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. 🙏
That is somewhat correct. It may not necessarily be the case that the tractor is impossibly out of reach of others. It’s possible that everyone could afford a tractor but did not deem it necessary to make the purchase at the time that I did, spending the money on other equipment instead, like a mill for instance.
It could be that everyone got different tools. It could be that some frittered their resources away like a grasshopper to your virtuous ant. It could be you were just lucky, a windfall inheritance.
The actual history of primitive accumulation is a lot darker.
But however you got that John Deere, should it entitle you to the physical labor of other people? Is that the kind of relationship you want with your neighbors?
Is not the tractor itself is the product of labour? Someone put in the work to build it, and I compensated them with the product of my own labour. I don’t think the people who constructed the tractor were entitled to my labor any more than someone who compensates me for tilling their field is.