Truth To Power wrote:
I prefer to be accurate, and distinguish value -- what a thing would trade for -- from utility -- its capacity to satisfy human desires.
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're acting like 'price' is synonymous with 'capacity to satisfy human desires',
Truth To Power wrote:
No, price is what something traded for. That's closer to value than utility.
I realized I misread your meaning previously.
But, *regardless*, you're trying to philosophically *validate* the practice of exchange values (the price that something is traded for), while exchange value ultimately takes a *backseat* to utility / use values -- sure, people can *pursue* exchange values, as with financial speculation, but ultimately what's an economy *for* -- ? It's to coordinate production and consumption, to provide *use values* in the form of commodities.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
and that's actually *not* what price represents -- it has to also represent the *additional* variable of *speculation*, which is the expectation by some that the price will keep going higher due to mass desire simply for a *higher price*, for the sake of making capital gains.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's just more asinine Marxist twaddle with no basis in fact.
My point about the speculative aspect remains, though, since you're merely *disparaging* it, but not actually arguing against it.
Whenever I make a point that you disagree with, all you do is facilely dismiss it by name-calling, but you're not actually addressing the point that I'm making.
I'm okay with just *debunking* and *discrediting* your specious, unfounded beliefs, but I also have to point out that you're not really making any counterarguments.
ckaihatsu wrote:
So 'price' is inherently overextended as an economic variable, and cannot be seen to be a simple measurement of demand for the commodity that's attached to it.
Truth To Power wrote:
Wrong again. Price is what a thing traded for. As such, it usually reflects supply as well as demand -- except in the case of land, whose supply is fixed, so its price (and value) are determined solely by demand.
As I just said, you're *ignoring* the fact that some people trade not for the use / utility of the underlying *commodity*, but instead for the 'price' / exchange-value itself, that is ownership for the sake of realizing *capital gains*. This is called *speculation*, and can wildly distort the price for the underlying commodity, since people keeping bidding-up the speculative pricing, just to then sell later for a financial profit (buy-low-sell-high), meaning that the resulting price clearly does *not* represent / reflect the value of the commodity in supply-and-demand terms.
(See the Wikipedia entry for historic Dutch tulip bulbs mania, or for subprime mortgages in the U.S. in 2008-2009.)
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
Right. That is what happens when the rent is available for private appropriation.
ckaihatsu wrote:
You mean 'when the *land* is available for private appropriation'.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, I mean its rent. In Hong Kong and China, the land is not available for private appropriation, but the leaseholder is able to appropriate substantial rent.
If the land itself is not available for private appropriation, then who, exactly, is the leaseholder?
You've touted *nationalization* as your preferred politics / reform, so then that would mean the *state* would be the owner and leaseholder, and would be able to collect rent payments from renters. Presumably / hopefully this would make renting more affordable, with the government only charging a nominal administrative *fee*, by displacing all private concerns and claims to ownership over all land parcels.
Is it *currently* the case that in Hong Kong and China this is what's going on? I did a little research on Hong Kong and could find no mention of anything that corroborates your claims here.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
But even if the real estate market gets *nationalized*, the same economics would be in place, namely that rental prices would vary over geography and would *fluctuate*, all without adding any value to the finished product, if a commodity-productive factory or other workplace happened to be leasing that plot of land.
Truth To Power wrote:
Nonsense. The rent is precisely the measure of how much the land adds to production. You seem to be utterly ignorant of Ricardo's Law of Rent, one of the most basic and well-established laws of economics.
*You're* the one who's incorrect, and you're not making your case -- you may want to *describe* how Ricardo's Law of Rent applies here, in actually being a (purported) input to the commodity-production process.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
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?
Truth To Power wrote:
If I understand what you are asking here, it shouldn't. Land rent is a cost, but it does not ADD to production costs because it is the cost of obtaining an economic advantage -- i.e., the cost of equivalently reducing other costs.
ckaihatsu wrote:
What exactly are these 'other costs' that you're mentioning?
Truth To Power wrote:
Transportation, for one. Also accessing public services and infrastructure, the material characteristics and resources necessary to production, etc.
You're sounding less and less like a libertarian now, since you're only seeing land from the perspective of land-ownership / asset management, and no longer from the perspective of equity capital, and commodity- / value-production.
(See the next segment.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
If the buyer uses that land for hosting *productive goods* (a factory), then that's money that's had to be paid before the factory can begin producing commodities for sale. It's a cost of production, but the land itself, as an asset, is not *itself* productive.
Truth To Power wrote:
Then why is the factory owner willing to pay so much for the land?
