this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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If you just want better, why not just aim for well regulated capitalism? That's better than badly regulated capitalism, and it's much easier to achieve than a brand new political and economic system that has yet to be tried.
It still sounds like capitalism to me. It's just more traditional capitalism. I'm pretty sure that the first mechanical looms were in factories where the owner was actually present in the factory, trying to make sure the machines kept working.
I'd even argue that ownership of land isn't really capitalism anyhow, it's more similar to feudalism. Capitalism involves buying capital and using that to transform raw materials into a finished product that can be sold at a profit. Feudalism involves charging someone rent for occupying land you own. Capitalism involves competing with other capitalists for more efficient processes, more cost-effective machines, and so-on. Landlords can't have "more efficient" land. A capitalist has to use their machines to generate profits. If the machines are idle, they don't make money. A landlord does nothing at all, then collects rent money.
So yeah, ban rent, or severely limit it. Require that a capitalist owner is actually physically present and involved in day-to-day operations, and you'll completely eliminate billionaires, probably even centi-millionaires.
Yeah, that's important. It also doesn't require a revolution to attain, just reforms of the current system. Admittedly, reforming the current system would be hard, but theoretically it wouldn't have to be bloody. I think some people who have never questioned the economic and political system in which they grew up can't even conceive of anything other than capitalism. Other people who have thought about it would worry that any attempted revolution might fail and we'd fall backwards into something much more like feudalism if not outright tyranny.
Yeah, as bad as Feudalism was, at least serfs couldn't be kicked off "their" land. They were tied to the land, so they weren't allowed to leave, but the manor lord also couldn't kick them out.
As for all land being owned, it is, and it isn't. In commonwealth countries there's a lot of crown land. In the US there's a lot of government owned land. In cities there are a lot of city parks. In a sense all that land is owned. But, in another sense, it isn't. It's land that nobody's allowed to build anything on, unless we collectively (via our reps) decide they are. In practice it's not that simple, but in theory it's effectively land that isn't owned, at least by individuals. I've often wondered what effect it would have on homelessness if there were land in cities where everybody was allowed to live if they wanted. I imagine it would basically end up as a favela. Not great, but probably better than homelessness.
I am an anti-capitalist.
To get rid of capitalism, you don't have to abolish absentee ownership of capital. A worker coop can lease capital from third parties and remain a non-capitalist democratic worker coop. Abolishing capitalism just requires abolishing the employment contract and common ownership of land and natural resources. Without the employment contract, everyone is either individually or jointly self-employed, so every firm is a worker coop
@196
I am a mutualist as well. I just use the term, economic democracy as David Ellerman calls it, instead because mutualism doesn't seem as clear. Also, mutualism has anarchist connotations, which I am sympathetic to, but I believe the movement to abolish capitalism should be broader than anarchism.
In other words,
anarchist economic democracy = mutualism
@196