# Ask the Socialist candidate for the European Parliament election **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252 "2009-05-31T10:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/381 "2009-06-13T22:25:25Z")
Things are becoming clearer here. So the community, this is to say the majority of the people, has been suckered and need to be set straight by the few who know what is best for the majority. Of course, the majority will need to be subdued by force. We, in democratics countries, are so behind countries like Cuba and North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/382 "2009-06-13T22:52:31Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Of course, the majority will need to be subdued by force. Okay, but no capital punishment. I’m told it’s inconceivable in a truly socialist system. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/383 "2009-06-17T14:03:26Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Nonsense. Pure nonsense. Most people sell their labor for a living. How anyone can defend that you should not be allowed to freely sell your own work I do not understand. Good thing I didn’t say that, then. > [@](#): > > If I own a house it is a mixture of labor and some real estate. Let us look at the real estate. It is society (the commons) who endorses my right to own it as long as I pay my taxes. You are confusing the commons and society and the state. These are three different things, and in fact it is the third thing, which has nothing to do with the commons, that endorses property. > [@](#): > > Of course, thinking in terms of land being the primary form of wealth is quite outdated and most wealth owned and created today is much more about accumulated labor than about land. It’s about accumulated labour _now_, but its roots are in land and/or natural materials, always. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/384 "2009-06-17T14:11:10Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Defining theft that broadly makes it effectively meaningless. By a definition that loose, I’m “stealing from the commons” every time I inhale some air. Only if you bottled said air and sold it. It’s not usifruct that is theft from the commons, especially when you’ll give everything back to the commons when you die. This doesn’t happen with appropriated property. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > By a definition that broad, you can also argue that holding anything in common is stealing from private individuals; it works as well as an argument for ultra-capitalism as it does for one against capitalism. Except it did not initially belong to anyone, hence _by default_ is in the commons. How can the commons steal what is initially theirs? They can’t, whereas the private individual can. Initial conditions/the past \*matters \*when it comes to the morality of private property. Understand, I’m not arguing about any practicalities here. I accept that we live in a money economy now, and a lot of people make their money by their own innovation (I’ll even concede that **Shodan** does this, and never uses any public or OS-derived software). I’m not arguing for approprition of the initially-stolen property. That has never been my point. My point is strictly a moral one, about the taint of capital’s roots. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/385 "2009-06-17T15:53:05Z")
One cannot steal from the Commons if the Commons give their blessing to the holding of private property. It is just ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/386 "2009-06-17T16:22:40Z")
Notions about the origin of private property vs common property are kind of missing the point. People who want a rigorous economical-ethical system always want to postulate some sort of natural origin of property that makes a person “really” own something, or how no one can “really” own something. But of course our notions about property are just human inventions, not natural law. We decide that Thag owns the moccasins he made from deerhide, because he killed the deer and sewed them together by the campfire. So they are his moccasins, and if anyone else took them without Thag’s permission, Thag would be justified in taking them back and perhaps smacking that person upside the head. But that’s just a social convention. In a universal sense, Thag doesn’t own anything. The deer certainly has a bit more claim to ownership of its own skin than Thag does. And when we talk about the right to hunt at certain places, and to build a hut at certain places, and to sing certain songs at certain ceremonies, or to have sexual intercourse with certain females, things get even more murky. The reality is that our current system of private property wasn’t handed down by God, or by natural law. It’s a hodgepodge of rules designed to satisfy human needs. We have rules about property because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to live. And if we dissolve all those rules as unfair we find that pretty quick guys who hold swords or guns that they don’t own start telling everyone else what they are allowed to do. The notion that Bill Gates (or Microsoft stockholders) really owns the Windows operating system is as arbitrary as the notion that everything is owned by some nebulous “commons”. There never was any such thing as a commons, there was just a planet, and then some apes evolved, and then some of the apes started using tools. They didn’t own the planet in