exploitation and morality 1 of 2

[a46475]

Capital refers only to the human-created tools of production. It would rather be immoral and unjust to confiscate privately created capital for public use without just compensation, the same way it would be immoral and unjust to confiscate publicly created capital for private use without just compensation. There is a fundamental error that Marxists/Socialists as well as Austrians/Libertarians both make in economic and social thought...

[a46475]

They both conflate land and capital as being the same thing (i.e. Capital). An understanding of Ricardo's Law of Rent and the concept of the "Margin of Production" is to understand to source of poverty amidst abundance and the injustice on which it is ultimately based. wealthandwant(dot)com/themes/M­argin_of_Production(dot)html offers the best basic explanation of the concepts.

[BrettWeir007]

Nobody forces workers at wal mart to work there. If you want a better job, get a degree and go work somewhere better. What is your alternative, should we all work for the government? ITs amazing that we still have these arguments decades after the soviet union fell. Communism does not work, capitalism is not perfect but its the best system we have.

[brendanmcooney]

@BrettWeir007 There are a lot of people with degrees that don't have jobs right now. That old argument doesn't work. It's amazing 4 years into this economic crisis that people are still throwing out that tired old right-wing argument. It's also amazing that so long after the fall of the soviet union that people still cling to the idea that that system was the only alternative to capitalism. It is time to reimagine a different alternative to capitalism.

[jeebiskebowski]

Exploitation cannot exist with consent.

[brendanmcooney]

@jeebiskebowski. See my video "manufacturing consent"

[jaybeebles]

Good video. One question I rarely hear is, to what extent does capitalism establish a meritocracy? I have my own answer to the question, but for the sake of making a unique youtube comment I won't spout my own opinion just now. it's worth thinking about, though, considering the VAST amount of opinion and ideology based on the premise that we live in a meritocracy.

[10kensea79]

Could it be said that a worker is exploiting the capitalist's need for labor? Especially skilled workers who are going to provide their labor and skills to the company who they can exploit the most for their own profit?

[brendanmcooney]

@10kensea79. Exploitation means there is a mathematical difference between the value created by workers and the value of wages. Yes capital needs labor. Yes skilled laborers are paid more. But if capital couldn't make a profit, if it had to pay workers more in wages then the value they created, capital wouldn't hire workers and it would cease to be capital.

[TheGodofAtheists]

@brendanmcooney Same goes for workers. Take McDonalds for example. Without the capitalists and the capital (machinery) all you would have are workers turning their wrists in a field making zero dollars an hour. Workers and Capitalists both need each other, but Capitalists can just call the shots because their more valuable as proved in the example. All it comes down to be choice - are you going to put a gun to a person’s head and force them give another a job? Are you?

[Mauser9513]

@TheGodofAtheists Capitalists are only necessary because it is a forced institution in our society to have private ownership. If Capital was not in the hands of one or a few people, it would be collective.

[akjs0]

i like ur beard

[Irondukesteve]

Can you expand upon the objective aspects of exploitation. I find it difficult to objectively show to others who is being exploited and who isn't.

[brendanmcooney]

maybe try the video "where does profit come from?"

[68generation]

I work for a public company, so the State can't exploit you can it?

[brendanmcooney]

It can. Or it can't. My video "Who is exploited?" might throw some light on the issue.

[sfordgg]

walmart wont hire crossdressers

[scarletletterman84]

god damn well said summary at the end of the first question. Its frustratingly common for people to battle reason with semantics, and lose entirely, sight of the real issues.

[laskji]

Centralization is possible because of the unholy alliance between big business and political power. It is government protection beyond simple property rights (i.e.: favoritism of one company over another ) that allows centralisation. Without protection superhuge business loses its abilitiy to compete due to too many opportunities for energy leakage - as is the case for all things that become too big.

[Guevaristas]

some of these capitalists give this answer: if you do not like being exploited then become the exploitor yourself! And, many citizens do this. The perpetual cycle of exploitation by one citizen of other citizens

[bergweg]

What is the reason for this compulsion to compete?

[brendanmcooney]

When a capitalist doesn't try to compete they loose.

[bergweg]

So it#S all a game to them?

[brendanmcooney]

No it's a matter of survival. Look, why does a capitalist invest money in a business? To make money. If they can't make more money from their investment there is no point in investing. All capitalists are competing in the market to make the most money. If they fail to make a profit they have invested for nothing. They will go out of business if they can't make regular profits.

