Are these mingy little beasts really the champions of the working class? - Page 18 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15067572
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *contradictory* again -- if 'the revolution had occurred several months earlier' (which it had), then the Bolshevik Russia was a *revolutionary* one,



Truth To Power wrote:
No, it was an evil socialist dictatorship with little popular support, installed by a violent coup and maintained thereafter by constant, brutal, sadistic violence.



ckaihatsu wrote:
and *not* a tsarist one, so there could not *be* a putsch / coup-d'etat, because there was no monarch to displace at that point.



Truth To Power wrote:
GARBAGE. The Bolshevik putsch/coup d'etat overthrew the popularly supported revolutionary Kerensky government, not the monarch. You are blatantly trying to rewrite history in predictable Orwellian Marxist fashion.



---


Donna wrote:
The Kerensky government was not popular, by the summer of 1917 industrial workers were again striking, soldiers and sailors were mutinying, and peasants were revolting. The driving material factors of the revolution was not an abstract desire for Western democracy and liberty, but the fact that Russia's backwardness, aggravated by a disastrous war policy (which Kerensky continued), was effectively starving the country to the bone.



Donna wrote:
The Provisional government was unpopular because they kept Russia in the war and regularly clashed with the soviets. The Bolsheviks were anti-war and supported soviet power. They had widespread support of the nation's industrial and naval bases in Petrograd as well as the landless peasantry. In the August 20 municipal elections, the Bolsheviks won a third of the vote and in September secured majorities in the Petrograd soviet and the Workers' Section of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, effectively becoming the will of the revolutionary masses of Russia.


Donna wrote:
[Starvation] would have probably occurred regardless what direction Russia had taken. Famine was a perpetual problem in Russia from the 1860s until the end of Stalin's premiership. As David Harvey or Jared Diamond would describe it, human geological development had become uneven, placing unnatural pressure on different ways of life and modes of production outside of the epicenter of capitalist development in Western Europe.
#15067574
ckaihatsu wrote:
TTP's counter-historical-progress, anti-socialist sentiment aside, what I'm seeing is that TTP has a solid *anti-aristocratic* line, as from the days of the American Revolution.



Truth To Power wrote:
I'm against privilege and injustice, not aristocracy (if understood as meritocracy).



You throw these terms around as though everyone would automatically be on-the-same-page as to their meanings.

By 'privilege' you mean the constrained definition of 'land-owners'.

You haven't addressed what you mean by 'injustice', specifically if this would apply to government enforcement of people's *civil rights* (especially when such conflicts with ownership's *property rights*).

If you're not against aristocracy, are you against monarchy? If you're not against *either*, then say bye-bye to your precious equity capital as a societal economic feature, because virtually all economics would be controlled by the nation-state, in a *feudalistic*-type economy. Trump would love to take us there.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
This is all well and good, but it's anarchronistic, of course, because society's production no longer comes from *land*, as it did during the times of feudalism,



Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: I guess that explains why land is now more expensive, in terms of labor, than it was during feudalism...



Land is generally overvalued because it's used as a place to park capital, along with other rentier-type assets like valuable art, gold, Bitcoin, offshore accounts, etc.

Land, as you've noted, is *non-productive* because it doesn't produce *commodities*, which is what capitalism is all about, combined with production technology and mass production techniques. Those who make money from farming under capitalism are *profiteers* since food is a necessary resource for all those who do wage-work within capitalism, to produce commodities.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
but in the present era it [production] comes from *industrial production*, a fact of the modern-day that TTP doesn't want to acknowledge.



Truth To Power wrote:
:lol: The fact that aggregate land value is now a large multiple of the aggregate value of all industrial production goods proves me right and you wrong with no further argumentation needed, or possible.



Now you're flip-flopping -- which *is* it, TTP: Is land value and function *overrated* and a yoke on liberty, or is it a valid 'multiple' on industrial production value?

Your line *has* been to laud *equity* value while denouncing *rentier* asset values, but now you're saying that land asset values somehow *contribute* to the capitalist commodity productive process.


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ingliz wrote:
The philosophical basis of Georgism is theft. Land is wealth and wealth is land. The private ownership of wealth is implicit in a free economy.



ckaihatsu wrote:
I *appreciate* this parody of TTP, because while TTP may want to 'modernize' the treatment of non-productive assets like land,



Truth To Power wrote:
All production requires land, and land is now more valuable than ever. HELLO???



Okay, flip-flopper -- now you're *touting* the capital function of land. For the record, is it still a yoke on liberty, or what? Do you want to start a Twitter feed to keep us updated on your minute-by-minute changes in policy positions?

