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Notes -
What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?
New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.
Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":
Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.
But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.
This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:
Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?
/images/17459352527399495.webp
This description of Capitalism applies to middle-men (e.g. quant traders, supermarkets, etc) - but it doesn't seem to fit the central example of a business: where it actually creates value by making a resource whose utility is greater than the sum of its raw resources (e.g. a shoe factory). If we treat the raw materials (leathers, rubbers, dyes, etc) as being "usurped and kidnapped", the shoe factory definitely does more than just "hold them hostage" before release.
Also I think it just doesn't make sense to refer to storage/warehousing as "holding hostage". The entire point of holding X hostage (even something non-living) is that you threaten to kill/destroy X unless your demands are met, and when someone pays ransom to release a hostage, they generally do not own the hostage. When I buy something from Amazon, it is so that I can own and use it somehow, at no point does Amazon threaten to destroy the merchandise if I don't pay up (and if they did, they would be met with perplexed indifference)
The question of how desirables come to be -- picking them up off the beach, digging for them, panning for them, building them, manufacturing them, painting them, or whatever -- has no relevance to how they're handled once they exist. I'm open to hearing how desirables (goods and services and more) are handled differently. Can you give me an example where they're not handled like kidnap hostages?
Threatening to kill a hostage or destroy "the merchandise" any other way is neither necessary nor central to kidnapping/hostage-keeping. Sure, it provides incentive. The real threat of kidnapping is that the people being extorted for ransom will never get the hostage back, not until they pay, regardless how that's achieved. Killing a hostage is just a method. This is exactly the case with storage/warehousing (and holding hostage in showrooms, for that matter): you will never get it until you pay the ransom. The only difference is that in the case of merchandise, you never had it and had it taken away from you. Or, you could see it like Proudhon: the fact that you don't have it even though you need or want it itself represents theft.
I just love how this model works. It's been around for a decade now. No one yet has succeeded in pointing out a significant, legitimate flaw in the parallels it presents. That doesn't mean there aren't any, though. That's why I keep exposing it.
A lot of people consider this to be a significant difference, enough that they have universally recapitulated social technology built on this distinction.
It is certainly true that if you define away the flaws in your argument, then by your definition there are no flaws flaws in your argument.
You say you want a discussion. Discussion necessarily means give and take, other people considering your arguments and you considering theirs. If you insist on controlling both sides of a conversation, you're just talking to yourself.
You seem to be hallucinating. I've responded to everyone who commented and addressed their arguments. Discussion, for me, isn't about give and take -- it's about honestly checking, constructing, criticizing, admiring, enlightening, correcting, informing, and a whole lot besides. If you actually read what I've written and how I respond to people, you'd see that.
I don't even know what "define away the flaws in your argument" even means, especially sincere there really wasn't an "argument" to speak of in the first place. What did you construe as an argument?
Okay:
Yes, everyone treats this as a massively important difference.
Anyone could do this. No one does, for reasons that can be demonstrated by my request that you kindly give me ten grand in fungible US currency.
I perceive you to be arguing that the "Proudhon" interpretation of property being theft is one people should pay more attention to, or consider valid in some way. And indeed, I am very happy to consider your current possession of accumulated value as theft from me, because I want what you have.
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