Economics is Taught with a Left Wing Bias

But the landowner does not CONTRIBUTE the land. It was already there, ready to use, with no help from him or any previous landowner. The landowner only TAKES FROM production. Neoclassical economics sees that he takes from production, and assumes that he must therefore have contributed to production. But he didn't, any more than a thief or a protection racketeer.

 

I agree. Modern economics purports to be a hard science when it's actually a social science, like anthropology or sociology.

 

Nor does the atom-owner contribute to the atoms he controls. He is preventing everyone else access to the atoms provided by nature. He didn't create the atoms, he has merely stolen them and tried to hide them from others.

 

I am stating the fact that the putative government of Somalia does not in fact govern more than a small fraction of the country.

 

IP monopolies MAKE THE MEANS EVEN SCARCER. Hello?

 

Yeah, I know. That's why I oppose IP monopolies.

Oh, hello back.

 

The poor are poor because they are not earning an adequate or any income, which can be due to a great many various reasons. Most all of my Asian immigrant friends a few decades ago when I was still living in the U.S. had no more than a 3rd grade education, if any formal education at all yet were able to find work paying $10 an hour or more.
There are a great many reasons people are overweight, and a sedate lifestyle may be a much greater cause than a lack of education.
The poor are much more likely to be liberals, and involved in politics. After all they have the time and freedom to complain and demonstrate in large numbers and often do so for a price while most productive members of society can't afford the time/money nor are able to put aside their work/family responsibilities and do the same.

The only pattern I see is a collection of pernicious and fallacious claims.

 

So now you admit it's not all about spending on programs for the people who need it.

 

Where did you get that? Did you pull it out of your dark corners?

 

Yup, dishonest theories masquerading as science like the theory that tries to discredit the labor theory of value.

 

Thomas who?

He's been a PotUS since WW2 when the US budget escalated to historic proportions? Nope.

History is good for history lessons, not for the application of old ideas into new contexts. And those New Contexts have certainly happened since Jefferson was running the government in the first decade of the 19th century. (The most important having been the Industrial Age - which succeeded the Agricultural Age that had existed for so very long - that started well after he'd left office around the 1850s)

But the Industrial Age also has since been superseded also ...

I can agree with that above.

They tend to be control-freaks who think the sky's the limit as regards Personal Income, which is justified by their "hard work". And all the rest of us who contribute to the functioning of a market-economy are just "assistants". Not to mention those below the Poverty Threshold (43 million fellow Americans) who are just "road-kill on the highway of life".

My point:
*Real Justice is economic. Real Justice is the mastering of Income Disparity. Not all the same Income as in Socialism, but neither Wicked Income-Disparity as exists in the US. Real Economic Justice is somewhere in-between the two extremes.
*And how is that disparity measured? Economists do it with the Gini Index, the comparative measures of which are shown here:


So, what is the solution? Tax 'n Spend towards a more just nation.

Spend on what?
*Tertiary Education to prepare our workforce for the Information Age, since we've left the Industrial Age.
*A National HealthCare Service as every EU country has that caps total costs (thus resulting in per capita costs half that of the US) no longer fixed by either private enterprise (hospitalization) or private care GPs. (If National Health Care in the US as it exists today is good enough for retirees, Army veterans and members of Congress, why isn't it good enough for the rest of us?)

 

There is no capitalism in the state sector.
They use socialism. Collective ownership.

Forget Marx. Read Orwell.

Marx tells you what he thought would happen, and Orwell tells you how it all worked out.
Marx was trying to start a revolution. I do not seek to manage my investments by starting a revolution, the goal of which, is for other people to take all my investments from me.

I put my savings where I put my savings because those are the people I best trust with them.
We each do the same, I suspect.


So let me tell you how your mini revolution all works out. In the end, it is the same. The same systemic corruption re-asserts.

What Marx said he didn't want, is exactly what he got.
It's exactly what you get.
It might not be the aim of socialism to get state "capitalism", but Orwell, and history, shows us that this is it's the result.
That if we use socialism, this is what we get. And all socialists everywhere have had the same problem. No matter what variant of the model they have attempted.

