The problem of Capitalism

It has been postulated by some that because "land" occurs naturally, no part of it may be owned privately. Consequently, it must be viewed as being "owned by everybody", or by humanity--in other words, as public property. It is further postulated that this requires the state or the community to assume receivership of land and act as its trustee. Acting as the trustee for the land, those in power, either by election or dictate, will decide who gets what land and for what purposes according to the community's leaders interpretation of the needs, wants, desires, and pleasures of the community. In essence, the leaders of the community will have the power of ownership over the life of the individual. (Jonestown comes to mind-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown)

For an actual demonstration on how this works in reality, I offer Mugabe's Zimbabwe or ANC's South Africa. To see what it would eventually lead to, I suggest one read Ayn Rand's Anthem.




Today's world is heading on the path to the world of Anthem. Perhaps you think I may be overstating the case; I think the political, philosophical, and aesthetic culture of today's world suggests I am understating it.

 

The entire world separate from human beings and their creations exist naturally. That is correct.

What you removed from nature and shaped into a product of labor may be owned privately, but not the land itself where they may reside.

"Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." -- Thomas Paine

1) Land cannot rightly be anyone's property, that includes the state or the public.
2) One naturally has a right to things such as the sunlight, the atmosphere, or land. They don't have to be obtained as property.
3) Human rights don't stem from property rights. Valid property rights stem from the human right to property in the fruits of one's labor. This obviously cannot be reconciled with a con man's claim to own land. It would allow the con man to take wealth without contributing anything to wealth production. Look up "rent seeking": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

You only have "your" land because of the state in the first place. It's a pure legal entitlement:

"AFTER conquest and confiscation have been effected, and the State set up, its first concern is with the land.... In its capacity as ultimate landlord, the State distributes the land among its beneficiaries on its own terms." -- Albert J. Nock

"A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment.... He who plants a field keeps possession of it till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated..." -- Thomas Jefferson

We just believe that a state granted legal entitlement to a piece of land shouldn't be a perpetual license to take something for nothing:

"The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent." -- Carlyle

"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." -- John Stuart Mill

"The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price" -- Andrew Carnegie

There would of course still be zoning laws etc., unless you want somebody to build a factory right next to your house, or have rock concerts right next to you while you're trying to sleep.

The market would allocate who gets to use any given parcel. There would merely be a requirement to make just compensation:
"The user of land should not be allowed to acquire rights of indefinite duration for single payments. For efficiency, for adequate revenue and for justice, every user of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government equal to the current rental value of the land that he or she prevents others from using." -- Robert Solow, Nobel laureate in Economics

That's a lie. Our system would be less intrusive and more considerate of people's natural rights than the current one.

Stupid, irrelevant comparisons. Private landownership clearly isn't necessary for a society to bloom and prosper, as proven by Singapore and Hong Kong. 90% of the land in Singapore is state owned. There also isn't any private landownership in Hong Kong:
"In Hong Kong, virtually all land is leasehold, except a small plot of land granted to St John's Cathedral in Central."
https://www.legco.gov.hk/research-p...1617ise07-land-tenure-system-in-hong-kong.htm

 

ever heard of Cuba/ Florida, East/West Germany, USA/USSR???? See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance? Is any other conclusion possible?

 

1) Which you will NEVER get. You won't even get close. Hence the need to go full NK, if you want it to happen.
2) Who cares why resistors resist, utterly irrelevant to the fact that the majority WILL resist. And you cannot 'disabuse' without a gun.
3) Thank you
4) You can discuss fantasy life 'vital resources' all you like - in the meantime, here in REALITY where people need resources, I'm sharing mine with those less able. Are you?
5) Yes, I'm still sure. Collectivism isn't about profit, it's about access to the means of survival. Property and mutual assistance.
6) My ground hasn't 'shook' for decades. I live HERE and NOW, you see. Not in Disneyland, or some distant ideological potential future.

 

Because if people understand that full employment with above poverty minimum wage is achievable, without raising taxes on their own incomes, then of course they will support it. (A win-win situation).

Refuted above.

You can't teach people about economics, or civic responsibility, without a gun?

Are you anti-education, by any chance?

btw, education re healthy living, and taking personal responsibility, is part of the vital resources involved in a poverty eradication program.

You are only sharing with those you choose to. Not my business.

I'm pointing out that poverty itself can be eradicated with a systems change (within capitalism), by distinguishing between distribution of resources and services needed by everyone (including above poverty employment), and resources (products) that are discretionary.

Yes... but of course in your world view, it apparently only applies to those whom you choose to be part of "the collective".

 

History (...including US sanctions).

Meanwhile, less than half of Americans are able to find $1000 in an emergency.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/58-americans-less-1-000-090000503.html

Ever heard of chronic financial stress - which destroys physical and mental health ie it's a destroyer of healthy life-spans?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/us-life-expectancy-keeps-falling/576664/

"Americans Are Dying Even Younger
Drug overdoses and suicides are causing American life expectancy to drop."

