Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe not everyone wants a Maserati or a mansion. Both are environmentally unsustainable if everyone were to have them. Affordable and environmentally sustainable housing and transportation for all would make more sense. Don't you think? If anyone wants more than that, they can sell all their other possessions to get what they want.
This is a distinction without a difference. You can call anything a "personal possession," or a "means of production." The classification is arbitrary...or at least, mostly so. We can safely say that a toothbrush is "personal possession," because nobody else wants ours. But what about a car? What about the land on which your house sits? What about your employment? What about your children?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 4:41 pmI believe Marx distinguished between "private property" and "personal possessions".Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:08 pmSo your definition is half of mine. But you don't think about the abolishing of private property.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 6:17 pm Socialism is for public or collective ownership and administration of the means of production, rather than private ownership.
However, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx himself wrote, "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
In Socialist thought, all things are "socially-constructed," meaning that they are whatever the 'society' (as claimed by the Socialist Party) says they are, and nothing more. So anything can simply be "reconstructed" as legal property of the State.However, where to draw the line between "personal possessions" and "private property" can be difficult in some cases, like most boundaries between legal distinctions often are.
How many people got Maseratis and mansions in the USSR, or China, or North Korea?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:37 pmMaybe, or maybe not. Maybe not everyone wants a Maserati or a mansion.
So unless we are wanting to relinquish our children, we must allow people to own banks and factories? Interesting dilemma there.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:49 pmThis is a distinction without a difference. You can call anything a "personal possession," or a "means of production." The classification is arbitrary...or at least, mostly so. We can safely say that a toothbrush is "personal possession," because nobody else wants ours. But what about a car? What about the land on which your house sits? What about your employment? What about your children?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 4:41 pmI believe Marx distinguished between "private property" and "personal possessions".Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:08 pm
So your definition is half of mine. But you don't think about the abolishing of private property.
However, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx himself wrote, "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Just try it.
Why not own banks and factories? What's wrong with you doing so?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:52 pmSo unless we are wanting to relinquish our children, we must allow people to own banks and factories? Interesting dilemma there.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:49 pmThis is a distinction without a difference. You can call anything a "personal possession," or a "means of production." The classification is arbitrary...or at least, mostly so. We can safely say that a toothbrush is "personal possession," because nobody else wants ours. But what about a car? What about the land on which your house sits? What about your employment? What about your children?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 4:41 pm
I believe Marx distinguished between "private property" and "personal possessions".
Just try it.
Why should individuals be allowed to own banks or factories? Is it going to make things better for everyone else if someone owns a factory or bank? What if it ends up making everyone else miserable? That can happen too, and does. The reason Marx wanted to abolish ownership of the means of production is that owners were often driven to create slave labor conditions in order to be more profitable. I mean, if Elon Musk is making a trillion dollars a year, then that is money that is not be spread among the workers working for him. It's being siphoned off to someone's private bank account, and for what? For making a decision that could be made as easily by someone else?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:18 pmWhy not own banks and factories? What's wrong with you doing so?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:52 pmSo unless we are wanting to relinquish our children, we must allow people to own banks and factories? Interesting dilemma there.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:49 pm
This is a distinction without a difference. You can call anything a "personal possession," or a "means of production." The classification is arbitrary...or at least, mostly so. We can safely say that a toothbrush is "personal possession," because nobody else wants ours. But what about a car? What about the land on which your house sits? What about your employment? What about your children?
Just try it.
If you run an honest bank, what's the problem with you helping people to finance their aspirations, their businesses, their home purchase, their children's education, or anything else? Now, if you gouge them, or if you inflate interest rates, we have a problem; but if you're honest, why shouldn't you start a bank, Gary?
And a factory. If you know how to build something or you invent something that solves a problem for people, and they're freely willing to buy it, why shouldn't you establish a factory to make it? Sure, if you use slaves or steal from your employees, you should be arrested and charged, or run out of business. But if you give your workers a fair wage for their labour, and they work for you of their free will, why shouldn't you do that? Don't you think people need and deserve jobs?
