Well, I'll say this for you, Loudon---you make me miss Gee...Stoller: Government, AKA the state, is the means of one class to impose its will upon another. Therefore when I say that a business (even one wage-employee) is a government, that means: the employer (capitalist) has the power to impose his / her will upon the worker (proletariat)...
: The employer only has the power to impose his/her will in relation to his/her property.
That's right---and property, ALL of it, has been monopolized by the ruling class.
: To say that this is a government is to say that you refusing to let me use your shovel is a government, you representing the class of shovel-owners and me representing the class of shovel-wanters.
Once again, you're atomizing capital into individuals. You miss the forest.
Marx: 'The existence of a class which possesses nothing but the ability to work is a necessary presupposition for capital' (Wage-Labor and Capital, International 1933, p. 30).
: And nowhere is there such a class. I have never seen or heard of anyone in this country who possesses NOTHING but the ability to work.
I have rarely heard such ignorant utterances. WHAT, pray tell, have you been reading? If capital was so easy to obtain (who wouldn't want to be rich?), why doesn't EVERYBODY become capitalists? Oh, let me guess... biological determinism---right?
: To say that the capitalist class does not perform productive labor is to be almost impossibly, and dangerously, ignorant of what it is that capitalists do. Ever spent any time in the real world?
Is standing behind a cash machine six hours at a stretch waiting on bozos like you 'real' enough?
Productive labor is labor which is directly exchanged with capital [Adam Smith's definition], i.e. labor that, once consumed, produces surplus value---or, to cut to the chase, labor that produces expanded capital. Unproductive labor is labor which is directly exchanged with revenue [Smith again], i.e. labor that, once consumed, does not exist any more. Reproductive consumption and unproductive consumption. Of course, since you have disregarded those classic distinctions in favor of some occult confusion about the durability of unspecified products, I might as well be talking to a brick wall...
: I don't know of anyone who monopolizes the means of production. Oh, you're saying that a bunch of different individuals, not organized together in any meaningful way, monopolize the means of production. Oh, I see. Odd use of the word, "monopolize".
Not in the least. Recall C. Wright Mill's definition of the power elite: they don't need to conspire, their material interests are the same. The property relations of bourgeois society is all the conspiracy needed... it happened before they were even born...
Stoller: Without socialized defense, overseas oil would soon cost the price of its production plus the price of its protection---which presently tax-payers pay FOR Exxon et. al so they don't have to hire their own militias for overseas oil fields.
: So, you present us with two options: Either all taxpayers pay for the price of overseas oil protection, OR the individual users of the oil pay for it's protection. What was that you were saying about it being wrong for one class to support itself plus another class?
Huh?
Listen up: if Exxon et. al paid for their own overseas oil defense (instead of receiving it gratis from the government you think you want to abolish), then they would pass on that extra expense to their consumers who would THEN decide if the price was right. 'Free market' and all that. BUT---defense itself demonstrates that some (potential) constant capital expenses are too high for ANY single capitalist (cartel, firm, trust) to take on.
: Except that Marx apparently forgot that people form corporations to amass large amounts of capital.
Are you out of mind?
Marx was particularly cognizant that people form corporations to amass large amounts of capital. That was one of his major points: that capital, once it reaches a certain stage, must CENTRALIZE ownership and SOCIALIZE labor in order to expand.
You're a stranger to the concept of the dialectics of historical materialism, aren't you?
: ...in a mixed economy, yes, it's usually at the public's expense. So, let's get rid of the socialistic aspects of the mixed economy.
Not possible. Nukes don't 'really' create profits because they're never consumed. No capitalist board of directors with an eye on quarterly reports would ever buy any. Yet Exxon et. al needs those nukes---or else some other country will annex our neo-colonies (like Kuwait) and suck up all the lovely oil...
: AH! So, the fact that anarcho-capitalism has yet to be tried means that it's a rhetorical utopia and therefore shouldn't be tried.
It was tried---in the 18th century. Care to go back? Read some Jefferson and Franklin for a descripiton of the good old days...
Stoller: Have you been getting your ideas from Rush album liner notes? This is beneath even Ayn Rand.
: Is this a debate or a comedy act? It's not very funny, and yet it's also not very thought-out.
It's both...
No, actually it's neither...
You bore me. Go bother someone else. The rest of your post in the trash.
Gee, I'm sorry about all those terrible things I said about you. PLEASE come back...
None.
