When I Say Socialism
When I say socialism I mean worker ownership of the means of production.
Socialism as the worker ownership of the means of production is quite different from socialism as defined as state ownership of the means of production. The latter differs little from capitalism. Capitalism as well as state ownership of the means of production places the worker in submission to a president, state or authority that owns the association of workers and the product of their labor.
The worker is forced to work for the capitalist (owner of the means of production) because the options are slim. The means of production is most often only obtainable through existing wealth. This is used to justify the continued claim the capitalist has over the product of the workers labor through property. This idea of property is property as dominion over a collective of people, the workers. This is property as the right of increase, to increase wealth not by labor but by claim to the product of the workers labor.
Socialism by this definition is the idea that the worker owns the product of their own labor.
5:16 pm
“When I say socialism I mean worker ownership of the means of production.”
I think it’s a mistake for us socialists to think of socialism this way. In fact, I think it concedes something to the capitalist that is vital to capitalism’s justification, i.e. the belief that whoever owns the means of production owns the product. This belief is the fundamental myth of capitalism.
“The worker is forced to work for the capitalist (owner of the means of production) because the options are slim.”
That may very well be the case but it’s more than just a distortion of bargaining powered laid on top of a perfectly legally valid relationship. What should be attacked is the very idea of capital hiring labor rather than labor hiring capital. We should simply drop the mistaken notion that ownership of the product of a productive enterprise is part of the ownership rights bundle of capital assets such that we just fight over ownership of that bundle.
“The means of production is most often only obtainable through existing wealth. This is used to justify the continued claim the capitalist has over the product of the workers labor through property. This idea of property is property as dominion over a collective of people, the workers.”
That is exactly it. The myth is that if you own capital, the only way to deploy it is by hiring (renting) labor and thereby gaining a right to the product. Unfortunately for capitalism, this is false. And this is exactly why we shouldn’t make WOOTMOP the central tenant of socialism lest we continue to be a foil for capitalism since they can always claim, like they’ve always done, to have a better argument for their property rights. Maybe we’ll have a better property theory, maybe we won’t. But why fight them on that turf when they’ve already violated their own property theory by buying into the fundamental myth?
“Socialism by this definition is the idea that the worker owns the product of their own labor.”
Now that’s a definition I can get behind!
12:55 pm
Great insight. Thanks for the comment.
9:45 pm
Thanks. I’m still waiting for a pro-capitalist who can defend employment by using an example that is, you know, actually employment. Every damn time it’s something like cutting lawns or building a house because to them, employment is just any time money changes hands leading to labor being performed. What they miss is that it matters whether or not that exchange of money serves as the fulfillment of a contract removing labor’s responsibility for the labor. That distinction is what divides capitalist wage labor from the work of a self-governing producer. They act as if there is no difference between a scenario where their hypothetical hiring party owns a firm and one where ey doesn’t, even though we’re talking about the context of firms where there is actually a property claim that could fall into dispute on a stock market! You can make things look really simple when you just ignore things.
9:54 pm
I’ve read through some of your blog. I really like the stuff you have to say here. Would you by chance be interested in posting here on Gonzo Times?
10:45 pm
I’m flattered! I think Gonzo Times puts out great stuff too. I would be happy to be added on as a contributor or just cross-posting from my blog (which I’ve neglected as of late).
6:38 am
A lot of writers here cross post on their blogs. If you register an account I can get you set up to post. You can reach me at punkjohnnycash@gonzotimes.com.
2:15 pm
So if I hire a person to build a house for me, when they’re done, do they own the house? or do I? Is it immoral for me to hire them?
1:07 pm
Paying for a service does not equal owning a group of laborers. Likely you do not own the company that will build your house. It is likely the syndicate, union or association of workers would own their own means of production and you would be paying for a service, providing you are ‘paying for a service’ and not working through an alternative market such as a federation.
1:32 pm
Isn’t a business owner simply paying her workers for a service? What is the difference?
