aquaticko

Karma: −65

aquaticko 4 Dec 2013 15:29 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
As I said in response to Lumifer’s post, the problem is this still leaves it up to chance. We may come to the same conclusions on one thing or another, but that is purely by accident, and if we should begin to come up with different moral axioms, I have no reason to respect his viewpoint if a.) I have no guarantee that he’ll respect mine, or b.) I have no axiom which states that I should respect other moral frameworks even if they’re different from mine. Certainly, there are many instances in which both parties to a discussion discover an idea they agree upon, but the debate continues because of how the agreement was come upon, when it shouldn’t matter.

aquaticko 4 Dec 2013 15:15 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“I recommend observing real life and learning history. People have rarely been treated as inherently equal and yet it very often happened that “one person’s agency or vision” was respected. Do note that people’s capabilities vary greatly and reality doesn’t care at all about equality or fairness.”

That essentially relies on chance. A person’s agency is most likely to be respected by me if, by chance, I see that person as roughly my equal. Most people don’t worry about violating the agency of a dog nearly as much as they worry about violating the agency of another human (although this obviously depends on one’s definition of personhood). The agency of African American people in the U.S. was frequently violated because they were perceived as being different from, and lesser than, white people.

Proximity plays a noted role, here. There’s generally a greater concern for the agency of those near you than those you don’t know about, because the only violations of agency you care about are those that seem to be a threat to you. I just think that personhood is a valuable enough thing that we ought to be more systemic in how we protect the agency of things which fit whatever definition of personhood we agree to.

“Yes, this is correct, but I don’t see how is this related to the willingness to sacrifice others.”

You cannot say that there is a right for you to sacrifice other people against their will, because, definitionally, you cannot willingly abide by the obligation to sacrifice yourself against your will for other people.

aquaticko 4 Dec 2013 6:17 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
If people aren’t treated as though they’re inherently equal, then why should any one person’s agency or vision be respected? If I’m not willing to abide by the obligation created by the existence of others’ rights, what obligation do others have to abide by the existence of my rights? And if there is no obligation in either direction, to what extent can we be said to have or acknowledge the existence of rights? I think you’d agree: none at all.

“The point of that mention of history wasn’t that certain people were ready to sacrifice themselves. The point was that they were perfectly willing to sacrifice others.”

You’ve been pointing out, throughout much of our discussion, a common definition of rights: they are both the right itself and an accompanying obligation. It’s misguided to expect a moral right without any accompanying obligation to hold much water, because whether something is a right or obligation is just a matter of perspective between the two different parties who claim them. E.g., I have a right to free religion, but this appears to be an obligation for others not to restrict my religious practice, and vice versa. It’s basic social contract theory, really, the only dysfunction in it arising when not all people affected by it are given equal say in its construction, hence the importance of egalitarianism and democracy.

Besides, we already have a form of voluntary sacrifice of agency which is practiced on a global scale; private property. We use private property laws because, while I may want to exercise my agency to get some of the resources someone else accumulates, I can’t condone thievery and pillaging because I wouldn’t want it to happen to me. So it doesn’t seem totally out-there to suggest this mutual-benefit mentality could be shifted away from or extended past private property to something else (and it seems to me that we have done that quite a lot already, e.g. laws against violence or in protection of intellectual property). I’m just suggesting a new kind of property right, but I think we’ve talked about that particular idea enough for now.

aquaticko 4 Dec 2013 3:23 UTC
−7 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Nope. I think that you focused on, to quote you, “egalitarianism, equality, and communitarianism” to the exclusion of other values. Notice how the terminal desires that we’ve been talking about in this sub-thread do not include any of those.”

As I said in the other comment thread, it’s an issue of universalizability of moral laws. It’s inconsistent to write a moral rule stating that any one person ought to be sacrificed for another against his/her will because it’s not what I would consent to myself. Similarly, it’s inconsistent with reality to state a moral rule saying that everyone ought to own an entire continent by themselves. Unless you start from a base of egalitarianism and equality, nothing a person can say has any merit because anything which conflicts with those values is ultimately hypocritical and inconsistent.

“Sure. There’s only one problem with that—ideas similar to yours were quite popular at the beginning of the XX century. They were also “different concepts” aiming to do better than capitalism. What was the price for trying them out?”

Undoubtedly quite high, but as a consequentialist and utilitarian, I see no problem in saying that, if they had worked out in reaching their ends, they would’ve been worth it from the perspective of someone who believed in those ends. The ends always justify the means because from the perspective of our consciousness, time only ever moves forward.

I’d like to think I’d be willing to sacrifice myself for some greater good if I agreed with it and thought my sacrifice would help achieve it. I’ll concede I might chicken out—I’m only human—but that would be a poor thing for me to do.

aquaticko 4 Dec 2013 3:09 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“May I suggest a review of the concepts of the map and the territory?”

