Steve Horwitz reviews Theodore Burczak

Steve Horwitz has written a review of Burczak’s proposal. Horwitz and Burczak are presenting a position quite distinct from that of Milton Friedman.

Theodore Burczak said:

It is unjust for people to sell their labor time: not only do the people have a natural right to the product of their labor, they also have an inalienable right to their labor time, a right that should not be transferred even with consent.

Workers should not be permitted to cede to a capitalist both the legal responsibility for the firm’s output and the liability for their labor time.

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Steve Horwitz said:

Labor-managed firms themselves are not antagonistic to the market economy. Even if other forms of employment contract are not legally permitted, such firms still exist in a market context where competition and profit and loss determine their success or failure.

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Not permitting people to work for whomever they choose is in sharp contrast to Milton Friedman's views.

Milton Friedman said:

An essential part of economic freedom is freedom to use the resources we possess in accordance with our own values – freedom to enter any occupation, engage in any business enterprise, buy from and sell to anyone else, so long as we do so on a strictly voluntary basis and do not resort to force in order to coerce others.

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I agree with Friedman.

The classic example of property that people “own,” in the sense that their name is on the deed, but do not actually own, is rent-controlled apartment buildings. The “owner” cannot rent it at a fair price but, under penalty of law, he must maintain it lest he be fined for safety violations. Burczak would put common laborers in the same predicament. They would “own” their labor ability but, under penalty of law, they cannot hire themselves out to capitalists. Since they must maintain their labor ability (feed, clothe and house themselves), they are forced to work for one of Burczak’s labor-managed firms.

Basically, this is slavery.

These uninformed assertions have already been rebutted. This does not entail a prohibition of attempts to establish capitalism; it simply means that it will be a difficult prospect because the disproportionate and vastly inequitable distribution of ownership and control of those productive resources that enabled the dominance of capitalist economic structure before will be absent. There will likely be little desire to re-establish it because capitalism involves authoritarian hierarchical relations in the labor market and internal firm structure, whereas anarchism involves horizontal and democratic relations. It follows then, that for the reactionary to attempt to implement capitalism in a libertarian society would be akin to an untalented entrepreneur going to a public park and attempting to sell water next to a drinking fountain. Establishment of democracy and limitations on the ability of monarchism to develop are hardly authoritarian; neither would establishment of socialism and limitations on the ability of capitalism to develop be authoritarian.