[bergweg]

Survival of what/who?

a bit off topic. Check out this video "The Mystical Body of Business" watch?v=53RYrvaq874&feature=Pl­ayList&p=0F2C121587D3D31A

[nosferotica1]

@brendanmcooney

Recently, we have seen "Too Big to Fail" and bailouts, which point to what the beard said about the capitalists unique relationship to the state.

Either way, if you're talking about a matter of survival justifying exploitative slavery, I think you've got a warped moral compass.

[brendanmcooney]

@nosferotica1 ??? I am the guy with the beard.

[nosferotica1]

@brendanmcooney

Sweet. :D

[Guevaristas]

yes, unless they are bailed out? lol

Do you think it's less exploitative to work for the state (ie capitalist state) OR to work for a private company etc?

Perhaps theres no difference, both make a profit?

[AndreRGSanchez]

Do you deny that one's body is capital? Because if you don't tell your arm to move, it's not going to, it will just sit there dead. And without the arm... well, you are ghost. That means every human being is a capitalist by nature, competing in the same arena. Some capitalists are better, some capitalists steal, some capitalists rather have a quiet life than try to grow, but they are all capitalists. Is the worker at the same time an exploiter of himself and exploited by himself?

[brendanmcooney]

Labor power is the active agent in the circuit of capital, but this is entirely different than the way in which you use the word. I do not pay my arm a wage in order to exploit it. I am not compelled to put my arm in motion in order to grow more arms. I do not compete with other humans to grow more arms.

[AndreRGSanchez]

You, I think, realize that labor is not simply the movement of muscle. It requires thought (though not necessarily much of it). A capitalist is engaged in labor when it goes out and manages his capital. Your argument is that this labor is not productive, which I challenge you to demonstrate. Even if all a capitalist does is hire a manager, he has to hire the RIGHT manager, and that is his job. It's not as easy as it sounds.

[brendanmcooney]

You obviously don't understand my argument at all.

Labor is productive. It is the only thing that is productive. Managing other people's work is not productive labor. Having the legal right to do something has nothing to do with the creation of economic value. Hiring someone else to work for you on tools that you own does not produce value.

[AndreRGSanchez]

I agree that labor is the only thing that is productive. I do not understand why you think managing the work of others is not also productive labor. Perhaps you could focus on addressing that? Because it is not enough for a capitalist to hire as many workers as he can to work on as many machines as he is able to buy. Any capitalist that tried operating on that basis would lose everything. And when employees try just taking over the tools they also lose everything, including their "job".

[brendanmcooney]

I say this b/c there are cooperative run work places that function just fine w/o a capitalist. I say this b/c capitalists often hire workers to manage their firms anyway. I say this b/c not all work that is necessary- that is useful- produces exchange value. DO you understand this difference between use-value and exchange value? Try my video "who is exploited?"

[AndreRGSanchez]

The work of a capitalist does have exchange value. That is why there are managers of firms, and managers of cash, that do not necessarily own what they are managing. They get paid for their work as capitalists. Ultimately, many wealthy people simply look for the most reputable wealth manager around and let him handle their capital, for a fee.

[brendanmcooney]

bzzzz. wrong again. Being paid a wage for a job is not what makes it productive. You have to create a commodity which can be sold for exchange value. That is why the janitors at General Motors don't create exchange value though they are paid a wage. How is their work and different than the work of a manager?

[AndreRGSanchez]

You don't pay your arm a wage, because it is capital, not labor. The arm and hand allows you to manipulate small objects with precision, just like a machine might do. You don't pay a wage to a machine. Of course, there is no way currently to grow more arms, so you look to invest in other types of capital, or to merely improve the arm you have (exercise, diet, healthcare). You do compete with other humans in the most productive uses for an arm.

[brendanmcooney]

How is an arm capital? Have you seen my video "What is capital?"? If you have a different definition of capital then you should at least know what definition I am using.

[AndreRGSanchez]

Okay, I have watched your "What is capital" video. Your definition is not very useful. You are basically saying that capital is... the labor of a capitalist in trading goods and services for a profit, through the intermediary of money. It becomes even simpler to justify the capitalist earning an income from capital, because you already defined it as labor.

[brendanmcooney]

No that's not what the video argues at all.