I interpreted ingliz's statement as being parodical because you've been content to criticize land (rentier) ownership, presumably calling for land reform, while denying a similar, more-progressive 'factory reform' for the working class so that workers can actually *control* the machinery that they work on for the majority of their / our life-time.

Care to comment on the historical Enclosure Movement, to firm up your position, maybe -- ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure


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ckaihatsu wrote:
this same approach is *not* applied to what matters *today*, which is the means of mass industrial production, or 'production goods'.



Truth To Power wrote:
:knife: The value of land relative to production goods conclusively proves you wrong. CONCLUSIVELY. No dispute of that fact is possible.



Yup, you've now backed into a decidedly *feudalist* politics, where you're apologizing for *land ownership* -- say goodbye to equity-capital-based 'liberty' and hello to slavery, feudalist.
#15068129
Donna wrote:In other words, speculation.

Nope. Speculation is zero- or negative-sum. Companies produce wealth.
But not. The Provisional government was unpopular because they kept Russia in the war and regularly clashed with the soviets. The Bolsheviks were anti-war and supported soviet power.

IOW, its unpopularity was mainly due to Bolshevik propaganda and agitation.
They had widespread support of the nation's industrial and naval bases in Petrograd as well as the landless peasantry. In the August 20 municipal elections, the Bolsheviks won a third of the vote and in September secured majorities in the Petrograd soviet and the Workers' Section of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, effectively becoming the will of the revolutionary masses of Russia.

IOW, the Bolsheviks only had the support of a small minority of unscrupulous thugs and loudmouths dedicated to seizing power.
It would have probably occurred regardless what direction Russia had taken.

Garbage. It was directly caused by socialism.
Famine was a perpetual problem in Russia from the 1860s until the end of Stalin's premiership.

No it wasn't. The last significant one was more than 20 years before the war started.
As David Harvey or Jared Diamond would describe it, human geological development had become uneven, placing unnatural pressure on different ways of life and modes of production outside of the epicenter of capitalist development in Western Europe.

Russia had the fastest economic growth in Europe in the decade between the failed revolution of 1905 and the start of WW I in 1914.
#15068168
Truth To Power wrote:Nope. Speculation is zero- or negative-sum. Companies produce wealth.


The trading of securities on the secondary stock market is a form of speculation. You're making money on inefficiencies in market prices as opposed to actually investing in a company through corporate bonds or buying stock from primary or secondary offerings.

IOW, its unpopularity was mainly due to Bolshevik propaganda and agitation.


They were unpopular because of the war policy, which also prevented them from adequately dealing with food shortages.

IOW, the Bolsheviks only had the support of a small minority of unscrupulous thugs and loudmouths dedicated to seizing power.


They had a large popular support base among industrial workers and landless peasants. Both Lenin and Trotsky were charismatic orators who drew large crowds.

Garbage. It was directly caused by socialism.


What I mean is that collectivization of agriculture in Russia would have been necessary regardless of who was in power. It was the unfortunate legacy of the traditional peasant commune in Russia.

No it wasn't. The last significant one was more than 20 years before the war started.


Correct, I had misspoke, what I should have said is that famine conditions (i.e. food shortages) were a perpetual problem from the 1860s onward. Nonetheless, the 1891-92 famine was a turning point.

Russia had the fastest economic growth in Europe in the decade between the failed revolution of 1905 and the start of WW I in 1914.


It had 6% growth because the country was recovering from an economically devastating war with Japan. It's higher than average, but it's also normal for economies recovering from serious disturbances.
#15068180
ckaihatsu wrote:You throw these terms around as though everyone would automatically be on-the-same-page as to their meanings.

I do use some words more precisely than most people because I know how important it is to get definitions right.
By 'privilege' you mean the constrained definition of 'land-owners'.

No, privilege is any legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The most important privilege is landowning, but other important ones include bank licenses, IP monopolies, oil and mineral rights, broadcast spectrum allocations, etc.
You haven't addressed what you mean by 'injustice', specifically if this would apply to government enforcement of people's *civil rights* (especially when such conflicts with ownership's *property rights*).

Justice means rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations. I don't accept that there can be genuine conflict between genuine rights because we only have genuine rights to what we would have had if others did not deprive us of it -- mainly life, liberty, and property in the fruits of our labor. What capitalists call property rights are often privileges, not rights.
If you're not against aristocracy, are you against monarchy?