2:01 pm
There are many first being hierarchy and rule. We fall under the will of the president, CEO etc…
But a direct answer to the first question is no. Business owners claim ownership to the product of the workers labor. The business owner most often maintains not only rule over a collective of people but also the majority claim to the product of the workers labor.
2:21 pm
well likewise, if I hire a builder to make a house, I claim ownership of their labor because I paid for it. They are also at my whim in the sense of if they do a shitty job I will fire them and refuse to pay for their services. So in the sense that they must do a good job for me, I rule over them, if they don’t like that arrangement no one is forcing them to work for me, they are certainly free to find someone who is willing to pay for shitty work, and good luck to them.
They are essentially the same arrangement. Why is one okay but not the other?
2:34 pm
Can you explain how not getting paid for a job not done equates to owning the product of your labor? If there is no product of the labor then there is nothing to ‘own’ now is there?
4:29 pm
huh? your question doesn’t make any sense. I’m asking how my hiring a worker to build a house for me is in anyway significantly different from a business owner hiring multiple workers to build multiple houses for them?
In both cases a person has hired another person to do work for them and the hiring person will own the product of the hired person’s labor when the labor is complete and the laborer will own whatever was agreed upon for payment.
10:06 pm
In a system where workers hold the means of production it will be difficult to get wage labor. If you were to enter into an employee/employer relationship it would not be as profitable for the employer. I do not believe such things will never occur, but in the few cases they do occur they will be forced to become more mutual. It would become impractical for one to attempt to ‘employ’ others at a competitive rate.
8:43 am
you didn’t answer my question. Also how is worker ownership of the means of production enforced?
9:24 am
I think you are missing the point looking for ‘enforcement’ Capitalism requires a form of external enforcement more so. I would suggest maybe for starters Chomsky on Anarchism, the third Chapter where he discuses Rocker. Rocker will in general give a better understanding. The quick and short is that the worker who is empowered will be empowered they will be their own ‘enforcement’ that you seek.
1:47 pm
you still didn’t answer my question.
7:19 pm
You said it yourself: “business owner”. The very concept of owning a firm (a myth that capitalism is based on) is the difference. Built into that concept is the idea of the residual claimant arising from a property right in the firm. That’s precisely what I’m rejecting and what isn’t present in the first case.
7:15 pm
If you can’t tell the difference between two distinct going concerns (creating a customer-producer relationship) and employment, I’m not sure how to convince you. Producers are at the whim of customers. So what? Customers still don’t get legally recognized as the residual claimant in the producer’s going concern. Pretending that capitalist workplaces are just collections of independent going concerns (i.e. each worker is running an independent “labor” service business) is not only absurd but doesn’t even fit with what capitalist legal doctrine claims and practices with regard to the assignment of property rights (i.e. they never pass from employee to employer like they do in customer situations).
8:01 am
I’m not speaking from a capitalist perspective, just a voluntary perspective. The difference is cosmetic but you condemn one and not the other. Both situations are voluntary, and certainly having a situation where the workers own the means of production is not prohibited either so why doesn’t it happen? If it is the preferable and moral way to operate why isn’t it the dominant way that humans organize?
1:11 pm
Did I ever say that employment wasn’t voluntary? I’m arguing that it’s a juridically invalid contract despite being voluntary, and that the invalidity is made plain when examining the property rights accounting that takes place under the idea of “business ownership”. Slavery was often voluntary too, but voluntary slavery is still unjust because the contract is juridically invalid.
Lots of things are dominant that shouldn’t be. Are you honestly going to make a positivist argument that what is is what ought to be? You realize that “a voluntary perspective” is hardly dominant either, living as we do under ubiquitous states. So should I conclude that it’s not “preferable and moral”? What about past epochs in history that had different dominant institutions like slavery? You also seem to believe that we actually live in a free market when we clearly don’t.
