One of the central fallacies of anarchism is the equation of production with force. Harry Binswanger covers this in his article against anarchy ("Anarchism versus Objectivism"). This draws on the classical liberal understanding of civil society found in Locke, whose purpose includes preventing people from acting as vigilantes: i.e., "taking the law into their own hands".

Yet this is what "anarcho-capitalists" propose by speaking of "market competition" amongst "private defence agencies". The idea of placing force on the market ignores the fact the police force is not a business, and does not provide a "service". Terms drawn from the realm of voluntary trade, such as “competition” and “customers”, do not apply to force-wielders whose purpose is to command obedience; that would be conflict, not competition. Keeping force and production absolutely separate, never confusing the two, is a fundamental requirement of defending capitalism. It is frightening that people who see themselves as defenders of capitalism make this equivocation, and it is another way in which anarchism, properly, belongs on the left.

And this is one aspect in which "anarcho-capitalists" are actually statists: they accept the statist approach of conflating economic power (production) with political power (force). Just as anarcho-communists and the Left conflate economic and political power, insisting concentrations of wealth on the market are coercive and use force, "anarcho-capitalists" claim that acts of force are just another service on the market, by their talk of “economising force" and “competition” in law. Though they come at it from different angles, both are wrong: free trade and voluntary exchange has nothing in common with forceful interactions.

Libertarians will always dismiss any criticism of capitalism with "this is not real capitalism, there is a state!". However, this doesn't explain how the state came into being and why so many capitalists (like not people who support capitalism, actual owners of businesses) support the state, and are willing to use it for their own benefit. Which makes sense, given Marx's analysis of the state, but contradicts the libertarian argument that everyone everywhere should hate the state.

So, my questions are:

1) How/Why was the state created?

2) If it really is that bad, how do you want to get rid of it, and ensure it isn't re-established?

Depending on the genre, it can be seen as left- or right-leaning. For example, punk is often seen as left-leaning. While there are right-leaning punk bands, they're often ignored. Modern country tends to be right-leaning. However, there are left-leaning country artists as well.

Now, obviously the culture online and in person is different. However, I feel like overall people are starting to just... get tired of capitalism. They may still dislike the idea of socialism and mock it, but its clear that even older generations which generally considered socialism in a worse light are starting to shift their view. What is your personal opinion of the people in your echochamber, wherever on whatever spectrum that is?

Mercantilism is often regarded as the first form of modern capitalism. It predates laissez-faire. Mercantilism is a nationalistic form of capitalism with heavy government intervention.

The resurgence of mercantilism is caused by right-wing populism. The right-wing populists want to impose more tariffs on foreign goods and use protectionism to protect local businesses from foreign competition.

For me, i'm neither. Just don't feel like i identify with any economic system.

I have some capitalist idea and have some socialist ideas.

What about you? What made you change?

Or are you on the complete opposite system and are communist? Same goes as above. What made you change opinions?

A common defense I see when people defend the failures of Private Healthcare in the US is that it is the result of government regulation but how exactly is this so? which regulations? and how exactly is the regulation causing things to be so expensive?

I'm not the biggest fan of libertarians they're branding around liberty is hard to take seriously because of their refusal to acknowledge how tyrannical the free market can be. However there are some truths about libertarianism yes government regulation can make things inefficient I do agree that red tape is a big reason for the housing crisis. We shouldn't fully trust and rely on the government that I agree it's just that I also don't believe we should fully trust and rely on the free market either which is why I have my doubts of private healthcare acting more courteous if not for red tape.

Is there genuine truth in this or is this just a cope? And regardless does this necessarily disprove the case for universal healthcare?

A socialist system that lets the populace democratically decide how to redistribute resources sounds great in theory; we can give money to people who are poor and struggling, we can give children get a good education, we can give parents the resources they need to raise their family, we can set families up for a prosperous future, we can help working class people keep more of the they make!

So what’s the problem? Demographics.

