Context for the Bailout - Confessions of a Monopolist

[BillKauffman]

So is this THE Bill Kaufman, or is this a reincarnation of FrankinRalph Chodorov-Borsodi? 

I tend to roughly agree with Jack. I don't know where you stand on things. I don't like labels, but I guess confused Tolstoyian communalist works as well as any other. 

Yes, THE real Bill Kauffman. Of Reason magazine, Sen. Patrick Moynihan, front porch anarchist/reactionary radical, Catholic Worker, Old Right libertarian, Yorker transcendentalist, and delirious localist fame.

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

[Caleb]

Well nice to meet you then.    I was teasing you a little, there is a troll on this forum (actually a very nice man in person, just gets a little weird on these forums) and he likes to sign up as famous left-libertarians to espouse Georgism.

As a sidenote, I'm not sure exactly where you think that we differ. I read Carson's article and agree with him entirely. My main thing is that I don't believe in trying to set up "systems" because I think that is too large of a task for people to wrap their minds around. It's one thing to understand something and to speak about it, but how do you go from here to there? I'll grant that that is half the battle. But what can a person do?  Because if there is no clearly conveyed path of getting from here to there, then we are just chit-chatting.

That's the appeal of Marx. He has a plan for getting from here to there (terrible as it is.)

[BillKauffman]

he likes to sign up as famous left-libertarians to espouse Georgism.

My understanding was that Tolstoy was a Georgist. Am I wrong?

Didn't Tolstoy translate George's books into Russian and didn't he write the forward to one of them for the Russian addition?

[Porcupine_in_MA]

Well nice to meet you then.    I was teasing you a little, there is a troll on this forum (actually a very nice man in person, just gets a little weird on these forums) and he likes to sign up as famous left-libertarians to espouse Georgism.

That's who I thought this was also.

[John Edward Mercier]

Your referencing consumption.
Which would mean the confusion of capital with debt.

Also might be making the assumption that the capital is external... meaning not derived from your stored labor.
For instance, you borrow my shovel and offer to pay 10% of the revenue derived to me. You dig a ditch one day and 'store' enough of your labor to purchase a shovel. You return my capital (shovel). Contract completed.

Who are you addressing this to?

Many left-libertarians operate under some type of "cost principle" or "cost the limit of price" analysis that leads to laborism not capitalism vs. "value the limit of price" maxim of neo-classical economics (Austrian).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)#The_.22cost_principle.22_or_.22cost_the_limit_of_price.22

Jack and I are probably broadly self-described as "left-libertarians". Caleb is a just a confused (lol) Tolstoyian communalist. Talk about dancing on the head of a pin!

Addressing Caleb's post above it.

Proudhon was a little confused... mutualism occurs concurrently with capitalism, but at arm's length rather than afar.
Example: my neighbor borrows my shovel. The reason no labor payment is incurred. The shovel is not isolated from me, so I have no loss of opportunity... I can just walk next door and recover it (this is where interest payments come into play). And I have expectation that the shovel, or its replacement, will be returned whole... not so with a economic capital investment occurs.
The reason for the free exchange is what we call social capital. Its the understanding that cooperation of equals has value... its a rather agrarian position, but I'm from a farming/forestry family.
At least Proudhon finally accepted the elasticity of labor... which is what causes the extraneous value associated with capitalism.

Jefferson? Ugh... how anyone could write the opening line to the Declaration of Independence while owning a slave plantation and be received as a highly acclaimed classic thinker is beyond me.

[Caleb]

he likes to sign up as famous left-libertarians to espouse Georgism.

My understanding was that Tolstoy was a Georgist. Am I wrong?

Didn't Tolstoy translate George's books into Russian and didn't he write the forward to one of them for the Russian addition?

I don't agree with everything Tolstoy said. It's not like Tolstoy was God in human form. My critique of Georgism, in a nutshell, is that it is designed to maintain the status quo. I think the ideas of mutualism (communism, communalism, left-libertarianism, whatever you want to call it, by any name), I think those ideas are too powerful to try to use for the goal of just tweaking the system a little. Everything has to change.

[Caleb]

Addressing Caleb's post above it.