That with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this does not work.
That indeed corruption is alive and well in our palaces, no matter who we choose to sit in them. No matter what rules we put into place.


It does however still work for some. There will still be winners and losers.
It still works for the pigs in Animal Farm.
Our new revolutionary leaders will be sitting pretty. Change of wanker in power. Woot.


I'm self employed. (Or self unemployed as I like to call it). Anyone who wants to be, can be. Owning and staffing your own company really is no big deal.
If you wish to you can. You can have a collective. A workers collective. You can have a moneyless society like the Ammish.
Do whatever the hell you please.

These things you say you want, you are allowed them. If you want one, find an existing one or make one.

I don't want one. I'm not making you one. I have other things to do. I am liberal, not socialist.
You have the choice. As do I.

Capitalism is not a philosophy or political ideology. It's not a system.
It's a theory used to try and understand human behaviour.
Capitalism doesn't make us do things. Capitalism attempts to describe the way in which we do things.

If you wish to do things another way, go ahead.
In socialism, I don't give you the choice. You do it my way or I kill you.
Stick with liberalism, we will both live longer. No need for messy revolutions.

State capitalism is not socialism, it is the end result of people trying to get socialism.
They did it to end corruption, ended it up just becoming the same corruption themselves.
The only thing that changes, is who is at the top of pile.

It's a scam mate. The aim is simply this. To take power.
There is no greater good. Just people.
You will all be richer and happier if you just do as I say.

Sorry. I do as I please.

Liberalism > Socialism. Truer to human behaviour. More honest. More free.

 

Debt is a problem for most political parties. Also most governments. and also many capitalists.

However a borrower can be a capitalist too. And for the borrower, being able to borrow is not a problem at all.
Not being able to borrow is.

As a general rule I will only give money to capitalists by choice and only give money to socialists if I believe they are going to kill me otherwise.

 

A great many do. All self employed and loads of co-operatives. Also not for profit companies, Kibuts and so on.
Equally, all those big company's who borrowed money are worker established companies. The investors don't have much say in things. If any.

@LafayetteBis

When I invest money in a company, I don't just make my money on selling the shares for a profit.
I make my money on the dividends they pay me. My share of the profits for each year.

People do make money on shares by speculating. But that's hardly the whole story.

 

Then @Kode should be satisfied.

 

All human endeavour should be profit driven. Constructive towards your goals.

Standing still is going backwards.
We constantly need more. More food , more water, more shelter, more fuel. I cannot rest. I cannot sit idle.

I cannot afford to stay as poor as I am. What I have is not enough. It will run out. I use resources to buy life. I must profit.
There is no advantage in being counter productive. Profit please. Better your situation in life.

 

Of course they do - but they all share the profits equitably.

You know "equitably", don't you? It means fairly. Not equally, but fairly.

And Worker Owned Establishments can even adopt a sharing of the profit-pie to take into account individual contribution that is "superlative" - which means (my definition) transitory but at the time was real contribution to advancing the company.

All that a WOE needs to do is avoid the following (from 7 Rip-offs Companies Don't Want You to Know About) - which cannot be copied, so you'll have to link to it. It makes for interesting reading if you think that 70% of corporations manage not to make any profits at all. And what they do is entirely legal. (And that's just one boondoggle mentioned.)

So, why in heaven's name is Donald Dork trying to reduce corporate taxation. Here's why: At the higher level of taxation (around 35%) it takes a lot of effort for companies to apply all the loopholes, so the rest should be highly taxed. And why not - companies do not take advantage of the same liberties that individuals have?

Then they should pay their taxes as we, the sheeple, individuals do.

And THAT is the problem. In any Election Campaign why is it that "Who Pays What in Terms of Taxation" never becomes a major campaign issue for public debate?

 

Corporations who pursue a policy of growth, invest the profits of their endeavours into expanding those endeavours.
Governments don't tax these investments as they don't wish to act against economic growth and reduce the opportunity for jobs in the economy.
In fairness to them this tax regime applies as equally to you as it does they.

