Dan Clore <clore@columbia-center.org> wrote in
news:2vdk4eF2jppj9U1@uni-berlin.de: 

> Constantinople wrote:
>> Dan Clore <clore@columbia-center.org> wrote in
>> news:2vctrlF2jsi3qU1@uni-berlin.de: 
>>>Constantinople wrote:
>> 
>>>>I 
>>>>do not endorse that. I do not endorse the idea that capitalists have
>>>>contributed nothing, since they contributed capital.
>>>
>>>A claim that no one has contested. Indeed, the 
>>>monopolization (substitute oligopolization if the etymology 
>>>of this term bothers you) of capital constitutes a key 
>>>mechanism by which capitalists commit parasitism on the workers.
>> 
>> So you've got some probably half-baked theory having to do with
>> oligopoly which you have not here specified in any great detail and
>> which probably not even all the socialists would accept, from which
>> you claim to have concluded that the class of capitalists is a
>> parasitical class. 
>> 
>> Good luck with that.
> 
> Uh, thanks. I wouldn't even call it a theory, more like a 
> factual observation upon which theories might build. 

No, it's a theory. That *some* people monopolize *some* things and 
profit thereby is a largely factual observation (with a bit of theory: 
it does require some theory to show that monopolization can be used to 
benefit the monopolist). That *all* capitalists *without exception* are 
parasites because of something having to do with oligopoly, is 
definitely a far-out, probably archaic theory, one that may have been 
mainstream and compelling 200 years ago but is not compelling today.

As we recall, you made the statement:

"A remarkable suspicion on the part of individuals who 
advocate a political-economic system named for the fact that 
it favors a class of parasites."

By using the term "a class of parasites", you made a blanket assertion 
about the class *as such*, i.e., about all who are capitalists.

> For 
> example, Lysander Spooner in _Poverty: Its Illegal Causes 
> and Legal Cure_, presents one such theory. There we can read 
> things like:
> 
> "The consequence is that the loanable capital of society is 
> monopolized almost entirely by those *few*, those very few, 
> who wish to borrow, and can offer the most approved 
> secu­rity; while the mass of those, who have not capital of 
> their own, but who, if left free to make their own 
> contracts, would be able to obtain a portion sufficient to 
> employ their own hands upon, are now, for the want of 
> capital on which to bestow their labor, compelled to sell 
> their labor to those who have, by means of the usury laws, 
> monopolized the capital. And they are compelled to sell 
> their labor at such a price as will enable the employer to 
> make a large profit upon their labor; or, in other words, 
> enable him to put into his own pocket an important portion 
> of the fruits of their labor. All this is the effect of the 
> usury laws. 

The usury laws are anti-capitalist. All you have supported is that 
blatantly anti-capitalist intervention by the state, in clear violation 
of the free market economy, create parasites. I don't disagree with 
that. In fact that has been my chant for many years. You have in no way 
supported the claim that the capitalist class is "a class of parasites".

Alex K's post suggests that you would have found support for your view 
(that the capitalist class is a class of parasites), not in Spooner, but 
in Tucker. Alex goes on to point out that Tucker was wrong.