None is needed; I’m pretty sure that I understand the use of the terms map and territory here. Maps are representations of reality, territories the correspondent reality. I don’t argue against this term pairing, in fact I quite like it, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t violated them in principle. I was just heading in the direction of arguing that all anyone can ever have is a map, so to speak—I’m fundamentally an epistemological idealist. But this is a discussion we could go on about to the end of time.

“I think I missed it completely. I just don’t understand what rights does a “claim of ownership” give you. Let me ask the question again: what can you do with it? Let’s take two people, A and B. A has the “claim of ownership”, B does not. They both wake up, walk out onto the street. What can A do that B cannot? Which rights does A have that B does not?”

I think you might be under a misconception about the idea of market socialism (or my particular version of it, anyway): the only things which don’t have claims of ownership are non-people, in the broad sense. To make the scenario fit, you’d have to ask, “what can A do with A’s claim to ownership that B cannot do with A’s claim to ownership?” B cannot take A’s claim to ownership (be it his labor or the value associated with a single person’s share) and use it to work towards or in any way advance B’s vision of the Public Good if A does not agree with B’s vision of the Public Good. This is the only right/obligation that people in this theoretical can worry about: freedom to exercise agency and vision, and an obligation on the part of each person to respect the exercise of agency and vision of others.

“What happens to people who do not like these tenets?”

They’re free to participate or not participate in my, or any other entity’s, vision of the Public Good, including their own. If a particular vision is in low enough demand, then it likely won’t be achievable due to lack of resources gathered to accomplish it, and any organization around that Public Good will naturally dissolved as people become dissatisfied with it. This gives people an incentive to formulate a vision of the Public Good which is as universally-appealing and inclusive as possible.

In a sense, it’s much like the universalizability issue of the Kantian imperative. I can make any particular vision of the Public Good as specific as I like it, but as I add more and more detail to it, the more opportunities I create to turn people off from it. If my vision of the Public Good revolves around my every specific desire, it’s not likely to attract other people because I will have a different set of specific desires from other people. By contrast, if I can formulate a vision of the Public Good which is composed solely of specific desires that appeal to a lot of people, more people will join me in the pursuit of my vision of the Public Good.

This should all sound quite similar to what we have today, because it is. The difference is that, with the abolition of private property and a democratic ownership of the MoP, there’s a lot more room for many different visions of the Public Good to be realized as no one has anymore ability to impose their Public Good vision on people than anyone else does. I always thought this was a pretty meritocratic system.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 23:32 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Really really :-) Political economy is a description of how the world works. Being a description, it is a map.”

I’ve always thought that ultimately, description is the best that anyone can ever really do. We’ll be getting into epistemology if we go down this route any further; your call on whether or not you want to do that.

“Let’s do a little gedanken experiment. I hereby give you a piece of paper that represents a share, an ownership claim on your fraction of the global means of production. It is exclusive to you and you control it. Oh, but say you, it’s fake, it doesn’t represent anything! OK then. In the system which you describe, what can you do with you “true” ownership claim that you cannot do with the admittedly fake claim which I have just given to you?”

...I’m assuming that the parallel with paper currency is intentional. This is exactly the way in which any system of private property works: the validity of the claim is based on a common social contract. However, as these shares are claims to a publically-owned property, it is a type of personal property, dependent upon some particular formulation of a social contract (stipulating e.g., 1. all material goods are publically-owned, and 2. all people who are capable of conceiving of a vision of the Public Good deserve a share in this publically-owned stock of goods)....I can’t tell if I’m being led somewhere or you missed that completely, though I’m naturally leaning toward the former.

“Can you specify the end you’re seeking?”

In excruciatingly minute detail; suffice to say the most important tenets are egalitarianism, equality, and communitarianism.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 23:14 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Maybe not, but “wealth” is a very general concept. It can be defined as an amount of value where the value itself is defined as the quality of being wanted by someone.”

All the more reason why it doesn’t make sense to measure wealth in terms of profit or income.

“Well, then you probably should start by showing that your way actually does contribute towards these terminal desires. At the moment you just assert that this is so but do not show how and why.”

So you really think that I’ve been speaking a nonsense through this whole debate? I’ll never claim perfection, but that seems a little unfair.

“So I’ll rephrase my suggestion: compare actual, existing societies using your yardstick of “make everyone rich, or even just modestly comfortable”. Check if the societies at the top of your list are better described as capitalist or not capitalist.”

Anything short of constant conjunction is insufficient to assume causation. I don’t think I’ve said that capitalism makes everyone worse off, but it has made some people worse off, and I do think there’s a lot of room for different concepts to do better.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 21:18 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“I don’t think that’s how it works in reality. To start with, consider the difference between elected politicians and the permanent government bureaucracy.”

No disagreement here; but that’s a matter of how a particular democratic system is laid out, not a necessary property of democracy.

