[paganel]

> Anybody know anything I should read besides Nozick along this vein?

I'm now reading a selection of essays on the general theory of politics by Norberto Bobbio (it's in Italian: http://www.einaudi.it/libri/libro/norberto-bobbio/teoria-gen...) which I find quite interesting, in the same vein as the later Nozick described by the article.

Bobbio never seems to choose a dogmatic view on the philosophy of politics, even though he discusses at length about controversial political ideas like freedom vs equality, politics vs morals and the like. His short description of "liberal socialism" is quite convincing, even though the construct might at first seem like an oxymoron (he uses the word "liberal" in the continental way, borrowed from Benjamin Constant). Too lazy to search for but I'm pretty sure there must be plenty of English translations of Bobbio's works.

[ue_]

>"liberal socialism" is quite convincing, even though the construct might at first seem like an oxymoron

I don't understand why this is even considered an oxymoron, aside from the arguably distorted views people have about the theory of Socialism. There are plenty of liberal Socialists, Oscar Wilde being a popular one.

[paganel]

You could say that people like Oscar Wilde were the exception, rather than the rule. As is the British NHS experiment, in the great scheme of things. The tendency in the last 200 years was either to have as many privately-held entities running things around (the "liberal" side of things), or to have as much State-control as possible ("socialist"). For the moment the pendulum seems to be pointing to us going more "liberal" (I had a cultural shock when I read that parents are supposed to pay for their kids' elementary education in "communist" China).

[ue_]

It sort of depends what we mean by liberal. Very few Socialists would be arguing to have the population woken up by the commissar in the morning to commence their 9 hour working day, in return receiving labour vouchers which guarantee a position in a lottery for the confiscated possessions of the bourgeoisie.

An extreme example maybe, but nevertheless I doubt you'll find many Socialists, today at least, talking about forced labour. It would be extremely hypocritical of them, considering the fact of forced labour within capitalism.

All forms of Socialism rest upon the communal ownership of the means of production, and the gradual removal of power from the state, in the direction of Communism (though let's be sure as Marx said in German Ideology, Communism is not a state of affairs to be established). This relies upon some kind of confiscation of private property.

What divides the 'liberal' Socialism from regular old Marx and Engels's Socialism, I'm not sure. Though if I must I shall paint myself as a a liberal Socialist. That doesn't mean I want capitalism with health care.

[AnimalMuppet]

> ... considering the fact of forced labour within capitalism.

I would like to see what you think is the factual basis for that statement...

[ue_]

Perhaps I shouldn't have said it so strongly. I will elaborate on my meaning.

Within capitalism, the labour of a working-class man is dictated usually by the capitalist; the hours he works, what he works with, when he works, and what quality of product is expected of him. However the labourer working under the capitalist is forced to sell the only thing he can provide - that is, his labour power (capacity to perform labour), and in return, the labourer receives a wage, which is equal to the exact amount required to sustain the worker and keep him within the labour force and introduce new labourers.

Thus in order to survive the labourer is required to sell his labour-time to someone else, and have the products of his labour appropriated at the end.

As is mentioned in Classical Econophysics (Paul W. Cockshott et al.):

>Marx asked, where does profit come from, if all goods are exchanged at their value? The answer, Marx said, lies in the special commodity labour-power. The worker sells to the capitalist labour-power which embodies (let’s say) 5 hours; that is, the value of the worker’s means of subsistence amounts to 5 hours per day. But once he gets through the factory gates or the or the door, he finds that the working day is 8 hours. The worker therefore performs 3 hours of ‘surplus labour’ per day and this is manifest in 3 hours’ worth of surplus value accruing to the capitalist. Marx calls the labour time workers spend in reproducing the value of their wages the ‘necessary labour time’, and he calls the ratio of surplus labour time to necessary labour time at therate of surplus value. In the example just given the rate of surplus value is 3/5 = 0.6.

