The end of crapitalism

[FreeBornAngel]

Goods aren't 'valued' in my system at all,.....only in the paradigm you accept,.....
Crapitalism is soooo different than what I propose that the terms you are trying to fence my proposal in with are not applicable.

You are the one who mentioned "what measure most equitably changes the hours I spend making tp into the equivalent of a hamburger."  What you are attempting to do here is calculate value.  But go ahead, backtrack and pretend that there is no "value" in your system when you just described how to calculate it.

We can call that value, the difference is slight.
However, the goal of 'value' under my definition is to insure that I don't cause you to work more for me to consume more, but value under your system is all about that.
The more value the worker creates for the least wage is what crapitalism is all about.
My wanting to insure that my creation of tp is in equal amount to my consumption of hamburgers is so that I can know that I am not a leach, and not so that I can order you to work overtime so that my wife can have a new tennis bracelet.

Your system would definitely deliver more family time since there wouldn't be any consumer goods available at all.

Ok, you've jumped the tracks, the whole proposal is predicated on the workers continuing to work.
If you could order anything you want from the internet would you agree to work?
You work now with only the promise that if you work long enough to pay the rent, taxes, insurance, food, school loans, etc, then you can order something from the internet, if any vouchers are left.
My system doesn't come with all the hours that you have to work to 'justify' having insurance, you just go to the doctor for free.
Rent won't exist, houses will be free for the occupation.  If your neighbors like you enough maybe you can get a mansion.
I'm sorry, AG, but you have been soooo manipulated that you can't even conceive of freedom, you think that following the rules is the way to go,....if only you could adjust them to your liking,....
My proposal is very pragmatic, if we want consumer goods we have to make them.  I say we divide that equally, and you say that some people should eat without working.
How many widgets did the shareholders produce?

Society would degenerate to a level of subsistence living.

Yes, that is what I asked, what are you going to do now?
Will you lay down and die?

You mean after we adopt your system that rewards sloth how do we create a system that doesn't reward sloth?

How many widgets did the wall street bankster create?
And you say my system rewards sloth,...your system rewards criminality.  Just ask Michael Milken, he got to keep most of the money he bilked invertor out of,...
Wall street banksters just let the bank pay, they kept what they stole,...

Just don't force us to live that way or steal our stuff, thanks.

Again, read what I have said, let me repeat, if the people don't willingly accept the system it doesn't float.

So you didn't show any exploitation between the Employer and the Employee in my example (that's because there isn't any) and you even admit that the Employer deserves a share.

How didn't I show exploitation?
If you create $100 worth of widgets and you receive less than $100 in value then you have been exploited to that extent.
When the boss takes value that my labor creates and buys his wife a car, then I have been exploited for her to have a car.  How many widgets did she create?  None, but she gets a car just for marrying the guy willing to exploit my labor?
Seriously, remove your blinders, please.

Why should he divide it equally?

Because he doesn't want to be a parasite on the worker?
As for equally, if the worker does all the work and the farmer does nothing then the worker deserves all the money.
I get that the system we have had indoctrinated into us says that the farmer has blah blah blah coming for blah blah blah reason, but don't you figure that if you were a wall street bankster you would create an education system that kept the slaves on the farm?

Where did you get this idea from?

Emma Goldman, Petr Kropotkin.
You know, anarchists,....

What if I'm a worker and I've been there ten years and work 6 days a week, should I get an equal share with someone who was been there one year and works 3 days a week?

Ok, so I work at dodge for 40 years, do I get gold plated toilets like a wall street bankster when I retire?
How many goods did the bankster put on the shelf for you to consume?
So, I work at your company for 20 years, do I get a shiny tennis bracelet like your wife's?
How many widgets did she create for you to sell?

If they agree on an amount then the employee works there, if they don't agree then he doesn't work there. That's fair.

