Capitalism is one of Humankind's Greatest Achievements.

because in fact it isn't a priority in man's life, for man wants to be wanted, not free.

 

They are a "means of production", though. For example, I could use an ax to produce lumber from trees. Granted, it's a very rudimentary example, but it's still a form of a production, and the ax is the means by which the production is achieved. The quibbling over whether or not an ax is "infrastructure" is part of the vagaries of Marxist conceptions of the "means of production" I was referring to initially.

If the function it performs is "production", then I don't see how it wouldn't be an element in the set "means of production", unless, of course, you're speaking some special version of English that I've never heard of before.

So, if you build a chicken coop on some land, that's okay, but if you build a farm on some land, that's not okay?

I'm not an anarcho-capitalist. I just went with that avatar because I couldn't find a better looking Gadsden flag. I'm a classical liberal with aspirations for a stateless society.

 

Oh bloody hell. It is a means of production, it is not part of the means of production. You're appealing to the dictionary.

Nobody quibbles over this.

It's an academic concept. The phrase 'means of production' outside of an academic context does refer to things like axes, but it would also refer to crayons since those produce drawing of six year olds riding dragons. That is not what we're concerned with.

You can build a chicken coop in your backyard. You can't take over a random spot to build a chicken coop.

I don't get your confusion, I already explained myself. Society has to support a farm, my theoretical chicken coop requires so few resources as not to be worth worrying about. The quantitative difference counts for a lot. If you have a karaoke night with your mates it's none of my business what you're singing, if you're starting a radio station it becomes my business.

Is there a meaningful distinction? Sounds like much the same thing.

 

The interclass mobility we have today is literally unprecedented. And it is entirely because of capitalism. It is declining to some extent almost entirely because statist idiots think too highly of their own capabilities and constantly screw things up.

 

When it comes down to what drives a progressive society is the quality of life of every individual...

"Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security[iv] - IN THE US

In 2014:

48.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households, including 32.8 million adults and 15.3 million children.
14 percent of households (17.4 million households) were food insecure.
6 percent of households (6.9 million households) experienced very low food security.
Households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 19 percent compared to 12 percent.
Households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included households with children (19%), especially households with children headed by single women (35%) or single men (22%), Black non-Hispanic households (26%) and Hispanic households (22%).
In 2013, 5.4 million seniors (over age 60), or 9 percent of all seniors were food insecure.[v]
Food insecurity exists in every county in America, ranging from a low of 4 percent in Slope County, ND to a high of 33 percent in Humphreys County, MS.[vi]"

http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunge...RFaQod01cEOA?referrer=https://www.google.com/

...but this is not only a US problem but begins to extend in every social structure (excluding remote tribes) within the human race. How in this day and age of billion dollar bank accounts and trillion dollar corporations could poverty even exist? ...Because that is how the basics of the monetary system which drives it all works... ...and when we have an industry that fractions what it "produces" and is the basis of all trade and services, we end up with disparity.

All -isms would prosper greatly with out the effect of monetarism.

 

Pointing out 'inter-class mobility' isn't helpful. You can leave your social class, sure, but can everyone? Of course not. Also I'm not sure it's unprecedented.

Actually it's because of a series of concessions that the Capitalists resisted to the very end. They opposed child labour laws, minimum hours, minimum wage, safety regulations... and tried to remove them until decades of normalisation made doing so unthinkable.

You are a statist?

 

Baloney, J.P. Getty started out poor so did most of the so-called robber barons. Some of them made and lost more than one fortune in their life times. And no I'm not a statist. A statist is one who believes that government can do a better job of picking winners and losers in life; which by the way is what socialism invariably does; than does work ethic.

 

This is not a response to anything I've said.

No a statist is someone who supports the state.

You don't 'win' under Socialism, that's the whole point.

 

You are talking in platitudes. At the end of the day/game ... extreme capitalism and extreme socialism end up at the same place.

Under extreme capitalism you have a few elites owning most (or all) resources and means of production. Under extreme socialism it is the same.

 

Gas lamps were pretty important to, but we eventually surpassed their use in just about every situations because better options were created through human innovation and intellect. The same holds true for Capitalism. It played it's part but it's not perfect by any means, and improvements can and should be made to lessen it's effect on the non-rich the world over.

 

Nonsense. Their is no system of government ever established in which the powers that be do not establish some sort of hierarchical power structure and the winners are invariably the people who run that structure if their hands are not in some manner bound. And you will never have a socialist economic system without the state to compel it.

But why do they support the state? Because they believe the government should be in charge of things including picking winners and losers because that is what invariably happens.

My first addressed your point about upward mobility.

 

The bosses do. Then they ignore all those child labor, minimum wage, and other regulations in order to meet their quotas.

 

Where's that Riever lad when you need him?

- - - Updated - - -

Also there are no bosses under Socialism. Socialism is literally a system with no bosses, again it's the whole point.

 

The Zapatistas? The Ukrainian Free State? Revolutionary Aragon and Catalonia? Tribal societies, numerous communes?

I don't support the state, you do.

It didn't. My point was that, by the very definition of a class society, not everyone can be socially mobile. If we were all supposed to be aristocrats then why even have a class system?

 

You should note that none of these are still extant. Except a few US communes most of which consist of a very few people often with nearly constantly rotating personnel.

 

There are always bosses. Under socialism, you may not have a boss at work, but you will have a boss who runs your local political organization and they might also be your union boss. These are the people with the political pull, the willingness to push organizations toward meeting quotas, blame someone else when the quotas aren't met, and ship dissenters, wreckers, and diversionists off to the gulags.

 

Indeed, under Socialism everybody remains poor and looses.

 

but socialism does create "winners". they are those with the most political clout, the party leaders and their stooges. to "win" in a socialist regime one must master the art of using violence, the only form of power available to the state, to accumulate wealth. to say that anyone may prosper under socialism is like saying that a dog may run free. yes, he can run all he likes, but only once his master releases him from the leash. as long as the state maintains control of the tools with which we create wealth, anything we possess may be taken away at any time. this is the very definition of slavery.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism