Usury is Exploitation?! Give me a break Socialists!

I often laugh in the faces of socialists. Not because I hope to insult or demean them, but simply because the stuff that comes out of their mouths is so ridiculous. Recently I have been following a very interesting anarchist blog and while I agree with the main premise of this lefty-anarchist philosophy (rejection of arbitrary authority), I still can't help laughing at the absurdities I sometimes find written there. One such thing the collectivists have always ranted about is the charging of interest - the mythical SIN OF USURY. From what I understand lefties oppose interest because of their silly belief in the (I apologize for the swear-words coming up) LABOR THEORY OF VALUE. They say that it is immoral for one man to loan a thing to another and demand payment for it because while one labors over the property, the other simply gains without performing any function. I have two critiques of this silly argument, a moral one and a practical one.
Let's start with the practical one because it immediately shows the absurdity of any anti-interest theory. Let us assume we live in a world where interest may never be charged. In other words, no one may charge anyone else for lending them something. First off all current rent agreements would become not only null-and-void, but subject to some kind of penalty. For example my parents, who rent their house from a landlord, would be left homeless. The landlord, meanwhile, would have an empty house for which he has no need... I would also be considered an immoral person for using a credit card on which interest is charged monthly if I do not make a prompt payment. I really don't understand how people would cooperate in such a society. Personally I would not lend things to strangers unless they paid me and I do not expect anyone to act differently. So why should anything ever be lent out? On a small scale maybe this could be solved by creating some kind of communist tribe-unit, but lack of usury is utterly incompatible with any economy of scale. Furthermore, it is important to point out that most influential historical figures who promoted the usury-free society did so on religious grounds (Martin Luther or Adam Smith, for example).
Now the moral critique. What right does anybody have to tell me what agreements I can or cannot have with someone if they have no effect on a third party?! Again, this is socialist meddling - moral crusaders do this all the time, whether Statist or Anarchist. If I voluntarily agree with my bank that the rules of using my credit card are such as they are, nobody has the right to impose their will upon me or the bank. Doing so would be tyrannical and simply evil because it constitutes aggression. How many times do I have to tell you people - LIVE IN YOUR LITTLE COMMUNE, KIBBUTZ, OR WHATEVER, BUT KEEP YOUR MITTS OUT OF MY PERSONAL LIFE. I simply do not care about you people, so why do you have to care about me? Any interference in a transaction between consenting parties cannot be morally justified in any way. This is why we libertarians oppose anti-drug laws, for example. Nobody has the right to enforce them, it's as simple as that. Why do we not ban boxers from fighting in a ring? Because they do harm to one another VOLUNTARILY.

And I promise you all an absolutely smashing critique of the ('scuse me again for the bad language) labor theory of value coming soon.

I am very impersonal in my criticism of socialists because I simply do not care what such people do with their lives as long as they do not impose anything on me. This is why socialist-anarchist are a strange people... What do they want? Do they want to attack me to prevent me from setting up perfectly voluntary arrangements with others? I do not care about them - I care only about what they may do to me. As George Reisman put it "the Idiots of socialism are slaves, but they are no one's property and therefore no one's loss". At least he capitalized Idiots. Amen to that.

Corporations use force to exploit me? Give me a break!

