Are these mingy little beasts really the champions of the working class? - Page 33 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#15081375
QatzelOk wrote:Likewise, Lies-to-Power, 28:24 doesn't say "Don't think, just pray."

Strawman fallacy. I never said, "Don't think, just pray," was actually a verse in the Qu'ran. It's a highly compressed summary of an attitude expressed in many verses, such as the one I cited.
You're just trolling by misquoting a holy book

I don't accept that any book is holy, and I did not misquote it. I referenced a verse that I believe exemplifies the view I summarized as, "Don't think, just pray."
that you want people to believe is "evil" so you can convince them that all those millions of people that your country killed in the last two decades were "bad guys."

I'm not American, and strongly opposed US aggression in the Middle East -- but IMO it was foolish of Bush Sr. not to have deposed Saddam in Gulf War 1.
Killing bad guys belongs in the illiterate Middle Ages. And so do your lies about THE OTHER'S religious texts and what they mean.

The Faithful seem pretty sincere about taking what their book says literally, as survey research in Muslim countries confirms over and over again.
In English, the translation was in a more neutral language that reads like simple parables - much easier to grasp the fundamental ideas.

I agree the English is a chore to read and get any coherent understanding from, even worse than the KJV. I can't comment on the Arabic.
Shouldn't someone interested in politics be reading things like the Quran, Michel Foucault, Kapital, etc.?

Maybe for historical interest and context. But they are all three incoherent, anti-scientific trash of negative value for actual understanding of issues.
Or is it better to not read these books so other people can lie about what they say?

In all three cases it's difficult to discern what they say, and that is probably deliberate.
#15081504
Truth To Power wrote:
But I recall you claiming that was Stalinism.



You're mixing things up - - you may want to clarify what it is that you're referring to as being 'Stalinism'.


Truth To Power wrote:
Marxist woo-woo.



I'm saying that your political ideas simply *aren't relevant* anymore because we have been living in an *industrial* age, and that's what the Bolshevik Revolution (of 1917) addressed.


Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage unrelated to anything I wrote. I am not responsible for your refusal to know the fact that just as production and population have moved from rural to urban, so has land value.



The move from rural to urban happened with the rise of the power of the merchants, over sovereigns, around the 1600s, as I recall - - you're only referencing *geography*, and not how things are *produced* in society (working class, industrial implements, etc.).


Truth To Power wrote:
It is a religion, not a science.



You, sir, are *incorrect*. Just because you claim something doesn't make it so.


Truth To Power wrote:
Like I said: not a science.



Astrophysics and cosmology don't concern themselves with the individual, either, and yet they're definitely sciences.

What do you think about sociology, social psychology, anthropology, archeology, political science, and any other social science you can think of - - are you as dismissive of *all* social sciences as you are of Marxism?


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I have stated many times that I oppose capitalism, and that it is not meritocratic. It is merely -- faint praise -- better and more meritocratic than socialism.



If you do in fact oppose capitalism, would you be so kind as to elaborate on what kind of political economy you think should *replace* it?

Your latter statement here cannot be taken at face value since by 'socialism' you actually mean 'Stalinism', or so-called 'socialism-in-one-country', which *isn't* socialism since workers collective interests know no national boundaries.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I have stated many times that capitalism robs workers in several different important ways:
1. By making them pay private landowners for permission to use what nature provided for all;



Okay, this is your standing critique of *rentier*-type capital, but I expand 'privilege' to mean *any* private property ownership, with greater wealth indicating greater privilege.


Truth To Power wrote:
2. By taxing their production and consumption to fund subsidies for the privileged;



What do you think about bourgeois-provided *civil society* governance, like emergency medical, fire, and (arguably) public protection governmental services?

I'm not pro-state myself, but I *am* pro-public, and pro-civil-society, meaning appropriate universal civil rights for all on an egalitarian basis. (Which is not the reality, I know.)


Truth To Power wrote:
3. By denying them the opportunity to produce and benefit from desirable public services and infrastructure that could be provided to the community if their value were not all taken by private landowners;



Well, this is better - - instead of being knee-jerk argumentative, you're *finally* spelling-out your politics, to some degree. So are you for *nationalization* of the banking system? (Or are you only still talking about just *rentier*-type capital? How about nationalizing all offshore accounts, then? Nationalizing land?)


Truth To Power wrote:
4. By removing their liberty right and options to sustain themselves, thus placing them in a disadvantageous bargaining position vis-a-vis employers;



Oh, right - - you want everyone to be able to go back to subsistence farming, so that all communes / communities have to each be 'self-sufficient', including for cars and computers. Again, your politics are *anachronistic* in our modern mass-production industrial society.


Truth To Power wrote:
And under modern finance capitalism,

5. By making them pay interest to private bankers on the money supply they have to use to participate in the economy;



So how far does your anti-rentier-capital scope go? You're against renter capital for land and loans (interest). Anything else, or is insurance okay? What about *corporate* financing? Government bailouts (liquidity provisions, from public funds)?


Truth To Power wrote:
6. By making them pay IP monopolists for permission to use knowledge and ideas that would otherwise be in the public domain;
Etc.



You're not the type who calls for *upholding* patents, so as to provide 'incentive' for 'innovation'? Are you an anarchist?


Truth To Power wrote:
You again, like all socialists and capitalists, refuse to know the difference between ownership of what one CONTRIBUTES and ownership of others' RIGHTS.



Now you sound more like a *libertarian* / left-nationalist, who really, truly *believes* that capitalism can be *fixed*. If only workers got a fair shake, then we'd all be singing harmoniously while holding hands!


Truth To Power wrote:
It just ignores it.



You're lucky I'm in a good mood - - I just found the perfect article, and, better-yet, the perfect excerpt for you, from it. You can thank me later. (grin)




I Loved the Book So Much, Mummy

In 1891 in Gori, Georgia, a 13-year-old choirboy with dreams of becoming a priest, Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, was discovered by his mother at dawn, having stayed awake through the night reading Darwin’s Origin of Species.




https://evolutionnews.org/2018/05/karl- ... communism/



---


Truth To Power wrote:
I did not invoke social Darwinism, and you cannot accurately describe my interpretation of how evolution affects social science.



Yeah, you're basically touting social Darwinism, by applying a *biological* dynamic, to a *societal* context. Beyond this, no, I *can't* describe your interpretation because you haven't *given* one outside of social Darwinism, obscurantist.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, they should receive rewards commensurate with their contributions and pay costs commensurate with their deprivations of others because that is justice, which gets the incentives right.



Oh, the capitalist-perfectionist bit again - - so you're on the *justice* train, now, huh? And what kind of court would decide on *these* matters, exactly?

Btw, you're echoing the same Stalinistic morality that UM expressed over at the 'Civilization' thread - - that of linearly matched rewards-for-labor, irrespective of actual quantities produced. As with UM, you would rather see food rot and products stay warehoused and unused, than give up your totalitarian morality for all to abide by. (This is counterposed to *my* politics of a *communistic gift economy*, where people receive according to *human need*, and contribute labor for it on a strictly *voluntary*, uncoerced basis.)


Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: No, it self-evidently and indisputably hasn't. In what sense have people or the rich been receiving output according to their needs?? You are talking utter nonsense.



Well, think about it - - the rich can afford to buy whatever their little hearts desire, so whatever they happen to think are 'needs' - - whims - - can be immediately self-fulfilled, unlike for the rest of us. It's those who *must* work for a living (wages) who are the ones to *fulfill* those whims for the rich, like a global neo-feudalism, really.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I'm fully aware that Judaism (if we can believe the biblical accounts) and Christianity have been atrocious and barbaric. I'm singling out Islam only because it is still barbaric.



Well, this is politically problematic because you *are* singling out a specific type of monotheism, instead of indicting *all* of monotheism for being monotheistic / hierarchical.


Truth To Power wrote:
Yes it is.



No, I disagree - - Marxism deals with *society*, so it is a *social science*. It cannot use statistical data in ready-set formulas to make hard predictions the way the 'hard' / objective sciences can.

These days, for example, we've even seen *popular voting majorities* overturned (in the U.S.) due to official procedural means, or even the Supreme Court stepping-in in the 2000 election. What statistical analysis or A.I. could have predicted *those*?


Truth To Power wrote:
But Marxism -- like capitalism -- fundamentally misinterprets class by ignoring the difference between owning one's own contributions and owning others' rights.



Your repeated raising of this distinction between one's own labor-power, and intellectual property (rentier-type assets under capitalism), is an *example* of the class divide. You're making it *sound* like an objection but you're actually making a Marxist argument *for* me.


Truth To Power wrote:
I haven't advocated eugenics or social Darwinism, just scientific realism.



You've conflated Darwin's evolutionary *biological* model, with a societal genetic selection of social roles, like that of nationalist political leadership, so, yes, you *have* touted a form of eugenics / social Darwinism, which is *not* scientific realism.


Truth To Power wrote:
That IS the fixed, idealist component: economic determinism. And it is anti-scientific claptrap.



You were just touting an idealist 'human nature', and now you're backpedaling and saying that it's *economics* that determines societal development. You're looking increasingly awkward, as though this is all new to you and you're trying to catch-up on the material without looking foolish. It's not working.

It's the *class struggle* that determines how, and if, society moves forward / historically-progressively, going-forward.

Here's that diagram of mine that I mentioned earlier:


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Image


I'll pick up the rest of the post later.
Truth To Power wrote:
But I recall you claiming that was Stalinism.



You're mixing things up - - you may want to clarify what it is that you're referring to as being 'Stalinism'.


Truth To Power wrote:
Marxist woo-woo.



I'm saying that your political ideas simply *aren't relevant* anymore because we have been living in an *industrial* age, and that's what the Bolshevik Revolution (of 1917) addressed.


Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage unrelated to anything I wrote. I am not responsible for your refusal to know the fact that just as production and population have moved from rural to urban, so has land value.



The move from rural to urban happened with the rise of the power of the merchants, over sovereigns, around the 1600s, as I recall - - you're only referencing *geography*, and not how things are *produced* in society (working class, industrial implements, etc.).


Truth To Power wrote:
It is a religion, not a science.



You, sir, are *incorrect*. Just because you claim something doesn't make it so.


Truth To Power wrote:
Like I said: not a science.



Astrophysics and cosmology don't concern themselves with the individual, either, and yet they're definitely sciences.

What do you think about sociology, social psychology, anthropology, archeology, political science, and any other social science you can think of - - are you as dismissive of *all* social sciences as you are of Marxism?


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I have stated many times that I oppose capitalism, and that it is not meritocratic. It is merely -- faint praise -- better and more meritocratic than socialism.



If you do in fact oppose capitalism, would you be so kind as to elaborate on what kind of political economy you think should *replace* it?

Your latter statement here cannot be taken at face value since by 'socialism' you actually mean 'Stalinism', or so-called 'socialism-in-one-country', which *isn't* socialism since workers collective interests know no national boundaries.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I have stated many times that capitalism robs workers in several different important ways:
1. By making them pay private landowners for permission to use what nature provided for all;



Okay, this is your standing critique of *rentier*-type capital, but I expand 'privilege' to mean *any* private property ownership, with greater wealth indicating greater privilege.


Truth To Power wrote:
2. By taxing their production and consumption to fund subsidies for the privileged;



What do you think about bourgeois-provided *civil society* governance, like emergency medical, fire, and (arguably) public protection governmental services?

I'm not pro-state myself, but I *am* pro-public, and pro-civil-society, meaning appropriate universal civil rights for all on an egalitarian basis. (Which is not the reality, I know.)


Truth To Power wrote:
3. By denying them the opportunity to produce and benefit from desirable public services and infrastructure that could be provided to the community if their value were not all taken by private landowners;



Well, this is better - - instead of being knee-jerk argumentative, you're *finally* spelling-out your politics, to some degree. So are you for *nationalization* of the banking system? (Or are you only still talking about just *rentier*-type capital? How about nationalizing all offshore accounts, then? Nationalizing land?)


Truth To Power wrote:
4. By removing their liberty right and options to sustain themselves, thus placing them in a disadvantageous bargaining position vis-a-vis employers;



Oh, right - - you want everyone to be able to go back to subsistence farming, so that all communes / communities have to each be 'self-sufficient', including for cars and computers. Again, your politics are *anachronistic* in our modern mass-production industrial society.


Truth To Power wrote:
And under modern finance capitalism,

5. By making them pay interest to private bankers on the money supply they have to use to participate in the economy;



So how far does your anti-rentier-capital scope go? You're against renter capital for land and loans (interest). Anything else, or is insurance okay? What about *corporate* financing? Government bailouts (liquidity provisions, from public funds)?


Truth To Power wrote:
6. By making them pay IP monopolists for permission to use knowledge and ideas that would otherwise be in the public domain;
Etc.



You're not the type who calls for *upholding* patents, so as to provide 'incentive' for 'innovation'? Are you an anarchist?


Truth To Power wrote:
You again, like all socialists and capitalists, refuse to know the difference between ownership of what one CONTRIBUTES and ownership of others' RIGHTS.



Now you sound more like a *libertarian* / left-nationalist, who really, truly *believes* that capitalism can be *fixed*. If only workers got a fair shake, then we'd all be singing harmoniously while holding hands!


