Capitolism: Harnessing the Power of Stupid

[CNHT]

When I try to get Republicans to see the error of their ways when they spend the vast majority of their time worshipping at the altar of the corporation, I just cant get them to understand that the corporation itself is a group, and as such, is potentially as dangerous as any other artificially created group.

Likewise, in anarchy where all lands are privately owned, how can libertarians not see the danger of private states (large landholdings) to the liberties of those who do not own land?

So you want the government to ensure that you can own land? Pffft.

[EthanAllen]

When I try to get Republicans to see the error of their ways when they spend the vast majority of their time worshipping at the altar of the corporation, I just cant get them to understand that the corporation itself is a group, and as such, is potentially as dangerous as any other artificially created group.

Likewise, in anarchy where all lands are privately owned, how can libertarians not see the danger of private states (large landholdings) to the liberties of those who do not own land?

So you want the government to ensure that you can own land? Pffft.

No, I want local governance as legitimate agency sole purpose to be the protection of an individual's right to life, liberty and labor-based property. Since "land" is not produced via human labor but rather conferred via privilege (law-based property), I want to ensure anyone's exclusive use does not economically harm me by infringing on my absolute right to self-ownership. So the right to law-based property must be subordinated to the right to labor-based property.

No need to ensure that I can own some land, just ensure that the return on land, called the unimproved land value (or economic rent) which is by definition not the result of the labor of the landowner, is shared equally and directly with those in proximity that the privilege excludes in exchange for backing the title by force.

This is similar to ensuring no one is infringing on my common right of way on a sidewalk while they are exercising their freedom of speech rights.

Why don't you read what I write Jane and not what you hope I wrote so you can knock down a strawman?

[EthanAllen]

When I try to get Republicans to see the error of their ways when they spend the vast majority of their time worshipping at the altar of the corporation, I just cant get them to understand that the corporation itself is a group, and as such, is potentially as dangerous as any other artificially created group.

Likewise, in anarchy where all lands are privately owned, how can libertarians not see the danger of private states (large landholdings) to the liberties of those who do not own land?

So you want the government to ensure that you can own land? Pffft.

No, I want local governance as legitimate agency sole purpose to be the protection of an individual's right to life, liberty and labor-based property. Since "land" is not produced via human labor but rather conferred via privilege (law-based property), I want to ensure anyone's exclusive use does not economically harm me by infringing on my absolute right to self-ownership. So the right to law-based property must be subordinated to the right to labor-based property.

No need to ensure that I can own some land, just ensure that the return on land, called the unimproved land value (or economic rent) which is by definition not the result of the labor of the landowner, is shared equally and directly with those in proximity that the privilege excludes in exchange for backing the title by force.

This is similar to ensuring no one is infringing on my common right of way on a sidewalk while they are exercising their freedom of speech rights.

Why don't you read what I write Jane and not what you hope I wrote so you can knock down a strawman?

I think I have found something we agree on Ethan.  I consider myself a minarchist because I believe that the eventual end game to capitalist anarchy is economic or actual feudalism.

This is also why I consider the 'death tax' to be one of the few taxes that are rational, if you accept the notion that the purpose of government is to ensure the liberties of its citizens.  I see no reason why an accident of birth should entitle one to a life of leisure and another to a life of misery.  Im more interested in a society of strong, independent, creaters and builders than I am a society classes.     

That was Jefferson's vision too in eliminating entail and primogeniture. And you can't talk about intergenerational justice without talking about Jefferson's clear thoughts about "usufruct" (the use of the fruit of common assets but not consuming the asset itself to assure it's use for future generations) which I am just trying to "operationalize" for our time.

I suspect you understand this because of your training in constitutional law.

http://www.conlaw.org/Intergenerational-II-2-3.htm

excerpt:

Generational Sovereignty and the Land – The Earth as Tenancy-in-Common - Thomas Jefferson's Usufruct

The most succinct, systematic treatment of intergenerational principles left to us by the founders is that which was provided by Thomas Jefferson in his famous September 6,1789 letter to James Madison. The letter was Jefferson's final installment in a two year correspondence with Madison on the proposed Bill of Rights. Given the importance of this letter as background material for the bill of rights, and its independent value as a brilliant statement of intergenerational equity principles, it serves as the natural starting point for a discussion of the founders' views on specific intergenerational issues.