 

This is a debate-forum, which is simply a means of exchange.

What one says and how they say it are relevant, of course. But just saying it never makes anyone "right" or "wrong". There is no judge or arbiter here ... we are in a debate-forum, not a football game with referees and a "goal" that indicates clearly where "points are made".

This is just a mechanism of exchange (of points-of-view). No more, and no less ...

 

There are a number of reasons for lower lifespan in the US: See here: CDC Data Show U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline
excerpt:

And if there is a significant difference with comparable data from the European Union, where overall lifespan in Europe is at 81 years. The leading causes of death in Europe are (from here):

I think I'll remain in Europe - I don't smoke ...

 

All - or most - related to poverty - for example smoking and cancer, poor food choices and diabetes/obesity (and some of the other conditions mentioned above), and chronic stress (including financial), poor morale and life-style choices (and related suicide).

"In 2016 impressive work published in Journal of the American Medical Association by a Harvard research team showed that high-income people in the US can expect to live 6.5 years longer at age 40 than low-income individuals. Oct 29, 2018".

Hence my poverty eradication 'crusade'.

 

1) You can't be serious. You actually think you can make all people work? Peacefully? Just by explaining it nicely? Wow ... you really need some hard education in the perils of human nature.

2) Give it a try. Explain it all - politely, and then ask everyone to kowtow. Let me know how it goes. Unbelievable.

3) Anti-education? OMG. How do you get it all sooo wrong?

4) You actually think that 21stC First Worlders don't know that burgers make you fat and gambling is dangerous to finances? See my point 1) regarding urgent lessons in human nature.

5) Exactly. If we all did that, there would be FAR fewer people living in 'poverty' (and homeless, etc). That's the freaking point.

6) Exactly. WE are the system, WE need to change the way WE live. Stop telling everyone else to fix the world for you. Get off your arse and be the change you keep demanding.

 

yes thanks to liberal attack on family, love, schools, religion, and business!

 

I guess because they spend all their and the latest greatest Republican capitalist inventions:


You don't need to be an economist to see how rich the middle class and lower class got by looking at all the new inventions they could suddenly afford in the last 10 years: suddenly we had plasma TV's, LCD TV's, DLP-TV's, Qled TV's, iPods, iphones, CD's and CD players, DVDs and DVD players, Blue Ray and Blue Ray players, PCs, desk top PCs, DVRs, color printers, satellite radio, Advantium ovens, HD-TV, Playstations, X-Boxes, X-box live, X-box Konnect, broadband, satellite TV, cell/camera/video phones, digital cameras, OnStar, palm corders, Blackberries, smart phones, home theaters, SUVs, big houses, more houses per capita, TiVo, 3D movies and TV's, built in wine coolers, granite counter tops, $200 sneakers, Go Pro Cameras, GPS navigation, consumer drones, color matched front loader washing machines, internet Facebook, Pandora, LTE-U, run flat tires, matching washer dryer combinations, McMansions, 4K TV, Iphone 6+, burner commercial ranges, Sub Zero refridgerators, Tesla cars, private space flight, more cars than drivers, a $1 billion ring tone industry, a pet industry that just doubled to $34 billion, 10's of millions lining up to buy Apple's I-tablet, Wii, Fit bits, Apple watches, Netflix boxes, jet skis, induction cooking, low profile tires, aluminum/titanium rims, Harley Davidson and Japanese motorcycles. $700 Billion spent Christmas 2010, $10.5 billion movies 2010, 10 million ocean crusies, 44 million taking plane flights over 2012 holiday, $500 billion spent on Christmas 2012, hover boards, Ti Vi Bolt, Tesla cars, cloud storage, 4k Oled TV, hover boards, Ring Doorbells, semi self-driving cars, Amazon Alexa,

The list goes on and on. I hope that helps you realize you can't just parrot the communist press and expect to make sense? They have other objectives and are merely using you to promote their point of view.

 

Gosh, I have been wondering for some time whether you were a bot, but the above shows a real person capable of debate. Thank you.

No doubt many people are poor financial planners (a situation fully exploited by loan sharks).
Solution: classes in basic personal finance management, as part of the curriculum, beginning in primary school. [I can hear the screams of disapproval coming from Conservatives already)

'Liberals' want to attack those things?

1. Family, love, schools? Those are motherhood statements.

2. Religion? Complicated: unfortunately, rarely addresses divinity, as opposed to ideology (eg, particular scripture presented as the inerrant world of God - a nonsense proposition, not to mention the interpretation of said scripture). Again I can hear the screams of disapproval from religious conservatives, over any attempt to remedy the above situation.