“It’s quite a bit more complicated. Let me do a short run through terminal desires towards which having a great amount of wealth contributes: •consumption: maybe I like to consume expensive things •freedom: wealth buys a lot of freedom, both positive and negative •safety: wealth buys safety as well, both directly and as a buffer against volatility in the future •welfare of children: a large inheritance lets you pass the benefits of wealth to your kids •power: wealth can be transmuted (to a limited degree) into power •status: wealth can be and often is used as currency in status competitions

The level of wealth which would satisfy all these terminal desires fully is pretty high :-)”

That’s really not the point. The point is that wealth isn’t the only conceivable way to attain these goods, and that if there are better ways of doing so, wealth stops serving its purpose. I’m trying to lay out a vision of a better way of doing so, which you’re being fairly helpful in helping my figure out slightly better.

“Compare it to alternatives—real ones, not imaginary.”

All abstract concepts are imaginary. You can’t point to anything that anyone can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell and say, “this is capitalism”. The realm of abstracts is pretty damn enormous; to carry this site’s favorite metaphor, you mean to tell me that you don’t believe that there’s any map which could better describe the territory of our world than capitalism? Again, I ask—really??

I understand it may be difficult, but I thank us for trying in any case.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 21:06 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Nope, the concerns of a political economy are irrelevant here. The contest is between a map and a territory and the territory always wins.”

So, to be clear, you don’t believe that political economy is part of the territory? Really??

“Yes, I know. But the argument to popularity is not a good way to evaluate forecasts :-/”

Some people appreciate an appeal to authority, but I don’t need one to justify what I said. I’ll respond differently to an announcement that you’re going to twist my finger, if you tell me before doing so that you’ll give me a lollipop afterwards if I let you, than I would if you simply told me you were going to twist my finger, right?

“You are saying that something like an internal passport gives you a share of “ownership” in all means of production in the society. What does that mean? Which rights do I, personally, have with respect to that which I “own”?”

Well, labor seems like the obvious component here. Whatever other means of production exist now only exist because someone in the past labored to make them. I’ll concede that I haven’t totally worked out how you’d evenly divide up extra-somatic means of production, i.e. existing private property, but it seems like it ought to be possible to construct a pricing model to evaluate all the means of production in an economy and split that value equally among all participants in that economy.

Shares would represent a compensation for the price assessed of the global means of production by the global market, divided by the number of people in the world, with each person getting one share. This share is an ownership claim because it is exclusive to its original owner (no one is able to take it from me, nor can I take one from anyone else), and I control it (no one can make me use it for a purpose other than one of my choosing). I should’ve asked earlier, are you familiar with the distinction between private property rights and personal property rights? These shares would be an example of the latter, and thus have a different set of ownership rights than the private property rights we tend to focus on now.

P.S. You haven’t answered the question whether you object to the notion of property in general.”

I did on the other comment thread a little while ago, but I’ll say here as well: I’m a consequentialist. If capitalism and private property gets me the end I’m seeking, I’m fine with that. But if it doesn’t, I’m not. Values should be system-neutral.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 20:05 UTC
−4 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“I did not. You are making a logic error: thinking that { not(A) is_not (B) } necessarily implies { (A) is (B) }. That is not so. Here A=”democratic system of governance” and B=”public enterprise accountable to the public”.”

Fair play, but I think I can clean up the mess I’ve made there by asking if you consider a democratic government to be a kind of public enterprise. To me this seems like a reasonable assertion: a government elected democratically is beholden to its shareholders (electorate), for whom it must produce a particular batch of goods and services at a particular level of efficiency. Any democratic government which consistently fails to do so will have its managers (elected politicians) kicked out by its electorate for a new group of managers. I understand you’re likely tired of conversing with me, so I’ll just ask for a yes/no answer on that.

“No, you misunderstand. I am using “price and greed” to mean the following: the market signals what it likes and does not like via the price at which the market clears. This price reflects both supply and demand. There is information in this price, but this information is useless unless somebody acts on it. The usual reason to act on the basis of the price information is desire for wealth, aka greed. It is the motivation which is necessary to make the step from information to real-world consequences (usually, a change in supply).”

The information of supply and demand, i.e. price, isn’t useless if there’s no one to act on it, it’s non-existent. If there was no one on Earth, we wouldn’t have supply and demand, and so no price. And—this is sure to bring some laughs—the desire for wealth isn’t a rational impulse. Unless you literally have a desire for wealth, which is an instrumental good, and not what it brings you, intrinsic goods (however defined), it’s against your interest to pursue wealth beyond whatever version of your intrinsic good it buys you. That seems obvious to me—a dollar is worth its exchange value, nothing more. And how many parables are there about the wealthy, lonely old man, sitting sadly in his mansion, surrounded by piles of gold? I’d rather everyone be poor and happy than have some people wealthy and happy, some others being wealthy and unhappy, and others being poor and sad or poor and happy; wouldn’t you?

