An economic is a trade-off. The study of economics is the study of trade-offs. Industry is the combining of material and ingenuity. Almost everything human beings need to survive, including sufficient clean water, food and shelter, is the product of industry. There are only four ways by which human beings can acquire the products we need to survive: 1. Industry 2. Trade 3. Charity 4. Theft Industry, trade and charity have a mutually voluntary nature. The only difference between a raw material and a natural resource is that a natural resource can be combined with ingenuity. We can never run out of material. We cannot even destroy material; all we can do is change its form. However, we can stifle ingenuity. Everything can be looked at economically. There are only so many hours in a day and days in a life. Everything is a trade-off. There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs. Economics allocate scarce resources that have alternative uses.
How does a man stranded on a deserted island survive without industry, trade, charity or theft? I think you are wrong.
Pretty sure he's talking about industry in the broadest sense of the term, as in industriousness. A man stranded on a deserted island won't survive without being industrious and living solely based on the fruits of his own labor.
What is the intended take-away here? You could certainly split acquisition of goods into these categories (depending on exactly how you define these categories), as you could split them into others. Does this perhaps stem from the thread we had, where the point you're making is that government interactions have to be defined as charity? If so, I think your framework breaks a bit.
Without industry, trade charity of theft, that one will perish. In your above scenario, the man cannot trade, receive charity or steal. Consequently, industry is his only option. I hope the he is industrious and can make natural resources from the raw materials he encounters.
You guys are confusing industry with industrious. Yes they have the same base word but completely different meanings. in·dus·tri·ous inˈdəstrēəs/ adjective adjective: industrious diligent and hard-working. in·dus·try ˈindəstrē/ noun noun: industry 1. economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods in factories. Therefore a man can survive very easily without trade, theft, charity or industry. As long as he can figure out how to crack a coconut he will survive just fine.
Inheritance is voluntary; it is a form of charity. As a is a risk mitigation product, insurance is product for sale. Trade also has a completely voluntary nature. Nothing about government is voluntary, Absolutely everything done by government is done by force of law.
No it isn't. I gave you the definition of industry and it has nothing to do with ingenuity. You can do something exactly the same way someone else is doing it and be just as successful as them only maybe you are doing it in a different location.
That in no way affects the definition of ingenuity. Industry - The combining of ingenuity and material. That's a all it is. Now, a bird is not being industrious when it builds a nest because that is the combining of material with instinct. Industry is an almost uniquely human attribute.
First you said industrious and now you are switching it to ingenuity? That's funny. Ingenuity doesn't work either because: in·ge·nu·i·ty ˌinjəˈn(y)o͞oədē/ noun noun: ingenuity the quality of being clever, original, and inventive. Now you don't have to be clever or original or inventive to pick a coconut and smash it with a rock. Yet you can survive on a deserted island with that skill. So you are wrong yet again.
Please, allow me to try to clarify. Industry is the combining of material with ingenuity. A natural resource is a material that can be combined with ingenuity. We cannot run out of material. We cannot even destroy it; all we can do is change its form. However, we can suppress ingenuity. It ingenuity does not keep pace with the consumption the materials that can be combined with ingenuity, we would begin to run out of natural resources. Sans air and light, almost everything else human beings need to survive is the product of industry. Things such as adequate, safe, clean water, food and shelter are all the products of industry. There are only four ways human being can acquire the products that we need to survive: 1. Industry - Do it yourself 2. Trade - You do your thing, and I'll do mine, then we can trade-off some of our products to each other. 3. Charity - To will for another as one wills for oneself. 4. Theft - To take by force, legal or otherwise. Industry, trade, and charity each have a mutually voluntary nature; theft does not
Nope, ingenuity is not mentioned anywhere in the definition for industry. You can't just make up the meaning of a word to fit your argument.
Most of what today is considered a natural resource was, for most a human history, considered a raw material. It never became a natural resource until ingenuity was able to be combined with it. We don't need to discover a material that is renewable; we need to discover ingenuities that can be combined with the material that we have changed as well as the material we have not yet employed. Human ingenuity is the renewable, the sustainable, the inexhaustible.
Industry is the combing of ingenuity and material. You may find definitions that phrase it different, but you cannot find one the contradicts. In fact, you can find one that doesn't confirm it.
A company has a patent on a drug which expires. Another company uses that exact formula and sells it also under a different name. Where is the ingenuity?
That's what it is. That's all it is. That's what combining material and ingenuity is called; it's called industry. You can different phrases that say the same exact thing, but you can't find a definition that contradicts the point I'm making.
What do you mean by ingenuity? Let's say a person works in a factory, having been told to fasten labels to bottles of blacking. I would not call any part of that process ingenuity, yet I would call it industry. Similarly, what do you mean by material? When you say we cannot destroy it, only change its form, it sounds more like you're talking about matter than material. Material, in the way I understand it, also indicates that it must be possible to make something with it. Of course, you could make stuff out of anything, if you wanted to make an art installation out of excrement, you could, but I think at that point, we're not talking economic-scale production any more.
That's not what the word theft normally means. Let's check out some dictionaries: "the action or crime of stealing." (and stealing defined as "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it") (source and source, both google) "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it", "an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property" (source) "the crime of stealing" (source) It seems to me the meaning of theft often specifically means unlawful taking, not just any taking. Thus this leaves another possibility, lawful taking. Force is also a weird way of putting it, do you count that to include deceit or mistakes?
Good point since increasing income inequality and concentration of wealth will result in more and more people who can survive and prosper without contributing anything to society. One only has to look at the past history of America's wealthy families to realized the negatives of inherited vast wealth.
I refer to ingenuity in contrast to instinct. The only difference between raw materials (matter) and natural resource is that a natural resource can be combined with ingenuity. Most of what we today consider natural resources were not considered as such until we developed the ingenuity to utilize it as a resource. Is your above factory worker literate? Is he dressed? Does he do his job instinctually, or did he learn it? Digging a well is industrious. Boiling water is industrious. All of these things require ingenuity. Fishing, hunting and gathering can be done either by instinct or with ingenuity. When you start to get into agriculture and animal husbandry, we're definitely talking ingenuity.
Legal/illegal is no go measure of theft. Any evil one can imagine has been, at times , in places, perfectly legal. Any good one can imagine has been, at times, in places, completely illegal. "Thou shall not steal.", is not subject to the current fashion of law.
If that is how you use the word, then fine, although I would probably specify that, since it's not quite the same as how it is often used otherwise. I (and the oxford dictionary) normally understand ingenuity to have to do with originality and inventiveness, something which is not found in a person who have been taught a menial task and repeats it. So using this definition, you say that you can only gain goods by industry, theft, charity and trade. What about combining some natural resource with instinct? Couldn't that also give rise to goods? Is there something about the non-instinctness of "ingenuity" that means that you can't obtain goods through it? You mention that you can hunt using instinct, wouldn't that give you goods? Again, this seems slightly at odds with how I think most people would understand it. Nothing wrong with that, but it should probably be made clear to avoid confusion. I would say "material" implies matter which can be used to make something (and which will be a part of that finished product), i.e. it could be combined with action to make something. I would take natural resource to be anything which is natural, and which you can make use of (not necessarily by processing it), for instance if you found drinkable water in nature. I think that means I'd want to flip the two definitions around.