Why are you assuming that all parcels of land everywhere are expensive? Land, being a commodity, is subject to market forces, and may or may *not* be pricey. In the case of industrial-zoned parcels, the same applies, and you're also *sidestepping* my point which is that the cost of land-usage, whether purchased or rented, is a *cost* to equity capital because that money has to be paid out, as a prerequisite, and cannot then be used for investments (equity capital).
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ckaihatsu wrote:
(See the 'constant capital' section of the following graphic -- it shows that infrastructure like land rental, finance, and taxes are all *costs* to business, or equity capital.)
[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit
Truth To Power wrote:
Your graphics are nothing but cartoons of your own economic misunderstanding.
You're not-addressing any of the *content* -- you're merely being *disparaging*, which isn't a discussion.
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Truth To Power wrote:
That is why the private landowner's claim to the rent is superficially plausible: the land user doesn't really lose anything by paying the rent -- indeed he pays it willingly. The problem is that
1. the user (and everyone else) has been deprived of their liberty to use the land without just compensation so that the private landowner can get something for nothing; and
2. the land's value comes mainly from desirable public services and infrastructure paid for with other people's taxes.
I.e., the land user must pay for government twice so that the landowner can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being contradictory again --
Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am being accurate, as always.
(See the next segment.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
if the person or entity leasing the land is having to pay that rent, then that's a *cost* to their business (or personhood, for a worker). It *doesn't matter* if they like to pay rent or *don't* like to pay rent -- it's still a cost either way.
Truth To Power wrote:
It's a cost from the accounting perspective, but not from the economic perspective because it purchases equivalent advantages.
Again, if a production-goods owner didn't have to pay for land, they wouldn't, because perhaps the commodity-productive equipment could be located on the ocean, floating outside of any private-property boundaries. Or, as is now happening more often, an *apartment* or other inside-dwelling space could be used, as with racks of growing trays, to do limited-area *vertical*-farming / agriculture, instead of having to pay for sprawling outdoors acreage, for only one layer of plant-farming.
You're sidestepping *this* point, too -- you *know* that paying rent is a cost (money that can't then be put towards equity-type investments), but then you're *accepting* of this cost dynamic, even though rent payments clearly don't add into the commodity-production process. The cost of non-productive real estate is normally a *requirement*, and not an 'advantage' -- what, exactly, is it an 'advantage' *over*, and what's the less-desired alternative? (You're using 'advantage' as a euphemism for 'requirement'.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The private landowner, with the rentier capital in the form of that land, owns a business and that land-owning business will have costs associated with *it*, such as the upkeep of the land or grounds,
Truth To Power wrote:
Land does not require any upkeep.
I agree overall that rentier-type assets are a *drain* on the capitalist economy, yet they are a functionally necessary component to it, as you've acknowledged in the past.
Land, and all other rentier-type assets, does require *some* upkeep / costs, and especially if it's to be rented-out, for rent payments.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
or possibly also a building on those grounds,
Truth To Power wrote:
Providing improvements is utterly different from owning land. Why do you refuse to know that fact?
I'm *not* arguing in *favor* of rentier-type ownership. I *am* making certain empirical distinctions, though, and clarifying some details.
You're entirely too argumentative, almost to the point of being crudely contrarian. Your main thesis, that total real estate is *finite*, is not much of a point to make. If this one point sums up your whole politics, then your entire politics is weak and anachronistic, at best.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
but I agree that the private landowner is essentially getting something -- rent payments -- for nothing, which is just the simple ownership and maintenance of what's being rented.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, he's getting something for nothing because what he owns and rents out would otherwise have been available for free.
Don't you realize that the waves of genocide by European settlers (in the U.S., Caribbean, and Australia) led into settler land-grabs -- as from Israel these days -- and land speculation?
For someone who's so critical of land ownership your critique of the larger societal factors surrounding it -- like privatization, and the government upholding of it -- are severely lacking. It's like you stuck a knife into a history book and decided to make that found historical single-issue your whole politics, for whatever reason.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
On your point number 2, you're *wrong* --
Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am indisputably correct as a matter of objective physical fact.
Truth To Power wrote:
2. the land's value comes mainly from desirable public services and infrastructure paid for with other people's taxes.
I.e., the land user must pay for government twice so that the landowner can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing.
With this line / definition of yours you're ignoring the land's *use value* -- why would anyone even claim it in the first place unless they were desperate (use-value), were speculating on its exchange-value, or wanted to settle on it (use-value) -- ?
You're usually critical of landlordship -- with some contrarian-type flip-flopping -- and even seem to be advocating for renter's rights, but that's about the extent of your line.
Maybe you can enlighten me as to why you're bothering with your time and effort on this discussion board, on this thread.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
you're conflating the private sector with the public sector (government), and they are *not* related in the way that you're describing. They're apples-and-oranges in this context.
Truth To Power wrote:
How could I be conflating them if I am describing a relationship between them???