common, the planet just existed and the apes lived on it. And all our rule about whether Thag really owns the moccasins are just our attempt to keep people from arguing about it. So we say Thag owns them, even though we could say he stole the skin from the deer, and stole the water from the lake, and stole the firewood from the tree, and stole the air from the sky. If Thag stole the moccasins from the commons, then every animal that ever existed lives by stealing, and every plant too. In one sense it’s logically defensible to say that animals steal from each other, and plants steal sunlight and water from each other, but it results in more confusion than it helps, because it assigns moral choices to entities that in most cases don’t even have nervous systems. Even if we’re only talking about complex social animals like wolves, chimpanzees, dolphins, or humans, using the word “stealing” is a way of begging the question. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/387 "2009-06-17T17:41:40Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > One cannot steal from the Commons if the Commons give their blessing to the holding of private property. It is just ludicrous. The Commons can’t give their blessing to anyone or anything. Once again, you are confusing Society with the Commons. They are not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/388 "2009-06-17T17:47:27Z")
I’d like to hear how it is any less “stealing” for a socialist to make use of something from the commons than it is for a capitalist to create something and own it. ISTM that the second law of thermodynamics means that every time someone uses something, it loses value - it is worth less, however you measure it, than it was before I used it. You are using it up, either completely or partially. And that loss of value is exactly the same for capitalists as it is for socialists. Okay, we are now socialists, and we have a great big pile of shoes held in common. If I pick out a pair, no one else can wear them until I am done. How is that different from buying a pair from Wal-Mart? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/389 "2009-06-17T17:50:42Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > If Thag stole the moccasins from the commons, then every animal that ever existed lives by stealing, and every plant too. In one sense it’s logically defensible to say that animals steal from each other, and plants steal sunlight and water from each other, but it results in more confusion than it helps, because it assigns moral choices to entities that in most cases don’t even have nervous systems. Even if we’re only talking about complex social animals like wolves, chimpanzees, dolphins, or humans, using the word “stealing” is a way of begging the question. There’s a distinct difference between commons usufruct and the kind of appropriation I’m accusing capital of being based on. You’re berating me for calling the former “stealing” when I’ve done no such thing. All your examples, from Thag’s shoes on down the evolutionary chain, are examples of [usufruct](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct), not [appropriation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_(economics)). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/390 "2009-06-17T17:52:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Okay, we are now socialists, and we have a great big pile of shoes held in common. If I pick out a pair, no one else can wear them until I am done. How is that different from buying a pair from Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart has to make a profit? You can pass your Wal-Mart shoes on to your heirs? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/391 "2009-06-17T17:54:35Z")
You say tomayto, I say tomahto… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/392 "2009-06-17T18:06:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Wal-Mart has to make a profit? You can pass your Wal-Mart shoes on to your heirs? Neither of these have anything to do with the fact that someone is making exclusive use of a pair of shoes. That is happening whether we are operating under capitalism, in which case exclusive use of something is stealing, or under socialism, where it apparently is not. Unless it is. Is it? If not, what’s the difference? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/393 "2009-06-17T18:26:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Neither of these have anything to do with the fact that someone is making exclusive use of a pair of shoes. They both do - they change the nature of what happens to the shoes before you get them, and after you use them. They are _not_ the same pair of shoes, IOW. One is a product of capital, and is permanently taken from the Commons. The other is only yours as long as you, personally, have reasonable expectations of getting use out of them. > [@](#): > > That is happening whether we are operating under capitalism, in which case exclusive use of something is stealing, or under socialism, where it apparently is not. > > Unless it is. Is it? If not, what’s the difference? Sigh:rolleyes: Once again - it is not exclusive use which is theft, it is \*appropriation \*which is theft - the taking of more than you, personally, could use (especially if you intend to charge others for the use of it), and/or taking for longer than you, personally, have the use of it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/394 "2009-06-17T19:15:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Once again - it is not exclusive use which is theft, it is \*appropriation \*which is theft - the taking of more than you, personally, could use (especially if you intend to charge others for the use of it), and/or taking for longer than you, personally, have the use of it. So it is theft if I take a pair of shoes from the socialist common store and wear them until they wear out. Or else it is not theft to buy a pair of shoes (or make them myself) and wear them until they wear out. Or is it just theft to wear a pair of shoes more than once? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/395 "2009-06-17T19:36:48Z")
