economy today. One part is capitalism, the other is socialism. We have some of both. That's what a mixed economy means.
If the means of production are not privately owned, who owns them? Now don't say the public. Who is the public? Who decides what should be produced? Who maintains the means of production. What happens when something that is produced is not wanted anymore? Who would fire the workers, then? I really don't know how an economy is supposed to work without privately owned companies. Please explain this to me.
What exactly do you mean by not needed? Who says what is needed and what isn't? What about the family's house? Who decides if the family needs that house?
Capitalism has one single basic premise: Equal rights for everyone. Everything else is not capitalism. There may be companies and workers, but that's not capitalism. Period.
You said that companies have no right to their profits. This implies that they have to give away their money, right? If you don't say what you mean, I have to make assumptions.
My problems with exploitation theory in one paragraph: The company owners own the tools for production. They cost money. They then have these tools used by their workers. These tools are the reason for the high production of the worker, sometimes boosting it up to a hundredfold. How else can one pay higher wages for less work? The worker's labor is not the only source of the value creation. Without the tools, no work could be done effectively. The notion that those with money just make more money is also false. Most of the time, the company owner doesn't even have the money himself but has to borrow it to then pay it back with interest. And in most of the cases, they can't do this in the first year already and end up bankrupt (90% of the cases, to be exact) and the money borrowed is lost. The funny thing is that a big chunk of that money landed in the worker's pockets who then go to work for another employer. In one sentence: If I buy tools (and providing everything for a good job (engineering, etc.) cost about 100.000$ each currently), and then pay all income to the workers, why in the world should I do that in the first place? Then, you can only make money with other people's labor if that labor is geared to a useful purpose, that is: the creation of a value someone is willing to pay more money for than you paid for tools and labor for production (and marketing, legal issues, etc.). This doesn't have to be the case. Actually, most products fail in the market place (again it's over 90%). Getting a good company started is a great achievement.
Something else: What is the alternative you offer to capitalism and how does it differ from socialism?
80.184.141.21 13:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC) Sigh! The term equal rights consists of two parts. One is equal, the other is rights. In communism you don't have property rights, that's what rights means here. Equal refers to the rights, the property rights that is. Everyone has the same rights to his property. That doesn't mean that everyone should have equal property nor does it mean that if nobody has rights, that this is a good thing because a lack of rights is equally distributed.
Oh, and here's a link to a page about the principles of liberal thought:
Now who's mistaken about the intellectual premises of capitalism? If all you know is Marx, you have no idea. Actually it's worse: You have a wrong idea. I hope this helped.
If I own a 24 million dollar house and my familiy uses it and I die, may they keep it? Please, finally define your terms.
The other workers were paid for the tools. The tools weren't stolen. They were bought. That's the part of the capital owner in the production process. Buying the tools. With his money or money he borrowed. The only reason for a wage increase is increased use of capital. You can only work a given amount of time every year. The productivity of that time is given by the tools you use. Any increase in productivity is due to capital increase or by implementing an idea that allows you to create more with the same capital. This, by the way, is the job of the capitalist. The workers already worked to their maximum in 1900 didn't they? They even worked harder and longer. How can people today work less and still not die of starvation? By increased use of capital and brain power.
This seems to take longer than I thought. I think I'll get an account.
Wait, I have a better idea. I created a blog so we don't abuse wikipedia for chatting.
Liberalism is the philosophical basis of laissez-faire capitalism. Don't be disrespectful just because you disagree.
Yes, that's a good question. Where do capitalists get their first money from? According to your theory capitalists do nothing to make money and never did. The money they have must have magically appeared just like the factories they own for this to be the case. Please stay reasonable.
I already explained what an amount of work it is to build a successful company, but you don't listen.
You also offer no arguments. All you do is rant and rave and insult me. And even after repeated tries on my part to make you understand the difference between laissez-faire capitalism and todays system, you have failed to understand. No wonder you don't learn if you insult everyone who disagrees with you.
I talk about laissez-faire capitalism. Nothing else. I already agreed that todays system sucks.
Please explain to me how worker rights increase production. The only thing that can increase production is longer working hours or a more efficient work structure or better tools. Also explain what would happen to the family house which is to be inherited.
Another argument you offer is that workers should be paid according to the profits. This variable compensation would lead to workers not being paid at all if management fails or worse, workers would have to pay AND work. A fixed wage is a convenience thing, nothing else.
I don't think that wikipedia is a chatroom. We should really move this to another place.
Felix1981 19:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hm. I doubt that todays system can correctly be called capitalism. It's more like anarchism given the lack of equal rules for everyone. It's all about force, gaining political power either by a lot of votes or a lot of money. This has nothing to do with laissez-faire capitalism, where this (political power) is strictly forbidden.
You can only increase worker conditions if productivity has risen. That's what increased worker conditions. Not union force - productivity. The standard of living only increases if what you buy becomes cheaper or if you get more money. Your way would be to force a bit more money out of the current companies. My way is to make everything cheaper by using more and better tools which is way superior. You would never get todays standard of living by enforcing workers rights. You only get it by increased capital and improved capital use.
And that's, to repeat it, the capitalist's job. He has to invest his money where it yields the most dividends. And that is always the most innovative company. If you invested in Microsoft early you would have made a lot of money, even if you started out with little like my former co-worker. It's not what you have, it's what you do with it.
Well, not all companies make profits, especially not all the time. The guy who gets the profits also has to handle the risk of loss, whether it's the capitalist or the worker. And if it's the worker, as in your example, then if the company loses money he will have to pay the fixed fee for capital out of his own pocket. Something like this system already exists. It's called starting a company with borrowed money. Here you have to pay a fixed borrowing fee for the capital (interest) and you are in charge of what happens. And if you ruin it, a big chunk of the pain goes to the investors.
Worker risk? Now what's that? All that can happen is that he can lose his job and get another one. He can't lose his money, can he? He works, he gets paid. No risk. And if he loses his job, bad luck. He can find another one. Nodody cries when a company goes down when its services are no longer wanted for the same reason. Nobody should pay for something that's not wanted. Felix1981 10:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Anarchism means that there is no government at all, that means that there are no enforced general rules, that means no basic rights. Political power means the right to violate fundamental rights "for the higher good". That's forbidden in laissez-faire.
Yes, all profits go to the capitalist by definition. That, however, doesn't mean that all the additional benefits of innovation result solely in profits. These are often used to allow the company to grow. This usually means that the company raises its wages to attract more workers.
If a company benefits from hiring a worker, it will offer a job. If nobody responds to the offer, the only way to find someone is to raise the wage. If the entire work force is already employed, then how else do you attract other workers? You can only do this by offering improved conditions. In laissez-faire capitalism work is always scarce. Everyone is working somewhere, either as an entrepreneur, an investor (see my explaination below), or he's hired. And they already picked the best payment and working conditions they could find. You have to offer them an incentive to switch jobs. Otherwise they won't do it because they have no reason to.
If the workers ruin it, then the investor's capital is lost, at least to a very high percentage. Who pays it back to him. He only gets his interest if everything goes right, but if something fails, his money is gone. What your system does, if I understood it correctly, is to forbid hiring people, so that everyone has to be an entrepreneur of some sort. That means that you can't just work your job and get a fixed payment. Instead your wage depends upon which company you work for and if it yields profits. If it doesn't, all your work is in vain, even if you worked all year you end up with no money, maybe even in debt, even though you just worked at an assembly line. This doesn't sound very good to me. Capitalism allows both. You are not forced to be an entrepreneur. You can live quite well with wage labor. But if you want to be an entrepreneur (or feel you are being exploited), nothing can stop you. So in laissez-faire capitalism, you have both opportunities of which one allows you to just sell your labor and have no risk, which is a fine thing for most people who usually prefer to play it safe. If you want to be an entrepreneur and receive the full money but also accept all the risk, do so. Nobody stops you. Wage labor is not enforced in laissez-faire, because you always have the opportunity to borrow capital and start a company. I don't see how your system is an improvement. It limits choices. But maybe I understood it in a wrong way. If so, please explain it in more detail.
The capitalist's job is to pick the right companies to invest in, that means that he decides if the idea of an entrepreneur is worth it. If he thinks so, he gives money and if he's wrong he loses it. If it works out, yes, then he's a happy guy. But that's the only reason he borrows his capital in the first place. If this wasn't the case he would just spend it. Intelligent investments don't happen automatically. And given most companies fail, this is not an easy job. Especially if you don't work in that field (let's say cancer medicine) but should decide if it is worth putting your money into it. If you don't believe me, then try to make money in the stock market. There you are the investor. You can even try it without risk in these online games that allow you to play the stock market in real time with fake money. Good luck.
Okay, so the distinction is now clear: You agree that the CEO is a worker. Why do they get paid so much? What do you think?
Felix1981 13:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Laissez-faire is not anarchy. It is defined as a system where everyone has the basic rights to his life and property as well as the right to enter enforcable contracts. Ensuring this is the government's job. It does this and nothing else. Anarchy is where there is no government.
Please use arguments. 'Capitalists are assholes' isn't one. Please explain to me how you want to attract new workers when your working conditions are as crappy as your competitor's. They are not forced to stay with their current employer, but why should they switch jobs if there is no reason to? You just said 'Wahwah, capitalists are assholes and exploiters and history shows wahwah'. Please answer my question. And if you have no arguments, then at least consider mine and don't fall back into taking 'Some own everything and exploit everyone' for granted. It's wrong. I'm really trying here. Please listen.
My argument was that what you proclaimed was nothing new. It's already in use. In addition to wage labor. Why don't arguments have relevance?
Why does the invested money go down the drain? Because it is invested in labor and material that resulted in products nobody is willing to pay money for. So you had good money and traded it for crap. The workers screwed it up. They get no profits. But you -as the investor- have lost most of your money. It's not that you just don't get your interest. Your invested money is wasted. And a part of it went to the workers to feed them while they were working.
Work doesn't automatically transfer into money. That's the mistake in labor theory. In some way work is even insignificant. Now what do I mean by that? Of course to produce anything of value you have to do some sort of work. That's clear. But not all work ends up in something that people want. Especially in a competitive market place. You don't have to create something of value. You have to create something of better value than your competitor or the same for a lower price. Otherwise you don't make money and all your work is lost no matter how much capital or work you used. If the result is not sufficient, your company goes down.
This is something that happens very often. That 9 out of 10 startups fail is common business knowledge. It's expected. In fact you learn it right in the beginning of every MBA program. Here are just some sites I found during a quick search:
US Small Business Agency Harvard Business School Entrepreneur.com - Advice to better buy an already existent company instead of starting one
Starting a business is risky. But it pays off well if it works. And even investing in already existent companies is risky. Just try one of these online investment fake money accounts. It's very easy to lose your money. There's a reason most people prefer wage labor.
Felix1981 12:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
"Laissez-faire capitalism - it favours assholes who use harmful methods to obtain profit." What else does this answer show except that you didn't answer my question?
My question has been: "Please explain to me how you want to attract new workers when your working conditions are as crappy as your competitor's. They are not forced to stay with their current employer, but why should they switch jobs if there is no reason to?" Please answer it.
Laissez-faire is the economic theory that finds its philosophical basis in liberalism. It doesn't work with any other social theory because there basic rights are not ensured.
About the investor losing money: Your ideal model is already part of your current economy. It is called: buying bonds. A company(in your model this would be a company owned by the workers) issues bonds which investors can buy. This is in effect nothing but a contract that the investors get their money back after a defined amount of time with interest. If the company goes bankrupt during this time, the money is lost. This is bad for the investor. But this doesn't change the facts. If you invest your money in stuff that doesn't have value, then you lose your money. In fact that's fair. Why should you make more money when you spend all of it on wasting resources?
If I got anything of this wrong, as you suggest, please explain to me exactly how it is supposed to work differently. So, next question: "What exactly happens to the money the investor gives a company (what is it spent on) and how does he get his money back if the company goes bankrupt?"
Work creates value? Not always. Sometimes work destroys value. However, every value that is, is created by work. Now what is value? How do you determine if something has real value? Especially a product. When does it have value? When people are willing to spend money for it. Money is used to evaluate products and to compare their value. The amount of money someone is willing to spend for a product determines its value to that person. Without any way of measuring it, value is a meaningless term. Something has value if people are willing to give their hard-earned money to acquire it. That's an obvious proof of value. And the more people are willing to spend on it, obviously, the more they value it. That value is called price. The cool thing here is that your product doesn't have to be of value to everyone. It just has to be of value to enough people so you can sell enough of your product. So if you are a capitalist and you try to sell poorer products at a higher price, nobody will buy them and you will lose your money and deserve it.
Now if you have worked all year and have a huge container filled with the oh-so-brilliant product you have created (and it definitely has high emotional value to you) and you try to sell it. Then you realize, nobody wants it. Especially not at the price you want to sell it for, not even at the price you paid to produce it. Then you come along and curse the world because you are not paid for your work and all the 'value' you have created. And you miss the point that you have created no value, but have destroyed it and get punished accordingly. Had you created a great product many people want, then you could have made a bunch of money. But you haven't. Bad luck. All the money you have won't help you here. (That is also why stock prices go down and big companies die out when their services are no longer needed.)
There is no equality of opportunity. And there never will be. If you redistribute all the money on the planet so that everyone has exactly the same amount of it and then wait ten years, you will find that 99% of the rich people will be rich again and 99% of the poor people will be poor again. The difference is skill. Understanding what people want and producing exactly that for a good price. The equality is in the rights. The right to give it a try. To find out how valuable you are to other people.
What my examples prove is that work doesn't always create value. If it did, more startups would flourish. And combined with the fact that startups work harder than anyone else in the market to make it, clearly shows how wrong it is to assume that value is correlated to the work that is put into it. This is only the case if that work is properly used. And this proper usage is more important than the work itself, because without it, all work would be worthless. And this part of the equation is completely neglected in the labor theory which still claims that the work itself is all-important. Work that truly counts is entrepreneurial work. Because only if this is done right, other work has value. And that's why a manager deserves more money than an assemly line worker. His work is more valuable even if it isn't that hard.
Felix1981 13:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
"If you think capitalists will improve worker conditions to maximise THEIR profits, that's ALSO wrong. The easiest way to maximise self-profit is to find that magical line where you treat workers as CRAP as possible without them uprising." This was your answer. Where is the reason why this is possible? I find none. Why is it possible for a company to worsen the workers' working conditions, when they can just change jobs? The competing company will love to hire them, because they can bring that company additional profits. And how can companies grow without attracting more workers? Besides, the workers can start their own companies and offer better working conditions themselves.
Okay, I read the text below. But you still didn't answer how the workers should pay their money back. If the investor's money is lost, the workers should pay it back, because it isn't the investor's fault. How should they pay it back? Their company is broke, therefore their money is spent. They are now in debt. And they have little chance to pay it back. They can't be hired, because that is forbidden. They also have a lower chance of getting another investor to give them money, so they can't start a competitive company.
My argument was right from the beginning: "There is no equality of opportunity. It doesn't exist." Argumenting that there is no equality of opportunity in capitalism is like argumenting that there are no unicorns in capitalism. There just are no unicorns. That's not capitalism's fault. And by the way. The stupid celebrity is more valuable than the scientist precisely because more people value the celebrity higher than the scientist. The scientist may not like this and protest, arguing that his work is more valuable, because it is more difficult. But just because it is difficult doesn't mean that it is valuable. There are many very complex mathematical theories which may take years to understand, but which are of no value to anyone in the real world. Another example of the failure of the labor theory of value. Price is determined by two things:
1. What people are willing to pay (also known as demand)
2. Production costs (or in your terms: value) (also known as supply)
If you forget point one, you end up lamenting that you are so valuable, but nobody recognizes it. If you forget point two, you can't understand why diamonds are more expensive than water. The entrepreneur's (or in your terms the manager's) work is making these two meet. That's why workers alone may produce stuff. But they either take too long to be able to compete with workers with capital or they simply produce stuff nobody wants. The thing is that these two also combine in most cases. So this x=3 thing really doesn't help.