Truth To Power wrote:
It just ignores it.



You're lucky I'm in a good mood - - I just found the perfect article, and, better-yet, the perfect excerpt for you, from it. You can thank me later. (grin)




I Loved the Book So Much, Mummy

In 1891 in Gori, Georgia, a 13-year-old choirboy with dreams of becoming a priest, Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, was discovered by his mother at dawn, having stayed awake through the night reading Darwin’s Origin of Species.




https://evolutionnews.org/2018/05/karl- ... communism/



---


Truth To Power wrote:
I did not invoke social Darwinism, and you cannot accurately describe my interpretation of how evolution affects social science.



Yeah, you're basically touting social Darwinism, by applying a *biological* dynamic, to a *societal* context. Beyond this, no, I *can't* describe your interpretation because you haven't *given* one outside of social Darwinism, obscurantist.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, they should receive rewards commensurate with their contributions and pay costs commensurate with their deprivations of others because that is justice, which gets the incentives right.



Oh, the capitalist-perfectionist bit again - - so you're on the *justice* train, now, huh? And what kind of court would decide on *these* matters, exactly?

Btw, you're echoing the same Stalinistic morality that UM expressed over at the 'Civilization' thread - - that of linearly matched rewards-for-labor, irrespective of actual quantities produced. As with UM, you would rather see food rot and products stay warehoused and unused, than give up your totalitarian morality for all to abide by. (This is counterposed to *my* politics of a *communistic gift economy*, where people receive according to *human need*, and contribute labor for it on a strictly *voluntary*, uncoerced basis.)


Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: No, it self-evidently and indisputably hasn't. In what sense have people or the rich been receiving output according to their needs?? You are talking utter nonsense.



Well, think about it - - the rich can afford to buy whatever their little hearts desire, so whatever they happen to think are 'needs' - - whims - - can be immediately self-fulfilled, unlike for the rest of us. It's those who *must* work for a living (wages) who are the ones to *fulfill* those whims for the rich, like a global neo-feudalism, really.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I'm fully aware that Judaism (if we can believe the biblical accounts) and Christianity have been atrocious and barbaric. I'm singling out Islam only because it is still barbaric.



Well, this is politically problematic because you *are* singling out a specific type of monotheism, instead of indicting *all* of monotheism for being monotheistic / hierarchical.


Truth To Power wrote:
Yes it is.



No, I disagree - - Marxism deals with *society*, so it is a *social science*. It cannot use statistical data in ready-set formulas to make hard predictions the way the 'hard' / objective sciences can.

These days, for example, we've even seen *popular voting majorities* overturned (in the U.S.) due to official procedural means, or even the Supreme Court stepping-in in the 2000 election. What statistical analysis or A.I. could have predicted *those*?


Truth To Power wrote:
But Marxism -- like capitalism -- fundamentally misinterprets class by ignoring the difference between owning one's own contributions and owning others' rights.



Your repeated raising of this distinction between one's own labor-power, and intellectual property (rentier-type assets under capitalism), is an *example* of the class divide. You're making it *sound* like an objection but you're actually making a Marxist argument *for* me.


Truth To Power wrote:
I haven't advocated eugenics or social Darwinism, just scientific realism.



You've conflated Darwin's evolutionary *biological* model, with a societal genetic selection of social roles, like that of nationalist political leadership, so, yes, you *have* touted a form of eugenics / social Darwinism, which is *not* scientific realism.


Truth To Power wrote:
That IS the fixed, idealist component: economic determinism. And it is anti-scientific claptrap.



You were just touting an idealist 'human nature', and now you're backpedaling and saying that it's *economics* that determines societal development. You're looking increasingly awkward, as though this is all new to you and you're trying to catch-up on the material without looking foolish. It's not working.

It's the *class struggle* that determines how, and if, society moves forward / historically-progressively, going-forward.

Here's that diagram of mine that I mentioned earlier:


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle

Image


I'll pick up the rest of the post later.
#15081672
Truth To Power wrote:
Yes it does, just in a very complex way that we can't expect fully to understand.



The article I found covers this topic:




But the truth is that economic thinking that claims to be based on evolutionary science goes back decades before that.

In the preface to Capital in 1864, Karl Marx heralded his own ideas as presenting “the development of the economic formation of society as a process in natural history.” In his oration at Marx’s funeral in London’s Highgate Cemetery, Engels gave the ultimate compliment: “As Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.” That was March 17, 1883.

Communism has deeper Darwinian roots than many of us realize. In fact, even though Marx had already begun sketching the outlines of his ideas before Darwin published the Origin of Species — the Communist Manifesto appeared in 1848, the Origin in 1859 — he is fairly called a Darwinist. 




Hitler and Stalin alike sought to create a new race of supermen. Where did they both happen to get this idea? From Darwinian theory, in the broad sense, of course.

To understand why this is so, we need to go back to the origins of Communist philosophy. Communists from the very beginning were attracted to Darwinism because, as Engels remarked in a letter to Marx, it eliminated “teleology” from the story of life’s history. That is, it obviated the need for understanding life’s development as having been directed by a transcendent personal being outside nature, and it opened the way to understanding history as being directed by impersonal forces of the kind envisioned by Marx. In 1861, on reading the Origin of Species, Marx exulted: “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the crude English method of development, of course.”




Arendt wrote of Darwin and Marx, “If one considers, not the actual achievement, but the basic philosophies of both men, it turns out that ultimately the movement of history and the movement of nature are one and the same.”




https://evolutionnews.org/2018/05/karl- ... communism/



For the record, I *don't* share Arendt's parallelization of natural history with social history. This treatment / approach to social history is far too vague, since the component parameters for such are *not* defined in any kind of way that parallels genetics, for natural selection.

Sure, we all get the sense that not all ideas and practices prevail through to the future, but no one - - in my understanding - - has suggested any kind of 'framework' for how history unfolds, except for my own 'History: Macro-Micro' framework in my previous post.


Truth To Power wrote:
Its tendencies and limiting parameters are determined by the genetic make-up of its members, not how production is organized. That fact is fundamental to any genuine empirical science of society.



So you *are* admitting to subscribing to a kind of 'biological determinism', which, by the way, *contradicts* your position in the next segment:


Truth To Power wrote:
And one that I have not advocated. [social Darwinism]



But you do support / subscribe-to / advocate some kind of *biological determinism*, for society and social history.


Truth To Power wrote:
It determines people's potential, and a large part of their personalities, attitudes and choices. Google "University of Minnesota Twins Study" and start reading.



Yes, I'm familiar with the study - - so you're basically in the same boat with the rest of us regarding the 'nature-nurture' issue. It's some *mix* of the two, but, regarding social institutions like political power (hierarchy), such is *not* genetically / biologically determined.


Truth To Power wrote:
It sets the limits of how one can develop. Obviously there are also environmental factors.



(Okay - - see the previous.)


Truth To Power wrote:
We know there is a large genetic component in personality, including intelligence, extroversion, narcissism, conscientiousness, emotional resilience, agreeableness and openness, and that people at the tops of hierarchies tend to be intelligent, extroverted, conscientious, emotionally resilient, narcissistic, and disagreeable.


Truth To Power wrote:
As with other gifted military commanders, genetics gave him exceptional intelligence, charisma, creativity, emotional resilience, conscientiousness and narcissism.



Trick question. Napoleon was a *counterrevolutionary*, and his *politics* are really what matter.


Truth To Power wrote:
That capitalism would turn into socialism, and socialism into communism.



Yeah, just give it a little time now - - not much longer.... (Looking at watch.)


Truth To Power wrote:
But Marxism gets that completely wrong, and merely misinterprets historical events to make them fit the Marxist narrative.



Hmmm, you're showing that you don't understand.

Class society has not always been around - - human society has overwhelmingly been hunter-gatherer for the bulk of its history. But with the rise of agriculture 10,000 years ago, society started to produce a *surplus*, and that agricultural surplus allowed *some* to not have to work to secure their sustenance on a daily basis. Those who take from society's production without having to contribute their own work for it are *privileged* in an elitist way, and tend to be ruling-class, as well as also *ideologically* / philosophically on the side of the ruling class as well.

So while this *is* a 'narrative', it's mostly a description of existing *societal dynamics*, similarly to what sociology - - another social science - - does. Marxism deals with *political economy*, meaning the mixture of politics and material economics (the 'what' and the 'how', roughly speaking).


Truth To Power wrote:
No, Marxism misidentified class by associating it with ownership rather than privilege.



You only critique non-productive, *rentier*-type capital ('privilege'), like land ownership, while ignoring that *equity* capital is only able to increase its overall exchange-value due to its economic *exploitation* of (wage-labor) workers. *All* capital ownership is *privileged* because its owners are not compelled to have to sell their labor for a wage, for the material necessities of life and living.


Truth To Power wrote:
Genuine, empirical social science would have predictive power. Marxism doesn't.



No, this contention of yours is incorrect, and you're obviously unfamiliar with the social sciences.


Truth To Power wrote:
You are just pushing a false dichotomy fallacy. Both personal gifts and Enlightenment ideals were necessary to Jefferson's election and successful leadership.



What's the false dichotomy that I'm supposedly making?

If you think that genetics plays a role in social historical events and developments, then you still haven't made a case for this or explained it at all.

You're better-off on this track where you're looking at social-historical *material* factors for your historical analyses.


Truth To Power wrote:
Nonsense. They couldn't have done much if they hadn't been sincere.



This is where you're missing-out on *larger* social factors - - political dynamics are very much about in-group and out-group, so what matters more than sincerity in politics is *positioning*. Many regular Germans *affiliated* with the Nazis at the time because that was the prevailing hegemonic social force then, just as Trump is today, and he certainly has his personal-cult adherents.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, they went along because they were afraid they would be physically attacked if they defied them.



Okay, that, too, and I agree - - fear of being physically attacked has nothing to do with 'sincerity', either. It's *political*.


Truth To Power wrote:
But few would have guessed in 1930 that Germany's ruling class had such ideas -- because they didn't. They supported the Nazis only because they assumed it would be an expedient way to get rid of the communists, not because they believed Hitler's nonsense.



Okay, now you've got it - - you haven't mentioned biology or genetics even *once* here. A historical analysis has to take *social* factors into account to be appropriate, not biological ones.
#15081825
Truth To Power wrote:No. That claim is based on deliberate mistranslation. The word in question is "fitna," which is disingenuously rendered as "oppression" or "persecution," when in this context it actually refers to open, defiant profession of non-Muslim beliefs in the presence of Muslims.


Interpretation of religious verses often involves personal flavouring. The Koran, as I am frequently informed, seems to allow a wide variety of interpretations even for dogmatic texts. Therefore, it is easy for any two individuals to see the same text in different context, and accuse each other for mistranslation / misinterpretation.

Although I agree that the quoted text can be an accurate description for militaristic Muslims' thoughts.
#15082021
Patrickov wrote:Interpretation of religious verses often involves personal flavouring. The Koran, as I am frequently informed, seems to allow a wide variety of interpretations even for dogmatic texts. Therefore, it is easy for any two individuals to see the same text in different context, and accuse each other for mistranslation / misinterpretation.

True. The Arabic Qu'ran is apparently very poetic, and that makes translation more difficult. I looked at several English translations of the Qu'ran before settling on the one (by Abdullah Yusuf Ali) that to me was most readable. Some of them seemed to be trying to be very literal, and I just couldn't make head or tail of them.
Although I agree that the quoted text can be an accurate description for militaristic Muslims' thoughts.

We also, unlike with the Christian or Judaic texts, have fairly well attested historical accounts of Mohammed's own behavior, which IMO can fairly be characterized as atrocious.
#15082033
This is super long, so I can only hit the important points.
ckaihatsu wrote:I'm saying that your political ideas simply *aren't relevant* anymore because we have been living in an *industrial* age, and that's what the Bolshevik Revolution (of 1917) addressed.

My political ideas are incomparably more relevant than Marx's because they are based on facts, not absurd fantasies and misinformation.
The move from rural to urban happened with the rise of the power of the merchants, over sovereigns, around the 1600s, as I recall

No it didn't. It happened in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- - you're only referencing *geography*, and not how things are *produced* in society (working class, industrial implements, etc.).

Wrong again. The move from rural to urban was about nothing but how things are produced.
Astrophysics and cosmology don't concern themselves with the individual, either, and yet they're definitely sciences.

Huh? They aren't about people at all! Social science is.
What do you think about sociology, social psychology, anthropology, archeology, political science, and any other social science you can think of - - are you as dismissive of *all* social sciences as you are of Marxism?

They are mostly junk, especially to the extent that they have been contaminated with Marxist ideation, as economics has.
If you do in fact oppose capitalism, would you be so kind as to elaborate on what kind of political economy you think should *replace* it?

Geoism: private ownership of the products of labor and equal individual rights of all to access, use, and benefit from what nature provided for all (i.e., the earth, or in classical economics, "land"). I would also remove non-land privileges such as private commercial banks' privilege of creating money, IP monopoly privileges, etc. as unacceptable abrogations of the equal individual right to liberty and property in the fruits of one's labor.
Your latter statement here cannot be taken at face value since by 'socialism' you actually mean 'Stalinism', or so-called 'socialism-in-one-country', which *isn't* socialism since workers collective interests know no national boundaries.

