What is morality?

[promethean75]

"Who saw the opportunity? Who bought the raw materials? Who created the business? Who built the building, bought the machines, paid the insurance and tax, etc...."

I was gonna aks you that same question right after you aksed me it.

Everything that you speak of is called appropriation. And THAT means taking an already available means of production (without laboring to produce it oneself) and using it again as a new means of production to function without one's labor.

Critical now is to understand the importance of class distinction. The workers that produced the oil that cappy x uses in his machines (and claims to have produced himself as you just tried to do) were not exploited by cappy x. They were exploited by cappy y. This is why this is 'nothing personal' and why leftists shouldn't split hairs over who is who among the bad guys. The entire CLASS of the capitalist is bad. Who and how much they parasitize duddint matter.

Nice try, though. That's an old one. There's even a graphic comic of it on the internet. Guy is interviewing a short bald capitalist with a cigar. He thinks he's gotten out of being a parasite by calling the factory his and paying for it. Then the interviewer akses him how he got the money to buy the factory and who actually built it. Again, the production of any and everything comes back to the proletariat... somewhere, some way... while the capitalist parasite rides on his back.

[promethean75]

Before you go there.

The capitalist who STARTS as a wage earner, builds his own capital, and then opens a business, can no longer use the 'i did all this myself' argument once his exploited profits reach a greater amount than the costs he spent to start the business.

From that point forward, he becomes a pure parasite, and the transition from proletariat to bourgeoisie is complete.

[Immanuel Can]

"Who saw the opportunity? Who bought the raw materials? Who created the business? Who built the building, bought the machines, paid the insurance and tax, etc...."

I was gonna aks you that same question right after you aksed me it.

If you knew that "value" means more than merely "the value of worker's labour," then you'd hardly have used the example you chose.

Everything that you speak of is called appropriation.

That's just another euphemism. "Appropriation" means "theft." And Socialism believes that all ownership is "theft."

And THAT means taking an already available means of production (without laboring to produce it oneself) and using it again as a new means of production to function without one's labor.

Now you're back to the very dumb "labour theory of value." But it forgets the value of things like ingenuity, risk-taking, capital-funding, infrastructure provision, opportunity cost...and so on.

Critical now is to understand the importance of class distinction.

"Class" is a failed concept. It turns out, contra Marx, that "classes" are very, very mobile -- the poor do not remain poor, and the rich do not remain rich. Rather, the classes interpenetrate and exchange members all the time. And in the middle is "the middle class," which is also highly mobile.

Communism, a la Marx failed because the society he described ceased to exist. The middle class expanded, as a result of free markets, and the lower classes shrank. Meanwhile, the aristocracy was replaced by the rising middle class, and new axes of wealth creation appeared...such that Marx never imagined.

Marx was just wrong. Even the Neo-Marxist acknowledge that now...which is precisely why they moved their analysis away from the Marxian focus on class, and began carping about sex, sexuality, race, age, fatness, ability...and every other axis they thought they could leverage to save Marx from irrelevance.

The workers that produced the oil that cappy x uses in his machines

That would imply you're living in the Industrial Revolution. You haven't heard that Marx is dead, and Marcuse is the new girl in the neighbourhood.

[Immanuel Can]

Before you go there.

The capitalist who STARTS as a wage earner, builds his own capital, and then opens a business, can no longer use the 'i did all this myself' argument once his exploited profits reach a greater amount than the costs he spent to start the business.

Nobody used that argument. Who does anything "all myself"? The question is, do workers have a claim on more than the wage for which they freely contracted. And of course they don't.

After that, how much he makes or does not, as a reward for all his ingenuity, his capital investment, his assuming of risk, his hiring of you, and all the other things he did is really nobody's business but his own.

He "exploited" nobody. You signed a contract, and agreed to the value of your own labour by so doing. Nobody made you sign. And if you decide you don't like the wage, you can go. Nobody will stop you.

So if there's a "parasite," it's only the worker who wants to break the terms of the contract he signed, and demand to steal more than his share. If he imagine he is "oppressed," he is oppressing himself. He signed. He didn't have to. He could go elsewhere, but he does not. He should stop whining.

You are a free agent. You could choose otherwise, but choose not to. You signed the terms of your own employment. If you get any more, it's a bonus, not a right. A good employer will try to keep you happy, but he doesn't owe you to do that. You're an adult. You decide where you work, and how much you'll accept for it.

[promethean75]

"Nobody used that argument"

Right, because you're not clever enough. It's the classic argument capitalists make to try and avoid being called superfluous parts of the chain of production. That they 'worked' for it all... weren't born into wealth and didn't inherit it, etc. But that only works for a while. See above post.

