The problem of Capitalism

No, that is an obvious, bald falsehood. Land titles are only for landowners, bank licenses only for bank owners, etc.

Already refuted. It is decided by government, which privileges some to take from others.

But government first decided who would own the wealth. That's a little detail you somehow forgot.

Nonsense. I'm lecturing those who EMPOWER that greed.

I know particularly awful institutions.

That's another bald falsehood. We first have to pay landowners full market value just for permission.

We all are, unless we pay landowners for permission. That is an indisputable fact.

GARBAGE. Who freely made the choice to be forcibly stripped of their rights to liberty, and forced to pay landowners just for PERMISSION to access things like education, health care, economic opportunity, etc.?

GARBAGE. If everyone in the race has to carry a parasite on their back, but some people in the race ARE the parasites other people have to carry, the fact that some are strong enough to run the race even while carrying parasites does not mean that all have equal opportunity. Give your head a shake.

Wrong. Landowners prevented you from doing so unless you (or your parents) met their extortion demands.

 

Maybe from the perspective of someone who knows no logic, history, economics or ethics...

 

They can claim the products of their labor that they caused to exist. I agree.
Causality, remember?

Fail. Extracting natural resources or building structures in that location doesn't cause that location to exist.

According to your straw man, you mean.

This is not the first time I state my claim:
Everyone in society has a natural right to property in the fruits of one's labor. Only the producer has a right to it until consensual transfer. If I build a bicycle, then I have an exclusive right to it as my property. I caused it to exist.

But...
One does not have to own the ocean to have a natural liberty right to swim in it. One does not have to own the atmosphere to have a natural liberty right to take a breath from it. One does not have to own land to have a natural liberty right to use it. One does not have to own ideas to have a natural liberty right to the contents of one's own brain and to make productive use of it outside of the mind.

Do you believe that without ownership one has no rights?

 

Yes of course, their families. That's the idea .. that we all start taking care of our own, so that they don't become a burden to society. Isn't that what you're seeking? That we become BETTER, more CARING, and more RESPONSIBLE for each other?

If that's not what you're seeking then say so.

Admit that it's a desire to use other peoples' money to fix problems of your own making, if that's what it is.

 

oh my lord ... this is become a grand old comedy

 

1) no, landowners decided they wanted to be landowners (to provide for their families), so did what it took to become landowners. obviously, no one stopped them. no laws, no 'institutions'.

2) we're all responsible for our own greed. or are you particularly vulnerable to the influence of others, and therefore imagine that everyone else is?

3) not a single 'institution' prevented me from escaping poverty by my own efforts. nor any of the self-made people I know (and I know a bunch).

4) we pay landowners for the title to their land - in exchange for money. if we don't want that much responsibility, we can choose to rent. neither is compulsory.

5) once again, no one DID me from escaping poverty - by my own efforts. Here I am, a 'rich landowner' who was born to poverty. The only thing that ever stood in my way, once I'd reached adulthood - was myself. It was my responsibility to adapt to the reality of a capitalist democracy. I had the added burden of parents who didn't adequately prepare me for such a reality, but that was their choice - they weren't forced to be 'irresponsible'. Upshot - adapt, or perish. neither is compulsory.

 

Thank goodness, there are better minds with better ideas, because your idea is nothing but the enslavement of the individual to state in the name of the common good.

Ayn Rand: “Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else.”

 

Liberty is the right to act, nothing less and nothing more.

 

A land owner has the same rights as any individual, the community has none.

 

“Signs. Signs. Everywhere a sign. What gives you the right to put up a sign and keep me out?”

That was either a line in a song, or a Lenin quote, or a line from the Communist Manifesto.

The answer is property rights. It’s mine.

 

This is just stupid with no existential validity.

There is no right to swim in the ocean, or roll in the mud, or anything. Freedom is a right to act, not a right to possess.

There is no right to a thing, only the right to do what is morally proper to obtain it.

You are arguing about “floating castles”.

What’s your end game? Life granted permission to live by the consent of the community?

The abolition of property rights is the destruction of liberty

 

Let's not forget from where Ayn Rand. Communist Russia, which she escaped. So, it is not difficult to misunderstand from her political convictions. Especially compared to the US, where Income Taxation produces some of the worst Income Disparity on this planet..