It would be fair if the business owners didn't collude on wages.  Why do you figure that wages are about the same over any geographic area?
Starting wage here is $10 an hour, unless you work at some national chain, then it is less.
This irregardless of you being a machinist and creating $1000's or a scrubber at a car wash creating only clean cars.
Crapitalism pays the lowest wages it can, charges all it can in the market for it's goods and keeps the difference.
I say the workers deserve more.

Actually, many of the 1% got there because of special favors from gov, not capitalism or any free-marked activity.

Your blinders are astounding me, you are an anarchist, aren't you?
Even without government if the lowest wage paid for farm hands is $10 an hour while the hand creates $100 an hour how do you figure that if I can exploit enough hands I don't wind up in the top 1%?
You are defending the system that brought us the one percent, it was created by them and sold to you to keep you on the farm.

You mean "some of which came from not paying her the full market value to put boxes into vans" LOL.

No, I mean all of it.
Every penny fedex paid to the nfl came from exploiting the workers.

Well it may by crap to you but its not crap to her,

She's not too well educated, she hasn't read any books that weren't required in school.
She gets all her information from the flashy light box and talking to people just like her.
She doesn't seek out information that doesn't confirm the beliefs she already holds,....

or at least its less crappy than her other options from her perspective

Yeah, living under a bridge does not appeal to her, nor does letting her kid starve.
These are the options to not being exploited by whatever employer.

There is no exploitation in your FedEx example.

OMG, how you don't recognize the exploitation in paying somebody less than the value of their labor is beyond me.

People are free to sell their labor for whatever price they agree to.

Ok, are they free when the employers collude on what to pay?
Are they free when the choice is submit to the exploitation or starve?

Oh, and in your system there is no longer any changing weather patterns or potato blights or bad harvests?

No, what I am saying is that if the potato crop fails the wheat producer won't let the potato farmer starve.
If the crop here fails the difference will be made up from where the crop was just fine.
Good luck getting the bankster to feed you when your crop fails, he will just take your farm, put you and y our family on the street, sell your farm, and buy his whore a Mercedes,...all while laughing about it at the masonic lodge,...stupid slaves,.....

Your Fedex example serves as an example of a contract, not exploitation.

If the choice didn't include starvation I would agree, but the crapitalist can afford to wait for you to get hungry enough to work for the wage offered, it is not a free choice.

1) You have not given me even one example of exploitation in all your rantings.

Yes, I have, you are just double thinking your way past them.

Not every example of starvation can be blamed on someone else.

Perhaps not, but how much starvation can be blamed on banksters demanding payment when the crop fails?

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

[Syock]

Perhaps not, but how much starvation can be blamed on banksters demanding payment when the crop fails?

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

If you think we advocate the 'banksters' or bailouts, you have completely failed to read anything on this forum.  I would suggest you reconsider your stance against ancap because you have a completely fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism, and anarchy. 

[macsnafu]

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

I'd respond to all that, but it's time-consuming, and all you seem to be doing is repeating yourself anyway.  

But if you're serious about non-aggression, then you won't object if people decide that money, *is*, in fact, a valuable tool of exchange and use Bitcoin, gold, or I don't know, baseball player trading cards as a medium of exchange for goods and services, i.e. money. How many "banksters" issue Bitcoin, gold, or trading cards?  

I could give you a rather detailed description of how an anarchist society would work, private production of money via free banking, a decentralized common or customary legal system, even some idea of how so-called defense agencies would work.  After all, I've thought a lot about it.  

But in the end, it's still just my "best guess", because the only ones who can really say how an anarchist society would work are the ones living in an anarchist society, and doing what they think is best for themselves and their society.  

You think people will somehow act differently if they were offered your society of mutual aid and no money--but what if they don't?   I don't think human nature will change--the only thing that would really change are the incentives they operate under, encouraging them to be a certain way and discouraging them to not be a certain way.  Of course, that's no guarantee that there won't be a certain number of rogues, criminals, or maybe just insane people who ignore those incentives, but most people will respond to those incentives.  

