Howdy! I’m new here and was hoping someone might have some insight to a question I’ve been thinking about for a while:
If I saved up my money and bought a tractor, would it be permissible/ethical to charge others to use it when I didn’t need it?
This seems awfully similar to owning the means of production. What if I instead offered to plow their fields for them instead, driving the tractor myself and negotiating fair compensation in exchange?
Sorry if this is basic stuff I’m still learning. 🙏
If your question refers to it: Marxism is an analysis of the social structure of market economy. It doesn’t work as a guidebook for individual behaviour inside of market economy, but for collective emancipation from a social order that results in exploitation.
Doing so would mean decide collectively/democratically over the collaborative use of the means of production.
“I’m buying some means of production with my money” and “their fields” is a market economy situation.
You don’t go from caputalism to socialism by individually changing your personal economic behaviour, but by changing social order.
Thanks for your response! If I understand correctly, you’re saying the state / my community should collectively hold a vote to see if me leasing out the tractor is exploitative, and maybe prevent me from doing so or appropriate it for the collective benefit?
It was also my understanding that markets still exist under socialism in some level?
The point is not over your tractor, individually. If you were living under marxism, society would have decided “all [farming equipment, factories, whatever] are the property of the community and you cannot own them individually”. You couldn’t lease your tractor, because you couldn’t own the tractor to begin with.
Markets largely still exist in socialism we see today because capitalism is extremely pervasive. A socialist state currently is forced to behave like a capitalist entity to at least the outside world, or they will be taken advantage of by capitalists. Because of this, all socialists states today are internally capitalist with some social programs, as opposed to fully Marxists.
Thanks for your response! As I understand, even under marxism I still have the ability to use the product of my labour to buy things for my personal use? Like if I want to own a painting or piece of art, I can exchange the products of my labour with an artist for the products of their labour.
Regarding ownership, personal property still exists on some level, right? I don’t want other people wearing my clothes or sleeping in my bed for instance. I might not even want people driving my personal car if it’s something that I collected, built, or restored myself.
Indeed. Marx is actually very careful in distinguishing personal property (your toothbrush, your bed) from the means of production (a tractor, a lathe, a factory). If it were a society where it’s needed to have a car then it would probably be your own, but it’d be better for everyone if the public infrastructure (that belongs to the community) made it so cars aren’t a requirement.