Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

So go ahead and provide your own definition of aggression. I define aggression as the violation of someone's body or property. What's your definition.

The LTV has been disproven by the marginal revolution.

 

Clearly not true. Firms do not apply marginal cost pricing. Post Keynesian cost plus pricing is more credible

 

I don't need to since I don't apply the word to this situation. See? You're trying to channel me down your chosen rabbit hole again.

The LTV is just one small part of Marx's analysis of value and it has only been "disproven" in the minds of classical capitalist economists. Meanwhile, those same economists see value in very simple terms that confuse and obscure distinctions that Marx analyzes individually. He discusses use value, exchange value, individual value, social value, and surplus value. He says that to discuss different aspects of commodity pricing and its relationship to labor costs, different viewpoints of "value" are necessary. So picking out one of his terms like "Labor Theory of Value" and trying to discredit it by applying it where it was never meant to be applied, is disingenuously bogus.

 

Technically classical economists would still support it. Neoclassical? The Post Keynesians have arguably the best approach for understanding the firm (at least in terms of my experience as a businessman). A mark up is adopted, but that mark up is not constant (and depends on numerous structural factors)

 

First of all, to address the LTV, it has been disproven since the marginal revolution demonstrated that things don't HAVE value but rather people value things, and every individual values things subjectively.

But we were discussing the ethics of violating people's bodies or property. My position, which is the libertarian position, is that violating people's bodies or property is ethically unjustified in all cases but one. That one specific case is: If they have done, or are about to do, the same to another. Unless the violation is done IN RESPONSE to the same, it is illegitimate.

Let's take this statement: "You aren't paying this person what I think you ought to, therefore I am going to violate your body and/or property." Remember, violence is unjustified in all cases but one, and paying an agreed-upon price lower than what some third party thinks is right, does not fall under that one single exception.

In short, all *initiated* violations of a person's body or property are unjustified. Pretty much what most parents teach their children growing up.

 

That is just a fact. I've seen it.

No, that's just objectively false. PanAm is gone. Penn Central is gone. Etc., etc. The auto makers would be gone, except government propped them up to avoid union violence.

 

Yes, they do, because factual data CONSIST OF a bunch of anecdotes.

 

Yes, of course you do. You advocate forcibly violating everyone's liberty by aggressive physical coercion for the unearned profit of greedy, privileged parasites. You advocate the forcible enslavement of the landless by landowners, as has been effected in every single society in the history of the world where private landowning was well established, but government did not intervene massively to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners. That is the only possible outcome of the uncompensated private landowning you advocate.

At least I understand the fact that we can't have the liberty of our hunter-gatherer and nomadic-herding forebears to use all land non-exclusively and still have a modern, settled economy. I simply advocate just compensation for the inevitable loss of liberty modern society entails, while you advocate that the removal of people's rights to liberty should be uncompensated so that landowners will be able to enslave the landless.

 

Liberty is the right to do what you want with your body and property but not with other people's body and property. Landowning doesn't violate that.

I know this is a silly question, but I assume you don't own your home?

 

No, I identify the fact of objective physical reality that government in fact DOES administer possession and use of land, because that is what government IS: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land. I identify the further fact of objective physical reality that issuing private titles to land without just compensation either from those receiving them or to those whose liberty rights are thus removed is the PRIME EXAMPLE of government abuse of power. The only question is, will government discharge its function of administering possession and use of land justly, to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor, or will it do so unjustly, in the narrow financial interests of a small, wealthy, privileged, parasitic landowning elite? You advocate the latter, I advocate the former. Simple.

The brutal enslavement of the landless in every society in the history of the world where land has been privately owned but government has not intervened massively rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners puts the lie to that claim.

That is just a fact. Look at the history of governments and how they dispossessed those who used the land before it was appropriated as private property.

<sigh> Because in the absence of government, 99% of those people could not have existed in the first place. Your "argument" is logically equivalent to blaming people for killing so many more domestic cats than predators do. Without the people, the cats wouldn't exist in the first place.

No, it's called reality being more complex than infantile and brainless, "Meeza hatesa gubmint!" nonsense.

 

Such responses would appear to indicate your thread title to be deceitful.

Perhaps you should read my words more carefully.

Again, your twisting my words. People will, or at least should be the ones who decide what they are willing to give government the responsibility of providing recognizing the fact that they will be accountable for paying the costs.

Neither have you disproved it.

Then you agree that we shouldn't have bailed out the banks?

I've stated my view numerous times, that we each should live within our means, and that our government should not be run as a charitable organization.

So we can use inflation as the means of achieving prosperity for all?

 

That's a good argument, but a few details are missing. When Man left the hunter/gather life to become an agrarian society they more or less willingly traded their liberty and land rights for protection and more security. Granted, some had their land taken by invading foreign powers, the Roman Empire in the old world and by Europeans in the Americas.

In the US land was free for the taking as late as the 1960's(technically it still is), most of that land was surrendered back to the government or sold to other landowners. The point is people had the opportunity to be a landowner but chose to become part of the labor force for a better economic future.

 

Hardly. You provided neither clarity nor evidence.

Perhaps you should write more carefully.

That's "you're". YOU'RE advocating chaos and unequal burdens.

