Political mindset evolution
J Lou @ jlou @mastodon.social Posts 57Comments 262Joined 2 yr. ago
J Lou @ jlou @mastodon.social
Posts
57
Comments
262
Joined
2 yr. ago
Liberalism developed the theory of inalienable rights that showed that slave trade, non-democratic constitution, coverture marriage, later capitalist property relations, and later non-democratic firms are invalid. Inalienable rights theory rules out the application of property rights to persons or their actions. Inalienable means consent is not a sufficient condition to transfer or extinguish the right. This is especially important for criticizing voluntary self-sale and employment @politics
The universe might be discrete.
If mental states are finite, then the space of all possible human minds is finite and includes the one that believes they have knowledge of the computation's result. It is possible for mental states of 2 minds to be different but extensionally behave like the same person. We would exclude human minds whose models don't map well onto the physics of our universe though. You might not be willing to pick the opposite if we are talking about morality also @askbeehaw
There are finite number of possible humans due to there being a finite number of states a brain can be in.
There is an argument for moral realism that takes advantage of finiteness and computability of mental processes to show that there could be an objective morality
Abolishing the employment contract isn't more constraints than ancap. It is part of legitimate contracts' non-fraudulent nature.
Groups enable the large-scale cooperation needed for an ordered stateless society.
Groups could have judicial systems. Judicial agreements could exist between groups. Thieves would pay damages to the victim. For serious crimes, there could be expulsion from group(s) and blocklists
For arguments, groups could subsidize agreement across social distance
Tax exempt status for all worker coops
1 individual can be a part of many groups. Being a part of zero groups would make people pay steep exit fees for every economic transaction with you and you wouldn't be able to access any group collective property, group currencies or receive mutual aid that these groups provide. There would be strong economic incentives to participate in these groups. Since all firms would be mandated to be worker coops, these groups would be a new way to provide startup capital to new firms
The employment contract is such a contract. It involves a legal transfer of legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production from the employees to the solely the employer. However, there is no corresponding de facto transfer of de facto responsibility. The contract is unfulfillable.
Groups set exit fees for transferring out community value. They can lower the exit fees for mutually-recognized groups, and exclude "groups" with no public goods funding
@technology
So you agree that the employer-employee contract must be abolished due to it violating workers' inalienable right to workplace democracy?
The way collective property works is that each group member that possesses collective property self-assess and declares the price they would be willing to turn over the possession to another group member. Then, they pay a percentage fee on this self-assessed price to the group. Groups democratically decide what to do with the collective funds @technology
Cooperatives existing doesn't solve the problem as it doesn't address the violation of inalienable rights in all non-coop firms. Consent doesn't transfer responsibility. The solution is to abolish the employment contract and secure universal self-employment as in a worker coop.
Markets have a place, but non-market mechanisms and mutual aid should flourish within groups. Ancaps see the logic of exit, but ignore the dual logic of commitment and voice e.g. democracy and social property
@technology
Capitalism puts de facto persons into a thing's legal role. Consenting to a contract doesn't alienate personhood. As labor-sellers, workers are treated as persons. The issue arises with the workers as labor performers. The employees are jointly de facto responsible for using up inputs to produce outputs, but get 0% of property and liabilities for the results of production. Instead, the employer has 100% sole legal responsibility.
Individuals are the basic entity. Groups' rules vary
@technology
Capitalism is inherently based on dishonesty. It routinely treats people as things in the employer-employee relationship. When the factual and legal situation don't match, that is morally a fraud.
Postcapitalism would consists of various intersecting and overlapping voluntary democratic associations managing their own collectivized means of production. Within these groups, there would still be a notion of possession of the shared asset.
Here are a few anarchist and anarchist-adjacent sources to go into specifics about institutions that an anarchist society might have:
The Possibility of Cooperation by Michael Taylor - A critique of Hobbes's argument for the state with modern game theory
https://www.radicalxchange.org/media/blog/plural-money-a-new-currency-design/ - A currency design that encourages mutual aid. Mentions how collective ownership can be achieved without a state.
Ancaps support employment contracts. This is contradictory: https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/
Marx incorrectly cites private property as capitalist appropriation's basis. The employment contract is what enables the employer to appropriate the entire positive and negative result of production. Now, capital ownership does play a role in increasing bargain power to get favorable terms during contract negotiations. By emphasizing value, he missed out on a critique based on property rights. In property terms, the employer gets 100%
Morality can be analyzed in less idealist ways @politics
Marxism:
A scientific analysis that gets basic facts about the structure of property rights in the capitalist system wrong, and uses value theory to critique a property system
Moral arguments can help make people class conscious and recognize their oppression. Morality can motivate people to act, gives them a coherent structure for guiding action, and give direction. Morality is an important tool that enables people to coordinate without authority
@politics
Capitalism doesn't qualify as free market activity then. Capitalism inherently involves treating persons as things. In the firm, the workers are jointly de facto responsible (DFR) for production, but the employer gets sole legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of production. This violates the principle of legal and de facto responsibility matching. DFR isn't de facto transferred, but legal responsibility is. Morally, this is an institutional fraud
@memes
Non-profits with workers must also have labor control.
The article's version doesn't account for some use cases.
Non-market systems can operate within the commons and we only need to charge at points where value leaves.
Extensions I've considered:
Allow proprietary works as long as the commons is appropriately compensated
Restrict use for creating proprietary works.
Require collectivizing property also
Distribute licensing funds to projects using quadratic funding
The advantage would be that there would be a clear business model for funding the work and any license enforcement, and with a clear source of revenue, we could use various public goods funding mechanisms like quadratic funding to ensure upstream projects are funded.
I agree that the FSF wouldn't endorse it. We would have to convince developers that this approach makes sense and they need to adopt it to work towards a free and open world. @socialism
I have a specific theory of rights in mind. This theory of rights proposes worker coops as the only rights respecting way of organizing labor relations based on the inalienability of responsibility. I'm not using rights in a general vague sense to refer to harm.
Worker coops view workers differently than capitalist firms. They see labor as a fixed factor e.g. worker coops cut wages not jobs during economic, downturns.
The theory of rights I have in mind can fit in a license @programming
Far left as in explicit restrictions on capitalist firms using the software without paying for it while still allowing full software freedom for worker coops, which don't violate workers' rights.
Copyfarleft should set up a whole family of licenses of varying strengths and its own alternative ideology from the FSF. The first principle is an almost complete rejection of permissive open source licenses as enabling capitalist free riding @programming
Include, in your politics, actionable steps. The most important step is to create worker coops and supporting institutions, so you aren't giving the fruits of your labor to capitalists with what you do everyday @memes