To coerce means to compel. If you are living at or below the poverty-threshold, one is compelled to work for (or even below) the minimum-wage because there is no other. Which means one's standard of living is thus decided (as "poverty"). If a government were to provide a minimum standard of living to an individual found below the poverty-threshold, that individual would have more latitude in his/her options. Meaning, presuming there were conditions, one could be that they obtain the necessary training/education to obtain the competences required at a higher pay-level. (Further education would not be an option but a requirement.) You are insisting that people are poor because they want to be poor. That they have no personal dynamic to be otherwise than poor. Yet, programs in Europe that provide the minimum wage without work do indeed encourage individuals to a point where they go to work to earn the minimum-wage and sustain themselves. Working in groups is not just a means of remuneration, but also a social objective because we enjoy the company of others. And if you don't believe that, then have a conversation with a professional psychologist ...
Actually govt does not provide anything it violently compels or coerces people at gunpoint. Yes nature is violent and compels too in that it forces all people or coerces all people to work to survive. Govt violent coercion on top of nature's coercions is something conservatives and libertarians oppose. A liberal is naturally violent so govt violence makes perfect sense to them.
and the person who paid for it would have less latitude but both would be discouraged from working which explains how Stalin and Mao killed 120 million while thinking they were caring human beings.
When banks create money it is almost always to finance asset purchases. This additional purchasing power devoted to asset purchases raises asset prices, and this price increase is then capitalized into the return. This increased return makes asset ownership more attractive, leading to increased borrowing for asset purchases, even more money shoveled into asset markets, and still higher asset prices. At some point interest rate variations mean that some assets can't yield sufficient return to pay the interest on their purchase prices, so their owners sell. This reduces prices, and the price decline is then capitalized into the return, making the assets even less attractive. As borrowing declines, principal repayments on existing loans remove money from the system, deflation sets in, which makes borrowing even less attractive. This positive feedback in both boom and bust phases is inherent in the debt money system, and obviously is inherently destabilizing. That's why central banks constantly have to supervise private banks' money creation to damp the swings.
More accurately, labor compelled by force. Forcing someone to give you their money is robbery, not slavery. A man appropriates some vacant land in the desert that happens to contain a natural spring. By and by, a man dying of thirst stumbles in from the desert, and stoops to drink from the spring, when he hears a gun being cocked behind his head, and a low, menacing, sibilant voice says, "Uh-uh. I know what you're thinkin'. You're thinkin', 'Will the owner of this spring charge me six days' labor for a sip of water, or only five?' And tell the truth, I hadn't quite totaled up the rent myself. But bein' as it's 44 miles to the next waterhole, which might as well be the other side of the world, and I'd as soon kick your sorry @$$ clean off my land, you gotta ask yourself a question: Do I feel thirsty? Well, do ya, slave?" False. Government, acting on behalf of landowners (and holders of many other privileges) uses the threat of force to prevent us from exercising our liberty to do what we would otherwise have been free to do. That is the forcible deprivation of rights that has made it possible for employers to treat landless workers as slaves in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD where landowning has been well established, but government has not intervened massively through minimum wages, labor standards laws, union monopolies, welfare, public education, health care and pensions, etc. to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners.
The forcible removal of people's liberty rights by government and their transfer to the privileged (e.g., landowners, banksters, IP monopolists, etc.) as their private property. What but violent, forcible, aggressive physical coercion stops people from using what nature provided to sustain themselves, as our ancestors did for millions of years? What else stops them from issuing money as banks do? What else stops them from using ideas that have entered the public domain but been reprivatized by legal fiat? What else stops them from using the broadcast spectrum?
But I did. And you cannot refute it. Lafayette doesn't understand how removing people's rights to liberty removes their options and makes them enslaveable.
Yes, it most certainly is, as a matter of self-evident and indisputable physical fact. If I try to exercise my liberty to sustain myself and my family using what nature provided, as our ancestors did for millions of years, thugs with guns, acting on behalf of parasites with land titles, will stop me by forcible, violent, coercive aggression. Everyone reading this knows that is true, including you.
They were so much more sophisticated in the old days... "if thou consent to freedom for the rich in the City and givest freedom to the freeholders in the country, and to priests and lawyers and lords of manors.... and yet allowest the poor no freedom, thou art a declared hypocrite" Buck your ideas up!
if you try to use any property that is not yours men with guns will stop you. Private property is basis of human civilization.
Try to at least sound reasoned. The original economic historian comment was actually 'dogs gave us modern civilisation' (as they allowed land to be protected). Guns are just for hoplophiles with dysfunction.
See? You immediately have to pretend that all property is the same, whether rightful property in the fruits of one's private labor or wrongful property in others' rights to liberty. You have to pretend that the benefits of securing property in the fruits of one's labor cannot be obtained without also accepting the harm caused by forcibly removing people's rights to liberty and making them into others' private property. By saying your argument applies to "any" property, you are literally claiming that slaves are rightly property. What makes my right to liberty not mine, and instead the property of greedy, privileged parasites, other than forcible, violent, aggressive physical coercion? Just as men with guns stopped slaves from exercising their rights to liberty without the "property" owners' permission. When "property" is wrongful, and consists of others' rights to liberty, taken from them by violent, forcible, coercive physical aggression, it is effectively slavery. Private property in the products of private labor is. Not private property in others' rights to liberty. That kind of "property" is the basis of slavery.
A tad backward isn't it? Modern economy refers to complex production and therefore 'private labour' doesn't make much sense. Catch up. George was dead yonks ago!
You are, yes. It makes perfect sense. All labor performed for private benefit is private labor. Whom are you trying to insert into the discussion, and why??
Tut tut, personal attacks! You didn't even call me evil. In the 17th century perhaps. Back to my comment: "Modern economy refers to complex production and therefore 'private labour' doesn't make much sense". Its like your economic thinking is as backward as a Georgist!
Readers can see that for themselves. And every other century. Your comment was false, and lacking any evidentiary or logical support. It's simply nonsense not worth reading, let alone responding to. Any readers who have had productive jobs (which probably doesn't include you) will know perfectly well what private labor is. You misspelled, "clear and honest."
Think it must be my black cape! Did the industrial revolutions pass you by? That you'd call complex production 'false' shows just how corrupting your land obsession really is! Nope, Georgism isn't 'clear and honest'
Humm Did the continental congress have gold enough to fund the revolution? Did either side have gold to fight the civil war, or wwii, or the cold war. We certainly would have fewer wars if the gold had to be found up front
Anyway, gold/fiat system is the same in effect depending how they are managed. Both can lead to disaster or prosperity depending on if they are managed for no inflation or deflation. I agree fiat system is probably better with more flexiblilty and responsiveness. If we had a gold system today all the gold would be going to China and there wold be widespread panic and revolution.
Not true. The amount of gold in total is irrelevant. The price of goods measured in gold would adjust due to supply and demand. If more tanks are produced and more gold is not, their gold price/tank is reduced. Tanks are made of steel, not gold. Gold is not required in their manufacture. It is simply a medium of exchange.