No. By socialism I mean only the economic definition: collective ownership of the means of production -- land and products of labor (what classical economics called "capital").
Okay, this is your standing critique of *rentier*-type capital, but I expand 'privilege' to mean *any* private property ownership, with greater wealth indicating greater privilege.

But the relevant definition of privilege is a legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. Ownership of the fruits of one's labor does not do that.
What do you think about bourgeois-provided *civil society* governance, like emergency medical, fire, and (arguably) public protection governmental services?

They are up for democratic choice and accountability. The government of a geoist society would have far greater ability to provide desirable public services and infrastructure by voluntary consent, without imposing harmful and unjust taxes; I have no particular preferences for such services and infrastructure beyond the obvious ones needed to sustain civil society. However, I suspect that the continued advance of technology will continue to increase land rents, and thus make possible consensual public provision of a great deal that people now think is naturally private. I have no a priori objection to big government, only to government that abrogates people's rights without just compensation.
So are you for *nationalization* of the banking system? (Or are you only still talking about just *rentier*-type capital? How about nationalizing all offshore accounts, then? Nationalizing land?)

I would nationalize the function of money creation and remove it from the private banks. I see no reason private banks should not operate as they (falsely) claim to do, and most people erroneously assume they do: as financial intermediaries and risk managers. That would make them an order of magnitude smaller than they are now. Offshore accounts are irrelevant, as they are not the responsibility of the national government and would not matter in a geoist economy. I don't favor nationalization of land as commonly understood, but its administration in trust to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to use it. In practice, that would mean payment of the market rent by those who want exclusive tenure to the community of those thus excluded, with a universal individual exemption for all resident citizens to ensure everyone has free, secure, exclusive tenure on enough of the available advantageous land of their choice to have access to economic opportunity.
Oh, right - - you want everyone to be able to go back to subsistence farming, so that all communes / communities have to each be 'self-sufficient', including for cars and computers. Again, your politics are *anachronistic* in our modern mass-production industrial society.

No, that is absurd garbage unrelated to anything I said. The advantageous locations are now mostly urban and residential, and enable access to economic opportunity in the form of jobs, stores, public services and infrastructure, etc. rather than soil fertility.
So how far does your anti-rentier-capital scope go? You're against renter capital for land and loans (interest).

I only oppose interest on created money, not saved money.
Anything else, or is insurance okay? What about *corporate* financing? Government bailouts (liquidity provisions, from public funds)?

I see nothing wrong with insurance as risk management, but in a geoist economy it would not be important, as people would not feel so insecure. Corporate financing should be voluntary and responsible, with no limited liability privilege. Government bailouts are an artifact of privilege.
You're not the type who calls for *upholding* patents, so as to provide 'incentive' for 'innovation'? Are you an anarchist?

No on both counts. Patents impede innovation. The historical record is crystal clear.
Now you sound more like a *libertarian* / left-nationalist, who really, truly *believes* that capitalism can be *fixed*. If only workers got a fair shake, then we'd all be singing harmoniously while holding hands!

Capitalism can't be fixed because private ownership of land is inherently unjust and unfixable.
Yeah, you're basically touting social Darwinism, by applying a *biological* dynamic, to a *societal* context.

No, social Darwinism holds that people's positions in society reflect their genetic fitness. That is IMO an absurd view that ignores privilege (or assumes it is itself a reflection of genetic fitness). Genetic fitness is about reproduction. Social position is about power.
And what kind of court would decide on *these* matters, exactly?

The free market judges value.
Btw, you're echoing the same Stalinistic morality that UM expressed over at the 'Civilization' thread - - that of linearly matched rewards-for-labor, irrespective of actual quantities produced.

No, I said the exact opposite: rewards commensurate with contributions. Labor is only a contribution to the extent that it is productive.
As with UM, you would rather see food rot and products stay warehoused and unused, than give up your totalitarian morality for all to abide by.

My morality is libertarian, not totalitarian. The free market of private competition is a messy thing, and sometimes producers guess wrong and have to pay the price of rotting food and unused products. People are not perfect, and the notion that political commissars could make decisions better than private producers has been proved wrong every time it has ever been tried. It is indisputable that despite the rotting food and unused products, a private enterprise market economy enables more consumption than a command or collectivist economy. Think of it this way: a lot of people want to be professional athletes, and devote a lot of time and effort to training. But the great majority never get paid a dime because the competition is so brutal. It is fantastically wasteful, just like your rotting food and unused products, but open competition is the only reliable stimulus to efficiency and excellence. It's the best way to get the best athletes into professional sports.
(This is counterposed to *my* politics of a *communistic gift economy*, where people receive according to *human need*, and contribute labor for it on a strictly *voluntary*, uncoerced basis.)

And on Planet Zondo, the population of naked mole rats might live just that way. It won't work with human beings because Darwin.
Well, think about it - - the rich can afford to buy whatever their little hearts desire, so whatever they happen to think are 'needs' - - whims - - can be immediately self-fulfilled, unlike for the rest of us.

Huh? You are redefining the whims of the rich as "needs"?? :roll:
Well, this is politically problematic because you *are* singling out a specific type of monotheism, instead of indicting *all* of monotheism for being monotheistic / hierarchical.

Monotheism is as much a crock of $#!+ as polytheism, but the problem with Islam is not that it is monotheistic or hierarchical. It's that it counsels and incites crime, including murder, for holding ideas.
No, I disagree - - Marxism deals with *society*, so it is a *social science*.

:roll: By that "logic," astrology is an astronomical science because it deals with stars.
It cannot use statistical data in ready-set formulas to make hard predictions the way the 'hard' / objective sciences can.

A genuine empirical social science can -- or could.
Your repeated raising of this distinction between one's own labor-power, and intellectual property (rentier-type assets under capitalism), is an *example* of the class divide. You're making it *sound* like an objection but you're actually making a Marxist argument *for* me.

No, I'm showing why Marx was wrong to consider owning a factory a privilege comparable to owning land or a patent monopoly.
You've conflated Darwin's evolutionary *biological* model, with a societal genetic selection of social roles, like that of nationalist political leadership, so, yes, you *have* touted a form of eugenics / social Darwinism, which is *not* scientific realism.

You haven't apprehended the complexity of what I'm talking about. The relationships are subtle, fiendishly complex, and indirect, but in principle understandable. You are just prematurely assuming some sort of parody of Mendelianism.
You were just touting an idealist 'human nature', and now you're backpedaling and saying that it's *economics* that determines societal development.

Obviously societal institutions are largely economic. That doesn't mean people's minds are controlled by how production is organized.
It's the *class struggle* that determines how, and if, society moves forward / historically-progressively, going-forward.

Nope. It's the ideas of the handful of thinkers, who in turn got lucky in the genetic dice roll.
#15082249
Truth To Power  wrote:It's that it counsels and incites crime, including murder, for holding ideas.

Given free rein, they all do.

Historically, religion was a tool used to establish and maintain social control, restrict independence of thought, and suppress dissent.


:lol:
#15082324
ingliz wrote:Given free rein, they all do.

They pretty much have free rein, and most of them don't -- any more. Among Christians and Jews, literalists/fundamentalists have become a tiny and impotent minority. Among Muslims, they are a large and powerful minority, and in the least educated countries a majority, especially of clerics.
#15082513
Truth To Power wrote:
This is super long, so I can only hit the important points.

My political ideas are incomparably more relevant than Marx's because they are based on facts, not absurd fantasies and misinformation.



There's nothing absurd or fantastical about simply saying that we live in an industrial age.

You're *unable* to address this aspect of our modern life, and so you resort to name-calling and insults. What you're doing here *isn't* politics.


Truth To Power wrote:
No it didn't. It happened in the 19th and 20th centuries.



Nope, my bad - - it was the year 1000:




The serfs had an incentive for working as hard as they could and employing new techniques on their holdings. As total output rose, the lords’ incomes also rose, especially as they used their military might to force previously free peasants into serfdom. What Bois calls ‘the transformation of the year 1000’ spelt the final end of agricultural slavery—and the final establishment of feudal serfdom as a more dynamic mode of production than the old Roman system.100

The importance of what happened in the countryside between about 1000 and 1300 is all too easily underrated by those of us for whom food is something we buy from supermarkets. A doubling of the amount of food produced by each peasant household transformed the possibilities for human life across Europe. Whoever controlled the extra food could exchange it for the goods carried by the travelling traders or produced by the artisans. Crudely, grain could be changed into silk for the lord’s family, iron for his weapons, furnishing for his castle, wine and spices to complement his meal. It could also be turned into means that would further increase the productivity of the peasant cultivators—wooden ploughs with iron tips, knives, sickles, and, in some cases, horses with bridles, bits and iron shoes.

By supplying such things at regular markets the humble bagman could transform himself into a respectable trader, and the respectable trader into a wealthy merchant. Towns began to revive as craftsmen and traders settled in them, erecting shops and workshops around the castles and churches. Trading networks grew up which tied formerly isolated villages together around expanding towns and influenced the way of life in a wide area.101

To obtain money to buy luxuries and arms, lords would encourage serfs to produce cash crops and substitute money rents for labour services or goods in kind. Some found an extra source of income from the dues they could charge traders for allowing markets on their land.

Life in the towns was very different from life in the countryside. The traders and artisans were free individuals not directly under the power of any lord. There was a German saying, ‘Town air makes you free.’ The urban classes were increasingly loath to accept the prerogatives of the lordly class. Traders and artisans who needed extra labour would welcome serfs who had fled bondage on nearby estates. And as the towns grew in size and wealth they acquired the means to defend their independence and freedom, building walls and arming urban militias.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 144



---


Truth To Power wrote:
Wrong again. The move from rural to urban was about nothing but how things are produced.



Why are you so concerned with land value when you've argued repeatedly *against* the 'privilege' of land ownership (that takes away economic opportunities from the working class, etc.) - -?

You sound increasingly like an empiricist who just bounces from one idea to the next, with no point-of-view or politics of your own.


Truth To Power wrote:
Huh? They aren't about people at all! Social science is.



You expressed the opinion that science has to deal with the individual, or else it isn't science - - this hypothesis of yours is incorrect since both 'hard' science, and many of the social sciences, don't deal with the 'micro' scale of the individual, and yet they're descriptive and useful.


Truth To Power wrote:
They are mostly junk, especially to the extent that they have been contaminated with Marxist ideation, as economics has.



Well, here you're showing yourself to be *unscientific* since you prefer to spout your own opinions instead of dealing with the real world objectively.

Have you ever considered that maybe the reason more of the social science fields have become more influenced by the Marxist worldview is because the Marxist approach is *correct*? Mumbling to yourself isn't scientific.


Truth To Power wrote:
Geoism: private ownership of the products of labor and equal individual rights of all to access, use, and benefit from what nature provided for all (i.e., the earth, or in classical economics, "land"). I would also remove non-land privileges such as private commercial banks' privilege of creating money, IP monopoly privileges, etc. as unacceptable abrogations of the equal individual right to liberty and property in the fruits of one's labor.



Oh, that's right, you did mention this earlier-on - - okay, well, as I said before, why stop there? Why not extend this kind of reformism to *all* rentier assets, like buildings, funds, valuable collectables, art, gold, precious metals, etc. - - ? Would your Georgism / geoism apply your principles *retroactively*, so as to make all existing products of labor 'communalized' ('the commons') , since all materials are sourced from earth's raw resources anyway?

How would your politics resolve this distinction between 'public' and 'private', anyway? When would a privatization of 'the commons' be acceptable, and when wouldn't it be? Would one have to *labor* on it to then call it one's own? What would this kind of 'labor' amount to? If I pushed my finger against some grass on the ground, would that be 'labor' so that I could claim it for myself?

Or if I found some oil and I dug it up and refined it and sold it on the market - - or paid some workers to do it - - would that be valid *privatization* of 'the commons'?


---


Truth To Power wrote:
No. I have stated many times that I oppose capitalism, and that it is not meritocratic. It is merely -- faint praise -- better and more meritocratic than socialism.



ckaihatsu wrote:

Your latter statement here cannot be taken at face value since by 'socialism' you actually mean 'Stalinism', or so-called 'socialism-in-one-country', which *isn't* socialism since workers collective interests know no national boundaries.



Truth To Power wrote:
No. By socialism I mean only the economic definition: collective ownership of the means of production -- land and products of labor (what classical economics called "capital").



You've repeatedly used the term 'socialism' in the past to mean 'state socialism' / Stalinism / 'socialism-in-one-country', so it's refreshing to hear that you're now going to use the term accurately.

If you 'oppose capitalism' then what do you think should *replace* it, Georgism? How would you resolve that conflict between when something from the earth is part of 'the commons', and when it's allowable to *privatize* it, for economic exchanges and private valorization?


Truth To Power wrote:
But the relevant definition of privilege is a legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. Ownership of the fruits of one's labor does not do that.



Well, again, the fruits of one's own labor is not simply one's own labor - - it may actually be *fruit*, harvested and processed by labor and made saleable - - and fruit is *from the earth*, so who exactly gets to privately own fruit (etc.), and who doesn't?