So if you're really serious about a voluntary society, you won't object if consenting adults engage in voluntary capitalist acts, because altruism and mutual aid only go so far before breaking down. 

[anarchoguitarist]

I'm sorry, AG, but you have been soooo manipulated that you can't even conceive of freedom, you think that following the rules is the way to go,....if only you could adjust them to your liking,....

? I think you got me mixed up with someone else.  I know what freedom is and I haven't mentioned any rules. When did I say "following the rules is the way to go" ?

My proposal is very pragmatic, if we want consumer goods we have to make them.  I say we divide that equally, and you say that some people should eat without working.

No its not pragmatic. Your system is if we want consumer goods we have to "take" them. I never said people should eat without working, that is your system.  In your system people would take all the free goods and eat without working.

Yes, that is what I asked, what are you going to do now?
Will you lay down and die?

Read what I said would happen. I've explained it a few times now already.

How many widgets did the wall street bankster create?

Wow, that's an original thought, wall street bankers are bad.  It has nothing to do with any of my posts though.

Emma Goldman, Petr Kropotkin.
You know, anarchists,....

Ok you got me there, well done.  You actually answered one of my questions, and answered it well. (I'm not being sarcastic)  However, this is an occasion where these thinkers were wrong.  There is no reason why everyone should have an equal share and there is no reason why everyone should have an equal vote.  These concepts have no place in the real world. Equality doesn't exist in the real world and in fact, equality is against our nature and against the nature of every living thing on the planet.

OMG, how you don't recognize the exploitation in paying somebody less than the value of their labor is beyond me.

This is where our real argument is and I don't recognize the exploitation in any of your examples because there is no exploitation. When someone is paid $10 an hour that is what the value of their labor is.  You can imagine that it is some higher number, but you are only imagining that. Humans value goods subjectively. I value my labor at a certain rate, someone else may value it differently.  But there is no objective value to someone's labor.  Labor is a price determined on the market like any other price, through negotiations between buyers and sellers.

Ok, are they free when the employers collude on what to pay?
Are they free when the choice is submit to the exploitation or starve?

Yes and yes.

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

I seriously doubt that, you haven't looked at the Labor Theory of Value or Subjective Value. But if we can agree on Non-Aggression that's a good start.  I have a question about your system.  What if I formed a private property community in your anarchist world.  Then my neighbor offers me a job for an ounce of silver a week and I agree to work for him.  Am I free to live in this private property community and work for someone else if I choose to?

[macsnafu]

OMG, how you don't recognize the exploitation in paying somebody less than the value of their labor is beyond me.

This is where our real argument is and I don't recognize the exploitation in any of your examples because there is no exploitation. When someone is paid $10 an hour that is what the value of their labor is.  You can imagine that it is some higher number, but you are only imagining that. Humans value goods subjectively. I value my labor at a certain rate, someone else may value it differently.  But there is no objective value to someone's labor.  Labor is a price determined on the market like any other price, through negotiations between buyers and sellers.

Oh my gosh, he *really* believes in the Labor Theory of Value, and that capitalism "works" by paying someone less than the value of their labor!  

FreeBornAngel, consider a few questions:

What is the value of a mud pie?

Do you know how much labor went into the goods you buy at the store?  Do you really care?

Without the "capitalists", where would laborers get the tools and materials they need to actually make goods?

Why do prices for identical goods vary from store to store, and sometimes even within the same store?  

Who's getting shafted if the retail store cannot sell a good at an offered price and has to lower their price, say in a sale?  The laborer who already got paid for his labor a long time ago, or the distributor and/or retail store, who may not be recovering their full costs on the good?

Even more fundamental: how is the value of a good or service determined, in your view, and how is it related to the price?


I think I know how you might answer a couple of these, but I'm not sure about how you would answer the rest.

[FreeBornAngel]

Perhaps not, but how much starvation can be blamed on banksters demanding payment when the crop fails?