"Aristocracy" means, "rule by the best." Monarchy is just rule by one person who either took power by force or inherited it.
Land is generally overvalued because it's used as a place to park capital,

It's often overvalued because it is a source of unearned wealth.
along with other rentier-type assets like valuable art, gold, Bitcoin, offshore accounts, etc.

None of those are rentier assets because their value does not come from depriving others of access to economic opportunity that would otherwise be accessible.
Land, as you've noted, is *non-productive* because it doesn't produce *commodities*,

Land is necessary for production, but it is the passive, non-human element. It's not informative to call it non-productive, especially given that it is often described as productive.
which is what capitalism is all about, combined with production technology and mass production techniques.

Capitalism is all about ownership. Technology and mass production are incidental to it, just artifacts of a particular moment in history.
Those who make money from farming under capitalism are *profiteers* since food is a necessary resource for all those who do wage-work within capitalism, to produce commodities.

No. The fact that food is necessary to life does not make it a resource, nor alter the fact that it is a product of labor, and thus rightly the property of its producers (less the rent of the land).
Now you're flip-flopping

Don't be ridiculous.
-- which *is* it, TTP: Is land value and function *overrated* and a yoke on liberty,

It is UNDER-rated, and being DEPRIVED of it without just compensation is a yoke on liberty.
or is it a valid 'multiple' on industrial production value?

Its advantages definitely enhance industrial production.
Your line *has* been to laud *equity* value while denouncing *rentier* asset values, but now you're saying that land asset values somehow *contribute* to the capitalist commodity productive process.

It's not the asset value of the ownership privilege that contributes to production, it's the productive advantages land confers on its user, OWNERSHIP of which is capitalized as asset value. Try to understand the difference.
Okay, flip-flopper

I in no way changed my position. You just persist in your erroneous Marxist misinterpretations of the facts.
-- now you're *touting* the capital function of land.

What does "capital function" mean? Is it just more deceitful Marxist gibberish? The landowner's privilege of charging others for what land contributes to production is what gives the land value as an asset.
For the record, is it still a yoke on liberty, or what?

The privilege of privately owning it is.
Do you want to start a Twitter feed to keep us updated on your minute-by-minute changes in policy positions?

I am not responsible for your errors in understanding the facts I identify.
I interpreted ingliz's statement as being parodical because you've been content to criticize land (rentier) ownership, presumably calling for land reform, while denying a similar, more-progressive 'factory reform' for the working class so that workers can actually *control* the machinery that they work on for the majority of their / our life-time.

And both of you refuse to know the fact that the factory owner has no power to do anything but offer the worker access to economic opportunity that would not otherwise be accessible, while the landowner has only the power to DEPRIVE the worker of access to economic opportunity that WOULD otherwise be accessible.
Care to comment on the historical Enclosure Movement, to firm up your position, maybe -- ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

What's to comment on? The Enclosures removed people's liberty rights to use land, rights they had traditionally enjoyed, and gave those rights to landowners as their private property.
Yup, you've now backed into a decidedly *feudalist* politics,

Nope, you are just makin' $#!+ up again.
where you're apologizing for *land ownership* --

Where? Quote or retract.
say goodbye to equity-capital-based 'liberty' and hello to slavery, feudalist.

It's pointless to discuss anything with you if you are just going to make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me in order to avoid addressing what I have actually said.
#15068184
Pants-of-dog wrote:The history of the partition of Korea is significantly different enough from the history of US involvement in Cuba that the comparison fails when it comes to determining if Cubans are actually wanting a revolution and cannot have one.

Huh? Is that your way of admitting the error of your claim that the USA had not intervened in favor of right-wing governments in East Asia?
But if you want to show they are similar, go ahead.

You have been proved wrong and are consequently now trying to change the subject. Simple.
#15068190
Truth To Power wrote:Is that your way of admitting the error of your claim that the USA had not intervened in favor of right-wing governments in East Asia?


Sure.

And when we look at how the US intervened in Korea, we see that it never propped up a right wing government in North Korea, and there was never a popular uprising against a US puppet state where the US lost millions, and the US has not been trying to destabilize the N. Korean government.

So, in terms of deciding if there is a large group of people willing to rise up against the government and whether or not the USA would have tried to use this group to overthrow the government, the two situations are not comparable.
#15068213
Donna wrote:The trading of securities on the secondary stock market is a form of speculation.

No. Short-term trading in hopes of favorable price changes is speculation. Buying and holding stocks is not.
You're making money on inefficiencies in market prices as opposed to actually investing in a company through corporate bonds or buying stock from primary or secondary offerings.

No. The stock investor is providing capital to the company, however indirectly. He just pays the person who paid the person who paid the person..... who paid for the company's initial equipment, etc.
They were unpopular because of the war policy, which also prevented them from adequately dealing with food shortages.

Yes, well, the Germans paid Lenin to get Russia out of the war, even though Lenin did far more harm to Russia than the war had done to Germany.
They had a large popular support base among industrial workers and landless peasants.

But a modest minority among the entire population.
Both Lenin and Trotsky were charismatic orators who drew large crowds.

I.e., loudmouths.
What I mean is that collectivization of agriculture in Russia would have been necessary regardless of who was in power. It was the unfortunate legacy of the traditional peasant commune in Russia.

But that's false. They could have just charged landholders the market rent for the seized lands and immediately had a thriving farm sector productive enough to feed everyone. Russia had been a significant exporter of food before socialism and the collectivization of agriculture. Remember, after collectivization, the USSR relied on private plot farmers for its food supply, as private plots were almost an order of magnitude more productive per hectare than the collective farms.
Correct, I had misspoke, what I should have said is that famine conditions (i.e. food shortages) were a perpetual problem from the 1860s onward.

But famine conditions effectively did not occur between 1892 and 1914.
It had 6% growth because the country was recovering from an economically devastating war with Japan. It's higher than average, but it's also normal for economies recovering from serious disturbances.

No. Russia lost the war with Japan, but had not suffered much economically: Japan had not made any significant incursion into Russian territory or destroyed any significant economic assets.
#15068289
Truth To Power wrote:No. Short-term trading in hopes of favorable price changes is speculation. Buying and holding stocks is not.


Not really. It's just a long-term form of speculating. The financial products industry sells it as "investing", but unless you're buying corporate bonds or you're an investment bank buying stock offerings, you're not investing.

No. The stock investor is providing capital to the company, however indirectly. He just pays the person who paid the person who paid the person..... who paid for the company's initial equipment, etc.


No. When a retail trader purchases a security, they are not actually putting their money in that company, an investment bank already did that.

Yes, well, the Germans paid Lenin to get Russia out of the war, even though Lenin did far more harm to Russia than the war had done to Germany.


It makes very little sense that the Germans had to bribe Lenin to take Russia out of the war if you come to your senses and realize that Marxists and revolutionary socialists were highly critical of WWI and continuing the tsarist war policy went against everything they believed.

But a modest minority among the entire population.

I.e., loudmouths.


If you're claiming that the Bolsheviks themselves were a numerical minority in Russia, that is obvious. In 1917 they numbered 200,000 in an empire of 91 million. But that's fairly normal in modern political history, including the French and American revolutions. It's usually the case that revolutionists are a minority of déclassé intellectuals with some disaffected elements.

But that's false. They could have just charged landholders the market rent for the seized lands and immediately had a thriving farm sector productive enough to feed everyone. Russia had been a significant exporter of food before socialism and the collectivization of agriculture. Remember, after collectivization, the USSR relied on private plot farmers for its food supply, as private plots were almost an order of magnitude more productive per hectare than the collective farms.


That would have been impossible to implement in tsarist Russia due to the quit-rent levied against former serfs, which served a specific function in developing commercial agriculture since rural landowners also doubled as emerging agrarian capitalists. If a liberal-democratic government had tried to turn them into a disenfranchised subletting class they would have revolted just as the White Army did against the Bolsheviks. Plenty of people in 1917 knew it as well, that liberalism and parliamentarianism in Russia simply meant a continuation of tsarist bondage and feudal servitude.


But famine conditions effectively did not occur between 1892 and 1914.


The price of food was about 30% higher in the north during this period (at least from 1892 through 1913), reflecting an abatement of supply. So there were definitely food shortages occurring despite railway development closing in on that that gap:

Image

Comprehensive Russian price data can be traced back to the early eighteenth century. The difference between rye prices in the Northern Region (where St. Petersburg is located), the Central Non-Black Earth Region (where Moscow is now located) and the main agricultural Central Black Earth Region (CChZ) provide us with a striking indication of relative food scarcity in these regions over this period. In the eighteenth century rye prices in the north oscillated greatly from two to more than three times the level in the CChZ, but from the 1860s the level became more constant at about 50 per cent higher. Over the same period rye prices in the Northern Non-Black Earth Region (NChZ) varied at a much lower level, between 0 and 7 per cent above CChZ prices, and towards the end of this period they were fairly stable at about 30 per cent higher.

Famine in European History (Guido Alfani and Cormac Ó Gráda, University of Cambridge Press)


No. Russia lost the war with Japan, but had not suffered much economically: Japan had not made any significant incursion into Russian territory or destroyed any significant economic assets.


Incorrect. According to John Hite's Tsarist Russia, 1801-1917, the "background of peasant discontent increased as the government tax burden grew" as a result of the war, which would unsurprisingly play a role in Russia's 6% growth from the end of the war until the Revolution. R. Kowner in The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War (2006) stresses "the constraints of a large and colonial war", which was "costly in both human lives and material, aggravated social divisions, damaged agrarian economy, led to financial crisis, and enhanced political opposition to the autocratic regime."
#15068292
Truth To Power wrote:artifacts of a particular moment in history.

Copied and pasted from some mad Austrian school libertarian but he makes a valid point.

Feudalism disguised as egalitarianism.

Georgism mistakes society and government for being a single entity. Government is a product of society, it is not itself society. Since government is not society, rather a monopoly on force, how can a Georgist legitimately claim land belongs to society as a whole when their proposed system gives the title of landlord to the Government (a separate entity)?


And don't say this is an argument against socialism. We don't pretend to be acting for society as a whole. Ours is a government for the workers.


:)
#15068334
ckaihatsu wrote:
By 'privilege' you mean the constrained definition of 'land-owners'.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, privilege is any legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The most important privilege is landowning, but other important ones include bank licenses, IP monopolies, oil and mineral rights, broadcast spectrum allocations, etc.



You've been critical of rentier-capital-type property rights, but you still haven't proposed your own *alternative* for such -- how *should* privileged assets like land be divvied-up, if not through the real estate markets?

I've already shown that your status-quo-supporting, nationalist type is *dependent* on the bourgeois government apparatus for 'refereeing' among the private-ownership players, through my use of the immigration issue (capital is allowed to seek-out better markets around the globe, but *people* are not allowed to cross national borders to seek out better opportunities in the *job* markets).


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ckaihatsu wrote:
You haven't addressed what you mean by 'injustice', specifically if this would apply to government enforcement of people's *civil rights* (especially when such conflicts with ownership's *property rights*).



Truth To Power wrote:
Justice means rewards commensurate with contributions and penalties commensurate with deprivations. I don't accept that there can be genuine conflict between genuine rights because we only have genuine rights to what we would have had if others did not deprive us of it -- mainly life, liberty, and property in the fruits of our labor. What capitalists call property rights are often privileges, not rights.



And yet you've admitted that capitalism is dependent on the privatization and commodification of *land* (etc.), plus I don't hear any concrete proposals from you about any specific *land reforms*. You're more status-quo than anything else, your flashes of contrariness notwithstanding.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
If you're not against aristocracy, are you against monarchy?



Truth To Power wrote:
"Aristocracy" means, "rule by the best." Monarchy is just rule by one person who either took power by force or inherited it.



So you'd be perfectly content with the *opposite* of land reform, which is the *consolidation* of estates within a nobility-type class. It would be a reaction that would overturn the populist gains of the French Revolution.

As I said before, say goodbye to the gains of the American Revolution, to the use of equity capital for industrialized manufactures, and to 'liberty', since you're edging backwards towards feudalism and slavery.


ckaihatsu wrote:
If you're not against *either*, then say bye-bye to your precious equity capital as a societal economic feature, because virtually all economics would be controlled by the nation-state, in a *feudalistic*-type economy. Trump would love to take us there.



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ckaihatsu wrote:
Land is generally overvalued because it's used as a place to park capital,



Truth To Power wrote:
It's often overvalued because it is a source of unearned wealth.



Do you mean that you're critical of the non-productive financial gains made from rents and interest, as distinct from the commodity-producing gains made by equity capital, by exploiting labor power?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
along with other rentier-type assets like valuable art, gold, Bitcoin, offshore accounts, etc.



Truth To Power wrote:
None of those are rentier assets because their value does not come from depriving others of access to economic opportunity that would otherwise be accessible.



Of course they do -- a plot of land is discrete, just as a painting is. Gold is finite / limited in quantity, and in no case can two different owners own the exact same asset. (Think of the claims to the *returns* from such an asset -- rent / interest, and/or capital gains or profits can only go to one owner, for each discrete portion of asset-value, whatever that may happen to be.

You're just throwing out a dogmatic line without thinking it through.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Land, as you've noted, is *non-productive* because it doesn't produce *commodities*,



Truth To Power wrote:
Land is necessary for production, but it is the passive, non-human element. It's not informative to call it non-productive, especially given that it is often described as productive.



Hmmmm, you're continuing to be mostly *opaque* with your meanings -- do you agree, or not, that rentier-type assets like land are *non-productive* because they do not directly produce commodities (which are then bought-and-sold) ?

*Factories* are also non-human, yet they're considered to be *productive* capital since they / the machinery is directly used in the manufacture of goods-type commodities, through the exploitation of human labor power.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
which is what capitalism is all about, combined with production technology and mass production techniques.



Truth To Power wrote:
Capitalism is all about ownership. Technology and mass production are incidental to it, just artifacts of a particular moment in history.



Hmmmm, I don't think that this is the case. Consider the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, with the nascent use of water wheels in England -- tapping 'external' sources of power, beyond that of people and animals, is what *technologically* brought us out of feudalism, and made capital's total size much larger than it was within constrained, monarchical, gold-based nation-states in Europe.

Serfs were able to escape feudal estates, to towns (later cities), and the economic influence of traveling *merchants* grew tremendously, even rivalling kings and queens.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Those who make money from farming under capitalism are *profiteers* since food is a necessary resource for all those who do wage-work within capitalism, to produce commodities.



Truth To Power wrote:
No. The fact that food is necessary to life does not make it a resource, nor alter the fact that it is a product of labor, and thus rightly the property of its producers (less the rent of the land).



You're not understanding -- human society does *not require* capital for mere food-production -- that could be done with just serfdom / slavery, and *feudal* relations, as has already happened historically.

With equity capital, though, and industrialization, and food (etc.) for wage workers, all kinds of goods-and-services *commodities* can be produced, but to increase a workers' own costs -- for food, housing, etc. -- for making their / our labor available, is *profiteering*.

This is an excellent illustration of the existence of *class* relations under capitalism since the absence of a standard minimum wage, or 'living wage', again highlights this socially-backward 'profiteering' in addition to the regular, hour-by-hour *exploitation* of workers' labor power, in the commodity-production process.

Let me put it *this* way -- your repeatedly expressed concern has been with the economic costs of *rentier*-based assets, like that of land, to capital. Now think of the same *rentier*-based costs, but to the *worker* -- rent for human housing for those laborers, and interest payments made to *non-commodity-producing* wealth that just sits in banks, often covered by the nation-state by increased taxation and/or its increasing of the country's money supply.


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're flip-flopping --



Truth To Power wrote:
Don't be ridiculous.



ckaihatsu wrote:
which *is* it, TTP: Is land value and function *overrated* and a yoke on liberty,



Truth To Power wrote:
It is UNDER-rated, and being DEPRIVED of it without just compensation is a yoke on liberty.



ckaihatsu wrote:
or is it a valid 'multiple' on industrial production value?



Truth To Power wrote:
Its advantages definitely enhance industrial production.



Yes, you *are* flip-flopping, because just above, in this same post, you said:


Truth To Power wrote:
No, privilege is any legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. The most important privilege is landowning,



So you consider landowning to be a 'privilege', which is the 'legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation'.

You still haven't addressed my prior 'First Cause' argument, which is: Who is entitled to make the first claim of ownership over a previously unclaimed parcel of land, and for what reasons?

So your position on land ownership is *contradictory* -- either it's [1] a non-commodity-productive 'privilege', initially a land-grab, that deprives others of usage of the same land, or else [2] it is a capitalism-necessary 'enhancement' to industrial production that *deserves* rent-accumulating payments for its private usage.

Are you pro-land-capital, or anti-land-capital?


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ckaihatsu wrote:
Your line *has* been to laud *equity* value while denouncing *rentier* asset values, but now you're saying that land asset values somehow *contribute* to the capitalist commodity productive process.



Truth To Power wrote:
It's not the asset value of the ownership privilege that contributes to production, it's the productive advantages land confers on its user, OWNERSHIP of which is capitalized as asset value. Try to understand the difference.



You're again being contradictory -- is land / asset ownership to be defined in terms of asset value (exchange value), or isn't it?

Yes, I understand that there's *use value* that goes with land ownership, namely for hosting productive machinery (a factory), but if all that matters is this land-use-value (for hosting equity-type-capital-based values, productive goods) then why are you content to allow land to both be a 'privilege', *and* to also value it in terms of *exchange* value (asset value), like any other commodity?

I think you're actually running-up against the inherent contradiction between exchange values, and use values -- if land becomes a commodity sheerly for *speculation*, as it often does, then its counterpart *use value* is eclipsed, and the cost of hosting the factory (rent payments) becomes much greater, with no accompanying increase in actual productivity of the commodity goods and services that the factory produces.