If you want to compare economic systems, I suggest you concentrate on the only two that are radically different - Pure Capitalism (of the US) and Social Democracy (of Europe).

Reckless Ronnie completed the downward spiral of upper-income taxation that was started by JFK. (Yes! He started it! See America's history chart of Upper-income taxation here. Note what happened to upper rates in 1962 when JFK was president. )

What's a country to do in that situation? With a runaway Discretionary Budget that can't seem to stop exploding on DoD-expenditures? See here for a comparison of Income Inequality amongst developed countries of the OECD. Note that the US has highest disparity of any comparable economy ...

PS: Note here from the Guardian: The fairest of them all: why Europe beats the US on equality - excerpt:

 

COMPARING WHAT IS COMPARABLE

Ayn Rand was the product of a communist ideology from which she escaped in 1926. What she said of Russian Communism and American Capitalism were complete opposites - both wild exaggerations of Income Fairness. Comparatively, everybody in Russia in 1926 was poor and everybody in the US was richer. (The Great Depression had yet to happen!)

The truth, I submit, is somewhere in the middle of both exaggerations. Europe learned that lesson, whilst America still thinks it is somehow "the victor" - since Communism no longer exists in Russia.

Not by any stretch of the imagination is America the victor when its Poverty Rate looks like this:

That 12.3% of the population below amounts to 40 million American men, women and children. A bit more than the entire population of California today ... !

 

Is that so? Ok.

Now, this is what I want: Eradication of poverty, which is a matter of sustainable resource development AND distribution. [Interestingly, Gates and Buffett have both said they should be paying more tax, but MMT doesn't focus on their personal wealth, anyway].

I know this much: I loathe identity politics passionately, because universal access to vital resources - of which there is sufficiency - is what drives me. You will argue that people are homeless or unemployed due to their own poor choices. I say that's a simplistic and inadequate understanding of the reality. eg,

Recall Trump's own observation in the 2016 campaign:

"You are living in poverty, your neighbourhoods are like war zones, your schools and hospitals are broken, your young men are in prison..."

You tell me the US can't bulldoze these slums and rebuild within a decade? [China builds whole new cities in less time).

Your terror and paranoia comes from the fact that, in the world's richest nation, half of Americans cannot find $1000 in an emergency, ie they are living with chronic financial stress, a destroyer of health and morale... and lives. Not good...

Here's your mistake: 'equality of opportunity' (which is conceptual) is not the same as access to essentials (you might have the former and not the latter, but both are necessary to achieve eradication of poverty, obviously).

Above poverty employment, which are vital for an individual's sense of self-worth, are guaranteed in MMT - without taking *your* money.

Well, OK, but you are ignoring other realities, as already mentioned above.

Trump's ghettos - and first world rust-belts - are real
(He promised to do something....but I heard someone (extremely disappointed obviously) - in an ex mining town - say of Trump a year after the election: "he's full of ****...."). Which confirms the obvious: neoliberal capitalism by itself will fail to achieve poverty eradication in those localities.

We don't need their wealth. Stephanie Kelton has expressed it thus:
"Money doesn't grow on rich people"
(I love it....)
By exposing the errors of neoliberalism with it's sham austerity imposed on governments (eg insistence on balanced budgets... which btw Repubs ignore when they are in power) people will know that confiscation of wealth is unnecessary to eradicate poverty.

I expect you will be hearing about MMT in the mainstream media before too long, since MMT economists are receiving ever more invites to political parties and universities all around the world.

How about AOC then?. A rather impressive politician, I would say.

 

I believe he is a child of the Theater of the Absurd.

 

Thank you for agreeing that the land owner has no more rights to the land than any other individual in his community. Having no more rights to "his" land than any other individual, he should be required to make just compensation to those whose rights to the land he abrogates. I'm proud of you.

 

Swimming is an act. If somebody owned the ocean and prevented me from going into the ocean to swim in it would be an abrogation of my natural right to liberty. I don't need to possess the ocean for it to be a violation of my natural liberty right if the owner prevented me from accessing it.