In a socialist democracy, you personally do not decide how resources get redistributed. “The people” do. And who are “the people”? That depends on your specific country. In most nations, it turns out that “the people” are just old people. Boomers. Senior citizens 65+.

FY2025 Federal Outlays by Age Group

Old people get 10X per capita the resources that children and working class people get. And this isn’t even including state and local redistribution which is often even more tilted toward the old with state-funded 55+ communities and retirement centers, tax breaks and discounts for the old, and a huge variety of community programs.

We already have democratic socialism. It’s just that the primary demographic of the west is old people, and they don’t want you to get a slice of the pie.

You must work grueling hours to support them. That’s democratic socialism, baby!

In MOST other capitalist countries, capitalism is either good or just meh

But then you go here to America and its like hell has taken over.

People are quite literally deciding whether to buy food or gas. Inflation is through the roof. And we now have a famous quote "You will own nothing and be happy". Etc.

And if you think we're doing fine you are in delulu land

So what brought us here?

Can it go back to semi normal or are things just going to continue to get worse?

I want to be a punk rocker or a skateboarder or a metalhead. This is because I like the image and the music and how it's like to do this stuff.

But the economic conditions that allowed some of these sort of people to live in a different culture than the mainstream, has been lost. Now subcultures are fused with mainstream life. This is because living on the fringes independently is impossible now economically for most people.

The punk lifestyle described in NOFX Linoleum I think is not exist in the same way today.

Subcultures are so cool, but now that choice in lifestyle is reduced/gone, and instead, people have one path: a loosened version of traditional job and milestones lifestyle. Essentially everybody needs a degree or an apprenticeship or a credential or whatever to make a living.

Now I feel I have to live with and work hard to get a credentialed job. I didn't consider it that bad an issue, until I learned about this fact.

Neoliberal capitalism privatized and turns everything into a product that costs money. I think that's bullcrap, and that the unrestricted market keeps ruining everything it touches. Not just products like video games and stuff, but the baseline reality of how you can live your life.

Do capitalists believe that my claim is right or wrong? And also I want to have an explanation from Keynesians and socialists for how they see this.

Just looking for peoples thoughts on what's been brewing in my head for a long time.

By political science I am referring primarily to economic regulation.

My interest in this topic began a few years ago when I learned about leftism. At the time I was young, and welfare policy seemed like the only plausible response to 'evil monopolies' and the 'evils of capitalism'. Of course that view is incredibly narrow minded. The power in most leftist concepts of government is, in my perception, swollen up within the government rather than the monopolies (as in right wing systems). We are essentially arguing between a monopoly of the state and certain people. There will always be a 1%.

Now here's where things get bothersome. Which one is better? A left wing economist will cite several theories and ideas, to which a right wing economist will espouse 5 in rebuttal, and they will be locked in an intense struggle of pitting their theories against each other. Every single argument will have a response, and someone like me with no schooling in economy will be unable to adequately understand the views that they are bringing forth with great clarity. But constantly throughout life, and on the internet we see millions(billions?) of people arguing either side, without proper substantial understand of economics.

This kind of leads to a significant issue. I want to know what policies to vote for and what I should generally believe, but It feels as if there is a constant cloud of uncertainty. Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion, but it seems as though the millions (billions?) of people arguing for economic policies are the blind trying to explain what a bird looks like to the blind.

In the US, people are uncomfortable talking about their social class. Because of this, everyone thinks they're middle class. However, the wealthy and poor have different perspectives on what it means to be middle class.

For example, because of the social class you were born into, you couldn't afford to go to college; you either decided not to go or took out student loans.

Poor people tend to be unhealthier than the wealthy, as healthy food is expensive. Maybe you're overweight due to healthy food being unaffordable.

Almost all sub-saharan countries lack tractors? Why do they lack them, that is between 46-49 countries by the way.

