The anti-capitalist argument ought to be to draw a distinction between consent to delegate and consent to alienate. The latter is invalid as David Ellerman argues. The usual leftist argument that capitalist employment is coercive just isn’t persuasive.
Isn't persuasive mostly because we've been so heavily propagandized all our lives.
True, everyone has the right to refuse employment if they don't like the conditions, just like everyone has equal right to sleep under the bridge (or not, depending on local laws).
But because the consequence of refusing that job and all others that don't meet our basic needs is homelessness and starvation, we are compelled to accept jobs that don't meet our basic needs. That is coercive.
Refusing to purchase groceries can also lead to starvation, but surely contracts to purchase groceries are acceptable. The critique has to pick out something that differentiates the employer-employee contract from other contracts. The consent vs. coercion distinction applies to most contracts and isn’t unique to employment.
Source: https://youtu.be/UQxvAjFSlCw
@jlou I do not unconditionally approve of contracts to purchase groceries, especially if all the groceries are provided by one producer such that you can only starve if you don't buy from it.
Consent goes as far as the outside option goes. If the outside option is death, consent is meaningless.
I agree, but that is a criticism of monopolies not of capitalism per se. Many pro-capitalist thinkers are anti-monopolist. The anti-monopolist argument, by itself, doesn’t philosophically justify abolishing capitalism. The alternative to any particular employment contract isn’t death because there are multiple employers.
To rule out capitalism decisively, the argument must be that employment itself inherently violates workers’ inalienable human rights
@jlou Sure, if you don't like one labor contract you can take another. But there is no meaningful alternative to taking one among the ones on offer.
And for as much as capitalism apologists talk about competition, in practice owners/managers cooperate to each other's benefit and to the detriment of workers.
@magitweeter @MikeDunnAuthor Many pro-capitalists agree with labor protections.
The grocery situation isn’t much different though. The pro-capitalist would argue the legal system doesn’t owe you a job with the exact terms you want. What employers are willing to pay and the conditions they offer is up to them according to them. As long as there is mutual consent, there is nothing wrong with capitalist between adults. The anti-capitalist response should be the inalienable rights argument.
If employers coordinate, that is monopsony, which pro-capitalists already object to. Thus this still isn’t a meaningfully anti-capitalist argument.
@jlou The burden of proof lies on the capitalist to provide the practical answer to monopoly.
The anti-capitalist has no such burden of proof, because it is not monopoly in itself that is a bad thing. It is capitalism that is founded in the goodness of competition. Depending on your flavor of anti-capitalism, monopoly can be either materially impossible or managed democratically by the whole of society.
All the arguments you’ve given for capitalism being bad so far have been dependent on monopoly and/or labor monopsony, so the anti-capitalist taking this line of reasoning would’ve to solve the problem they pick out with capitalism in their alternative.
Competition for resources is inherent to situations where resources are scarce. It isn’t particular to capitalism
@jlou Sure, but they're not based on the existence of monopoly itself. Only on its effects on the social good. Those are bad under capitalism specifically because of concentration that allows exploitation of workers by owners.
Consider: if the workers and the owners were the same people, no exploitation would occur, even under monopoly (of a single firm collectively owned by all of society).
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