The criminal justice system punishes those who can't adapt to capitalism

[coloradoatheist]

It is interesting to read comments from our anti-government cadre here rip into anarchism, the political system. Maybe in their mind a little bit of anarchism is a good thing, especially when it benefits the wealthy. But too much of it is a bad thing when it is proposed to benefit others.

Anyone care to explain?

Jason is the only one really anti-government so he can talk about his differences compared to unter's

 

[SimpleDon]

In regards to the OP, the answer is simple. You can reach it by answering this one question, who in our society is law abiding and why?

My answer to the question is the middle class. Because they have more to lose by committing crimes, they don't have to do it to survive and they aren't guaranteed the get out of jail card that the wealthy are given.

The simple solution then its to move as many people as possible into the middle class. Cut down on the number of the poor by reducing the incomes of the rich. Redistribution. It certainly won't eliminate crime, you will always have some who commit crimes, especially among the wealthy because they know that they can get away with it.

And to treat addiction as a disease, not as a crime.

 

[SimpleDon]

It is interesting to read comments from our anti-government cadre here rip into anarchism, the political system. Maybe in their mind a little bit of anarchism is a good thing, especially when it benefits the wealthy. But too much of it is a bad thing when it is proposed to benefit others.

Anyone care to explain?

Jason is the only one really anti-government so he can talk about his differences compared to unter's

Jason is as I understand it is a libertarian. Which is an anarchist philosophy, relying on the mechanism of supply and demand setting prices to replace the government in most of the regulation of the economy.

I don't really understand exactly what it is that unter is proposing. There doesn't seem to be much difference between the Spanish anarchism of the 1930's and pure Marxism, as distinct from the Communism that was intended to be only a transition out of capitalism.

Marxism is a utopian, anarchist philosophy where government would disappear except for the local committees that would consist of the workers in a single factory for example, running just that factory.

But back out of fantasy land, I was thinking more of those here who rant against government regulation. Who repeat the movement conservative meme against job killing regulations while not being able to give us a single example of one that kills jobs.

 

[Bomb#20]

The notion that there is such a thing as "the value" of land, and it's whatever amount of qi has been delivered unto the land by labor, the anointed ur-dispenser of qi, is a conclusion that follows from the Labor Theory of Value; you appear to believe this makes it a fact. But actually, all that makes it is a religious mantra. You are not going to provide any observational evidence that the value of land is zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it.

This is a Strawman. Nobody ever said that value can be perfectly determined. In any system.

That's a bogus accusation, twice over. In the first place, where in my post did I say a bloody thing about determining it perfectly? LTV theorists can postulate as much slop as they please in their procedure for deciding how much qi any given bit of labor embodies and how much of its qi that labor bestows upon any particular worked-on item, and what I wrote remains fully applicable.

And in the second place, ...

None-the-less, all value comes from human labor.

Without it you have NO value.

... that sure looks like a claim of perfect determination. Did you in fact mean "Without it you have APPROXIMATELY no value."? And earlier, when you wrote

The value of land IS zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it.

, that kind of looks like a claim of perfect determination too. Did you in fact mean "The value of land is APPROXIMATELY zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it."? Seems kind of odd to capitalize "IS" and "NO", and leave out the "APPROXIMATELY", if you intended your determination of that value to be imperfect.

By the way, my contention -- that "the value is" claims are metaphysics -- has a testable observational consequence. I derived a prediction from it: "You are not going to provide any observational evidence that the value of land is zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it.". And true to form, you replied,

None-the-less, all value comes from human labor.

Without it you have NO value.

My prediction was correct. Proof-by-repetition is the customary way metaphysical claims are supported.

 

[untermensche]

This is a Strawman. Nobody ever said that value can be perfectly determined. In any system.

That's a bogus accusation, twice over. In the first place, where in my post did I say a bloody thing about determining it perfectly? LTV theorists can postulate as much slop as they please in their procedure for deciding how much qi any given bit of labor embodies and how much of its qi that labor bestows upon any particular worked-on item, and what I wrote remains fully applicable.

What you wrote is total nonsense.

The only thing necessary to determine the value of labor is the desire to do it.

But with market systems the value of labor is the lowest possible price of labor.

With that nice setup of course nobody tries to actually figure out the real value of the labor.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's a bogus accusation, twice over. In the first place, where in my post did I say a bloody thing about determining it perfectly? LTV theorists can postulate as much slop as they please in their procedure for deciding how much qi any given bit of labor embodies and how much of its qi that labor bestows upon any particular worked-on item, and what I wrote remains fully applicable.

What you wrote is total nonsense.

The only thing necessary to determine the value of labor is the desire to do it.

But with market systems the value of labor is the lowest possible price of labor.

With that nice setup of course nobody tries to actually figure out the real value of the labor.

We think the value should be measurable, not pulled from your ass.

 

[untermensche]

What you wrote is total nonsense.

The only thing necessary to determine the value of labor is the desire to do it.

But with market systems the value of labor is the lowest possible price of labor.

With that nice setup of course nobody tries to actually figure out the real value of the labor.

We think the value should be measurable, not pulled from your ass.

If we wanted to determine the value of labor we could closely approximate it in many cases.

But nobody wants to do that when the cost of labor is the lowest possible price, as is the price of all things in a market.

And of course managers don't want to do that either because many times the value will be zero.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We think the value should be measurable, not pulled from your ass.

If we wanted to determine the value of labor we could closely approximate it in many cases.

But nobody wants to do that when the cost of labor is the lowest possible price, as is the price of all things in a market.

And of course managers don't want to do that either because many times the value will be zero.

Paying more for something doesn't increase the value of what you obtained.

 

[Bomb#20]

What you wrote is total nonsense.

You mean this?

"The notion that there is such a thing as "the value" of land, and it's whatever amount of qi has been delivered unto the land by labor, the anointed ur-dispenser of qi, is a conclusion that follows from the Labor Theory of Value; you appear to believe this makes it a fact. But actually, all that makes it is a religious mantra. You are not going to provide any observational evidence that the value of land is zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it."​

Some of that, you think is nonsense merely because you philosophically disagree with it. Some of it you probably think is nonsense because it describes you and/or ideas you hold, in a way you don't recognize in yourself. I don't expect to teach you self-knowledge. But there's one part that cannot rationally be considered nonsense in any way, shape or form:

"You are not going to provide any observational evidence that the value of land is zero unless human labor of some kind is applied to it."​

That's just a straight-up prediction about future events. It's true, or it's false; but it can't be nonsense.

So far, it's turned out to be 100% true.

The only thing necessary to determine the value of labor is the desire to do it.

Well, that, plus the willingness to believe a number you just made up out of whole cloth with no empirical evidence favoring it over any other number.

With that nice setup of course nobody tries to actually figure out the real value of the labor.

You are not going to provide any observational evidence that "the real value of the labor" is something that exists, just as no evidence has ever been provided for the existence of qi.