Revolutionary Hope - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14844985
quetzalcoatl wrote:They are guilty of taking some kernel of truth that, properly limited, might have a explanatory power in a particular set of circumstances, and then trying to make it a universal theory. It clearly is not.

Who said it was?
Rent on money cannot be derived from rent on land.

That it could be is just some absurd strawman you have made up. What you call rent on money is actually rent on bank licenses, which empower private banks to issue money in order to charge interest on it. Unlike owning land, OWNING money does not enable any rent collection, ISSUING money does.
We even have rent on rent on money (in the form of derivatives, a multi-billion dollar market).

Derivatives are negative-sum gambling, not rent seeking.
Even if they could make these equivalencies stick, rent on land has no explanatory power over wages and unemployment, the factors that most affect people.

That's just flat false. Google "Law of Rent" and start reading. Wages are determined by the productivity of labor on marginal land. Everything above that is taken by the landowner in rent. Better yet, read "Progress and Poverty," and at least minimally inform yourself on the subject of how landowner rent collection causes unemployment. Hint: wealth taken and consumed by landowners in return for no contribution to production is wealth that is not available to pay workers for producing.

GET IT???
#14844990
The Immortal Goon wrote:Well, since you aren't going to argue your side and just blubber about how you think I secretly I agree with you, I suppose there's not much left to say :lol:

I have identified the relevant self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications. You have done nothing but sneer, name-call, and bloviate. That will not be changing.
#14845011
To get back to the OP and ignore TTP's ignorance of Marxist land reform policies:

A quick analysis of successful Latin American revolutions shows that a vast spectrum of people need to work together to pull it off. The peasants have to provide food for the rebels. The rebels have to shoot people. The doctors have to heal the rebels. Et cetera.

This then means that we have to give hope to a whole bunch of different groups of people, and these different groups have different motives and hope for different things. Each community has to be approached in its own context and on its own terms.

This will be difficult.
By Sivad
#14845053
Truth To Power wrote:That is just some absurd nonsense you made up. Geoism holds no such view, any more than abolitionists held the view that labor is an intolerable outrage. The abolitionists' view was that the slave owners' appropriation of their slaves' labor was the intolerable outrage, just as geoists hold the view that private landowners' appropriation of the publicly created rent of land is an intolerable outrage. The theft is the outrage, not the thing stolen.

See how that works?


You seem to be saying rent is just unearned value? That's not how economic rent is defined, at least not by any economic theory I've ever come across. According to most theories, geoism included, rent is the appropriation of unearned value. The whole point of geoism is to abolish rent by capturing that value and distributing it back to those who produced it(society).


The essential characteristic of rent is that it is obtained not by making a contribution, but by depriving others of access to economic opportunities that would otherwise have been accessible.


Exactly. So when some capitalist starts a factory that would otherwise have been started by the public, and hoards the bulk of the wealth that would otherwise have been shared by the workers and the public, that capitalist is extracting rent by depriving others of access to economic opportunities that would otherwise have been accessible.

You could say that by investing in the factory the capitalist has made a contribution which entitles them to that wealth, but the same could be said of the capitalist who invests in land or intellectual property. What's the difference?

If you claim the difference is that capital is reproducible so rent doesn't pertain to it then you're missing the point. We're not talking about capital, it's the system of capitalism that through state capture and mass manipulation of public opinion functions as a coercive monopoly over our economy. If rent is "income flow resulting from payments for restricted access to natural opportunities or for contrived privileges over geographic regions" then capitalism itself is nothing more than a system of rent extraction. In most sectors capitalism cannot compete with socialism so it has to "contrive privileges" and "restrict access" via force or corruption.
#14845063
Sivad wrote:What if they had the qualities but lacked the opportunity?

Everyone has had the same opportunity taken from them by privilege. Obviously some start with various advantages, but it is precisely the sorting out of the effects of such advantages that results in some owning factories and others not. Factory owners typically started out as workers. I have known enough of them both personally and professionally to know that it was their personal qualities that ultimately made them factory owners while other workers stayed workers.
I can point to real world examples of successful companies that are worker owned and operated, so it's definitely not a question of qualities but of opportunity.