Funny guy. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/396 "2009-06-17T19:44:21Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Funny guy. Again, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but **Shodan** has a point. Who decides how long someone has a use for it? Who decides how long a person can use a pair of shoes? And if that shadowy someone decides that a person has a use for a pair of shoes until they wear out, how is that different from buying them at WalMart? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/397 "2009-06-17T19:55:23Z")
But your contention that early property ownership was usufruct and not appropriation is simply nonsense. You think hunter-gatherers never had wars over which tribe got to live where? Families considered they had the right to use certain areas because if someone told them they didn’t have the right, they’d have to fight them to prove it. How is killing someone over the right to use a certain plot of land different than killing them over the right to own a certain plot of land? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/398 "2009-06-17T21:57:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Funny guy. No, I’m serious. I get a pair of shoes, and wear them until they fall apart. I buy them; it’s theft. I simply grab them from the common store; it’s not. Where does the difference come in? I am not holding them for longer than I need to in either case. And they have no value when I am done using them in either case. Or food, for that matter. I pick an apple from a tree and eat it. Did I steal the apple from the commons, because nobody else can eat the apple? You said the difference was that in the one case, I was permanently taking it out of the commons, and in the other, only as long as I had use for it. The worn-out shoes and the apple are theft, then, no matter what the system - the shoes are permanently out of the commons in both cases. Same with the apple - once I eat it, it is permanently unavailable to everyone else. So there has to be something else that makes owning property the equivalent of theft besides taking it out of the commons besides the fact that I am removing value from it. What is that something? If permanently removing it from the commons is theft, then it is theft under socialism. If it isn’t, then what is? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/399 "2009-06-18T07:32:34Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > How is killing someone over the right to use a certain plot of land different than killing them over the right to own a certain plot of land? It isn’t. Killing someone else over a piece of land definitely doesn’t count as usufruct. Killing someone over use sounds like as definite a claim of possession or ownership as you could get, to me. But then, I’ve not said that H-Gs were socialists/anarchists, have I? So what’s your point? > [@jayjay](#): > > Again, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but **Shodan** has a point. Who decides how long someone has a use for it? Who decides how long a person can use a pair of shoes? Obviously, the person using them, as long as he’s around. And as long as the community can see he’s being reasonable. So if the last pair of shoes in the village is being monopolised by a guy in a wheelchair, that wouldn’t be reasonable, now would it? > [@](#): > > And if that shadowy someone decides that a person has a use for a pair of shoes until they wear out, how is that different from buying them at WalMart? The origin and the destination of the shoes is the difference. > [@Shodan](#): > > No, I’m serious. I get a pair of shoes, and wear them until they fall apart. I buy them; it’s theft. I simply grab them from the common store; it’s not. Where does the difference come in? I am not holding them for longer than I need to in either case. And they have no value when I am done using them in either case. But the shoes from WalMart are not the same as shoes from the commons, no matter how emphatically you declare them to be so. Wal-Mart is a capital-based company, not a free store. It uses property appropriated from the Commons as the basis for its business. > [@](#): > > Or food, for that matter. I pick an apple from a tree and eat it. Did I steal the apple from the commons, because nobody else can eat the apple? No, this counts as usufruct. It’s not the apple that’s the issue when it comes to the idea of appropriation, it’s the apple tree. Will you prevent me from picking apples from the same tree? > [@](#): > > You said the difference was that in the one case, I was permanently taking it out of the commons, and in the other, only as long as I had use for it. The worn-out shoes and the apple are theft, then, no