Yes, he may create something, but he will never be able to earn a living with it, because nobody would trade enough money for his products for him to buy enough food. Simply because they can buy better stuff at a lower price. This entrepreneurial factor (it's more like 1000 than 5) is crucial, because the worker doesn't exist in a vacuum. He is surrounded by an entire planet with the goal of producing the best products at the lowest price possible. That's why most startups fail and it's also why you can't start a business if you don't have a brilliant business idea.
So this 'picking the right products to create' is fundamental for the mere survival of the company. It's not just some nice bonus. And it's also more likely that workers get more money in better companies. Before you start with your Nike example again, well, I did some research and I found a report by someone who was actually there:
"Today Nike has almost four times more workers in Vietnam than in the United States. I travelled to Ho Chi Minh to examine the effects of multinational corporations on poor countries. Nike being the most notorious multinational villain, and Vietnam being a dictatorship with a documented lack of free speech, the operation is supposed to be a classic of conscience-free capitalist oppression.
In truth the work does look tough, and the conditions grim, if we compare Vietnamese factories with what we have back home. But that´s not the comparison these workers make. They compare the work at Nike with the way they lived before, or the way their parents or neighbours still work. And the facts are revealing. The average pay at a Nike factory close to Ho Chi Minh is $54 a month, almost three times the minimum wage for a state-owned enterprise.
Ten years ago, when Nike was established in Vietnam, the workers had to walk to the factories, often for many miles. After three years on Nike wages, they could afford bicycles. Another three years later, they could afford scooters, so they all take the scooters to work (and if you go there, beware; they haven´t really decided on which side of the road to drive). Today, the first workers can afford to buy a car.
But when I talk to a young Vietnamese woman, Tsi-Chi, at the factory, it is not the wages she is most happy about. Sure, she makes five times more than she did, she earns more than her husband, and she can now afford to build an extension to her house. But the most important thing, she says, is that she doesn´t have to work outdoors on a farm any more. For me, a Swede with only three months of summer, this sounds bizarre. Surely working conditions under the blue sky must be superior to those in a sweatshop? But then I am naively Eurocentric. Farming means 10 to 14 hours a day in the burning sun or the intensive rain, in rice fields with water up to your ankles and insects in your face. Even a Swede would prefer working nine to five in a clean, air-conditioned factory.
Furthermore, the Nike job comes with a regular wage, with free or subsidised meals, free medical services and training and education. The most persistent demand Nike hears from the workers is for an expansion of the factories so that their relatives can be offered a job as well. "
How's that for evil exploitation?
I've added the complete article to the blog I mentioned before, so I don't lose it. You can read it there, if you want.
Felix1981 22:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I give up. There is really no hope with you. If you think you're above reading arguments and answering them, then I can't help you. In fact, nobody can. I really tried everything to enter your stubborn mind, but you just don't listen, because you don't want to. And I can't change that.
Just one last thing: If Nike closes all its sweatshops, what will people do then? And what did they do before Nike came? You don't need to answer. You won't do it anyway. You won't even let this thought enter your brain. Because your opinion is fixed. I don't want to confuse you with arguments anymore. Good luck. You can delete this entire passage. We are truly wasting wikipedia resources here.
Oh, I almost forgot, Here's the source for the article I quoted, so you know I didn't write it myself, being the evil promoter of exploitation that I am. Do you actually read what you write once in a while? You really shattered my belief that people are basically open to arguments if you really try.
Felix1981 13:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I know I shouldn't do this, but OK, here we go: Let's just focus on one point:
Your argument was that Nike exploits poor workers in Vietnam by forcing them to work in lousy working conditions. This is not the case. Nike improved their working conditions dramatically. They get three times(!!!) the minimum wage. They can't change jobs you said. They can. They can go back to the crappy jobs they had before and many people there still have. Why did they switch jobs in the first place? Because working for Nike was a tremendous improvement in their lives. How would you feel if your income suddenly tripled. Your next argument was that Nike stops people from developing their economy. How? By providing comparatively well-paid jobs? By pumping money into the economy? And if Nike was really such a hindrance that worsens people's life, why don't they just ignore Nike. They don't because this is not the case.
It is true that people in that country still don't live up to our standards. But is that Nike's fault? No it's not. It's Nike's 'fault' that some of them have tripled their income and have better working conditions than before. I'm just waiting for other multinationals to go there and compete with Nike. But they can't do it. It would get bad publicity. They would be called mean exploiters because they created better working conditions. Just like Nike. And whose fault is this? It's the fault of guys like you who believe Nike should pay First World wages in Third World countries.
The workers get a great deal. They get way more than they ever thought they would deserve. These countries were poor as hell. They still have child labor and everything, simply because they don't want to starve. Now if multinationals go there and provide better jobs, jobs that allow these people to work less, earn more, save some and even send their children to school this is a good thing. This is unheard of in Vietnam history.
You say that they don't do enough. But they do enough according to the workers and that's what matters. Once more multinational have moved there and some Vietnamese people started out on their own, and everyone in Vietnam has tripled his income there will be more competition and Nike will have to raise its wages and improve conditions to keep people work there. Developing a country from poverty to our standards takes time and it is a gradual process but it will happen if you leave them alone. If you don't punish the companies who create new jobs in undeveloped countries. And creating new jobs always means creating better jobs. Otherwise they would get no workers. If Nike went to Vietnam and offered only 1/3 of the minimum wage, they would not have found workers. A new successful company is always an improvement for the people who get a job there. Otherwise they wouldn't take it, would they?
Arguing against wage dumping means arguing that the poor should demand high wages like we do. But they can't. This low wage is their only competitive advantage. They have no developed streets. They have not much but their working power. They have hardly any capital, and the some they have they can hardly use in an entrepreneurial way. It would be very hard for them to develop their country on their own. And not allowing companies to go there and actually raise their wages and punishing them for it is the worst thing you could do. Yes, these people deserve a better life. But they don't deserve to get it as a present from us. We deserve our money, too. Just let them earn it. They will. And using foreign capital and knowledge to boost their productivity and therefore income is and advantage we never had. Poor countries can grow very fast - if you only let them. This turned out longer than I thought. I hope you read it this time. Felix1981 19:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous user, please sign so we can keep different views straight. Even if you are unregistered, just put four tildes in a row. Also, let us try to use indentations consistently so we can tell one anothers arguments apart. Now, I have two comments for Infinity0 and one comment for both of you. Comment for Infinity0: first you say "the fact that the worker does not own the means of production." It is true that one stage in the development of capitalism is generally — and certainly at least in Europe — a process by which workers who posessed the means of production are disposessed of them. To me, this really really complicates the definition that capitalism is defined by "private ownership of the means of production." In fact, many private individual lost their ownership of the means of production, which is why they have to sell their labor-power. So the opening paragrapp or introduction jneeds to somehow communicate this, that as much as capitalism means private ownership of the means of production (or capital), it also means the loss of private owenership of capital. Second, I think I understand your explanation of exploitation theory, but I think the key point is that capitalists participate in two markets: the market for whatever they produce, and the labor market. Merchants like Marco Polo took advantage of the difference in price from one produce-market (say, silk for silver) in one place (say, China) and another produce market (say, in Venice). Capitalists take advantage of the difference in price between a produce-market and the labor market; their profit comes from the difference (if there is one) between the general price of labor they buy, and the price of the goods they sell. What this means is that the commoditization of labor-power is crucial to exploitation theory. This is my comment for Infinity0. Now my comment for both of you: please read my comment below. It does not matter whether either one of you likes or does not like, agrees with or does not agree with, "exploitation theory." What is important is that there are verifiable sources out there, some of whom promote and elaborate on "exp[loitation theory, and others who criticize it and propose alternatives. To comply with our NPOV policy, and our NOR policy, we cannot add our own views and arguments to the article, and should add the views and arguments, supporting and opposed to exploitation theiry, to the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, Infinity0. However, I find it hard to believe that someone who has been able to articulate these positions so well has not read books or articles that count as "verifiable sources." I hope you reconsider your commitment to editing over writing. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This honestly is an interesting discussion. Nevertheless, none of these comments can go into the article, because that would violate Wikipedia:No original research. There are, however, verifiable sources out there who have expressed a range of views on capitalism and class. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view demands that we include all major views, even if any or all of you disagree with them. Be that as it may, I cannot but believe that at least some of you are familiar with these citable sources and I urge you to put all the different views into the article, properly cited. Remember, the purpose of the talk page is to improve the article. Can't you guys channel all the energy you have been expending in this discussion into contributions to the article itself? Clearly among the two or three most active of you, you can develop a section that adequately provides the different views in an NPOV way. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Felix, as long as you comply with our
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy, and provide
verifiable
Cite sources|sources, no one should delete what you add. P{lease familiarize yourself with these three policies and make extra-sure you are complying with them. Then, no one has a right to delete your content and you can ask for community support. (the same of course goes for Infinity0 nd any other user — if someone is complying with these three policies, you shouldn't delete their work either. I am not accusing you of anything, just trying to be clear.
Slrubenstein |
Talk 18:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I started here with Classes in capitalism because I wanted the claim that there are classes in capitalism to be attributed to the guy who invented them: Karl Marx. I changed the article to make it more accurate, yet it was edited out. Then I complained here and nothing has happened. This led me to start this wild discussion with infinity0.
My first post as an official member :) Felix1981 13:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey, I just checked and the article is fine. Thanks. That's all I wanted.
Felix1981 16:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
You make a big deal about the "risks" involved. That's really not the point. Whatever the risk, the workers don't get their full worth. Infinity0 20:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, I would be quoting that theory, and others, which are more recent. The labour theory of value was established approx. 150 years ago (and was used not only by Marx, but also by other famous economists like Ricardo). Since Walras, however, marginal theory of value is considered as being more correct and as representing the real world more correctly. Indeed, I find it absurd that value would only be constituted of labour. After all, labour needs machines to work on, and the better the machines, the better the final output, and so the more value it should have. Also, the labour theory of value does not consider demand: you can have hundreds of workers making wooden gnomes, but those gnomes will be valueless if no-one wants them. It's just wasted work. Infinity0: you claim that value is absolute and price relative. How can this be? That would mean that a medieval cooking pot would still have the same value today as 500 years ago? Who would use a medieval cooking pot? Value cannot be absolute - and actually value cannot be really distinguished from price (except when prices are fixed or biased, in which case I would say that value can differ from the observed price). Luis rib 12:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
The machines are made by companies, which again employ labour and other machines, as well as natural ressources (metals and such). Also, I disagree toatlly that value remains constant. An LP has no real value in age of the CD; and the value of a CD has dimished as MP3 players have become available. Value is defined by the advantages it procures to its users, as compared to other things that provide the same or similar uses. Also, your one-sentence refutation is stupid. If no-one worked, people would still need to eat and drink, and water and food would be extremely valuable. Value can exist without any work - gold can be simply found in nature (in some rivers, for instance) and always had a lot of value for completely irrational reasons - also the value of gold is totally disproportionate to the amount of work involved in collecting it. Luis rib 12:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Gold has other uses than a means of exchange. Some people like gold as jewellery; gold also has a lot of industrial uses. These uses, however, were totally unknown thousand years ago. So it's wrong to say that gold's value is inexistent: it always had value as jewellery, and it became even more valuable once industrial uses were found for it. Luis rib 16:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
My point is that the quote is too long, basically, the second part doesn't say anything new. The page is way too big IMO and has way too much specific stuff like quotes from arbitrary right-wing economists. If you really think that quote gives so much extra information to the reader, then fine, keep it... Infinity0 23:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Infinity0, you asked somewhere above why invetors shouldn't get a fixed incomre from their investements. Actually they can get a fixed income, when they invest in corporate bonds. By investing in corporate bonds they don't become owners of a company, but lend money to that company. For that they get a fixed interest rate. Thus investors do have a choice: buy shares and get a variable income, or buy bonds and get a fixed income. You propose that shareholders should get a fixed income too - that would mean that when a company produces losses it still has to pay the same dividend to is shareholders than when it makes tons of profits! That's a very good way to bankrupt a company... Luis rib 11:42, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Economically, that's the same. They would get a maximal fixed amount per share. That's the same as if they would lend money to the company and get a fixed interest per bond. The shareholders provide the money which the company needs to operate. If the company doesn't pay them anything, they will take their money away and will put into a bank account. Then the company will cease to exist. We had this discussion above already. A company is defined by being a legal entity of fixed capital which is divided into shares or parts (depends on the type of company). If you take the shares away, there no company left. And you will only convince people to invest into such shares if they can expect a benefit from that. Luis rib 12:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course your example is perfectly workable, and there are some small companies which are entirely owned by its workers. In several European countries there exists a legal form called "cooperative corporation" where all the shares are owned by workers. The reason why this type of corporation is not more common is that workers usually do not have enough money/enough savings to invest into the corporation they work for. Also, the problem with giving the outside investors only bonds means that the corporation becomes indebted. If a corporation issues too much debt (i.e. too many bonds) it may not be able to repay all these bonds and may become bankrupt. That's why at some point many corporations decide to issue more shares, to push their level of indebtedness to lower levels. Luis rib 12:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Bonds are another word for debt. If say that investors should only get a fixed amount of money on teir titles (whether you call them bonds or anything else) that's just the same as saying that you are issuing debt. So you can only avoid debt if you give investors shares, which pay variable income. Why is issuing new shares exchanging justice for short-term money???? That statement makes no sense at all! Luis rib 13:01, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Wages are a cost, not a debt. Except if you don't pay them, in which case they become a debt. And the outside investor does something: he provides money to the company to pay wages, to buy machines, etc. Luis rib 22:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, funnily enough, many companies are partly going your way, Infinty0. Wages are in many companies linked to merit, which at least tries to evaluate a worker's contribution to a company's profit. Also, many companies are giving their shareholders almost something like a fixed income - by keeping dividends constant. Some don't even pay any dividends at all (like Microsoft, for most of its history) which mean that all the profits are kept inside the company. The investor's reward is a rise in the share price - since the company is becoming more valuable, its shares are worth more. That's how Bill Gates became rich, and not by taking the profits away from Microsoft. Luis rib 23:01, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure you'll excuse me if I continue the discussion here. It was becoming quite messy up there... So, you said that "Labour is the source of all man-made value". That's too simplistic. The amount of value labour is able to create depends on the machines (i.e. capital) it has at its dîsposal. These machines have been made by labour again, and by natural ressources. Natural ressources have a value that is independent of the amount of labour needed to get it. Petrol for instance has the same value no matter whether it comes from Saudi Arabia (where it is very cheap to extract it and almost no labour or machines are used) or Alberta (where it has to be squeezed out of some tar sands in a long, complicated and expensive process). Also, don't forget that at all points in the value chain capital gets paid too. The company that makes the machines also takes a margin on each machine as profit, to pay its creditors and its shareholders. Without capital, the machine-making corporation would not be able to buy the natural ressources needed to make the machine! Luis rib 12:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Unless this is a private party, allow me to hop in. As to profit as an institution, it represents several different realities. To begin, there's the simple fact of time preference. Everybody prefers now to later. If a two year old child has a right to a cookie now or a cookie tomorrow, he'll take the cookie now every time. As we get older, we learn to delay satisfactions, but still in some sense we have to be bribed to delay, there has to be a reason for the delay, some larger size to tomorrow's cookie.
Another consideration is that nature produces extra value over time. This was one of the key points in Henry George's view of the world, and although he is best remembered for the single tax proposal, that was only one part of a broader system of thought. Seeds turn into stalks of wheat, and gain in value as they grow. Grapes go from small and green to large, juicy, and purple, and likewise increases in value. Grape juice in a vat ferments into wine. In other words, by co-operating with the productive forces of nature we can bribe each other into accepting those delays, and getting that "bigger cookie tomorrow". In this sense, profit is a product of nature, both human nature and biology more generally.
