On Wednesday 26 August 2009, Anthony Carrico wrote: > Rene Churchill wrote: > > While the socialist ideal of "From each according to their ability. To > > each according to their needs" would result in a more Utopian ideal, it > > just doesn't match up against reality. There needs to be some kind of > > reward system to encourage folks to greater effort than just the minimum. > > Ya, seriously. A market (the job market in this case) isn't something > evil, it is just a way to decide how much one hour of X is in relation > to one hour of Y. Neither inherently evil or good. But is it fair? In the bazaar of trade, even if using barter, one tends to resort to using currency/script as a measure of value for their labors. "I'll trade you 4 hours of weeding my garden for 2 hours computer time because I estimate the weeding to translate into x dollars/hour (as it were). Of course, this implies the luxury of choice. That I don't need the work because I have the option of working/bartering with someone else for a better deal.
>
> The huge barriers to (legal) entry into the market (the minimum wage,
> various tax withholdings, unemployment insurance, liability, termination
> issues, soon health care, etc.) are all reasons that law abiding citizen
> realistically must go to a corp to purchase most of the labor they
> require.
?????
I don't go to a corp for plumbing, i call a plumber. Now, if the plumber needs
an assistant
or journeyman, how he/she pays them is another matter.
So, you must be speaking from an employers' perspective i presume?
> I can't imagine that a plumber would pay a weeder's social
> security, or that the weeder would pay his own self employment tax.
The rightness (or wrongness) of taxation aside, we're talking about simple
exchange here,
not the complexities of modern civilization and culture.
And, FWIW, Social Security is marked for death in 2017 while medicare runs out
in 2014.
> How
> does this exchange deal with those problems?
It doesn't and is not designed to. Instead it (for starters at least) should
provide an
alternative to the existing system for satisfying needs.
This is because, generally, the entire System is borked and may be only a
matter of time
before it fails completely.
> If its members just skirt the socialist barriers which are standing in the
> way of an genuine
> efficient labor market, then it is pretty ironic that they hold out a
> socialist valuation for the work itself.
Tony, you always raise the "socialist" angle at every opportunity. FWIW, I'm
not entirely a socialist
but socialism has some merit; but you diminish the conversation by
using cheap labels for what otherwise may be just another method of doing
business. What about from a homesteading
perspective? Or a 'simple-life' worldview that keeps resources w/in the
community instead of going to a multinational?
By emphasizing "efficiency" of labor while disregarding the hidden costs of
that efficiency and the impact it has
on those doing the labor you reinforce the notion of the true capitalist's
worldview - putting money before people
and treating money managers and bankers and financiers as the new priests of
the marketplace.
We've had this thread going before: the primary driver of value being based on
scarcity.
I find it hard to believe you can't think outside the box on this one;
specially since the entire FOSS movement
revolves around creating value through abundance.
Rion
Rion
>
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