Jefferson begins his letter by asserting that:

    "The question [w]hether one generation of men has a right to bind another. . . is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government. . . . I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living' . . .."

Since Jefferson explicitly bases his entire philosophy regarding generational relations upon this "self-evident" principle, it behooves us to examine closely the precise language employed to express the principle. Of most importance is the single word: usufruct.

The legal concept of usufruct can be traced back at least as far as ancient Roman law  and has changed little over the centuries. In Jefferson's time, as now, "usufruct" referred to "the right to make all the use and profit of a thing that can be made without injuring the substance of the thing itself." It was a term used to describe the rights and responsibilities of tenants, trustees, or other parties temporarily entrusted with the use of an asset -- usually land.

Under the common law, the doctrine of usufruct is closely conjoined with the doctrine prohibiting waste, defined by Blackstone as "a spoil or destruction in houses, gardens, trees, or other corporeal hereditaments, to the disheison of him that hath the remainder or reversion."  Taken together, these two doctrines provide that a tenant (or other caretaker / interest holder) is entitled to the beneficial use of the land and its fruits, but is prohibited from prejudicing future interest bearers by using the land in a way that destroys or impairs its essential character or long term productivity.

Jefferson's philosophy that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living at least partially reiterates the biblical/Lockean paradigm of the earth as intergenerational commons, the fruits and benefits of which should be accessible to every member of every generation.  He takes the position that no landholder has a natural right to control the land or dispose of it after his or her death. The land is entailed to the larger society; it reverts to the larger society upon the holder's death. Society may choose to pass the land on to beneficiaries or assignees chosen by the original landholder, but there is nothing in natural law which requires this. "By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or moveable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it."

Society, as trustee of the earth, reasonably expects the natural estate to be returned undiminished at the end of each landholder's tenure. Jefferson maintains that each individual, and each generation collectively, has the obligation to pass on his, her, or its natural estate undiminished and unencumbered to later generations:

    "... [N]o man can by natural right, oblige lands he occupied... to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead rather than the living, which would be the reverse of our principal. What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals."

For Jefferson, "eating up the usufruct" means extinguishing the next generation's ability to share equitably in the benefits of a natural resource. No individual or society has authority to cause such extinction, whatever personal or collective rights they may allege.

[EthanAllen]

Here is the piece on entail and primogeniture...Please see the reference to Paine's comment in "Agrarian Justice" as it relates to my proposal.

http://www.conlaw.org/Intergenerational-II-2-4.htm

except:

Generational Sovereignty and the Land – The Earth as Tenancy-in-Common - Thomas Jefferson's Usufruct and Entail

If the earth is truly viewed as an intergenerational commons, there are serious implications for the law governing estates and the descent of lands. Indeed, fervent debates were occurring in regards to estate law during the late 18th century. Those debates focused primarily on the institutions of entail and primogeniture.

The practice of entail was problematic from the perspective of intergenerational ethics. On the one hand, entail could be viewed as an archaic, feudal practice imposed by earlier generations, which violated later generations' sovereignty over the land. Entail and primogeniture imposed potentially perpetual restraints on the alienation of land, and could result in useful agricultural land being tied up indefinitely. The institution was therefore resented by progressives sympathetic to the free market economics being advocated by Adam Smith and others. In language quite suggestive to the modern ear, Smith suggested that:

    "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fullness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural."

On the other hand, entail was in some respects the quintessentially intergenerational institution; operating in tandem with the doctrine of waste, it compelled present landholders to respect the interests of future holders. The occupant of an entailed estate was expected to consume only the usufruct of the estate, to eschew waste, and to preserve the corpus intact and undamaged for later owners. It is this aspect of entail that Herbert Sloan has in mind when he describes Jefferson's intergenerational philosophy as "proposing a universal and perpetual entail."

Unfortunately, the benefits and protections of entail were reserved for those fortunate few who held future interests in the ancestral estates. In that sense, entail treated the earth more as an intergenerational gated community than as a intergenerational commons.

Whatever the shortcomings of the traditional entail system, is clear that the founders did not intend to abandon the principle of responsible land stewardship when they abandoned entail. The principles of stewardship were held in deep respect; the same figures who worked to abolish entail consistently used the language of waste and usufruct when explaining their intergenerational visions. But, probably due to a lack of foresight, the founders failed to develop new mechanisms for enforcing land stewardship when they dismantled the entail system.