No. The fact that some workers successfully own and operate some factories is not evidence that any worker could successfully own and operate any factory. Workers have different qualities, and so do factories.
Workers are capable of successfully owning and operating factories, it's a much better deal for them, so why aren't more workers doing this?

SOME workers can reach SOME of the low-hanging fruit. That doesn't mean ANY worker can reach ANY fruit. Few workers have the knowledge, intelligence, experience and industry to compete with the kind of worker who can rise to own a factory.
Why aren't all workers doing this? The answer is obvious, they're denied the opportunity by corrupt and duplicitous crony capitalists.

Nonsense. Everyone has had their liberty rights removed by privilege, and thus labors under the same handicap. Obviously some are born to privilege, and have the associated advantages, but they are also the ones most likely to be aware that owning factories does not get them anything but headaches. So they put their money into more privilege: land, banking, IP monopolies, etc. Not factories.
But the privilege holders did compete, they competed for the privilege.

<sigh> "Competing" to obtain an unjust advantage that enables one to avoid competing is not the same as competing. You might as well claim that football clubs are competing when they bribe officials.
By the logic of capitalism their investment of time, energy, and resources entitles them to the privilege, it doesn't matter that there are more equitable arrangements or more efficient means. The logic of capitalism is very simple - winners keepers, losers weepers.

I am not defending the "logic" of capitalism. I am pointing out that the "logic" of socialism shares the same basic premise: that land and capital are the same.
You're contradicting yourself.

No.
You began this post by stating "maybe"[the workers could start a social cooperative or democratically establish publicly owned industries], so which is it?

There's no reason to expect all workers to have the personal qualities of factory owners.
#14845065
Pants-of-dog wrote:To get back to the OP and ignore TTP's ignorance of Marxist land reform policies:

The policies aren't the point. Marxism gets the basic facts wrong, and thus can never succeed.
A quick analysis of successful Latin American revolutions shows that a vast spectrum of people need to work together to pull it off. The peasants have to provide food for the rebels. The rebels have to shoot people. The doctors have to heal the rebels. Et cetera.

How's that working for you in Venezuela, or any other socialist hell-hole?
This will be difficult.

It's nothing to the challenge of getting socialists and capitalists to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.
#14845386
The Immortal Goon wrote:Well, since you aren't going to argue your side

You are aware that I already argued my side, identifying the facts that prove I am correct. You, by contrast, have offered nothing but sneers, name-calling and bloviation. That will not be changing.
and just blubber

See? You and all other readers are aware that my posts bear no resemblance to blubbering.
about how you think I secretly I agree with you,

You are aware that the facts of objective physical reality prove I am correct and your beliefs are false and evil. That is why you are at such pains to contrive some way of not knowing those facts.
I suppose there's not much left to say :lol:

That would certainly match the not much you have said to date.
#14845389
Truth To Power wrote:The policies aren't the point. Marxism gets the basic facts wrong, and thus can never succeed.

How's that working for you in Venezuela, or any other socialist hell-hole?

It's nothing to the challenge of getting socialists and capitalists to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.


This post not only contians no argument whatsoever but also has nothing to do with what I posted.
#14845416
Sivad wrote:You seem to be saying rent is just unearned value?

It's unearned value obtained specifically by legally depriving others of opportunity they would otherwise have enjoyed.
That's not how economic rent is defined, at least not by any economic theory I've ever come across.

I am aware of the inadequacy of current definitions of rent to the task of clarifying economic relationships. Classical economics defines rent as the return to land, which does not include privilege rents, while neoclassical economics defines it as a return in excess of opportunity cost, which completely ignores the fact that factor returns are defined by how they are obtained, not how big they are. That is to prevent people from identifying the non-contributory nature of the landowner's participation in the economy.
According to most theories, geoism included, rent is the appropriation of unearned value.

No, it has to be a legal entitlement, and it has to be obtained by controlling others' access to economic opportunity.
The whole point of geoism is to abolish rent by capturing that value and distributing it back to those who produced it(society).

