Here is a short introduction to the core argument against capitalism based on liberal principles: https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/

@socialism

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” – Abraham Lincoln

This quote captures the differing understandings and notions of liberty between these different political groups

@linux

A moneyless society that scales up to billions of people is unlikely to be possible

Postcapitalist alternatives that use currency to facilitate trade between actors without social ties seem much more plausible
@asklemmy

This would be joint self-employment as in a worker coop

@asklemmy

I would argue that all employment contracts are terrible due to their violation of the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. De facto responsibility is de facto non-transferable, so there is no way for legal and de facto responsibility to match in an employment contract. Instead, workers should always be individually or jointly self-employed as in a worker coop

@asklemmy

The employer-employee contract

It violates the theory of inalienable rights that implied the abolition of constitutional autocracy, coverture marriage, and voluntary self-sale contracts.

Inalienable means something that can’t be transferred even with consent. In case of labor, the workers are jointly de facto responsible for production, so by the usual norm that legal and de facto responsibility should match, they should get the legal responsibility i.e. the fruits of their labor

@asklemmy

The ideology is often implicit in how the model is explained. For example, 2 simple facts that go unmentioned.

1. Only persons can be responsible for anything. Things, no matter how causally efficacious, can’t be responsible for what is done with them
2. The employer receives 100% of the property rights for the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. The workers qua employees get 0% legal claim on that. This fact is obfuscated using the pie metaphor

@science_memes

I would recommend checking out David Ellerman. He shows that workers get 0% the property rights to what they produce positive and negative violating the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match @sciencememes

Marx ≠ anti-capitalism

There are other modern anti-capitalist argument derived from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.

Markets ≠ capitalism

In postcapitalism, we can use markets where appropriate. We have practical examples of non-capitalist firms with worker coops and 100% ESOPs.

There are theoretical mechanisms for collective ownership that can be shown to be efficient like COST.

There are theoretical non-market democratic public goods funding mechanisms

@science_memes

The ancap vision lacks necessities for stable stateless societies besides the dual logics of exit and commitment. By having some rights be non-transferable, it prevents them from accumulating and concentrating maintaining decentralization and preventing collusion to form a state. There is no middle ground, in the ancap vision, between full economic planning of the firm and completely uncoordinated atomized individuals in the market. The groups I describe provide that.
@technology

Economics treats metaphors as deep truths while treating simple facts as superficial. An example of this is in presentations of MP theory where the pie metaphor is emphasized while the actual structure of property rights and liabilities is ignored and obfuscated @science_memes

Sure, in theory, that is what it should be about. In practice, many economists bias the theories they develop to make sure the conclude in favor of their own ideological biases. Often, metaphors are treated as deep truths while simple facts are treated as superficial and ignored or even obfuscated due to their ideological implications if they were plainly stated @science_memes

Capitalism is a system of property relations and labor relations. It is conceivable to not have those property relations and labor relations in a firm. However, a corporation doesn’t do that as the employer solely appropriates the entire positive and negative result of production i.e. the property rights to the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. In a worker coop, the workers jointly appropriate the fruits of their labor. Capitalist property relations aren’t present @memes

Huh, there are worker coops and 100% ESOPs as alternatives to capitalism that can exist within capitalism @memes

Include, in your politics, actionable steps. The most important step is to create worker coops and supporting institutions, so you aren’t giving the fruits of your labor to capitalists with what you do everyday @memes

The universe might be discrete.

If mental states are finite, then the space of all possible human minds is finite and includes the one that believes they have knowledge of the computation’s result. It is possible for mental states of 2 minds to be different but extensionally behave like the same person. We would exclude human minds whose models don’t map well onto the physics of our universe though. You might not be willing to pick the opposite if we are talking about morality also @askbeehaw

There are finite number of possible humans due to there being a finite number of states a brain can be in.

There is an argument for moral realism that takes advantage of finiteness and computability of mental processes to show that there could be an objective morality

@askbeehaw

Abolishing the employment contract isn’t more constraints than ancap. It is part of legitimate contracts’ non-fraudulent nature.

Groups enable the large-scale cooperation needed for an ordered stateless society.

Groups could have judicial systems. Judicial agreements could exist between groups. Thieves would pay damages to the victim. For serious crimes, there could be expulsion from group(s) and blocklists

For arguments, groups could subsidize agreement across social distance

@technology

Tax exempt status for all worker coops

@politics

1 individual can be a part of many groups. Being a part of zero groups would make people pay steep exit fees for every economic transaction with you and you wouldn’t be able to access any group collective property, group currencies or receive mutual aid that these groups provide. There would be strong economic incentives to participate in these groups. Since all firms would be mandated to be worker coops, these groups would be a new way to provide startup capital to new firms

@technology