While I agree that the market mechanism / practice would be impossible without government enforcement of the same, I'm also maintaining that you're *conflating* the two because the markets are *not* the same as the government maintenance of the same. In other words the markets would want to operate whether or not government existed, and if government oversight *didn't* exist, the markets would continue to function, in some form, without government, due to *economic* / material dynamics.
You're locating the full value of land ownership as being government-derived, and this is simply *not* reality.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
They're apples-and-oranges in this context.
Truth To Power wrote:
And I described how they are related.
(See the previous segment.)
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The market value of any given rentier-type asset comes from supply-and-demand, after nationalist imperialist militarism has been used by the government to seize that land from some previous owner or resident, as we've seen happen in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, particularly.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, the rental value of land comes from demand alone, as the supply is fixed. The exchange value is just the market's estimate of how much the owner will be able to take from the community.
Now you're flip-flopping again, from a fully-government-derived definition of land value, to a fully-economic-based definition. You may want to reconsider and rephrase here.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
But not all land hosts productive goods (factories).
Truth To Power wrote:
Irrelevant. Land's rental value measures the economic advantage it gives the user.
You still haven't defined what the so-called 'advantage' is for the renter -- it's actually just an economic exchange, out of material necessity: The proletarian needs a home so that they can live their life when they're not working, and the investor needs a location for the factory or workplace that produces commodities, for profit on equity capital investments.
You're also erroneously indexing commodity pricing (land rent prices), with use-value, or *utility* -- the two are *not* any kind of correlation together, and land, and its derived rental pricing, is often *overvalued*, meaning that there's less discretionary money left over from wages for the worker, or less remaining capital available to devote to equity investments, for commodity production, for profit-making.
*You're* trying to make it sound as though more expensive rents equates to more pass-through value for the renter, and this is *not necessarily* the case, as for the purchase / leasing of *any* commodity.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
If a commodity-producing factory / workplace could exist somewhere *without* having to physically be on some plot of real estate / land -- as perhaps in outer space -- then it could function as it otherwise would, and would produce the commodities that it does.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, of course it couldn't.
Now you're just *opinionating* and you're not giving any *reasoning* or *evidence* for what you say.
The manufacturing process does *not* depend on any plot of land -- I've given the atypical examples of being *on the ocean*, or in *outer space*, which you haven't addressed or acknowledged. My point stands that the land itself is *non-productive*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The land itself, which is typically necessary due to gravity (actually electrostatic force), is physically *not necessary* for the commodity-productive process to take place.
Truth To Power wrote:
Yes, of course it is. Your claims are false and absurd.
No, you haven't acknowledged or addressed my argument, so my point stands that land itself is non-commodity-productive.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Therefore land -- and *all* rentier-type assets -- is *not* commodity-productive. It is not an input to commodity production.
Truth To Power wrote:
How many years did you have to study to make your brain capable of spewing such absurd nonsense?
You're *still* not providing any kind of argument -- you're just being disparaging. My point stands.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Again, it's not about the renter's *willingness* to pay rent, or not -- it's the *law* under bourgeois hegemony, which upholds private property rights.
Truth To Power wrote:
What on earth do you incorrectly imagine the tenant is paying for, and why?
As I stated previously in this post, it's a simple -- though compelled -- economic *exchange*, or purchase, of land-usage, for the payment of rent, whether by wage-earner or businessperson.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
A worker who needs a home to come home to, or a business that needs a location for its business, are *compelled* to pay rent if they can't own or mortgage that real estate outright.
Truth To Power wrote:
You do not even know the difference between a rental payment and economic rent.
They're *synonymous*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
And, again, not all land hosts productive goods, so any land -- as for housing, for example, is *definitely* non-productive --
Truth To Power wrote:
More absurdity. In what sense is housing not a product? In what sense does the location not aid in producing it?
These are two different things that you're conflating -- [1] whether or not some asset is an input to the commodity-production process, or not ('productive' or 'non-productive', respectively), and [2] whether something is a good and/or service, known as a 'commodity'.
Yes, housing is a product / commodity, but housing does not *produce* itself as a commodity -- the *production* of housing requires manufacturing *equipment*, basically a factory, and labor-power provided by wage workers. So housing is *non-productive* because it doesn't produce any commodities, but, since it's a commodity itself, it can be bought and sold, or rented.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
it does not serve as an input to any kind of commodity-producing process.
Truth To Power wrote:
Sorry, but I don't know how to communicate with whatever remnants of a human consciousness could utter such fatuous garbage.
Well, you're not communicating anyway, so it's not really any different from the way you are in general, from my side of things. Being facilely disparaging is *not* being part of any discussion.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
No, it isn't -- I'll repeat that if the actually-productive equipment could be located *without* requiring real estate, then it would still be as productive of commodities as if it *were* situated on land. Maybe it's a floating home office, somewhere on the ocean, or is a materials lab in a space station in low earth orbit.