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

If you think we advocate the 'banksters' or bailouts, you have completely failed to read anything on this forum.  I would suggest you reconsider your stance against ancap because you have a completely fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism, and anarchy.  

I know that nobody here is advocating in favor of bankster bailouts, but you are arguing in favor of maintaining an employing class and an employed class that will use money created, or manipulated, by those that have a lot of it.
Any system that leaves wage slavery in place, as an-crapery does, will not substantially change the status quo, at best it changes the makeup of the ruling class from the most violent of criminals to those fortunate enough to have provident parents and not drunks.

Honestly, AG, I have argued the exact position you hold, continue down the non-aggression path and you will find that I am right.

I'd respond to all that, but it's time-consuming, and all you seem to be doing is repeating yourself anyway.
 I could give you a rather detailed description of how an anarchist society would work, private production of money via free banking, a decentralized common or customary legal system, even some idea of how so-called defense agencies would work.  After all, I've thought a lot about it.

I would agree that free money would make the difference between an-crap and an-communism slight.
It would make what I propose unlikely to prevail in the marketplace of ideas for hundreds of years.
However, what you propose still leaves (wage)slavery in place.
Those with the ability will exploit those who's parents didn't leave them something to work with.
If your parents drink all their money away, you will have to find work with whoever agrees to exploit your poverty.
Why do you figure that money has been allowed to continue in existence?
Because it serves the purposes of the ruling class.

You think people will somehow act differently if they were offered your society of mutual aid and no money--but what if they don't?

Then the idea doesn't float.
People know that if they don't work there won't be food, they also know that if they want what the division of labor brings them they will have to do their part.
My proposal is sound, it can be had with a minimum of education, the transition can be made seamless.

So if you're really serious about a voluntary society, you won't object if consenting adults engage in voluntary capitalist acts

Yes, there will be no thugs to enforce my proposal.

 

because altruism and mutual aid only go so far before breaking down.

Wrong, you will see in time that what I propose is the only way to stop the haves from exploiting the have nots.
Why you want to insist on keeping the system favored by even the 'communist' states as the way to manage anarchy is beyond me.
The statists use this system because it keeps them on top.
If those that rule by force were not satisfied with this system's ability to keep their progeny shearing the sheep they would change it.
Why do you figure that they kicked Emma out of the country?
Why do they equate anarchism with chaos?
Because they recognize the danger to their position these ideas present.
They support crapitalism because it keeps them in power.

I'm sorry, AG, but you have been soooo manipulated that you can't even conceive of freedom, you think that following the rules is the way to go,....if only you could adjust them to your liking,....

? I think you got me mixed up with someone else.  I know what freedom is and I haven't mentioned any rules. When did I say "following the rules is the way to go" ?

When you said that you would keep crapitalism and oust the current ruling class so that you could be part of the new ruling class.
As long as people agree to follow your crapitalist rules everything will be ok.
You refuse to look to how my proposal benefits the worker far more than the ruling class.
In fact, the ruling class goes away because under my proposal, there are no employers or employees.
Your an-crap proposal just shuffles the deck more into your favor.
I will be overjoyed when we move to ancraptitude, but it will only be a step toward the destination I've(with Emma's help) illuminated.

Your system is if we want consumer goods we have to "take" them.

Let's not confuse 'take from the shelf' with 'take by force'.
How do you get something from the shelf to your house if you don't take it?

I never said people should eat without working, that is your system.

That is not my system, I merely said that supporting a bum was better than enslaving him, but if the vast majority of people don't work we starve.

In your system people would take all the free goods and eat without working.

Not for long,...

Ok you got me there, well done.  You actually answered one of my questions, and answered it well. (I'm not being sarcastic)

*smiles*
Thanks for being honest, it is refreshing, and rare.

However, this is an occasion where these thinkers were wrong.

