Kennebunkport, Maine Rally and March for Peace

[CNHT]

Bill, you remind me of someone who just throws out words and names to hear yourself talk.

I know what I believe just fine.

I don't use excuses to allow incremental socialism under the guise of being libertarian. I don't find the need to constantly be quoting scores of people who said this or that, as if that meant anything.

[CNHT]

mutualism as a radical decentralist philosophy is closely aligned with some aspects of the traditionalist and libertarian wings of the modern conservative movement. Richard Weaver and Russell Kirk were deeply suspicious of northern industrial capitalism and finance (what Weaver called "paper" property) because it destroyed traditional families living in healthy communities.

See? There is a perfect example of gobbledygook and names as if they were authorities on whatever it is you are trying to prove.

I don't care what you read in some book.

I'm a capitalist. Live with it.

[EthanAllen]

mutualism as a radical decentralist philosophy is closely aligned with some aspects of the traditionalist and libertarian wings of the modern conservative movement. Richard Weaver and Russell Kirk were deeply suspicious of northern industrial capitalism and finance (what Weaver called "paper" property) because it destroyed traditional families living in healthy communities.

See? There is a perfect example of gobbledygook and names as if they were authorities on whatever it is you are trying to prove.

I don't care what you read in some book.

I'm a capitalist. Live with it.

Use of terms like "Capitalism", "Socialism", "Fascism", "Communism", "Anarchism" mean whatever you want in a one-sided conversation unless you are willing to define and agree upon those terms there is no basis for any meaningful dialog. Which is exactly what I would expect from someone who is dilettante.

[EthanAllen]

Subjecting capital to the natural law of competition by removing any market barriers to entry that favor big business. Rothbard was in agreement with the New Left historians Williams, Kolko, and Weinstein, that big business wanted regulation to protect their profits.

What is your definition of the word "capital"?

Capital is wealth used to produce more wealth, or wealth in the course of exchange.

A machine is wealth. If used to produce shoes or other wealth, the machine is wealth that is capital. So also would a merchant's stock of goods in trade be capital. The same items in the hands of the ultimate consumer are wealth that is not capital; the exchange has been completed.

Wealth is all material things produced by labor for the satisfaction of human desires and having exchange value.

It is thus seen that wealth must have these characteristics:

1) Wealth is material. Human qualities such as skill and mental acumen are not material, hence cannot be classified as wealth. Although they can assist in the creation of wealth.

2) Wealth is produced by labor. Land possesses all the essentials of wealth but one - it is not a product of labor, therefore it is not wealth.

3) Wealth is capable of satisfying human desire. Money is not wealth; it is a medium of exchange whereby wealth can be acquired. Nor are shares of stock, bonds or other securities classifiable as wealth. They are but the evidences of ownership. None of these satisfy desire directly. Only those things are wealth the production of which, or the destruction of which, increases or decreases the total of goods that administer to human desires.

4) Wealth has exchange value. That which will not bring its possessor in a trade, sale or other transaction, something of worth, has no exchange value and consequently is not wealth, even though human exertion may have gone into it. (Examples: whittled wood, a junked car, a snowman.)

[BaRbArIaN]

Give up your Georgeist dementia.   Even the whittled wood can be considered of value as rodent litter, fire kindling, insulation.   The junked car can be sold for recycling the metals and plastics.   Snow sculptures are art even tho temporary unless you use technology to preserve them.   You can also take truckloads and truckloads of "junk" with no value, dump it off the coast (presumably with the beach ownership or consent of the beach owner) flatten it out and create land, which as the owner of the junk and provider of the energy to put it there *you own* and can do with what you like.   This has been done extensively in Japan and in the US, and this is how the law views it too.     Unless someone who creates new land is supposed to now pay "land rent", i.e. compensate the collective for not thinking of doing it or having the resources to do it themselves in a socialist/collectivist fashion.

[CNHT]

Use of terms like "Capitalism", "Socialism", "Fascism", "Communism", "Anarchism" mean whatever you want in a one-sided conversation unless you are willing to define and agree upon those terms there is no basis for any meaningful dialog. Which is exactly what I would expect from someone who is dilettante.

Name calling "dilettante" will get you put on ignore once again. On the other hand, I think it's rather cute. Someone who has no energy or passion to do anything cannot be a dilettante. I'm proud of it I guess. I'll just have to let you be ignorant about what I know and don't know. Is there a word for that? (Besides verbose pest?)

- Dilettante for Ron Paul

[CNHT]

Use of terms like "Capitalism", "Socialism", "Fascism", "Communism", "Anarchism" mean whatever you want in a one-sided conversation unless you are willing to define and agree upon those terms there is no basis for any meaningful dialog. Which is exactly what I would expect from someone who is dilettante.

Your problem is, you like to redefine terms to suit your agenda and co-opt the argument, when those terms are clearly defined in the dictionary I believe. Those definitions are therefore widely accepted.