Don’t misunderstand my intent, here. If capitalism really did make everyone rich, or even just modestly comfortable, I’d have no problem with it or private property; I’m not a deontologist. But the fact of the matter is that capitalism doesn’t make everyone rich, or even modestly comfortable, but tells the lie that it can; that’s where I have a problem with it.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 18:54 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“But it’s not. That’s a separate topic, however, and our exchange is too voluminous already :-)”

...You agreed to that definition 2 posts up:

I said: “In a non-democratic system of governance, the state is not, in my view, a public enterprise accountable to the public”

You said: “I agree, with the proviso that I believe the same thing is true for contemporary democracies as well.”

“It would be if “ownership” really meant ownership and “rewarded for … efforts” really meant that. But your reply in the other sub-thread suggests that “ownership” is a misleading term here and you’re basically talking about a vote and a license to work. See that other sub-thread for details.”

All you offered in the other thread was that ownership wasn’t what I said it was; you gave no details as to what else it might be.

“This sounds like a mystical incantation: things will just automagically happen because… well… I dunno… they will just happen. Markets are not magical, they work through well-understood mechanisms that boil down to, crudely, price and greed. I still don’t see how these mechanisms would work in your utopia. You seem to think that the way it should happen is through rationally convincing people to commit their labor to a project. That might work for small-scale gardening or, say, art. I strongly doubt it would work for e.g. mining or public toilet cleaning. And what happens when you were unable to convince the sufficient number of people to produce enough fertilizer and there is not enough food to go round?”

I don’t know why you don’t see that what I’m proposing and the current reality is the same thing, in terms of how the market operates. If some person or group of people proposes a vision of the Public Good which is too resource-intensive, i.e. pricey, to be carried out for all the people who would be involved in its production, it won’t happen because most people would not willfully deprive themselves of what they feel is the price of their labor.

Though there’s probably a large number of people who’d love to take a trip to space next year, it won’t happen because we (that is to say, people who live in a system which operates according to market principles) don’t currently have a way to organize enough resources to make it happen without also having to sacrifice a lot of other things people consider to be important, even though the demand is there. And your fertilizer/food argument is another example of an obvious non-possibility. It doesn’t usually take much to convince people that they need food if they don’t want to die. If they’re unwilling to do whatever necessary to make sure they have enough food to survive, which again, seems not to be much of a problem now, then they’ll die. I don’t know of many (or any) famines caused by apathy.

Your “price and greed” are more technically known as supply (price of production) and demand (use value or, if you like, desire or greed). I feel I’ve been pretty consistent in framing my proposition in those terms.

“Oh, there are a LOT of redneck white males and they reproduce quite successfully. As its members die off, the group just hires their children, cousins, nephews, etc.”

No, no; you don’t understand. We’re not talking about a community of rednecks; we’re talking, in your specific example, of a group redneck white males who form a group solely because its membership is exclusive to people who fit those three criteria; no women are in this group because they are not included in what this group thinks is the Public Good. Hell, it doesn’t need to be that specific.

Even if we talk about a group of white people, joined together for the purpose of promoting Whiteness, the population of such a group will eventually require more resources than were available in the original plot of land this group settled on. They will then have to branch out and interface with groups who don’t believe in promoting Whiteness or that the Public Good is just for white people. That will eventually lead this Whiteness group in one of two directions: conflict, stagnation, and decline, or dissolution. This should sound like an entirely plausible situation, and resolution thereof, to anyone with a knowledge of 19th/20th century European imperialism.

“The problem is, there is a lot of demand for the lifestyle of a rich and idle leisure class, there is not a lot of demand for the lifestyle of doing hard, dirty, and dangerous things that the society needs done to keep its head above the water.”

Which is why private property ownership is problematic. It allows concentration of power such that a few can enjoy the lifestyle of the wealthy class by virtue of nothing other than ownership of private property. Without that concentration of power allowed by private property, there would be no such thing as a rich and idle leisure class because the leisure class represents a sub-optimally efficient distribution of resources (you must be aware of the marginal propensity to save/spend)--in clumps here and absence there. People may desire to have that kind of lifestyle, but if the price of satisfying the demand for it, in an equitable fashion, is too high, and there’s no individual resource clumps to pay for it, it won’t happen, just like we don’t have any group saying it’s going to send a million people into space next year.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 18:11 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Heh. I think your theory finds itself in contradiction with empirical reality. Sorry, the reality always wins.”

It only “wins” if the sole concern of a political economy is economic growth. I’ve said pretty clearly that no one can deny that, in that sense, it’s winning. However, it’s doing so by sacrificing human welfare in a way that other systems don’t require—pollution, oppression of free expression, miserable working conditions...the list goes on. You’re continually looking at the economy as if the only figure that matters is income per capita. I don’t think I’ve denied that that’s part of it, but we have quality of life indices for a reason.

“It is not obvious to me at all that the Chinese political system will collapse without that.”

Numerous people—economists and politicians both within and outside of China—have said that, not the specific number I used for example, but that the legitimacy of the CCP government is entirely dependent upon increasing economic growth, as we already have ample evidence to suggest that it, as a planned economy, will not be able to improve quality of living independent of that. I’ll see if I can’t pull up a few quotes to that effect.