Yet another consideration is risk. When you said above that risk is "the whole point", someone objected that productivity was supposewd to be the whole point. But that's a phoney dichotomy. Many productive enterprises involve risk of loss, and again someone has to be bribed to take those risks, whether through prospective interest payments or through equity profit or something else.
So, to summarize these considerations. The instinctive timne preference, combined with risk aversion, creates a demand for some institution whereby both the deferral of immediate gratification and the taking of risks will have a reward. The productivity of nature, and the various roundabout ways in which humans can aid that productivity, create funds whence that demand can be supplied. That demand, and this supply, together create a financial/banking system, unless some outside coercion blocks its formation. Virtually every society has some sort of financial/banking system to mediate all the to-and-fro of funds that arise from such considerations as these, although there is always the question what kind of financial system will do this most effectively. That is the kind of question an article about capitalism should systematically survey. -- Christofurio 16:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Even sweatshop workers can lose their job and end up as cheap prostitutes in a Bangkok backyard. That much for "sweatshop workers have nothing lose". Luis rib 21:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry Infinity that I missed this when you first posted it. I'll return to the issue, but I'll give it a new heading because that one was getting unwieldy. You say you've lost track of my point. It is, chiefly, that what you seem to be proposing -- a system in which the only outside investors would be those using debt instruments -- would prove an unstable system, for predictable reasons.
It sounds like you're saying that investment in corporate bonds is in principle better than investment in corporate stock -- i.e. one is less exploitative than another. If that is what you believe, you may be the only person in the world to believe it. To show why, let me ask you this: In an enterprise system with worker ownership on the one hand and bond holder participation on the other, would there still be enterprise bankruptcies, or not? If there would be bankruptcies, then would this mean the bondholders were out their investment, or would the individual workers owe them the money as individuals even after the dissolution of the company, forcing them (the workers) to also declare individual bankruptcies, or what? In a system such as that which obtains in much of the world at present, with transferable equity rights owned by outside investors, the answer is clear enough. If a company fails, the stockholders take the hit first, then the bondholders are usually compensated with the equity of the re-structured company. But in your scenario, there aren't any stockholders any more to cushion the fall for those bondholders. So either the bondholders are just out of luck, or they can continue to pursue the former workers of the defunct business. Which is it?
The latter possibility seems rather ghastly. In the former case, it seems to me, bondholders would soon (and quite sensibly) begin to demand some of the rights common stockholders have now -- whoever has that residual insolvency exposure, whatever its name, should have some say in who gets to manage the company. So the distinction between investment in equity and investment in a "fixed-price return" would be more one of verbiage than of substance.
"Look at it this way: investors don't do anything with the company - so if the company fails, it's not their responsibility, and what's the point of punishing them?" Okay, I'll look at it that way. There is no point in "punishing them." But the capitalist system doesn't do so. It allows them to take a loss, which isn't a punishment. The point of letting them take the loss is that they've agreed to take a loss, and that society (as represented for example, by both the bondholders and the workers) has an interest in letting them take the loss they've agree to take, And, more to the point, investors can hedge their risks by diversifying, whereas the internal investors necessarily have a lot more at stake. So if I try to look at it in the way you suggest, I come to the conclusion that risk-bearing equity serves a valuable buffering role, and that it is best for everyone to have that role served in that way. -- Christofurio 14:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
According to this: " Werner Sombart" "Der moderne Kapitalismus" (Modern Capitalism) was published in 1902, not in 1906. -- Alex1011 19:50, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
A couple people (e.g. slrubenstein) are reverting my edits to correct the error in the definition that says commodities includes goods and services. A commodity is a physical item. It's rarely used to refer to a service. RJII 20:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, Infinity and Slrubentstein are trying to put in the "common" definition of capitalism reference to "wage labor." Capitalism is not commonly defined with reference to "wage labor." Just look at the various definitions in Wikiquote. [3] RJII 20:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd also like to note that slrubenstein reverted without an explanation (a no-no), and dishonesly registered it as a "m". I've had a lot of problems with that so-called editor. I've seen very disruptive and unethical behavior from him in the past (such as launching a fraudulent arbitration case against me to try to get his way with this article). Watch him. RJII 20:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not think RJII understands what bandwidth is, at least not as commonly understood. Bandwidth refers not to "wires" but to the numerical difference between the upper and lower frequencies of a band of electromagnetic radiation, especially an assigned range of radio frequencies. The FCC often auctions these off. They are not selling (or renting) actual electrons, nor the media (copper wires, fiber optics) through which electrons move. They are selling the right to broadcast on a certain range of frequencies. InfinityO is quite right that bandwidth is not physical. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Moreover, if electricity is physical, so is "labor." Labor is the flow of electrochemicals across brain synapses, and the contraction of muscles, both very physical material things. Once again, Infinity), you are correct. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity0, "service," the way it is used in the intro is not a verb, it is a noun. Moreover, "economics" is one point of view. NPOV demands that we provide other points of view. Plenty of sociologists and other social scientists have written about the commoditization of labor. Those views should be represented in this article as well. If economists and other social scientists argoe over this, NPOV requires that we state that they argue (or disagree) over this, and provide an account of the disagreement. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Capitalism is not just based on selling commodities, it involves renting them too. More important however is the claim that many people make that capitalism comes into existence when labor-power is commoditized. Many people do not agree with this definition, but many people do. NPOV requires representing all views. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I actually think there should be a separate series for Captalism vs. Socialism vs. Free Market vs. Command Economy vs. Planned Economy vs. Decentralized Economies vs. Mixed Economies, as their definitions are somewhat intertwined.
I got out my econ notes from a while back, I'm basically checking the definitions, if this changes the article, or if someone wants to correct me, go ahead and correct:
There are two different ways to catergorize an economy into two.
Little Regulation Heavy Regulation
and
Low Government Expenditure High Government Expenditure
Heavy regulation AND high government expenditure are command economies, heavily regulated economies are planned (price wages enforced by the Nazis for example (although I didn't mean the example to be so extreme)), little regulation is decentralized, low government expenditure is capitalist, high government expenditure is socialist, and free market is both low government expenditure and little regulation.
Note that these are very subjective, and are not as simple as saying "Above 50% government expenditure as a portion of the GDP is socialist," because France has above 50% government expenditure as a portion of GDP and some people refer to it as Capitalist and some as Socialist. Similarly the argument goes for little and heavy regulation, some may say that the U.S. is decentralized while others are extreme enough to say it's a planned economy, the difference in opinion comes from the subjectivity of the two terms (I, for example, say that the U.S. is a planned economy because I'm pissed off and opposed to the regulations on power companies; but that's my opinion). China considers itself Socialist, while many other consider it Capitalist. Some consider the Soviet Union Capitalist because of it's Black Market activities. And so on.
In other words:
Little Regulation AND low government expenditure=Free Market Economy
Little Regulation=Decentralized Heavy Regulation=Planned
and
Low Government Expenditure=Capitalist High Government Expenditure=Socialist
High government Expenditure AND heavy Regulation=Command Economy
And a mixed economy is any economy that is thought of as a mix between socialist and Capitalist, technically this is all countries, but it is also a subjective factor (Subjective in that the percentiles aren't really placed, it's not like below 10% government expenditure is Capitlist, from 10-90 is mixed, and Socialist is >90). Fephisto 16:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Here are a few interesting facts:
"Corporatism" gets 798,000 Google hits. [4] "Syndicalism" gets 256,000 Google hits. [5] "Gift economy" gets 178,000 Google hits. [6] "Participatory economics" gets 57,900 Google hits. [7]
By way of comparison, "economic fascism" gets a mere 13,600 Google hits. [8] Why, then, does a certain editor insist on contrasting capitalism with "economic fascism" (which is a controversial term to begin with) as opposed to any of the above mentioned economic systems? Certainly, capitalism could be contrasted with any other economic system, but, in an introductory paragraph, we should limit ourselves to the most notable. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 07:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Another dispute seems to have developed around the definition of feudalism. The old definition, supported by User:RJII, is as follows:
There are several problems with this. First of all, how does a ruler "claim ownership of the land of private operators"? The sentence seems to be suggesting that first the operators start using the land, then a ruler claims ownership of it. This was not necessarily the case, and it is not clear who the "operators" are (if you mean peasants, then say peasants). Second, there is no single "capitalist theory". The economic system of capitalism is supported by several ideologies, each with its own separate theory. I daresay that the majority of supporters of capitalism would not agree with a theory which implies - among other things - that the territory of the United States should be given back to the Native Americans. The replacement definition I propose is the following:
Do you object to it, RJII? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 02:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi all. I made a special subsection just for the Contrasts because those descriptions were mixed with the general theory. I cleaned it but took care not to munge any of your definitions. LordMac 10:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
RJII, you just added a comment that in communist societies the produce of labor is shared and not traded. What is your source for this? Please provide a verifiable source. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't get hysterical. I was not challenging the truthfulness of what you wrote, I was only asking you to comply with our policy to cite sources. I do not consider a dictionary to be a good source, it's like copying an article from another encyclopedia — we are here to write our own encyclopedia. Good sources would be books or articles about the history of communist thought or actual communist societies. You mention the Italian Federation — that was only one faction, certainly not in the majority, at the First International. If this is your only source, then you cannot say "In Communism ..." you would have to say "In the Italian Federation's interpretation of (or vision of) communism." And what is your source for that, anyway? yes, I know it is in another article, but that article makes it very clear that this was one faction of "anarcho-communists" at a conference. This is not at all the same thing as making a general claim about communism. Please provide a verifiable source that suppports your claim. Or, modify the claim based on a verifiable source. That is all I am asking for. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
What was your source? A definition from a dictionary? That is not a scholarly source. If you haven't done the research, then don't add the claim. Provide a serious source. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, thank you for doing what we at Wikipedia call "research" and actually drawing on a meaningful source. However, I want to point out a few things concerning claims about communism: First, Marx's communism was theoretical, and — however important his and Engel's theories and hopes — was never put into practice. Second, there were before and after Marx and Engels other theories of communism, and any claims about "communism" should represent them, and not only Marx. Third, although there have been no communist states, there have been functioning communist communities; these provide empirical data on how a communist economy can function, and should also be taken into account in any claim about "communism." From these three facts arise two conclusions: (1) it may be hard to define or formulate one general model of "communism," and (2) an account or explanation of "communism" needs to be based on research into each of these areas. Slrubenstein | Talk 03:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
slrubenstein, you just stated in the article that in communism an "individual" can own the means of production. [9] That's absolutely ludicrous. Time for you to provide a source. I'll even accept a children's dictionary. RJII 03:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC) slrubensteine, you reverted back and still haven't provided a source. If you don't (and I know you won't), you know where this information is going don't you? RJII 03:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Ihave no source? I just provided two for you -- two sources actually written by communists (the German Ideology citation by the way is p. 53 of the 1970 English International Publishers edition). Two sources from what we in English call "books." Your only source is a dictionary? That is not research. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
It is kind of amazing that RJII, who knows nothing of communism (at least, Marx and Engels' brand of it), keeps making false claims without any sources, whereas Infinity and I have produced sources written by Marx and Engels and RJII says, in effect, that these are not sources. We are through the looking glass now! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Last night we provided two sources so far, one from the Manifesto, and one from the German Ideology. In support of Infinity's point, I now provide two more. First, from the German Ideology:
(this seems to describe RJII's position perfectly)
In other words, it is this abstract bourgeois notion of "property" Marx and Engles wish to abolish. Not "private property" as they themselves understand it.
- :::I am not talking about anything, I am quoting a verifiable source written by someone else, which is what articles should be based on. That you do not understand what this quote is saying is your problem. Nothing in the quote suggests that Stirner is a communist. You make things up out of air. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
The second source is from Lenin's State and Revolution:
To manage production independently suggests individual control over the means of production. It is very clear to anyone who as done real research (thus excluding RJII) that Marx, Engels, and Lenin see capitalism as anti-individualistic, and they see communism as true individualism. So, now I have provided (with Infinity's help) four examples. Note that RJII has produced nothing. He does not know how to do research, he has not done research, and even now he refuses to do research. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for providing a source (something RJII cannot do). But Infinity0, you need to provide a citation. Who wrote this? Where? What page? Does this represent the view of all communists, or of some communists? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, I think you are using "means of production" in too narrow a sense. If you are referring to factories, I agree that under communism ownership will be collective. But note, I wrote "individually or collectively" (perhaps the or should be changed to an and). This is because "means of production" does not refer just to factories. Shotguns and fishing rods are also means of production, as are a carpenters plane and a hammer. When Marx and Engels write that "communist society makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evning, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind" he is describing a world in which individuals can produce independently as they wish. They will therefore own certain means of production themselves, to use as they please. To understand Marx and Engles, one must do at least two things: understand their ditinction between bourgeois notions of "private property" and other ways of conceptualizing or describing private property, and understand that means of production is a HUGE category that includes many different things. You yourseld introduced the quote in which they describe how it is capitalism that is abolishing private ownership of the means of production. The kind of ownership of means of production that capitalism destroyes, they wish to restore. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not object to that, but can you see a way of putting the two terms back in and explaining it, I mean in fewer words than what I wrote above? If you do not want to try to you mind if I try? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Tell me the source that says it's "not capitalism" unless there's a lot of "wage labor". I'm not trying to be picky about citations here; there is no such mainstream source. WP is not place for your to promote your ideology. Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not before further editing. MrVoluntarist 18:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Google search for "capitalism wage" Results 2-4: (1 is wiki page)
Now stop being so difficult. Infinity0 talk 19:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And RJII: about your addition: "In capitalism, individuals receive wages or salaries for their labor." That's true, if you're referring to "many" (not all) individuals, and a common occurrence rather than inherent characteristic. But even so, does it really belong in the intro? There are a dozen other things that hold true for "many" people in capitalism; do they all have to be listed in the intro? MrVoluntarist 19:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok then, ladies and gentlemen, if those source aren't good enough for you, what IS the definition? HOW DO capitalists run their means of production??? Infinity0 talk 19:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Use "wikipedia to spread Marxism" my ass. That article isn't even on my watchlist, and I've only ever edited it once, and that was to add a cleanup tag. Infinity0 talk 19:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I know of no economist who would define an economy of partnerships and contractual freelance workers as "not capitalism". - your mistake: an economy with no wage labour is not capitalist. Even so, the current text reads: "usually.. through employing labour for a wage". I know of no economist who would claim wage labour is NOT part of capitalism, or even that capitalism does not require wage labour to work. Infinity0 talk 19:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, great, now I'm glad you agree "wage labor" is not part of the definition of capitalism since the sources you cite and support don't include it. So you can stop inserting in the intro. Thanks for being reasonable this time. MrVoluntarist 20:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Output isn't labour, which is what you imply.
They'd stop calling it capitalist if everyone worked for themselves and there were no corporations or wage labour. The word "capitalist" simply wouldn't be an accurate term to describe that situation, and another word will be invented.
BTW, you want a nice right-wing source to show capitalism hugely contains, if not requires wage labour? Here you go, from "Capitalism" by George Reisman.
Infinity0 talk 21:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
How do you know that is how he uses "wage"? He is writing a professional book, he must be using the real definitions of words. What other "compensations" for labour can you think of? I have provided a great deal of sources to support my claim. You have not provided any. Can you find a source that explicitly states capitalism does not require wage labour, and lists other forms of compensation? And if so, why is wage labour a great majority of the current capitalist system? 5 quotes is hardly "flooding you with text"; they are even compacted into bullet-list form. Maybe you need some glasses? Infinity0 talk 21:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, so according to you, I'm wrong. So, some guy writes a book, and uses a word in a totally different way from normal, without explaning what he means, because people like you understand him. Yup, sounds credible. CEOs still have wages as it's fixed. They might have "share of profits" but that's not for the work, but because they own part of the company. Please give one example where the alternate form of "compensation" is for a pure worker, and for the work and only the work. Shares, fringe benefits, &c are not for the actual work. And what do you mean by "contract payments"? That's vague, please specify.
