jlou

joined 2 years ago
[–] jlou@mastodon.social -1 points 8 months ago

Liberalism refers to both a coherent political philosophy and a historical political tendency. The former liberalism is anti-capitalist. Yes many historical liberals were pro-capitalism, but this position makes their liberalism incoherent.

Private property rests on the principle that workers have an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. Capitalism violates this norm. Locke was wrong

A market economy of worker coops isn't socialism

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 0 points 8 months ago

There are anti-capitalist liberals though

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

At its core, liberalism is fairly anti-capitalist. There are many arguments against capitalism from liberal principles such as the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. The workers in the firm are jointly de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs, but receive 0% claim on the positive and negative production while the employer solely appropriates 100% of the positive and negative result of production

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Worker cooperatives don't have to have a flat structure. Smaller cooperatives might use a flat structure, but larger companies will delegate business decisions to management. The main difference is that the board of directors represent the workers instead of outside shareholders making it democratic

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The coin flip is inherently part of policy, and it is bad policy to decide on policies with a coin flip

Inalienable rights are moral rights that can't be given up or transferred. It doesn't mean that the legal system can't fail to enforce the right such as by legally treating it as alienable like capitalism does in the employment contract. If the legal system doesn't grant it, that's a bad legal system.

Moral concepts have an objective sense that is unknowable.

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

You can't get good policy without democracy because democracy is part of all good policy. Non-democracy violates inalienable rights, which makes it inherently bad policy

@politicalmemes

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 49 points 8 months ago (8 children)

How can this be a rejection of the far left when Harris campaigned as a moderate (e.g. Cheney)? If republican voters are going to think Democrats are communist regardless of how moderate the Democrats are, maybe moderating isn't a good strategy. If the only choice is between right-wing and lite right-wing, right-wing voters will choose the real thing. Even then, Trumpists will still call democrats communists.

Many left polices are popular when they aren't labelled as left

@theonion

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 1 points 8 months ago

2/2

If a worker voluntarily commits a crime for their employer, that is still inalienably their decision. Yes, the employer told them to do it, and that gave them a reason to do it, but having a reason doesn't absolve them of guilt or responsibility for their actions

@technology

[–] jlou@mastodon.social 1 points 8 months ago

1/2

A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their intentional joint actions. The pure application of the norm that legal and de facto responsibility match is to deliberate actions. The workers joint actions that use up inputs to produce outputs are planned and deliberate. They meet the criteria for being premeditated. The workers are not under duress in normal work, and consent to the employer-employee contract.

@technology

 

Why progressives should advocate for universal worker democracy (i.e. worker coops) and oppose employer-employee contracts - "Inalienable Rights: Part I The Basic Argument"

https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/

One of the original progressive ideas was that of an inalienable right, which is a right that people cannot give up even with consent. This idea is often misinterpreted in modern political thought. This article explains inalienable rights and how it implies a worker coop mandate

@progressivepolitics

 

What are your thoughts on liberal anti-capitalism and reclaiming liberalism for the radical left?

Liberal anti-capitalists typically show that capitalism is illiberal through demonstrating how it violates liberal principles. An example would be David Ellerman in:

https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Article-from-ReclaimingLiberalismEbook.pdf

He argues that capitalist employment violates liberal principles of justice such as the norm that legal and de facto responsibility should match implying a theory of inalienable rights

@socialism

 

Why the employer-employee relationship is based on theft and all companies should be worker-controlled - “Neo-Abolitionism: Towards Abolishing the Institution of Renting Persons”

https://youtu.be/c2UCqzH5wAQ

@workreform

 
 

The diagram centrists don't want you to see

Centrism frames the debate about capitalism as one of consent vs. coercion and argue that capitalism is fine because workers consent in the legal sense to the labor contract. Democratic theory recognizes a distinction among voluntary contracts i.e. consent to alienate vs. consent to delegate. A centrist can't appeal to this distinction because capitalism and political democracy are on opposite sides

@progressivepolitics

 

The diagram capitalist liberals don't want you to see

Capitalists frame the debate about capitalism as one of consent versus coercion and argue that capitalism is acceptable because workers consent in the legal sense to the employment contract. Democratic theory recognized a further distinction among voluntary contracts i.e. consent to alienate vs. consent to delegate. Capitalists can't appeal to this distinction because capitalism and political democracy are on opposite sides

@politicalmemes

 

The Problem of Collective Harm: A Threshold Solution

https://ejpe.org/journal/article/view/798

"Many harms are collective: they are due to several individual actions that are as such harmless. At least in some cases, it seems impermissible to contribute to such harms, even if individual agents do not make a difference. The Problem of Collective Harm is the challenge of explaining why. I argue that, if the action is to be [moral], the probability of making a difference to harm must be small enough."

@humanities

 

Why capitalists are coming out against democracy - "Does classical liberalism imply democracy?"

https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Reprint-EGP-Classical-Liberalism-Democracy.pdf

"There is a fault line running through ... liberalism as to whether or not democratic self- governance is a necessary part of a liberal social order. The democratic and non-democratic strains of classical liberalism are both present today. Many ... libertarians ... represent the non-democratic strain in their promotion of non-democratic sovereign city-states."

@sneerclub

 

A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/#hard-cases-make-bad-copyright-law

@socialism

 

Utility, social utility, democracy, and altruistic and moral behavior from unexploitability, Darwinian evolution, and tribes

https://www.rangevoting.org/OmoUtil.html

"S.M.Omohundro in 2007, by building on and/or simplifying ideas by a large number of economists, demonstrated that the philosophy of utilitarianism is forced upon an organism if that organism wishes to be "unexploitable." Exploitable organisms presumably tend to get exploited, suffer a competitive disadvantage."

@humanities

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