Truth To Power wrote:
They are up for democratic choice and accountability. The government of a geoist society would have far greater ability to provide desirable public services and infrastructure by voluntary consent, without imposing harmful and unjust taxes; I have no particular preferences for such services and infrastructure beyond the obvious ones needed to sustain civil society. However, I suspect that the continued advance of technology will continue to increase land rents, and thus make possible consensual public provision of a great deal that people now think is naturally private. I have no a priori objection to big government, only to government that abrogates people's rights without just compensation.



Okay, would your 'big government' be the authority to determine when privatization of 'the commons' is acceptable, and when it's not? (If so it would then boil down to *public sentiment* to determine this question, which, in the here-and-now, is not a *principled* politics - - what would your *own* faction describe as a preferred approach / method to determining this question?)


Truth To Power wrote:
I would nationalize the function of money creation and remove it from the private banks. I see no reason private banks should not operate as they (falsely) claim to do, and most people erroneously assume they do: as financial intermediaries and risk managers. That would make them an order of magnitude smaller than they are now. Offshore accounts are irrelevant, as they are not the responsibility of the national government and would not matter in a geoist economy. I don't favor nationalization of land as commonly understood, but its administration in trust to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to use it.



Money creation is *already* nationalized -- the U.S. government, for example, works with the Federal Reserve to issue money - - it's tied directly to public funds allocated, for currency.

So, though you want all of earth's natural resources to initially be in 'the commons', you would retain the existing patchwork of separate nation-states to *preside* over this so-called 'property-in-common', and allow money laundering and financial hoarding for the rich through offshore accounts.

Why wouldn't *land* - - your greatest concern - - be *nationalized* (by 'big government'), so as to administrate over 'the commons' - -? What you're proposing, a 'trust', sounds like the Federal Reserve, but for land - - an *outsourcing* of a public concern, probably to absolve the government of direct oversight of its operations.

You do realize, don't you, that the structuring you're proposing is making you sound increasingly *hypocritical*, right?


Truth To Power wrote:
In practice, that would mean payment of the market rent by those who want exclusive tenure to the community of those thus excluded, with a universal individual exemption for all resident citizens to ensure everyone has free, secure, exclusive tenure on enough of the available advantageous land of their choice to have access to economic opportunity.



You're *contradicting* yourself here - - if 'the commons' is to be over all of earth's land and natural resources, then why would anyone be *excluded*? You're dichotomizing, which is contradictory to the principle of universality, which is what *any* politics is based on: consistency in application over the entire population.

And who exactly would this 'market rent' be paid to, if the earth's land and natural resources are supposed to be for everyone?


---


Truth To Power wrote:
No, that is absurd garbage unrelated to anything I said. The advantageous locations are now mostly urban and residential, and enable access to economic opportunity in the form of jobs, stores, public services and infrastructure, etc. rather than soil fertility.



Okay, since you're acknowledging that the capitalist economy is *post-agricultural*, then where do the *factories* fit in? How would the goods for the stores be *produced*, since the stores themselves are *non-productive* - -?

I'm *all for* public services and public infrastructure, to the point that *everything* should be public services and public infrastructure, and run by the workers themselves.


Truth To Power wrote:
I only oppose interest on created money, not saved money.



So you're nominally opposed to private land ownership and the charging of rent, correct?

But you're okay with *other* kinds of rentier-based rents, like the accumulation of interest for sitting, non-productive ('saved') private funds.

So your entire politics is specifically circumscribed to earth's land and natural resources, and nothing else about the economy? Again, you sound like you're barely different from the status quo, and your *implementation* of the same leaves much to be desired, since it's a basically a shell game between the public and private sectors of the economy.


Truth To Power wrote:
I see nothing wrong with insurance as risk management, but in a geoist economy it would not be important, as people would not feel so insecure. Corporate financing should be voluntary and responsible, with no limited liability privilege. Government bailouts are an artifact of privilege.



I don't think you understand how limited liability works - - it means that losses are limited to only that which is invested, so it's not underwritten by the government. Therefore it's *not* a privilege, the same way that other businesses and assets *are* guaranteed by public funds.

As long as private property exists in your conception of things, there will be the possibility of *losses*, which is what insurance is for, under capitalism - - hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters are possible, so who are you to tell people and businesses that 'people would not feel so insecure' and that insurance would not be available within your political vision?


Truth To Power wrote:
No on both counts. Patents impede innovation. The historical record is crystal clear.



But in a 'free-market' context wouldn't this lack of intellectual property ownership be a *disincentive* to research-and-development efforts in the private sector? Why would anyone investigate new methods of doing things, from private funds, if the results of those efforts would just become part of 'the commons'? How would research and development get done, under your conception of things?


Truth To Power wrote:
Capitalism can't be fixed because private ownership of land is inherently unjust and unfixable.



Would labor continue to be treated as a *commodity*, according to you?


Truth To Power wrote:
No, social Darwinism holds that people's positions in society reflect their genetic fitness. That is IMO an absurd view that ignores privilege (or assumes it is itself a reflection of genetic fitness). Genetic fitness is about reproduction. Social position is about power.



Well, previously you were saying that you were a genetic *determinist*. I'll accept your revision here.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

People should receive from society's productive output according to their *needs*, and not according to their individual labor inputs - - this principle has been *in practice* and working for the rich for centuries now.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, they should receive rewards commensurate with their contributions and pay costs commensurate with their deprivations of others because that is justice, which gets the incentives right.



ckaihatsu wrote:

And what kind of court would decide on *these* matters, exactly?



Truth To Power wrote:
The free market judges value.



So you want to take a political / governmental institution - - the courts system - - and *privatize* that, into the markets somehow - -?

Don't you realize that you're contradicting your previously-expressed support for 'big government'? How could courts-type refereeing over the markets, as for punitive, decided rewards, happen *within* the markets? Are you suggesting some kind of sci-fi 'betting' mechanism within the markets to determine what the judgment should be *over* the markets?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

Btw, you're echoing the same Stalinistic morality that UM expressed over at the 'Civilization' thread - - that of linearly matched rewards-for-labor, irrespective of actual quantities produced.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I said the exact opposite: rewards commensurate with contributions. Labor is only a contribution to the extent that it is productive.



Okay, and I'm saying that this formulation is *problematic*, and is *Stalinistic* - - here's what I posted to the 'Civilization' thread, similarly:




[T]he Soviet Union adapted the formula as: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work (labour investment)".[21] This was incorporated in Article 12 of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, but described by Leon Trotsky as "This inwardly contradictory, not to say nonsensical, formula". [22]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each ... _his_needs



This revisionist appropriation is problematic because it relies on bureaucratic elitism - - a class-like, caste-like specialist administrative apparatus - - to decide over the components of what 'work' is, if it's socially appropriate, how much it's to be rewarded by, etc.

If 'productivity' is to be the standard then why are you okay with rewarding rentier-type capital with *interest* payments, when such capital is *non-productive*? (It just sits there.)

If *labor* is only to be rewarded to the extent that it's productive, then how will this 'productivity' be decided-on - - by the 'free markets', by 'big government', or by some combination of the two? What if there's a *dispute* (by labor) over how this reward is being measured? How will that dispute be handled, according to you?

This is why I reiterate that *need* should be rewarded, and not labor, with material fulfillment, because that's what 'need' is - - unmet by fulfillment. The labor necessary to *providing* that fulfillment is a different matter *altogether*, and can be rewarded with my 'labor credits' instrument, as described at the FAQ:

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... -Questions


Truth To Power wrote:
My morality is libertarian, not totalitarian. The free market of private competition is a messy thing, and sometimes producers guess wrong and have to pay the price of rotting food and unused products. People are not perfect, and the notion that political commissars could make decisions better than private producers has been proved wrong every time it has ever been tried. It is indisputable that despite the rotting food and unused products, a private enterprise market economy enables more consumption than a command or collectivist economy. Think of it this way: a lot of people want to be professional athletes, and devote a lot of time and effort to training. But the great majority never get paid a dime because the competition is so brutal. It is fantastically wasteful, just like your rotting food and unused products, but open competition is the only reliable stimulus to efficiency and excellence. It's the best way to get the best athletes into professional sports.



In any non-market-interchange initiative, the rule-of-thumb planning method is to 'work backward', right? One starts with the *goal* that one wants to achieve, and then 'works backward' to determine all of the preceding steps necessary to find the resulting path to that goal.

Yet, when it comes to *economics* there's no such commonsense approach - - instead we have to put up with these *inefficient* market-based interchanges, as you've outlined, for the sake of adherence to this social-Darwinism-like 'competition' mechanism that's *wasteful*.

I'm *not* suggesting any kind of bureaucratic elitism ('commissars'), though I do think that such would be *incrementally* better than the free market, with its demonstrated wastefulness. We know it today as 'government', and it's definitely appropriate for non-market social matters like governance, oversight, non-profit-making segments like roads / transportation, education, and other infrastructure.

But bourgeois government - - the 'public sector' - - falls short of handling *labor* matters appropriately since labor is commodified and stripped of its surplus labor value as a matter of course, under capitalism.

This is why I developed the communist-gift-economy-based 'labor credits' model framework, to situate social production as being *need*-goal-based, to work-backward from there, for the accurate provisioning of labor and material inputs, to meet that need, no more and no less.


Truth To Power wrote:
And on Planet Zondo, the population of naked mole rats might live just that way. It won't work with human beings because Darwin.



Well, which *is* it? You've been *vacillating* on this issue, sometimes saying that the social environment is social-Darwinist, sometimes saying it's not.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
No, it self-evidently and indisputably hasn't. In what sense have people or the rich been receiving output according to their needs?? You are talking utter nonsense.



ckaihatsu wrote:

Well, think about it - - the rich can afford to buy whatever their little hearts desire, so whatever they happen to think are 'needs' - - whims - - can be immediately self-fulfilled, unlike for the rest of us. It's those who *must* work for a living (wages) who are the ones to *fulfill* those whims for the rich, like a global neo-feudalism, really.



Truth To Power wrote:
Huh? You are redefining the whims of the rich as "needs"?? :roll:



Semantics - - let's call it 'needs / wants / whims'.

My original point remains intact and standing, that the rich have been receiving according to their needs / wants / whims, for centuries now.

We need to make this the worldwide standard, for *everyone* - - receipt according to people's needs, wants, and whims, from social production, which is the goal to work-backward from. (See my model.)


Truth To Power wrote:
Monotheism is as much a crock of $#!+ as polytheism, but the problem with Islam is not that it is monotheistic or hierarchical. It's that it counsels and incites crime, including murder, for holding ideas.



I still happen to think that you're singling-out Islam, when we've just had fundamentalist-Christian-based 'crusades' in the Middle East, from U.S. imperialism, for the past two decades now.


Truth To Power wrote:
:roll: By that "logic," astrology is an astronomical science because it deals with stars.



Well, this is an apples-and-oranges comparison, but I'll at least admit that Marxism, being political / political-economy-oriented, is not merely *empirical* / descriptive, it's *ideological*, for the working class, and describing a way-forward.

You don't have to agree with its ideology / plan, but you may find that it's description of (capitalist / class) political economy is accurate and unaddressed by other academic approaches.


Truth To Power wrote:
A genuine empirical social science can -- or could.



This is arguable since it would depend greatly on how the empirical factors were *modeled*, in such a social-sciences-type simulation, as for A.I.-type processing. In political circles, as things are, many good predictions are made, anyway, as with the recent market downturn, because the Fed was already supplying liquidity to underwrite commercial paper, which was flagging.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, I'm showing why Marx was wrong to consider owning a factory a privilege comparable to owning land or a patent monopoly.



Factory / equity ownership *is* a privilege, compared to the working class, which, by definition, does *not* own anything economically gainful, except their own labor-power / capacity to work.

You continue to dichotomize capital ownership, into rentier-based and equity-based types - - which it is - - so as to show special subjective favor for only equity / productive capital, while disdaining only *land* ownership, with a muddled politics around such.


Truth To Power wrote:
You haven't apprehended the complexity of what I'm talking about. The relationships are subtle, fiendishly complex, and indirect, but in principle understandable. You are just prematurely assuming some sort of parody of Mendelianism.



I won't have to assume, or purport, *anything* on your part if you can simply *describe* what it is that you're talking about. You should reconcile how competitiveness in genetic compositions ('natural selection') is similar-to, and dissimilar-to, our *societal*, competitive functioning, especially under *class* society.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

You were just touting an idealist 'human nature', and now you're backpedaling and saying that it's *economics* that determines societal development.



Truth To Power wrote:
Obviously societal institutions are largely economic. That doesn't mean people's minds are controlled by how production is organized.



Yeah, to a large extent I would say that people's minds / mindsets / worldviews *are* determined by how production is organized. We've been covering it, as a matter of fact - - that we're conditioned to be in a *competitive* mode of social operation, as regarding the sports industry (or whatever else), and this dynamic colors our view of the social world.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

It's the *class struggle* that determines how, and if, society moves forward / historically-progressively, going-forward.



Truth To Power wrote:
Nope. It's the ideas of the handful of thinkers, who in turn got lucky in the genetic dice roll.