You weren't addressing me, or at least if you were, you weren't addressing anything relevant to what I had said. First, I don't confuse debt with capital (mainly because I don't believe in the morality of being a creditor, I consider the concept of debt illegitimate. The only thing for a creditor to do with debt is to forgive it.)

My post above was just an analogy, nothing more. My point was that you can't say that a person can negotiate his labor when the fact remains that he has to take the terms offered by the employer or the penalty is death. No negotiations because the two people aren't negotiating on equal footing.  It would be similar to the situation if I claimed ownership of all the oxygen in the world, and told you that I would be willing to negotiate with you on the price of the oxygen...the fact that you are unable to breathe until the situation is resolved and I have all the time in the world makes the negotiations unequal. Granted, I won't die as quickly when I am denied access to the means of production, but I will just as assuredly die all the same unless I can produce.

[BillKauffman]

It would be similar to the situation if I claimed ownership of all the oxygen in the world, and told you that I would be willing to negotiate with you on the price of the oxygen...the fact that you are unable to breathe until the situation is resolved and I have all the time in the world makes the negotiations unequal. Granted, I won't die as quickly when I am denied access to the means of production, but I will just as assuredly die all the same unless I can produce.

Isn't that essential Tolystoy's - via George - critic of private land ownership?

If labor commands capital and not the reverse because it can negotiate on an equal footing without the state weighing in on the side of capitalists - then we would have "laborism" not capitalism. Agreed?

[Caleb]

yes. But I think Georgism takes this true idea, that land can't be owned, and says, "Wait a second! But we want to own land, how can we arrange things so as to make it acceptable to own land?" And the idea is that you pay people for the right to exclude them. I don't acknowledge a right to exclude, whether you pay or not. And how can you pay anyway? Who will you pay? Georgism says you pay those you exclude (or else some versions have you paying a land bank of some sort, with a guaranteed income coming from the land bank.)  Neither idea is right, because someone (like me for instance!  ) can throw a monkey wrench in the whole concept just by refusing to cooperate. If I don't participate in the land bank, you can't pay a land bank and expect that I will be excluded. You're only excluding those who have the agreement with the land bank. And if you try to deal with me directly, I could intentionally decide to use  your land and use the fact that you want to exclude everyone as a bargaining chip to extract an exorbitant fee from you in negotiations. Georgism thus either denies people's rights or else it rewards people making a nuisance of themselves.

I figure that we ought to just share the means of production, and have personal space as a sort of gentleman's agreement.

[Caleb]

It would be similar to the situation if I claimed ownership of all the oxygen in the world, and told you that I would be willing to negotiate with you on the price of the oxygen...the fact that you are unable to breathe until the situation is resolved and I have all the time in the world makes the negotiations unequal. Granted, I won't die as quickly when I am denied access to the means of production, but I will just as assuredly die all the same unless I can produce.

Isn't that essential Tolystoy's - via George - critic of private land ownership?

If labor commands capital and not the reverse because it can negotiate on an equal footing without the state weighing in on the side of capitalists - then we would have "laborism" not capitalism. Agreed?

Essentially agreed, yes. But then there's a school of thought that says that I ought not have to negotiate for what is my natural right. You've leveled the negotiating field, but haven't granted me my right.

[BillKauffman]

But I think Georgism takes this true idea, that land can't be owned, and says, "Wait a second! But we want to own land, how can we arrange things so as to make it acceptable to own land?"

Hmmm...Not my understanding. I believe it is just based on simple physics. Two people can't occupy the same location at the same time.

And the idea is that you pay people for the right to exclude them.

No, excluding them violates their self-ownership because it forces monetary costs (a natural phenomena) upon them which then compels them to labor.

I don't acknowledge a right to exclude

So you deny physics?

whether you pay or not.

The costs attaching to a location is a naturally occurring phenomena under scarcity conditions.

Georgism thus either denies people's rights

Their claim is exactly the opposite.

have personal space as a sort of gentleman's agreement.

That is essentially what common ownership amounts to. Have you ever been in a space that is owned in common? Everyone goes around saying "after you" and "please, allow me to get that door for you", etc. in the most gentlemanly and friendly terms to share with each other when one's exclusive use is potentially detrimental to another.