So here we have one element of force: the forceful appropriation of one's products of labour at the end of the production process. The next element of force is that the labourer is required to work under the direction of someone else, usually the highest bidder for the worker's labur-power commodity (if he can find such a bidder), rather than voluntarily decide with others how much or how to work. And finally the third element of force, that the worker is required to work more in return for less, despite no social need to do so as a result of increased automation, which could be used to alleviate workload rather than increase short-term profits.

What are the exceptions? When a labourer is able to amass sufficient capital so as to sustain himself from it, or become a property owner himself. This not an option for most people, as it involves too much risk and time, especially for those with families.

[AnimalMuppet]

> ... the labourer receives a wage, which is equal to the exact amount required to sustain the worker and keep him within the labour force and introduce new labourers.

I know that's how Marx said it works, but it doesn't actually work that way. Many, many, many people get paid far more than the exact amount required to sustain the worker. Look around at what actually happens in the labor market, not at what your theory says happens.

> So here we have one element of force: the forceful appropriation of one's products of labour at the end of the production process.

That's not forceful. I signed up for the deal, and that's the deal I got. Nobody forced me into it in any way. Being kidnapped and forced to work for free, against your will? That's forced labor. Being a "wage slave"? No.

(Now, I will grant you that, in many times and many places, I could choose freely among the few, bad offers available to me. When all the mill owners collude to only pay subsistence wages, my freedom to choose is... not worth very much. Nevertheless, I deny that it is fair to paint all of capitalism with that brush.)

> The next element of force is that the labourer is required to work under the direction of someone else, usually the highest bidder for the worker's labur-power commodity (if he can find such a bidder), rather than voluntarily decide with others how much or how to work.

If I wanted to find a deal where I worked part time, I could almost certainly find it. As for the rest... I don't want to be the manager.

> And finally the third element of force, that the worker is required to work more in return for less, despite no social need to do so as a result of increased automation, which could be used to alleviate workload rather than increase short-term profits.

Has automation left us worse off? I don't believe it has. I believe that, taken as a whole, it has made us far better off.

You're giving me Communist theory (no surprise, given that your profile says "Communist"). But the real world does not work the way your theory says it does. (It works less like Marx said than it did when Marx was writing. To some degree, that might be due to Marx scaring the capitalists into behaving better. Still, Marxist theory is less applicable to the current world than it was to the world of 1900.)

[mcguire]

"Marx asked, where does profit come from, if all goods are exchanged at their value? The answer, Marx said, lies in the special commodity labour-power. The worker sells to the capitalist labour-power which embodies (let’s say) 5 hours; that is, the value of the worker’s means of subsistence amounts to 5 hours per day. But once he gets through the factory gates or the or the door, he finds that the working day is 8 hours. The worker therefore performs 3 hours of ‘surplus labour’ per day and this is manifest in 3 hours’ worth of surplus value accruing to the capitalist."

Steve Keen has a good chapter on this in his Debunking Economics (one of the best written parts of the book; the arguments in the rest are good, but the presentation is kind of spotty). He points out that this result follows from a bit of confusion in Marx's early works that is partially corrected in later ones.

The problem is the nature of value. This argument follows from Marx's original belief that the only "value" of an object was its exchange value: what the object can be bought or sold for.

Consider a drill press in a factory. The factory owner pays $X for the press, which spends its life in the factory until it is worn out; at the same time the exchange value depreciates to $0. This is a zero-sum situation: the drill press cannot add value to the products; it only transfers a portion of its value into the products. Therefore, the only source of excess value, profit, is the labor involved.

Keen points out that Marx later realized that objects have a "use value" as well as an "exchange value". This use value can be greater than the exchange value---a worker using a drill press is much more productive than a worker drilling holes by hand---and the excess use value allows the capital inputs to add excess value to the products, as well as the labor.

Keen says that by the time Marx came up with this new formulation, he was already wedded to the labor theory of value, so it got sort of buried and no later Marxist economist noticed it.