“No, this happened in post-Soviet times. The factories were privatized by giving (for free) the ownership shares to the workers. After that process was complete, the factories weren’t state-owned any more, they were owned by the newly-minted shareholders”.

If someone handed you the keys to a car which could barely run, would you go through the expense of getting it back in working condition, or just sell it for parts?

“Ah. So it’s not ownership at all—it’s just a work permit. Or an internal passport. I see no reason to call this “ownership”—why do you think this word fits?”

Tell me, why do you think it doesn’t? Because again, I’m having trouble understanding.

“Again, I think you’re badly misusing the word “ownership”. It doesn’t mean what you think it means :-)”

“You seem to think that there is something wrong voluntary consensual exchanges of things of value. Or do you reject the whole idea of property?”

Well, as you seem to totally reject my idea of ownership, care to give me yours?

“Sure I can, that’s what slavery is. Or if you’re talking about labor potential I can easily take it away by locking you in a cell.”

Yes, but is slavery generally considered a just and viable way to procure labor in a fully democratic society? No; again we can fall back to the Rawlsian veil of ignorance: if I can’t apply the rule of “all people must agree with slavery” to myself (which it seems, by the definition of slavery, that I can’t), then it’s not something people in an egalitarian democratic society will support. And locking me in a cell does nothing to remove my labor from me. You can force me to use it to produce goods for you, but again, that’s slavery, which won’t happen in an egalitarian democratic society. Or even if you don’t force me to work for you, I can still labor to find a way to escape. I fail to see an important distinction between labor and labor potential; they both refer to the ability to do work.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 15:59 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Funny how that hasn’t happened under Mao who, presumably, was running a “better” system. And really, is India that resource-poor compared to China? Enough to explain the difference in growth rates?”

No; Mao was essentially running the same system as the USSR: state ownership of the MoP, operated for socialist ends, according to central planning doctrine—the same incentive-less structure for both government and workers. The only thing that’s changed was a kind of democratization of the ends—they now had to be somewhat responsive to the demands of the global market for China to achieve its export-oriented growth. However, China’s domestic market remains essentially constrained by planning.

On the other hand, India is, per the definition we seemed to have agreed on in the other comment thread, no more than nominally democratic (government unaccountable to public demands in a practical sense). However, because it is nominally a democracy, it can’t just go around doing whatever it wants, meaning it has the inefficiency of meeting public demands, the same kind of handicaps to growth as much richer countries, and the inefficiency of a government which is unresponsive to the public. At the same time, this façade means that the average Indian citizen can’t just be abjectly angry with the Indian government: he can and has to vote the current people out for a new group, if it’s so bad.

China doesn’t have to worry about that. Really, the Chinese system is just so incredibly messed up that it seems to be working, for now, in spite of itself. And it’s not the future slow itself down that’s a problem; if having to maintain a growth rate of 8% or better forever is problematic, which we seem to agree is the case, and China’s governmental system will collapse without that, then it’s unclear in how, in the long-term, it’s really a better system. I’ll put it to you this way: which system of governance would be easiest to drop into a wealthy, democratic, Western society which isn’t experiencing rapid economic growth: India’s or China’s?

“Did they? I am not at all sure about that. Granted, trustworthy statistics are hard to come by, but it does seem to me that the living standards of the Chinese people rose much faster and further than those of Russians under Stalin. The Russians were building heavy industry plants—just like Mao did—and while certainly useful (as WW2 demonstrated), they didn’t do much for ordinary people.”

We’re not here arguing about the speed or duration of improvement of living standards; we’re arguing about end-states. In both China and the USSR, living standards did increase dramatically for most people. And the difference is, again, partially attributable to the difference in the technological convergence space between China and the USSR. Imperial Russia was already a minor industrial power before the revolution; China was barely industrialized to any extent before Deng’s reforms in the 80′s, meaning it had nearly a century of growth to catch up on. In consideration of the facts that in neither case do we have democratization of ownership or responsiveness to a market, and in both cases convergence will end, and you see why they did/will stall and fall.

“Initial ones? Or all the time—meaning claims to ownership can be granted or taken away by the polity at will? If the latter, I would object to calling this “ownership”, it’s much more akin to a mere license.”

Initial ones; they’d be dealt out at birth to be utilized at the appropriate time, 14, or 15, or 18, or whatever age a particular vision of the Public Good decides it should be. Think of them like citizenship cards: no matter what country (or vision of the Public Good) you’re born into, you get one, and you can’t legally sell it. These differ primarily in that no one could take it away from you, either, as it’s a claim to your own labor as much as anything else, and you’re free to go to whatever vision of the Public Good appeals to you at that pre-designated age; in that way, they’re more like passports.

“That’s how the ownership of the former Soviet factories, etc. was distributed in the early 1990s.. Basically everyone who worked at a particular factory got a “share” of ownership of that factory in the form of the so-called “voucher”. You can google up how well that worked. On the other hand, if you mean non-transferable ownership then it’s not really ownership and I don’t see much use in it.”

