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Why are folks so anti-capitalist? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

895 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all,

I'm seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I'm wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I'm pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.

If this isn't the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I'm happy to take this somewhere else.

Cheers!

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The system I am describing has full private ownership. I am not taking the socialist position of collectivizing the means of production. Capital can be privately owned including by individuals. For example, an individual could own a factory and rent it out to a worker coop.

Key inputs would have more value. That does not amount to more fruits of labor because by fruits of labor, I mean the literal property rights to the production output and the liabilities for the used-up inputs not the value

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then it's not a non-capitalist economy.

Capital can be privately owned including by individuals. For example, an individual could own a factory and rent it out to a worker coop.

Your example is literally capitalism. You use your capital and extract surplus value from the worker coop in the form of "rent".

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The anti-capitalist tradition I am speaking from is descended from Proudhon and other classical laborists not Marx. I reject the labor theory of value.

The difference from capitalism is that legal system recognizes the employer-employee contract as invalid, and thus all businesses are required to be worker coops. I am fine with calling it capitalism if necessary, but many defenders of capitalism would not consider it to be so

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why do you reject the labor theory of value?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Marginal productivity theory is a better analysis. I don't approve of the ideological way economists present it though.

There is a need for a labor theory to recognize flaws in capitalism, but the labor theory that is needed is one of property (LTP) not of value after all capitalism is a property system. LTV is insufficiently decisive in its critique. At best, it says that workers are underpaid. LTP, on the other hand, demonstrates that workers legally own 0% of what they produce