I agree that the flaws in their proposals kept them from winning in the marketplace of ideas in their lifetimes.
However, if Emma had had Costco to point to when she said that the worker should toss off the monkey masters and manage things themselves to their own benefit, perhaps she could have sold the idea more successfully.

There is no reason why everyone should have an equal share and there is no reason why everyone should have an equal vote.

Equal value will not happen, some people have simple needs and no desire for material goods, but what is this about equal votes?
Are you suggesting that some group of people can vote to eat me for lunch?
You'll have to expand on that vote thing if you want me to understand where you are coming from.

This is where our real argument is and I don't recognize the exploitation in any of your examples...

I don't doubt that you wouldn't, I once argued an an-com to a halt with the very words that you are using.
I had asked him if he thought that somebody would drive a truck to get a load of oranges just because they wanted their neighbors to have oranges and he said yes, now I know he was right.
He finally gave up on me when I suggested that we should take the shoes off his mother's feet and share them with everybody else.
Now that I understand where he was coming from and would like to apologize I can't contact him.
The really awful part is that we are in the same town.

The exploitation of crapitalism occurs when a person has to submit to being exploited by an employer to eat.  The choice to sell one's labor into the market for less than the value that it creates is not a free choice when the alternative is starvation.
If all the widget factories come to pay $10 an hour while the worker creates $100 in widgets why would a competing factory pay more than $10 an hour?
Once the bosses of whatever career realize that they don't have to pay more than $7 an hour, why would they?
Why would the widget factory continue to pay $10 an hour when nobody can find a job that pays more than $7?
Do you think that the cfo lives in a vacuum and isn't aware of what the prevailing wage is in the area?
I lived in mexico for 2 years, wages and prices were nearly uniform across the whole country and nearly everybody I talked to knew the price of any item I asked about.  
Do you think that the person setting wages at a company is any less well informed?

because there is no exploitation.

Have I exploited you if you mow my lawn and I don't pay?
Have I exploited you if you mow a yard for me for $25 but I sold the job at $50 and did nothing for my $25?
Perhaps on the first sale I should get something for finding the customer, but how many times should I get paid for finding that customer?  At what point does my contribution approach zero?
Why do I get half the money though my contribution diminishes with each repetition?

 

When someone is paid $10 an hour that is what the value of their labor is.

That is a convenient definition.
It reinforces that the boss is right in using your labor so that he(or his wife and kids) can live without laboring.
The value that your labor creates is it's value, if you weren't being exploited for your poverty then you would be the boss and keep the entire market value of what you have created, but you are being exploited because you don't have benefit of crapital to buy your freedom from wage slavery.

By being trapped in valuing things we continue in the slavery.
If you work you have a share of the work coming.

Yes and yes.

So, you advocate starving a child because his dad is a drunk?
You advocate starving mental patients because they don't see the world the way you do?
People are not free until they can eat(at least temporarily) without submitting to the tyranny of a boss.

I seriously doubt that, you haven't looked at the Labor Theory of Value or Subjective Value.

I know all I need to know about crapitalist smoke and mirrors.
The only reason economics exists as an area of study is to find justifications to keep the sheeple on the farm.

What if I formed a private property community in your anarchist world.

Why would you?  My proposal doesn't take your personal property away, unless you are a factory owner or Costco shareholder, and even then we won't be taking your mansion, fancy cars, gold bars, or crown jewels, only the tools we need to continue living free from your exploitation.
Even after taking your factory we will feed you and ask that you join in contributing to the support of the human race.
If you are over 45 we won't even ask that.

Then my neighbor offers me a job for an ounce of silver a week and I agree to work for him.

Why would you when you can just order one delivered to your door from the internet?
What are you going to do with this silver?  You won't be eating it.
Of course, you are free to do as you please, but once the proposal comes into existence the paradigm will have shifted and your ounce of silver will have no real value, there is no more marketplace to commoditize human beings any more.
Your other neighbors will deride you for being crapitalists and seeking to re-enslave them.
But, don't get me wrong, you can do as you please as long as you don't force others to comply.