Is there something evil about any of that? Because it's not obvious there is.
Absolutely, it will. Unlike government, banks and factories are highly constrained by reality, by market forces and by the choices of consumers. Unless they want to go out of business, they'd better not fool around with quality and competitiveness. By contrast, government-owned businesses do not use their own money, do not face market forces, cannot be punished for bad behaviour by the consumer, and just keep going even when they're inefficient, wasteful, bloated and bad.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:32 pmWhy should individuals be allowed to own banks or factories? Is it going to make things better for everyone else if someone owns a factory or bank?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:18 pmWhy not own banks and factories? What's wrong with you doing so?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:52 pm
So unless we are wanting to relinquish our children, we must allow people to own banks and factories? Interesting dilemma there.
If you run an honest bank, what's the problem with you helping people to finance their aspirations, their businesses, their home purchase, their children's education, or anything else? Now, if you gouge them, or if you inflate interest rates, we have a problem; but if you're honest, why shouldn't you start a bank, Gary?
And a factory. If you know how to build something or you invent something that solves a problem for people, and they're freely willing to buy it, why shouldn't you establish a factory to make it? Sure, if you use slaves or steal from your employees, you should be arrested and charged, or run out of business. But if you give your workers a fair wage for their labour, and they work for you of their free will, why shouldn't you do that? Don't you think people need and deserve jobs?
Is there something evil about any of that? Because it's not obvious there is.
Why would it? If you run an honest bank, how are you going to make people miserable? If you run an honest factory, how are you not going to make your employees wealthier and better off than if they had no jobs?What if it ends up making everyone else miserable?
Marx got so many things wrong. And this is just one of them.The reason Marx wanted to abolish ownership of the means of production is that owners were often driven to create slave labor conditions in order to be more profitable.
Why? What have they done to earn it? Did they invent something? Did they finance something? Did they take some risks, and assume costs themselves? What did they do to earn more money than they agreed to work for?I mean, if Elon Musk is making a trillion dollars a year, then that is money that is not be spread among the workers working for him.
Whose? Whose money is Elon Musk stealing? If you know, call the police. Theft is illegal.It's being siphoned off to someone's private bank account,
Apparently wage slavery and sweatshops are all a socialist myth. And it was the industry owners who made reforms to working conditions in their shops, not unions and worker movements. Everyone except the masters just sits back and reaps the mana that the masters create for them. Elon Musk is far too generous paying his workers. He should cut their wages more. Afterall, workers have it comfy cosey. It's the Elon Musks of the world who take the "risks" and do the "hard" work.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:51 pmWhy would it? If you run an honest bank, how are you going to make people miserable? If you run an honest factory, how are you not going to make your employees wealthier and better off than if they had no jobs?
Now, government-run things...there are some things that can make people miserable.
Well, Gary...so far as I know, wages in America are paid by agreement of both employer and employee. And so far as I know, it's actually very easy for a person who doesn't like their job, or who doesn't think their wages fit it, to quit. I know of no "slaves" in America, unless we count the sort of things that go on in sex trafficking. So no, there are no "wage slaves" in America...unless you can point some out, in which case, I'll consider them.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 8:07 pmApparently wage slavery and sweatshops are all a socialist myth.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:51 pmWhy would it? If you run an honest bank, how are you going to make people miserable? If you run an honest factory, how are you not going to make your employees wealthier and better off than if they had no jobs?
Now, government-run things...there are some things that can make people miserable.
Both, I think. The factories made consumer goods cheaper and cheaper, and more accessible than at any time before, and the workers demanded better wages. And as the middle class expanded, the whole economy shifted, along with the politics. None of these deveopments were foreseen by Marx, of course.And it was the industry owners who made reforms to working conditions in their shops, not unions and worker movements.
Elon Musk is far too generous paying his workers. He should cut their wages more.
Actually, yes...it's the entrepreneurs who put their resources at risk. The employees are guaranteed their wage and their benefits and their severance packages.Afterall, workers have it comfy cosey. It's the Elon Musks of the world who take the "risks" and do the "hard" work.