Now definitions are suppose to list everything that is optional? - Ever read a legal agreement? It lists every unnecessary optional thing. As for this, somebody would have wrote SOMETHING about it if it's true, since it's such a hotly contested subject.
Please copy and paste the links because I can't find what source you are talking about. As for the explanation for wage labour existing in capitalism, you gave a half-assed explanation of it being a temporary phenomenon. Why do you think it's called capitalism? Because people use capital to buy labour, which is turned into a commodity instead of a human force. Infinity0 talk 22:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And further, the fact that A commonly occurs in B does not make A part of B's definition! - look, the article doesn't say it's the definition. The definition is disputed anyway! All the article does is give a description of the present day system of captialism in use at the moment, now. Infinity0 talk 22:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, you insist on mentioning wages in the definition of capitalism, yet you insist on deleting mention of wages in communism. Why? If wages are so essential to capitalism, according to you, then that would certainly be something to contrast with communism where individuals are not paid for their labor. RJII 22:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, now you're taking out the fact that workers own the means of production "collectively" and just saying that workers own the means of production. How is that a contrast to capitalism? In capitalism, "workers" can own the means of production as well and usually do. Private ownership of the means of production is capitalism. Collective ownership is communism (collectivism). RJII 22:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Folks, while citing sources is always a good thing, the real issue here is compliance with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It is evident that there are different definitions of capitalism. To single out any one would violate our NPOV policy. We should in the introduction lay out the major definitions. Marx's definition, that it is defined by the commoditization of labor (i.e. the creation of the labor-market) is one (and it is one still used by many scholars in the social sciences, even ones who reject communism — not just the CP). Others (Gundar Frank, Wallerstein, Sweezy) have defined it as market economics on a global scale. I certainly think that if there is a standard definition in economics textbooks (Samuelson, anyone?) or business school textbooks, that should be featured as well. This brings us also to Wikipedia:No original research. It is not up to any one of us to "define" capitalism. Infinity0 has provided the basic Marxist definition and in order to comply with Wikipedia:Cite sources we need only cite Capital volume I chapter 1. I can dig around and provide good citations for the world-systems view. Does anyone own a copy of Samuelson's textbook? Does anyone know if there is a standard business school textbook? Did Hayek ever formulate a definition? The intro should provide all of these definitions as concisely as possible to comply with NPOV; the differences, and why the differences matter to different people, could be developed in the body of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
RJII, it sounds like you are violating another policy: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary Slrubenstein | Talk 16:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
It says dictionaries should begin with a good definition, one that is nether too broad, nor too narrow, and certainly not one that violates NPOV. In the case of capitalism, where there have and continue to be ongoing debates about how to define it, the introduction must acknowledge those different definitions. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The definition, to be a "good definition," has to comply with our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
SUGGESTION: Wage labour is money in exchange for work Q.E.D.. If a person who supplies labour is paid in something other than "money" then they are paid in kind and they are not wage labour. This is not only common to a capitalist economy. When an economy becomes too large and complicated to offer goods/services in exchange for labour (or vice versa) then there is need for a universally recognised medium that represents a value, i.e. money. It is a natural tendency of more complex economies. Something has to be present to give to labour and allow them to decide what to buy and when to buy. Money was present in communist countries. Money was paid to labourers in communist countries. Therefore wage labour exists or existed in communist countries. The fact that capitalism utilises wage labour is of no consequence. What is of importance in defining capitalism is the way labour is used contrary to other forms of economic systems. I would say it was not that much different save the fact that the market forces of supply and demand were not allowed play as important a role in communist countries in adjusting wage rates; the numbers employed in perticular industries; the bargaing power of employees, etc. So we should not look to the concept of wage labour to define an economic system but ot the role of market forces and how they were restricted, diminished or augmented....And that's another story. Bold textM&Ms
I think you're misquoting Marx, RJII. The full quote reads:
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
It would be better to put "bourgeois" property, as Marx specifically says "not the abolition of property generally". It's very confusing to say "the workers own the MOP" in one sentence and then say "abolition of property" in the next sentence. I really have no idea what "private" is suppose to mean from the way you think of it... Infinity0 talk 19:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Well... that's also disputed, he doesn't want to abolish personal property either. ("you mean the property of the artisan, blah blah, there is no need to abolish that"). He specifically means MOP property, ie. that which can be used to "exploit" other men. So that's why I dislike using "private property" and think "capitalist property" is more appropriate. Infinity0 talk 19:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, do you even have a quote to support "communism is collectivisation?" I've never read of it in Marx, just curious. "Antithesis of individualism as far as labor is concerned", what? The whole point of communism is to stop worker exploitation which is anti-individualist. Infinity0 talk 19:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
At least you admit that there is something you "don't know." Funny how you rely on phrases like "common understanding" as a substitute for having actually read books and articles, i.e. "research." Slrubenstein | Talk 01:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not being a wise-ass. Different sources reflect different points of view, which is why we have our cite sources and NPOV policy. Providing specific sources (e.g. from different disciplines like economics, sociology, etc. or from different professions e.g. business or academia, and so on) is important. We both know you haven't read all books and articles (neither have I). So tell us which ones (provide citations) and identify the point of view. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This section fails to mention the rise of capitalism in former command economies, such as the PRC, Eastern Europe and Vietnam. -- Миборовский U| T| C| E| Chugoku Banzai! 03:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, capitalism gives everyone a bigger piece of the pie because it makes the pie bigger. It is also a sink or swim proposition, if you fail there is less of a safety net; but there more opportunity for success and advancement for those who are willing to apply themselves. Bdelisle 19:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I\'m using a proxy, hidemyass.com, to edit wiki cos it\'s blocked in China (might be just my ISP). And now it\'s gone and escaped all the single quotes. Please someone fix this, and I\'m really really sorry, etc... Infinity0 talk 11:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to change the first paragraph, but can't as I'm in China, using a public computer atm. My version is this:
I believe this is more NPOV than the current revision which asserts that it is definitely NOT part of the definition. Also, please remove the "Capitalism is defined various ways, see wikiquote" sentence which Ultramarine keeps adding, as we already have a wikiquote link box. Infinity0 talk 12:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Many mainstream sources consider wage-labor as a defining feature of acpitalism: Wallerstein, Frank, Wolf, deJanvry to name a handful of very prominant and frequently-cited authors. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Your notion of "mainstream" is just your POV. There are different POVs and they should all be represented. Nowhere did I say "wage-labor" means "underpayment." It means selling one's capacity to work in return for money. What do you think "wages" are, anyway? I am glad that you support representing different points of view. I am skeptical that we can come up with one definition that makes sense and includes only what is common to all major definitions -- this is the crux of my point. (by the way, most people who read Marx and Wallerstein and Frank see the latter two as breaking with Marx) Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe I do not follow you. Are you seriously saying that one can have a capitalist economy without free labor and the llabor contract? Slrubenstein | Talk 01:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I mean no offense to MrVoluntarist nor did I take any offense by anything he wrote. He was mistaken however to think I mean that wage labor means one gives up one's right to work in exchange for money. They give up their capacity to work in exchange for money for a fixed period of time, determined by custom, law, or contract. During that period of time all the products of the worker's labor owns its fruits. Apart from that time, the worker is free to do what he or she wants (unless law or contract otherwise limits him). I hope this is clearer. I said "capacity to work" rather than "work" because a man working in a factory is not selling whatever he produces - what he produces does not belong to him. Only the capacity to produce during a given period of time, that is what he is selling. To further clarify, those people who define capitalism in terms of wage-labor do not consider exchanging labor for money with exchanging labor for other things (e.g. trade in kind) unless it is clear that it is a market exchange governed by the law of supply and demand. There are many societies in which people do not sell their labor, but that are NOT autarky; to claim otherwise is simply to be mistaken. 01:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
As you saId, erroneously, that I was saying that in capitalism "you lose your ability to work." I did not day this, nor did I mean this, so obviously you misunderstood me. Nor did I say, as you do, that one sells "time." That is as you say metaphysical and clouds the issue. One sells one's capacity to work during a particular period of time (specified in a contract, usually). Is an independent contracter a wage-laborer? Off-hand I would say no, but it is an interesting question. The fact that it is a question I have not answered does not render my point invalid. As to non autarkic socieites, please read: Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders, Rappaport Pigs for the Ancestors, Malinowski's Argonauts of the South Pacific, Weiner's Women of Value, Men of Renoun, and Evans pritchard's The Nuer for starts. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Now you are being insulting. Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks. You asked me to name societies that were not autarchic and that did not have wage-abor, and I provided five case-studies. You do not have to read them. All that is important is that I have established that such societies exist, or have existed, and I have provided sources. That is all that Wikipedia calls for. I also urge you to reread our Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability pages. You seem to be arguing over what is right and wrong. Wikipedia articles are not arbiters of what is right or wrong. They instead provide accounts of established views and provide sources. I said that there is a particular view of capitalism. It does not matter whether you think that view is right or wrong. It does not matter whether I think that view is right or wrong. But it is a view that can be linked to verifiable sources and for the article to comply with NPOV this view has to be represented in the article. That is the point I have been making. You right "If you sell your capacity to work, that implies you lose your capacity to work." That is your view. But your view does not belong in the article. This is not the view of those people who define capitalism in terms of wage labor i.e. selling one's capacity to work. It just is not what they mean. Whether you think that is what they mean or not, or whether you agree with thm or not, is irrelevant. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
It is not for you to "evaluate" what I have "given you." It is our collective task to write a verifiable NPOV article. It is up to me to provide verifiable sources for the content I provide. Unless you are claiming that I have not provided verifiable sources, your thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.
Slrubenstein |
Talk 00:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
There are no classes in capitalism. Capitalism abandons the concept of 'classes'. How do you call a factory worker who owns microsoft stocks and plans to retire? I knew such a guy. There is no split like: The class that owns and the class that works. If you sit in front of a computer screen and read this, then you most probably own that computer, the screen, the mouse in your hands and the keybord before you. That's the basis of capitalism. Protection of ownership. The only economic theorist mentioned who supported the idea of classes was Marx. All the others strongly opposed such a view. I very much doubt that Milton Friedman splits the population into proletariat and bourgeoisie. Please remove general references to a 'class structure' or at least don't attribute them as truth or even as a consensus among economists. Attribute class splits in capitalism to the man who invented them: Karl Marx. (Or at least let me do it :))
"Brazil? China? Mexico? Even in the USA there are heavy divisions, between places like Compton and Beverly Hills." Im sorry but i think many would agree that compton is the result and victim of capitalism and neoconservatism rather than in opposition to it...
I disagree with most of the above. The three great classes, as described by Adam Smith, Ricardo, Ferguson, et al among the classical economists, are landowners (i.e. those who rely primarily on rent from tenants), capitalists and wage earners. The landowning class per se has become all but extinct, in developed countries, since the time of the above-named writers. There are also minor classes such as the petty bourgeosie (shopkeepers, self-employed tradespeople etc), small commodity producers (farmers, fishers, etc), but these are also now small numerically in developed countres and getting smaller all the time
There is a big difference in economic roles/interests between a wage earner who probably has some real estate/shares/etc but still relies on their wage to make a living, and the small minority who can live off the proceeds of share ownership/directors fees/etc. If Friedman etc didn't mention class, it's because class is irrelevant to their theories. Grant65 (Talk) 04:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Just remember our NOR and NPOV policies. Most scholars characterize capitalist societies as class-stratified. How they define "class," what they consider the specific classes to be, and how they see classes as similar/different or related, is something scholars debate and we ought to represent all the major points of view, properly sourced. And if there are well-established scholars who claim that capitalism is not — or is no longer — class-stratified, well, that opinion should be included too ... properly sourced, of course. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, economists represent only a partial group of scholars studying capitalism; there is a great deal of scholarship by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not disputing what directors do; what I'm saying is that their personal material interests are clearly different to those of wage earners. That is what "class" originally meant, not the vulgarised notions of ones neighbourhood, what kind of car one drives, what colour socks one wears, etc.
What I mean about non-proprietorial managers is that they are "capitalists" only by virtue of a paradox, i.e. they are actually wage earners (salary if you wish, there is no significant difference). However their job description requires them to act as total surrogates for the proprietors. Obviously a truck driver is a surrogate for the owners of the trucking company in terms of the acts that he/she performs. Many wage earners identify with their employers, whether it is a corporation or an individual. But managers spend a large proportion of their working time, possibly the majority of their time, thinking about other wage earners and how to make them work more productively. That is what I mean by "thinking like a capitalist". Grant65 | Talk 05:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
"The only economic theorist mentioned who supported the idea of classes was Marx" huh? Isn't MArx's whole system aimed at abolishing classes?
This seems to have degenerated into an argument about what editors think. Please remember NOR: it does not matter what any editor thinks. Many social scientists writing about capitalism have written about class. Therefore, class must be part of this article (it simply does not matter whether or how many economists talk about class, though of course any major economist who has talked about class should be mentioned in the article). It is the views of these scoial scientists that should be represented in the article -- not mine, not Luis rib's. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 21:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear person who wrote the Classes in Capitalism?, you said that that lots of workers own computers as "proof" that workers own capital (private property). I have several questions for you:
P.S. Many serfs during feudalism owned small plots of land.
Oh and one more thing. This worker who owned stocks. What percentage of the company did he own? And was he a worker or a foreman?
Leon Trotsky 5:58 PM November 17, 2005
--- My answer (btw. my name is Felix. I forgot to mention.): Those who own banks today are not "workers" today. But they might have been before. (I don't know) I am sure that their parents or grandparents have been. This is even more true for factories, transportation systems and telecommunication systems. Besides, many of these are publicly traded and you can buy your part of them if you like. What I wanted to say was that there is no structural barrier, no law that forbids one man to get rich and provides goods to the other, in free capitalism. Warren Buffett started out as a paper boy. Nobody stops you from starting a company. You can make as much money as you wish. What about Google? Microsoft? McDonalds? KFC? What about J.K. Rowling? She was an unemployed ex-teacher when writing Harry Potter and now she is richer than the Queen. And it is only in capitalism where this sort of change is possible within your lifetime. One thing about owning transportation systems: What do you do when you just bought (or inherited from your rich ancestors for the sake of the argument) a railway system and someone (a 'worker' perhaps) starts an airline. Then that 'worker' becomes a 'capitalist' and the 'capitalist' becomes a 'worker' in your arbitrary definition game. The problem is that this just means that some people have more money than others. It doesn't mean that you can define 'classes' of people where people are stuck and can't come out. And there is also no exploitation. You can change jobs, you can start your own company, you can work as a doctor or lawyer or plastic surgeon and live from your own work without a capitalist or a worker. Of course, this is also only possible in capitalism.
The worker I knew was at the lowest point in the food chain of that company. I know it because I worked with him. I don't know the percentage but it was enough to retire. You only need .1% to be a millionaire several times over. That's because Microsoft is a very rich company. Felix.
Well, actually the people in Ethiopia and Haiti and all the starving people have horrible living conditions precisely because they do NOT live in capitalism. Read Hernando de Soto's brilliant book 'The Mystery of Capital' on that. I really mean that. It's brilliant. It helped me resolve this issue. They don't have enforcable property rights in these countries. And without these there is no usable capital and therefore no capitalism. The problem is not an unequal distribution of the products of capitalism but an unequal distribution of capitalism. If all poor countries on this planet would vanish suddenly, our standard of living in the rich countries would not change dramatically. If one man builds a house it is his. Is it his fault that others don't have one? No it's not. One man being rich doesn't mean that another man has to be poor. Humans survive by production, not by theft. And Capitalism is the only system that acknowledges this fact. If you earn money, it is rightfully yours. You have earned it. You have worked for it. Therefore it is yours. It doesn't belong to some king or count, it doesn't belong to your country or your fellow man, not even a single part of it. It is yours completely. That's the only thing that is ensured in capitalism. If you work you get to keep the money you earn. Yes, it is true that if you own a company or stocks, it is possible to make money by employing other people to do most of the work. But you still need to have the money, and where did that come from if not from working and saving? And then, still, you can lose your money. Take Enron for example. And the only way to really make more money with the money you already have is to spend it on the tools of other people. Nothing else is owning a company. You own the tools and have the responsibility. Then you hire people to do the work. That, too, is work. But it is also done for you if you just buy stocks. But these CEO are fucking expensive. Yet, they are hired. You can't just hire people in America for a cent an hour. Why? Nobody would do it. Because there is competition between employers for the best work force. Why let someone work for your competition when he can work for you? A CEO is an employee, not an employer. Why doesn't he earn minimum wage, then? Because this is a key position and the competition among companies for the best people is fierce.