3. Business? An essential element of which is workers who need to be paid above poverty minimum wages (still not guaranteed in law), not to mention an absence of guaranteed employment itself. (Involuntary under-employment (U6) in the US is still higher than before the GFC at c. 7.3%).

 

if true everybody would want houses to the point where prices were so high no ROI was possible. See now why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance??

 

Reasons intelligent people oppose minimum wage:

1) MW makes it illegal to employ people not worth minimum wage
2) raises prices for poor people who often shop where minimum wage folks work
3) speeds up automation and replacement of minimum wage jobs
4) teaches workers that you get ahead with govt violence rather than being worth more
5) raises prices, reduces demand, and thus reduces employment
6) makes American workers even less competitive with foreign workers
7) makes a huge % of work force (42%) minimum age workers with no incentive to improve their skills.
speeds up transition from high density brick and mortar employment to low density on-line employment
9) encourages govt to enact similar libsocialist policies to get more votes from the supposed beneficiaries
10) a higher minimum wage encourages higher skilled workers to take jobs that were once held by mimimum wage workers.
11) nothing is free.MW encourages employers to extract more in productivity, conditions, fringe benefits, scheduling, vacation/sick days, overtime, etc etc.

 

Here are the actual reasons that your "intelligent people" oppose above-poverty minimum wages.

1. Profit-seeking motivated in part by instinctive self-interest (greed).

2. Blind acceptance of neoliberal orthodoxy (based on the above), which denies possibility of universal above poverty participation in the economy.

OTOH, intelligent people who are not ideologues, know better.

 

All people want to work to support themselves. Obviously.
Meantime you are bypassing my central proposition that if people understand their own prosperity is not damaged by a universal above poverty Job Guarantee, they will embrace it.

OK. I accept that. As I say, it should not be too long before your see references to MMT in the mainstream media (though Professor Bill Mitchell says we will need to wait for the current crop of neoliberal-trained economists to retire, I think the next recession will blow macroeconomic orthodoxy sky high much sooner than that...)

See my points to James above re education, personal finance management and religion, in post 1513.

Well, advertisers certainly spend a fortune to encourage people to remain ignorant.

And much junk consumerism resulting in poor health outcomes - promoted by ignorant (or greedy) profit seekers, would disappear. You OK with that?

And the system needs to change. I abandoned junk consumerism long ago. But orthodox neoliberalism is insisting we spend (hence all that junk advertising).

 

Correction .. it's not 'liberal' attacks (liberals wouldn't interfere), it's Progressive attacks.

 

1) All people DO NOT want to work to support themselves. That is patently and plainly untrue. And it doesn't matter what you say to them in the way of seductions, if they think they can be paid to NOT work, that's exactly what they'll do.

2) Self-discipline when it comes to money is learned at home .. via parents who MODEL self-discipline with money. Not in the wheelhouse of formal education. Parent your kids properly, and you won't keep hoping that teachers pick up your slack.

3) What do advertisers have to do with personal self-discipline? Always someone else's fault, right?

4) I'm okay with not trying to make MY failings someone else's fault. If I eat junk food and become enormously fat (and poor, given the cost of junk food), that's on me. And the point about collectivism - meantime - is that it's not profit driven. Shunning consumerism is an essential part of that lifestyle.

5) The 'system' is us. WE have to drive the change. Or are you, like so many 'socialists and reformers', far too wedded to the First World capitalist lifestyle to even consider it? Instead demanding that others change (Big Corp, Govt, etc .. anything to avoid getting your own hands dirty), so you don't have to?

 

The key word here is 'participation'. You cannot - not now, not ever - have full participation without force. Universal agreement on work/money etc is an absurdity of the highest order. It's literal fantasy land.

If people were happy to participate in what you're selling, they'd be doing it now. We live in democracies, don't we? So why isn't it already happening? No one buys your idea that it's just ignorance .. that once they know your 'special truth', they'll surely embrace it. That's exactly what ideologues and the religious say. People aren't stupid - they know what their options are.

That leaves you with only one place to go - force. The very thing you claim you won't need. I'm saying you won't just need it .. you'll need to ABUSE it.

 

[I'll keep it simple, now that we have traversed most of the issues].

So that's your main point?

In fact, you are looking at a dysfunctional economic system which includes entrenched poverty and disadvantage (which is behind our current dysfunctional, highly partisan politics) ......and concluding people are languishing in poverty by choice (ie because they don't want to work).

Not so.

You need to understand macroeconomics: like many, you think its principles, as they relate to governments, are similar to managing your own household budget....they are not.

Interested in learning?

Since 1989 when communism collapsed, Chicago School neoliberalism alone established itself as economic orthodoxy (though with many variants around the world eg 'free' market capitalism, social democratic capitalism, state controlled capitalism); fast forward to 2007, and we saw a failure of orthodoxy on a grand scale (GFC).

