A single person may agree to a specific wage for a specific job, but were they born agreeing to the socioeconomic conditions that would coerce them into wage labor, rather than being an owner of some property and collecting rent?
No one can answer that question. If they did, Capitalism would end.
I'm rather confused as to what you're asking, so could you rephrase it? (I'm very brain-dead at the moment.)
However, empirically speaking, probably because of the society in which we live in, exactly as you had said. Due to its nature, there are far more incentives to become a waged worker in a decent paying corporation than to be a property manager.
Personally speaking, I would never want to be a property owner/manager. Having spent many a summer, fall, winter and spring helping my father repair our former, very old and large house, I can honestly say that even if I didn't do repairs regularly, I wouldn't want spend the my life being a property manger, even if the rent was high. On the contrary, having spent many days in my father's office helping him with generic stuff like patient paper work, tech support and shuffling files and instruments between rooms, it really doesn't seem all that gloomy. Naturally, I don't want to be a corporate cog (lol who dreams of being a corporate cog when they're a kid?!), but I actually am contemplating business (in addition to electrical engineering) above everything else at the moment. Starting my own business would be nice, and for no social or economic incentive either. Simply because I believe I would enjoy, for the most part, the work.
Also, I believe that your last statement is fallacious; you can't know the outcome of something you can't do.
I think he's saying if somebody who knew nothing of the world somehow came faced with the choice of making money through wage labor vs. making money through rent/ownership, he would choose rent/ownership, and if everyone was like that, capitalism would end.
Which I think is completely wrong, because a lot of people find nothing wrong with wage labor, and in fact may prefer it. Some people WANT to work.
Maybe that's what he's saying. Honestly, I can't understand it either. What the fuck are you talking about?
That's what I was thinking when I was thinking this. >_> He asked a question, and then he answered it himself. Despite that, as arl has said, there are people who go against Firerain's philosophy.
What do you mean no one can answer that question? The answer is fairly clearly no, since babies can't agree to much of anything, let alone contemplate the socioeconomic conditions in a coherent enough fashion to give a meaningful consent. I think the link that that answer ends capitalism is a little sketchy, especially considering the question will be answered "no" no matter what system is in place, since all systems generate socioeconomic conditions that babies will be equally incapable of agreeing to. So, if the fact that a baby is unable to agree to or with the socioeconomic conditions of the time and place they are born is a sufficient ground for ending the current system of social interaction, the only possible alternative would be complete isolation, which would consequently result in that baby's death as babies are also not able to feed themselves.
In short, I am also confused.
To whomever is confused, the question is asking would one choose to be a wage laborer rather than an owner who collected other people rent? The conditions we are born into are unfair. It's like being raised out of a poker hand by a millionaire with an endless amount of chips. They didn't win because they are better, they won because we couldn't afford to play the game.
Quote from: modern algebra on April 28, 2010, 07:30:21 PM
What do you mean no one can answer that question? The answer is fairly clearly no, since babies can't agree to much of anything, let alone contemplate the socioeconomic conditions in a coherent enough fashion to give a meaningful consent. I think the link that that answer ends capitalism is a little sketchy, especially considering the question will be answered "no" no matter what system is in place, since all systems generate socioeconomic conditions that babies will be equally incapable of agreeing to. So, if the fact that a baby is unable to agree to or with the socioeconomic conditions of the time and place they are born is a sufficient ground for ending the current system of social interaction, the only possible alternative would be complete isolation, which would consequently result in that baby's death as babies are also not able to feed themselves.
In short, I am also confused.
No, the alternative is not complete isolation. The alternative is a society they would want to choose.
So nobody wants to do labor and get payed for it? That's what you're saying?
Quote from: arlen on April 28, 2010, 08:54:26 PM
So nobody wants to do labor and get payed for it? That's what you're saying?
The question is being posed on two fronts. One, in an imagined system where one had the choice to either invest, or labor for investors. And our current social order which coerces those with no capital to labor for those with it. It's meant to make people think about why they go to work, and who for. Were you born a cash cow for another persons fortune, or were you born an individual with hopes and dreams and desires? That's the question in a nut shell.
It's not like you can just throw some money out and then collect on it for the rest of your life. You still have to work to keep it. Those that don't are rare occurances.
Quote from: Firerain on April 28, 2010, 09:10:17 PM
Quote from: arlen on April 28, 2010, 08:54:26 PM
So nobody wants to do labor and get payed for it? That's what you're saying?
The question is being posed on two fronts. One, in an imagined system where one had the choice to either invest, or labor for investors. And our current social order which coerces those with no capital to labor for those with it. It's meant to make people think about why they go to work, and who for. Were you born a cash cow for another persons fortune, or were you born an individual with hopes and dreams and desires? That's the question in a nut shell.
I was born into a family of Doctors and chose to go to college for Music. I will work for the rest of my life, and probably never retire. Not because I will need the money, but because I will never want to stop writing music, a.k.a. "working."
Okay, so I understood the question to begin with, but it's a silly question in my opinion.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but not everybody believes we live in such a slave/slave driver society, and plenty of people enjoy their careers. Even if the former is true, not many people will care if they enjoy what they do for a living. If you're going to go all "They're still slaves and that's fundamentally wrong," you need to take a step back and play the Devil's advocate for a moment. You cannot sum up the society we live in today as either aspiring to be something or being someone else's slave.
Also, regardless of whether you live in a socialist, anarchist, capitalist, etc. society, it still requires that you agree to the conditions of living set by that specific society. Either way, as MA said, you're doing one or the other or isolation.
I was born into a family of doctors as well, and I want to go into either business or engineering, nay, I aspire to be a businessman or an engineer (or both). Not because I'm being "coerced" into it by our socioeconomic society, but because I feel as though I would enjoy it, and again as Arlen had said, I would want to keep on working until I could no longer work and be pleased.
Holk is also right. You would still be exchanging labor and goods for money if you were a landlord. It's the same principle; you exchange goods (or labor or money) for goods (or labor or money).
The question presupposes an objective and neutral reality in which the median wage or quality of life exceeds the standard of the wage slave. It also hints at the potential of opulence as a positive, which in virtually every religious and philosophical school, is classified as a negative typically associated with weakness of body and of moral character, Buddha's family and King Herod being just two examples.
Nevertheless, exploitation of the wage slave where living conditions for the employee are the primary source of suffering, or where the ratio of wages and labor time, respectively, to cost of living and leisure, are such that progress is considerably halted, then we can consider objectively that the Slave wage worker would naturally be inclined to reject or retaliate against such a system, and rightfully so.
The primary conflict is between personal choices made by the employee and a collective fate created by tyrants and plunder. This is the same argument as native Americans, Africans and Islanders. Does the superior military technology and capacity of a Western civilization justify taking the land of natives and exploiting or killing the locals for profit? The bottom line for some people is the collective good outweighs the suffering and oppression of the natives. However, this ignores the native's "happiness" and avoids asking "collective good for who?"
Maybe I'm just not too far into life, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the coercive nature of our society.
However, it comes down to whoever is willing to take the initiative and power will get to choose in which society we leave in. We can rebel, but in the end it's the same scenario: the rebel's cause will eventually become the oppressor's means, or he will fade away (isolation). You cannot guarantee that a good leader (or social structure) will always be available.
It may be unfair, but life is too irrational to be anything but at times.
At least that's what it looks like to me.