I don't need to. YOU'RE the one who make the claim so YOU'RE the one obligated to support it with evidence. Until you do the claim is your personal and unsupported opinion.

Actually I do.

You're not within your rights to tell others how to live, the government's greatest "charity" is for the rich and the corporations... -not the people, and you have been consistently vague about this and what you actually mean in practice. Since you oppose any "interpretation" and since you still offer nothing in the way of clarification, your whole central issue remains uncommunicated and unavailable for further discussion. And that is the end.

 

"Disproven" by those with a dog in the fight.... neoclassical economists working to defend capitalism. You're doing exactly what I described.. --looking at it simplistically. Capitalist ideology assumes that personal desires are formed privately as though in a vacuum and independently of society. But this has never been the case. Desires are taught, socially constructed, and can't be understood independent of society. So it is illegitimate to try to explain capitalism without dealing with it holistically as a system and with context.

But only as a consideration relevant to a point being made or attempted.

Nobody in any economic system would see such a violation as acceptable. So it's not an example of a position that we differ on or one that differs per system. So let me suggest this alternative scenario: a business owner who has run his business in one location for 20 years with employees, some of whom have been with him for most of that time. But he decides to move his business overseas for cheaper labor and will leave his 150 employees unemployed. So a group of the employees raises the issue with the state and local government and the government, following the law, contacts the business owner and tells him he can go overseas to run his business but all his local factory equipment will remain where it is and the employees will receive it to run it themselves.

Is there a violation of a person's body or property?

 

As I said such responses would appear to indicate your thread title to be deceitful.

That's something, at least, or should I say at last?

I'm not telling others how to live simply saying it is not governments right to make hard working taxpayers responsible for how others live. Stopping all government charitable giving and allow the rich and corporations to suffer the consequences.
I have nothing to sell, how much are you willing to pay?

 

Absolutely!

 

I think you meant...OH WAIT!!! That would be "interpreting" again and something you oppose.
OK. I can take your first sentence two different ways because of a lack of punctuation. Please clarify.

The second one isn't a sentence so it can't communicate any meaning. Please clarify.

 

More unsupported and unexplained vague personal opinions.

 

How could you tell?
Lol.

 

"I'm not telling others how to live simply saying it is not governments right to make hard working taxpayers responsible for how others live. Stopping all government charitable giving and allow the rich and corporations to suffer the consequences.
I have nothing to sell, how much are you willing to pay?"
I'm not telling others how to live.
I do however, suggest that we would have much less unpaid/unrepayable debt if more of us lived within our means.
It is not governments right to make hard working taxpayers responsible for how others live.
That should be left for individuals and charitable organizations alone.
Stopping all government charitable giving and allow the rich and corporations to suffer the consequences.
Change only the word 'stopping' to 'stop'.
I have nothing to sell, how much are you willing to pay?
You come across 3 persons on the street each holding an identical jars, the first is empty, the second contains some rice, and the third contains a 20 dollar gold piece. How much would you be willing to pay each of them for the jars they hold?
Or, an employer hires the only 3 people who have applied for the job. One employee is found to be very lazy and produces very little each day, another is seen to be very diligent but much of the product produced is found to be defective and unsalable, while still another produces large quantities of the product with a high quality. Should each of the employees be paid an equal wage?
An investment should return a profit. Would you not agree?
In what way do societies benefit from spending that does not result in a return greater than, or at a bare minimum equal to the amount being spent?

 

Please explain the connection. Connect the dots.

It doesn't. That's a false narrative.

Ok, I did. I don't know of any "government charitable giving".

I give up.

 

"[/QUOTE]
1. You presented an alternative scenario, which I read.
2. You followed by asking a question, "Is there a violation of a person's body or property?", which I answered.
Note that I posted NO opinion, and you didn't ask for an explanation of one's answer. It would appear you would have no complaints had I answered "absolutely not". Correct?
If your scenario had ended with "the employees contacted the employer and worked out an agreement to purchase the business property and equipment to the satisfaction of both employer and employees" I would have answered no. And THAT would be following a much more rational law, essentially what exists currently.

 

Okfine. So what is the violation of a person's body or property in my scenario, and WHY is it a violation?

 

It's not a violation of property or body they suffer from. It is a violation of self esteem.
They believe that they should be in charge.
They believe that they are superior to others and hence deserve more than others.

The only reason that society has not recognised the obviousness of their superior merit is that it is corrupt.
The system is stacked against the meritworthy by the unmeritworthy.

Human vanity declares this to be true.

All that is needed is to persuade everyone.

Here is a clue. Hard work is the easy way to persuade others of your economic merit. Not talking bollocks.

 

What dots need connecting?
You seem to believe that NOT giving someone something is applying harmful force upon them.

It does, and while our government produces the money all its spending is a result of taxation and debt placed upon the taxpaying public.

That would be ALL money provided by government to individuals which was not a result of some productivity on their part, unless of course you consider voting, demonstrating, rioting and such to be productive and beneficial to societies.

I noticed that some time ago, which is why I feel that greater autonomy of the societies which comprise our Nation is the most rational solution to a great many, if not all, of our problems. There is no one size fits all answer to most of our problems, and even when they are much similar the solutions can very greatly between each society. And by allowing solutions to occur at their local sources we benefit from viewing the results more quickly, allowing us to avoid, modify, or engage in solutions based upon their results.