[FRIAM] capitalism vs. individualism

[Steven A Smith]

> Circling back to things I missed.  This has always irritated me. What, pragmatically, is the difference between property and "the means of production"? Sure, I know there's a body of mental gymnastics surrounding the difference. But it strikes me as an arbitrary distinction. Any privately owned *thing* can be included in the means of production. It's a difference of degree, not kind. Owning 1 screw driver gives you a little production potential. Owning a million of them gives you lots of production potential (though, admittedly, the scaling isn't linear).
>
> So, what pragmatic reason is there to make the distinction you make here?

I think this is a fair question.   Perhaps the dead lizard I just killed
in the dilly bag around my waist is *mine all mine* but the throwing
stick I used to kill it, which gives me the ability to kill lizards
before anyone else in my tribe can is perhaps the pragmatic
difference?   Fundamentally it has to do with whether "the group" can
"afford" for some members to have/take significant advantage over "the
commons" whether that be by technological leverage (throwing stick,
plantation, factory, or national railway system) or force of law (laws
and law enforcement contrived to protect "private property" vs "citizens
health and well being") or more organic aspects (being bigger, faster,
more aggressive than others).

I use these extreme examples, only for illustration.   I'm not
advocating the kind of handicapping parodied in Vonnegut's Harrison
Bergeron, just suggesting that maintaining an extended phenotype through
the principle of private ownership isn't (qualitatively) the same as A)
literal hoarding (gathering all the lizards up in a region)  or B)
potential hoarding (establishing and maintaining the ability to gather
them so much more efficiently than others so as to effectively hoard them).


>
> On 11/6/19 4:08 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Glen loosely defines capitalism as *private ownership of property* but i want to further refine it to be private ownership of *the means of production*, ...