: [A] hundred people who did not conceive of the wheel cannot equal the effect of the one who did. Its in the mind, and all that.Are you sure only one person 'invented' the wheel? One person---at one time and place?
And should all of Western civilization continue to pay tribute in honor of intellectual property rights to that one person (if it was one person) in perpetuity?
If capitalism existed THEN, that might have happened.
Stoller: Why is it you want communism to be voluntary yet, at the same time, you don't expect the same of capitalism (which you defend)? One standard for me, another for you? That's not very honest.
: Please dont misinterpret me. I dont *want* communism to be voluntary, I say that communism sans control and enforcement *must* be voluntary or it falls apart as you have described. So I am not behind RD's socialism in order to to support a toothless possibility, I give it the credibility of accepting that people *won't* want institutionally enforced communism which you correctly identify the necessity of (esp with regard to job rotation). You see, I'm not *that* sneaky after all.
Sneaky enough to not address my comment about capitalism's need for coercion...
Here's the part of my post you didn't deal with:
Yet capitalism is NOT voluntary. If someone doesn't want to work---on capitalism's terms and at capitalism's wages---that person will go homeless and starve. That's indirect coercion.
I've made this point before. Will you ever deal with it?
On the social division of labor...
: Actually its no insinuation, I stated that their ability makes them unassailably into a position of exclusive skill ('excluded' from others by their ability) which cannot be rotated. That is what I wished to see resolved in your model. I'm sure they could sweep with the best of them, but in their speciality they would be far and away from their peer group - who would be unable to match them, unable to take their place. In this they would be alone, divided from others.
OK, you're defending the social division of labor (also snipping from my post references to Plato and Stalin who defended it in the interests of promoting hierarchy).
Here's a question for you: can division of labor exist without hierarchy? And if not (history infers the two are synonymous), do you care to come out and openly defend hierarchy?
The only reason that Marx and Engels (and the Bolsheviks) (and yours truly) wants 'exceptional talents' to do some sweeping and some unexceptional people to do some science is to PREVENT usurping castes and sects and classes from forming (stealing science, amongst other things, from the people).
: I imagine that I am correct in assuming that socialism is not a menu from which to pick the 'nice bits' any more than the politically powerful today treat the free market as something from which to pick the 'nice' bits.
We can agree on that.