"He could go elsewhere, but he does not. He should stop whining"

But he kinda can't. He'll be traded back and forth between employers or drop out and become a free loadin' lumpenproletariat if he isn't arrested for trespassing somewhere.

Now, as long as you are prepared to live in a society like this without complaining, you can have your capitalism. But you don't wanna do that. You want everyone to stop whining, keep working, keep making the payments, and get along. But if that were possible, history wouldn't be showing so many uprisings, strikes, and rebellions. It IS showing that. So something ain't working out, padre.

Check this out, too. If i were a feudalist, i could use precisely the same arguments as you against you. If you don't like working under the control and command of a feudal land owner, stop whining and go open your own shop... if you aren't arrested and hung first.

Your rebuttal is ridiculous, as you can see. Just because one doesn't like the terms of their economy doesn't mean the economy is right and he's a wuss.

Hegel would aks you why society shouldn't continue evolving. Why conservatism and capitalism should stay if n*ggaz are having such a hard time with it and it's time for some synthesis.

Your's is a complex psychological condition derived from an unwavering commitment to Christianity and conservatism mixed with an inability to avoid philosophical confusion about everything under the sun.

[Immanuel Can]

"Nobody used that argument"

Right, because you're not clever enough.

And yet...you argue that it's a bad argument.

It's the classic argument capitalists make to try and avoid being called superfluous parts of the chain of production.

I don't think it is. I think it's the straw-man argument that Socialists make up, so they have something easy to knock down -- just as you employ it here. In any case, it's no argument I made, so I don't have any rational obligation to defend your invented bad argument.

"He could go elsewhere, but he does not. He should stop whining"

But he kinda can't.

Of course he can. Employment is by mutual agreement.

You don't like that fact, because it blows the Socialist "I'm being oppressed" whine right out of the water. But of course, you know it's true. Consider your own employment: did you agree to work? Did your employer agree to pay you? And if you quit, will you be arrested, or even resisted? Absolutely not. It's a consensual arrangement, not a forced-labour situation.

Meanwhile, so long as you are paid exactly what you contracted to be paid, what business of yours is it how much your employer has? Do you think covetousness and petty envy are suddenly virtues? If he makes a billion, what is it to you, so long as the pay cheque you agreed to accept is paid to you on time? And if you don't like it, what stops you from doing exactly what your employer did, and start your own initiative to be a boss yourself?

Here's another problem with Socialism. It says, "I'm being exploited by somebody above me (i.e. somebody bourgeois)." But then it says, "The cure is to hand even more power to a government that is even more elitist, but will somehow be staffed by people who love me, and will put their own interests second to mine."

Really? So the cure for too much centralization of power is MORE centralization; and the cure for exploitation is to give to an even smaller group even MORE power to exploit me?

[MikeNovack]

Meanwhile, so long as you are paid exactly what you contracted to be paid, what business of yours is it how much your employer has? Do you think covetousness and petty envy are suddenly virtues? If he makes a billion, what is it to you, so long as the pay cheque you agreed to accept is paid to you on time? And if you don't like it, what stops you from doing exactly what your employer did, and start your own initiative to be a boss yourself?

This alone prevents your anti-socialism rant from being off topic. In fact, makes it very much on topic.

The "ultimatum game" (aka "dictator game") has been well studied in experimental social economics. With surprising results. Humans do NOT tend to play "rationally" but seem instead to feel compelled to punish unfairness. In other words, humans tend to treat this as a situation where morality matters more than rational self interest. The exact amount of perceived unfairness, price paid to punish, etc. seems to have cultural components (what experimental results indicate).

For those unfamiliar with the game, there re two "players". One, the "dictator", gets to propose the division of a prize, what percentage he/she would get to keep and what remainder to the other person. The other person cannot negotiate, only choose yes or no. If yes, the prize is divided as the dictator proposed. If no, neither gets anything.

RATIONALLY the second person should always accept even a very unfair division because better off than if rejecting. After all, what difference does it make what the other person gets. In practice, most people, in most societies will reject any grossly unfair division, though it should be remembered that academic study budgets being what they are, the cost of rejecting isn't that high (the total prize not that large). I am NOT SURE would hold up if the prize so large that acting irrationally was painful. In effect, a measure of "how much will we pay to encourage mutual fairness?"

The experiment can also be run for multiple encounters, Imagine a room, some people wear red, some yellow. Each round a red goes to a yellow and makes an offer. If in agreement, they go to the desk, get the prize amount, and divide it. Next round each red goes to a different yellow. Assume some reds will offer fair division while other will be a little greedy and some very greedy. Likewise some yellows will be rationalists and some moralists. After a largish number of rounds, see who has how much. Does the ratio of rationalist to moralist yellows matter (influence how the reds choose to play)

[Immanuel Can]

Meanwhile, so long as you are paid exactly what you contracted to be paid, what business of yours is it how much your employer has? Do you think covetousness and petty envy are suddenly virtues? If he makes a billion, what is it to you, so long as the pay cheque you agreed to accept is paid to you on time? And if you don't like it, what stops you from doing exactly what your employer did, and start your own initiative to be a boss yourself?