Sometimes abrogation of rights is necessary, such as if somebody decided to pour toxic chemicals into a lake, a river, or the ocean. That disregard for other people's rights to life and liberty needs to be punished and prevented, by incarceration if necessary. But that's justified and automatically cancelled out by the criminals' disregard for others' natural rights to life and liberty.

A violent, robbing or murdering criminal would deserve to have his natural right to liberty abrogated as punishment and to prevent further violations of others' natural rights to life and liberty. Our disregard for his natural liberty right is justified and automatically cancelled out by his prior violations of others' natural rights, so there would be no claim for compensation for him. If anything, he should compensate his victims, which is, unfortunately, not always possible. How do you give back life to or justly compensate a dead victim?

Exclusive land tenure out of necessity abrogates the rights of individuals other than the land owner or leaseholder, but because we are honest and well meaning people who believe others deserve to have their equal rights taken into consideration, there should be just compensation.

PS:

?????? ARE YOU SOME SORT OF LIB COMMIE?
A right to something IS a right to act. With regards morally rightful ownership, someone stealing and possessing YOUR car is always a violation of your right to act, or, in other words, a violation of your right to have the ultimate and exclusive right to control, possess, make use of, transfer and dispose of YOUR car.

How?
And what's the morally proper way to obtain something that cannot morally be property in the first place?

Going by your posting history in this thread, I'm going to guess that your answers will be riddled with question begging fallacies and/or easily refuted by reductio ad absurdum merely by citing chattel slavery.

Even if the theoretical ideal cannot be reached, there is no reason not to attempt to get as close to it as practically possible.

In order to be able to change the world for the better it's crucial not to assume that whatever DOES necessarily SHOULD exist (chattel slavery) or that whatever DOESN'T necessarily SHOULDN'T exist (vaccines).

This a crucial step in the undertaking:
"it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property." - Thomas Paine

Respect for life, liberty, and property to the fruits of one's labor for individuals in my community. If any of those are abrogated, the one who abrogates and/or benefits from the abrogation owes just compensation.

A criminal of course has no claim to compensation for being punished appropriately for showing no regard for others' rights to life, liberty, and property to the fruits of others' labor and can be incarcerated. Us denying him his natural right to liberty by incarcerating him is automatically and justly cancelled out by his transgressions.

Abolition of some so-called property "rights" frees the victims thereof, AS PROVEN BY CHATTEL SLAVERY.

 

There are parts of Paris in that condition. And last night there was a report of a large town in Poland also in that condition.

There is no reason for that to happen anywhere in France because, yes, the Town Council would vote to bulldoze the place. In fact, a house in the ancient part of Marseille came down earlier this year and killed three people. It came down without any warning whatsoever.

But in Poland, it is understandable that - for all its ability to put people back to work, people have abandoned the country to seek work elsewhere in Europe. (And, for the most part, once they have picked up the language they remain there. With the sole exception being agriculture where they go only when there's a crop to be picked.)

Europe, you might recall, was completely devastated by WW2. If you visited it today you would wonder where the devastation had come from because when rebuilt the older-style was reemployed to rebuild.

What I am saying as regards the above is that the US has never had Any Real Need to rebuild anything. When's the last time the US had a major war on its soil? Never!

So, housing - after a 50/70/100 years - is left to dilapidate. People long having forgot who used to live there. That doesn't happen in Europe because the Housing Code would not allow that to happen. The city in question would confiscate the house and rebuild upon the land. (It did that not long ago when Europe had to rebuild due to the utter devastation of WW2.)

Why is the US so different from Europe? Because the US is a country fixated upon the future, and Europe's fixation is the past ...

PS: Oh, yeah. But a great DoD with all the latest gadgets - which consumes more than half the Discretionary Budget - that's just fine! Especially if YOUR STATE can get a piece-of-the-expenditure-pie.

 

nvm

 

So, just who does own the land I stand upon and raise my crops and feed my cattle? Who can tell me, "Leave, this land isn't yours"?