Truth To Power wrote:
You are repeating a claim that was nonsensical the first time you said it. Neither age nor repetition has rendered it any less nonsensical.
Your trivial opinions hold no water around here -- you're still not addressing anything, so my point stands that land is non-productive.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
But, as I've just shown, land *isn't* an input to commodity-production. Commodity production *can* take place *without* land.
Truth To Power wrote:
You have shown no such thing. You have merely claimed it, and your claims are just false and absurd. You are a waste of my valuable time.
I've provided the examples of being situated, and producing commodities, on top of the ocean, or in outer space. You're just being dismissive without dealing with the issue.
Don't waste your time -- either discuss, or don't.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, and is land / rentier-capital a yoke on liberty because it privatizes portions of land, and is a cost to equity capital (and to wages) ?
Truth To Power wrote:
It's a yoke on liberty because it forcibly transfers people's liberty rights to the landowner in return for nothing.
But, in material terms, the landowner is going to argue with you -- they'll say 'Oh, well, I found it unused and I cleaned it up, so it's mine now and I can charge rent for its usage, and the government backs me up on it', or 'I fought off the indigenous people who were here so the land is mine now.'
What, exactly, are 'liberty rights', according to you?
(I'm for the complete *abolition* of all private property rights, as over the means of mass industrial production, or 'production goods'.)
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
(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.)
Truth To Power wrote:
THAT'S NOT THE REASON!!!
ckaihatsu wrote:
Yes, that *is* the reason, whether you agree with it or not.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, it is not.
Since land is a *rentier*-type asset, and is *not* equity-type capital, it is a *drain* on both wages, and on equity capital.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Take another look at that 'Business' graphic -- there are two types of costs to business / equity capital: constant capital, and variable capital.
Truth To Power wrote:
Your graphics are all wrong. Unlike you, I have actually studied and worked in business, and know how it works. There are fixed and variable costs, but costs are not capital.
Okay, so you *acknowledge* fixed and variable costs. I *never said* that 'costs are capital'. Costs are a *drain* on capital, specifically *equity* capital (and on wages).
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
No, you *haven't* been clear about whether rentier capital / land is commodity-productive, or not. Yes or no.
Truth To Power wrote:
"Commodity-productive" is Marxist gibberish. Land aids production as explained by the Law of Rent. Landowning does not. Most other rentier privileges have the effect of imposing a cost without any associated benefit, much like a thief taking wealth without contributing to production, just legally.
No, land does *not* serve as an input to commodity-production (what's being produced? -- commodities), because I provided the atypical examples of doing commodity-production on the *ocean*, or in *outer space*, neither of which requires *land*.
If you're going to be critical of 'rentier privileges' you need to expand that definition to include *land* as well, since land does *not* produce commodities -- like all other rentier-type assets.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
'Productive', in the context of capitalism, means that *commodities* are being produced. 'Commodity-productive' is a valid term, meaning the production of goods and/or services.
Truth To Power wrote:
Commodities are products with no brand value. Services always have brand value. If you mean productive, say productive and cut the Marxist bull$#!+.
No, branding is an add-on -- what *counts* is if something has *use value*. If someone is purchasing a product (a good and/or service), it means they're *using* it, possibly just as an asset, a holder of value.
Are products with no brand value still produced? Are they bought-and-sold? Do people *use* them after purchase? If so -- and they are -- then they're *commodities*, and they required *human labor* to be produced, the labor of which was *exploited* economically due to way that capitalism works.
Take this reality-check in stride -- it won't hurt for long, and you'll be better-off afterwards. Smile a little.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
If 'free markets' can only take place *within* national boundaries, then they're not really 'free' markets.
Truth To Power wrote:
Sure they are.
Are a country's borders the ends-of-the-world? What if someone wants to be free to trade *internationally*? What would you say to them?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
What if someone were to come along and say that they're for *international markets* -- ? What should we call *those* markets and trade ties, then? 'Freer' markets?
Truth To Power wrote:
That depends on how they are organized and constituted.
But aren't *international* markets 'freer' than *nation-constrained* / *non*-international markets?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
I don't have a strong position either way on that, though I think democratically accountable sovereign governments have a right to restrict immigration. Free markets can only apply within national borders, because they are reliant on government to secure the relevant property, liberty, and contract rights.
ckaihatsu wrote:
International markets have been around since -- probably -- the invention of paper money back in the 1400s, at least, and really took off in the 1500s with the first European exploratory, and later colonizing, voyages.
Truth To Power wrote:
No, they are much older than that, and the parties to such trade know they are subject to their own national regulations.
