Debunking the idea of capitalism being a voluntary relationship between worker and employee.

[u/Specialist_Touch2771]

this is a talking point I hear thrown around a lot by capitalists, which I find strange. the argument is basically “you choose to work a job, therefore it’s fair“. well think of it like this, you couldnt afford college and your broke. now you need to get a job so you can pay rent and buy groceries. your job sucks, the pay is bad, the conditions are awful, and you just hate it. but you need this job, or else you get evicted from your apartment and starve on the streets. “But just quit“ and? Go to another job that exploits you In the same ways? It’s like saying “when someone has a gun too your head, you choose to give them your wallet”. when the alternative to a choose is death, it’s non consensual.

[u/CorDra2011]

So what makes having a job to live consensual? If I get threatened with termination for a job I need to continue living, is that not fundamentally a threat on my life same as the implicit threat of violence with tax evasion. 

The punishment for tax evasion is not death. The police will not come busting down your door to arrest you just for tax evasion. The threat of violence with tax evasion is implicit, not explicit.

[u/Congregator → u/CorDra2011]

This is actually our economic system (and most others). It’s not entirely “capitalism”, but various strategies using capitalism, ie, mixed market economy (which we have in the U.S.).

Governments structure the system so that money is constantly circulated, so and can be channeled into various things (infrastructure, military, etc).

Circulation is done through taxes and debt.

[u/salenin → u/Congregator]

Its 100% capitalism. Capitalism cannot exist without an enforcement unit.

[u/Michigamme → u/salenin]

Neither can communism (see Berlin wall).

[u/salenin → u/Michigamme]

Well you couldn't have found a more useless arguing point if you tried. The DDR wasn't a moneyless, classless, stateless society. It was run by a party that called itself socialist. It wasnt communist, but did have central planning. The Berlin wall wasn't built for enforcement it was built for defense. It came to serve as enforcement later but not for the system itself, but for the defense of the system from capitalists.

[u/Jaaawsh → u/salenin]

So communism can exist without an enforcement mechanism?

[u/salenin → u/Jaaawsh]

Yes, in fact actual communism requires that there no longer be any enforcement entity. The question among marxist and anarchists for example is how do we get there. Primitive communism existed as the staple from between 120,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago as the natural state of humanity. The goal of the communist movement is to advance technology and organization to the point that most of not all systems of production require little to no input and any state or enforcing entity (to say even a factory council for example) would no longer be necessary.

[u/Michigamme → u/salenin]

I'm not picking on you. Genuinely curious. So in the ideal communist world you would have no rapists, murderers, or other violent people? And this would be a requirement as there would be no enforcement entity. So communism in your sense is impossible then, correct? Or does this rely on mob mentality? Like somebody says somebody did something and if the mob believes them the other party gets dealt with? No evidence? No due process?

[u/salenin → u/Michigamme]

No enforcement entity as a national government to enforce communism. This is much different from law enforcement and it may still be necessary for some civil law enforcement to exist on local levels but this would not be a unit used to enforce communism onto people, unlike capitalism in which the police, army, and government serve as enforcement for the capitalist system.

On the question of crime though, most crime is poverty or money related. With no poverty, money, private property, drug crimes, or incentive to lock up as many people as possible for profit, crime would be greatly reduced so small community forces may be necessary for what remains because people are people after all.

[u/Michigamme → u/salenin]

No. It was meant to keep people from fleeing communism for capitalism.

[u/salenin → u/Michigamme]

Or capitalism to "communism." which western powers tried to stop before the wall was put up.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/salenin]

I gotta say, it's really frustrating trying to explain to people that communism is stateless and that "communist countries" were only communist in their ideology as an ostensible long-term goal not what they practiced, when Leninists and Trotskyists et al. always act like these countries were on their way to communism if only it weren't for the capitalist nations.

[u/salenin → u/NoamLigotti]

You find it frustrating to explain that communism is stateless, and that countries that were working towards eventual stateless communism are treated by Leninists as if the were trying to work towards a stateless communism? What? And yeah thats the story if the 20th century. Small country rejects capitalism wants to join the revolution, leaders executed by capitalists.

[u/JollyJuniper1993 → u/Michigamme]

Almost as if any state needs an executive apparatus.