It's as if you've taken a page from the very playbook of Saul Alinsky...(oops now there's a name to drop, but I just had to)

Just because I don't want to bother arguing with a clearly troubled person doesn't mean I don't know anything about the subject.

If you don't like capitalism that's fine with me. My mission in life is not to convince you otherwise...but to find like minded people and work with them. The rest I simply weed out and cross off my list of productive people...they can consort with the rest of the socialists/mututalists or economic rent advocates or whatever you are calling them today.

[CNHT]

Give up your Georgeist dementia.

[EthanAllen]

Even the whittled wood can be considered of value as rodent litter, fire kindling, insulation.

Yes, because in those roles the whittled wood is directly satisfying human desires so it is "wealth". So when someone would ask what you are whittling that piece of wood for you would say for "rodent litter", "fire kindling", or "insulation" not "for the heck of it".

You can also take truckloads and truckloads of "junk" with no value, dump it off the coast (presumably with the beach ownership or consent of the beach owner) flatten it out and create land, which as the owner of the junk and provider of the energy to put it there *you own* and can do with what you like. This has been done extensively in Japan and in the US, and this is how the law views it too. Unless someone who creates new land is supposed to now pay "land rent", i.e. compensate the collective for not thinking of doing it or having the resources to do it themselves in a socialist/collectivist fashion.

Oh boy, Jane is going to love this. I hope she hasn't put me on ignore yet!

In economic parlance, "land" means the entire material and non-material universe that pre-exists human labor which includes the inhabitable, dry surface of the earth. Any labor upon "land" like the taking of junk cars in the scenario which you describe (which is wealth btw because you are satisfying a direct human desire) is not land but rather capital as "land" is not produced via human labor by definition. And because this man-made island is capital it will not have any economic rent attached to it. But because this man-made island is occupy a specific location on what had been the ocean floor it may have economic rent attached to it in the future if you have not left "enough and as good ocean floor in common for others" (Locke's proviso).

If that is the case, the economic rent for the ocean floor will be shared directly and equally with those individuals (not to a collective) in proximity who if you weren't excluding would have an equal access opportunity right to equally occupy.

[BaRbArIaN]

Even the whittled wood can be considered of value as rodent litter, fire kindling, insulation.

Yes, because in those roles the whittled wood is directly satisfying human desires so it is "wealth". So when someone would ask what you are whittling that piece of wood for you would say for "rodent litter", "fire kindling", or "insulation" not "for the heck of it".

You can also take truckloads and truckloads of "junk" with no value, dump it off the coast (presumably with the beach ownership or consent of the beach owner) flatten it out and create land, which as the owner of the junk and provider of the energy to put it there *you own* and can do with what you like. This has been done extensively in Japan and in the US, and this is how the law views it too. Unless someone who creates new land is supposed to now pay "land rent", i.e. compensate the collective for not thinking of doing it or having the resources to do it themselves in a socialist/collectivist fashion.

Oh boy, Jane is going to love this. I hope she hasn't put me on ignore yet!

In economic parlance, "land" means the entire material and non-material universe that pre-exists human labor which includes the inhabitable, dry surface of the earth. Any labor upon "land" like the taking of junk cars in the scenario which you describe (which is wealth btw because you are satisfying a direct human desire) is not land but rather capital as "land" is not produced via human labor by definition. And because this man-made island is capital it will not have any economic rent attached to it. But because this man-made island is occupy a specific location on what had been the ocean floor it may have economic rent attached to it in the future if you have not left "enough and as good ocean floor in common for others" (Locke's proviso).

If that is the case, the economic rent for the ocean floor will be shared directly and equally with those individuals (not to a collective) in proximity who if you weren't excluding would have an equal access opportunity right to equally occupy.

Not without some collective using force to collect it.  It doesn't fly, nomatter how fast you toss it.

[EthanAllen]

What is your definition of the word "capital"?

Capital is wealth used to produce more wealth, or wealth in the course of exchange.

A machine is wealth. If used to produce shoes or other wealth, the machine is wealth that is capital. So also would a merchant's stock of goods in trade be capital. The same items in the hands of the ultimate consumer are wealth that is not capital; the exchange has been completed.

Wealth is all material things produced by labor for the satisfaction of human desires and having exchange value.

It is thus seen that wealth must have these characteristics:

1) Wealth is material. Human qualities such as skill and mental acumen are not material, hence cannot be classified as wealth. Although they can assist in the creation of wealth.

2) Wealth is produced by labor. Land possesses all the essentials of wealth but one - it is not a product of labor, therefore it is not wealth.

3) Wealth is capable of satisfying human desire. Money is not wealth; it is a medium of exchange whereby wealth can be acquired. Nor are shares of stock, bonds or other securities classifiable as wealth. They are but the evidences of ownership. None of these satisfy desire directly. Only those things are wealth the production of which, or the destruction of which, increases or decreases the total of goods that administer to human desires.