Yeah, you're definitely an *idealist*, since you think that it's *ideas* that make the world go 'round - - and there's the eugenics, again, making a reappearance.

No, it's *class* that determines our social reality, usually favoring private ownership / the bourgeoisie / the ruling class, and at other times favoring the toilers, as during working-class rebellions and upsurges.

All other aspects of society follow from this balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class, including the ideas that we've personally adopted as to how society works, and even the notion of 'human nature'.
#15082659
Again, this is crushingly long, so I can only hit the important points.
ckaihatsu wrote:There's nothing absurd or fantastical about simply saying that we live in an industrial age.

That's not what Marxism says.
What you're doing here *isn't* politics.

It's political economy.
Nope, my bad - - it was the year 1000:

Garbage. The world remained almost entirely rural, as it had been for thousands of years, until the 19th century.
Why are you so concerned with land value when you've argued repeatedly *against* the 'privilege' of land ownership (that takes away economic opportunities from the working class, etc.) - -?

Precisely because that publicly created value should be recovered for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it, rather than being appropriated by rich, greedy, privileged parasites.
You expressed the opinion that science has to deal with the individual, or else it isn't science

No, sciences that study human behavior do.
Have you ever considered that maybe the reason more of the social science fields have become more influenced by the Marxist worldview is because the Marxist approach is *correct*?

No, because it is provably incorrect.
Why not extend this kind of reformism to *all* rentier assets, like buildings, funds, valuable collectables, art, gold, precious metals, etc. - - ?

Because they are not rentier assets. They yield no economic rent because their value comes from their producers, not from a legal entitlement to deprive others of what they would otherwise have without making just compensation.
Would your Georgism / geoism apply your principles *retroactively*, so as to make all existing products of labor 'communalized' ('the commons') , since all materials are sourced from earth's raw resources anyway?

Huh? What nonsense. Products of labor are no longer natural resources. As soon as a physical material is extracted from nature by labor, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor, and thus rightly owned by its producer. You know this.
How would your politics resolve this distinction between 'public' and 'private', anyway?

By securing and reconciling the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.
When would a privatization of 'the commons' be acceptable, and when wouldn't it be?

On payment of just (market) compensation to the community of those deprived of it (obviously can't be retroactive).
Would one have to *labor* on it to then call it one's own?

One would have to extract it, or arrange and pay for its extraction. A location can't be extracted, and thus can't become property.
What would this kind of 'labor' amount to? If I pushed my finger against some grass on the ground, would that be 'labor' so that I could claim it for myself?

No. Nature can only be privatized by the act and labor of extraction.
Or if I found some oil and I dug it up and refined it and sold it on the market - - or paid some workers to do it - - would that be valid *privatization* of 'the commons'?

Assuming you paid the market compensation to the community of those deprived of it. Of course, compensation is only due if someone else wants to use the resource at that time, not retroactively if someone later decides that it would have been nice if the resource were still there.
You've repeatedly used the term 'socialism' in the past to mean 'state socialism' / Stalinism / 'socialism-in-one-country', so it's refreshing to hear that you're now going to use the term accurately.

There are lots of different kinds of socialism, from the state socialism of Stalin or Mao to the Israeli kibbutzim and the Mondragon cooperative. The latter kind are voluntary, and can thus work well enough. The former aren't and can't.
If you 'oppose capitalism' then what do you think should *replace* it, Georgism?

Georgism is too narrow a concept -- basically Henry George's proposed Single Tax of the 19th century. The broader concept of geoism (private ownership of the fruits of labor, including producer goods, and public administration of natural resources in trust for all) more accurately and comprehensively distinguishes itself from socialism (collective ownership of both producer goods and natural resources) and capitalism (private ownership of both producer goods and natural resources).
How would you resolve that conflict between when something from the earth is part of 'the commons', and when it's allowable to *privatize* it, for economic exchanges and private valorization?

That's the crux of the issue, where all of civilization and human history have gone down the wrong path, a path of robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death. The solution is simple: if no one else is willing to pay to use a resource, one can use it for free. If someone else is also willing to pay to use it, the high bidder gets to use it, paying its market value (his voluntary bid) to the community of those whom he deprives of it.
Well, again, the fruits of one's own labor is not simply one's own labor - - it may actually be *fruit*, harvested and processed by labor and made saleable - - and fruit is *from the earth*, so who exactly gets to privately own fruit (etc.), and who doesn't?

The producer owns it. When one picks -- i.e., extracts -- naturally growing fruit, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor.
Okay, would your 'big government' be the authority to determine when privatization of 'the commons' is acceptable, and when it's not?

That is always government's job anyway, by definition. The only question is whether it will discharge that function in the interest of and to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all its citizens, or only in the narrow financial interest of a rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic elite.
(If so it would then boil down to *public sentiment* to determine this question, which, in the here-and-now, is not a *principled* politics - - what would your *own* faction describe as a preferred approach / method to determining this question?)

Governance and legitimation is a different issue. I'm still just trying to educate people as to where their best interests actually lie.
Money creation is *already* nationalized -- the U.S. government, for example, works with the Federal Reserve to issue money - - it's tied directly to public funds allocated, for currency.

No. Like Marx, you have not the slightest understanding of how money works under finance capitalism. Almost all our money is created by private commercial banks, not the government, and most of the rest is created by central banks like the Fed, not government mints. In essence, almost all the money we use from day to day consists of outstanding bank loan principal.
So, though you want all of earth's natural resources to initially be in 'the commons', you would retain the existing patchwork of separate nation-states to *preside* over this so-called 'property-in-common',

I don't see a practical alternative to accountable democratic governance of peoples within their sovereign territories, and it works pretty well compared to, as Churchill observed, "all the alternatives that have been tried from time to time."
and allow money laundering and financial hoarding for the rich through offshore accounts.

The geoist paradigm renders such maneuvers useless. Land can't move, and it can't hide.
Why wouldn't *land* - - your greatest concern - - be *nationalized* (by 'big government'), so as to administrate over 'the commons' - -? What you're proposing, a 'trust', sounds like the Federal Reserve, but for land - - an *outsourcing* of a public concern, probably to absolve the government of direct oversight of its operations.

To some extent it's just a matter of terminology. Some people might call what I propose "nationalization." But IMO there is a useful distinction to be made between considering land as public property and considering it as a public trust. In particular, nationalization is often thought to imply public management and use of land, as in collectivized agriculture, etc. I favor management, control, and use of land by competing private landholders in a free market who are required to make just compensation for what they take from the community.
You do realize, don't you, that the structuring you're proposing is making you sound increasingly *hypocritical*, right?

No.
You're *contradicting* yourself here - - if 'the commons' is to be over all of earth's land and natural resources, then why would anyone be *excluded*?

Secure, exclusive tenure is required for efficient productive use in any economy above the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages.
And who exactly would this 'market rent' be paid to, if the earth's land and natural resources are supposed to be for everyone?

The democratically accountable local government that secures the user's exclusive tenure for him and provides the desirable public services and infrastructure that make the land economically advantageous enough that he is willing to pay for it.
Okay, since you're acknowledging that the capitalist economy is *post-agricultural*, then where do the *factories* fit in? How would the goods for the stores be *produced*, since the stores themselves are *non-productive* - -?

That's up to competing, private, for-profit producers because that gets the incentives right.
I'm *all for* public services and public infrastructure, to the point that *everything* should be public services and public infrastructure, and run by the workers themselves.

But public monopoly provision is only efficient in cases of market failure or natural monopoly, where there is nothing to be gained from private competition, such as transport infrastructure, police and fire service, etc. Most goods and services aren't like that, and are better provided by competing private producers.
So you're nominally opposed to private land ownership and the charging of rent, correct?

I'm opposed to private landownership and the private appropriation and retention of publicly created rent.
But you're okay with *other* kinds of rentier-based rents, like the accumulation of interest for sitting, non-productive ('saved') private funds.

That's not rentier-based or a rent because it is obtained by contributing, not by depriving. I don't know how many more times I will have to explain that obvious point.
So your entire politics is specifically circumscribed to earth's land and natural resources, and nothing else about the economy?

No. That's just the elephant in the room that is somehow invisible to both left and right.
Again, you sound like you're barely different from the status quo, and your *implementation* of the same leaves much to be desired, since it's a basically a shell game between the public and private sectors of the economy.

That is an inaccurate, absurd, and disingenuous characterization.
I don't think you understand how limited liability works - - it means that losses are limited to only that which is invested, so it's not underwritten by the government. Therefore it's *not* a privilege, the same way that other businesses and assets *are* guaranteed by public funds.

No, it is obviously you who do not understand it. Limited liability is indisputably a privilege because it vacates the rights of parties injured by the company's actions, which it committed on the owners' behalf and for their benefit.
As long as private property exists in your conception of things, there will be the possibility of *losses*, which is what insurance is for, under capitalism - - hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters are possible, so who are you to tell people and businesses that 'people would not feel so insecure'

I am the person who tells the truth, that's who. Most insurance is not for natural disasters -- it is often void in such cases -- but for man-made ones like medical bills, liability suits, and operator error in use of powerful machinery. Insurance is to spread risk. If people had just compensation for the loss of their rights, they would not feel so much need to be protected against risk of loss.
and that insurance would not be available within your political vision?

That's obviously not what I said. People would just be less interested in insurance because they would not feel so vulnerable to economic hardship resulting from losses.
But in a 'free-market' context wouldn't this lack of intellectual property ownership be a *disincentive* to research-and-development efforts in the private sector?

No. It would mean both more freedom to innovate and relentless pressure to innovate, as in the fashion industry.
Why would anyone investigate new methods of doing things, from private funds, if the results of those efforts would just become part of 'the commons'?

Because they have problems they want to solve.
How would research and development get done, under your conception of things?

By paying engineers instead of lawyers.
Would labor continue to be treated as a *commodity*, according to you?

It isn't a commodity now.
Well, previously you were saying that you were a genetic *determinist*.

No.
So you want to take a political / governmental institution - - the courts system - - and *privatize* that, into the markets somehow - -?

No.
Don't you realize that you're contradicting your previously-expressed support for 'big government'?

No.
How could courts-type refereeing over the markets, as for punitive, decided rewards, happen *within* the markets?

Markets work by mutual voluntary consent, courts don't.
Are you suggesting some kind of sci-fi 'betting' mechanism within the markets to determine what the judgment should be *over* the markets?

No.
This revisionist appropriation is problematic because it relies on bureaucratic elitism - - a class-like, caste-like specialist administrative apparatus - - to decide over the components of what 'work' is, if it's socially appropriate, how much it's to be rewarded by, etc.

No, it's the market.
If 'productivity' is to be the standard then why are you okay with rewarding rentier-type capital with *interest* payments, when such capital is *non-productive*? (It just sits there.)

It's not unproductive in the judgment of those doing the borrowing.
If *labor* is only to be rewarded to the extent that it's productive, then how will this 'productivity' be decided-on - - by the 'free markets', by 'big government', or by some combination of the two? What if there's a *dispute* (by labor) over how this reward is being measured? How will that dispute be handled, according to you?

Consensually: in the market.
This is why I reiterate that *need* should be rewarded,

If you reward need, you will have no shortage of needy people.
Yet, when it comes to *economics* there's no such commonsense approach - - instead we have to put up with these *inefficient* market-based interchanges, as you've outlined, for the sake of adherence to this social-Darwinism-like 'competition' mechanism that's *wasteful*.

It's wasteful because it's so productive.
I'm *not* suggesting any kind of bureaucratic elitism ('commissars'), though I do think that such would be *incrementally* better than the free market, with its demonstrated wastefulness.

Is it better to have 2X production and X waste, as in socialism, or 5X production and 2X waste, as in capitalism?
You've been *vacillating* on this issue, sometimes saying that the social environment is social-Darwinist, sometimes saying it's not.

I've never said it's social Darwinist.
My original point remains intact and standing, that the rich have been receiving according to their needs / wants / whims, for centuries now.

No, according to their privileges.
We need to make this the worldwide standard, for *everyone* - - receipt according to people's needs, wants, and whims, from social production, which is the goal to work-backward from. (See my model.)

No, we need justice.
You don't have to agree with its ideology / plan, but you may find that it's description of (capitalist / class) political economy is accurate and unaddressed by other academic approaches.

It's not accurate, because it blames the factory owner for what the landowner does to the worker (capitalism blames the worker).
Factory / equity ownership *is* a privilege, compared to the working class, which, by definition, does *not* own anything economically gainful, except their own labor-power / capacity to work.

No, it is not a privilege, because it does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have.
You continue to dichotomize capital ownership, into rentier-based and equity-based types - - which it is - - so as to show special subjective favor for only equity / productive capital, while disdaining only *land* ownership, with a muddled politics around such.

There is nothing subjective or arbitrary about the objective difference between offering the worker access to economic opportunity that he would not otherwise have and depriving the worker of access to economic opportunity he would otherwise have.
I won't have to assume, or purport, *anything* on your part if you can simply *describe* what it is that you're talking about. You should reconcile how competitiveness in genetic compositions ('natural selection') is similar-to, and dissimilar-to, our *societal*, competitive functioning, especially under *class* society.