Am I free to live in this private property community and work for someone else if I choose to?

Of course, but were you to free your mind from the crapitalist mindset why would you?

OMG, how you don't recognize the exploitation in paying somebody less than the value of their labor is beyond me.

This is where our real argument is and I don't recognize the exploitation in any of your examples because there is no exploitation. When someone is paid $10 an hour that is what the value of their labor is.  You can imagine that it is some higher number, but you are only imagining that. Humans value goods subjectively. I value my labor at a certain rate, someone else may value it differently.  But there is no objective value to someone's labor.  Labor is a price determined on the market like any other price, through negotiations between buyers and sellers.

Oh my gosh, he *really* believes in the Labor Theory of Value,

Well, actually I don't.
I don't believe in value at all, it is crapitalist smoke and mirrors.
It is nomenclature that doesn't exist in a world free of exploitation by the haves.

Without the "capitalists", where would laborers get the tools and materials they need to actually make goods?

Seriously?
Where did the bosses get them?
The workers made them.
The world does not end in the absence of crapitalism and banksters, contrary to the programming you have received.
As long as the people hold the most dangerous superstition we will never see anarchy.

I don't see a save draft option, I will continue shortly,...
Ok, where was I?
Oh, yeah,....

Why do prices for identical goods vary from store to store, and sometimes even within the same store? 

Greed of the price setter?
Belief in the matrix?
Better crapital situation?  Lower borrowing costs?
Because the workers that keep the shelves filled are too mindwarped to seek freedom from the monkey master?
I could go on,...
But then as long as you refuse to see that we have to workers but we don't have to have dollars then I would just be spitting into the wind.

Who's getting shafted if the retail store cannot sell a good at an offered price and has to lower their price, say in a sale?  The laborer who already got paid for his labor a long time ago, or the distributor and/or retail store, who may not be recovering their full costs on the good?

How about all of them.
The price you pay for that cup of coffee in the morning pays the taxes for the corporation, the ceo, and all workers down to the guy that swept the parking lot, how much of the price of your cup of coffee goes to pay the taxes of the ceo?
When we toss off the monkey masters what do you figure will happen to prices?
How much less work could be done if we didn't work from Jan to May to pay the tax man?
Lord knows how long we work to satisfy profits, I'm sure profits are a bigger chunk than taxes.
All because you accept the smoke and mirrors put up by the ruling class.

Even more fundamental: how is the value of a good or service determined, in your view, and how is it related to the price?

My paradigm comes without the concept of value,.....
If you can't give your product away you may want to find another endeavor to pursue, but if your product flies off the shelf faster than  you can produce it then we should find you some help.
Price is subsequent to demand, demand is all the 'market signal' needed to manage production, again, if you can't give it away stop making it.

I think I know how you might answer a couple of these, but I'm not sure about how you would answer the rest.

Did ya?

[macsnafu]

My apologies for taking so long to respond.   And who knows when or if you'll read it?

Oh my gosh, he *really* believes in the Labor Theory of Value,

Well, actually I don't.
I don't believe in value at all, it is crapitalist smoke and mirrors.
It is nomenclature that doesn't exist in a world free of exploitation by the haves.

This is a real problem for me, because value is a very real and unavoidable concept, regardless of the disagreements on what value is.  I cannot imagine a world where people place no value on anything, unless it's a dead or dying world. Why would a person eat if they didn't value food to sustain their life?  Why would anyone bother to produce anything unless they placed value on what they produced?

Without the "capitalists", where would laborers get the tools and materials they need to actually make goods?

Seriously?
Where did the bosses get them?
The workers made them.
The world does not end in the absence of crapitalism and banksters, contrary to the programming you have received.
As long as the people hold the most dangerous superstition we will never see anarchy.