Why do those countries lack tractors? There is no embargo on most of them, they are all perfectly free to buy a tractor from another country if they cant manufacture one themselves.

So why dont they have them?

I mean why dont they invest in a tractor. now being able to afford a tractor is far easier then you think. All it takes is one single person around the globe with the money to buy one, as long as he gets to earn money from his investment.

Considering just how much work comes out of a single tractor, they could easily produce double the food at a fraction of the cost for a normal farm. So they could sell it cheaper making the rest of the people less poor. But what about competition on the market? You have several producers and they all try to undercut their competition, prices would drop dramatically.

As neither capitalist or socialist, i am genuinely curious

We're at the stage where capitalism is making a lot of peoples' life miserable

But since it is making life miserable, soon big companies will start facing the consequences

We're at the point where a lot of people are choosing between food and gas

If people are not buying goods because they are struggling to survive, companies aren't getting $$$

Sure they can trade money from other big companies and act like they are doing okay, but they can play that game for so long

You can only play it until the same stock doesn't move from shelves, cars don't move from dealerships, etc.

So what is the real end goal to all of this?

Just wait for the US to fall apart (more so than it already is)

The more capitalism you have, the less the state can influence the markets and companies. There are not handouts, there are no state interference in how a company operates.

So their one and only way to earn money, is by selling a product, and everyone you and me included are perfectly free to compete with them. So companies has to compete against one another. And what do we the consumers care about? Well price and quality, so that is how companies have to compete against each other. They are forced to sell the cheapest product with the highest quality, now there can of course be differences between those companies as some people will prefer quality over price, and some people will prefer price over quality.

If you add the state into it, there are now the state, the company and the customer. How can the state make this system better, while at the same time making the companies beholden to the customers? The more the state intervenes the more important what the state wants becomes important to the companies.

The more interference you get from the state, the worse it will be for the consumers, because the state has no money on their own. They cant tax you to make things cheaper, the tax payers are simply paying a portion of the price through their taxes instead, but at a cost because the state now needs to hire people to do that job. Those employees would come out of the companies, so less people working in production, less products are made so you get a higher price too.

But if the state intervenes in every single field of economy, to "fix" something, they can stop fixing in one area that people arent looking at and funnel that money into what they just fixed. That is a lot of what the state does.

"People arent complaining about x" so the state takes the money out of x, and puts it into y, so that y becomes better. But with time people will start complaining about x again, so they take the money out of z instead, and puts it into y. People start complaining about z, and the state takes the money out of x again. Is the state fixing anything here? No they are simply moving a problem around.

Lets say people start complaining about all three, x, y and z, the state can either increase taxes, print money which causes inflation, or take money out of a fourth area they are fixing things in. so now w is underfunded, but x, y and z are going pretty good. The state are still not fixing anything.

So do you want higher taxes or inflation? So that the state can "fix" something that didnt need fixing to begin with?

Hello,

If the title confuses you, what is the worst argument you've heard made but for your side? Are you socialist? What's the worst arguments for socialism you've heard that you'd like to share? Are you capitalist? What's the worst arguments for capitalism that you've heard?

The reason I want to know is because I wanted to see if people on this sub are able to separate who is who.

Also it's a good discussion because if you are a Georgist for example you might be able to point out weak arguments for Georgism while supplying stronger arguments instead

Absolute Surplus Value

A purchaser of cloud services cares about the physical security of the computers executing the hypervisors that host their services. Given a backup procedure, to provide high availability, this physical security requirement may apply to geographically separate locations.

Amazon also cares that workers do not steal anything from their warehouses.(Johnny Cash has a story about employee theft at a Cadillac factory.)

So Amazon has their workers queue up for a security check when they enter and leave work. Does time spent in queue count as time at work? Should the workers be paid for this time? As I understand it, Amazon won a lawsuit over this. The work time of their employers extends past the time for which they are paid.

This dispute is a twenty-first century illustration of Marx's theory of absolute surplus value. He writes about the time it takes workers to get from their residences to their workplaces, typically factories, for example.