But capital, in the form of nationalist-bloc trade policies, is *unregulated* internationally, which is why the various countries (like the U.S. and China, for example) have to hammer-out explicit, detailed trade *policies*, like with the use of *tariffs* or not.
Do you support the bourgeois practice of co-national international trade and governance policies?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
It's a small step to say that these international markets exist for *jobs*, too -- employment -- and so the workers *seeking* those economic opportunities (which you've previously said you support) should have free-markets across any and all national boundaries, to find those economic opportunities.
Truth To Power wrote:
Maybe they should, but it's not the job of any sovereign nation to secure the rights of citizens of other nations.
'Maybe' they should -- ??
Which *is* it -- should workers be able to access international job markets, or shouldn't they?
Keep in mind that there are *international treaties* that *already* exist, that spell-out concrete policy on how foreign nationals are to be treated in a country that's foreign to them.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, here it is -- now you're being *contradictory*:
Truth To Power wrote:
Nope.
ckaihatsu wrote:
In other words, you're saying that the practice of private-property land ownership upholds *scarcity* because of the inherently limited-geography aspect of land / real estate.
Truth To Power wrote:
Land is not merely limited but fixed in supply, which has two crucial implications:
1. It would be available anyway, even if no landowner had ever existed; and
2. Appropriating it as private property deprives others of it.
So are you pro-private-property or anti-private-property?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
It's inherently *deflationary* / overvalued, and I happen to agree.
Truth To Power wrote:
Non sequitur.
You just said that land is limited / fixed in supply.
This has the accompanying economic implication of being inherently *deflationary*, or overvalued. I think it's a relevant observation, and it can be generalized to *all* rentier-type assets, which are *all* non-commodity-productive.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
But then you're *contradicting* that statement of yours by saying that land rental confers some kind of 'equivalent advantage', which we both know is *not true*.
Truth To Power wrote:
I know that it IS true. Why else would the user be willing to pay the rent?
People without the money to purchase or mortgage land outright are *compelled* to rent, if they are to use land regularly, as for housing or investments. This is the current social paradigm we all live in, called bourgeois hegemony.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Paying rent, either for housing or for a business site, is a *cost*, and it does *not* confer any 'liberty'-type advantage to make gains, as is done with *employment*, or *equity* capital, respectively.
Truth To Power wrote:
That's just false. The liberty advantage is the liberty to use the economic advantage of the location. That is what the Law of Rent means.
So by 'liberty' you mean 'the right to purchase or rent a commodity'. To participate in the economy, basically?
(You may want to explain your understanding of 'the Law of Rent' as it pertains here.)
Do you have any definition of the meaning of 'liberty' as it pertains to *finance*? Remember, you identified yourself as a 'libertarian' in the past.
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
You *know* that land itself (rentier capital) is *not* productive, as is crystal-clear with the example of housing.
Truth To Power wrote:
I know it's crystal clear that it IS productive: its productive contribution is measured by how much more a house is worth in a good urban location than an identical house out in the wilderness. How do you prevent yourself from knowing such facts?
You think that *capital gains* / finance is *productive*? If so, then how does that fluctuating price (of the land-asset, etc.) produce any new commodities, the way a factory / equity capital / wage labor does?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Then, how, in your way of thinking about all of this, is a society to objectively distinguish between those sectors of the economy which should remain *competitive* (privatized), and those which should *not* (state-controlled, as should be the case for natural resources and natural monopolies) ?
Truth To Power wrote:
Look up the definitions of "natural resources" and "natural monopoly." It's not rocket science.
Well, you've been opinionated / disparaging about *me* in your posts -- why not apply your opinions to the *issues*, like how a society could conceivably sort-out its definition of the private sector (competitiveness), versus its state sector (cooperation).
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
The state bureaucracy has a caste-like interest in taking over more 'turf', for regulatory control, though it's been losing ground in the real world to *private* interests for greater private accumulation and *less* state regulation over financial matters.
ckaihatsu wrote:
Your political viewpoint has *no authority*, or even a plan, for how to balance out the bourgeois-internal realms of private-versus-state --
Truth To Power wrote:
The authority is democratic legitimacy, and the balance is not difficult to achieve if you are willing to know facts (you're not).
Well, if you haven't noticed, democracy isn't doing so hot these days -- there's the rise of authoritarianism / fascism, in several countries, now, including the U.S. (Trump) -- if the *presidential* vote can be decided by the Supreme Court (Bush v. Gore, 2000 -- just saying), then where's the democracy?
And, more importantly, what's to *replace* the collapsing democracy, since it isn't really functioning, with the U.S. empire becoming more and more dependent on its own *militarism* / Bonapartism?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
in actuality the bourgeois state basically gets stuck with any sectors that *aren't* self-sustaining, or *can't* be, like transportation infrastructure, education, regulation, governance, etc.