That's recovering rent, not abolishing it. Rent per se is a valuable allocation tool. It is a measure of economic advantage. The problem arises when people are deprived, without just compensation, of their liberty to use what they would otherwise be at liberty to use, and their lost liberty rights are made into others' private property, conferring on the latter a legal entitlement to extract for themselves the value of everyone else's liberty rights.
So when some capitalist starts a factory that would otherwise have been started by the public,

It wouldn't. The public had the same opportunity to build the factory that he did, and they didn't build it. He did. You are again arguing based on a hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy.
and hoards the bulk of the wealth that would otherwise have been shared by the workers and the public,

What an absurd and disingenuous load of garbage. He's producing wealth, not hoarding it, and he is doing nothing whatever to deprive the public or anyone else of their liberty to build a factory and produce wealth of their own.
that capitalist is extracting rent by depriving others of access to economic opportunities that would otherwise have been accessible.

How? How is he depriving anyone of any opportunity they would otherwise have? Unlike the landowner or other privilege holder, he has no legal power to do anything of the kind. You are just making up false and absurd garbage.
You could say that by investing in the factory the capitalist has made a contribution which entitles them to that wealth,

Yes, I could; and I do, because it is indisputably the truth.
but the same could be said of the capitalist who invests in land or intellectual property.

No, it most certainly and indisputably could not. The factory had to be built by its original owner, but land was already there, ready to use, with no help from the owner or any previous owner. So unlike the factory owner, the landowner has not added to production, only placed his pockets in a position to intercept a portion of it; and the IP monopolist has actually REDUCED production below what it would otherwise be.
What's the difference?

Your refusal to distinguish between making a contribution to production and taking a portion of production in return for no (or even a negative) contribution is what makes you a socialist.
If you claim the difference is that capital is reproducible so rent doesn't pertain to it then you're missing the point.

No, you are missing the point that capital is not merely "reproducible"; it has to BE PRODUCED, and it is its original owner who produces it.
We're not talking about capital,

I am, because that is the topic. You aren't, because you have to contrive some way to prevent yourself from knowing the indisputable facts of objective physical reality in order to preserve your false and evil beliefs.
it's the system of capitalism that through state capture and mass manipulation of public opinion functions as a coercive monopoly over our economy.

More false and disingenuous garbage. The landowner, bankster, IP monopolist, etc. -- but NOT the factory owner --have specific legal entitlements to benefit from coercion inflicted on others to deprive them of access to economic opportunity they would otherwise be at liberty to access. Claiming that it is "capitalism" that inflicts this coercion, and not their specific legal privileges, is just an attempt to pretend that the factory owner per se is also a beneficiary of such privileges when he is their victim just as much as the worker. Now, it is true that a successful factory owner is likely also to own such privileges; but that just means he is guilty of the same moral and intellectual crime socialists like you are most guilty of: not distinguishing between production and rent extraction.
If rent is "income flow resulting from payments for restricted access to natural opportunities or for contrived privileges over geographic regions" then capitalism itself is nothing more than a system of rent extraction.

Capitalism enables landowner rent extraction by definition. Modern finance capitalism also enables banksters and IP monopolists to extract rents. It DOESN'T enable FACTORY OWNERS to extract any rents.
In most sectors capitalism cannot compete with socialism so it has to "contrive privileges" and "restrict access" via force or corruption.

It is obviously socialism that can't compete with capitalism, and there is a very good reason for that: socialists' stealing of capital reduces the amount of capital available to production, but capitalists' stealing of land does not reduce the amount of land available to production.

GET IT???
By Sivad
#14845439
What an absurd and disingenuous load of garbage. He's producing wealth, not hoarding it, and he is doing nothing whatever to deprive the public or anyone else of their liberty to build a factory and produce wealth of their own.

In reality the capitalists are doing everything in their power to stack the deck and rig the system. Maybe in your theory capitalists aren't an organized political power ceaselessly waging class war, but here in KapitalIstan that's how they hold it down.

he has no legal power to do anything of the kind.


Legal or not he's got the power, and that's all that matters. I assure you that they're not getting hung up on legalities.