Before the advent of capitalism, we in the west were as poor as today's third world countries. At the beginning, children had to work under horrible conditions just to make ends meet for their families. Today, the average 'poor american' owns a TV while people in Africa still suffer hunger. Yes, this is horrible. I can only agree. But the solution is not to steal the TV, but to allow Africa to earn its food. All the wealth we have on earth has to be created and we'd see a real boost in the world economy if todays totalitarian regimes would vanish and be replaced by a country where the basic human right to your own life would be appreciated. Yes, it is right that you have more opportunities if you are rich. And if you are born as Paris Hilton, you have made it without breaking a sweat. But to deny people the right to become and be rich doesn't help anyone. Why can't a parent give all he has to his children? It's rightfully his. He can do with it as he pleases. The fact that there is someone out there who had less luck than you did doesn't give him the right to your money. What do you do with lottery winners, then? That you get rich merely by luck is just as rare as winning the lottery. Wealth, before it can be inherited (or unevenly distributed to the lottery winner), has to be earned. Therefore one man's wealth is not another man's misery.
Okay, let's do this more slowly. In the 1800s there was less wealth available. People just didn't have much in general. The pie to be divided was much smaller. Yes, there were some who had more than others. Even way more than others. Same as today. Same as always. But unequal distribution of wealth doesn't exist because of unequal distribution of rights. That's my point. A class structure would mean that some people have more rights than others, by corruption or before capitalism also by birth and by law. And this is the case in the poor countries you have mentioned, which is why they are not capitalist countries. Capitalism means equality in rights. And that's what they don't have. The reason you can't start a company in these countries when you are poor is because it takes 10 years of buerocracy(no kidding, de Soto tested this) and about five times the average yearly income just to legally open a little street store in Haiti. Same with the other countries.
And when you can't do that, you have no choice but get a job somewhere. But it gets even worse. Because these people have no legal title to their property, they can't use it as a collateral for credit. Besides, in unstable countries where property rights are hardly enforced and corruption rules, no outside investor is likely to invest.
This naturally (well, rather unnaturally) leads to a lack of entrepreneurs and therefore to a better position for the companies already in existence. Yes, this is exploitation. I can only agree. But the solution is not to end capitalism, but to start it. That's not capitalism. If the rich have more *rights* than the poor, that's the beginning of injustice. The rich can use their money to expand their power because they can buy their way through law. That's what's wrong and here, I think, we are on the same side. But my argument here is that this is not capitalism. Capitalism doesn't mean that there are companies where some people work and others profit. You have the same in every socialist country. It means that everybody has the legal right to his property and then can start his own company to make those at the top right now live in fear. Saunders (the KFC guy) started out with a small retirement check and an chicken recipe. He was lucky that he lived in America, because had he lived in Haiti, he would have worked his ass off in a government-protected factory for 37 cents. That's the difference between capitalism and a class system.
About equal opportunity. There is none. Never was. Even if you redistribute all the money in the world evenly among people, about five years later, you'll find the same distribution. With other people at the top maybe, but still it is unequal. Why? Because people are different. They are not equal. Some work more. Some have better ideas. Some prefer enjoying their lives. Some are workaholics. Some lust for money. Others don't.
You will never be able to make all people the same. Simply because this is not a good thing. All you need is a good idea, the persistence to realize it and the right to do it. That's all. The money you have is a minor factor.
Ok. Let's start with inheritance. Yes, if you inherit something, then you haven't earned the money. Someone else has. And he, who owns the money, decides to give it to you. He could also decide to give it to charity or someone else, but he didn't. What's the problem here? It's not your money they distribute, it's theirs. They can do with it as they please.
Just out of curiosity, what should they do?
Alright, now exploitation. I already agreed with you that the rich government protected company owners exploit the workers of Haiti. What else do you want to hear? But they can only exploit them because these people are not given basic rights. If they were, there would be no exploitation.
I brought up the capitalist/communist-issue because as far as I see it, capitalism means just that: Granting everyone basic rights to property and freedom and leaving these people alone, then. Our current system, then, is not capitalism as I see it, but socialism to a great extent, where it is possible to make money by force legally. Like agriculture subsidies for example. Europe pays enough for this to pay a flight around the world for every single cow in Europe. All this with stolen money. This is clearly wrong. But calling this capitalism means attacking the wrong side.
I think we just have different definitions of capitalism. Please name yours. Maybe we can get rid of some of the confusion that way.
Again. If you are not allowed to decide what should happen to your belongings after you're dead, what exactly should be done with it? Explain this further. You said that extra assets should be distributed among the public. What are extra assets and who decides this. You? And who is the public? Are families to move out of their houses to move to an appartment? Who gets the cars? What about the playstation? How much wealth do you allow people to have? And why?
Yes, there is no equality of opportunity. I already said that three times. There is equality of rights. There's a difference.
You can't force companies into higher production. It doesn't work. If you had sent today's politicians to the beginning of the 1900's, do you really think they would have been able to raise the general standard of living? With what? Redistribution never creates additional wealth. They could have stolen some money from the rich and given it to some poor people, yes. But they would never have been able to raise the general standard of living. It was low back then. That's not capitalism's fault.
I think here we have opposing views. You think that forcing companies to share is the way to go. I don't. That's because you believe it is exploitation and I don't, I suppose.
I read parts of Das Kapital, but I think that the theory of exploitation in capitalism is false. So, yes, please explain this to me again. Thanks.
As to the rich buying extra rights, yes, that one is wrong. (Something else I already said three times.) It is corruption and it is a crime. You see this as the definition of capitalism, I suppose: The rich do whatever the fuck they want. You never stated it explicitly, so I just have to assume. But that is not the definition any liberal thinker has clung to. And it is not my definition. Corruption is a crime because it is against the principles of capitalism. It's not part of it.
On the socialism/capitalism-thing: We live in a mixed economy today. One part is capitalism, the other is socialism. We have some of both. That's what a mixed economy means.
If the means of production are not privately owned, who owns them? Now don't say the public. Who is the public? Who decides what should be produced? Who maintains the means of production. What happens when something that is produced is not wanted anymore? Who would fire the workers, then? I really don't know how an economy is supposed to work without privately owned companies. Please explain this to me.
What exactly do you mean by not needed? Who says what is needed and what isn't? What about the family's house? Who decides if the family needs that house?
Capitalism has one single basic premise: Equal rights for everyone. Everything else is not capitalism. There may be companies and workers, but that's not capitalism. Period.
You said that companies have no right to their profits. This implies that they have to give away their money, right? If you don't say what you mean, I have to make assumptions.
My problems with exploitation theory in one paragraph: The company owners own the tools for production. They cost money. They then have these tools used by their workers. These tools are the reason for the high production of the worker, sometimes boosting it up to a hundredfold. How else can one pay higher wages for less work? The worker's labor is not the only source of the value creation. Without the tools, no work could be done effectively. The notion that those with money just make more money is also false. Most of the time, the company owner doesn't even have the money himself but has to borrow it to then pay it back with interest. And in most of the cases, they can't do this in the first year already and end up bankrupt (90% of the cases, to be exact) and the money borrowed is lost. The funny thing is that a big chunk of that money landed in the worker's pockets who then go to work for another employer. In one sentence: If I buy tools (and providing everything for a good job (engineering, etc.) cost about 100.000$ each currently), and then pay all income to the workers, why in the world should I do that in the first place? Then, you can only make money with other people's labor if that labor is geared to a useful purpose, that is: the creation of a value someone is willing to pay more money for than you paid for tools and labor for production (and marketing, legal issues, etc.). This doesn't have to be the case. Actually, most products fail in the market place (again it's over 90%). Getting a good company started is a great achievement.
Something else: What is the alternative you offer to capitalism and how does it differ from socialism?
80.184.141.21 13:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC) Sigh! The term equal rights consists of two parts. One is equal, the other is rights. In communism you don't have property rights, that's what rights means here. Equal refers to the rights, the property rights that is. Everyone has the same rights to his property. That doesn't mean that everyone should have equal property nor does it mean that if nobody has rights, that this is a good thing because a lack of rights is equally distributed.
Oh, and here's a link to a page about the principles of liberal thought:
Now who's mistaken about the intellectual premises of capitalism? If all you know is Marx, you have no idea. Actually it's worse: You have a wrong idea. I hope this helped.
If I own a 24 million dollar house and my familiy uses it and I die, may they keep it? Please, finally define your terms.
The other workers were paid for the tools. The tools weren't stolen. They were bought. That's the part of the capital owner in the production process. Buying the tools. With his money or money he borrowed. The only reason for a wage increase is increased use of capital. You can only work a given amount of time every year. The productivity of that time is given by the tools you use. Any increase in productivity is due to capital increase or by implementing an idea that allows you to create more with the same capital. This, by the way, is the job of the capitalist. The workers already worked to their maximum in 1900 didn't they? They even worked harder and longer. How can people today work less and still not die of starvation? By increased use of capital and brain power.
This seems to take longer than I thought. I think I'll get an account.
Wait, I have a better idea. I created a blog so we don't abuse wikipedia for chatting.
Liberalism is the philosophical basis of laissez-faire capitalism. Don't be disrespectful just because you disagree.
Yes, that's a good question. Where do capitalists get their first money from? According to your theory capitalists do nothing to make money and never did. The money they have must have magically appeared just like the factories they own for this to be the case. Please stay reasonable.
I already explained what an amount of work it is to build a successful company, but you don't listen.
You also offer no arguments. All you do is rant and rave and insult me. And even after repeated tries on my part to make you understand the difference between laissez-faire capitalism and todays system, you have failed to understand. No wonder you don't learn if you insult everyone who disagrees with you.
I talk about laissez-faire capitalism. Nothing else. I already agreed that todays system sucks.
Please explain to me how worker rights increase production. The only thing that can increase production is longer working hours or a more efficient work structure or better tools. Also explain what would happen to the family house which is to be inherited.
Another argument you offer is that workers should be paid according to the profits. This variable compensation would lead to workers not being paid at all if management fails or worse, workers would have to pay AND work. A fixed wage is a convenience thing, nothing else.
I don't think that wikipedia is a chatroom. We should really move this to another place.
Felix1981 19:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hm. I doubt that todays system can correctly be called capitalism. It's more like anarchism given the lack of equal rules for everyone. It's all about force, gaining political power either by a lot of votes or a lot of money. This has nothing to do with laissez-faire capitalism, where this (political power) is strictly forbidden.
You can only increase worker conditions if productivity has risen. That's what increased worker conditions. Not union force - productivity. The standard of living only increases if what you buy becomes cheaper or if you get more money. Your way would be to force a bit more money out of the current companies. My way is to make everything cheaper by using more and better tools which is way superior. You would never get todays standard of living by enforcing workers rights. You only get it by increased capital and improved capital use.
And that's, to repeat it, the capitalist's job. He has to invest his money where it yields the most dividends. And that is always the most innovative company. If you invested in Microsoft early you would have made a lot of money, even if you started out with little like my former co-worker. It's not what you have, it's what you do with it.
Well, not all companies make profits, especially not all the time. The guy who gets the profits also has to handle the risk of loss, whether it's the capitalist or the worker. And if it's the worker, as in your example, then if the company loses money he will have to pay the fixed fee for capital out of his own pocket. Something like this system already exists. It's called starting a company with borrowed money. Here you have to pay a fixed borrowing fee for the capital (interest) and you are in charge of what happens. And if you ruin it, a big chunk of the pain goes to the investors.
Worker risk? Now what's that? All that can happen is that he can lose his job and get another one. He can't lose his money, can he? He works, he gets paid. No risk. And if he loses his job, bad luck. He can find another one. Nodody cries when a company goes down when its services are no longer wanted for the same reason. Nobody should pay for something that's not wanted. Felix1981 10:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Anarchism means that there is no government at all, that means that there are no enforced general rules, that means no basic rights. Political power means the right to violate fundamental rights "for the higher good". That's forbidden in laissez-faire.
Yes, all profits go to the capitalist by definition. That, however, doesn't mean that all the additional benefits of innovation result solely in profits. These are often used to allow the company to grow. This usually means that the company raises its wages to attract more workers.
If a company benefits from hiring a worker, it will offer a job. If nobody responds to the offer, the only way to find someone is to raise the wage. If the entire work force is already employed, then how else do you attract other workers? You can only do this by offering improved conditions. In laissez-faire capitalism work is always scarce. Everyone is working somewhere, either as an entrepreneur, an investor (see my explaination below), or he's hired. And they already picked the best payment and working conditions they could find. You have to offer them an incentive to switch jobs. Otherwise they won't do it because they have no reason to.
If the workers ruin it, then the investor's capital is lost, at least to a very high percentage. Who pays it back to him. He only gets his interest if everything goes right, but if something fails, his money is gone. What your system does, if I understood it correctly, is to forbid hiring people, so that everyone has to be an entrepreneur of some sort. That means that you can't just work your job and get a fixed payment. Instead your wage depends upon which company you work for and if it yields profits. If it doesn't, all your work is in vain, even if you worked all year you end up with no money, maybe even in debt, even though you just worked at an assembly line. This doesn't sound very good to me. Capitalism allows both. You are not forced to be an entrepreneur. You can live quite well with wage labor. But if you want to be an entrepreneur (or feel you are being exploited), nothing can stop you. So in laissez-faire capitalism, you have both opportunities of which one allows you to just sell your labor and have no risk, which is a fine thing for most people who usually prefer to play it safe. If you want to be an entrepreneur and receive the full money but also accept all the risk, do so. Nobody stops you. Wage labor is not enforced in laissez-faire, because you always have the opportunity to borrow capital and start a company. I don't see how your system is an improvement. It limits choices. But maybe I understood it in a wrong way. If so, please explain it in more detail.
The capitalist's job is to pick the right companies to invest in, that means that he decides if the idea of an entrepreneur is worth it. If he thinks so, he gives money and if he's wrong he loses it. If it works out, yes, then he's a happy guy. But that's the only reason he borrows his capital in the first place. If this wasn't the case he would just spend it. Intelligent investments don't happen automatically. And given most companies fail, this is not an easy job. Especially if you don't work in that field (let's say cancer medicine) but should decide if it is worth putting your money into it. If you don't believe me, then try to make money in the stock market. There you are the investor. You can even try it without risk in these online games that allow you to play the stock market in real time with fake money. Good luck.
Okay, so the distinction is now clear: You agree that the CEO is a worker. Why do they get paid so much? What do you think?
Felix1981 13:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Laissez-faire is not anarchy. It is defined as a system where everyone has the basic rights to his life and property as well as the right to enter enforcable contracts. Ensuring this is the government's job. It does this and nothing else. Anarchy is where there is no government.
Please use arguments. 'Capitalists are assholes' isn't one. Please explain to me how you want to attract new workers when your working conditions are as crappy as your competitor's. They are not forced to stay with their current employer, but why should they switch jobs if there is no reason to? You just said 'Wahwah, capitalists are assholes and exploiters and history shows wahwah'. Please answer my question. And if you have no arguments, then at least consider mine and don't fall back into taking 'Some own everything and exploit everyone' for granted. It's wrong. I'm really trying here. Please listen.
My argument was that what you proclaimed was nothing new. It's already in use. In addition to wage labor. Why don't arguments have relevance?