Well, the problem is, once again, that those were ownership stakes in state-owned factories—once again, state-owned in a non-democratic system is owned by the class of people who were members of the state government, i.e. members of a private class.

When you say “non-transferable”, do you mean “non-exchangeable”? Because it seems to me as though one thing that ownership ought to be is non-transferable. I can offer to “transfer” my ownership of a particular piece of property to you in exchange for something you own, or, just as easily for you, you can try to kick me out without having to exchange anything. Short of killing me, you can’t take away my labor, or, in the scenario we’ve been working out, my claim to ownership of the MoP, and if you kill me, then neither you nor anyone else gets it, either.

This is where we can bring in both Kant and Rawls; if I devise a moral law (e.g. people ought to try to take others’ ownership claims from them by force) which I would not apply to myself, I can hardly call it a law. On the other hand, if I don’t know whether I’ll be put in the position of the person who has an ownership claim, or a person who tries to take that ownership claim, and we all agree that one of these is a bad thing, then we simply won’t let this scenario arise. This is, again, essentially the market acting on morals: not enough people want for this thing to happen, so it won’t.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 15:04 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“I agree, with the proviso that I believe the same thing is true for contemporary democracies as well.”

If the definition of democracy is a government which is accountable to its people, and a particular government isn’t accountable to its people, then it isn’t really a democracy. Modus tollens, right?

“That sounds very capitalistic to me. Will there be rich people? Very rich people?”

Can you explain to me why that seems particularly capitalistic? Because I’m just not seeing it.

“So, let’s say I (and a bunch of other people) think the world needs another computer chip fab. They cost a couple of billions to build. Where will the money to build it come from, how will the owners of the capital be compensated, who will own the chip fab? Or let’s say I’m Steve Jobs and want to make an iPhone. Most people call me crazy. Or let’s say everybody really needs toilet paper, but nobody feels sufficiently motivated to start producing it. Eh, let someone else do it, everyone says.”

This is where you’re beginning to insert a particular vision of the Public Good: you believe that the world is better off when it is producing chip fab plants and toilet paper. If enough people agree with you, and believe that it’s worth utilizing their MoP ownership claim and expending their labor, then those things will be produced; if not they won’t. Either a particular version of the Public Good is worthy of those two things and it happens, or it isn’t and it doesn’t.

“I am sorry, the market really REALLY wants computer chips. It’s willing to pay for them (I presume you’ll have money in your society).”

If the market really really wants computer chips, it will happen; if not, it won’t. It’s just a matter of you, as a person with a vision of the Public Good which includes computer chips, being able to convince others that the world is better off following your vision of the Public Good, including computer chips. If you can’t convince enough people to pool their ownership claims and expend their labor to produce them, they won’t happen. My guess is, in both the computer chip and toilet paper example, you’ll likely be able to convince enough people to start production of these things because the benefits from these things are fairly equitably distributed within a society—there are few people in most wealthy nations that don’t benefit in some way from these two things. The private jets were a counterexample.

“It will also guarantee that this MoP will self-destruct in a very short time. I believe people occasionally try to run a business (or, actually, any complicated activity) by referendums. It’s rather comical how that Just. Doesn’t. Work.”

So, you mean to tell me that employee-owned corporations always fail? What I’ve been describing is kind of one of those, but isn’t based around a particular kind of production, but rather a particular kind of Public Good. The necessity of smooth operation of such a corporation is why it’s so important for people to have a holistic vision of what they consider to be the Public Good.

“Not at all. Let’s say I produce foozles. A production team of, say, 1,000 people is enough to fully satisfy the demand for foozles. That team is 100% redneck white male and likes it that way. Any problems?”

Yes. Autarky is incompatible with democratic society because resource depletion is a real thing; eventually, this 100% redneck white male team is going to need a new source of labor as its members die off, and raw material as its foozles are consumed; a lack of foozles will cause members to leave, and the whole thing to dissolve. And we’re not just talking about production of a single type of material good. We’re talking about production of all the goods needed to satisfy a particular vision of the Public Good. Perhaps you’d find a few people who are completely happy with just one, material good, but most people have a number of differing desires for both material and social conditions. Those are what this system would try to produce: lifestyles, if you like.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 5:02 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“Well, that’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? How can you organize the means of production so that they will respond to market information without going capitalist?”

Responded to this in the other comment thread we have going.

“That’s an interesting opinion. It’s interesting because China’s last 20 years represent a colossal success. This “worst of all” system pulled out of poverty many many more people than all the Western charities put together. The Chinese are MUCH better off now than 20 years ago—thanks to this “the worst” system.”