Economically this is a *reactionary*, *backward* dynamic, on the trajectory towards feudalism, since the bourgeois politics of the day then defends this rentier faction of capital even though rentier capital / land is *non-commodity-productive*. Why should the commodity-productive portion of the economy have to endure greater productive costs to its *equity* capital, passed along to the consumer (for possibly life-necessary goods and services), when such costs are based on an asset, land, that doesn't directly add-into / increase / enhance the commodity-productive process?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, flip-flopper --



Truth To Power wrote:
I in no way changed my position. You just persist in your erroneous Marxist misinterpretations of the facts.



ckaihatsu wrote:
now you're *touting* the capital function of land.



Truth To Power wrote:
What does "capital function" mean? Is it just more deceitful Marxist gibberish? The landowner's privilege of charging others for what land contributes to production is what gives the land value as an asset.



Here's the crux of it, in this segment -- is society to consider rentier capital / land as actually being commodity-productive, or not?

Yes, the landowner charges rent for the land's use-value, but can that land really be termed 'materially productive', or not?

This isn't a groupthink-political term -- this is an objective, impartial material analysis that's either right or wrong. Is rentier capital / land actually materially productive, in the same way that the machinery of a factory is, or isn't it -- ?

The Marxist definition, of course, is that it's *not*, that the land does not contribute to the production of commodities -- and I walked through the example of land *speculation* in the prior segment, which is an illustration of capitalism's inherent contradiction between *exchange values* and *use values*.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
For the record, is it still a yoke on liberty, or what?



Truth To Power wrote:
The privilege of privately owning it is.



So, to confirm, you're saying that, yes, the privilege of privately owning land / rentier-capital, is a yoke on liberty?

(Because liquid capital cannot go to *both* of two destinations at once -- it cannot both go to rentier capital / land as a rent payment, *and* also go into equity stocks in the interests of making a return on that investment.)


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Do you want to start a Twitter feed to keep us updated on your minute-by-minute changes in policy positions?



Truth To Power wrote:
I am not responsible for your errors in understanding the facts I identify.



Uh-huh. Fun. You still need to clarify whether rentier capital / land is commodity-productive, or not.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I interpreted ingliz's statement as being parodical because you've been content to criticize land (rentier) ownership, presumably calling for land reform, while denying a similar, more-progressive 'factory reform' for the working class so that workers can actually *control* the machinery that they work on for the majority of their / our life-time.



Truth To Power wrote:
And both of you refuse to know the fact that the factory owner has no power to do anything but offer the worker access to economic opportunity that would not otherwise be accessible, while the landowner has only the power to DEPRIVE the worker of access to economic opportunity that WOULD otherwise be accessible.



I've already shown you to be *hypocritical* with this statement of yours, because you're content to allow *non*-free-markets when it comes to workers in the international job markets -- you favor your nationalist regulated *closed borders* over any 'free market' in the jobs market.

Sure, I already know that land rental itself does not confer any economic advantage to the worker -- you're making my argument *for* me that land / rentier capital is *not productive* because it is only a *cost* to either (equity) capital, to workers' inherent human needs for life and living, or both.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Care to comment on the historical Enclosure Movement, to firm up your position, maybe -- ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure



Truth To Power wrote:
What's to comment on? The Enclosures removed people's liberty rights to use land, rights they had traditionally enjoyed, and gave those rights to landowners as their private property.



Okay, so then, given this, where do you stand on the economic process / dynamic of *privatization*?

If some asset, like an oil extraction facility, happens to be *state-owned*, then should it remain that way, or should it be *privatized*?

Should *many more* assets be 'de-privatized' and returned to general, common usage, as through nationalization?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Yup, you've now backed into a decidedly *feudalist* politics,



Truth To Power wrote:
Nope, you are just makin' $#!+ up again.



ckaihatsu wrote:
where you're apologizing for *land ownership* --



Truth To Power wrote:
Where? Quote or retract.



Okay, from this same post:


Truth To Power wrote:
[Land value and function] is UNDER-rated, and being DEPRIVED of it without just compensation is a yoke on liberty.


Truth To Power wrote:
Its advantages definitely enhance industrial production.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
say goodbye to equity-capital-based 'liberty' and hello to slavery, feudalist.



Truth To Power wrote:
It's pointless to discuss anything with you if you are just going to make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me in order to avoid addressing what I have actually said.