Why does the invested money go down the drain? Because it is invested in labor and material that resulted in products nobody is willing to pay money for. So you had good money and traded it for crap. The workers screwed it up. They get no profits. But you -as the investor- have lost most of your money. It's not that you just don't get your interest. Your invested money is wasted. And a part of it went to the workers to feed them while they were working.
Work doesn't automatically transfer into money. That's the mistake in labor theory. In some way work is even insignificant. Now what do I mean by that? Of course to produce anything of value you have to do some sort of work. That's clear. But not all work ends up in something that people want. Especially in a competitive market place. You don't have to create something of value. You have to create something of better value than your competitor or the same for a lower price. Otherwise you don't make money and all your work is lost no matter how much capital or work you used. If the result is not sufficient, your company goes down.
This is something that happens very often. That 9 out of 10 startups fail is common business knowledge. It's expected. In fact you learn it right in the beginning of every MBA program. Here are just some sites I found during a quick search:
US Small Business Agency Harvard Business School Entrepreneur.com - Advice to better buy an already existent company instead of starting one
Starting a business is risky. But it pays off well if it works. And even investing in already existent companies is risky. Just try one of these online investment fake money accounts. It's very easy to lose your money. There's a reason most people prefer wage labor.
Felix1981 12:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
"Laissez-faire capitalism - it favours assholes who use harmful methods to obtain profit." What else does this answer show except that you didn't answer my question?
My question has been: "Please explain to me how you want to attract new workers when your working conditions are as crappy as your competitor's. They are not forced to stay with their current employer, but why should they switch jobs if there is no reason to?" Please answer it.
Laissez-faire is the economic theory that finds its philosophical basis in liberalism. It doesn't work with any other social theory because there basic rights are not ensured.
About the investor losing money: Your ideal model is already part of your current economy. It is called: buying bonds. A company(in your model this would be a company owned by the workers) issues bonds which investors can buy. This is in effect nothing but a contract that the investors get their money back after a defined amount of time with interest. If the company goes bankrupt during this time, the money is lost. This is bad for the investor. But this doesn't change the facts. If you invest your money in stuff that doesn't have value, then you lose your money. In fact that's fair. Why should you make more money when you spend all of it on wasting resources?
If I got anything of this wrong, as you suggest, please explain to me exactly how it is supposed to work differently. So, next question: "What exactly happens to the money the investor gives a company (what is it spent on) and how does he get his money back if the company goes bankrupt?"
Work creates value? Not always. Sometimes work destroys value. However, every value that is, is created by work. Now what is value? How do you determine if something has real value? Especially a product. When does it have value? When people are willing to spend money for it. Money is used to evaluate products and to compare their value. The amount of money someone is willing to spend for a product determines its value to that person. Without any way of measuring it, value is a meaningless term. Something has value if people are willing to give their hard-earned money to acquire it. That's an obvious proof of value. And the more people are willing to spend on it, obviously, the more they value it. That value is called price. The cool thing here is that your product doesn't have to be of value to everyone. It just has to be of value to enough people so you can sell enough of your product. So if you are a capitalist and you try to sell poorer products at a higher price, nobody will buy them and you will lose your money and deserve it.
Now if you have worked all year and have a huge container filled with the oh-so-brilliant product you have created (and it definitely has high emotional value to you) and you try to sell it. Then you realize, nobody wants it. Especially not at the price you want to sell it for, not even at the price you paid to produce it. Then you come along and curse the world because you are not paid for your work and all the 'value' you have created. And you miss the point that you have created no value, but have destroyed it and get punished accordingly. Had you created a great product many people want, then you could have made a bunch of money. But you haven't. Bad luck. All the money you have won't help you here. (That is also why stock prices go down and big companies die out when their services are no longer needed.)
There is no equality of opportunity. And there never will be. If you redistribute all the money on the planet so that everyone has exactly the same amount of it and then wait ten years, you will find that 99% of the rich people will be rich again and 99% of the poor people will be poor again. The difference is skill. Understanding what people want and producing exactly that for a good price. The equality is in the rights. The right to give it a try. To find out how valuable you are to other people.
What my examples prove is that work doesn't always create value. If it did, more startups would flourish. And combined with the fact that startups work harder than anyone else in the market to make it, clearly shows how wrong it is to assume that value is correlated to the work that is put into it. This is only the case if that work is properly used. And this proper usage is more important than the work itself, because without it, all work would be worthless. And this part of the equation is completely neglected in the labor theory which still claims that the work itself is all-important. Work that truly counts is entrepreneurial work. Because only if this is done right, other work has value. And that's why a manager deserves more money than an assemly line worker. His work is more valuable even if it isn't that hard.
Felix1981 13:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
"If you think capitalists will improve worker conditions to maximise THEIR profits, that's ALSO wrong. The easiest way to maximise self-profit is to find that magical line where you treat workers as CRAP as possible without them uprising." This was your answer. Where is the reason why this is possible? I find none. Why is it possible for a company to worsen the workers' working conditions, when they can just change jobs? The competing company will love to hire them, because they can bring that company additional profits. And how can companies grow without attracting more workers? Besides, the workers can start their own companies and offer better working conditions themselves.
Okay, I read the text below. But you still didn't answer how the workers should pay their money back. If the investor's money is lost, the workers should pay it back, because it isn't the investor's fault. How should they pay it back? Their company is broke, therefore their money is spent. They are now in debt. And they have little chance to pay it back. They can't be hired, because that is forbidden. They also have a lower chance of getting another investor to give them money, so they can't start a competitive company.
My argument was right from the beginning: "There is no equality of opportunity. It doesn't exist." Argumenting that there is no equality of opportunity in capitalism is like argumenting that there are no unicorns in capitalism. There just are no unicorns. That's not capitalism's fault. And by the way. The stupid celebrity is more valuable than the scientist precisely because more people value the celebrity higher than the scientist. The scientist may not like this and protest, arguing that his work is more valuable, because it is more difficult. But just because it is difficult doesn't mean that it is valuable. There are many very complex mathematical theories which may take years to understand, but which are of no value to anyone in the real world. Another example of the failure of the labor theory of value. Price is determined by two things:
1. What people are willing to pay (also known as demand)
2. Production costs (or in your terms: value) (also known as supply)
If you forget point one, you end up lamenting that you are so valuable, but nobody recognizes it. If you forget point two, you can't understand why diamonds are more expensive than water. The entrepreneur's (or in your terms the manager's) work is making these two meet. That's why workers alone may produce stuff. But they either take too long to be able to compete with workers with capital or they simply produce stuff nobody wants. The thing is that these two also combine in most cases. So this x=3 thing really doesn't help.
Yes, he may create something, but he will never be able to earn a living with it, because nobody would trade enough money for his products for him to buy enough food. Simply because they can buy better stuff at a lower price. This entrepreneurial factor (it's more like 1000 than 5) is crucial, because the worker doesn't exist in a vacuum. He is surrounded by an entire planet with the goal of producing the best products at the lowest price possible. That's why most startups fail and it's also why you can't start a business if you don't have a brilliant business idea.
So this 'picking the right products to create' is fundamental for the mere survival of the company. It's not just some nice bonus. And it's also more likely that workers get more money in better companies. Before you start with your Nike example again, well, I did some research and I found a report by someone who was actually there:
"Today Nike has almost four times more workers in Vietnam than in the United States. I travelled to Ho Chi Minh to examine the effects of multinational corporations on poor countries. Nike being the most notorious multinational villain, and Vietnam being a dictatorship with a documented lack of free speech, the operation is supposed to be a classic of conscience-free capitalist oppression.
In truth the work does look tough, and the conditions grim, if we compare Vietnamese factories with what we have back home. But that´s not the comparison these workers make. They compare the work at Nike with the way they lived before, or the way their parents or neighbours still work. And the facts are revealing. The average pay at a Nike factory close to Ho Chi Minh is $54 a month, almost three times the minimum wage for a state-owned enterprise.
Ten years ago, when Nike was established in Vietnam, the workers had to walk to the factories, often for many miles. After three years on Nike wages, they could afford bicycles. Another three years later, they could afford scooters, so they all take the scooters to work (and if you go there, beware; they haven´t really decided on which side of the road to drive). Today, the first workers can afford to buy a car.
But when I talk to a young Vietnamese woman, Tsi-Chi, at the factory, it is not the wages she is most happy about. Sure, she makes five times more than she did, she earns more than her husband, and she can now afford to build an extension to her house. But the most important thing, she says, is that she doesn´t have to work outdoors on a farm any more. For me, a Swede with only three months of summer, this sounds bizarre. Surely working conditions under the blue sky must be superior to those in a sweatshop? But then I am naively Eurocentric. Farming means 10 to 14 hours a day in the burning sun or the intensive rain, in rice fields with water up to your ankles and insects in your face. Even a Swede would prefer working nine to five in a clean, air-conditioned factory.
Furthermore, the Nike job comes with a regular wage, with free or subsidised meals, free medical services and training and education. The most persistent demand Nike hears from the workers is for an expansion of the factories so that their relatives can be offered a job as well. "
How's that for evil exploitation?
I've added the complete article to the blog I mentioned before, so I don't lose it. You can read it there, if you want.
Felix1981 22:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I give up. There is really no hope with you. If you think you're above reading arguments and answering them, then I can't help you. In fact, nobody can. I really tried everything to enter your stubborn mind, but you just don't listen, because you don't want to. And I can't change that.
Just one last thing: If Nike closes all its sweatshops, what will people do then? And what did they do before Nike came? You don't need to answer. You won't do it anyway. You won't even let this thought enter your brain. Because your opinion is fixed. I don't want to confuse you with arguments anymore. Good luck. You can delete this entire passage. We are truly wasting wikipedia resources here.
Oh, I almost forgot, Here's the source for the article I quoted, so you know I didn't write it myself, being the evil promoter of exploitation that I am. Do you actually read what you write once in a while? You really shattered my belief that people are basically open to arguments if you really try.
Felix1981 13:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I know I shouldn't do this, but OK, here we go: Let's just focus on one point:
Your argument was that Nike exploits poor workers in Vietnam by forcing them to work in lousy working conditions. This is not the case. Nike improved their working conditions dramatically. They get three times(!!!) the minimum wage. They can't change jobs you said. They can. They can go back to the crappy jobs they had before and many people there still have. Why did they switch jobs in the first place? Because working for Nike was a tremendous improvement in their lives. How would you feel if your income suddenly tripled. Your next argument was that Nike stops people from developing their economy. How? By providing comparatively well-paid jobs? By pumping money into the economy? And if Nike was really such a hindrance that worsens people's life, why don't they just ignore Nike. They don't because this is not the case.
It is true that people in that country still don't live up to our standards. But is that Nike's fault? No it's not. It's Nike's 'fault' that some of them have tripled their income and have better working conditions than before. I'm just waiting for other multinationals to go there and compete with Nike. But they can't do it. It would get bad publicity. They would be called mean exploiters because they created better working conditions. Just like Nike. And whose fault is this? It's the fault of guys like you who believe Nike should pay First World wages in Third World countries.
The workers get a great deal. They get way more than they ever thought they would deserve. These countries were poor as hell. They still have child labor and everything, simply because they don't want to starve. Now if multinationals go there and provide better jobs, jobs that allow these people to work less, earn more, save some and even send their children to school this is a good thing. This is unheard of in Vietnam history.
You say that they don't do enough. But they do enough according to the workers and that's what matters. Once more multinational have moved there and some Vietnamese people started out on their own, and everyone in Vietnam has tripled his income there will be more competition and Nike will have to raise its wages and improve conditions to keep people work there. Developing a country from poverty to our standards takes time and it is a gradual process but it will happen if you leave them alone. If you don't punish the companies who create new jobs in undeveloped countries. And creating new jobs always means creating better jobs. Otherwise they would get no workers. If Nike went to Vietnam and offered only 1/3 of the minimum wage, they would not have found workers. A new successful company is always an improvement for the people who get a job there. Otherwise they wouldn't take it, would they?
Arguing against wage dumping means arguing that the poor should demand high wages like we do. But they can't. This low wage is their only competitive advantage. They have no developed streets. They have not much but their working power. They have hardly any capital, and the some they have they can hardly use in an entrepreneurial way. It would be very hard for them to develop their country on their own. And not allowing companies to go there and actually raise their wages and punishing them for it is the worst thing you could do. Yes, these people deserve a better life. But they don't deserve to get it as a present from us. We deserve our money, too. Just let them earn it. They will. And using foreign capital and knowledge to boost their productivity and therefore income is and advantage we never had. Poor countries can grow very fast - if you only let them. This turned out longer than I thought. I hope you read it this time. Felix1981 19:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous user, please sign so we can keep different views straight. Even if you are unregistered, just put four tildes in a row. Also, let us try to use indentations consistently so we can tell one anothers arguments apart. Now, I have two comments for Infinity0 and one comment for both of you. Comment for Infinity0: first you say "the fact that the worker does not own the means of production." It is true that one stage in the development of capitalism is generally — and certainly at least in Europe — a process by which workers who posessed the means of production are disposessed of them. To me, this really really complicates the definition that capitalism is defined by "private ownership of the means of production." In fact, many private individual lost their ownership of the means of production, which is why they have to sell their labor-power. So the opening paragrapp or introduction jneeds to somehow communicate this, that as much as capitalism means private ownership of the means of production (or capital), it also means the loss of private owenership of capital. Second, I think I understand your explanation of exploitation theory, but I think the key point is that capitalists participate in two markets: the market for whatever they produce, and the labor market. Merchants like Marco Polo took advantage of the difference in price from one produce-market (say, silk for silver) in one place (say, China) and another produce market (say, in Venice). Capitalists take advantage of the difference in price between a produce-market and the labor market; their profit comes from the difference (if there is one) between the general price of labor they buy, and the price of the goods they sell. What this means is that the commoditization of labor-power is crucial to exploitation theory. This is my comment for Infinity0. Now my comment for both of you: please read my comment below. It does not matter whether either one of you likes or does not like, agrees with or does not agree with, "exploitation theory." What is important is that there are verifiable sources out there, some of whom promote and elaborate on "exp[loitation theory, and others who criticize it and propose alternatives. To comply with our NPOV policy, and our NOR policy, we cannot add our own views and arguments to the article, and should add the views and arguments, supporting and opposed to exploitation theiry, to the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, Infinity0. However, I find it hard to believe that someone who has been able to articulate these positions so well has not read books or articles that count as "verifiable sources." I hope you reconsider your commitment to editing over writing. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This honestly is an interesting discussion. Nevertheless, none of these comments can go into the article, because that would violate Wikipedia:No original research. There are, however, verifiable sources out there who have expressed a range of views on capitalism and class. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view demands that we include all major views, even if any or all of you disagree with them. Be that as it may, I cannot but believe that at least some of you are familiar with these citable sources and I urge you to put all the different views into the article, properly cited. Remember, the purpose of the talk page is to improve the article. Can't you guys channel all the energy you have been expending in this discussion into contributions to the article itself? Clearly among the two or three most active of you, you can develop a section that adequately provides the different views in an NPOV way. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Felix, as long as you comply with our
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy, and provide
verifiable
Cite sources|sources, no one should delete what you add. P{lease familiarize yourself with these three policies and make extra-sure you are complying with them. Then, no one has a right to delete your content and you can ask for community support. (the same of course goes for Infinity0 nd any other user — if someone is complying with these three policies, you shouldn't delete their work either. I am not accusing you of anything, just trying to be clear.
Slrubenstein |
Talk 18:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I started here with Classes in capitalism because I wanted the claim that there are classes in capitalism to be attributed to the guy who invented them: Karl Marx. I changed the article to make it more accurate, yet it was edited out. Then I complained here and nothing has happened. This led me to start this wild discussion with infinity0.
My first post as an official member :) Felix1981 13:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey, I just checked and the article is fine. Thanks. That's all I wanted.