You are a very silly fool, as fools go. I can't own the minerals I build my creation with, but I can own the creation. What about the metals and minerals used to produce my creation? Just how am I going to accomplish anything if I haven't any right to obtain the land, the minerals, the metals, the atoms, the molecules, and on, and on, and on? I have no right to obtain because they are gifts of nature or privileges granted by the few in the name of the many? So who's permission do I need? Yours? God's Nature's? The Plains Indian tribes? The Neanderthals? The Humanoids? Sahelanthropus? The butterfly who flew up to the sun and melted way on pure ecstasy?

Tell what you do. Write a novel based on your philosophy. Publish it. I'll buy it, and see what kind of world you create. Wait. You can't. You have no right to the tree from which the paper comes, nor the chemicals, from which the ink comes. Nor any other aspect. Good luck.

Your not harmful, just philosophically wrong.

 

Land cannot rightfully be owned by anyone.

If you refuse to make just compensation for what you are taking, then the community may just no longer feel obliged to enforce your exclusive tenure to the land for you.

Says the fool whose "arguments" primarily consist of question begging and/or nonsense easily refuted by reductio ad absurdum merely by citing chattel slavery.

Straw man. You can rightfully claim the minerals you removed from nature and shaped into the product you CAUSED to exist.

BTW, there is a difference between me showing your "arguments" to be fallacious by reductio ad absurdum and you creating a straw man out of my arguments and positions.

You can remove the minerals, the metals, the atoms, the molecules, and on, and on from nature and shape a product with them that you CAUSE to exist. The location, the land, and the natural resources before they are removed from nature and shaped into a product of your labor, are not something that you CAUSED to exist, therefore you do not have a just claim to make them your property.

If somebody wants to extract oil, they would have to pay you, the mineral "rights" owner for the permission to extract that oil, correct? They are removing it from nature to turn it into a usable product (gasoline, for example), but what do you contribute to the process as the owner ? What would stop them from extracting that oil if you didn't have those mineral "rights"? The oil was already in the ground without any of your "help", correct?

Why do you want to be a parasite by claiming to have a right to prevent others from extracting the oil that was ALREADY THERE, unless you get something for contributing nothing in return?

Look up "rent seeking". You wish to have power over others to take wealth from others through anti-competitive entitlements and coercion without making a proportional contribution in return.

In order to have exclusive control over land or a natural resource while respecting others' equal rights? Humans. The community of people that you may falsely believe do not have rights unless granted by your lordship. Land or natural resources that nobody else wants to use are free of charge.

If you owned a natural spring in the desert, and a man dying of thirst came a long, you think you'd have a right to deny him water from it even if he died, don't you? It's property, after all. We don't, because we are humans who know that others have rights. We know that that man is dying because his natural liberty right to the spring is being violated. The natural spring would be there without any spring owners. You believe that your so-called property right to the natural spring gives you the permission to kill that man.

Straw man. How many ****ING TIMES do I have to repeat my ACTUAL position before you stop ignoring it?

ALL HUMANS AND ALL PRODUCTS CREATED BY HUMANS HAVE SMALLER COMPONENTS THAT WERE ONCE A PART OF NATURE. That is completely and utterly irrelevant irrelevant to the fact that there is a clear distinction between humans, their products, and what naturally exists.

If I remove some wood and some metal from nature and form the molecules I removed from nature to fit the definition of what hammers are, then I have created something useful that didn't previously exist: THE HAMMER that was CAUSED to exist by me, a human. I have made a contribution and I haven't taken the hammer from anyone because it WASN'T ALREADY THERE.

 

But they are not mind to take. So how do I get them?

 

gottzilla: You can remove the minerals, the metals, the atoms, the molecules, and on, and on from nature and shape a product with them that you CAUSE to exist. The location, the land, and the natural resources before they are removed from nature and shaped into a product of your labor, are not something that you CAUSED to exist, therefore you do not have a just claim to make them your property.

I can remove that which is not mine to have, to make something which will be mine once it’s made, except I have no right to that which isn’t mine. How does that work?

 

If you catch fish from a natural lake, you don't already need to have owned them before you caught them to have a claim to them, and neither did you have to own the lake.

I'm sure you'd try to claim that you own the entire lake after catching fish there, or even the ocean if you went fishing there, and not merely the fish you caught.

 

Catching and removing the fish from the natural lake would be how you gain your property right to them.