...your anti-socialism rant...

Prom's actually. He was the one who went all Socialist on us. I'm just pointing out some simple facts.

1. Work is by mutual agreement of worker and employer.
2. Wages are contracted for, by the worker.
3. The worker is free to come and go, and to sell his labour for as much as he can get.
4. Nobody gets money without adding value, and the market determines what the value of one's contribution is.
5. There is no limit on opportunity. Anybody is allowed to succeed, and to any level he/she wishes, so long as one can win in the market.

I'm waiting to see where the "unfairness" is supposed to be, in such an arrangement.

For those unfamiliar with the game, there re two "players". One, the "dictator",

There's no "dictator," except inevitably in the one-party system Socialism produces. In a free market arrangement, all participants are free to command themselves, and whatever price they can obtain for the value they offer. And no dictator is required.

Socialism's "unfairness" is an invented and imaginary thing. Socialism runs on envy, covetousness and resentment, and not on the achievement of anything. In fact, Socialism only succeeds where is is successful in convincing people that they deserve something for nothing, and that their problems are the result of some "oppressor."

If game theory applies, it's to a false "game," one framed propagandistically by the Socialist would-be dictators. It certainly doesn't reflect anything actual in a free market system.

[promethean75]

"Work is by mutual agreement of worker and employer"

It's also compulsory to avoid becoming a social and financial liability or being imprisoned. Ergo, it is forced and accepted under duress. Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains 'n all that French Enlightenment proto-anarchism stuff. Real shit, man. Most philosophers laugh at those anarchists for being amateurs, and yet none have yet to get around this problem. I don't owe nobody shit, much less am i obligated to stay off your 'property' or agree to daily drudgery so I'm not arrested and don't starve to death.

In the words of the great sage, Eric Cartman: it's my body... I'll do what i want!

Anyhow, because of this, 2-5 don't get any steam behind them. They're just truisms on behalf of 1 (after i redefined it for you), and 1 is already unfair because i am forced to labor or be an undesirable, often facing legal consequences.

[promethean75]

'Course, I'm not saying we should live like Novatores, only that it would be philosophically legal to do so. Which means all the things you believe give order to the world (god, objective morality, etc) don't actually exist. Or rather, mine is a position on the position that these things don't exist, and my conclusions are the logical outcomes of those conditions. That society, property, and law are all spooks. On the basis of the compulsion to work alone, one could rebel. Police men and property owners are just spook enforcers.

[Immanuel Can]

"Work is by mutual agreement of worker and employer"
It's also compulsory to avoid becoming a social and financial liability or being imprisoned.

Who's going to imprison you? And for what?

In Western free market democracies, people are not jailed for poverty. They're not jailed for choosing not to work, either. They're not jailed for quitting their jobs, for refusing a contract, for changing employment, or for eating bonbons on the couch all day. Even if you decided all you want to do is live on the street and smoke crack, nobody's going to put you in jail. In our societies, people are jailed for criminal acts. There is no compulsion at all involved.

Nobody's making you work. The Socialists have lied...again.

Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains...

Really? When was that?

Never.

No man was ever "born free" of the necessity of finding food, of making shelter, of defending the home, of creating warmth, of wearing clothes, or of being subject to the vicissitudes of life in a thousand other ways. To quote Hobbes, life before civilization was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," not "free."

I wonder if perhaps you have imbibed the "noble savage" myth of which those same French Philosophers you admire were so fond. But what they never realized, from their comparatively privileged circumstances in Paris or London was that life as a "savage" was never "noble." It was painful, hard, grinding, dangerous and miserable. And you'll find that's the way it was everywhere in the world.

[MikeNovack]

Stop it IC. In the "game" described (the "ultimatum game") it is common to use the term "dictator" to describe the player with the sole power to set the terms of the division. And the reason I introduced this "game" was to discuss morality.

And I described the experimental results. That the players without the power to decide the division of the spoils would tend to play irrationally, opting to "punish" any "dictator" that proposed a grossly unfair division. Even though that means giving something up. I also put forward my observation that perhaps the results would be different were the prize to be divided LARGE (so giving up an unfair distribution more costly).

But what I want from you is YOUR explanation of the observed result. To what do you ascribe (the observed) willingness to pay that price to enforce "fairness"? Is it because coveting the larger share claimed by the "dictator"? Or is it because of a fundamental, lower level moral imperative to "enforce social cooperation" << having served humans well over millions of years and so common to human cultures >>

It is my belief that we should, if possible, discover all our "built in" morality before trying to come up with morality suited to the LARGE SCALE societies in which we now live. Important because we will feel uneasy when the rules conflict << I think this conflict explains the odd results of the "runaway trolley car" problem >>

[Immanuel Can]

Stop it IC.