So workers have it easy and entrepreneurs are the ones who undergo hardship. And workers would just sit around and do nothing if they weren't instructed by their betters what to do, just like Christians wouldn't know right from wrong if it weren't for God telling them what was what. You have all the elite propaganda down pat. You'd make a great butler.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 10:30 pmActually, yes...it's the entrepreneurs who put their resources at risk. The employees are guaranteed their wage and their benefits and their severance packages.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 8:07 pm Afterall, workers have it comfy cosey. It's the Elon Musks of the world who take the "risks" and do the "hard" work.
I don't get why you hate success, Gary. If a man makes money by adding value to the world, or by creating products people freely wish to buy, why shouldn't he? And why should anybody be owed more money for taking no risks, inventing nothing and not doing anything in particular beyond his wage?
That's a very bizarre set of values, I have to say. And any progress in society is not going to happen if we incentivize doing nothing.
Nobody said any life is "easy," Gary...but working for a wage is working for an income. It's voluntary. And one works at whatever level one chooses, and whatever level is suitable to one's talents, for whatever compensation one negotiates. If anything in unsatisfactory, any worker is always free to go and find a situation more to his liking. I can't see an unfair thing in that, can you?Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2026 1:29 amSo workers have it easyImmanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 10:30 pmActually, yes...it's the entrepreneurs who put their resources at risk. The employees are guaranteed their wage and their benefits and their severance packages.Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 8:07 pm Afterall, workers have it comfy cosey. It's the Elon Musks of the world who take the "risks" and do the "hard" work.
I don't get why you hate success, Gary. If a man makes money by adding value to the world, or by creating products people freely wish to buy, why shouldn't he? And why should anybody be owed more money for taking no risks, inventing nothing and not doing anything in particular beyond his wage?
That's a very bizarre set of values, I have to say. And any progress in society is not going to happen if we incentivize doing nothing.
Well, they're the ones who assume all the risk, obviously. It's they who have to conceive the opportunity, venture the money, risk failure, organize the workforce, pay the bills, assume the liability, locate and negotiate with the potential workforce, make the right management decisions to keep the business afloat, deal with suppliers, collect the profits, sign the paycheques...and the workers show up at 9, go home at 5, and get a contracted wage they have agreed to, guaranteed....and entrepreneurs are the ones who undergo hardship.
Mr. Kotter had one in Brooklyn - full of Sweathogs and everything...Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 14, 2026 10:30 pm ...As for "sweatshops," I don't know of any of those in America, either.
IC, when you use this sort of language (for the other side's position) you are really undercutting your "leftism begins with MARX" argument << it is precisely the language used to consider unions "illegal combinations >>Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2026 2:43 pm But they also are much more the whole reason the business exists, and can offer a wage to the worker. All the worker has to do is decide if he regards the compensation offered as adequate to his own education, skills and interests...and if it is, he signs on. If he doesn't, he signs something else, with somebody else, and gets more of what he wants.
That arrangement is perfectly fair. And so long as the worker puts in an actual day's work, and doesn't steal either time or resources from his employer, and as long as the employer pays what he promised, on the terms for which both freely contracted, there's no harm, no foul.
Oh bosh. It's nothing of the kind. It's just a simple and obvious question.MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2026 12:31 amIC, when you use this sort of language (for the other side's position) you are really undercutting your "leftism begins with MARX" argument << it is precisely the language used to consider unions "illegal combinations >>Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 15, 2026 2:43 pm But they also are much more the whole reason the business exists, and can offer a wage to the worker. All the worker has to do is decide if he regards the compensation offered as adequate to his own education, skills and interests...and if it is, he signs on. If he doesn't, he signs something else, with somebody else, and gets more of what he wants.
That arrangement is perfectly fair. And so long as the worker puts in an actual day's work, and doesn't steal either time or resources from his employer, and as long as the employer pays what he promised, on the terms for which both freely contracted, there's no harm, no foul.
How about you give your definition of "Socialism"?How about familiarizing yourself with the 50 years prior to Marx.