J Lou

Who defines permitted contracts in a free market? Some right libertarians suggest that “free” markets include the “freedom” to sell labor by the lifetime or sell voting rights in the state.

“The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would.” – Robert Nozick

The theory that invalidates such contracts is the theory of inalienable rights. It has recently been shown to apply to capitalist employment

@memes

The workers are factually responsible for using up the inputs to produce the output. Imputing the positive and negative product, which together make up the whole product, to the employer is a denial of that basic fact. The whole product’s value is the profit.

It is possible to have investment in capital and getting return on investment in an economy consisting exclusively of worker coops.

Not all anti-capitalists are communists

Being anti-capitalist doesn’t immediately imply being a communist. There are other alternatives to capitalism such as Economic Democracy.

This is also a straw man fallacy

I disagree. There are plenty of examples of liberal anti-capitalists such as David Ellerman

Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers’ name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.

Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.

Capitalism is not just when the means of production are owned by individuals. For example, in an economy where all firms are democratically-controlled by the people that work in them, the means of production can be owned by individuals, but such an economy is not capitalist because exploitative property relations associated with capitalism are abolished

Socialism is not when the government does stuff, so those institutions are not examples of socialism. Anti-capitalists are arguing for the complete abolition of exploitative capitalist property relations that violate workers’ human rights.

This is a false dilemma. There are other alternatives to capitalism besides communism. It is entirely possible to have a non-capitalist non-communist system (e.g. an economy where every firm is democratically-controlled by the people that work in it)

This understanding of capitalism is a misunderstanding that both Marxists and neoclassical types share. It is not capital ownership that gives the employer the right to appropriate a firm’s whole product. The employment contract is what gives them that right. Sure, capital ownership affects bargaining power, but the root cause is that contract. Abolishing the employment contract while still having individual ownership is possible (i.e. a market economy of worker coops)