1:29 pm
To expand on this further, you keep pointing to the voluntary payment of money to someone (cause) who then performs labor (effect) and call all differences cosmetic. Yet you never address the elephant in the room: the firm. You give the example of “a business owner hiring multiple workers” but never get around to explaining exact what justifies and establishes this thing called a “business”. That’s hardly a cosmetic difference since the right to the product is seemingly tied to the property right in this institution. How did you come to own this thing called a “business” and how did it get that bundle of rights attached to it?
4:27 pm
You say “no one is forcing them to work for me”, which is true, but you need to emphasize it like this: “no one is forcing them to work FOR ME”. However, as you imply, there are certainly a lot of people out there forcing them TO WORK.
Since the whole of society is arranged so as to force the non-owners to work, you cannot honestly maintain a “take it or leave it” stance. In particular, since the workers did not CHOOSE to live in a society in which non-owners are forced to work for owners, they certainly have every right to attempt to construct a society in which no one is forced to work, or in which everyone (including owners) are forced to work, or in which things are not owned, or whatever else they should choose.
Your argument here, if you were to look at it in depth, is actually just a circular justification of the status quo, which would apply equally to any other status quo.
No matter what system is in place, the people within that system will make choices of how best live within that system. Therefore, you can always say to people, “you chose it.” But they did not choose the circumstances in which to make the choice.
I know that a lot of people have difficult with this concept, so I’m going to somewhat redundantly quote J. Balkin on Robert Hale:
We say that actors within a system of law have the freedom to choose how they will act. But this freedom is circumscribed and defined by the set of limitations that the law imposes on the actor, as well as the powers of coercion granted to other private parties by the law. Thus, what we call free choice is not something that preexists the legal regime, and which the legal regime merely attempts to vindicate. Rather, free choice (and its opposite, coercion or duress) are constructed by the existing regime of legal rules. This leads to a problem of circularity like that described above. It will do no good, for example, to say that a contract with grossly unfair terms is just because the parties agreed to it through an exercise of their free will. The problem is that the free will of the weaker party is defined and constructed by what types of actions are available, given the existing system of rules of contract and property. It may be true that the weaker party chooses the unconscionable terms, but that is because the rules of property and contract do not allow her to force the other party to offer better terms. Thus a system of rules circumscribing the scope of one’s choices in economic bargains cannot be justified on the grounds that people acting within the system of rules freely choose what they think best for themselves given the legally available alternatives. For virtually any system of legal rules could be justified in this way.(86)
See http://jerkface.net/balkin-on-hale for more info.
7:07 pm
Usually one or more of the following:
* If the worker is required to comply with instructions about when, where and how to work, he or she is ordinarily an employee.
* Integration of the worker’s services in the business operations generally shows that he or she is subject to direction and control, therefore generally an employee.
* If the worker has the right to hire a substitute with the permission or the knowledge of the business, this would ordinarily indicate a contractual arrangement, not an employee relationship.
* The establishment of set hours of work by the employer bars the worker from being master of her own time, ordinarily the right of the independent contractor.
* Working full time for a business ordinarily indicates a worker is not free to pursue additional gainful work, which is historically the right of an independent contractor.
* The furnishing of tools, materials, etc. by the employer indicates control of the worker, hence, an employment relationship.
* If it is reasonable to believe that the worker’s business and the client business are two distinct going concerns, you probably aren’t looking at a wage labor situation.
The latter is of particular relevance.
4:14 pm
In theory there is no legal difference between the right of a capitalist to own a billion dollar oil monopoly and the right of a homeless person to own his own shirt, although in practice the police will be much more concerned with protecting the capitalist.
However, there is a functional social difference, which is that certain ownership rights sustain the social power to pay people less than the market value of their work, thus accumulating wealth created by others, while other ownership rights do not enable that at all.
7:00 pm
I’m discussing the employer-employee arrangement, not the customer-producer relationship (you would be the customer in this hypothetical). The fact that the word “hire” is used in English to describe the latter may be of interest to linguists but isn’t relevant to my theoretical analysis. Therefore, your question becomes “If I buy a product from a producer, do they own it?” The answer, I think you will agree, is no.