Some "Anti-Capitalism" is Mistaken

Here I'll talk about the errors, maybe I'll eventually make a separate page that focuses on merely understanding what "anti-capitalist" people believe. Because even understanding what they believe is often hard enough.

I'll also have to make a page that has my own criticisms of how things are right now in our social/political/economic system.

Here's what our economy is actually like
First, it's a mixed economy. Not purely private sector capitalism. The government also employs people and provides various services.

Second, you totally get to run your corporation as a collective or commune or whatever if you want. It doesn't have to be a one-owner hierarchy.

Third, we don't have a strict separation between workers and owners. Workers can buy stocks and shares and whatever else. They can go on to start their own business (and plenty of people do just that). And owners can become workers.

Corporations are not dictatorships
Because they can be regulated (and thus controlled) by a democratic government, and that means by everyone.

The real fight here is to "keep money out of politics".

Worker's wages can be equal to the value of their work
Quotes from some anti-capitalists:


 * "taking part of what a person produces without giving them anything in return"


 * "Capitalism, as a system, relies on a hierarchical structure that deprives workers of power and wages commensurate to the value of their work."

These anti-capitalists are, of course, referring to paid employment. Wait, what?

Logically, this means they believe the employer deserves no pay for employing people. But, they are getting their ideas from an outdated source: Marx. Like religious believers who either quote the bible or an outdated scientific authority, when more recent science has refuted them.

The labor theory of value is false
The subjective theory of value won out. See also my own page: The Labor Theory of Value Doesn't Work.

This also means that "skill" is not what determines value either.

So you can't say that wages for cleaning toilets should be low just because it is low skill, you also have to take into account the subjective evaluation:  nobody wants to clean toilets, so you have to compensate them accordingly.

And, no matter how much effort and skill you put into painting a realistic scene, no one will pay for your painting if it the image is entirely uninteresting to look at or think about. Well, there are some people who are convinced that defiantly making worthless and uninteresting art is valuable and interesting. It's a niche market.

Ownership is labor
Because an owner always has to decide what to do with what they own, and decisions are a kind of labor (even if you decide to pay other people to make future decisions for you). You even need skill and knowledge to make good decisions. Admittedly, luck plays a role as well.

Anyways, when someone can employ others, that is valuable.

Economic growth doesn't have to be evil
Economic growth can be progress. It just has to be done well. There are proposals for replacing the measurement of GDP to measuring something else, and implementing the appropriate consequences, and then economic growth would be closer to being synonymous with real progress in human well-being and such.