4) Wealth has exchange value. That which will not bring its possessor in a trade, sale or other transaction, something of worth, has no exchange value and consequently is not wealth, even though human exertion may have gone into it. (Examples: whittled wood, a junked car, a snowman.)

So capital is a good thing and capitalism is a bad thing?

Capital like force is neither good nor bad. It depend on what ends it serves (capitalism).

The first problem with "actually existing capitalism" is that most everyone (especially those steeped in Austrian economics apparently like Barbarian) is hopelessly confused on the differences between "land" and "capital", "wealth" and "profit", etc. Jane's views are typical. Her knowledge about first principles is a mile wide with a heavy dollop of UN/CFR conspiracy theory and an inch thin. 

The capitalism Austrians support is an amoral exercise solely in corrective justice.

The capitalism I support is a moral exercise first in distributive justice (who and under what conditions and obligations to those excluded, gets access to the natural and social commons). Only after answer this ethical question properly can we move onto correctivde justice (the voluntary trading of subjectively determined like kind).

[EthanAllen]

And if Bill could ever explain anything simply I'd faint...

I'd be pleasantly surprised... after picking myself up off the floor!

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

~~ H.L. Mencken

[EthanAllen]

Even the whittled wood can be considered of value as rodent litter, fire kindling, insulation.

Yes, because in those roles the whittled wood is directly satisfying human desires so it is "wealth". So when someone would ask what you are whittling that piece of wood for you would say for "rodent litter", "fire kindling", or "insulation" not "for the heck of it".

You can also take truckloads and truckloads of "junk" with no value, dump it off the coast (presumably with the beach ownership or consent of the beach owner) flatten it out and create land, which as the owner of the junk and provider of the energy to put it there *you own* and can do with what you like. This has been done extensively in Japan and in the US, and this is how the law views it too. Unless someone who creates new land is supposed to now pay "land rent", i.e. compensate the collective for not thinking of doing it or having the resources to do it themselves in a socialist/collectivist fashion.

Oh boy, Jane is going to love this. I hope she hasn't put me on ignore yet!

In economic parlance, "land" means the entire material and non-material universe that pre-exists human labor which includes the inhabitable, dry surface of the earth. Any labor upon "land" like the taking of junk cars in the scenario which you describe (which is wealth btw because you are satisfying a direct human desire) is not land but rather capital as "land" is not produced via human labor by definition. And because this man-made island is capital it will not have any economic rent attached to it. But because this man-made island is occupy a specific location on what had been the ocean floor it may have economic rent attached to it in the future if you have not left "enough and as good ocean floor in common for others" (Locke's proviso).

If that is the case, the economic rent for the ocean floor will be shared directly and equally with those individuals (not to a collective) in proximity who if you weren't excluding would have an equal access opportunity right to equally occupy.

Not without some collective using force to collect it.  It doesn't fly, no matter how fast you toss it.

You are somehow under the mistaken delusion that force itself is morally bad. Sorry to inform you but it is only morally neutral as it depends on what ends it serves.

So in pure anarchy, where all lands are privately owned (the anarcho-capitalist wet dream) the exclusive use of land in an inelastic scarcity market forces costs onto those being denied access which clearly violates their absolute right of self-ownership (life, liberty and labor-based property).

So rather than violating the right of self-ownership by requiring the sharing of economic rent in exchange for exclusive use (the landowner by definition contributes no labor towards the creation of the unimproved land values) as defensive force (perfectly legitimate in libertarian circles) UPHOLDS the absolute rights of self-ownership for EVERYONE.

[EthanAllen]

Capital like force is neither good nor bad.

If capital is wealth used to produce more wealth, and wealth is all material things produced by labor for the satisfaction of human desires, then  what's not like like about capital? Satisfying human desires is a good thing, no?

You have to ask the moral question of whether or not this wealth was derived from just means as it relates to distributive justice. Remember capital is created by applying labor to "land" (the entire material and non-material universe that pre-exist human labor) and land, because it is rivalrous, has to be used exclusively. So what costs did you impose on those you excluded by your exclusive use which violated their absolute right of self-ownership?

[EthanAllen]

Capital like force is neither good nor bad.

If capital is wealth used to produce more wealth, and wealth is all material things produced by labor for the satisfaction of human desires, then  what's not like like about capital? Satisfying human desires is a good thing, no?

You have to ask the moral question of whether or not this wealth was derived from just means as it relates to distributive justice. Remember capital is created by applying labor to "land" (the entire material and non-material universe that pre-exist human labor) and land, because it is rivalrous, has to be used exclusively. So what costs did you impose on those you excluded by your exclusive use which violated their absolute right of self-ownership?

What kind of stuff is in the non-material universe?

Gravity, radio spectrum. Also, the social commons which are not created by any one individual's labor like language.