From: utzoo!decvax!genradbo!stuart
Newsgroups: net.politics
Title: When My Life Is Not My Own
Article-I.D.: genradbo.1734
Posted: Tue Mar  8 15:02:46 1983
Received: Wed Mar  9 05:06:47 1983


	"Under socialism, my life is not my own."

Of course, I'm serious.

I trade the results of my efforts for things which are the results
of other people's efforts.  Whether I offer a service or some material 
product, I spend my time --- I expend part of my life --- in performing 
that service or making that product.  When I trade that service or 
product, I trade my time and effort.  Take away what I traded for, 
and you effectively take away part of my life.

Continue to take from me at will, and you take more of my time, 
more of my energy --- more of my life.  Claim that you may do this 
when you wish, despite my objections, and you claim my life.

You need not take all of my life to demonstrate that I'm not the owner;
what fragments you may leave behind is your choice, not mine.
"You" may be one person or "you" may be millions of people.
"You" may be subject to similar expropriations, too, but that 
doesn't return the time you stole from me.

This point can be approached from another, more revealing angle:

How do people provide for their material needs?
By re-working available materials (and probably trading some of the 
results).  By separating, mixing, shaping, refining, assembling, or 
performing any of countless other operations on raw materials.  
All these operations required, at some point, the application
of mental effort, either in discovery or in organizing or coordinating
them.  With few exceptions, the raw materials are virtually useless 
without being processed in some way.

Consider the wide range of products that you yourself use daily.
Consider their material composition, their physical structure, and 
their function.  Think of the human effort involved --- the mental
and physical work required for their production.  Did anything other
than human effort produce them?  Machines?  And who produced the machines?
People.

Now you know the real meaning of that sinister phrase, "owning
the means of production."


  -- Stuart Hollander (ucbvax!decvax!genradbolton!stuart)