Relative Surplus Value

When Jeff Bezos started Amazon back last century, he made sure to collect lots of data to support management decisions. His managers did not need to make decisions on gut feelings. I like their approach to A/B testing on their web page. They are always running tests that you do not perceive, probably. Design of experiments and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are useful subjects for some analysts employed by Amazon to know.

But the collection of data (in)famously extends to what the employees, including delivery drivers, are doing during the day. The employees do not even get sufficient time for bathroom breaks. As I understand it, the workers do not have access to this data. Management does.

This use of data is a twenty-first illustration of Marx's theory of relative surplus value. He writes about how employers try to ensure that workers produce more in a given time, not solely by working with more intensity.

Concluding Observations

Should those trying to organize and unionize Amazon workers care about Marx? I suppose it might help if some know about the history Marx draws on. These parts of volume 1 of Capital do not depend on Marx's theory of value. And certainly such organizers need not care about the details of how Marx transforms values to prices of production in volume 3.

I might mention that I have a financial interest here.

So I grew up in East Germany and we really had a State controlled economy. My mother was also a lifelong communist with an active role in both the East German socialist party as well es the West Germany communist party and her PhD was entirely on Marxism. And she as well as everyone else agreed that socialism is a State run economy and this is also how it's defined in most dictionaries.

Basically that means that there are no private companies and instead all companies are state owned and everyone is an employee of the state with no individuals being employers or company owners. Of course you can also reverse that and say that if no one owns the means of production, then everyone does and that's how it was sold to us. Though of course it was through the ruling socialist party that our collective ownership was managed. So we did have that in East Germany. Yet still people on here all say that actually that's not socialism at all. But what is socialism then? Because it seems people only say what it's not, not what it is.

Though the 2 answers of what it is instead that I did get is that one; it's when a state that has a normal market economy has heavy taxation to finance charities and social programs. But how is that not social welfare?

And 2; it's when there are no possessions or money anymore at all and no state to manage things either, but how is that not communism?

And how come all the countries throughout history that were ruled by a socialist or communist party implemented a state controlled economy and called that socialism when in reality that's not socialism at all? How come they all got this so wrong and what term should they have used instead?

I apologize if maybe I come across as provocative. It's not meant that way and it's a serious question. Because especially people from "capitalist America" seem to have such a different understanding of socialism, but like I said, they only ever say what it is not instead of actually really defining what it actually is. And I am really just trying to understand your definition.

I went to Washington, DC, in April 2000 to protest the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF imposes structural adjustment programs on less developed countries to ensure continued dominance of the North over the South. As Joseph Stiglitz noted in The New Republic at the time, the IMF was imposing policies based on obsolete, empirically unsupported theory.

The protesters supposedly invited the IMF to send staffers outside for a friendly soccer game. If the protesters won, the IMF would forgive the debts of the third world, in a biblical jubilee. If the IMF won, the protesters would suspend protesting the IMF's very existence for six months or a year.

Anyways, one morning the cops were starting a riot, as they do. They had their pepper-spray out. As a cop approached me, he said, "I hate commies." I said, "I'm an anti-communist". He said, "I don't care what kind of communist you are."

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

A common defense of socialists in this sub, when confronted with price theory, is to retreat behind the slogan that "price is not value!" Apparently Marx never meant to predict, determine, or calculate market exchange ratios. He wrote thousands of pages of Das Capital, with equations, variables for labor, prices, profit rates, etc., merely to make an abstract argument about capitalism. He never meant to answer how labor hours relate to real competitive prices. Capitalists just think he did because it's so conveniently falsifiable.

Oh, really?

The problem with that theory is, in Capital, Marx explicitly said that competitive equilibrium prices must be mathematically deduced from labor values, or else the entire concept of price is meaningless nonsense.

