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Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

"Labor is a commodity, like any other, and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of big industry or of free competition – as we shall see, the two come to the same thing – the price of a commodity is, on the average, always equal to its cost of production. Hence, the price of labor is also equal to the cost of production of labor.

But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.

However, since business is sometimes better and sometimes worse, it follows that the worker sometimes gets more and sometimes gets less for his commodities. But, again, just as the industrialist, on the average of good times and bad, gets no more and no less for his commodities than what they cost, similarly on the average the worker gets no more and no less than his minimum."
- Friedrich Engels, "The Principles Of Communism"

Basically, under capitalism, the capitalist class monopolize the means of production and thus the working class are left with no choice but to sell their labour to the capitalists and pay them surplus value (meaning profit, interest and rent) in exchange for their mere survival. They produce commodities which then allows the capitalists to obtain that surplus value as profit. Capitalism operates on the very groundwork of paying workers less than the full value of their labour. The state serves to safeguard this inequality of power and the reserve army of unemployed workers serves to continually pressure the employed into working hard purely to survive and to create profit for the ruling class. This is how capitalism is innately exploitative and rarely rewards a strong work ethic. Under socialism, the means of production would be owned collectively and thus profit would be dispensed with and no one would be capable of simply sitting back and living off of the hard work of others.

Socialism, as Lenin claimed, can be encapsulated by the Biblical precept, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."

Good post, it's a shame Engels didn't get to see the 20th century, he would have had to really rethink his views. Socialism is a wonderful concept, but it is so obviously flawed in that it strips people of motivation at a certain point and thus brings down the quality of life. As Lenin would find out with socialism he who does work may still not eat. Socialism in my opinion works best in small groups for small periods of time, otherwise it's bound for eventual failure.

As for capitalism, you're only describing one of the relationships and a few demographic's that make it work and doing so with a rather preconceived slant. My experience doesn't fit into your archetype at all. Despite the numerous flaws in the system it presents more options than any other system and that's what I value, choice, to try something else if I don't like whats behind door number one.