/kind/ - Random Acts of Kindness★

>>33611 (OP)

>Capitalism: I have to provide a good or service to trade for the resources I need

No more /unkind/ than your body needing to expend energy to keep you alive. Just the natural order of life.

>Socialism: I exist, so give me what you've earned

Absolutely selfish parasitism forced at the end of a state's gun.

Communism is like one big loving family.

>>33622

>Socialism: I exist, so give me what you've earned

Hmm, that's not exactly how I'd define socialism. The definition that I'm familiar with, and that most socialists use, is "collective ownership of the means of production." Some people interpret that to mean state ownership, but there are many ways of going about it. For example, there are libertarian approaches to socialism that don't even involve a state, just worker cooperatives.

As for "selfish parasitism forced at the end of a state's gun," not to get too argumentative, but that sounds more like capitalism to me. In capitalism, the means of production are controlled by a class of people who sit around issuing commands all day and then think they're entitled to what their workers produce. And of course, this unethical economic model can only be upheld by private property laws enforced by - guess who? The state.

>>33629

>libertarian approaches to socialism

If the state or force isn't involved it's just charity not socialism. It's a kind of trade even. I give a vagrant 10$, and I get a pleasant case of warm fuzzies. Win, win.

>a class of people

Who are providing a service for, and voluntarily trading with their employees. Who are you to determine the value/ownership of the employer's, and the employee's services/products? It is a decision to be made between the employees and the employer. Your claim of this system being unethical is unsubstantiated. Provide actual force or a breaking of the consensual contract from the side of the employer.

I'm a carpenter down on cash. I recollect that my neighbor's fence was recently destroyed by a drunk driver. I offer her my carpentering services for a fee, she agrees. She provides the planks of wood and nails, I bring my tools. I'm done before the day is out, she inspects my work, and approves. She thanks me, hands me the dosh, and I'm on my way home. The end.

Please give me an explanation if you think this is unethical. If you think this is fine then explain how this becomes unethical on a larger scale.

>>33636

>economies cannot be kind because our very existence is unkind

Basically, economics is a way of interacting, dealing, cooperating with others. Saying that economics can't be kind is like saying there is no kind way of interacting with others.

>existence is unkind

Not in an objective sense. To me every breath that I take is a blessing.

>>33638

Here's a (you) and (you) related OC.

>>33634

>If the state or force isn't involved it's just charity not socialism.

Who said anything about charity? I'm talking about workers owning the means of production.

Here's an example: say you get hired to tailor clothes. When you tailor a shirt, who owns that shirt? Your boss. Your boss who didn't design the clothes, didn't measure the fabric, doesn't run a sewing machine, in fact did none of the work in producing that shirt. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you pour your soul into your labor, you will always have the product of your labor taken away from you by your boss. If the workers owned the factory, however, it would be up to them, the people who actually make the clothing, to decide what to do with it.

As for some common counterarguments:

>But the factory owner bought the materials and the sewing machines!

And who fabricated the materials in the first place? Who built the sewing machines? Workers. The only thing your boss did was be rich enough to afford them, which most workers cannot afford.

>But the workers need somebody to oversee them!

Not necessarily. The economist Richard Wolff has some interesting talks on worker cooperatives that you can look up if you want to learn more about this point. Moreover, this is more an appeal to tradition than everything else: "All the businesses I see in my day-to-day life are run in a hierarchical way, so I can't imagine people doing it any other way."

>But the workers voluntarily agreed to have the products of their labor taken from them!

Can you really call a decision voluntary when your only other option is death? That's how it is under capitalism: if you don't prostitute yourself to a boss, you starve. Capitalists love to tout entrepreneurship as another option, but the truth is that, if you're self-employed, you're never going to be able to compete with the capitalist class. They have access to advertising, to offshore sweatshops which make their products cheaper, to lawyers who can help them evade taxes. Moreover, even if you were able to make a living as a self-employed man, you would at some point want to hire workers of your own, no? And unless you collectively decide to run your business in a democratic way, you'd only be entering into the parasitic class that I described earlier.

Sorry for the wall of text, but it's a complicated subject matter.