You should consider this a little more.  If workers truly made their own tools, then they're their own capitalists, and they would already be running their own business instead of working for someone else.   Workers generally work for someone else because they don't have access to the tools and materials needed to produce the good or service.

At one time, there was no wealth - everyone was poor and had little or nothing.  Wealth was accumulated by saving, that is, by deferring present consumption for later consumption.  This allowed some of the accumulated wealth, otherwise known as capital, to be utilized for increasing productivity.  In a very general sense, anybody who has some savings or deferred consumption is a capitalist, not just people who own or run businesses.

  If someone manages to make a better tool and then makes money by allowing other workers to use this tool for percentage of their productivity, is he guilty of some evil act in your eyes?  He's made it possible for the workers to produce more than they could without that tool.  And if he sells that tool to someone else so that they can let their workers be more productive, isn't that a good thing?  The workers are better off, the capitalist is better off, the consumers are better off.  There are no losers.

True, after some wealth has been accumulated, it becomes possible for some people to steal it from others, but a thief is not a true capitalist. A thief isn't interested in using capital to increase the productivity of the workers, and he isn't interested in making anyone better off other than himself. And a 'capitalist' who pockets the capital is essentially a thief, because capital that is not reinvested in the business is not capital at all, but an expense to the business. 

Why do prices for identical goods vary from store to store, and sometimes even within the same store?

Greed of the price setter?
Belief in the matrix?
Better crapital situation?  Lower borrowing costs?
Because the workers that keep the shelves filled are too mindwarped to seek freedom from the monkey master?
I could go on,...
But then as long as you refuse to see that we have to workers but we don't have to have dollars then I would just be spitting into the wind.

Money will always exist in some form or another.  Mankind learned long ago that using a medium of indirect exchange is better and more useful than barter or mutual aid. What I and other ancaps object to in modern society is the idea that government should monopolize the production of money.  Multiple private currencies would make money even more useful and beneficial than it is with governments and central banks monkeying about with it. 

Who's getting shafted if the retail store cannot sell a good at an offered price and has to lower their price, say in a sale?  The laborer who already got paid for his labor a long time ago, or the distributor and/or retail store, who may not be recovering their full costs on the good?

How about all of them.
The price you pay for that cup of coffee in the morning pays the taxes for the corporation, the ceo, and all workers down to the guy that swept the parking lot, how much of the price of your cup of coffee goes to pay the taxes of the ceo?
When we toss off the monkey masters what do you figure will happen to prices?
How much less work could be done if we didn't work from Jan to May to pay the tax man?
Lord knows how long we work to satisfy profits, I'm sure profits are a bigger chunk than taxes.
All because you accept the smoke and mirrors put up by the ruling class.

You're confused.  As an ancap I want to get rid of government and involuntary taxes, and things would certainly be cheaper without taxes.  But even without governments, there are various and unavoidable expenses involved in producing a cup of coffee, from growing and harvesting coffee beans, to grinding them into coffee, to distributing the coffee to users, to the coffee machines used to turn the ground coffee into cups of coffee. 

A person opening a coffee shop has to pay his employees from the day he hires them, but nobody pays him unless and until the customers pay for and drink his coffee.  And that's only if enough customers pay enough to cover the business' expenses.  The coffee shop owner has to either save up money to start the shop, or borrow money from other people who have saved their money, paying them a fair interest for using their money.

Even more fundamental: how is the value of a good or service determined, in your view, and how is it related to the price?

My paradigm comes without the concept of value,.....
If you can't give your product away you may want to find another endeavor to pursue, but if your product flies off the shelf faster than  you can produce it then we should find you some help.
Price is subsequent to demand, demand is all the 'market signal' needed to manage production, again, if you can't give it away stop making it.

Again, I cannot imagine a world without a concept of value.  If nobody values your product, nobody will want it, even if you give it away.  If you think there is no value in your product, why would you even bother to produce it?  As I said, there may be disagreements about what value is, but it is impossible to function without some concept of value.