[AndreRGSanchez]

Are capitalists not producing wealth when they decide how to employ capital, including labour? A worker may not know what to do with his time to produce wealth, then the capitalist steps in. When the socialists took over in Portugal, communists took over businesses, from farms to the offices of multinationals. The result was that in a year they were begging for the capitalists to come back because they had wasted all the capital. Food and other essential items were scarce.

[brendanmcooney]

By hiring a worker the capitalist is buying a commodity called labor power. If the worker did nothing at all but sit in a factory picking his nose the factory would make no value. "A worker may not know how to produce wealth." People have been working for hundreds of thousands of years, producing a social surplus long before capitalist bought labor power. Is Mondragon in trouble because they don't have a capitalist?

[AndreRGSanchez]

The job of the capitalist is to know who to hire, and where to invest. Everyone is, at least in a very small way, a capitalist. You invest in food so that your body can continue to work, and in clothes, and housing, and training. You support your capital (your body), if nothing else. The capitalist is simply someone that has specialized in this activity, possibly having inherited the practice from his parents, but also quite possibly having started as a simple worker.

[brendanmcooney]

If that is your definition of capitalist it has nothing at all to do with the way I define and use the term in my videos. Go find someone else with this useless definition to have an argument with. I define capitalist as the owner of means of production who sets money in motion so as to get more money back. The only way to do this is to hire labor power which can produce more value than the price of its wage. This is a specific understanding of the social relations of capitalism.

[AndreRGSanchez]

A capitalist that merely owns capital, but does not manage it, is living off what was accumulated by a capitalist that did manage it. Just like a worker that saved up some food then stopped working to buy more. You cannot earn an income from capital without labor. Ask the capitalists that thought they could just give their capital to Madof and collect income.

[brendanmcooney]

Exactly. You can't make a profit just by owning capital. You have to hire some workers to turn this into profit.

Your Madoff example does not prove that profit=the labor of capitalists. It just proves that people get fooled into making stupid investments.

[AndreRGSanchez]

Credit exists to facilitate the process of removing control over capital from bad capitalists, and putting it in the hands of competent capitalists (even if the competent capitalists start out with no capital). It is a key part of the whole structure of production in an economy ruled by the division of labor.

[brendanmcooney]

There was division of labor long before there was credit.

Credit exists to take care of temporal imbalances in the flow of capital. Please see my video "What is Credit?"

[AndreRGSanchez]

In regards to Cuba:

Infant mortality was the lowest in latin america during the Batista regime. And Cuba is such a great place to live that when the rumor that Fidel was withdrawing protection from the Embassy of Ecuador spread by word of mouth, the place was swamped with people looking to leave the country. Now, the other problem with Cuba is that they actually forge their statistics, and do not allow any kind of independent research. Babies are only registered a few days after birth.

[brendanmcooney]

I am not engaging in a general defense of Cuba, nor am I going to argue stats on infant mortality. I am merely stating the fact that Cuba's advanced health care system shows that you can be quite technologically advanced without a capitalist class.

[AndreRGSanchez]

Well but Cuba does not actually create any of this technology, and it has a very difficult time implement it. If not for the dollar hospitals and resorts for foreign tourists or subsidies from Venezuelan oil, they have a hard time keeping everyone fed. Even the athletes, that are kept for propaganda overseas and so well treated, are shocked when they see the prosperity outside Cuba.

[AndreRGSanchez]

Worker's were producing very little wealth for thousands of years before capitalists stepped in. Infant mortality was regularly at over 30%. Things were horrible even for the "masters". Yes, people can produce wealth, but when you have division of labor, you need price mechanisms to tell you if they are producing more than they consume, or not. Capital needs management. That is where the capitalist steps in. I'll have to look into Mondragon.

[brendanmcooney]

Infant mortality in Cuba is lower than in any of the capitalist countries in the Caribbean. There is no necessary correlation between medical knowledge and exploitation.

Again: the division of labor proceeds capitalism by thousands of years.

Yes capitalists need managers to control workers. In fact, I am working on a video on that right now.

[saipanrick]

Though I support your right to free speech I must correct you on the comment about exploiting little girls on Saipan to make clothing for the GAP. Although there were many countries that did use child labor, Saipan was not one of them. Please make the correction. Cambodia is famous for using child labor for the NIKE factories and although Saipan was accused of running horrendous sweat shops, child labor was never an issue. Saipan became a refuge for children exploited for sex and labor.