Truth To Power wrote:
You are wrong again. They can be self-sustaining if the value they create is recovered to pay for them instead of being given away to landowners in return for nothing.
So are you implying / saying that all land / real estate should be nationalized?
---
ckaihatsu wrote:
Anywhere that *private* bourgeois interests *can* exploit and squeeze profits out, it does, looking more 'successful' than the dreary, stodgy state sector which has to play 'clean-up' in the aftermath of private-sector pillaging and fuck-fests.
Truth To Power wrote:
Because the greedy capitalists and stupid socialists who have run governments hate liberty and justice, and have always denied them to the people.
Hmmmm, you *do* sound like a liberal. The problem with liberals, like yourself, is that you inherently, almost *unconsciously*, think that the market mechanism, and currency pricing, are valid indicators of material *worth* / use value / social value.
Let me ask you: Do you think a country's currency values should be *stronger* or *weaker*, compared to the currency values of other countries?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You, being a libertarian / liberal, have *zero* way-forward out of this status-quo morass.
Truth To Power wrote:
I have explained the way forward and out. You just refuse to know facts.
No, you haven't. Are you pro-private-property or anti-private-property? Should all land be nationalized?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're being contradictory again because you've just called for *nationalization* (de-privatization) of anything that can't be handled through private-sector-type competition (markets).
Truth To Power wrote:
No, anything that doesn't benefit from private competition. The private sector can certainly handle natural resources and natural monopolies, as we have seen in capitalist economies. It just can't do so with as much benefit to the community as the public sector.
And you're pro-'community', right? So why aren't you calling outright for nationalization / de-privatization?
Regarding natural resources / natural monopolies, here's what you said previously:
Truth To Power wrote:
[Privatization] is probably a good idea where the benefits of competition are available, but has been widely applied where they are not, such as natural resources and natural monopolies.
So you're implicitly saying that natural resources and natural monopolies are not best-handled by private concerns -- and here you're emphasizing that:
Truth To Power wrote:
The private sector can certainly handle natural resources and natural monopolies, as we have seen in capitalist economies. It just can't do so with as much benefit to the community as the public sector.
So shouldn't the state nationalize all natural resources and natural monopolies, if 'the community' is to be benefitted the most?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The premise is that some oil extraction facility is *already* state-owned -- it's machinery that's stuck to *one location*, being the state equivalent of *real estate*. Yes, workers have already worked to *produce* that machinery, but it was done for the *state*, and not for private capital.
Truth To Power wrote:
The facility is still better handled by competing private interests with an accurate incentive to efficiency and excellence.
Then I disagree, because it's the 'community' that should be prioritized, rather than private interests. The oil extraction equipment at that one site is basically a 'natural monopoly', and the oil being extracted is *certainly* a natural monopoly, since it's necessarily localized to that one site, and everything is already under state control.
I'll remind that profits are a *cost* to funding, so the community would have to *pay* for that if the oil facility becomes privatized.
With *this* position you're sounding more like a *Republican* / autarkist / imperialist, and less like a liberal / libertarian.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
How should the resulting petroleum be handled economically / societally, if it's to be considered a natural resource / natural monopoly?
Truth To Power wrote:
The private extractors should bid for the exclusive right to extract it, and to pay the market rent (severance tax) for what they extract.
Pay 'market rent' to *whom*?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're sounding *biased* -- if oil happens to be nationalized in Venezuela, and also in Norway, Alaska, and other places, then *what's the difference*?
Truth To Power wrote:
<sigh> Venezuela nationalized the INDUSTRY, Alaska and Norway only nationalized the RESOURCE. You just refuse to know the difference.
You're being *contradictory* -- which is the priority for the economy, 'the community', or private ownership interests?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Either you have the political principle of de-privatizing *all* natural resources / land / rentier assets / natural monopolies, or you don't.
Truth To Power wrote:
Oil extraction is not a natural monopoly and can benefit from competition.
*Of course* oil extraction is a natural monopoly -- the oil is in a static location, in the ground, and the equipment basically is, too, since the costs of moving it elsewhere are considerable. The *labor* used to extract the petroleum is *not* a natural monopoly, since workers are disposable commodities to capital and can move around geographically, though I would argue for a living wage for them, *regardless* of the location, thus *making* them more like a collective 'natural monopoly', better nationalized and administered by the state, or, best of all by themselves, over proletarian-seized production goods.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
There are *multiple* errors going on here, with what you've said.
Truth To Power wrote:
No. There are indeed multiple errors, but they are all being made by you:
ckaihatsu wrote:
The *first* error is about land 'enhancing industrial production'. It *doesn't*, as I've described previously in this post -- commodity-production doesn't physically *require* land, it's just that it typically is *stuck* having to rent it.