>>33690

>>allowing the workers to keep what they work for is theft

Yes. Workers do not own the goods they produce. Taking a thing anyway is theft.

>>allowing the workers to govern themselves is control of the masses

You are not planning on allowing that, you plan on forcing it on these very workers against their will. Your central party bureau will push their agenda on them, for you those people are not people but tools. It is already allowed, workers are free to start doing that, unions could do that. No one does it because it is a bad idea that does not work, just a sheltered middle class socialist kid's wet dream.

>Not so: workers are perfectly capable of organizing themselves, as shown by the success of worker cooperatives throughout history.

Why don't they do that then and outcompete those evil reactionary businessmen? Because the claim is wrong.

>Anyway, I don't care how much the boss risked to get where he is;

Of course you don't.

>; his business model is still unethical.

Nothing he does is unethical. Nothing about being an entrepreneur is unethical. And the people know that, even though you communists push it on the children for decades now, you just cannot change the truth.

>Define "gibs."

Demanding another's property for the sake of it, aka theft.

> Does that not describe the way the boss commands his workers, "Give me all that you have worked for so that I can profit?"

I'm sorry that you have problems with hierarchy, which i probably your fathers fault, but nothing about the things you are saying is outrageous. The boss is not taking away the worker's property, he is existing with them in symbiosis to everyone's advantage.

>"Yes, good worker, keep serving your boss. It's the only dignified thing to do. You wouldn't want to be a hippie, would you?"

Exactly.

>Who said anything about regulations?

That's always what socialism is. Socialists are controll freaks that want to manipulate society to their advantage and agenda, a detached class of functionaries hating the common man. It could be no other way.

Big business loves regulations. Regulation is killign small business and the middle class, who do not have the apparatus to deal with the made up socialist bs that is thrown at them non stop. That's why all the mega corps have funded Hillary, they know where their money is at. It is a myth that big corps love the free market btw, they love being free of competition, they do not encourage it.

> because when workers see that they have an alternative to prostituting themselves, they start to realize how awful capitalism is in comparison.

Too bad you will have to explain to workers like me what they have to think. Too bad we are not buying it anymore, neither should you. Socialism is an elite programm to controll the masses, always been, and we workers are rejecting it. This should really make you think. Workers are the major demographic behind the current major shift to the right. People like Putin, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Hofer -the list will only grow longer- are the manifestation of that. We are sick of the commies in charge telling us what we have to think, building the cathedral trying to controll our minds, ridiculing us and trying to extinguish us, to replace us. And we are pushing back, we are obliterating the internationalist agenda, we are taking our countries back, to make them great again once more. I'll try watching the video later this day. Pic unrelated.

>>33707

I'm sorry, anon, but your post is pure ideology.

The reason so many people (in the US especially) have problems with socialism is because from birth they're fed the false narrative that socialism means "muh big spooky government gunna take away my toothbrush." Socialism means worker control of the means of production, nothing more, nothing less. In this case, I am simply advocating a workplace that is democratic and libertarian. I am NOT talking about government intervention, I am NOT talking about mind control, and I am NOT talking about an "internationalist agenda." If you can point to where I advocated any of these things, then go ahead.

>Why don't they do that then and outcompete those evil reactionary businessmen? Because the claim is wrong.

Exactly for the reason I mentioned above: socialism has been given a bad name, and people are averse to it on instinct.

>The boss is not taking away the worker's property, he is existing with them in symbiosis to everyone's advantage.

How is it to the worker's advantage to pour his energy into creating a product that will never be his? How is it in the worker's advantage to spend 8 hours a day in an environment where all he does is take orders? All the worker cares about in a capitalist enterprise is receiving the bribe his boss pays him to keep working - his wage. His individuality is completely crushed, and as soon as his labor can be automated, he will be cast aside without a second thought, leaving him without his precious job.

In a democratic workplace, the workers actually have a stake in the future of their enterprise. They're given a reason to care beyond "someone is paying us to care." They're given the responsibility to make decisions which can affect the future of the company, forcing them to become educated and involved, no longer grunts but human beings. In a democratic workplace, automation exists not to replace the workers, but to make their jobs easier. So I think that a democratic workplace is much more favorable to the workers.