Re: [ox-en] Capitalism, GNU Oekonux
- From: Russell McOrmond <russell flora.ca>
- Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:19:33 -0500 (EST)
On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, johan soderberg wrote:
If you do not share the same definition of words, you dont use the same
language, and exchanging ideas in conversation becomes difficult.
The fact is, in few cases do two people share the same language. We can
wish language differences away, and hope that we all spoke the same
language, but it isn't true.
This is the advantage of discussing within an 'ism', that you know
exactly what you mean and when you disagree.
Assuming everyone agrees to some common definitions of the 'ism',
which is also not often the case.
For example, 'left libertarianism' is in my book termed anarchism (no
state AND no capital).
This is of course an example of the problem.
Libertarians do *not* support the concept of 'no state', just the highly
subjective concept of 'minimalistic state intervention, right-level
governance'. I also don't see what in 'the left' means 'no capital', and
most of the self-identifying leftists I know believe in worker-controlled
industrialization, rather than owner-controlled industrialization.
Industrialization has most of the traits that people negatively attribute
to capitalism.
I would not accept yours (and I believe, Rays)
starting point where monopoly is somehow antagonistic
(and free markets are natuaral) to capitalism.
Capitalism can have many forms. Some are free market based, but the
examples we are most often shown are not.
We each need to decide what we thought the Soviet Union was, and decide
whether you agreed with it or not. We can then argue till we give up on
terminology as I do not recognize the Soviet Union as being "Communistic"
any more than I recognize the current economy of the United States (and
many other western economies) as being "Free Market Capitalistic".
The aim of capitalists are accumulation of capital, hence the
concentration of capital, hence monopoly.
I do not consider the above to be a definition, but a subjective
interpretation.
I could tell you that the belief systems of Software Manufacturing
(treating software as a manufactured product -- proprietary software) lead
one towards ownership of all ideas, and eventually claimed ownership of
the people who have the ideas, or 'contain' the ideas (IE: patented GMO
food supply). Is it right for me to then claim that anyone who supports
proprietary software supports slavery, just because my own personal
interpretation of the extreme suggest this?
One can believe in copyrights and patents without believing in slavery.
One can equally believe in capitalism while disagreeing with the
centralization of capital and monopolies.
So called 'free markets' exist only because of state intervention,
monitoring and breaking up capitals natural tendency to monopoly.
We agree on this. This is why a 'right libertarian' supports strong
government intervention to protect "Intellectual Property", while a 'left
libertarian' supports strong government intervention to protect "Free
Markets". One group supports IP and opposes Anti-trust, while the other
supports anti-trust but opposes IP.
But what you are suggesting is that 'free markets' cannot also be
capitalistic, just because one extreme of capitalism is
centralized/monopolistic capitalism.
I believe the question of 'capitalism' is separate from the question of
'free markets', in the same way that software being 'commercial' is
separate from the question of whether it is 'Free Software'.
See: "Commercial Software does not mean Proprietary Software"
http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=111
The common burgeoise notion, that big business is
challenged by small enterprenuers, is mostly false. If
a small firm becomes a threat to a big corporation, it
is simply bought up. What makes GNU a threat to
Microsoft is that it is not an enterprise playing on
capitals terms, it cannot be bought up and disbanded.
We can agree on all of this, but still not agree that Free Market,
small-business, CED, decentralized economies aren't also quite likely to
be capitalistic --- even if they are very specifically protected to not be
monopolistic.
The "who controls the means of production" question doesn't always have
to be taken in industrial-era terms, and can relate to a services or
decentralized knowledge based economic thinking as well.
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses,
VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen
and not a third party. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/