Try to find a willingness to know the difference between genetic advantages, which do not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have, and legal privileges, which do deprive others of things they would otherwise have.
Yeah, to a large extent I would say that people's minds / mindsets / worldviews *are* determined by how production is organized.

But you're wrong.
Yeah, you're definitely an *idealist*, since you think that it's *ideas* that make the world go 'round - - and there's the eugenics, again, making a reappearance.

It's got nothing to do with eugenics.
No, it's *class* that determines our social reality, usually favoring private ownership / the bourgeoisie / the ruling class, and at other times favoring the toilers, as during working-class rebellions and upsurges.

Nope.
All other aspects of society follow from this balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class, including the ideas that we've personally adopted as to how society works, and even the notion of 'human nature'.

Nope.
#15083105
Truth To Power wrote:
Again, this is crushingly long, so I can only hit the important points.

That's not what Marxism says.



Yes, Marxism is concerned with how production takes place in society - - it's political economy. The social production doesn't *have* to be industrial, but that's what was taking place at the time of Marx's writing - - industrialization - - and that's how regular everyday household items are produced today.

You're being obtuse, as usual - - what is it that you *object* to about Marxism, exactly?


Truth To Power wrote:
It's political economy.



No it isn't - - anytime that you resort to childish insults, going off of the subject matter, you're *not* doing politics or political economy.


Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage. The world remained almost entirely rural, as it had been for thousands of years, until the 19th century.



Now *you're* thinking of industrialization, but the excerpt I included was about the initial breakaways from feudal estates, into rudimentary towns, and well before industrialization.


Truth To Power wrote:
Precisely because that publicly created value should be recovered for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it, rather than being appropriated by rich, greedy, privileged parasites.



We're in agreement on this point, but you're sidestepping the initial thing you said in this part:




[J]ust as production and population have moved from rural to urban, so has land value.



This part doesn't reconcile with what you just said - - if public natural resources ('the commons') need to be resocialized to the common good, what does that have to do with *land values*?

Perhaps I'm being too critical though - - perhaps you just mean it as a *measurement*.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, sciences that study human behavior do.



No, there are social sciences, particularly sociology, that *do not have to* examine social dynamics at the scale of the individual. Statistics would be another one, which is closer to a *hard* science, being mathematical, though its subject matter tends to be social dynamics.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, because it is provably incorrect.



Do tell - - how is Marxism 'provably incorrect'?


Truth To Power wrote:
Because they are not rentier assets. They yield no economic rent because their value comes from their producers, not from a legal entitlement to deprive others of what they would otherwise have without making just compensation.



But they *do* yield 'economic rent' in the form of asset value *appreciation* over time - - that's why people use them as financial vehicles for the hoarding of wealth. This increase in value ultimately has to be provided by the overall economy somehow, once the asset is cashed-out for the capital gains realized.

Also, you're making a *Marxist* argument, in that the economic ('exchange') value of any given asset is sourced from work done by laborers to produce it in the first place (along with any speculative, market-price-pushing bidding activity).

You still haven't provided any theory or ideology on how land *should* be distributed, if the way it's *been* done has been so alienating to the working class.


Truth To Power wrote:
Huh? What nonsense. Products of labor are no longer natural resources. As soon as a physical material is extracted from nature by labor, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor, and thus rightly owned by its producer. You know this.



But under capitalism it's the *owner* who has bought the commodity (land, etc.) from the previous owner or government, and has paid for the human labor power to make it a usable, saleable product, and so deprives the worker of the *product* of his or her labor. The *laborer* does not walk-away with the product, it's the *owner* that does, contrary to what you're indicating.


Truth To Power wrote:
By securing and reconciling the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



But then who 'manages' any given commodity, say, a parcel of land? If someone within your 'community' worked a piece of previously unclaimed land and then called it their own, could they then *sell* it? If so, then that parcel of land would be *commodified*, and it would have a private-property *owner*, separate from the original labor, and any additional labor used, as for landscaping and buildings on that property.

This is why, above all other subissues, I'd like to hear your take on how to reconcile 'private', with 'public'. When would privatization be allowed, according to you, and when would it *not* be allowed?


Truth To Power wrote:
On payment of just (market) compensation to the community of those deprived of it (obviously can't be retroactive).



Okay, here it is, but I maintain that this treatment of yours *conflicts* with your prior axiom of 'rights to one's products of labor'. All someone has to do is say 'I have enough money to pay someone to do something for me', and that commodification of labor immediately *nullifies* the laborers "rights" to keep the products of their labor.

The laborer could say 'I did the landscaping, and so the land should be mine', but the owner will say 'I paid someone for the land itself, and I paid the laborer to landscape it, so I get to keep the full value of what the landscaped land is worth on the market.' This, by the way, is *capitalism*, which commodities labor *and* labor-value, for those who have capital to invest in such processes. The laborer is *alienated* from whatever it is they produce, for the payment of a wage, for the necessities of life and living.

You may have good intentions, but your politics don't account for how things *currently* get done under capitalism, as just described, and you're not proposing anything that's much different, realistically.


Truth To Power wrote:
One would have to extract it, or arrange and pay for its extraction. A location can't be extracted, and thus can't become property.



I remember running into this subissue with you in the past - - you were not-acknowledging that even *land* is commodified, because it is bought-and-sold. Only those who can *afford* to buy land will ultimately have access to it, because it *is* a commodity and has market-pricing. No, it can't be physically relocated, but that's spurious to its commodification anyway.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. Nature can only be privatized by the act and labor of extraction.



You *just* said that land can't be extracted, yet it's still commodified (bought-and-sold), so it's privatized through private property ownership currently. How would your politics alter this default treatment of commodification of land?


Truth To Power wrote:
Assuming you paid the market compensation to the community of those deprived of it. Of course, compensation is only due if someone else wants to use the resource at that time, not retroactively if someone later decides that it would have been nice if the resource were still there.



So, with this, you're merely describing how private property ownership operates *today* - - any laborer who produces a commodity, or makes improvements to a commodity (land), will just be paid a wage and deprived of the *product* of their labor, correct?


Truth To Power wrote:
There are lots of different kinds of socialism, from the state socialism of Stalin or Mao to the Israeli kibbutzim and the Mondragon cooperative. The latter kind are voluntary, and can thus work well enough. The former aren't and can't.



My concern with your politics, though, has to do with the previously-expressed aspect of 'owner / manager versus laborer'. As soon as *anything* can be bought-and-sold, it has exchange-value (on the markets) and is a commodity.

If a bunch of workers in a coop of whatever sort complete their group task, say building a car, *who decides* how the revenue from the sale of that car is to be used? What if there are internal disputes and factions form around differing, conflicting policy trajectories (the build-more-infrastructure faction vs. the compensate-workers-more faction)?

The reason why I'm for bottom-up emergent central planning is so that problems can be *distributed* as geographically widely as possible - - with *all* productive infrastructure under collective workers control there'd be more *latitude* and maybe some things could be more readily 'outsourced', with more complex and interdependent supply chains resulting.

The problem with any given 'workers coop' today is that [1] market valuations and competitive pressures still exist, and [2] it's *incompatible* as an entity with much else in the market landscape because the collective interest is to keep revenue constrained *locally* to within the entity, while *business* dynamics will press to force an *outward* outlook, to keep investing in the *business* so as to stay up to industry standards. In other words so-called 'market socialism' is an internal *contradiction*, the way the former U.S.S.R. was as a *country* within a greater sea of geopolitical capitalism.

Workers coops do *not* challenge capitalism at all, and so are *not* anti-capitalist - - they're too apolitical.


Truth To Power wrote:
Georgism is too narrow a concept -- basically Henry George's proposed Single Tax of the 19th century. The broader concept of geoism (private ownership of the fruits of labor, including producer goods, and public administration of natural resources in trust for all) more accurately and comprehensively distinguishes itself from socialism (collective ownership of both producer goods and natural resources) and capitalism (private ownership of both producer goods and natural resources).



Okay, I appreciate this succinct description / comparison of your politics.

What I *don't* get is why you *advocate* for it (Georgism / geoism), and *how* it's conceivably better than either socialism or capitalism, in structure.


Truth To Power wrote:
That's the crux of the issue, where all of civilization and human history have gone down the wrong path, a path of robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death. The solution is simple: if no one else is willing to pay to use a resource, one can use it for free. If someone else is also willing to pay to use it, the high bidder gets to use it, paying its market value (his voluntary bid) to the community of those whom he deprives of it.



Again, I don't see how this model is significantly different from the status quo - - moreover, once something is *privatized*, it's the owner's *private property* - - including commodified labor-power, and will be protected / defended as such despite any other human *need* for it, even if it's functionally *inactive*.

This status-quo approach - - private property (capitalism) - - is what *brought* humanity to robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death.

I'd invite any clarification from you as to how your *debatably* different approach would make any significant difference for humanity.


Truth To Power wrote:
The producer owns it. When one picks -- i.e., extracts -- naturally growing fruit, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor.



But is there any unclaimed land anymore? I think the whole world was completely carved-up in the early 20th century, and it's this geopolitical competition over a finite planetary surface area that led into World War I.

Now practically *everything* is private property, and people can't simply find unclaimed orchards from which to pick fruit for daily sustenance - - this issue cropped up in the U.S. during the Great Depression, on the West Coast, regarding oranges.


Truth To Power wrote:
That is always government's job anyway, by definition. The only question is whether it will discharge that function in the interest of and to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all its citizens, or only in the narrow financial interest of a rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic elite.



Well, we *know* the answer to that already, don't we? How would *your* approach steer clear of favoring moneyed elites, exactly, if the government is funded through taxes on private gainful economic activity (a growing economy) ?


Truth To Power wrote:
Governance and legitimation is a different issue. I'm still just trying to educate people as to where their best interests actually lie.



So what you're saying is that you want government to 'keep the peace' (in civil society) while conventional, current business practices continue to go on, at the expense of the working class. You *claim* to want laborers to keep the product of their labor, but you don't explain *how* (in relation to ownership) and you don't acknowledge that labor *itself* is treated as a commodity, and exploited, under capitalism. Are you a professional politician?


Truth To Power wrote:
No. Like Marx, you have not the slightest understanding of how money works under finance capitalism. Almost all our money is created by private commercial banks, not the government, and most of the rest is created by central banks like the Fed, not government mints. In essence, almost all the money we use from day to day consists of outstanding bank loan principal.



I just said that the U.S. government works *with* the Federal Reserve. I don't dispute your description here - - the U.S. *outsources* its currency creation, which is fairly common practice, anyway, though *dramatized* by libertarians / left-nationalists in the case of the Fed. There are many, many government contracts available, as even for military suppliers, which is dominated by a certain oligopoly. At these levels, though, the closeness between government and private sectors is so tight as to effectively make it all a single entity, anyway - - the 'military-industrial complex', for example.


Truth To Power wrote:
I don't see a practical alternative to accountable democratic governance of peoples within their sovereign territories, and it works pretty well compared to, as Churchill observed, "all the alternatives that have been tried from time to time."



With statements like these you're just reinforcing the *nationalism* aspect of your politics, which is *not* compatible with the nobler / progressive portions of your expressed politics. I think you're giving working-class interests *lip service* by not-addressing those interests in any kind of *detail*. (I'll remind that workers do not have *any* national interests because workers can organize *internationally*, on a *class* basis.)


Truth To Power wrote:
The geoist paradigm renders such maneuvers useless. Land can't move, and it can't hide.



But land-as-a-commodity would still exist, and such land values would be measured in *exchange values* (money, finance) - - it wouldn't be any different than the capitalism of today.


Truth To Power wrote:
To some extent it's just a matter of terminology. Some people might call what I propose "nationalization." But IMO there is a useful distinction to be made between considering land as public property and considering it as a public trust. In particular, nationalization is often thought to imply public management and use of land, as in collectivized agriculture, etc. I favor management, control, and use of land by competing private landholders in a free market who are required to make just compensation for what they take from the community.



If land is still private property then it's *not* nationalized. The 'trust' you mention is simply state control, possibly outsourced to a private management firm. You're still basically describing the status quo and are not proposing anything different.


Truth To Power wrote:
Secure, exclusive tenure is required for efficient productive use in any economy above the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages.



See - - this is your ideology showing through - - what happened to 'the workers keeping their product', and ['the commons'] ?

By upholding private property you're leaving the economic exploitation of workers in-place, with both land (and all rentier-type assets) and labor being commodified and exploited.


Truth To Power wrote:
The democratically accountable local government that secures the user's exclusive tenure for him and provides the desirable public services and infrastructure that make the land economically advantageous enough that he is willing to pay for it.



Again, status-quo.


Truth To Power wrote:
That's up to competing, private, for-profit producers because that gets the incentives right.



Status quo.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

I'm *all for* public services and public infrastructure, to the point that *everything* should be public services and public infrastructure, and run by the workers themselves.



Truth To Power wrote:
But public monopoly provision is only efficient in cases of market failure or natural monopoly, where there is nothing to be gained from private competition, such as transport infrastructure, police and fire service, etc. Most goods and services aren't like that, and are better provided by competing private producers.



Your yardstick of 'efficient' is only in terms of *exchange values* (money / currency / finance).