Some of the founders were not satisfied with curtailing entail and primogeniture; they advocated more radical measures for rectifying the imbalance in access to the intergenerational commons. Paine argued that the poor had in effect been wrongfully ousted and excluded from their natural legacy for many generations. He maintained that no segment of the population ever possessed a right to the "monopoly of natural inheritance" and that, "a generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished." He therefore proposed that a "ground rent" be imposed upon all real property, to be collected at the time the property passed from one person to another at death, the monies to be placed into funds for each citizen when he or she reaches the age of 21, "as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property." By characterizing the charge as "ground-rent" rather than as an estate tax or property tax, Paine reinforced the idea that land ownership is not really ownership at all, but rather resembles a tenancy or trust relationship.

[EthanAllen]

I've never pretended to be a 'libertarian' like some of you liberals in disguise

Yet you are supporting probably the most viable, radically libertarian candidate to run for president since Barry Goldwater in '64 - who was also the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in '88.

... who is also neither a fascist, a socialist, a communist, nor a back-biting lying snake, a bald-faced liar... BUT does have an actual decent chance at winning the Republican nomination due to his principled record of *gasp* abiding by the oath he presumably swore to uphold the supreme law of our land, something which can likely only be said of persons numbering, at most, in the single digits out of all 600+ elected members of Congress...

... and the only candidate of the two-party system which stands out, is unique.

No disagreement from me. I was just pointing out Jane's apparent inconsistency in claiming she wasn't a "libertarian" and the work she does for the "libertarian" candidate.

[penguins4me]

I've never pretended to be a 'libertarian' like some of you liberals in disguise

Yet you are supporting probably the most viable, radically libertarian candidate to run for president since Barry Goldwater in '64 - who was also the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in '88.

... who is also neither a fascist, a socialist, a communist, nor a back-biting lying snake, a bald-faced liar... BUT does have an actual decent chance at winning the Republican nomination due to his principled record of *gasp* abiding by the oath he presumably swore to uphold the supreme law of our land, something which can likely only be said of persons numbering, at most, in the single digits out of all 600+ elected members of Congress...

... and the only candidate of the two-party system which stands out, is unique.

No disagreement from me. I was just pointing out Jane's apparent inconsistency in claiming she wasn't a "libertarian" and the work she does for the "libertarian" candidate.

First, Ron Paul is a Republican. Secondly, even if he's classified as "libertarian", I don't see any inconsistancy someone not in complete ideological agreement promoting essentially the ONLY presidential politician who isn't a complete douchebag.

[EthanAllen]

I think you can expand the usufruct principle to cover a 'collective' interest in ensuring that no individual, real or fictional, wastes the land through polluting or despoiling it, also.

I don't think it is necessary as I don't recognize any "joint rights" or the positive liberty that seems to natural flow. Do you acknowledge the difference between collective and common interest?

So, much of pollution problem is one of negative externalities. The neo-classical market system can not account for all of the costs at the point of sale and so they are externalized as a natural outcome of the 2 factor production and distribution system. The classical liberal 3 factor production and JUST distribution system can handle this though.

To prevent negative externalities (like global climate change) we have to restrict the use of the common assets (the sky as a carbon sink) to the sustainable yield (the use of the fruit) or Locke's proviso (enough and as good left in common for others). To internalize the costs we then have to require the selling of titles to use the common asset only up to the sustainable yield for any product that uses the sky as a carbon sink for individual sustenance.

The economic rent collected on the "carbon sink titles" has to be returned to all of the owners of the commons directly and equally.

[EthanAllen]

I've never pretended to be a 'libertarian' like some of you liberals in disguise

Yet you are supporting probably the most viable, radically libertarian candidate to run for president since Barry Goldwater in '64 - who was also the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in '88.

... who is also neither a fascist, a socialist, a communist, nor a back-biting lying snake, a bald-faced liar... BUT does have an actual decent chance at winning the Republican nomination due to his principled record of *gasp* abiding by the oath he presumably swore to uphold the supreme law of our land, something which can likely only be said of persons numbering, at most, in the single digits out of all 600+ elected members of Congress...

... and the only candidate of the two-party system which stands out, is unique.

No disagreement from me. I was just pointing out Jane's apparent inconsistency in claiming she wasn't a "libertarian" and the work she does for the "libertarian" candidate.