No, you are missing the point that capital is not merely "reproducible"; it has to BE PRODUCED, and it is its original owner who produces it.


Capital is developed from natural and cultural resources, it's not produced out of thin air. Land is also developed from natural and cultural resources, the only difference is land is in much shorter supply and greater demand.

you have to contrive some way to prevent yourself from knowing the indisputable facts of objective physical reality in order to preserve your false and evil beliefs.

Image
Doctrinal zealotry at its finest.
#14845690
Pants-of-dog wrote:This post not only contians no argument whatsoever but also has nothing to do with what I posted.

Your statement is factually incorrect on both counts, as readers can confirm for themselves.
#14845692
Truth To Power wrote:Your statement is factually incorrect on both counts, as readers can confirm for themselves.


This post also contains no argument whatsoever and also has nothing to do with what I posted.

My point is that revolutions are acts requiring the participation of many sectors of society.

Thus, creation of a will to revolt requires aligning the interests of these diverse groups.

Cuba is a good example of this.
#14845697
Sivad wrote:In reality the capitalists are doing everything in their power to stack the deck and rig the system.

As are socialists. It's human nature. We are political animals. The relevant point, which you are at such pains to evade, is that the FACTORY owner has NO POWER to deprive anyone of anything AS A FACTORY OWNER. The LANDOWNER and BANKSTER and IP MONOPOLIST DO.

GET IT???
Maybe in your theory capitalists aren't an organized political power ceaselessly waging class war, but here in KapitalIstan that's how they hold it down.

No, they do not. The PRIVILEGED wage class war by exercising and aggrandizing their PRIVILEGES, NOT by OWNING FACTORIES, because OWNING FACTORIES does not empower them to take without contributing commensurately in return. You are again just trying to pretend that owning a factory is like owning land, bank licenses, or IP monopolies, when I have already proved it is not.

GET IT???
Legal or not he's got the power, and that's all that matters.

No, he does not. He has no power to do anything but offer the worker an opportunity he would not otherwise have enjoyed.
I assure you that they're not getting hung up on legalities.

I assure you they are. When was the last time a factory owner in an advanced capitalist society hired gunmen to break a strike? See how easily I prove you objectively wrong?
Capital is developed from natural and cultural resources, it's not produced out of thin air.

Right: it is PRODUCED by the owner's LABOR.
Land is also developed from natural and cultural resources,

No, that claim is objectively false as a matter of physical fact. Land is already there without being developed, and is entirely independent of "cultural resources."
the only difference is land is in much shorter supply

See? You REFUSE TO KNOW the fact that capital is produced and land is not.

You REFUSE TO KNOW.

There is actually far more land than capital, and its aggregate value far exceeds that of capital.
and greater demand.

Demand for land comes from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides.
Doctrinal zealotry at its finest.

Fact.
Last edited by Truth To Power on 22 Sep 2017 20:00, edited 1 time in total.
#14845706
Pants-of-dog wrote:This post also contains no argument whatsoever and also has nothing to do with what I posted.

Blatantly false. It is a direct response to your silly and factually incorrect post.
My point is that revolutions are acts requiring the participation of many sectors of society.

Which is almost tautological.
#14845709
Truth To Power wrote:Blatantly false. It is a direct response to your silly and factually incorrect post.

Which is almost tautological.


This post also contains no argument whatsoever and also has nothing to do with what I posted.

Please explain what was factually incorrect about what I argued.
By Sivad
#14845727
You REFUSE TO KNOW the fact that capital is produced and land is not.


I'm not refusing to know, I really truly don't see the distinction? Land is developed for all sorts of purposes same as any other raw material. If it's not reproducibility then what is the difference between say developed farm land and the tractor used to work it? The tractor is made of what geoists mean by land(all materials, forces, and opportunities found in nature - not made by man), so do we all have a right to the material the tractor is made of?
#14845776
Sivad wrote:I'm not refusing to know, I really truly don't see the distinction?

Nonsense. Any normal six-year-old knows that land is not produced by labor, but factories are. It takes a deliberate effort of will to remove that knowledge from your brain. Watch how you do it:
Land is developed for all sorts of purposes same as any other raw material.