[brendanmcooney]

Thanks for this info. I do not follow this particular issue closely so I was probably going on old information when I wrote that comment. Since it's not pertinent to the theoretical arguments in this video I will let it slide. Please note that to "make the correction" would mean to take down the video and remake it. This is out of the question.

[McOath]

in this video, and in others as well you often talk about the capitalist class, as single individuals in competion, as if CEO's own the companies they control. This is very Marxist and abit 19th century of you, as today corperations are infact owned by hundreds of stock holders, investment firms, boards of directers, etc. which on some level remove self blame from real decision making capitalists. The arguments still hold true, but on some level seem like an over simplifiction in todays world.

[brendanmcooney]

I agree. In many ways, the credit system socializes capital to become the common capital of the capitalist class. So perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to "capitals" rather than "capitalists" as some authors do nowadays. But, as you say, the simplification doesn't really effect many of the arguments I've made in my videos so far.

[chocomeerkat]

Capitalism is immoral because it can't work without poverty. There has to be a certain percentage of people earning a slave wage in order for it to work for others.

[Weeki5]

@chocomeerkat. Your statement is inherently false because you ignore the relative nature of "slave wage". In other less developed countries, the lowest US wage is beyond their ability to imagine. Thus, capitalism works in the US without destitute workers.

[evelsteev]

Please read some Nietzsche, it will make more sane and embrace the 'ugliness' (as YOU see it)of humanity.

[McOath]

Nietzsche as an origin of sanity? Nietzsche comes from a fundamentally individualist view of the world, which suffers considerably when ever applied to a macro-level. Master morality will always fall to slave morality regardless, of it's own deep philosophical pit falls, what is moral is also a product of class conflict.

[evelsteev]

Not the 'origin' of sanity (whatever that means) but the near-sublimation of it,or at least the quelling of irrational fears of oligarchy. Face it, oligarchy will always be here.

Master morality never "falls", due to this permanent oligarchy.

[McOath]

By what social or political force in oligarcy permanently maintaining itself. Prior to the neolithic revolution did oligarchies exist? Oligarchies only have power if that power is respected, same can be said of absoluists or capitalists (despite how it seems there is social movement within capitalism). And within Nietzche don't confuse oligarchy and Master/Slave dichotemy, Nietzche was opposing the oligarchy of christian churches in Europe as being of Slave morality

[evelsteev]

There are no records of a "neolithic oligarchy", but there are also no records of oligarchies, in the present mode, permanently dissolving either. Oligarchies aren't about "respect" or "morality" or even money, as Nietzsche has pointed out, it's about their will to power. The common person can achieve this as well. Anarchists and other socialists fail to recognize this.

[McOath]

Fairly put. But you're statment of the current form of oligarchies newness, leads right into one of my favourite over used Anarchist pieces of rhetoric, just because it's never happened before doesn't mean it can't. refering of course to an equal society.

Now the will to power as a theory has some serious and blatant problems, 1 it states only human beings experience pleasure and displeasure, which is refuted by modern anthropology, and every pet owner on earth. I'm outta space so it's your go.

[evelsteev]

..and since it hasn't happened, doesn't it mean it will either. That's no different that the supposed "Armageddon" that's supposed to happen for Christians and it never does. Idealism unseen, will always just be idealism. The description of over who or what feels pleasure or pain is irrelevant to the argument regarding oligarchies. Besides anthropologists don't deal with 'morality' or philodophies.

[McOath]

you just said this wasn't about morality man.

2 will to power doesn't allow for people, like the amish, or buddhist monks, or quakers, or communalists or any of the other many people in the world who don't fit into the will to power model.

3 At no point does Nietzsche actually refute Epicurin, Fruedian or Platonic thought on the drives for human existence. obviously frued lived after him, but he never confronts either of the other two head on.

[evelsteev]

it IS about morality. The slave morality is not as preferred by Nietzsche as much as the Master morality. Apparently you haven't read The Genealogy of Morals or Twilight of the Idols, where Nietzsche harshly criticized Plato. I agree, as we all know "Platonic Universals" and charitable 'morality' are a corck of shit.

[McOath]

I'll admit I'm not deeply read in Nietzsche, so teach me if you please what constsitutes a corck of shit? I don't agree with Plato, but I'm genuinely interested in the debunking of Epicurus. Also don't miss out on point number 2, Neitzsche's personal preference doesn't constitute an argument.

