[scotty79]

> Private ownership of this capital - which is what capitalism is all about - is then absolutely the problem

It's only a problem if you can't/won't tax. If you can tax owners of the capital and give away that money to other people (bureaucrats, army, unemployed, everybody) everything still works just fine. Everybody still has money to buy stuff and this keeps the game that capital owners play between themselves live.

The only way we can screw this up is to weaken the governments and strengthen the corporations to the point that governments won't be able to tax. So probably private armies are bad idea, also neglecting people so that they pummel their own governments.

So it's ok if billionaires own all the robots, that make stuff, sell stuff to poor (everybody who's not a billionaire), as long as government can tax billionaires 98% tax and bomb them if they don't pay up.

[TeMPOraL]

> The only way we can screw this up is to weaken the governments and strengthen the corporations to the point that governments won't be able to tax.

Sadly, this seems to be the dominant narrative among people these days. I can understand that when fighting for less taxes, they're thinking about themselves and their neighbours who run small businesses, but in the end this will likely turn self-destructive, as the businesses increasingly consolidate and governments are less and less able to protect the intrests of their people.

That most governments are run by openly corrupt media stars doesn't help either.

> So probably private armies are bad idea

Private armies are such, such bad idea that it's hard to believe there are actually people advocating them.

[Floegipoky]

Is that just a thought experiment, or do you really think that would work?

Because I don't think it would work. Why would producers give bombs to the government? Why would they give food to the populace? Why would they submit to taxation when they have more power than the entity trying to tax them?

[scotty79]

> Is that just a thought experiment, or do you really think that would work?

That's how it already works. Money is taken from capitalists and redistributed to bureaucrats and military and some expended to appease the populace.

> Because I don't think it would work. Why would producers give bombs to the government?

Because it's good money and government has already plenty of bombs to force people to make more bombs for them.

Similarly you could ask, why on Earth any company supplies stuff to IRS. Because it's profitable and because you could face consequences if you openly refuse.

> Why would they give food to the populace?

Because populace will pay them with money, for the cheapest, best quality food they can make. Money will come almost in full from producers pockets, but it won't be a problem for them because as long as competition pays the same or more then it's all good.

> Why would they submit to taxation when they have more power than the entity trying to tax them?

Wait!? US capitalists have more firearms, bombs, tanks and planes than US army?

What I am saying is that it's not some scheme that will get established. I'm saying that it's already the case. Governments are still stronger than corporations, same way North Korea is stronger than South Korea. Technologically and socially way behind, but with huge army.

I'm basically saying that monopoly on violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence is the factor that keeps capitalism from eating us, and right after that, itself.

[tsujamin]

This explanation seems to rely fairly heavily on the current, potentially unknown state of the system, and the ability for the military to respond without delay to stockpiling of weaponry by producers.

> Because it's good money and government has already plenty of bombs to force people to make more bombs for them. If the military could express force against a producer the moment they refuse to supply weaponry, and before they stockpile it for themselves, then this is true. However if the period of delay between producer non-compliance and military intervention is too great, the producer may have an opportunity to stockpile enough force to mount a realistic defence.

The government, nor the military, controls the means of production that their Monopoly on Violence depends upon, let alone the responsiveness and potentially not even the stockpile (I'm not sure of the figures) to mount a sustained defence against cooperating producers.

EDIT: The idea of producers acquiring legitimacy greater than that of public institutions is also an interesting idea with respect to Monopoly on Violence. Immediate self interest of citizens (taxation minimisation) could potentially lead to a "tragedy of the commons" type outcome for public services; leaving the private sector as the only viable and legitimate provider. This could also undermine the legitimacy of public institutions perhaps?

[scotty79]

> the producer may have an opportunity to stockpile enough force to mount a realistic defense.

I think you are heavily underestimating capacity of armies. Hardware that modern armies operate is absolutely horrific and knowing how to use it most effectively is the only thing they do.

Capitalists know how to make money not use military hardware and I don't think anyone could stockpile enough weaponry without any government organization noticing to carve out any sort of tax independence.

Closest to what you are imagining is mafia carving out tax independence from government in Mexico or wherever. But then you have another problem if government is too weak to prevent you from stockpiling weapons, it's also too weak to prevent your competition from stockpiling weapons and that's way worse for the business than being taxed (even heavily).

> ... to mount a sustained defence against cooperating producers.

Why do you things producers would cooperate? They can cooperate to some degree but they want to get ahead of each other. Having armed competition would be horrible.

You might potentially imagine scenario, where produces stockpile weapons, unite to abolish government (and army) that due to weakness haven't noticed the stockpiling and haven't defused situation and haven't stockpiled accordingly. Then they either fight among themselves or not and become new government and army (because it's easier to tax than to manufacture and sell, when you have an army). So even in catastrophic scenario everything is back to status quo.

If you like SF I recommend "Beggars in Spain". Nice vision about what might happen if 1% gets immensely more productive then the rest of humanity.

> leaving the private sector as the only viable and legitimate provider. This could also undermine the legitimacy of public institutions perhaps?

I know it's popular fantasy to think that governments are legitimized by services they provide to (poor) people. While in truth they are legitimized by armies that hide behind, them that give illusion by being civilly controlled in exchange for inordinate amount of resources.

[TeMPOraL]

Indeed. The government can now threaten to bomb a company because most companies are small enough not to pose a threat (though I wouldn't be sure if the USGOV would really be able to bomb Lockheed Martin). But as the companies merge and band together, at some point the government may start hearing demands to be met if they want to keep their satellite guidance active, or not accidentally showing capital city as an active target.

[nhaehnle]

That's an interesting argument and technically correct. I only wonder whether it's politically feasible/stable. My fear would be that the economic advantage of the capital owners (even if reduced) would eventually lead to a lobbyist capture of the government, which would then cut taxes and start a vicious cycle.

[scotty79]

Buying government is a problem, but not a terminal one. True force is army. We can see it in other failed countries. Whenever government stopped being efficient facade for collecting money from producers, military stepped in and replaced government with complete disregard of previous arrangements. That tends to make the corporations skip a beat.

[vixen99]

I love the way folk are so enthusiastic about punitively extracting wealth to hand over to an organization (in one instance) that's able to run up a sixteen trillion dollar debt waiting to be met by the as yet unborn. And what do these governments have to show for it? Not that impressive.