I submit to you that there's no "dictator" involved in free markets. And there's no compulsion in modern labour. The whole Socialist ramble is a scam, designed to gin up a sense of grievance and hatred, where none is justified.

But what I want from you is YOUR explanation of the observed result. To what do you ascribe (the observed) willingness to pay that price to enforce "fairness"?

Do you know why, in the fish market, they don't have to put a lid on the barrel of crabs? It's because if a crab ever tries to climb out, the others pull it down.

That nicely models the Socialist spirit. It's envious and spiteful and cannot stand to witness the rising of others. It supposes "equality" or "fairness" means pulling everybody down to the same miserable level. At the same time, it's utterly incapable of improving the human position. And this has been demonstrated in every Socialist regime in history, just as it's demonstrated today. Socialist societies do not generate value. They don't raise the general standard of living. They equalize. They level. They cut down the lofty, but can't raise the lowly beyond the average level of misery and poverty. And this is because they can't add value to the world. Socialism doesn't "add" things. It cuts off the entrepreneurial spirit, removes the profit motive, and cripples achievement, because it's so resentful and uncreative.

Ask a Socialist to describe the society he's trying to produce. But tell him he cannot use any negative terms (like, "a society without X, or Y, or Z"). Make him say what his society would be generating, creating, adding and producing, how it would do it, and where it would be going. And you'll find he cannot give any plausible account. Even the most ardent Socialist theorists declare they can't do it, and excuse that on the basis that "history," or rather "History" (Hegelian style) will take care of that, when the time comes. The outcome, they say, "cannot be specified in advance"; and yet, they demand we "advance" toward it, unknowing of the real outcome.

It's a huge bluff. They're a bunch of spiteful eunuchs. They can't produce. They don't even know what they're trying to produce. They just know what they hate. They're only good at hating. Why would we want to emulate them?

...,is it because of a fundamental, lower level moral imperative to "enforce social cooperation"

Well, you can't "enforce" social cooperation. You can "force" people to obey, but you can't change their hearts that way. Socialists have tried -- they call it "re-education." But all it ever produces is resentful, vicious, propagandized drones for "the Cause." You can "force" people to go along, but changing their hearts is something nobody can do.

The problem is internal. External constraint cannot solve it.

Moreover, the impulse to "level" society isn't moral. Spite, envy, hatred and resentment are not moral. Nor is there any commandment from on high, that says, "Thou shalt level among all people." According to Materialism (or Dialectical Materialism), people are accidental products of an indifferent universe, and cannot be "owed" anything, so it's not even possible to consider "equality" as an objective moral value. By Materialism's lights, we live in a land where whatever IS, is as "good" or "bad" as anything else; and nobody has the moral high ground.

Let me suggest that what is more genuinely moral is to rejoice in the good fortune of others, boost them, add value to one's own society, and to be grateful for one's own privileges and opportunities. But Socialism doesn't conduce to any of that. So the use of "force," as you put it, results inevitably in nothing but a tyrannical, confiscatory and homicidal police state.

[promethean75]

Are u tellin' me you can't imagine a single instance of finding/maintaining employment being incredibly difficult and resulting in an individual engaging in illegal activities for lack of money?

Manny. Are we really having this argument?

Here's an example. Damn near every major industrial city that existed between 1800 and 1900 on both sides of the atlantic.

Somewhere in there, you'll find a guy who's in serious trouble because of employment problems, not of his own making.

Kay, I'm being sarcastic. You'll actually find 983,739,519,718 individuals having this problem.

[Immanuel Can]

Are u tellin' me you can't imagine a single instance of finding/maintaining employment being incredibly difficult and resulting in an individual engaging in illegal activities for lack of money?

We live in a semi-welfare state, and one bolstered by plenty of private charity, as well. We have unemployment payments, food vouchers, food banks, street missions, government employment services...There is ALWAYS some place people can get enough money to survive.

Somewhere in there, you'll find a guy who's in serious trouble because of employment problems, not of his own making.

Sure. And we have aid for such people. But we don't make it the norm, and we certainly don't overthrow the entire free market system, simply because a small minority of people find it challenging.

And by the way, the population of your country sits at at out 343 million. Of those, .23% experience homelessness, for some period of time...temporary or long-term. But two thirds of those are addicted, mentally ill, and cannot be remedied by overthrowing the system.

So your argument is that we should overthrow the entire system, which needs to be destroyed, because .076% of the population are in serious trouble financially.

How does that argument even make sense?