Steven Hale
2 min readAug 22, 2019

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From my perspective, there are many flaws in your argument. It’s a lengthy and well-thought-out argument, so that doesn’t mean you are wrong or always wrong, but I think some (from my point of view) clarifications may help.

Starting with the simplest point, your scheme ignores the historical and potential value of co-ops and communes WITHIN capitalism.

So, out of the total profit, or property it “eats,” according to the capitalists, there needs to always be a surplus which they can take, and their goal is always to squeeze as much surplus “net profit” out of the total profits, which means “eating” more profit in the first place, but reducing the costs as much as possible, including what employees are paid, how much is spent to ensure their industry doesn’t impact the environment, etc.

If the business owners are the workers, as in a co-op, profits do not compete with salaries. Workers / owners are motivated to reduce waste but not to short-change the customer.

As far as the owner is concerned, it’s only purpose is to produce surplus money, net profit, which they can then keep and use for their own purposes. This is similar to the attitude we have towards farm animals. If a cow was able to munch grass and live happily, perhaps even to produce enough milk for the farmer’s family, but never produced enough milk to be sold, the farmer would have no use for it.

In a commune (let’s say a vegetarian but not vegan commune), the cow does not have to produce milk beyond the need of the commune. Now some communes may take any excess milk and sell cheese or yogurt to the tourists, but it’s not a necessity. The cow is doing just fine to furnish the commune with their milk needs.

I bring these points up because I don’t think it’s necessary to divide producers and consumers into a simple dichotomy of The Exploiters who must be reined in by government and The Exploited. The Exploited can become self-sustaining (without becoming Exploiters) through simple systems like co-ops or micro-credit.

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Steven Hale
Steven Hale

Written by Steven Hale

Music: Discovering the lost and forgotten. Politics: Exposing injustice. Screenwriting: Emotional storytelling.

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