Truth To Power wrote:
That is literally absurd. If production doesn't require land, why don't the producers just produce without using any land?
I just explained it here, and previously -- commodity-production can take place on the ocean, or in outer space, without being on any real estate. Of course, *conventionally*, it takes place on land because that's the bourgeois, and physical, norm, but all it takes is *one* example to show that it's not actually the land *itself* which is an input in any way to the production process, whether that's of goods or services (commodities).
I gave the example of indoors / vertical farming as being a method of agriculture without farmland, though real estate is still involved nonetheless.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
The *second* error / contradiction is with your stated *attitude* towards land, economically -- here you're saying that land is not landowning, yet you have no problem with private property / land being subject to market valuations, perhaps under nationalized administration. (This presumably encompasses *all* land, making the state the owner / controller of all land whether it's currently under private ownership or not.)
Truth To Power wrote:
That is gibberish. The state administers possession and use of land in any case. I just want it to do so in the interest and to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all its citizens, rather than only in the narrow financial interest of a greedy, privileged, parasitic elite.
Okay, so it increasingly sounds like you're calling for the nationalization of all land -- can you confirm this?
Would this nationalization of all land include oil-production facilities, and oil / mineral reserves, as well?
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Third, who should 'compensation' be paid to, exactly, for any given private-property -- or state -- ownership and control of such land?
Truth To Power wrote:
The compensation -- location subsidy repayment or LSR -- is paid by each exclusive land user TO the community that gives the land its value and secures his exclusive tenure, and by the community TO each individual citizen in the form of a uniform individual exemption or UIE (or second best, a citizens' dividend or UBI) to compensate for the loss of their liberty right to use the land.
So each parcel, or area, of land would be bound to a local 'community' -- ?
What would be the basis / criteria of membership for any given local community? Would its members be able to travel extensively and still remain 'community members'?
ckaihatsu wrote:
Here's what you've said about it previously:
ckaihatsu wrote:
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?
Truth To Power wrote:
No one can ever rightly claim ownership of land
Truth To Power wrote:
And....?
So each 'community' would *collectively* administer one or more areas of local-geography land, and any and all rentals of that land would subsequently pay for its initial communitizing purchase from the legacy private property owners.
Let me ask you this: Who, or what entities, will provide the *financing* for the initial purchase of land, to then be communitized, since it will take time for rental payments to be received, to reimburse the financing for that initial land purchase.
And, I'd be interested to know how the respective *boundaries* of these community-local areas will be determined. What if there are inter-community *disputes* over where each boundary line should be located?
At this point I'd like to quote from a recently produced political graphic illustration of mine:
'Scenario: Anarchy. Notice the absence of any generalized levels. If total local self-sufficiency were possible -- or even desirable -- this is what it would look like. It would overthrow capitalist commodity relations only to recreate the same thing all over again, at an intercommunal level.'
Emergent Central Planning
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ckaihatsu wrote:
(I still have to wait for your reply to see if you mean an *indigenous* 'community'.)
Truth To Power wrote:
Indigenous has nothing to do with it. Every citizen has an equal liberty right to use the land.
Okay, noted.
Can 'citizens' from one community go and use the land of a different, non-local community? What would the border policies conceivably be, from one community to the next? Would prospective renters of a local community receive preferential consideration for renting, compared to prospective renters from *outside* that local community?
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Truth To Power wrote:
while the landowner has only the power to DEPRIVE the worker of access to economic opportunity that WOULD otherwise be accessible.
ckaihatsu wrote:
I think I'm finally beginning to understand what you mean with this oft-repeated vague statement of yours -- since you think that land is an input to the commodity-production process of capitalism,
Truth To Power wrote:
It is a necessary input to all production.
No, it isn't. People can locate fully-commodity-productive facilities on the ocean, or in outer space, without the need or use of real estate.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
you think that the increasing fencing-off / ownership of land / real estate *decreases* the total global amount of value-availability to the proletarian, or worker.
Truth To Power wrote:
And I am correct in thinking that.
No, you're *incorrect* because you're erroneously conflating the interests of *private ownership*, with that of the proletarian, or worker.
These are different, *conflicting*, *class* interests -- whether 1% or 100% of the world's total land capacity was scarfed-up by private purchases, the workers would still have a need for *employment*, which is a different thing than *land ownership*.
Under feudalism workers / serfs / slaves would be stuck on individual *estates*, and would have to pay a portion of their crops to the landowner / nobility for the use of the land. Under *capitalism* the worker has *no* claim to the land or machinery, even if they spend their entire lives in the same profession, at the same kind of machinery / workplace.
