Actually, thinking about it, let's have a look at what might happen in an anarchist society if someone chooses to ignore their equality, and reduce their freedom and control over their working life and accept employment:
"I want to work for you. My name is Percy, I'm a carpenter."
"We don't employ people but you're more than welcome to come on board in our co-op."
Percy is free to sell their labour as much as they want. It's the employers that aren't allowed to turn people into wageslaves. What person in their right mind would choose to have the fruits of the labour taken from them and given only a small percentage back (capitalist) or get their fair share (socialist)?
Here you are playing semantics again. Employers are people too and restricting them is just as bad. Thats like saying its legal to buy weed, just not to sell it. Same result...
Greed has nothing to do with what you've just said though. There's much debate over this subject in psychology and the community is quite divided on it. Neither of us can possibly know the answer, but I know more people who aren't greedy than I do those that are, thats for sure. That would immediately tell me that it is not an instinctive trait of humans, but a learned behaviour. In your examples you point out about resources. Very true, more resources equals better survival chance. That's not greed though, is it? Greed is taking MORE than you would need. Back in those days, people needed everything they could get their hands on. Greed these days has nothing to do with survival.
Who defines "need" though? You don't "need" any more than a tin shack, a carbo/protein/vitamin goulash + water and burlap robe. Having more than that is "greedy" by your definition.
Even taking more than you "need" at a particular moment in time is not greedy. Who knows what the future brings eh? What may look to you like greed now, say killing 5 rabbits instead of the 2 you need for dinner and storing the other 3, becomes nothing but good planning when the famine hits now doesn't it?
Its just another example of you trying to push a subjective definition off on others to suit your interests.
Profit is essentially what's left after your operating costs (which would include wages) so of course they're not working for nothing!! The co-op sells a product at a price to include operating costs sufficient to share within itself. The co-op is allowed to profit, but the system means that profit is given to all those involved in the work, not horded by bosses and shareholders as in our current systems and your minimalist govt one.
But you just said no-one can work for wages. Working for wages from a co-op is not really any different than working for wages from an individual, you're just selling your labor to the co-op....
Yes, their are many examples of co-ops in existence today.
Yes there are, and they have less than a stellar record of being able to remain in operation. Said workers have a nasty tendency to take a payday now rather than investing in their operation. Tends to hurt their long term prospects.
Thats compared to many startup business owners who go years paying employees and putting money back into the business before they ever take a payday.
No, the owner doesn't bring nothing to the table, but he needs his employees as much as they need him and that is what our systems don't recognise.
No he doesn't. Almost anybody can be an employee. It takes a person with a certain drive, work ethic and ability to keep things together.
The problem is that we start on such an uneven playing field. Take this example:
Tom was born into money. With money he hasn't earned, he can build a factory and employ people. He can then sit back and let people work for him and he takes all the profit and gives them a wage.
Tom earned the money by taking a risk with it. There's no guarantee that a factory will be successful so if it is, if the factory fails, Tom could be penniless tomorrow. Tom has earned the return on the initial investment because of that risk.
Ben was born into poverty. Because he had to take care of his mum he missed school and has no money. He gets a job at the factory on minimum wage.
Ben should have made better choices. Ben should have learned a trade or taken night classes or any one of the inumberable opportunities available to him instead of being lazy, saying "poor me" and resigning himself to his life. Been took no risks and wasn't willing to even make the investment in himself so he gets no real reward. He's just lucky that Tom was willing to take that risk so that he can eat.
This is how capitalism works - Tom is exploiting Ben's misfortune. Ben's misfortune is no one's fault but at the end of the day it needs to be addressed nonetheless. Tom is also wasting potential too but subjugating Ben. Ben could be a great inventor if he had more input into his work environment.
Thats exactly how capitalism works. Tom is being rewarded for taking risk and Ben is benefitting from the risk. Ben's situation is his own fault for not taking steps to better himself and his situation. If Ben isn't even willing to take the risk of investing in himself, what makes you think he would ever do anything.
Even in his current situation, Ben could be a great inventor should he put the effort into it. The number of great inventors who started with nothing is far too numerous to discount. Should Ben come up with some great new invention, he could take it to his boss Tom, who's no fool, he was bright enough to start a factory business thats humming along. When Tom sees it, he'll say, great I'll start producing this thing and give you a share of what we make.
Voluntary?! You really think that people take employment voluntarily??!!! Or maybe you think it's because for most people there is simply no alternative?
Its entirely voluntary. There are any number of alternatives, most are simply much more difficult and risky. People make the trade off decision that they would rather be employees rather than deal with the difficulty and risk of any of the other options...
So, if you have three people on a desert island. They have enough food to last for 2 days but one of them wants a second helping, which would reduce their survival time to a day and a half. A vote is taken and a 2 to 1 majority decide the second helping shouldn't be eaten.
Now, by your reasoning you could call that oppression. The 2 in the majority are oppressing the third person's right to be a selfish cunt and eat more than he needs. Even though a vote had taken place and the original request was utter lunacy. That's not oppression, that's a bloody disagreement.
If the agreement amongst the 3 guys was to divide the food equally (ie each owns a share), and he wants to take his day 2 ration now, who the hell are the other two to stop him? He just gets no more on day 2. If he tries to take more, thats a property rights violation and they're completely legitimate to stop him.
That whole equation could change should there be no agreement amongst them depending on who brought what to the table. If one guy brought all the food and decided to eat for 6 days instead of 2 then he would be well within his property rights to do it.
Tell you what, you head on over to Cuba and speak to someone who isn't allowed to talk about their political beliefs for fear of imprisonment or even execution and then come back and tell me again that being able to have your say in an issue and place a vote is oppression. If you can vote on an issue, as in a direct democracy, it is not oppression if the outcome isn't what you wanted.
If the outcome of the direct democracy is a violation of your life, liberty or property rights it most certainly is. It is amoral and unjust for the mob to be able to infringe upon any of those three areas against the individual just as surely as its amoral and unjust for a dictator to do the same.
I mean, do you honestly think it would be ok if you put a bunch of Jews in the middle of Tehran and left their fate to a vote of the people? Fuck the majority says execute them, so its A-OK to do it. :24:
I still don't see why this kind of thing could not happen in an anarchist world. Invention, creative working would be thoroughly encouraged.
Those people found investors to put money in, in an anarchist society they would find people to put labour in.
How? If an investor dumps some money into something "crazy" and unproven, and it doesn't pan out, all they've lost is some money. If workers dump some time in and it doesn't pan out, they don't eat. The monetary capitalistic system allows you to develop things and hire employees without the employeers having to worry too much about where their next meal is coming from. They don't have to risk very much...
