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What separates capitalism from earlier forms, e.g. guilds in the middle ages is that every person can decide to make their own business at any time. Nobody is predestined to a specific profession or estate. That not everyone has its one business is because not everyone wants to do that managing work, some people want to do productive work and a lot of projects are larger than a single person could do.

That work can be exchanged for money predates (the current form of) capitalism and depends fundamentally only on the concept of money alone. I fail to see how that is exploitation per se. You choose to trade something you have for something you want. That's freedom. Taking that away means slavery or starving people.

> The state maintains this exploitation of workers’ productivity through so-called property rights - the “rights” of the business owner over the worker.

What are you talking about? What "rights" of a business owner? The only thing they make are voluntary contracts. You are doing the same when you buy groceries, you are trading money you have for the work of others. What you describe is (wage) slavery, which we claim to have abolished.

Yes they are property rights, but show me the person who doesn't have property. I bet even the homeless person doesn't want it to be legal that the few processions he has can be taken away by anybody, because they just want it.

In civilized countries employees also have more rights than employers e.g. for notice periods, precisely because the working market is often in a state where the employee has less negotiation power. The contract drafter is also the disfavoured party in court.

[grafmax]

No you need a state to enforce the property rights of capitalists over workers.

Nor are people all “free” under capitalism - for example the ability to start a business is predicated on assets to fund the business. Capitalist freedoms is freedom for the rich.

And the supposed freedoms of a worker to enter into a contract are a choice between lesser evils - limited choices given their precarious position relative to employers. Jeff Bezos vs an Amazon warehouse worker - it’s not a contract between equals. You seem intent on denying the real power difference between employers and employees as supposedly free arrangements.

As for worker rights they have been fought for by the labor despite the vicious resistance of the capitalist class. Since the 1980s those rights have deteriorated as wealth has continued to consolidate. It’s a trend that’s likely to continue as the richest pollute our globe, promote austerity, extract rent from the working class, undermine democracies, and instigate war.

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> No you need a state to enforce the property rights of capitalists over workers.

Can you please define what you mean with "property rights of capitalists"? I don't think we are thinking of the same. When I think of property rights, I think of the concept of exclusive ownership of a thing, which is maintained by declaring theft to be illegal. That is a right, that everyone has including the homeless person living next to the train station.

> Nor are people all “free” under capitalism - for example the ability to start a business is predicated on assets to fund the business. Capitalist freedoms is freedom for the rich.

You can start selling parsley growing in your living room tomorrow, from seeds you found in the local park. However we didn't just started being settled yesterday, so you do need to compete with all the other people already doing things. That you need resources to live, that you don't just have, is not something, that was invented by the "evil capitalists", that is something, that is just human nature (actually not specific to humans). It is true, that some people are born rich, and most don't, but this is unfair not unfree.

> And the supposed freedoms of a worker to enter into a contract are a choice between lesser evils - limited choices given their precarious position relative to employers. Jeff Bezos vs an Amazon warehouse worker - it’s not a contract between equals.

Yes, people like Jeff Bezos are an issue, and Amazon is famous for being a shitty company. However most employers are not Jeff Bezos and most employees don't work for Amazon. You could also start working at the carpenter next door and if you are very good, you will inherit the company. They are looking for people like crazy, prizes for them are high and a lot of craftsmen need to close their business, not because of less demand, but because they are old and their is no one to inherit them to. Working at a carpenter requires you to have finished school, which is payed for by the state and actually mandatory.

> You seem intent on denying the real power difference between employers and employees as supposedly free arrangements.

> In civilized countries employees also have more rights than employers e.g. for notice periods, precisely because the working market is often in a state where the employee has less negotiation power. The contract drafter is also the disfavoured party in court.

Yes, once you are in a contract you need to fulfill them, however you can make any contract you like and are free to terminate them at any time (with a notice period).

> As for worker rights they have been fought for by the labor despite the vicious resistance of the capitalist class.

That highly depends on the country. Often also rulers have seen that peace in their society makes for a stronger society and employers that employees that don't need to think about feeding their children produce better work and providing benefits to their employees improves there competitiveness in the workers market. Traditionally states also didn't liked persons becoming richer than them, as this might pose a threat, people like Jeff Bezos are very much a new phenomena.

[grafmax]

So-called property rights are a legal construction that protects the wealth of the wealthy from the working class utilizing the justice system to maintain the domination of the wealthy over the working class, classifying expropriations of their wealth as theft. Capitalist states have always been subordinate to the wealthy, and the justice system is one branch of that apparatus.

> once you are in a contract you need to fulfill them, however you can make any contract you like and are free to terminate them at any time (with a notice period).

This is a bankrupt notion of freedom that ignores the power differences between the parties in the contract. Those with less money have fewer choices available to them and are thus less free. That’s why relationships of exploitation continue to exist such as between the Amazon worker who pisses into a bottle to boost their metrics while Bezos retains the freedom to sit on his billions and pay politicians to do his bidding. These relationships wouldn’t exist if the parties were on equal footing.

> It is true, that some people are born rich, and most don't, but this is unfair not unfree.

Wealth differences are power differences. The power differences give rise to exploitative relationships. Wealth differences aren’t a fact of nature. They are a result of how we as humans have organized our societies. We have made this and we can unmake it. Sucking our thumbs and saying “that’s just the way things are” is part of the ideological apparatus that maintains the power of the capitalist class over the working class.

Wealth differences are power differences and as such impinge on freedom since those with less wealth have their choices subtracted in relationships of capitalist exploitation.

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Sorry for the late reply.

> classifying expropriations of their wealth as theft

Like I wrote earlier the average homeless also wants to have "expropriations" of his things to be classified as theft. Normalizing "expropriations" also results in a self-education to an attitude that does not fare well in a society.

> ignores the power differences between the parties in the contract.

No we are not "ignoring power differences". That is why we have (labor) laws after all, whose independent application you also don't seem to like. Laws only limit the powerful, the powerless would be even more at the mercy of the powerful without (enforced) laws, as this is the very meaning of having or not having power.

I do not think that the existence of Amazon and people like Bezos, is the result of a healthy, competitive market. If anything it has destroyed the very same. The actions of Amazon are borderline to literally illegal, which is why they need to transport the workers across country borders to evade law enforcement.

> These relationships wouldn’t exist if the parties were on equal footing.

Which is why these relationships are affected by labor laws. If you want to suggest, that we should invest in law enforcement to deal with these issues or maybe tweak the laws a bit, to make more of that behaviour illegal, then I agree.

> Wealth differences are power differences.

Yes.

> The power differences give rise to exploitative relationships.

Given the absence of a healthy state, yes.

> Wealth differences aren’t a fact of nature.

Maybe.

> They are a result of how we as humans have organized our societies.

Yes.

> We have made this and we can unmake it.

Citation needed.

> Sucking our thumbs and saying “that’s just the way things are”

This is a strawman, nobody is suggesting that.

I do not want to be subject to the "ideological apparatus" that rises from your ideas. I would if my dad hasn't fought against it, under threat of live to him and the family (which is why my grandfather was against it). No I very much do not want to see how your ideas work out in practice AGAIN. Read a history book.

> Wealth differences are power differences and as such impinge on freedom

I think we also have a different definition of freedom as well. Having less choices doesn't make you less free. Arbitrary limiting choices does. Not being able to snip your fingers and be rich, doesn't make you unfree, if anything being attached to wealth makes you unfree. Forcing you to work for someone, forbidding you from buying or selling a product makes you unfree.