[evelsteev]

You need to read Neitzsche on your own, I'm not going to interpret him for you. Your "crock of shit" reference only reinforces your need to really read and understand his work. His works are quite the contrary. It's the anarchists who are cooking up a crock of absolute shit. He agrees with a lot what Epicurus said. Yeah, you need to read before you leap.

[McOath]

Well that's the thing I know he agreed with Epicurus but arrived at a negative conclusion about human nature, While Epicurus arrived at a basically egalitarian anarchic conclusion. Why is this? How can you extrapilate and say the Epicurian view, which influenced Marxist thought, to bring us back on topic, is wrong about human wants/needs and Nietzsche is right?

[evelsteev]

Nietzsche embraces the "negative" aspect of human "nature." You obviously haven't read enough Nietzsche. Come back when you do.

[McOath]

ok. fair ubermensch is insufficient. I really enjoyed this convesation though, you're of much higher quality than most commenters on Youtube. Thumb up.

[sweet84heart]

Though I support your right to free speech I must correct you on the comment about exploiting little girls on Saipan to make clothing for the GAP. Although there were many countries that did use child labor, Saipan was not one of them. Please make the correction. Cambodia is famous for using child labor for the NIKE factories and although Saipan was accused of running horrendous sweat shops, child labor was never an issue. Saipan became a refuge for children exploited for sex and labor.

[nbm34]

I surrender my position on small Capitalists as opposed to monopolies. Your argument can not be challenged. As you point out not only the fact monopolies wouid not surrender their position, but the states ability to monitor and limit capitalism would always be subject to the old promblem of politicians being bribed.

It is clear that only workers owning their own means of production, would create a more constructive democratic and positive relationship between labour and the means of production.

[Socialgreenman]

Daniel De Leon concept of the socialist industrial union is the organization of labor owning the means of production. Private ownership of production and distribution has to be challenged politically. Does not the common people run the voting booths? Political candidates would have to present an Amendment to the Constitution. This is more constructive way than the testosterone driven violent revolutionary beliefs. I hear the Worker's International Industrial Union is making a comeback.

[PhillyKid07]

i watched your videos, and i really think you should write a book

[gbg112]

i agree with that

i know i would buy it

[pirbird14]

We should overthrow capitalism because we can, not because we are dedicated to some utopian ideal. In order to be fully human, we need the right to exercise freedom of choice (a byproduct of the apposible thumb). As long as we are wage slaves, we are not free.

[snakeinthegrass20]

This guy has a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism. Read the unknown ideal by Rand. To be free, the only option is capitalism

[topicalone]

Why do capitalist have NO choice of whether to exploit their workers or not?

[brendanmcooney]

Exploitation is the source of profit. Without exploitation there is no way for a capitalist to create more value than they pay for in the production process. The entire point of capitalist production is to create a profit. Does that answer your question?

[snakeinthegrass20]

No, wrong. The point of capitalism is it's morality. That you are free to use the products of your mind (money,property) however you want. As for exploitation, the alternative is they are paid more than they are worth & the business crumbles or they give NO job and die in the street like in India.

[brendanmcooney]

I do not think that is the only alternative to exploitation, but alternatives are not the topic of this video. The video is about separating the moral and objective dimensions of exploitation somewhat in order to establish the objective validity of labor as the source of profit. The moral argument that people choose to work (although faulty due to the fact that workers HAVE to work for the capitalist class)is a separate argument than the argument that they are the source of profit.

[trickertricks]

Humans function in 2 opposing modes.

1: egoDriven n 2 HeartDriven.

all this stuff your talking bout was born out of a group of people whos egos had Grown to OutRageous Proportion n had set out to play the first egoDriven game which was "Conquering".

everything humans have done since then has be driven by the OverGrown ego, all based on self gain with NO consideration on how their actions affect others or anything on this plant.

this is just a simple way of explaining what has been..

[trickertricks]

Driving the mind of the leaders that have lead all this shit... n i think it is important to understand in a simple way what has bben going on in the head of all these people.

You might not understand this... it is a "NEW Theory".. that is set to Evolve all out dated theories that are way too copmplex n that have actually been born out of an egoDriven world.. theories that leave Way Too Many unanswered questions... theories that were dicovered by Blind egoHeads in the first place.