That was just a matter of convergence: China finally taking advantage of the technology and trade it had waiting at its door, anxious to better-utilize the many types of capital China has in excess of probably anywhere else on the planet (India isn’t quite as resource-rich). Soviet socialism and Leninism had a similar effect on Russia for the first few decades of the USSR. That stopped when the inefficiency of the system became too great to overcome, and China will likely slow down similarly within the next few decades after the industrial-technological-human capital space between it and the developed nations shrinks. In fact, that is exactly what we’ve seen in most other wealthy nations in East Asia: first Japan during the Meiji Restoration ending with the 80′s asset bubble, then South Korea during the Miracle on the Han through easily before the end of this decade, and Taiwan after that, likely to continue longer assuming things remain relatively peaceful with China. Singapore and Hong Kong are the two exceptions, advantaged as they are as an international trade port and traditional entrance to the mainland Chinese market, respectively.

“I don’t understand—what is allocation (democratic or not) of public ownership?”

It’s a matter of determining in what way socialized claims to ownership are distributed. Private property is essentially a legacy claim—I found it, it’s mine. It’s a natural means of private entities claiming resources, the kind you see dogs and cats using to mark their territory. Socialized claims to ownership are decided by a polity. Historically, the polity which brought about the opportunity for socialized claims has been a small cadre of people, former members of the public who’ve decided to revolt, against private (in this case, state) ownership. However, logically, enough, when they assumed power, they naturally assumed control as well, and once again a form of private ownership occurs.

However, if the polity which brings about socialism is everyone, or you have an inhumanly-magnanimous cadre of people, then everyone ought to (ought being an admittedly imperative word, here) distribute ownership claims democratically, i.e., to everyone. I’ll admit that last bit leaves a big space for things to go wrong, and that’s why I tend to prefer the inhumanly-magnanimous cadre of people, or even a single such person. Alternatively, people tend to respond well to Rawl’s idea of the veil of ignorance and iterations thereof.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 4:30 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
You assume that private and state ownership are always separate. In a non-democratic system of governance, the state is not, in my view, a public enterprise accountable to the public, at least not to the extent that the demands of the public determine its actions on a practical level. The Chinese Communist Party are primarily concerned for their party’s survival; the Public Good matters only insofar as it concerns that. The members of the CCP are very much a distinct class of people—not members of the public themselves, much less worried about what the average Chinese person thinks of them (again, beyond making sure that that person doesn’t want to overthrow the CCP altogether).

“And as I mentioned in the other post, I can’t see how public ownership and public-goods motive can work with market mechanisms.”

...Really? It actually seems quite simple to me.

Presumably, I have some idea of what constitutes Public Good (as I mentioned in the other post). I don’t need to be an altruist to think that other people deserve the Public Good as much as I do; most people have an innate sense of fairness, even if it’s calibrated differently from person to person. If I have some vision of how the world is “supposed to be”—which I think most people do, even if only a very rough idea—and I firmly believe in it, and I also have an ownership claim to the means of production and will thus be rewarded myself for my efforts, then presumably I will work to provide that Public Good for myself and others. If anything, this would force people to have a very refined vision of the Public Good, to ensure that whatever public ownership group they join is one producing their particular version of the Public Good, their desire to see that vision realized enhancing their efficiency in attempting to reach it.

Now, if lots of people agree with my vision of the Public Good, lots of them will join me in producing it. If it’s a particularly materially-intensive vision of the Public Good, it will remain more expensive, and democratized ownership may make it inaccessible due to a lack of concentration of resource ownership. E.g., if a socialized and democratized MoP group aims to provide each of its members a private jet, we’re unlikely to succeed as this is a very materially-intensive product to award to individuals; it’s therefore unlikely that such a group would exist for long as none of its members would be able to benefit from being part of a group with that specified purpose. This is an example of the market acting on such an ownership structure and operation to eliminate things which are materially expensive or impossible. As the ownership of the means of production is fully democratized, no one person or group would have anymore say over the purpose of the operation of the MoP than any other person, guaranteeing a more equitable distribution of resources.

But don’t think of this sort of process as simply referring to material Goods; it can extend to social Goods as well.

Take, for example, a racist vision of the Public Good. If I decide my vision of the Public Good excludes black people, I’m denying myself both their labor and, more significantly for this discussion, their claim to ownership of the means of production. This will make it more expensive for me to produce whatever other things are part of my vision of the Public Good, making it difficult, if not impossible to implement; such an exclusionary group would, again, dissolve because of low demand for that particular vision of the Public Good

By contrast, there would be many other groups for whom race is no concern for their conception of the Public Good, and the members of such socialized MoP groups would benefit from being egalitarian by including all potential sources of human labor and all sources of claims to the ownership of the means of production, reducing the costs of producing whatever else....This is the market acting on this type of ownership structure and operation to foster things which are highly-socially desirable, as determined by the existence of high demand.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 3:28 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
“OK, so the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and China until twenty years ago or so—all were/are socialist countries, right? On the other hand, countries like Sweden or France were never socialist—correct?”

Correct. Socialistic, sure, but not socialist.

