Re: [microsound] sorry for being so vociferous this morning but...

[Tad Turner <tad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/26/02 at 7:18 AM, anechoic <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >My belief is that profits aren't bad, exploitation is.
> capitalism doesn't work this way...you can't have profits without
> exploiting someone or something

I agree that capitalism doesn't work this way, but you can have profits
under other social systems. It's what you do with them that counts.

When a person spends $1 million to set up a widget factory and pays 100
people $10/hour to operate the factory and then that person keeps the
difference between their costs and their revenues, that's Capitalism.

And Capitalism believes that it's not exploitative for that person to
keep that money.

If 100 people get $1 million together to set up a widget factory, pay
themselves $10/hour to work there and distribute the profits amongst
themselves, that's Socialism.

Socialism doesn't believe in the alienation of the product from the
labor.

I think these questions are worth discussing because I believe most
folks don't separate the scale of productive activies (widget factories)
from the degree to which they are organized unfairly.