Okay, just address the previous point, then.
#15068404
ingliz wrote:Copied and pasted from some mad Austrian school libertarian but he makes a valid point.

No, of course he doesn't. He's just dishonestly rationalizing privilege and justifying injustice. It's nothing but stupid, dishonest garbage, like all objections to justice in taxation and land tenure. Watch:
Feudalism disguised as egalitarianism.

That describes feudal "libertarianism" with its unconditional private property in land, not geoism.
Georgism mistakes society and government for being a single entity.

See? Your Austrian school friend is (surprise!) just flat-out lying. The whole premise of geoism is that government subsidies to landowning are against society's interests.
Government is a product of society,

More accurately, government is sometimes a product of society, like democratically accountable government, but is sometimes imposed on society by force, like Marxist/socialist dictatorship.
it is not itself society.

Which geoists know and never deny.
Since government is not society, rather a monopoly on force,

The "monopoly on force" notion is a distraction. Government is an institution that provides an organizing structure and (usually) better security of rights for the people of a given community than the Hobbesian war of all against all.
how can a Georgist legitimately claim land belongs to society as a whole

That's not the geoist claim. Land can never rightly become property, so all have equal rights to use it: the right to liberty, which our remote ancestors exercised for millions of years to survive. Government is needed to administer possession and use of land when the economy advances beyond the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages, and exclusive use of land is needed to secure the producer's right to property in fixed improvements. In that case, the alternative to government is force.
when their proposed system gives the title of landlord to the Government (a separate entity)?

No. Government would merely act as trustee, to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to use the land. Unlike a landlord, a trustee ADMINISTERS possession and use of assets in trust without being either the owner or the beneficiary of those assets. This has been explained many times. It is simply ignored because it refutes the objection.
And don't say this is an argument against socialism. We don't pretend to be acting for society as a whole.

I guess that explains the uniform destruction socialists visit on society...
Ours is a government for the workers.

For the commissars, you mean.
#15068413
SolarCross wrote:Somehow a thread about middle class ideological posers pretending to care about working class people has become a thread about Georgism. :hmm:

Getting beyond the phony conflict between capitalism and socialism is always going to end up being about their united refusal to know the difference between natural resources and products of labor.
@Truth To Power Did you do that? :lol:

Isn't it relevant to identify the only people who really are the champions of the working class -- and of everyone else but the most privileged?
#15068538
Truth To Power wrote:
Government is needed to administer possession and use of land when the economy advances beyond the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages, and exclusive use of land is needed to secure the producer's right to property in fixed improvements. In that case, the alternative to government is force.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. Government would merely act as trustee, to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to use the land. Unlike a landlord, a trustee ADMINISTERS possession and use of assets in trust without being either the owner or the beneficiary of those assets.



This is all idealism -- you seem to think that a trustee / government could be, and remain, perfectly impartial, over all partisan claims to land.

How would this land trustee government be *composed*? Would it be *voted in*? If so, then it would be susceptible to politicking and patronage. How much would it cost to *run* this kind of administration, and how would it be funded? What kind of powers would it have to curtail and even punish, if some participants became too imposing and aggressive, in relation to others?

TTP pushes a 'libertarian' idealism, without being able to follow-up on the details. It's dogmatic ideology and salesmanship, that's all.
#15068645
ckaihatsu wrote:This is all idealism

That is kinda the point. But it is based on indisputable empirical fact.
-- you seem to think that a trustee / government could be, and remain, perfectly impartial, over all partisan claims to land.

Garbage. We all know human institutions -- and especially human beings -- are imperfect. The point is to design policies and institutions that have the best chance of yielding the best attainable results. That would be mine.
How would this land trustee government be *composed*? Would it be *voted in*?

I definitely favor democratic accountability for public officials. But we are at the point where a lot of what I propose could be automated. Indeed, it won't be too many more decades before the world adopts my proposals anyway, because SAI will tell us it's the only way to avoid being outcompeted and left in the dust of societies that do it first.
If so, then it would be susceptible to politicking and patronage.

As Churchill observed: the worst system -- except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
How much would it cost to *run* this kind of administration, and how would it be funded?

Less than 1% of its revenue would be enough to operate it.
What kind of powers would it have to curtail and even punish, if some participants became too imposing and aggressive, in relation to others?

Common law nuisance provisions should be enough.
TTP pushes a 'libertarian' idealism, without being able to follow-up on the details.

You need to get straight on the basic facts first. Then we can talk about the details, which at the extreme are ultimately for lawyers to work out.
It's dogmatic ideology and salesmanship, that's all.

No. It is self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications.
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