You wouldn't support the notion of "workers deciding stuff" (because they're mostly people who haven't attained the intellectual sophistication to decide anything, which is why they find it much easier to work for other people instead)
Let's say for a moment that I agree with you that people working for others work for others because they lack the education to either work for themselves or pull themselves higher in some systemic framework of management. From here we can take a few paths of argument and rationale.
Argument 1: So is the Group, as is the IndividualThe first path of argument is that the "stuff" that workers would decide is stuff that pertains to basic human life. I say this because that is what a government decides in a system where a state exists, unlike communism, which has no state. So in a system where there is no state and there are "workers deciding stuff", the collective fills the void of power. Let's then say all of the workers are uneducated - which is unlikely because even if humans are inherently selfish, as you believe, a collective would then be a group of people with the desire to improve themselves, which means education provided for group members - then it still doesn't matter.
Regardless of education, each person knows what he or she needs to survive and pursue happiness. A person also knows who or what can provide those items. In a situation where a person is a member of a group that must provide those things, a person supports the group at the expense of his or her own extensions of what we might call freedom. This is a Hobbesian argument which has nothing to do with Marxism and is, in fact, usually a good argument for the existence of a state, but which I am using it to argue against - I am sure, being a libertarian, that you have read
Leviathan and if you have not, then I would consider you to be a person who hasn't attained the intellectual sophistication to argue for libertarianism. So in a situation where there is a group made up of people who will support the group in defiance of their own personal selfishness for freedom, you have compulsion to work without a gun, without a blatant work-or-starve system - because you know the group will help you if you can't work and if that is the case you will reciprocate when you can based on the same values you hold that makes you support the group in the first place. Each member helps the group because it is "the right thing to do" and that has nothing to do with some objective moral good, it is simply a desire to help the group out because at the end of the day, everyone is better off and because each individual knows the value of the things they receive by supporting the group. This allows a collective to function by the same mentality as an individual seeks wealth in capitalism except with less inequality. It is the difference between "work hard and you will succeed" and "work hard and we will all succeed", but because we tell ourselves that only we will succeed for hard work, we, by deduction, are oblivious when others need help. Because we discard the concept of a group being good, we can never have the benefits it provides because it requires the buy in of all of its members to provide them and each person's resolve to buy in is reinforced by others' resolve to buy in. Collectivist mentality works because it is a self sustaining system of motivation that begins as collective selfishness and ends as collective advancement (something better) as opposed to capitalism that begins as individual selfishness and ends at individual vindictiveness (something worse). But they both begin with the same motivation: desire to live and prosper (selfishness). The difference is in the social conditioning, not in natural instinct.
Argument 2: Scarcity of the Rights to ProgressionSo you've blown past my first argument and don't buy into my selfishness = collectivism argument. That's alright, I still have some flaws to point out. In the way that you made your statement, you said not that workers are inherently stupid, but that they have yet to attain intelligence. That is a good statement, one that you have to make for the basic tenants of capitalism to apply: that people can become better than what they are. I agree with you on that. So let's discuss the question of access. For this argument (and thus the proper functioning of capitalism, then objectivism, your school of thought) each person can be unequal (your Tesla argument) to others, but they must be provided with equal opportunity. If this is the case, under capitalism each person will rise to their own level of ability or motivation and those with higher ability or better work ethic will rise higher than those without based on taking advantage of the same opportunity. Okay, I accept that too. The problem with your argument is that, when you accept those things, you see that there is not equal access in capitalism ever. It necessitates that there not be simply because the entire point of rising in capitalism to provide yourself with better things, including better access to things for your close social partners such as friends and family. Along the way you are socialized to do this by the act of doing it without social forces at work to counteract that socialization.
Let's begin a simple thought experiment on capitalism without a government and even without any social forces at work here. Capitalism down to its most basic mathematical essence. In a system beginning with equality, where opportunity value is 10 = 10 = 10 = 10 and on down the line for each person beginning in the system, the act of rising in the system means that you wish to improve yourself. Given the choice to invest in yourself (or your friends and family) or someone you don't know, you will pick the former because your disposable capital is fixed (you do not have infinite). 10 is comfortable opportunity and each person, in the new capitalist-objectivist society, is comfortable beginning. The represents what is required to overcome the barriers to success, which are things like the level of intellectual awareness you stated. In a capitalist-only society, education (and thus intellectual advancement) will obviously cost money because there are no public facilities to provide it, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that idea providing everyone has the equal opportunity to pay, which right now they do in this experiment.
So let's say that we avoid the argument that you can only advantage yourself by disadvantaging others (because I don't know if I really buy that argument even in a capitalist system) and you invest in yourself and therefore your children. Lets say you invest 1. So now society looks like this: 11 = 10 = 10 = 10. The next person in line is even more successful than you and invests 2. so society looks like this: 11 = 12 = 10 = 10 and the last two are just average people who get by enough on the equal opportunity they were presented with, they didn't lose anything or get in debt, they lived responsible lives. So now the next generation rolls around and everyone's children start trying to survive in society. So your children and the second person's children now have a better opportunity for success because you invested in your children's future. Now a natural occurrence happens in capitalism: inflation. This happens because of business cycles, something that happens because some people are more successful than others due to their natural ability or hard work, something Adam Smith described as inherent in capitalism. So now 11 is the new 10. So lets do some simple math:
(10 + 1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10 + 2) / 11 * 10 = 10.9
(10 + 0) / 11 * 10 = 9.1
(10 + 0) /11 * 10 = 9.1
So there we go, if we assume 10 is comfortable opportunity, now suddenly half of the members of our theoretical capitalist society no longer have comfortable opportunity through no fault of their own. They were not unsuccessful, they remained comfortable all their lives, but now their children are less comfortable because their parents did not have enough above average success to sustain themselves as average after inflation. Now say one of them is as successful as you were in the first generation, they gain 1. and your children, of course, gain 1 or 2. So we have this in the end: 11 = 12.9 = 10.1 = 10.1. And then inflation:
(10+1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10.9+2) / 11 * 10 = 11.7
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
What's this? Even though their parents were moderately successful in their life (as successful as your kids) still half of the third generation's kids still do not go forward with a comfortable level of opportunity, yet yours do. So now to leave their kids with a comfortable level of opportunity, they must make double the effort of your grandchildren (they need at least 2 for inflation to reset them to over 10 for the next generation). The thing is, this is with everything else fixed, there are no other external forces that impact opportunity except inflation (in real life there are many more thanks to the existence of a state and the mentalities of society). This is just a thought experiment on capitalism in a stateless society, and yet even in the absolute best conditions, capitalism still destroys its own inequality immediately after its inception without an external body (state) to ensure that opportunity stays fixed by subsidizing the opportunity of anyone who is unsuccessful. This leads to problems at the top end (banks unable to fail) and at the bottom end (no motivation to work). The current US government (and, for the most part, any other failing capitalist state) has evolved out of what its economic backbone necessitates because it is an imperfect system to begin with.
Wrap-upNow then, I haven't used any of what you might call left-wing constructions. I have argued against capitalism with the same framework you use to argue for it. In this we are playing by your rules on the assumption that we both have the same materials and assumptions to construct our arguments. I haven't cited Marx or Mao. I used the ideas provided by Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Thomas Hobbes. People whose ideas are at the core of libertarian thought. It is obvious that you won't ever see eye to eye with people like Dada and in the end it is because they don't play on the same field as you, for good or for bad. But here I am, playing with the same ball, on the same field, with the same rules, and I hope you will at least recognize my argument without the ability to dismiss it out of hand because I say things like "to each according to their ability to each according to their need" or whatever other leftist slogans you like to attribute to others.
