David Shemano writes: > I think we are discussing something fundamental, and inherently
interesting to me. What you are both saying, if I may paraphrase, is that human
interaction based upon voluntary exchange is not ennobling. (Let us leave aside, for
the
moment, inequality, and just focus on the act of voluntary exchange itself).<
I'm not sure we can "leave aside" inequality. Not only does inequality of resource
ownership imply that "voluntary exchange" (markets) benefits some much more than it
benefits the vast majority, but the last 25+ years teach us that as the role of markets
increases in society, inequality increases too, as those with wealth advantages use
their
wealth to accumulate further advantages.
>In other, in the best of all possible words, people would
provide for each other needs without expecting anything in return, etc. Is this not
what
has motivated utopians for centuries? All we need is love?<
utopians point to other mechanisms for collective decision-making besides letting the
rich
rule via the use of dollar votes in the markets for goods, services, and politicians.
Democracy springs to mind.
In democracy, people work together as a _community_, while making decisions about what
the
community should do in a democratic way (rather than the one-dollar/one-vote approach
of
markets). "Voluntary exchange" encourages total individualization, destroying
communities
and democracy (and the values that are necessary to prevent voluntary exchange from
becoming a mess of fraud and extortion and then a Hobbesian war of each against all).
BTW, you might enjoy reading utopians: for the top-down socialist vision, look at
Bellamy's LOOKING FORWARD; for the socialism-from-below ideal, see William Morris' NEWS
FROM NOWHERE. Morris' story is not based on the kinds of motives that you suggest. It's
not love but creativity and community that drive his utopia.
> Now, I think you and the other list members assume the "ickiness" of voluntary
>exchange,
but it is ultimately an assumption, an emotion, impervious to reason [just as is the
belief in the "niceness" of exchange?]. It is why you are Lefties and why I am not. We
could debate empirical information of capitalism v. socialism for eternity, but
doesn't
it come down to the fact that you are utopians and in your utopia people help each
other
without expecting anything in return?<
Marx had a useful approach in his CAPITAL (volume I). He assumed that all exchange was
"equal" (i.e., that commodities exchanged at value). In modern terms, all exchanges are
voluntary and commodities exchange according to opportunity costs. He doesn't treat
exchange as "icky." Rather, he treats it as a moral standard (for argument's sake, at
least) against which bourgeois society should be measured. That is, he judges it
according
to its own standards.
He finds that capitalism doesn't live up to its own moral standard. Marx points to the
fundamental social inequalities that we call "class" which imply that workers
_voluntarily_ exchange their labor-power with the capitalists, who then are able
exploit
them. Because workers lack direct access to the means of production and subsistence,
they
have little choice (as long as they act as individuals) to do more labor than is
necessary
to pay for the hiring of their labor-power. In one of Marx's summaries, he says that
surplus-value (profits, interest, and rent) is the price that workers pay for not being
starved by the capitalists.
BTW, on the question of Nozick: he seems to use the standard Lockean meaning for
"redistribution." Locke assumed that any property we own is _ours_ and ours alone, so
that
if the state takes some of it away as taxes and gives it to someone else, that's
redistribution. This ignores the redistribution that takes place within a free-market
capitalist system, i.e., the redistribution from workers to capitalists (capitalist
exploitation). Of course, wherever there are external costs or benefits, redistribution
occurs within the market system, whether the state is involved or not. -- Jim Devine
>
> David Shemano
>
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