Felix1981 16:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
You make a big deal about the "risks" involved. That's really not the point. Whatever the risk, the workers don't get their full worth. Infinity0 20:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, I would be quoting that theory, and others, which are more recent. The labour theory of value was established approx. 150 years ago (and was used not only by Marx, but also by other famous economists like Ricardo). Since Walras, however, marginal theory of value is considered as being more correct and as representing the real world more correctly. Indeed, I find it absurd that value would only be constituted of labour. After all, labour needs machines to work on, and the better the machines, the better the final output, and so the more value it should have. Also, the labour theory of value does not consider demand: you can have hundreds of workers making wooden gnomes, but those gnomes will be valueless if no-one wants them. It's just wasted work. Infinity0: you claim that value is absolute and price relative. How can this be? That would mean that a medieval cooking pot would still have the same value today as 500 years ago? Who would use a medieval cooking pot? Value cannot be absolute - and actually value cannot be really distinguished from price (except when prices are fixed or biased, in which case I would say that value can differ from the observed price). Luis rib 12:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
The machines are made by companies, which again employ labour and other machines, as well as natural ressources (metals and such). Also, I disagree toatlly that value remains constant. An LP has no real value in age of the CD; and the value of a CD has dimished as MP3 players have become available. Value is defined by the advantages it procures to its users, as compared to other things that provide the same or similar uses. Also, your one-sentence refutation is stupid. If no-one worked, people would still need to eat and drink, and water and food would be extremely valuable. Value can exist without any work - gold can be simply found in nature (in some rivers, for instance) and always had a lot of value for completely irrational reasons - also the value of gold is totally disproportionate to the amount of work involved in collecting it. Luis rib 12:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Gold has other uses than a means of exchange. Some people like gold as jewellery; gold also has a lot of industrial uses. These uses, however, were totally unknown thousand years ago. So it's wrong to say that gold's value is inexistent: it always had value as jewellery, and it became even more valuable once industrial uses were found for it. Luis rib 16:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
My point is that the quote is too long, basically, the second part doesn't say anything new. The page is way too big IMO and has way too much specific stuff like quotes from arbitrary right-wing economists. If you really think that quote gives so much extra information to the reader, then fine, keep it... Infinity0 23:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Infinity0, you asked somewhere above why invetors shouldn't get a fixed incomre from their investements. Actually they can get a fixed income, when they invest in corporate bonds. By investing in corporate bonds they don't become owners of a company, but lend money to that company. For that they get a fixed interest rate. Thus investors do have a choice: buy shares and get a variable income, or buy bonds and get a fixed income. You propose that shareholders should get a fixed income too - that would mean that when a company produces losses it still has to pay the same dividend to is shareholders than when it makes tons of profits! That's a very good way to bankrupt a company... Luis rib 11:42, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Economically, that's the same. They would get a maximal fixed amount per share. That's the same as if they would lend money to the company and get a fixed interest per bond. The shareholders provide the money which the company needs to operate. If the company doesn't pay them anything, they will take their money away and will put into a bank account. Then the company will cease to exist. We had this discussion above already. A company is defined by being a legal entity of fixed capital which is divided into shares or parts (depends on the type of company). If you take the shares away, there no company left. And you will only convince people to invest into such shares if they can expect a benefit from that. Luis rib 12:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course your example is perfectly workable, and there are some small companies which are entirely owned by its workers. In several European countries there exists a legal form called "cooperative corporation" where all the shares are owned by workers. The reason why this type of corporation is not more common is that workers usually do not have enough money/enough savings to invest into the corporation they work for. Also, the problem with giving the outside investors only bonds means that the corporation becomes indebted. If a corporation issues too much debt (i.e. too many bonds) it may not be able to repay all these bonds and may become bankrupt. That's why at some point many corporations decide to issue more shares, to push their level of indebtedness to lower levels. Luis rib 12:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Bonds are another word for debt. If say that investors should only get a fixed amount of money on teir titles (whether you call them bonds or anything else) that's just the same as saying that you are issuing debt. So you can only avoid debt if you give investors shares, which pay variable income. Why is issuing new shares exchanging justice for short-term money???? That statement makes no sense at all! Luis rib 13:01, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Wages are a cost, not a debt. Except if you don't pay them, in which case they become a debt. And the outside investor does something: he provides money to the company to pay wages, to buy machines, etc. Luis rib 22:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, funnily enough, many companies are partly going your way, Infinty0. Wages are in many companies linked to merit, which at least tries to evaluate a worker's contribution to a company's profit. Also, many companies are giving their shareholders almost something like a fixed income - by keeping dividends constant. Some don't even pay any dividends at all (like Microsoft, for most of its history) which mean that all the profits are kept inside the company. The investor's reward is a rise in the share price - since the company is becoming more valuable, its shares are worth more. That's how Bill Gates became rich, and not by taking the profits away from Microsoft. Luis rib 23:01, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure you'll excuse me if I continue the discussion here. It was becoming quite messy up there... So, you said that "Labour is the source of all man-made value". That's too simplistic. The amount of value labour is able to create depends on the machines (i.e. capital) it has at its dîsposal. These machines have been made by labour again, and by natural ressources. Natural ressources have a value that is independent of the amount of labour needed to get it. Petrol for instance has the same value no matter whether it comes from Saudi Arabia (where it is very cheap to extract it and almost no labour or machines are used) or Alberta (where it has to be squeezed out of some tar sands in a long, complicated and expensive process). Also, don't forget that at all points in the value chain capital gets paid too. The company that makes the machines also takes a margin on each machine as profit, to pay its creditors and its shareholders. Without capital, the machine-making corporation would not be able to buy the natural ressources needed to make the machine! Luis rib 12:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Unless this is a private party, allow me to hop in. As to profit as an institution, it represents several different realities. To begin, there's the simple fact of time preference. Everybody prefers now to later. If a two year old child has a right to a cookie now or a cookie tomorrow, he'll take the cookie now every time. As we get older, we learn to delay satisfactions, but still in some sense we have to be bribed to delay, there has to be a reason for the delay, some larger size to tomorrow's cookie.
Another consideration is that nature produces extra value over time. This was one of the key points in Henry George's view of the world, and although he is best remembered for the single tax proposal, that was only one part of a broader system of thought. Seeds turn into stalks of wheat, and gain in value as they grow. Grapes go from small and green to large, juicy, and purple, and likewise increases in value. Grape juice in a vat ferments into wine. In other words, by co-operating with the productive forces of nature we can bribe each other into accepting those delays, and getting that "bigger cookie tomorrow". In this sense, profit is a product of nature, both human nature and biology more generally.
Yet another consideration is risk. When you said above that risk is "the whole point", someone objected that productivity was supposewd to be the whole point. But that's a phoney dichotomy. Many productive enterprises involve risk of loss, and again someone has to be bribed to take those risks, whether through prospective interest payments or through equity profit or something else.
So, to summarize these considerations. The instinctive timne preference, combined with risk aversion, creates a demand for some institution whereby both the deferral of immediate gratification and the taking of risks will have a reward. The productivity of nature, and the various roundabout ways in which humans can aid that productivity, create funds whence that demand can be supplied. That demand, and this supply, together create a financial/banking system, unless some outside coercion blocks its formation. Virtually every society has some sort of financial/banking system to mediate all the to-and-fro of funds that arise from such considerations as these, although there is always the question what kind of financial system will do this most effectively. That is the kind of question an article about capitalism should systematically survey. -- Christofurio 16:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Even sweatshop workers can lose their job and end up as cheap prostitutes in a Bangkok backyard. That much for "sweatshop workers have nothing lose". Luis rib 21:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry Infinity that I missed this when you first posted it. I'll return to the issue, but I'll give it a new heading because that one was getting unwieldy. You say you've lost track of my point. It is, chiefly, that what you seem to be proposing -- a system in which the only outside investors would be those using debt instruments -- would prove an unstable system, for predictable reasons.
It sounds like you're saying that investment in corporate bonds is in principle better than investment in corporate stock -- i.e. one is less exploitative than another. If that is what you believe, you may be the only person in the world to believe it. To show why, let me ask you this: In an enterprise system with worker ownership on the one hand and bond holder participation on the other, would there still be enterprise bankruptcies, or not? If there would be bankruptcies, then would this mean the bondholders were out their investment, or would the individual workers owe them the money as individuals even after the dissolution of the company, forcing them (the workers) to also declare individual bankruptcies, or what? In a system such as that which obtains in much of the world at present, with transferable equity rights owned by outside investors, the answer is clear enough. If a company fails, the stockholders take the hit first, then the bondholders are usually compensated with the equity of the re-structured company. But in your scenario, there aren't any stockholders any more to cushion the fall for those bondholders. So either the bondholders are just out of luck, or they can continue to pursue the former workers of the defunct business. Which is it?
The latter possibility seems rather ghastly. In the former case, it seems to me, bondholders would soon (and quite sensibly) begin to demand some of the rights common stockholders have now -- whoever has that residual insolvency exposure, whatever its name, should have some say in who gets to manage the company. So the distinction between investment in equity and investment in a "fixed-price return" would be more one of verbiage than of substance.
"Look at it this way: investors don't do anything with the company - so if the company fails, it's not their responsibility, and what's the point of punishing them?" Okay, I'll look at it that way. There is no point in "punishing them." But the capitalist system doesn't do so. It allows them to take a loss, which isn't a punishment. The point of letting them take the loss is that they've agreed to take a loss, and that society (as represented for example, by both the bondholders and the workers) has an interest in letting them take the loss they've agree to take, And, more to the point, investors can hedge their risks by diversifying, whereas the internal investors necessarily have a lot more at stake. So if I try to look at it in the way you suggest, I come to the conclusion that risk-bearing equity serves a valuable buffering role, and that it is best for everyone to have that role served in that way. -- Christofurio 14:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
According to this: " Werner Sombart" "Der moderne Kapitalismus" (Modern Capitalism) was published in 1902, not in 1906. -- Alex1011 19:50, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
A couple people (e.g. slrubenstein) are reverting my edits to correct the error in the definition that says commodities includes goods and services. A commodity is a physical item. It's rarely used to refer to a service. RJII 20:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, Infinity and Slrubentstein are trying to put in the "common" definition of capitalism reference to "wage labor." Capitalism is not commonly defined with reference to "wage labor." Just look at the various definitions in Wikiquote. [3] RJII 20:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd also like to note that slrubenstein reverted without an explanation (a no-no), and dishonesly registered it as a "m". I've had a lot of problems with that so-called editor. I've seen very disruptive and unethical behavior from him in the past (such as launching a fraudulent arbitration case against me to try to get his way with this article). Watch him. RJII 20:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not think RJII understands what bandwidth is, at least not as commonly understood. Bandwidth refers not to "wires" but to the numerical difference between the upper and lower frequencies of a band of electromagnetic radiation, especially an assigned range of radio frequencies. The FCC often auctions these off. They are not selling (or renting) actual electrons, nor the media (copper wires, fiber optics) through which electrons move. They are selling the right to broadcast on a certain range of frequencies. InfinityO is quite right that bandwidth is not physical. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Moreover, if electricity is physical, so is "labor." Labor is the flow of electrochemicals across brain synapses, and the contraction of muscles, both very physical material things. Once again, Infinity), you are correct. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity0, "service," the way it is used in the intro is not a verb, it is a noun. Moreover, "economics" is one point of view. NPOV demands that we provide other points of view. Plenty of sociologists and other social scientists have written about the commoditization of labor. Those views should be represented in this article as well. If economists and other social scientists argoe over this, NPOV requires that we state that they argue (or disagree) over this, and provide an account of the disagreement. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Capitalism is not just based on selling commodities, it involves renting them too. More important however is the claim that many people make that capitalism comes into existence when labor-power is commoditized. Many people do not agree with this definition, but many people do. NPOV requires representing all views. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I actually think there should be a separate series for Captalism vs. Socialism vs. Free Market vs. Command Economy vs. Planned Economy vs. Decentralized Economies vs. Mixed Economies, as their definitions are somewhat intertwined.
I got out my econ notes from a while back, I'm basically checking the definitions, if this changes the article, or if someone wants to correct me, go ahead and correct:
There are two different ways to catergorize an economy into two.
Little Regulation Heavy Regulation
and
Low Government Expenditure High Government Expenditure
Heavy regulation AND high government expenditure are command economies, heavily regulated economies are planned (price wages enforced by the Nazis for example (although I didn't mean the example to be so extreme)), little regulation is decentralized, low government expenditure is capitalist, high government expenditure is socialist, and free market is both low government expenditure and little regulation.
Note that these are very subjective, and are not as simple as saying "Above 50% government expenditure as a portion of the GDP is socialist," because France has above 50% government expenditure as a portion of GDP and some people refer to it as Capitalist and some as Socialist. Similarly the argument goes for little and heavy regulation, some may say that the U.S. is decentralized while others are extreme enough to say it's a planned economy, the difference in opinion comes from the subjectivity of the two terms (I, for example, say that the U.S. is a planned economy because I'm pissed off and opposed to the regulations on power companies; but that's my opinion). China considers itself Socialist, while many other consider it Capitalist. Some consider the Soviet Union Capitalist because of it's Black Market activities. And so on.
In other words:
Little Regulation AND low government expenditure=Free Market Economy
Little Regulation=Decentralized Heavy Regulation=Planned
and
Low Government Expenditure=Capitalist High Government Expenditure=Socialist
High government Expenditure AND heavy Regulation=Command Economy
And a mixed economy is any economy that is thought of as a mix between socialist and Capitalist, technically this is all countries, but it is also a subjective factor (Subjective in that the percentiles aren't really placed, it's not like below 10% government expenditure is Capitlist, from 10-90 is mixed, and Socialist is >90). Fephisto 16:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Here are a few interesting facts:
"Corporatism" gets 798,000 Google hits. [4] "Syndicalism" gets 256,000 Google hits. [5] "Gift economy" gets 178,000 Google hits. [6] "Participatory economics" gets 57,900 Google hits. [7]
By way of comparison, "economic fascism" gets a mere 13,600 Google hits. [8] Why, then, does a certain editor insist on contrasting capitalism with "economic fascism" (which is a controversial term to begin with) as opposed to any of the above mentioned economic systems? Certainly, capitalism could be contrasted with any other economic system, but, in an introductory paragraph, we should limit ourselves to the most notable. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 07:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Another dispute seems to have developed around the definition of feudalism. The old definition, supported by User:RJII, is as follows:
There are several problems with this. First of all, how does a ruler "claim ownership of the land of private operators"? The sentence seems to be suggesting that first the operators start using the land, then a ruler claims ownership of it. This was not necessarily the case, and it is not clear who the "operators" are (if you mean peasants, then say peasants). Second, there is no single "capitalist theory". The economic system of capitalism is supported by several ideologies, each with its own separate theory. I daresay that the majority of supporters of capitalism would not agree with a theory which implies - among other things - that the territory of the United States should be given back to the Native Americans. The replacement definition I propose is the following:
Do you object to it, RJII? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 02:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi all. I made a special subsection just for the Contrasts because those descriptions were mixed with the general theory. I cleaned it but took care not to munge any of your definitions. LordMac 10:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
RJII, you just added a comment that in communist societies the produce of labor is shared and not traded. What is your source for this? Please provide a verifiable source. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't get hysterical. I was not challenging the truthfulness of what you wrote, I was only asking you to comply with our policy to cite sources. I do not consider a dictionary to be a good source, it's like copying an article from another encyclopedia — we are here to write our own encyclopedia. Good sources would be books or articles about the history of communist thought or actual communist societies. You mention the Italian Federation — that was only one faction, certainly not in the majority, at the First International. If this is your only source, then you cannot say "In Communism ..." you would have to say "In the Italian Federation's interpretation of (or vision of) communism." And what is your source for that, anyway? yes, I know it is in another article, but that article makes it very clear that this was one faction of "anarcho-communists" at a conference. This is not at all the same thing as making a general claim about communism. Please provide a verifiable source that suppports your claim. Or, modify the claim based on a verifiable source. That is all I am asking for. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
What was your source? A definition from a dictionary? That is not a scholarly source. If you haven't done the research, then don't add the claim. Provide a serious source. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, thank you for doing what we at Wikipedia call "research" and actually drawing on a meaningful source. However, I want to point out a few things concerning claims about communism: First, Marx's communism was theoretical, and — however important his and Engel's theories and hopes — was never put into practice. Second, there were before and after Marx and Engels other theories of communism, and any claims about "communism" should represent them, and not only Marx. Third, although there have been no communist states, there have been functioning communist communities; these provide empirical data on how a communist economy can function, and should also be taken into account in any claim about "communism." From these three facts arise two conclusions: (1) it may be hard to define or formulate one general model of "communism," and (2) an account or explanation of "communism" needs to be based on research into each of these areas. Slrubenstein | Talk 03:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
slrubenstein, you just stated in the article that in communism an "individual" can own the means of production. [9] That's absolutely ludicrous. Time for you to provide a source. I'll even accept a children's dictionary. RJII 03:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC) slrubensteine, you reverted back and still haven't provided a source. If you don't (and I know you won't), you know where this information is going don't you? RJII 03:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Ihave no source? I just provided two for you -- two sources actually written by communists (the German Ideology citation by the way is p. 53 of the 1970 English International Publishers edition). Two sources from what we in English call "books." Your only source is a dictionary? That is not research. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
It is kind of amazing that RJII, who knows nothing of communism (at least, Marx and Engels' brand of it), keeps making false claims without any sources, whereas Infinity and I have produced sources written by Marx and Engels and RJII says, in effect, that these are not sources. We are through the looking glass now! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Last night we provided two sources so far, one from the Manifesto, and one from the German Ideology. In support of Infinity's point, I now provide two more. First, from the German Ideology:
(this seems to describe RJII's position perfectly)
In other words, it is this abstract bourgeois notion of "property" Marx and Engles wish to abolish. Not "private property" as they themselves understand it.
