Rent seeking is good, actually, and accepting that it's bad is uncritically accepting a neoliberal view of economics
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Replying to @arthur_affect @ladyattis
Guilds and trade unions are the classical definition of a rent-seeking entity, which is why the Authors Guild has been such an implacable defender of copyright maximalism, in order to maximize the income of their members, which is a union's job
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The author guild isn't equivalent to a labor union as they seek LAWS to further their goals to monopolize the right to mere imitation. A labor contract from a trade union doesn't preclude others from laboring without it if they choose to work somewhere else.
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Replying to @ladyattis
This is, in fact, patently untrue and deeply contrary to the basic goal of "horizontal organizing" in an industry And the idea that there's something corrupt about "letting unions write laws and regulations" is a key anti-union talking point
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Replying to @arthur_affect
You keep trying to shoehorn the argument with fallacious reasoning. The laws themselves are monopolies and thus should be abolished as well. Wake me up when you admit the State is inherently a monopoly that chains us all together as its property.
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Replying to @ladyattis
Okay, cool But do you recognize that until the glorious dawn in which the state and all laws are abolished occurs, abolishing SOME laws and SOME regulations while leaving other ones intact is, in fact, just giving power to some people while taking it from others
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Replying to @arthur_affect @ladyattis
Minimum wage laws are, according to the Econ 101 definition of the term, a form of "rent-seeking" Should we go ahead and cave to the people who want to abolish them, satisfied in the knowledge it's a mere stepping stone to abolishing property and the state
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Replying to @arthur_affect
*bzzt* Wrong answer Ricardo already got this right centuries ago. Capital takes surplus value and that in itself is rent seeking, minimum wage is a legal attempt to equalize the imbalance along with taxes. But please continue to tell me what I'm suppose to not know, Art.
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Replying to @ladyattis
Ricardo was a piece of shit who thought a general increase in wages for the British working class would be socially undesirable because they would just drink more so I don't know why you're stanning so hard for the dude
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Attacking his character doesn't refute his theory. Wake me up when you actually refute his theories. Until then, I'm just gonna point and laugh at you.
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I don't really disagree with his description of what "rent seeking" is, I just think it's a fine and good and necessary thing for a society to have The question is just who's charging the rents to whom
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Replying to @arthur_affect @ladyattis
Syndicalism is, for the record, the flavor of anarchism I think has the best chance of getting off the ground in the world we live in, for the exact reason its more-radical detractors dislike it ("It's just turning workers' collectives into the new capitalists")
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Replying to @arthur_affect
At least we agree in general, I apologize for taking it personally. I consider myself a mutualist. I don't support IP law as is, especially after the attempt to criminalizing folks torrenting in the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty.
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End of conversation
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