After some fancy footwork by the world's CB's to avoid another Great Depression (in 2008 -2010), we are now (2019) teetering on the edge of another recession. Trump wants to sack Powell, and follow the Europeans into negative interest rate territory....a case of the blind leading the blind.

This article might interest you (unless you are committed to maintaining entrenched disadvantage....for whatever weird reasons).

www.bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43176

"ECB confirms monetary policy has run its course – Part 1"

 

??? Ever heard "housing" bubbles?
As long as land prices go up there is somebody pocketing the difference, Jimmy. Until the bubble pops. If you have the finances and patience you can wait that out, too. The ROI for land is generally speaking only a matter of time, unless civilization completely crumbles or the world ends.

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore." - Mark Twain

Which brings us to the point of excess return. Economically speaking, every penny you get that is over the point required to keep production and provision of a product or service going in a competitive market is excess. Land is nobody's product. There is no competition between land "suppliers", as it cannot be produced. The entire return to land is thus pure excess. Seeking to obtain this return if always a form of rent seeking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

There can of course be rent seeking risks and costs, just as you have to pay thugs for your protection racket and bribe police to avoid trouble, pay off your favorite politician to get that excessively lucrative contract, pay up hundreds of thousands to buy an anti-competitive taxi medallion only to get pummeled by uber and lyft, etc. Turning those into an actual profit for oneself or not is irrelevant to the nature of the returns.

 

Poverty in the US is not "entrenched". You are exaggerating, given that the unemployment rate is only 3.9%.

Furthermore, you do not understand what has been happening for the past 30-years or so. Which is called the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Information Age. What has happened?

Looking at the unemployment rate is only one aspect. Because people that were laid-off thirty-years ago never again found a full-time job. They are working at wages that approach the minimum wage in the US, which is $7.50 an hour or $15.6K a year. Let's say that they work at jobs from $7.5/hour around $10/hour, which is about $21K. (The bracket is anywhere from $15 to $20K annually) - and they are likely not in calculations of the two agencies that make the Minimum Wage estimates given. (One from income-tax statements and the other from phone-calls.)

And the above are figures Net of Government Subventions, which add just a bit more.

Real Poverty in the US has various facets. For instance, this about "Child Poverty" from here:

What I am trying to say is that there are various aspects of poverty, and just looking at the numbers is not "god enough". Because it takes our mind off the solution.

And the solution is both amazingly complex and lengthy timewise. There is no simple "overnight" remedy.

A solution derives from what I wrote above (about the Information Age). If we stop the money-sucking fascination for the DoD that swallows more than half of our Discretionary Budget, it is perhaps possible to educate our kids out of poverty. That means putting more money into the state-education process. More students going into a modern (and nearly free) post-secondary education (from vocational to associate to bachelor to doctor levels) will inevitably mean fewer Really Poor in America.

But we must throw money at that educational possibility and not More Guns for Our Guys 'n Gals! Guns or butter* everybody! Guns or butter - which do you want ... ?

*"Guns or butter" - its origins.

 

Ever hear of "taxation"? When dealt with skillfully, it shifts money from where it is economically useless (except to Wall Street) to where it pays for Social Services necessary to a healthy population mentally and physically.

Preferably without the opioids ...

 

Ever hear of the benefit principle of taxation?
"Under the benefit principle, taxes are seen as serving a function similar to that of prices in private transactions; that is, they help determine what activities the government will undertake and who will pay for them. If this principle could be implemented, the allocation of resources through the public sector would respond directly to consumer wishes."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/taxation/The-benefit-principle

"If this principle could be implemented,..."
Somebody call Encyclopedia Britannica and tell them about LVT (land value tax), which fulfills this. Not only is the entire return to land economically useless, it's largely owed to public expenditure on social services and infrastructure in the first place, as shown by Joseph Stiglitz with what is referred to as Henry George theorem.

"In 1977, Joseph Stiglitz showed that under certain conditions, beneficial investments in public goods will increase aggregate land rents by at least as much as the investments cost.[2] This proposition was dubbed the "Henry George theorem", as it characterizes a situation where Henry George's 'single tax' on land values, is not only efficient, it is also the only tax necessary to finance public expenditures.[2]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem

"This paper explores the relationship between aggregate land rents and public expenditure in a residential urban economy. That there are important relationsihps between aggregate land rents and public goods expenditure has already been recognized in two different contexts."
Link to an entire Stiglitz paper on this: https://www.landandliberty.net/the-henry-george-theorem/

Why look anywhere but land value as a means of financing public expenditures, as long as it's not taxed to the fullest extent possible? Taxing anything but land value shovels tax money into the pockets of landowners, all of whom are pure free riders (as landowners) who provide no benefit to anyone else whatever. The landowner is more of a hindrance, if anything.