- :::I am not talking about anything, I am quoting a verifiable source written by someone else, which is what articles should be based on. That you do not understand what this quote is saying is your problem. Nothing in the quote suggests that Stirner is a communist. You make things up out of air. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
The second source is from Lenin's State and Revolution:
To manage production independently suggests individual control over the means of production. It is very clear to anyone who as done real research (thus excluding RJII) that Marx, Engels, and Lenin see capitalism as anti-individualistic, and they see communism as true individualism. So, now I have provided (with Infinity's help) four examples. Note that RJII has produced nothing. He does not know how to do research, he has not done research, and even now he refuses to do research. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for providing a source (something RJII cannot do). But Infinity0, you need to provide a citation. Who wrote this? Where? What page? Does this represent the view of all communists, or of some communists? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, I think you are using "means of production" in too narrow a sense. If you are referring to factories, I agree that under communism ownership will be collective. But note, I wrote "individually or collectively" (perhaps the or should be changed to an and). This is because "means of production" does not refer just to factories. Shotguns and fishing rods are also means of production, as are a carpenters plane and a hammer. When Marx and Engels write that "communist society makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evning, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind" he is describing a world in which individuals can produce independently as they wish. They will therefore own certain means of production themselves, to use as they please. To understand Marx and Engles, one must do at least two things: understand their ditinction between bourgeois notions of "private property" and other ways of conceptualizing or describing private property, and understand that means of production is a HUGE category that includes many different things. You yourseld introduced the quote in which they describe how it is capitalism that is abolishing private ownership of the means of production. The kind of ownership of means of production that capitalism destroyes, they wish to restore. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not object to that, but can you see a way of putting the two terms back in and explaining it, I mean in fewer words than what I wrote above? If you do not want to try to you mind if I try? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Tell me the source that says it's "not capitalism" unless there's a lot of "wage labor". I'm not trying to be picky about citations here; there is no such mainstream source. WP is not place for your to promote your ideology. Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not before further editing. MrVoluntarist 18:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Google search for "capitalism wage" Results 2-4: (1 is wiki page)
Now stop being so difficult. Infinity0 talk 19:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And RJII: about your addition: "In capitalism, individuals receive wages or salaries for their labor." That's true, if you're referring to "many" (not all) individuals, and a common occurrence rather than inherent characteristic. But even so, does it really belong in the intro? There are a dozen other things that hold true for "many" people in capitalism; do they all have to be listed in the intro? MrVoluntarist 19:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok then, ladies and gentlemen, if those source aren't good enough for you, what IS the definition? HOW DO capitalists run their means of production??? Infinity0 talk 19:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Use "wikipedia to spread Marxism" my ass. That article isn't even on my watchlist, and I've only ever edited it once, and that was to add a cleanup tag. Infinity0 talk 19:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I know of no economist who would define an economy of partnerships and contractual freelance workers as "not capitalism". - your mistake: an economy with no wage labour is not capitalist. Even so, the current text reads: "usually.. through employing labour for a wage". I know of no economist who would claim wage labour is NOT part of capitalism, or even that capitalism does not require wage labour to work. Infinity0 talk 19:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, great, now I'm glad you agree "wage labor" is not part of the definition of capitalism since the sources you cite and support don't include it. So you can stop inserting in the intro. Thanks for being reasonable this time. MrVoluntarist 20:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Output isn't labour, which is what you imply.
They'd stop calling it capitalist if everyone worked for themselves and there were no corporations or wage labour. The word "capitalist" simply wouldn't be an accurate term to describe that situation, and another word will be invented.
BTW, you want a nice right-wing source to show capitalism hugely contains, if not requires wage labour? Here you go, from "Capitalism" by George Reisman.
Infinity0 talk 21:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
How do you know that is how he uses "wage"? He is writing a professional book, he must be using the real definitions of words. What other "compensations" for labour can you think of? I have provided a great deal of sources to support my claim. You have not provided any. Can you find a source that explicitly states capitalism does not require wage labour, and lists other forms of compensation? And if so, why is wage labour a great majority of the current capitalist system? 5 quotes is hardly "flooding you with text"; they are even compacted into bullet-list form. Maybe you need some glasses? Infinity0 talk 21:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, so according to you, I'm wrong. So, some guy writes a book, and uses a word in a totally different way from normal, without explaning what he means, because people like you understand him. Yup, sounds credible. CEOs still have wages as it's fixed. They might have "share of profits" but that's not for the work, but because they own part of the company. Please give one example where the alternate form of "compensation" is for a pure worker, and for the work and only the work. Shares, fringe benefits, &c are not for the actual work. And what do you mean by "contract payments"? That's vague, please specify.
Now definitions are suppose to list everything that is optional? - Ever read a legal agreement? It lists every unnecessary optional thing. As for this, somebody would have wrote SOMETHING about it if it's true, since it's such a hotly contested subject.
Please copy and paste the links because I can't find what source you are talking about. As for the explanation for wage labour existing in capitalism, you gave a half-assed explanation of it being a temporary phenomenon. Why do you think it's called capitalism? Because people use capital to buy labour, which is turned into a commodity instead of a human force. Infinity0 talk 22:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And further, the fact that A commonly occurs in B does not make A part of B's definition! - look, the article doesn't say it's the definition. The definition is disputed anyway! All the article does is give a description of the present day system of captialism in use at the moment, now. Infinity0 talk 22:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, you insist on mentioning wages in the definition of capitalism, yet you insist on deleting mention of wages in communism. Why? If wages are so essential to capitalism, according to you, then that would certainly be something to contrast with communism where individuals are not paid for their labor. RJII 22:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Infinity, now you're taking out the fact that workers own the means of production "collectively" and just saying that workers own the means of production. How is that a contrast to capitalism? In capitalism, "workers" can own the means of production as well and usually do. Private ownership of the means of production is capitalism. Collective ownership is communism (collectivism). RJII 22:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Folks, while citing sources is always a good thing, the real issue here is compliance with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It is evident that there are different definitions of capitalism. To single out any one would violate our NPOV policy. We should in the introduction lay out the major definitions. Marx's definition, that it is defined by the commoditization of labor (i.e. the creation of the labor-market) is one (and it is one still used by many scholars in the social sciences, even ones who reject communism — not just the CP). Others (Gundar Frank, Wallerstein, Sweezy) have defined it as market economics on a global scale. I certainly think that if there is a standard definition in economics textbooks (Samuelson, anyone?) or business school textbooks, that should be featured as well. This brings us also to Wikipedia:No original research. It is not up to any one of us to "define" capitalism. Infinity0 has provided the basic Marxist definition and in order to comply with Wikipedia:Cite sources we need only cite Capital volume I chapter 1. I can dig around and provide good citations for the world-systems view. Does anyone own a copy of Samuelson's textbook? Does anyone know if there is a standard business school textbook? Did Hayek ever formulate a definition? The intro should provide all of these definitions as concisely as possible to comply with NPOV; the differences, and why the differences matter to different people, could be developed in the body of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
RJII, it sounds like you are violating another policy: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary Slrubenstein | Talk 16:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
It says dictionaries should begin with a good definition, one that is nether too broad, nor too narrow, and certainly not one that violates NPOV. In the case of capitalism, where there have and continue to be ongoing debates about how to define it, the introduction must acknowledge those different definitions. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The definition, to be a "good definition," has to comply with our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
SUGGESTION: Wage labour is money in exchange for work Q.E.D.. If a person who supplies labour is paid in something other than "money" then they are paid in kind and they are not wage labour. This is not only common to a capitalist economy. When an economy becomes too large and complicated to offer goods/services in exchange for labour (or vice versa) then there is need for a universally recognised medium that represents a value, i.e. money. It is a natural tendency of more complex economies. Something has to be present to give to labour and allow them to decide what to buy and when to buy. Money was present in communist countries. Money was paid to labourers in communist countries. Therefore wage labour exists or existed in communist countries. The fact that capitalism utilises wage labour is of no consequence. What is of importance in defining capitalism is the way labour is used contrary to other forms of economic systems. I would say it was not that much different save the fact that the market forces of supply and demand were not allowed play as important a role in communist countries in adjusting wage rates; the numbers employed in perticular industries; the bargaing power of employees, etc. So we should not look to the concept of wage labour to define an economic system but ot the role of market forces and how they were restricted, diminished or augmented....And that's another story. Bold textM&Ms
I think you're misquoting Marx, RJII. The full quote reads:
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
It would be better to put "bourgeois" property, as Marx specifically says "not the abolition of property generally". It's very confusing to say "the workers own the MOP" in one sentence and then say "abolition of property" in the next sentence. I really have no idea what "private" is suppose to mean from the way you think of it... Infinity0 talk 19:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Well... that's also disputed, he doesn't want to abolish personal property either. ("you mean the property of the artisan, blah blah, there is no need to abolish that"). He specifically means MOP property, ie. that which can be used to "exploit" other men. So that's why I dislike using "private property" and think "capitalist property" is more appropriate. Infinity0 talk 19:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, do you even have a quote to support "communism is collectivisation?" I've never read of it in Marx, just curious. "Antithesis of individualism as far as labor is concerned", what? The whole point of communism is to stop worker exploitation which is anti-individualist. Infinity0 talk 19:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
At least you admit that there is something you "don't know." Funny how you rely on phrases like "common understanding" as a substitute for having actually read books and articles, i.e. "research." Slrubenstein | Talk 01:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not being a wise-ass. Different sources reflect different points of view, which is why we have our cite sources and NPOV policy. Providing specific sources (e.g. from different disciplines like economics, sociology, etc. or from different professions e.g. business or academia, and so on) is important. We both know you haven't read all books and articles (neither have I). So tell us which ones (provide citations) and identify the point of view. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This section fails to mention the rise of capitalism in former command economies, such as the PRC, Eastern Europe and Vietnam. -- Миборовский U| T| C| E| Chugoku Banzai! 03:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, capitalism gives everyone a bigger piece of the pie because it makes the pie bigger. It is also a sink or swim proposition, if you fail there is less of a safety net; but there more opportunity for success and advancement for those who are willing to apply themselves. Bdelisle 19:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I\'m using a proxy, hidemyass.com, to edit wiki cos it\'s blocked in China (might be just my ISP). And now it\'s gone and escaped all the single quotes. Please someone fix this, and I\'m really really sorry, etc... Infinity0 talk 11:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to change the first paragraph, but can't as I'm in China, using a public computer atm. My version is this:
I believe this is more NPOV than the current revision which asserts that it is definitely NOT part of the definition. Also, please remove the "Capitalism is defined various ways, see wikiquote" sentence which Ultramarine keeps adding, as we already have a wikiquote link box. Infinity0 talk 12:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Many mainstream sources consider wage-labor as a defining feature of acpitalism: Wallerstein, Frank, Wolf, deJanvry to name a handful of very prominant and frequently-cited authors. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Your notion of "mainstream" is just your POV. There are different POVs and they should all be represented. Nowhere did I say "wage-labor" means "underpayment." It means selling one's capacity to work in return for money. What do you think "wages" are, anyway? I am glad that you support representing different points of view. I am skeptical that we can come up with one definition that makes sense and includes only what is common to all major definitions -- this is the crux of my point. (by the way, most people who read Marx and Wallerstein and Frank see the latter two as breaking with Marx) Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe I do not follow you. Are you seriously saying that one can have a capitalist economy without free labor and the llabor contract? Slrubenstein | Talk 01:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I mean no offense to MrVoluntarist nor did I take any offense by anything he wrote. He was mistaken however to think I mean that wage labor means one gives up one's right to work in exchange for money. They give up their capacity to work in exchange for money for a fixed period of time, determined by custom, law, or contract. During that period of time all the products of the worker's labor owns its fruits. Apart from that time, the worker is free to do what he or she wants (unless law or contract otherwise limits him). I hope this is clearer. I said "capacity to work" rather than "work" because a man working in a factory is not selling whatever he produces - what he produces does not belong to him. Only the capacity to produce during a given period of time, that is what he is selling. To further clarify, those people who define capitalism in terms of wage-labor do not consider exchanging labor for money with exchanging labor for other things (e.g. trade in kind) unless it is clear that it is a market exchange governed by the law of supply and demand. There are many societies in which people do not sell their labor, but that are NOT autarky; to claim otherwise is simply to be mistaken. 01:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
As you saId, erroneously, that I was saying that in capitalism "you lose your ability to work." I did not day this, nor did I mean this, so obviously you misunderstood me. Nor did I say, as you do, that one sells "time." That is as you say metaphysical and clouds the issue. One sells one's capacity to work during a particular period of time (specified in a contract, usually). Is an independent contracter a wage-laborer? Off-hand I would say no, but it is an interesting question. The fact that it is a question I have not answered does not render my point invalid. As to non autarkic socieites, please read: Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders, Rappaport Pigs for the Ancestors, Malinowski's Argonauts of the South Pacific, Weiner's Women of Value, Men of Renoun, and Evans pritchard's The Nuer for starts. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Now you are being insulting. Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks. You asked me to name societies that were not autarchic and that did not have wage-abor, and I provided five case-studies. You do not have to read them. All that is important is that I have established that such societies exist, or have existed, and I have provided sources. That is all that Wikipedia calls for. I also urge you to reread our Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability pages. You seem to be arguing over what is right and wrong. Wikipedia articles are not arbiters of what is right or wrong. They instead provide accounts of established views and provide sources. I said that there is a particular view of capitalism. It does not matter whether you think that view is right or wrong. It does not matter whether I think that view is right or wrong. But it is a view that can be linked to verifiable sources and for the article to comply with NPOV this view has to be represented in the article. That is the point I have been making. You right "If you sell your capacity to work, that implies you lose your capacity to work." That is your view. But your view does not belong in the article. This is not the view of those people who define capitalism in terms of wage labor i.e. selling one's capacity to work. It just is not what they mean. Whether you think that is what they mean or not, or whether you agree with thm or not, is irrelevant. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
It is not for you to "evaluate" what I have "given you." It is our collective task to write a verifiable NPOV article. It is up to me to provide verifiable sources for the content I provide. Unless you are claiming that I have not provided verifiable sources, your thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.
Slrubenstein |
Talk 00:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)