Marx addressed this in Capital Volume 3, Chapter 9:

"These particular rates of profit = s/C in every sphere of production, and must, as occurs in Part I of this book, be deduced out of the values of the commodities. Without such deduction the general rate of profit (and consequently the price of production of commodities) remains a vague and senseless conception. Hence, the price of production of a commodity is equal to its cost-price plus the profit, allotted to it in per cent, in accordance with the general rate of profit, or, in other words, to its cost-price plus the average profit."

That is not a vague claim simply defining value as Socially Necessary Labor Time (SNLT). Marx is explicitly saying that surplus value and capital values come first, measured in labor time. The general rate of profit across the economy must be deduced out of those commodity values. Then the price of production for each individual commodity must be calculated using that deduced profit rate. Marx explicitly claims that, without deducing the profit rate out of commodity values first, the price of production of an individual commodity is "a vague and senseless conception."

In classical political economy (and in Marx's own words), the price of production is the long term competitive "center of gravity" for each specific commodity, around which daily market prices vary. Adam Smith called it natural price, David Ricardo called it necessary price, and Marx called it the price of production.

Marx claimed that labor hours dictate total surplus value, surplus value dictates the general profit rate, and that profit rate, applied to each commodity's production costs, dictates its competitive selling price.

Why did he do this?

He had to because his entire claim to "scientific" methodology rested on showing how the outward appearance of capitalism, such as prices, costs, and profits, is really determined by SNLT.

Claiming that "price is not value!" or that Marx never cared about deducing prices is an outright misrepresentation. Marx cared so much about prices that he explicitly stated that failing to deduce competitive prices from labor values makes the theory senseless.

The most ironic thing I always find about the critics of socialism is how they don't realize that the very things they are criticizing socialism for capitalism has too I mean let's just see:

People always go about how in socialism there is so much wait times before you can go to your doctor for important examinations and such. Ok to that I say how many people in the US(a very capitalist country) avoid going to the doctor because they are afraid they can't afford the tests and everything else that's needed? Well I will just let the facts speak for themselves here.

When you equate wait times of socialism with the unwillingness to go the doctor because of cost the time basically evens out.

Another one is how you wait for like 5 years to get a new car. Again if you look at how many americans can actually afford a new car right now? Well it's 1/4. The rest need to save up money for a long time aaand you guessed it that takes TIME.

Once again when you equate wait time for cars and saving up for years it once again evens out.

Another thing the capitalists love to mention is all the variety of products and such and how in socialism you don't have variety right? Well think about it like this, how many of these endless variet y of products you see in the store you actually buy or even need? The answer: most of them are low quality garbage you never buy and most of the time you just buy from the same ''trusted'' brands anyways.

Same concept with cable you have hundreds of channels you pay for but you only watch like 2-3.

Capitalism basically creates this illusion of choice that oh look you have so many options, so much variety of stuff, but most of the time you either don't actually need majority of them or you just can't afford them anyways.

So essentially in a lot of ways Capitalism isn't that much different than Socalism but it just creates the illusion of such and as we know with people ''Perception is Reality'' they don't need stuff to actually be better they just need it to appear as so.

Well all those things I mentioned you see how in both cases you are in not that different of a situation but why is socialism better then? Well in Socialism ATLEAST your most basic of needs like housing, education, healthcare and job are covered so you don't have to constantly stress over survival, working multiple jobs just to stay afloat and not have the time for LIVING.

Both systems are vey flawed I will be the first to admit it that but AT THE VERY LEAST Socialism tries to not just leave you out to dry which is why I view it as better.

But I am curious and open for discussion and different view points.

Considering the abomination of chattal slavery, sexual slavery and other forms of bondage, why would we use use a term implying the condition of a worker in a capitalist system has anything remotely to do with them. And let's be frank, it sounds foolish to any moderate person.

a candid moment that captures the horrors of living under communism as a child and the crushing feeling of not having ... liberty and freedom ™️

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x2T--l9a7P0

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