First, Ron Paul is a Republican. Secondly, even if he's classified as "libertarian", I don't see any inconsistancy someone not in complete ideological agreement promoting essentially the ONLY presidential politician who isn't a complete douchebag.

The modern conservative movement is made up of a libertarian wing and a traditional wing united in an interventionist foreign policy via the neo-cons (who use to be followers of the communist Trotsky). The "old right" was essentially the same wings but an anti-interventionist foreign policy.

The traditionalist wing's ideological fore fathers are Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver. Richard Weaver was a southern agrarian. Southern agrarians as traditionalists are very critical of the trappings modernity (northern industrial/state capitalism) and "paper" property (vs. productive property) because it destroys traditional families living within sustainable communities.

Ron Paul is 85% libertarian wing and 15% traditionalist wing while being 100% anti-interventionist. Jane has no apparent philosophical understanding of libertarianism. She is very much like "emotive" anarchists. They can describe what they are against but they can't articulate a logical argument based on first principles of what they are for and how to get there. Thus they are very susceptible to manipulation by purveyors of conspiracy theories.

[jsorens]

Now in a theoretical "free market" with "pure competition" and "perfect knowledge" you can't have any profits because price is driven to costs.

I keep noting that this statement is incorrect, but you keep blithely ignoring it. 

[Tom Sawyer]

He also keeps spouting the Labor Theory of Value ala Marx.

[error]

He also keeps spouting the Labor Theory of Value ala Marx.

People still believe that crap?

[EthanAllen]

He also keeps spouting the Labor Theory of Value ala Marx.

I believe in:

1. labor theory of ownership which is the basis of property rights as the natural extension of self-ownership.
2. a specific type of value theory from an obligation called privilege which creates law-based property rights.
3. a mutualist subjectivized labor theory of value via Carson.

The mutualist subjectivized labor theory of value holds that the price of a good tends to correspond to the subjective disutility of the labor needed to produce it. Thus believe that "profits" to capital are protected by privilege and that without privilege costs will be driven to price and labor would then get it's just due by receiving it's full product.  So exploitation of labor is the result of unequal exchange caused by the state

Marx's labor theory of value, where "surplus value" is expropriated from labor by the private ownership of capital and the resulting market/money system of trade is based on a confused understanding of the nature of profits, markets, economic interest and economic rent as it relates to privilege as generic "economic power" exploitation.

[EthanAllen]

Sometimes I'm reminded of a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Mormon debating Salvation.

Which of us is the Protestant, which is the Catholic, and which is the Mormon?

Well I would have to be the Catholic as I am also a proponent of "catholic distributism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

[CNHT]

No disagreement from me. I was just pointing out Jane's apparent inconsistency in claiming she wasn't a "libertarian" and the work she does for the "libertarian" candidate.

Why it is inconsistent? Can any two people be categorized within the paradigm of two or three categories or parties, and hold to the exact strict beliefs of any of them? This is purely impossible.

The candidate happens to be the person I think would MOST be likely to move us away from big government, and back toward constitutionalism. Apparently the gaggle of people who believe this are of all types when it comes to what they are registered (or not) as to vote.

I have heard detractors accuse him of being everything from a liberal hippie (just because he is against needless warfare) to a RINO (because he sought to take back money for his district that the government had taken from the people) to an extreme right-winger (because he would eradicate many of the government's current roles, is pro-life, and pro-gun).

It's unfortunate that we are asked to choose from only two parties. At the local and personal level, it seems most people identify with the one that best represents their ideas about how much government should be involved in their lives. At the very highest levels, it does not seem to matter, i.e. the "there's not a dimes worth of difference" theory.

As most well read people know that David Rockefeller, supposed republican, visited Bill Clinton in his college years and promised him the presidency then...

[CNHT]

First, Ron Paul is a Republican. Secondly, even if he's classified as "libertarian", I don't see any inconsistancy someone not in complete ideological agreement promoting essentially the ONLY presidential politician who isn't a complete douchebag.

Thanks Penguins. EA thinks I'm inconsistent as well as stupid. And the fact is, lucky for me, for once, I *am* just about in complete ideological agreement with him on every issue. And futhermore, everyone from what I have seen, has a different definition of what it means to be 'libertarian' so some would even argue that RP fits their description of it.

Once again, as I've said, labels do not serve us well even though people need them to vote, run for office, and function within our 'system'.

I don't see how they are so important to EA with regard to my support of RP...