To contracycle:
Thank you for your reply.
Reply to your post:
Any points I do not challenge I concede.
While this is notionally true, if the existing wealthy class has both the resources and the knowledge to best succeed, then their success is going to drive out the start-up companies; its more likely that a start-up will enter debt straight away and less likely to be able to procure good deals through contacts or nous. Some 70% of start-ups fail in the first year.
If memory serves, the high number of failures in small companies is not due to competition with competitors, but is rather attributable to the lack of business management skills on the part of the business owner.
Entering into debt is the most likely scenario for any small company when it starts off - one of the chief difficulties of sole ownership and partnerships. Perhaps you are referring to the company's inability to pull inself out of debt - which again can be attributable to poor management skills.
wealth begets wealth, and the wealthy are a ruling, self-perpetuating class
This occurs under Communism also, though perhaps to a smaller extent. The wealthy will still be better educated (education is a product that can be "bought" by the wealthy) and they will still have more powerful contacts, etc.
Prohibiting restricted exploitation of resources reduces the rich-poor discrepancy, granted, but some self-perpetuating factors are still in place.
If a common resource is being exploited at capacity, AND this causes some sort of conflict among would-be exploiters, a committee could be established to arbitrate, by one of several established democratic mechanisms.
Their decision rule would be based on...? If this is not set in concrete, there is room for corruption and bias.
Capital explicitly shows how people of different abilities get to control differeing quantitites of wealth in its demonstration of the labour theory of value.
Haven't read Capital. Pity.
In a sense, yes, but we are talking of a social contract relationship so distinct from orthodox property rights that its worth making a terminological distinction. One formulation that is used is to distinguish between personal property and private property.
...can you explain this "social contract relationship" please? This ties in with the Porshe example further down.
Exploitation limits your right to socially enforced exlusive access; it does not limit the wasteful expenditure of your own wealth surplus to your survival requirements. It is highly unlikely that anyone else will NEED to make use of your second bed or second toilet and demand these from you, but equally you have little personal NEED for a 200-room mansion.
Errrr...nope, this I don't understand.
Your argument against the building of a huge mansion (a product) is that it overuses the "Land" (resource) that is my fair share. Granted.
But doesn't owning 200 TVs (products) overuse the metal/plastic/silicon/energy (Resources) etc. that is my fair share? All natural resources are, ultimately, means of production - especially if they are irreplacable. (Note: by "quantity of social value", I assumed you meant wealth)
Question: does it mean that although exclusive access to "personal goods" are not socially enforced, it may be personally enforced?
The kind of problem this model attemopts to solve is this: a factory producing widgets falls below the ROI the owner would like or considers worthwhile; therefore they close the plant and throws the workers out on their ear. That facility could still have been productive, and the workers may still have been able to do socially valuable work; even if the ROI was nominal they might have remained self-sufficient.
Some would argue that a department producing public goods would have to produce it even if the ROI is negative. If all the companies are people-owned, ROI doesn't really come into the equation, does it now? Who makes the subjective call between consumer surplus and producer surplus - the price of the product?
Stuff you can have; what you cannot do is limit access to the means of production.
This assumes I can't limit the means of production by buying products.
I can purchase all the diamonds in the world (and any that is mined out of the ground thereafter) and I will control the natural resource.
This only demonstrates that it is not my own ability which brings me my wealth, but my ability to persuade other people, who control wealth, to give me some.
Stop. How would this differ in a Communist country? How do you objectively tag reward to performance in a people-owned company? It still seems like "it is not my own ability which brings me my wealth, but my ability to persuade other people", but these people, instead of controlling wealth, controls my pay.
Well, I dislike yu reference to "state" to indicate "collective action by the people", but your formulation is essentially correct. The state however is a particulatr entity with particular fetaures - such as standing armed bodies anf the monopoly of violence - that are not necessary in non-properties societies.
Granted. Please see question above on performance-tagged-reward system.
"From each according to their ability to each according to their need" and "He who does not work does not eat."
Not to claim that these two concepts are wrong, but they are really subjectively considered and measured (ability and need?). Plus, "he who does not work, does not eat" will fail under: 1) corruption (he who does not work will still eat because he has powerful supervisors who
reckons he works), and 2) below full employment of resources (unemployment).
But again, this is a theory being advanced specifically for an INDUSTRIAL society that finds it trivially easy to over-produce foodstuffs. It is, in other words, well within our ability to feed those that need food, and we can freely do so without jeopardising our own sustenance. FUNDS are not the issue because funds only indicate the ability to mobilise socially-held resources.
Oh. I understand. So this will not apply to any society, but only those which can't feed itself but has the obvious means to do so, right?
In principle, yes it is OK, but equally it will be OK if I punch you in the nose when you bring it back. Its a matter between you and me, not the armed might of the state. I would have the right to ask why you made a point of using my vehicle rather than some other vehicle. OTOH, if you were rushing your pregnant wife to hospital and speed was of the essence, your decision would be more sensible and I would be less likely to find it offensive.
Ok, please explain the difference between private and personal properties. Must I protect all my properties with a 12-gauge?
Patiently awaiting your reply.
"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"
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