Writing in Town Hall today, David Limbaugh made an error. He said, “People will produce more when they are allowed to retain more of the fruits of their labor.”
This is obviously wrong. Under capitalism, 9/10s of labor has been denied substantial control over productive property by state and laws permitting minority monopolization of material and intellectual means of production. If it is true that people will produce more when they are allowed to keep more of the fruits of their labor, and, conversely, people will produce less if they are allowed to keep less of the fruits of their labor, then one would expect productivity to have declined sharply with the expansion of capitalism.
This did not happen. It did not happen with slavery either. Slaves were not less productive because they weren’t allowed to keep the fruits of their labor. Nor was it true that serfs were less productive because they weren’t allowed to keep the fruits of the labor. This is because any system that permits a minority to monopolize the means of production and thus compels the majority to either be owned by the minority or by necessity rent themselves to the minority makes productivity a requirement of the relationship.
If it were true that keeping the fruits of one’s labor maximizes productivity, then communism, wherein everybody owns and controls the means of production, and distributes goods and services based on need and self-actualization, would be the most productive system possible.
The problem is that communism distributes the fruits of labor equitably and eliminates all but necessary work and thus people work less because their needs are met more easily and more completely. In others words, all people work less and enjoy life more.
That’s the capitalist’s worst nightmare.
freedom and reason 