Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[rpm]

When you go to a fruit stand, do you ignore the price tag on an apple and instead pay the dude according to your opinion of the apples value? What if it's a really hot day and you can't imagine anything tastier at this moment than a refreshing apple? Surely in that case it has even greater value to you.

Now it might seem heartless to compare people with fruit, but you have to look objectively at labor, because like it or not, people are commodities, and they don't somehow work differently than soybeans or apples or oil just because they have a pulse. They work exactly the same, and to ignore or deny that when discussing the economy is to be naive.

i think the bolded part is contentious in this context. i understand perfectly what you mean, and i agree it is true in an economic game-theory sense. but the majority of anti-capitalist-folk don't accept the fundamental "rules" of the "game" that is consumer-capitalist economics (ie the belief that all agents ought to make decisions based purely on their perceived self-interest, or that other people and their unique skills/traits are purely means-to-ends/commodities, or that the biodiversity/natural processes of the planet ought be secondary considerations to an individual's immediate financial self-interest etc etc) and tend toward more utilitarian principles. there is no morality in game theory so assuming your questions are being asked with this mindset pre-supposed (which the second bolded part leads me to assume) then no, it is never wrong to do anything to anyone (in the "marketplace"). whether or not this economic system is optimal, well that depends on what one thinks an "economy" ought to do - and is a question which does involve morality, and imo is outside the scope of your questions.

forgive the cynicism, it just seems like you're asking questions of morality in a game which has amorality inbuilt. if you wish to discuss morality, then you need to remove the assumption that life is a commodity. because as far as i can tell, there can be no morality unless it is accepted that other being's desires/goals/intentions/wellbeing etc etc are worthy of consideration. commodities don't have goals or intentions and cannot flourish or suffer. they are value-free

also forgive the convoluted delivery. i can't be assed editing any more. trust me, it was worse

[wufwugy]

i think the bolded part is contentious in this context. i understand perfectly what you mean, and i agree it is true in an economic game-theory sense. but the majority of anti-capitalist-folk don't accept the fundamental premises of this capitalist mindset. ie the belief that all agents ought to make decisions based purely on their perceived self-interest , or that other people and their unique skills/traits are purely means-to-ends/commodities, or that the biodiversity/natural processes of the planet ought be secondary considerations to an individuals immediate financial self-interest.

I wouldn't say this follows after "humans are commodities", but people think it does. It's more correctly put as "in an economic system, people behave like commodities". It doesn't matter if we like it, but as facets and actors of an economy, we are commodities, and we'd best understand how to best utilize that reality. Many don't like this fact (or don't know it), but that doesn't change it. Supply and demand is a social phenomenon similar to how gravity is a physical phenomenon. Being moral actors in the economy doesn't mean we can ignore supply and demand, but that we should understand it and use it to better our moral purposes. The anti-capitalist sentiments, which usually call themselves socialist, are against this. If this was physics, their position wouldn't be unlike rejecting the theory of gravity because they think it's wrong that people can fall over

[Renton]

I wouldn't say this follows after "humans are commodities", but people think it does. It's more correctly put as "in an economic system, people behave like commodities". It doesn't matter if we like it, but as facets and actors of an economy, we are commodities, and we'd best understand how to best utilize that reality. Many don't like this fact (or don't know it), but that doesn't change it. Supply and demand is a social phenomenon similar to how gravity is a physical phenomenon. Being moral actors in the economy doesn't mean we can ignore supply and demand, but that we should understand it and use it to better our moral purposes. The anti-capitalist sentiments, which usually call themselves socialist, are against this. If this was physics, their position wouldn't be unlike rejecting the theory of gravity because they think it's wrong that people can fall over

This is a great way of putting what I was trying to illustrate before. Basically, the economy works based on physics-like laws. Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses. That resources are scarce is a reality that can't be altered, despite governments' best efforts. A market that is as free as possible will distribute these resources based on their most valued use, but governments want to divert them to less-valued uses, and this causes major problems.

It's not as if these laws are arbitrary and only apply to a capitalist world. They apply to any society, even a controlled economy like the Soviet Union, and every level of government involvement in between.

[a500lbgorilla]

i think the bolded part is contentious in this context. i understand perfectly what you mean, and i agree it is true in an economic game-theory sense. but the majority of anti-capitalist-folk don't accept the fundamental "rules" of the "game" that is consumer-capitalist economics (ie the belief that all agents ought to make decisions based purely on their perceived self-interest, or that other people and their unique skills/traits are purely means-to-ends/commodities, or that the biodiversity/natural processes of the planet ought be secondary considerations to an individual's immediate financial self-interest etc etc) and tend toward more utilitarian principles. there is no morality in game theory so assuming your questions are being asked with this mindset pre-supposed (which the second bolded part leads me to assume) then no, it is never wrong to do anything to anyone (in the "marketplace"). whether or not this economic system is optimal, well that depends on what one thinks an "economy" ought to do - and is a question which does involve morality, and imo is outside the scope of your questions.

forgive the cynicism, it just seems like you're asking questions of morality in a game which has amorality inbuilt. if you wish to discuss morality, then you need to remove the assumption that life is a commodity. because as far as i can tell, there can be no morality unless it is accepted that other being's desires/goals/intentions/wellbeing etc etc are worthy of consideration. commodities don't have goals or intentions and cannot flourish or suffer. they are value-free

also forgive the convoluted delivery. i can't be assed editing any more. trust me, it was worse

I prefer this post to mine.