matter what the system - the shoes are permanently out of the commons in both cases. But you didn’t get the shoes from the commons, you got them from Wal-Mart. You didn’t steal the shoes from the commons, Wal-Mart did (or at least, the materials). You are merely their fence. > [@](#): > > Same with the apple - once I eat it, it is permanently unavailable to everyone else. I think I see the problem. The shoe is not part of the Commons in either case. An apple is not like a pair of shoes. And a pair of shoes isn’t in the commons anyway, even under socialism/anarchism. The issue is the factory that makes the shoes, the rubber tree that makes the tread, the cotton field that makes the laces, the cow pasture that provides the uppers. These are where appropriation or usufruct come into it. > [@](#): > > So there has to be something else that makes owning property the equivalent of theft besides taking it out of the commons besides the fact that I am removing value from it. What is that something? Personal use property is not the issue. > [@](#): > > If permanently removing it from the commons is theft, then it is theft under socialism. Yes, it would be. But not the shoes - the property that makes the shoes. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252/400 "2009-06-18T17:28:41Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > > [@Sam Stone](#): > > > > > [@Psychonaut](#): > > > > > > For other reasons, people would be able to devote more of their time to leisure activities, such as two-month European vacations: without a large portion of the workforce tied up in socially unproductive pursuits (namely, maintenance of the money system, armed forces, and other bureaucracy of capitalism), these people would be free to direct their labour towards more socially useful activities. > > > > Do you have some specific numbers for your assertion? Just how many people in a typical capitalist country are employed in ‘non-productive’ pursuits? I’ll be generous and accept a number with ±5% accuracy - surely you’ve got such numbers since you’re willing to tear down society to achieve this efficiency. I have to assume you know what will be gained by that. > > Not off the top of my head, but I’ll see if I can dig up a reference for you. OK, sorry it’s taken so long to come back to this point. You wanted references showing the proportion of socially unproductive labour under capitalism. The numbers (that is, the actual % and error rate) will depend, obviously, on the coverage, accuracy, and granularity of your source data, such as whether you include all labour or only paid labour, whether you look only at sectors of the economy or individual jobs within them, etc. Given the government statistics available online, it’s possible to come up with rough estimates on one’s own. For example, according to [a report from the UK’s Office for National Statistics](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_labour/emp_by_occ_ind.pdf), 15% of the UK’s employees in winter 2003 worked in the financial industry; this figure alone gives us a rough lower bound on the amount of socially unproductive labour. In an [_Economic & Labour Market Review_](http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/01_09/downloads/ELMR_Jan09_Anagboso.pdf) article, the Office states that the military employs 300,000, and [according to the BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3084718.stm), the arms industry claims to employ a further 350,000. This is a further 2.6% of the workforce. One can continue on in this manner with other industries. Of course, not everyone employed in the financial industry, military, etc. is engaged in socially unproductive labour, though the vast majority certainly are. The more accurate an estimate you want, the more fine-grained a study you will have to do. Fortunately, some people have produced such estimates: [ul] [li]The entirety of _Free is Cheaper_ by Ken Smith (The John Ball Press, 1988) looks at who does what in the United Kingdom. Various government statistics are quoted showing the number of people employed in various socially productive and unproductive sectors of the economy. By Smith’s reckoning, nine tenths of the workforce in Britain does not produce wealth at all. (Personally, I think this may be overly optimistic; though Smith is meticulous in citing his sources, he doesn’t always show his calculations, so it’s difficult to ensure he hasn’t made any errors such as double counting.)[/li][li]Pieter Lawrence, in his self-published pamphlet _Practical Socialism - Its Principles and Methods_, uses government statistics on labour trends by industry to arrive at a lower-bound estimate of the number of socially unproductive workers in the UK at 1 in 3.[/li][li]“[Productive and Unproductive Labour and the Profit Share in the US Economy 1964–2001](http://netx.u-paris10.fr/actuelmarx/USProfitShare.pdf)” is a 2004 peer-reviewed economics article by Simon Mohun of the Centre for Business Management, Queen Mary, University of London. The article can be found in the proceedings of the “Capital Accumulation and Crisis: Empirical Studies” Workshop of Paris X University Nanterre’s _Congrès Marx International IV_. Mohun calculates (in quite meticulous detail) that in 2000 only 46% of US employment was socially productive.[/li][/ul] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-socialist-candidate-for-the-european-parliament-election/498252.md?page=21)