You've already admitted (the sports industry) that markets are very *inefficient* in terms of human effort invested, the height of the social pyramid, selective payoffs, etc. - - these are *material* factors / inputs and outputs, but are not measured by capitalism's exchange values. (They're 'externalities'.)


Truth To Power wrote:
I'm opposed to private landownership and the private appropriation and retention of publicly created rent.



However, you just said, a few segments ago, that:


Truth To Power wrote:
I favor management, control, and use of land by competing private landholders in a free market who are required to make just compensation for what they take from the community.



So - - tell me if I'm parsing correctly - - government secures land through military imperialism, and then leases or sells this newly created private property commodity to private owners, thus making it into a commodity.

Are you *opposed* to private landownership, or are you *for* competing private landholders in a free market?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

But you're okay with *other* kinds of rentier-based rents, like the accumulation of interest for sitting, non-productive ('saved') private funds.



Truth To Power wrote:
That's not rentier-based or a rent because it is obtained by contributing, not by depriving. I don't know how many more times I will have to explain that obvious point.



But in both cases, land and liquid capital, an asset-type economic *service* is being provided, that being the leased usage of physical land, for rent payments, and the usage of capital, presumably for investments, respectively. The sources of value themselves, land and capital, etc., are *non-productive* because they just sit there until rented. And, once rented, they have to be paid for, with rent and interest, respectively, for their leasing, regardless of what happens during the time of their leasing.

Borrowed capital receives interest payments because the asset, capital, is being used by a second party.

You're trying to make a false distinction when *all* rentier-type assets are the same, namely non-commodity-productive themselves, including the land underneath *productive* (equity) goods like factories and machinery.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. That's just the elephant in the room that is somehow invisible to both left and right.



Your treatment of land / natural resources / natural monopolies is no different from the status quo, though. You *acknowledge* the historical social ills of [plutocracy], robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death, but in the end you're saying 'stay the course'.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

Again, you sound like you're barely different from the status quo, and your *implementation* of the same leaves much to be desired, since it's a basically a shell game between the public and private sectors of the economy.



Truth To Power wrote:
That is an inaccurate, absurd, and disingenuous characterization.



I was thinking about it further, and I'd say it's more accurate to describe (bourgeois) government as *apologizing-for*, and *defending*, the practices of the plutocratic private sector.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, it is obviously you who do not understand it. Limited liability is indisputably a privilege because it vacates the rights of parties injured by the company's actions, which it committed on the owners' behalf and for their benefit.



Okay, I'll let this stand for now - - admittedly I have to do some research on it.
Last edited by ckaihatsu on 09 Apr 2020 21:14, edited 3 times in total.
#15083123
ckaihatsu wrote:But is there any unclaimed land anymore? I think the whole world was completely carved-up in the early 20th century, and it's this geopolitical competition over a finite planetary surface area that led into World War I.

Here's how wealth was "created" by capitalism in North America.

1. Local populations who don't "own" the land, but share it, are exterminated by God-fearing refugees.

2. The rich take possession of those lands, throwing a few scraps to their genocidal worker-bee killers.

3. The rich turn this stolen land into wealth, and sweep the genocides that created the wealth under the rug of fake history.

So the lesson of most capitalist history - the real history - is if you want to make money, you have to kill a lot of people who share land, and then parcel it up among the killers. And then dissappear your crime into the void of public ignorance.
...
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed." - Honoré de Balzac
#15083127
Truth To Power wrote:
It isn't a commodity now.



But it *is* - - labor-power (the capacity to work) is *bought-and-sold*, and the products of labor are expropriated by the employer, in return for a wage, and are sold on the market for more than was paid for them in wages.


Truth To Power wrote:
No.


Truth To Power wrote:
No.


Truth To Power wrote:
No.


Truth To Power wrote:
Markets work by mutual voluntary consent, courts don't.


Truth To Power wrote:
No.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, it's the market.



On all of this, I'm asking what your conception of *government* should be, in relation to market functioning. You seem oblivious to the term 'market failure', which is an inherent feature of capitalism, as we're *currently* seeing with the government bailouts of the stock market.

What kind of *oversight* should government have, over the economic sphere, as for handling disputes and (hopefully) dispensing justice?


Truth To Power wrote:
It's not unproductive in the judgment of those doing the borrowing.



As I covered above, though, private funds collect interest the way private land property collects rent, and are *not commodity-productive* themselves. They are a *financial service* for those who may possibly *leverage* such funds.


Truth To Power wrote:
Consensually: in the market.



Hmmmm, you're not understanding - - what if Employee A goes to the employer and says 'You underpaid me on my paycheck this week' and the employer says 'No I didn't.'

How exactly is 'the market' supposed to handle this kind of dispute? (This is why government, though bourgeois, exists.)


Truth To Power wrote:
If you reward need, you will have no shortage of needy people.



Philosophically I have no problem with this - - let's call it 'aggregated incentive for economic growth'.

A post-capitalist socialism would see aggregated need / want / whim either *fulfilled* from the communistic gift economy of uncoerced voluntary liberated-labor, or else it wouldn't be - - the easiest, most-common mass needs would be far more likely to be fulfilled in this way, especially if fully-automated, once-and-for-all.


Truth To Power wrote:
It's wasteful because it's so productive.



Yes, the capitalism dynamic tends to *overproduction*, but that just begs the question - - isn't earth's collection of conscious human beings collectively *smart enough* to *democratize* economic dynamics (as in the way I just mentioned), so that supply and demand match-up appropriately, from a pre-planned production plan, over worldwide-collectivized productive assets, so that capitalist overproduction becomes a thing of the past?


Truth To Power wrote:
Is it better to have 2X production and X waste, as in socialism, or 5X production and 2X waste, as in capitalism?



Well, I'm not *suggesting* any blueprint-type socialist-state planning, or Stalinism - - see my 'Emergent Central Planning' diagram for an outline of what I *do* propose.

Also, your focus on strict productivity is to the detriment of *workers'* interests for quality-of-life issues. Many would argue for some *output* inefficiencies if it meant that workers could be in collective *control* of production, if at the expense of overall productivity and even consumers' interests for luxury / specialty goods.


---


Truth To Power wrote:
And on Planet Zondo, the population of naked mole rats might live just that way. It won't work with human beings because Darwin.



ckaihatsu wrote:

You've been *vacillating* on this issue, sometimes saying that the social environment is social-Darwinist, sometimes saying it's not.



Truth To Power wrote:
I've never said it's social Darwinist.



You may want to clarify what you meant, then, mentioning 'Darwin' within a human-being social context.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

My original point remains intact and standing, that the rich have been receiving according to their needs / wants / whims, for centuries now.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, according to their privileges.



Okay, it's practically the same thing, with the point that the privilege of wealth *confers* a far greater range of satisfying personal needs, wants, and whims.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

We need to make this the worldwide standard, for *everyone* - - receipt according to people's needs, wants, and whims, from social production, which is the goal to work-backward from. (See my model.)



Truth To Power wrote:
No, we need justice.



You shouldn't be contradicting me on this point since the two are *related*.

And you should clarify what you mean by 'justice', regarding government and governance.


Truth To Power wrote:
It's not accurate, because it blames the factory owner for what the landowner does to the worker (capitalism blames the worker).



You're still ignoring the economic *exploitation* of commodified wage-labor, by equity capital. It's *all* capital / exchange-values that are to blame, and not just rentier-type capital, or land.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, it is not a privilege, because it does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have.



Factory / equity / all capital ownership *are* privileges. Equity ownership deprives the worker of *surplus labor value*, which is the value from their work, above and beyond that which is materially required to maintain and sustain the labor pool going-forward, into the future (wages, basically).

Profits are directly realized from this expropriation of surplus labor value, from workers.


Truth To Power wrote:
There is nothing subjective or arbitrary about the objective difference between offering the worker access to economic opportunity that he would not otherwise have and depriving the worker of access to economic opportunity he would otherwise have.



Again, this is *bias* and *favoritism* on your part, regarding equity capital versus rentier capital. Equity capital economically *exploits* the wage-worker, which you'd rather ignore. You *are* being subjective here.


Truth To Power wrote:
Try to find a willingness to know the difference between genetic advantages, which do not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have, and legal privileges, which do deprive others of things they would otherwise have.



I think you're overemphasizing the role of genetics in our modern workplace environment. Certainly I'd think that *personal subjective interest* is a far more powerful factor in personal success than any nominal phenotypical advantages or disadvantages one may have from one's genetic lineage.


Truth To Power wrote:
But you're wrong.



I could use your own subscription to *eugenics*-type beliefs as an example - - science discovered genetics and the class composition of our society *adopted* this kind of genetics-based reasoning about social dynamics into its ruling-class culture, and here you are. You didn't make it up on your own, it already existed in the world and you've adopted it into your way of thinking about the world.


Truth To Power wrote:
It's got nothing to do with eugenics.



I know that genetics *plays a part* in our biological makeup, even into our personalities, as you indicated with that Minnesota study of identical twins separated at birth. But the real question is *how significant* this factor is in the mix of our modern society. I
Truth To Power wrote:
Again, this is crushingly long, so I can only hit the important points.

That's not what Marxism says.



Yes, Marxism is concerned with how production takes place in society - - it's political economy. The social production doesn't *have* to be industrial, but that's what was taking place at the time of Marx's writing - - industrialization - - and that's how regular everyday household items are produced today.

You're being obtuse, as usual - - what is it that you *object* to about Marxism, exactly?


Truth To Power wrote:
It's political economy.



No it isn't - - anytime that you resort to childish insults, going off of the subject matter, you're *not* doing politics or political economy.


Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage. The world remained almost entirely rural, as it had been for thousands of years, until the 19th century.



Now *you're* thinking of industrialization, but the excerpt I included was about the initial breakaways from feudal estates, into rudimentary towns, and well before industrialization.


Truth To Power wrote:
Precisely because that publicly created value should be recovered for the purposes and benefit of the public that creates it, rather than being appropriated by rich, greedy, privileged parasites.



We're in agreement on this point, but you're sidestepping the initial thing you said in this part:




[J]ust as production and population have moved from rural to urban, so has land value.



This part doesn't reconcile with what you just said - - if public natural resources ('the commons') need to be resocialized to the common good, what does that have to do with *land values*?

Perhaps I'm being too critical though - - perhaps you just mean it as a *measurement*.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, sciences that study human behavior do.



No, there are social sciences, particularly sociology, that *do not have to* examine social dynamics at the scale of the individual. Statistics would be another one, which is closer to a *hard* science, being mathematical, though its subject matter tends to be social dynamics.


Truth To Power wrote:
No, because it is provably incorrect.



Do tell - - how is Marxism 'provably incorrect'?


Truth To Power wrote:
Because they are not rentier assets. They yield no economic rent because their value comes from their producers, not from a legal entitlement to deprive others of what they would otherwise have without making just compensation.



But they *do* yield 'economic rent' in the form of asset value *appreciation* over time - - that's why people use them as financial vehicles for the hoarding of wealth. This increase in value ultimately has to be provided by the overall economy somehow, once the asset is cashed-out for the capital gains realized.

Also, you're making a *Marxist* argument, in that the economic ('exchange') value of any given asset is sourced from work done by laborers to produce it in the first place (along with any speculative, market-price-pushing bidding activity).

You still haven't provided any theory or ideology on how land *should* be distributed, if the way it's *been* done has been so alienating to the working class.


Truth To Power wrote:
Huh? What nonsense. Products of labor are no longer natural resources. As soon as a physical material is extracted from nature by labor, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor, and thus rightly owned by its producer. You know this.



But under capitalism it's the *owner* who has bought the commodity (land, etc.) from the previous owner or government, and has paid for the human labor power to make it a usable, saleable product, and so deprives the worker of the *product* of his or her labor. The *laborer* does not walk-away with the product, it's the *owner* that does, contrary to what you're indicating.


Truth To Power wrote:
By securing and reconciling the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



But then who 'manages' any given commodity, say, a parcel of land? If someone within your 'community' worked a piece of previously unclaimed land and then called it their own, could they then *sell* it? If so, then that parcel of land would be *commodified*, and it would have a private-property *owner*, separate from the original labor, and any additional labor used, as for landscaping and buildings on that property.

This is why, above all other subissues, I'd like to hear your take on how to reconcile 'private', with 'public'. When would privatization be allowed, according to you, and when would it *not* be allowed?


Truth To Power wrote:
On payment of just (market) compensation to the community of those deprived of it (obviously can't be retroactive).



Okay, here it is, but I maintain that this treatment of yours *conflicts* with your prior axiom of 'rights to one's products of labor'. All someone has to do is say 'I have enough money to pay someone to do something for me', and that commodification of labor immediately *nullifies* the laborers "rights" to keep the products of their labor.

The laborer could say 'I did the landscaping, and so the land should be mine', but the owner will say 'I paid someone for the land itself, and I paid the laborer to landscape it, so I get to keep the full value of what the landscaped land is worth on the market.' This, by the way, is *capitalism*, which commodities labor *and* labor-value, for those who have capital to invest in such processes. The laborer is *alienated* from whatever it is they produce, for the payment of a wage, for the necessities of life and living.