The availability of assets, like land, to the worker, is *zero* -- the worker must retain a job, for a wage income from the work they do, for the sake of making rent payments for the rental / use of the land-commodity, as for housing. This is because the worker, typically / by-definition, has *no* private asset ownership, and only has their own ability to work, to sell as a commodity to the employer, which is then exploited for profit-making.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
But here's the thing -- land itself is *not* commodity-productive.
Truth To Power wrote:
Then why would anyone be willing to pay anything to use it?
It's out of *compulsion* -- there's no realistic *alternative* to renting housing, for the wage-worker / wage-slave.
The housing / land / rentier-asset itself will not produce the commodities that the worker needs for a decent, modern life and living -- it's *non-productive*, but it *is* a commodity that has to be paid for, for its temporary use, thanks to the prevailing social paradigm of bourgeois hegemony -- laws, physical violence, etc.
The same applies to equity capital, though obviously that capital is an available financial 'buffer' to its owner, for living needs, that is *not* enjoyed by the wage worker, who *has no* capital.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Sure, some people are still farmers (2% in the U.S.), and people could still conceivably do subsistence farming, given affordable land for such.
Truth To Power wrote:
Farming is a red herring. Land is needed for all types of production.
It's *not* a red herring, because farming, for food production, is an unavoidable *prerequisite* for the societal continuation of *wage-labor*, for the production of *commodities* (also done on land, in factories). Yes, farming is conventionally done on *land*, but, again, the land *itself* is non-productive because commodity-production could be done on the ocean, or in outer space, *without* the use of real estate. (Food-production, and other kinds of life-necessary goods, are not really *commodity*-production because they're simply *inputs* to the continuation of the workforce, going-forward -- by industry (food, housing, health care, education, transportation, etc.) they're 'natural monopolies' to commodity-production, and the artificial raising of prices for such is simply *profiteering* since those markets are *guaranteed*.
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Truth To Power wrote:
while the landowner has only the power to DEPRIVE the worker of access to economic opportunity that WOULD otherwise be accessible.
ckaihatsu wrote:
But what you're not realizing is that this ideology of yours is *anachronistic*, and is *not* liberty. No one should *have* to, much-less *want* to, live this way, stuck on a farm, at the mercy of the elements and supply vendors, and outside of modern city life.
Truth To Power wrote:
That is an absurd strawman. I haven't said, suggested or implied any such nonsense. Farming has nothing to do with the fact that all production requires land, and land rent is the measure of how much the land contributes to production.
Again, the worker *cannot afford* the purchase of land, as for owning one's own housing -- the worker has to *sell their labor power* to an employer, for a wage, so as to *rent* the use of land / living space, for housing.
Your ideological statement makes it sound like the carving-up of the world's land into private parcels somehow changes the worker's situation, when it *doesn't* -- the worker still has to find a *job*, for employment, for a wage, for the necessities of life and living, regardless of the overall land situation among private owners.
You put a lot of your faith / confidence in market pricing, and I vehemently *disagree* that rent prices accurately reflect real economic inputs into produced-commodity values, especially since land is altogether *non-productive*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
A typical worker these days is *not* looking for 'land opportunity', to make exchange value / money from *farming*.
Truth To Power wrote:
I didn't mention farming. You are just makin' $#!+ up again.
Okay, I'll rephrase -- a typical worker these days is *not* looking for 'land opportunity', for any kind of profit-making whatsoever, because the worker, by definition, *owns no capital*.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Modern life revolves around *wages* for the worker, which is typically found in *cities*, at regular office-type jobs. With sufficient wages workers these days can just *buy* their food, and can buy other, more leisurely, kinds of things as well.
Truth To Power wrote:
Because they live at a LOCATION that enables ACCESS to ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY.
GET IT??
Okay, farming aside, you're still making it sound like the determining variable is that of *land* for the worker. Land / housing is a *cost* / expense to the worker. It doesn't really matter that much exactly *where* they live, or *how far* they have to commute -- the point is that they have to *get* that job, and *get to* that workplace in the first place, for wages, for living.
So it's not about the land, or even the geographical *convenience*, as you're stating -- it's about the 'economic opportunity' of the *job itself*, wherever that job may be.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
Your entire libertarian ideology is *retro*, and not in a cool, hipster, cultural way, but in a backwards-material kind of way.
Truth To Power wrote:
Utter nonsense unrelated to anything I have said.
Okay, well, it takes a couple of rounds of messaging here to catch up with positions and meanings.
I now understand that you're for 'communitization', and I raised some issues with that, above.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You'll thank me later.
Truth To Power wrote:
The one thing I would thank you for is putting me on "Ignore" -- because you ignore what I say anyway, and just make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me.
Well, whatever. I think I'm finally getting you to describe your politics, so at least now I know what to focus on. Later.