@HeavenlyPossum Peter Thiel isn't a libertarian of any kind, or else he wouldn't work for the government's murder industry… he's also really anti-market, btw. he seem boring and unpleasant so i don't know much else about him…

"everyone is allowed everything" is just meaningless as soon as people don't agree on absolutely anything. and if everyone agreed there would be no difference between authoritarian and libertarian anyway.

@sofia

Which is why libertarianism—any substantive libertarianism, not just the pretend propertarian kind—is incompatible with capitalism.

@HeavenlyPossum the problem is that (anti-)capitalism has different meanings, libertarian and authoritarian one, and modern leftism muddles them.

libertarian "anti-capitalism" (what i like to call anti-bossism) is against centralized control in organisations and highly unequal wealth distributions. in this view, the exploitation of workers is what economists call rent-seeking. bosses basically taxing the value created between worker and consumer.

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@HeavenlyPossum
authoritarian "anti-capitalism" is against economic freedom, is at the core of marxism and other state-socialist ideologies. here exploitation just kinda happens when people are free to engage in wage labour, blaming the victims, while workplace hierarchies are probably just part of making efficient business. inefficiencies are blamed on the "anarchy of the market". because they think power is productive and freedom is not.

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@sofia @redcat

I’m not sure where Marx wrote that “exploitation just kinda happens” or that workplace hierarchies “are probably just part of making efficient business.” This sounds a lot more like an ancap caricature.

@HeavenlyPossum the first is pretty commonplace in any marxism 101s. what they can't acknowledge is that if workers and consumers were free to choose, and everyone would be able to freely compete with the bosses, than the market would tend towards minimal exploitation.

the second you hear mostly from marxists after they are in power, but i think it's also somewhat implied in their concept of economic development.

@redcat

@redcat @sofia

Can you explain where you encountered the idea that exploitation just happens, or what you mean by that, because I’m not familiar with anything by Marx to that effect.

@HeavenlyPossum basically in marxist ideology, value is exclusively created by labour, not capital or consumers.

and so the only way to not be exploited as a worker, is to demand the "full value", so much that employing you is not worth it. "non-exploitation" in the marxist sense just means bankrupting yourself.

an economic exchange is meant to benefit both parties, but in marxism that's not a thing. it's always zero-sum.

@redcat

@HeavenlyPossum i think it's a bit like sin in much of christianity: the point isn't actually to see where bad things happen and how to prevent those as much as possible. but to declare it all as tained and in need of salvation from above (or from outside, at least).

i think the Communist Manifesto is also revealing here: cooperatives and unions are described as "experiments", but their party grabbing power is not an experiment, it's destiny.

@redcat