You may have good intentions, but your politics don't account for how things *currently* get done under capitalism, as just described, and you're not proposing anything that's much different, realistically.


Truth To Power wrote:
One would have to extract it, or arrange and pay for its extraction. A location can't be extracted, and thus can't become property.



I remember running into this subissue with you in the past - - you were not-acknowledging that even *land* is commodified, because it is bought-and-sold. Only those who can *afford* to buy land will ultimately have access to it, because it *is* a commodity and has market-pricing. No, it can't be physically relocated, but that's spurious to its commodification anyway.


Truth To Power wrote:
No. Nature can only be privatized by the act and labor of extraction.



You *just* said that land can't be extracted, yet it's still commodified (bought-and-sold), so it's privatized through private property ownership currently. How would your politics alter this default treatment of commodification of land?


Truth To Power wrote:
Assuming you paid the market compensation to the community of those deprived of it. Of course, compensation is only due if someone else wants to use the resource at that time, not retroactively if someone later decides that it would have been nice if the resource were still there.



So, with this, you're merely describing how private property ownership operates *today* - - any laborer who produces a commodity, or makes improvements to a commodity (land), will just be paid a wage and deprived of the *product* of their labor, correct?


Truth To Power wrote:
There are lots of different kinds of socialism, from the state socialism of Stalin or Mao to the Israeli kibbutzim and the Mondragon cooperative. The latter kind are voluntary, and can thus work well enough. The former aren't and can't.



My concern with your politics, though, has to do with the previously-expressed aspect of 'owner / manager versus laborer'. As soon as *anything* can be bought-and-sold, it has exchange-value (on the markets) and is a commodity.

If a bunch of workers in a coop of whatever sort complete their group task, say building a car, *who decides* how the revenue from the sale of that car is to be used? What if there are internal disputes and factions form around differing, conflicting policy trajectories (the build-more-infrastructure faction vs. the compensate-workers-more faction)?

The reason why I'm for bottom-up emergent central planning is so that problems can be *distributed* as geographically widely as possible - - with *all* productive infrastructure under collective workers control there'd be more *latitude* and maybe some things could be more readily 'outsourced', with more complex and interdependent supply chains resulting.

The problem with any given 'workers coop' today is that [1] market valuations and competitive pressures still exist, and [2] it's *incompatible* as an entity with much else in the market landscape because the collective interest is to keep revenue constrained *locally* to within the entity, while *business* dynamics will press to force an *outward* outlook, to keep investing in the *business* so as to stay up to industry standards. In other words so-called 'market socialism' is an internal *contradiction*, the way the former U.S.S.R. was as a *country* within a greater sea of geopolitical capitalism.

Workers coops do *not* challenge capitalism at all, and so are *not* anti-capitalist - - they're too apolitical.


Truth To Power wrote:
Georgism is too narrow a concept -- basically Henry George's proposed Single Tax of the 19th century. The broader concept of geoism (private ownership of the fruits of labor, including producer goods, and public administration of natural resources in trust for all) more accurately and comprehensively distinguishes itself from socialism (collective ownership of both producer goods and natural resources) and capitalism (private ownership of both producer goods and natural resources).



Okay, I appreciate this succinct description / comparison of your politics.

What I *don't* get is why you *advocate* for it (Georgism / geoism), and *how* it's conceivably better than either socialism or capitalism, in structure.


Truth To Power wrote:
That's the crux of the issue, where all of civilization and human history have gone down the wrong path, a path of robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death. The solution is simple: if no one else is willing to pay to use a resource, one can use it for free. If someone else is also willing to pay to use it, the high bidder gets to use it, paying its market value (his voluntary bid) to the community of those whom he deprives of it.



Again, I don't see how this model is significantly different from the status quo - - moreover, once something is *privatized*, it's the owner's *private property* - - including commodified labor-power, and will be protected / defended as such despite any other human *need* for it, even if it's functionally *inactive*.

This status-quo approach - - private property (capitalism) - - is what *brought* humanity to robbery, slavery, oppression, war, starvation, despair and death.

I'd invite any clarification from you as to how your *debatably* different approach would make any significant difference for humanity.


Truth To Power wrote:
The producer owns it. When one picks -- i.e., extracts -- naturally growing fruit, it is no longer a natural resource but a product of labor.



But is there any unclaimed land anymore? I think the whole world was completely carved-up in the early 20th century, and it's this geopolitical competition over a finite planetary surface area that led into World War I.

Now practically *everything* is private property, and people can't simply find unclaimed orchards from which to pick fruit for daily sustenance - - this issue cropped up in the U.S. during the Great Depression, on the West Coast, regarding oranges.


Truth To Power wrote:
That is always government's job anyway, by definition. The only question is whether it will discharge that function in the interest of and to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all its citizens, or only in the narrow financial interest of a rich, greedy, privileged, parasitic elite.



Well, we *know* the answer to that already, don't we? How would *your* approach steer clear of favoring moneyed elites, exactly, if the government is funded through taxes on private gainful economic activity (a growing economy) ?


Truth To Power wrote:
Governance and legitimation is a different issue. I'm still just trying to educate people as to where their best interests actually lie.



So what you're saying is that you want government to 'keep the peace' (in civil society) while conventional, current business practices continue to go on, at the expense of the working class. You *claim* to want laborers to keep the product of their labor, but you don't explain *how* (in relation to ownership) and you don't acknowledge that labor *itself* is treated as a commodity, and exploited, under capitalism. Are you a professional politician?


Truth To Power wrote:
No. Like Marx, you have not the slightest understanding of how money works under finance capitalism. Almost all our money is created by private commercial banks, not the government, and most of the rest is created by central banks like the Fed, not government mints. In essence, almost all the money we use from day to day consists of outstanding bank loan principal.



I just said that the U.S. government works *with* the Federal Reserve. I don't dispute your description here - - the U.S. *outsources* its currency creation, which is fairly common practice, anyway, though *dramatized* by libertarians / left-nationalists in the case of the Fed. There are many, many government contracts available, as even for military suppliers, which is dominated by a certain oligopoly. At these levels, though, the closeness between government and private sectors is so tight as to effectively make it all a single entity, anyway - - the 'military-industrial complex', for example.


Truth To Power wrote:
I don't see a practical alternative to accountable democratic governance of peoples within their sovereign territories, and it works pretty well compared to, as Churchill observed, "all the alternatives that have been tried from time to time."



With statements like these you're just reinforcing the *nationalism* aspect of your politics, which is *not* compatible with the nobler / progressive portions of your expressed politics. I think you're giving working-class interests *lip service* by not-addressing those interests in any kind of *detail*. (I'll remind that workers do not have *any* national interests because workers can organize *internationally*, on a *class* basis.)


Truth To Power wrote:
The geoist paradigm renders such maneuvers useless. Land can't move, and it can't hide.



But land-as-a-commodity would still exist, and such land values would be measured in *exchange values* (money, finance) - - it wouldn't be any different than the capitalism of today.


Truth To Power wrote:
To some extent it's just a matter of terminology. Some people might call what I propose "nationalization." But IMO there is a useful distinction to be made between considering land as public property and considering it as a public trust. In particular, nationalization is often thought to imply public management and use of land, as in collectivized agriculture, etc. I favor management, control, and use of land by competing private landholders in a free market who are required to make just compensation for what they take from the community.



If land is still private property then it's *not* nationalized. The 'trust' you mention is simply state control, possibly outsourced to a private management firm. You're still basically describing the status quo and are not proposing anything different.


Truth To Power wrote:
Secure, exclusive tenure is required for efficient productive use in any economy above the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages.



See - - this is your ideology showing through - - what happened to 'the workers keeping their product', and ['the commons'] ?

By upholding private property you're leaving the economic exploitation of workers in-place, with both land (and all rentier-type assets) and labor being commodified and exploited.


Truth To Power wrote:
The democratically accountable local government that secures the user's exclusive tenure for him and provides the desirable public services and infrastructure that make the land economically advantageous enough that he is willing to pay for it.



Again, status-quo.


Truth To Power wrote:
That's up to competing, private, for-profit producers because that gets the incentives right.



Status quo.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

I'm *all for* public services and public infrastructure, to the point that *everything* should be public services and public infrastructure, and run by the workers themselves.



Truth To Power wrote:
But public monopoly provision is only efficient in cases of market failure or natural monopoly, where there is nothing to be gained from private competition, such as transport infrastructure, police and fire service, etc. Most goods and services aren't like that, and are better provided by competing private producers.



Your yardstick of 'efficient' is only in terms of *exchange values* (money / currency / finance).

You've already admitted (the sports industry) that markets are very *inefficient* in terms of human effort invested, the height of the social pyramid, selective payoffs, etc. - - these are *material* factors / inputs and outputs, but are not measured by capitalism's exchange values. (They're 'externalities'.)


Truth To Power wrote:
I'm opposed to private landownership and the private appropriation and retention of publicly created rent.



However, you just said, a few segments ago, that:


Truth To Power wrote:
I favor management, control, and use of land by competing private landholders in a free market who are required to make just compensation for what they take from the community.



So - - tell me if I'm parsing correctly - - government secures land through military imperialism, and then leases or sells this newly created private property commodity to private owners, thus making it into a commodity.

Are you *opposed* to private landownership, or are you *for* competing private landholders in a free market?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:

But you're okay with *other* kinds of rentier-based rents, like the accumulation of interest for sitting, non-productive ('saved') private funds.



Truth To Power wrote:
That's not rentier-based or a rent because it is obtained by contributing, not by depriving. I don't know how many more times I will have to explain that obvious point.



But in both cases, land and liquid capital, an asset-type economic *service* is being provided, that being the leased usage of physical land, for rent payments, and the usage of capital, presumably for investments, respectively. The sources of value themselves, land and capital, etc., are *non-productive* because they just sit there until rented. And, once rented, they have to be paid for, with rent and interest, respectively, for their leasing, regardless of what happens during the time of their leasing.

Borrowed capital receives interest payments because the asset, capital, is being used by a second party.

You're trying to make a false distinction when *all* rentier-type assets are the same, namely non-commodity-productive themselves, including the land underneath *productive* (equity) goods like factories and machinery immediately say that personal *health* is a far more important factor, which is a 'nurture' / social factor.

*Whew*, that was a lot, as usual - - head out for some beers now? (grin)
#15083347
QatzelOk wrote:Here's how wealth was "created" by capitalism in North America.

1. Local populations who don't "own" the land, but share it, are exterminated by God-fearing refugees.

They don't have to be exterminated, just forcibly dispossessed of their liberty to use it, same as had been done to everyone but the landowning elite in Europe.
2. The rich take possession of those lands, throwing a few scraps to their genocidal worker-bee killers.

3. The rich turn this stolen land into wealth, and sweep the genocides that created the wealth under the rug of fake history.

Yes, but the process of turning that land into wealth had two more necessary steps after forcible dispossession of all who would otherwise have been at liberty to use it:
1. legal appropriation of the land as private property, and
2. public provision of desirable services (especially secure, exclusive tenure) and infrastructure that make it more economically advantageous, paid for by taxes on people other than the landowners who get the benefit.
So the lesson of most capitalist history - the real history - is if you want to make money, you have to kill a lot of people who share land, and then parcel it up among the killers. And then dissappear your crime into the void of public ignorance.

The central crime at the heart of all capitalism's evils is the forcible removal, without just compensation, of people's liberty rights to use land. However, it's actually more profitable not to kill the victims, but to make them compete to pay you rent for permission to live.
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed." - Honoré de Balzac

"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." -- Balzac
#15083349
QatzelOk wrote:
Here's how wealth was "created" by capitalism in North America.

1. Local populations who don't "own" the land, but share it, are exterminated by God-fearing refugees.



I'd like to *ask* you about this, Qatzel, if you don't mind -- my understanding is that the European refugees were validly fleeing persecution from the church. That doesn't make any murders legitimate, of course, but my understanding has been that the earliest explorers / settlers got along fine with the indigenous populations in North America, and it wasn't until later that settlers became more like land speculators and had an economic interest in fomenting genocide.

I really just need to check Zinn on it, and that's probably where my recollections come from, anyway, but I thought I'd ask you since you're writing about it.


QatzelOk wrote:
2. The rich take possession of those lands, throwing a few scraps to their genocidal worker-bee killers.

3. The rich turn this stolen land into wealth, and sweep the genocides that created the wealth under the rug of fake history.

So the lesson of most capitalist history - the real history - is if you want to make money, you have to kill a lot of people who share land, and then parcel it up among the killers. And then dissappear your crime into the void of public ignorance.
...
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed." - Honoré de Balzac



Thanks, later.
#15083363
@ckaihatsu Even the earliest settlers were backed up by centers of colonial government that could conduct comprehensive excursions if necessary, although remote homesteaders were more or less on their own and this probably created some incentive to cooperate with the locals in a lot of situations. The emergence of the Métis peoples between the Great Lakes and the Rockies (i.e. away from the colonial centers in the Atlantic regions that gave racism form) may have stemmed from this sporadic cooperation.
  • 1
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35

I was actually unaware :lol: Before he was […]

It is interesting you ignored all the other measu[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

Every accusation is a confession Why sexual v[…]

Indeed. It is strange, but they're all over the in[…]