[BillKauffman]

It would be similar to the situation if I claimed ownership of all the oxygen in the world, and told you that I would be willing to negotiate with you on the price of the oxygen...the fact that you are unable to breathe until the situation is resolved and I have all the time in the world makes the negotiations unequal. Granted, I won't die as quickly when I am denied access to the means of production, but I will just as assuredly die all the same unless I can produce.

Isn't that essential Tolystoy's - via George - critic of private land ownership?

If labor commands capital and not the reverse because it can negotiate on an equal footing without the state weighing in on the side of capitalists - then we would have "laborism" not capitalism. Agreed?

Essentially agreed, yes. But then there's a school of thought that says that I ought not have to negotiate for what is my natural right. You've leveled the negotiating field, but haven't granted me my right.

Yes, your right of self-ownership is intact.

[Caleb]

By Mercier's logic that land ownership extends from labor rights, every breath I draw becomes perpetually mine.  Obviously that isn't the way it works, something is only available for use, not for permanent ownership. The air is mine while it's in my lungs and I'm using it, once I exhale it's not mine anymore.

Obviously the law of physics says that you take up the 2 square feet that you are standing on, and thus exclude me from that tiny little plot. But that isn't a "plot" in any sense of the word. That two square feet moves when you move, so there's no way of connecting it with traditional ideas of property rights. I can't see how that justifies you drawing a boundary line and claiming everything within that boundary line as your own right to develop in perpetuity to the exclusion of everyone else. Nor do I see how any amount of money that you might be willing to pay to anyone can give you that right. And if you don't have that right, you can't pass it on or give it to anyone else, or take it by act of legislature or any other means. It's not a right. I've seen a lot of land hanging around, but I've never observed the phenomenon of economic rent attaching to a piece of land. I snuck out late at night to watch the birds, hoping to catch them sharing economic rent, but it never happened. 

Yes, your right of self-ownership is intact.

And what, pray tell, can I do with my self-ownership? Jack squat without a habitat.

[Pat McCotter]

Why do people say there is a scarcity of land?

There are 6,706,993,152 people in the world

The US has 3,537,438 sq miles of land area.

Placing the world's population into the US gives a population density of about 2.96 people per acre or about 1/3 acre per person.

That leaves the rest of the world for food production and recreation.

Also, building higher density cities allows more open space.

The population density of Manhattan is about 110 people per acre. This would give us a little more than 4,100 Manhattans to build in the US to house everyone at the same density. This will give us 95,151 sq miles for cities and  3,442,287 sq miles of open space in the US.

By George, there is more than enough land to house and feed everybody! Let's get crackin'!

[BillKauffman]

By Mercier's logic that land ownership extends from labor rights, every breath I draw becomes perpetually mine.  Obviously that isn't the way it works, something is only available for use, not for permanent ownership. The air is mine while it's in my lungs and I'm using it, once I exhale it's not mine anymore.

Yes, the salient fact is that you have left "enough and as good (air) in common for others" (Locke's proviso). But you did not physically labor to produce the air.

there's no way of connecting it with traditional ideas of property rights.

Traditional property rights via Locke is "mixing one's labor" with the item in question - like you reference to breathing (laboring) so long as enclosure doesn't violate his proviso. In the past that has been extended to a certain area to work the ground (location) to provide sustenance for oneself via labor.

I can't see how that justifies you drawing a boundary line and claiming everything within that boundary line as your own right to develop in perpetuity to the exclusion of everyone else.

No problem if you do not economically harm anyone else by your enclosure.

I've seen a lot of land hanging around, but I've never observed the phenomenon of economic rent attaching to a piece of land. I snuck out late at night to watch the birds, hoping to catch them sharing economic rent, but it never happened.

It is there whether you acknowledge it or not but requires higher intelligence to understand the principles behind why it is a naturally occurring phenomena and how it's being forced upon those you exclude violates their self-ownership rights.

Birds that take beyond the sustainable yield of their habitat for sustenance "force" other birds away or they die.

And what, pray tell, can I do with my self-ownership? Jack squat without a habitat.

Exactly. Thanks for agreeing with me.