Unlike many other taxes which will target big corporations exclusively. Google Tax for example. Or Windfall taxes.

So these company's may make a profit, but may not make a taxable profit. They might not make anything for you.

You should not worry though for the taxman, because the government hits them with a whole host of other taxes. He'll still die a millionaire.

Those who see self advantage in taxation will view those who pay it as not paying enough. The more they pay it, the more is expected, the more it isn't enough.
Expect no thanks from the people robbing you. That's not how it works. They despise you.

 

I'm glad you acknowledge that the board of a worker co-op would be driven by profit. To think otherwise would be naive.

 

But again, human nature re-asserts and even in workers co-ops, you get leaders and sheep.
And some guys at the bottom moan about the management. And feel like they are being under done.

Wave your magic wand and it cures nothing at all. Just creates the same again.

It is only human to be human. When all is said and done.

 

Those seeking profits tend to avoid corporate failures.

The other side of that coin nonetheless is that there must be a fundamental agreement about how to share profits in a Worker Owned Cooperative Enterprise (WOCE). The easiest way is to have everybody share in the same proportion - which works in small companies where people tend to know one another well.

But at companies that want to grow some highly talented people are necessary to expand the business. And they will want their rewards for doing so. So, the management board of an WOCE has the task of explaining to its employees either why profit-sharing will remain equal or why it will begin to differ amongst those who need incentive to grow the business.

This is why the WOCE-model does not work on too grand a scale of corporation. Some people, not all people, will want to "earn more for doing more". That's human nature.

But, if the original owners were happy with the size of the company and the profits being earned, they may prefer to look the other way. Profit-motive companies are a hornet's nest. People are strongly motivated by "wanting their share of the killing". There is only one remedy to such motivated-selfishness.

Higher income-taxation that, above a certain level, simply does not make the game worth it* ...

*Northern Europe is a highly taxed part of the entire European Union. And yet, some of the most successful companies have been born (innovated) and succeeded from there.

 

We only need more, more, more because the human population is out of control. We started a ZPG movement back in the 1960s but it "fizzled". If it had been successful we might be better off today, but capitalism requires growth and a growing population, so capitalism worked against the ZPG movement.

I don't need growth. Life is change, but it isn't required to be growth. As a child I advanced in knowledge and experience. I attended school to prepare me for a career. I worked developing software to make businesses more efficient. I saved money for retirement. What grew was my bank account. Now I am retired and my bank account shrinks. That's change. Growth was part of change. So is shrinkage. I had a car. I had a house. I still have a car but a different one. I still have a house but a different one. One of each. No growth needed. A new mindset is needed, –a new culture. Growth is only "needed" for two reasons: capitalism and population increase. Population increase is only "needed" for one reason: capitalism.

 

The "same Income as in Socialism"? Where do you see this? I say the truth is it doesn't exist. First, no established, finished, settled socialist country exists yet. But even in those that are trying, none has a system in which everyone, -or even every laborer, -get the same income.

 

Socialism exists nowhere in the world (except perhaps North Korea). I was referring to the fact that all incomes in a truly socialist economy were dictated by the state.

The countries of Eastern Europe were indeed Socialist Countries. One had a job with a title, a number and a pay-rate fixed by the state ...

Well, the income was not all that variable between jobs and pay-grades according to age. One could almost say that they were nearly the same if not identical. (Only the government ministers and some of its workers had "perquisites".)

What does it matter - it's all gone and done with. They are now full-fledged capitalist economies, with pretty damn high taxation but the freedom to work wherever they want. For most of those with whom I have talked, that in itself is a godsend.

My Point: One has to have lived in Socialism in order to dislike it - but that does not mean in the least that it was all bad. What we have in the US in terms of wild Income Discrepancy between groups is not that much better. At least the socialists countries had National Healthcare Services and free Tertiary Education. Get those two in the US if you are really down-'n-out ...

 

so?? who knows what contribute means. he does not contribute the screwdriver either rather he buys it just like land so he can produce on it or with it.