Land has to already be there, ready to use, before it can be "developed." So do other natural resources. And in fact, by definition they CANNOT be produced by labor. Factories are never already there unconditionally as land is. They always have to be produced by labor.
If it's not reproducibility then what is the difference between say developed farm land

See? You are refusing to know the facts by trying to change the subject. You are pretending that "land" means the improvements that humans have made to "developed farm land" by their labor.
and the tractor used to work it?

It's not "reproducibility" but tractors HAVING to be produced while land is UNABLE to be produced.
The tractor is made of what geoists mean by land(all materials, forces, and opportunities found in nature - not made by man),

No, it is made of products of labor. They USED TO BE land, but aren't any more. They were removed from nature by labor, and are thus no longer land. I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to identify that fact for you.
so do we all have a right to the material the tractor is made of?

We would all have equal liberty to use the natural resources the tractor was made of, if our liberty rights had not been removed by law and made the private property of landowners. You are now just refusing to know the fact that the materials the tractor is made of are no longer natural resources but products of human labor.
By Sivad
#14845785
Any normal six-year-old knows that land is not produced by labor


Most people at the age of six aren't aware of just how much engineering and intensive labor are involved in land development.

They USED TO BE land, but aren't any more. They were removed from nature by labor, and are thus no longer land.


So some land ceases to be land when it's developed into capital but other land is always just land even though it has also been developed into capital? Is that because one's been moved and the other is in a fixed location? Is it fixed location that makes the difference?

You are now just refusing to know the fact that the materials the tractor is made of are no longer natural resources but products of human labor.


I promise you that I'm not, I really just don't follow the logic here. It seems like you're invoking some sort of metaphysical principle but I'm not clear on what all it entails or what it's based on?
By Decky
#14845788
Any normal six-year-old knows that land is not produced by labor


Ask a Dutchman or someone from Norfolk.
#14846206
Sivad wrote:Most people at the age of six aren't aware of just how much engineering and intensive labor are involved in land development.

See? You again attempt to remove the relevant facts from your brain by pretending that the land did not exist before it was developed. Land cannot be developed unless it first exists. And it is its NATURAL qualities BEFORE it is developed that determine WHETHER it will be developed, and how. I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to explain that fact to you.
So some land ceases to be land when it's developed into capital but other land is always just land even though it has also been developed into capital?

Land that is still land has by definition not been developed into capital. The only kind of land that can be developed into capital is the kind that can be removed from nature and consequently ceases to exist as something nature provided. In general, there are three kinds of land (natural resources) in economics: those that can be removed from nature and are thus permanently depleted, such as mineral deposits; those that can be removed from nature but will recover naturally in a period of time that is not long relative to a human lifetime, such as naturally growing trees, soil fertility, wild fish stocks, river water, etc.; and those that cannot be removed from nature or depleted, but only temporarily occupied to the exclusion of others, such as locations on the earth's solid surface (which is what non-economists usually mean by, "land"), broadcast spectrum, solar radiation, etc.
Is that because one's been moved and the other is in a fixed location? Is it fixed location that makes the difference?

It is the fact that the location itself is immutably something provided by nature and not human labor that makes it immutably land, and never developable into capital.
I promise you that I'm not, I really just don't follow the logic here. It seems like you're invoking some sort of metaphysical principle but I'm not clear on what all it entails or what it's based on?

It's not metaphysical in the least. It's a plain, self-evident, indisputable fact of objective physical reality that materials removed from nature and made into capital no longer exist as something nature provided, but locations on the earth's solid surface cannot be removed from nature, and will always exist as something nature provided.

If you dig ore out of the ground and make it into a tool, which is then rightly your property, the ore is no longer there as something nature provided, so you need do nothing to prevent others from exercising their liberty to take advantage of the natural opportunity themselves. It's gone. There can be no right to something that ceased to exist in the past. But if you occupy a location on the earth's solid surface, that opportunity is still there, where nature put it, and others' liberty to use it must be removed by force, and constantly abrogated, if you are to have that location to yourself exclusively.

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