The root of the loss of community that everyone feels is capitalism’s total emphasis on institutional logics of exit that make everything extremely transactional while completely ignoring the dual institutional logic of commitment, cooperation and voice. Community emphasizes the latter. We need communities based around shared property, mutual aid and collective action. Incidentally, having such communities could help solve some public goods problems in a non-state manner and be more egalitarian

Econ 101 is designed to obfuscate the real issues. Even talking about specific wealth distribution ratios is falling for the misframing of the issues that Econ 101 wants to lead people into with the pie metaphor. In the capitalist firm, the employer holds 100% of the property rights for the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs while workers qua employees get 0% of that. The entire division of the pie metaphor in Econ 101 is based around hiding this fact

@196

Who defines permitted contracts in a free market? Some right libertarians suggest that “free” markets include the “freedom” to sell labor by the lifetime or sell voting rights in the state.

“The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would.” – Robert Nozick

The theory that invalidates such contracts is the theory of inalienable rights. It has recently been shown to apply to capitalist employment

@memes

I agree that employment is voluntary in the legal sense. Voluntary transaction occur if both parties perceive that they will benefit from the arrangement. The problem is that responsibility can’t be transferred.

You know that there is no de facto transfer of de facto responsibility happening in the employment contract. If you thought that a transfer of de facto responsibility occurs in employment, you would think that the employer is solely legally responsible for crimes committed

@politics

Employment is a voluntary transaction, but there has to be some corresponding factual transfer to actually fulfill the contract. No such de facto transfer of de facto responsibility occurs to match the assignment of legal responsibility in the employment contract. The contract is not ever fulfilled nor is it, in principle, fulfillable. The only arrangement where legal and de facto responsibility match is a worker coop. Labor is nontransferable at a factual level. You accepted as much

@politics

The tenet that legal and de facto responsibility match, when applied to property theoretic questions, is the tenet that people have an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The latter is the principled basis of property rights. Since employment violates the former principle, it also violates the latter. Employment contracts violate property rights’ principled basis.

Labor isn’t transferable.

The foundations of capitalism need destroying

@politics

Thank you for making my argument for me. Now, what morally relevantly changes when workers cooperate to produce a widget on behalf of the employer instead of committing crimes for the employer? Do they become non-conscious non-responsible robots? No.

Legal responsibility matching de facto responsibility implies that all firms should be mandated to be worker coops, and rules out employer-employee contracts. In worker coops, the workers are jointly legally responsible for the results

@politics

I’m aware of the standard line.

De facto responsibility can’t be transferred from the employees solely to the employer to match the legal responsibility assignment in the employer-employee contract. A thought experiment showing this is to consider an employer and employee cooperating to commit a crime. The employee can’t argue that they sold their labor, and are not responsible. The law correctly applies the principle of legal and de facto responsibility matching. Both are criminous

@politics

An employer, in principle, can hire both labor and capital, so they don’t have to own capital. In practice, employers tend to be corporations that own capital due to bargaining power.

Workers consent to employment terms, but they can’t fulfill them. The problem is that consent is not a sufficient condition to transfer de facto responsibility.

Abolishing employment doesn’t infringe on property rights. Employment contracts infringe on labor’s property rights to the fruits of labor
@politics

Workers are de facto responsible for creating the opportunities that employers gate keep. Employers violate workers’ inalienable rights. The workers are de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs, but the employer gets sole legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production. This violates the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match.

No one is responsible for creating land. Landlords deny everyone’s equal claim to land

@politics

Capitalism is a system of property relations and labor relations. It is conceivable to not have those property relations and labor relations in a firm. However, a corporation doesn’t do that as the employer solely appropriates the entire positive and negative result of production i.e. the property rights to the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. In a worker coop, the workers jointly appropriate the fruits of their labor. Capitalist property relations aren’t present @memes

Huh, there are worker coops and 100% ESOPs as alternatives to capitalism that can exist within capitalism @memes

Include, in your politics, actionable steps. The most important step is to create worker coops and supporting institutions, so you aren’t giving the fruits of your labor to capitalists with what you do everyday @memes

Liberalism developed the theory of inalienable rights that showed that slave trade, non-democratic constitution, coverture marriage, later capitalist property relations, and later non-democratic firms are invalid. Inalienable rights theory rules out the application of property rights to persons or their actions. Inalienable means consent is not a sufficient condition to transfer or extinguish the right. This is especially important for criticizing voluntary self-sale and employment @politics

Tax exempt status for all worker coops

@politics

Marx incorrectly cites private property as capitalist appropriation’s basis. The employment contract is what enables the employer to appropriate the entire positive and negative result of production. Now, capital ownership does play a role in increasing bargain power to get favorable terms during contract negotiations. By emphasizing value, he missed out on a critique based on property rights. In property terms, the employer gets 100%

Morality can be analyzed in less idealist ways @politics

It treats persons like things by not holding them responsible for the results of their actions.

That principle would mean that workers should jointly own the produced outputs and jointly owe the liabilities for the used-up inputs as in a worker cooperative.

An intuition pump for the tenet would be situations where the law doesn’t fail to apply the principle. Consider an employer and employee committing a crime together.

Consent doesn’t transfer responsibility.

@memes

Marxism:

A scientific analysis that gets basic facts about the structure of property rights in the capitalist system wrong, and uses value theory to critique a property system

Moral arguments can help make people class conscious and recognize their oppression. Morality can motivate people to act, gives them a coherent structure for guiding action, and give direction. Morality is an important tool that enables people to coordinate without authority
@politics

Capitalism doesn’t qualify as free market activity then. Capitalism inherently involves treating persons as things. In the firm, the workers are jointly de facto responsible (DFR) for production, but the employer gets sole legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production. This violates the principle of legal and de facto responsibility matching. DFR isn’t de facto transferred, but legal responsibility is. Morally, this is an institutional fraud
@memes

Because the employing class and their political power won’t let us.

Capitalism denies people their humanity and treats people like things. For example, 1 test for whether a system recognizes people’s humanity is whether or not it holds them responsible for the positive and/or negative results of their action. Capitalism fails there because it holds the employer solely legally responsible for workers’ joint de facto actions in the workplace.

Marxism is not the only alternative @politics