“The expression ‘public goods’ has specific meaning in econospeak, I assume you’re not using that but just talking about goods for public consumption”

No, I did not mean public goods in the economic definition. Perhaps I should have said “Public Good”: production of things which the public deems to be uppercase-goods: education, positive social interaction, food, shelter....The list would vary, but yes: “Public Good”(s) for public consumption.

As for the rest, you still haven’t separated out public/private ownership of the means of production (MoP) and capitalist/socialist operation of the MoP. And when I say “market economy”, I mean organization of the MoP such that they respond to market information, i.e. supply and demand. State ownership, as in the USSR, doesn’t respond to supply and demand information; it responds to central planning information. Planners in the USSR decided, with the necessarily-limited information they had, how much of whatever good would be produced. I’m not advocating for that.

As I said in response to another comment on this post, it seems to me you can divide economic organization along three axes: public/private ownership of MoP (i.e. w/ or w/o private property), capitalistic/socialistic operation of MoP (i.e. for profit or Public Good), and operation of MoP according to market/planned rules. Democracy plays an important role in making public ownership work, as demonstrated nicely by both China and the USSR, for different reasons.

China, provides an excellent example of what seems to me to be just about the worst of all of those options. It’s major corporations are state, i.e. (nominally) public enterprises operated for profit according to goals set by provincial and national planning committees. However, because allocation of public ownership isn’t a democratic process, the CCP sort of does whatever it wants with China’s economy, keeping a large portion of the proceeds for itself and needing only to worry about fostering enough growth, for the general citizenry, to prevent itself from being overthrown. But, you at least have the profit motive for workers forcing them to be more productive, even though the system is utterly rigged against them.

The USSR was slightly better in one theoretical way, but worse in another in reality: state enterprises, operated for social good according to goals set by a central planning committee. This means you had the handicap of planning, and there was still the problem of public ownership being allocated undemocratically, but at least the MoP were supposedly being operated for the production of Public Good. However, there was was essentially no incentive for work: no democracy, thus no pressure from the public for the government to be efficient, and no incentive from the market for workers to be productive.

I’d say more about the importance of the democratization/publicization (however you’d like to put it) of the ownership of the MoP, but again, there’s quite a bit more written in that post I linked to a few comments up.

aquaticko 3 Dec 2013 0:18 UTC
−1 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
I’ve responded to this specific request in another response on this thread, but my definition of socialism is public ownership of the means of production, operated for public good (however that ends up being defined). Again, if you have time, read that last comment on the post I linked to if you’d like to see more about how market socialism might work.

What I believe has caused the fall of socialism in the past is that most economies which operate socialistically are guided by central planning (typically by a national government). This means that production is allocated according to whatever a central planner believes it ought to be; this is obviously problematic because no one person (or committee of people which represents but a sample of a population) has sufficient information to make socially-optimal decisions on production. Therefore, socialism has been seen to fail at what it (in my understanding) has been its only real goal—production of public good; I believe that these failures demonstrate the inadequacy of planning, not socialism.

Free markets, by contrast, aggregate information from millions of people, dramatically improving their efficiency, when compared to central planning, at producing goods. This is where I believe socialism should come in. Using markets, as opposed to planning, for socialist means, i.e. production of social good, ought to significantly improve both macroeconomic efficiency by decentralizing economic power, and social welfare simply by making it the priority.

aquaticko 2 Dec 2013 21:00 UTC
−3 points
in reply to: ialdabaoth’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
There’s really just six terms I tend to use in order to frame this discussion, which divide into three categories/axes:

1.Ownership of the means of production: this is private or public, the former utilizing private property, the latter dispensing of it.
1. Ends of the means of production: this is capitalist (MoP used for profit) or socialist (MoP used for public good)
2. Rules of the means of production: these are planned (typically state, but could be commune, etc.) or market-oriented (accord with supply/demand)
There have definitely been socialist countries, and most of them utilize public ownership, but as far as I know, none have used the rules of the market, which I believe is the reason for their failure.

Before I say anymore, let me know if these sound like reasonable definitions/distinctions.

aquaticko 2 Dec 2013 20:39 UTC
−3 points
in reply to: TheAncientGeek’s comment on: On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor
While I do believe that capitalism is necessarily exploitative, my argument doesn’t hinge on that opinion.

If you look at what happens in those countries once they begin to implement social welfare policies, economic growth begins to slow dramatically, though it’s arguable that the causality is reversed and that welfare policies are enacted when economic growth is already slowed. In either case, welfare policies are a response to the fact that a decreasing rate of economic growth, when not coupled to an equal decrease in the growth rate of the supply of the workforce, leads to decreasing rate of improvement of the standard of living (however you’d like to define that).

Instead of assuming private production for profit and public redistribution for public good, the former which we operate in a market economy and the latter which we operate in a planned economy, which is essentially what most mixed economies now do, we could have public production for public good in a market economy. I refer you to the last comment on the page I linked to in response to Eugine above in order for a somewhat-better bu far from perfect delineation of the idea.