A lot of people don't seem to understand what a "corporation" really is. Inspired by lunatics like Michael Moore, the general opinion is that these are some kind of blood-sucking entities through which white guys in expensive suits exploit everything and everyone around then (their employees, customers, and "the environment"). This is, of course, completely false. Corporations are not evil monsters. A quick definition of a corporation would be that it is "a legal entity established by a group of like-minded people so that they may more efficiently and effectively invest their resources". Shareholders own corporations, just the same as my local butcher owns his small business. There is little difference between them aside from the scope of operations of each. There is, however, another nasty myth about corporations - that they engage in some sort of greedy exploitation. Let's tackle this misconception with simple logic. Some misinformed individuals claim that "corporations" (here I am using their socialist terminology - "corporations" are evil monsters, not people) exploit their own employees by forcing them to work for low wages. This is plainly false. Each employee has a contract to which he agrees beforehand - which states his wages and working hours. If he was being exploited, he would not agree to sign the contract and would find other work. In a capitalist market economy each party to a contractual agreement or trade benefits ex ante. When both parties agree they both acknowledge that the contract (in this case the employee selling his labour and the employer buying it) is beneficial to them. Not just to the corporation! So there is no exploitation present at all.
Usually at this stage of my explanation the commies (at least those that can follow logical argument) play what they think is their "trump card". Namely, they present me with the following scenario: What if a corporation lowers or cuts their employees wages after the contract has been signed, or changes their working hours and conditions? The answer is simple: If one side breaks the contract the other side is released from its responsibilities and may be entitled to compensation. So if the corporation lowers a person's wages he can simply walk away! If he chooses not to leave despite worse conditions he obviously still judges the employment to be a benefit to him, and if there is a willingly-accepted benefit there can be no exploitation. Again - all parties to the contract benefit.
Corporations earn profits and money by pleasing people and working to satisfy the needs of both their emplyees (through wages and good conditions) and customers (through providing a satisfactory product at a low price).

To quote the great Ayn Rand: "Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value... The businessman's tool is values."
As a meaningful contrast let's read her opinion on government action: "...political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction... the bureaucrat's tool is fear."
Which is really force, the former or the latter?

Socialist Economy vs Normal Economy

There is one key difference between the two - their final goal and objective.

In a normal (free, voluntary, capitalist) economy, the goal is to reduce the overall amount of labour. In other words, capitalists want to completely eliminate useless labour and also decrease necessary labour as much as possible. This is done through elimination of inefficiency and reduction in costs of production or increasing output (through mechanization or other means). Thus time people spend working decreases and they have more time for leisure and other activities (because they are so productive!). For the best detailed discussion of this phenomenon I recommend parts of Ludwig von Mises's Human Action.

Meanwhile the goal of the socialist (coercive, centrally-planned, governmental) economy is to create jobs and keep people employed. This is probably the second most absurd notion in socialism (second only to the phenomenon of "Robin Hoodery" - see here). Socialism achieves its goal by "creating" useless jobs. This is why socialist take-over is always combined with a huge increase in bureaucratic positions and functions which are completely unnecessary in a normal world. In the USSR and other socialist nations of the Eastern Block bureaucratic governmental committees oversaw everything from the manufacture of spoons to the recipes in cook books - literally everything. Socialist governments also tend to fund economically unviable ventures as long as they provide jobs, thus the creation of so-called "public works programs". Thus socialists make everyone perpetually perform repetitive and dull activities which serve no real purpose, and then claim to be saviours of the economy. For an example of such socialist action I highly recommend reading Bastiat's Candlestick makers' petition here.

With all this well known and documented, can somebody tell me why so many people still trust socialism to be good for anyone?

British Airways Strike - How it should end...

The British Airways strike continues - 131 flights already called off (as of this moment). Luckily the airline is a very resourceful one and thanks to good management techniques and transferring flights to other carriers it has only failed to serve 7% of all its passengers since the strike started. However, this scenario got me thinking... The UK is currently facing very high unemployment (around 8-9%). It should be no problem to find workers to replace those who are unhappy with their working conditions at BA! Why shouldn't the prudent management just fire all strikers and take on new employees? Of course I don't know what the cost of training the new employees would be - so maybe my idea is not viable. On the other hand I think this is on the whole a bit fishy. Labour Unions always cause this kind of mayhem which hurts everyone, employers and consumers alike. Unfortunately the EU seems to have introduced a hugely idiotic concept of "the right to strike"! What is this "right to strike" thing? If someone goes on strike they should be well aware that their employer might get impatient and find someone else to replace the striker. That would be the natural way of things. Sadly with all our national and international government (EU) meddling in union laws and regulations, the unions have taken over the labour market almost completely in some sectors.
Look how our world has turned upside down! Many people now earn not how much they're worth, but how much we can blackmail our employers for! And the employer has no right to say "Basta! That's enough! You're fired!"... Where has private property disappeared to?