[Truth To Power]

@Truth To Power

I see that you refused to show your refutations.

I see that you continue your false claims.

So, no, you have not addressed the evidence.

Yes I have.

Do so now.

Again??

[Steve_American]

Solar is ok, the problem is always storing the energy.

Did you see my thread in Science and Tech, about 2 ways being perfected to store solar energy by either 1] melting aluminium and then using the heat given off as it re-'freezes'? Or 2] heating crushed rock very hot, and then using the heat as it cools? They are both past the planning stage and into the working prototype stage or by now being produced commercially.

They seemed very practical to me.
.

[ckaihatsu]

Right, but land is much more important than IP, as its astronomical unimproved value proves so very conclusively. This is mainly because landowning enables landowners to take all the value government creates by spending on desirable public services and infrastructure. So in effect, landowners get to pocket everyone else's taxes: the more government spends trying to undo the damage caused by landowner privilege, the more landowners are entitled to pocket, and the worse the damage caused by landowner privilege. The majority of land by value is corporate owned. Total land rent amounts to 20%-30% of GDP in most advanced capitalist countries, depending on factors like population density and geography. So landowning accounts for corporate profits totaling ~10%-20% of GDP, depending on the country.

Other important privileges are bank licenses (under our current fractional reserve debt-money system of finance capitalism), oil and mineral rights, and broadcast spectrum allocations.

Okay, what I'm hearing is a sound critique of *rentier* capital,

I don't know what you mean by "rentier capital," and prefer to define terms clearly and accurately. Privilege is a legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. If that is what you are talking about, please do not call it "rentier capital."

According to your stated politics it would be the national *government* / state that would administer all parcels of land -- you're ultimately a *statist* for this reason.

Since you often discuss monopolization you may want to familiarize yourself with the (highly controversial) *benefits* of monopolization, as over any given parcel of land, or any other 'natural monopoly' like broadcast spectrum allocation.

It's strange that you bemoan the landowning 'privilege' of private-interest rent-seeking -- which is an inescapable claim on government-provided social subsidies to the renter, as you describe (also a claim on wages and revenue), but then you basically *sanction* this government administration / bureaucratic establishment of land-parcel-commodification for the private sector.

If you're so concerned with government *favoritism* and officially sanctioned rentier-type 'privileges' of usage that tend towards monopoly-control, then why aren't you calling for some kind of *land reform*, at a minimum -- ?

It's starting to sound like crocodile tears -- either you're half-heartedly criticizing nationalist government administration of natural-monopoly-type commodities, like land, or else you're being outright *hypocritical* by not-suggesting an improvement-minded politics.

Rentier capitalism is a term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property (physical, financial, intellectual, etc.) and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society.[1][2][3] The origins of the term are unclear; it is often said[by whom?] to be used in Marxism, yet the very combination of words rentier and capitalism were never used by Karl Marx himself.

In his early works, Karl Marx juxtaposed the terms "rentier" and "capitalist" to argue that a rentier tends to exhaust his profits, whereas a capitalist must perforce re-invest most of the surplus value in order to survive competition. He wrote, "Therefore, the means of the extravagant rentier diminish daily in inverse proportion to the growing possibilities and temptations of pleasure. He must, therefore, either consume his capital himself, and in doing so bring about his own ruin, or become an industrial capitalist...."[4] However, Marx believed that capitalism was inherently built upon practices of usury and thus inevitably leading to the separation of society into two classes: one composed of those who produce value and the other, which feeds upon the first one. In "Theories of Surplus Value" (written 1862–1863), he states "...that interest (in contrast to industrial profit) and rent (that is the form of landed property created by capitalist production itself) are superfetations (i.e., excessive accumulations) which are not essential to capitalist production and of which it can rid itself. If this bourgeois ideal were actually realisable, the only result would be that the whole of the surplus-value would go to the industrial capitalist directly, and society would be reduced (economically) to the simple contradiction between capital and wage-labour, a simplification which would indeed accelerate the dissolution of this mode of production."[5]

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

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because of the automatically-wealth-increasing *privilege* of such private property ownership (of various forms) (of necessarily / by-definition *non-productive* capital -- assets and resources).

The defining characteristic of privilege is that unlike, say, a factory, whose owner can only increase his wealth by producing value, relieving scarcity, and making others richer, the owner of a privilege increases his wealth by the abrogation of others' rights, making them poorer. So the problem with privilege is not that it makes its owners richer -- we all want to be richer -- but that it makes others poorer. And to correct your misstatement, natural resources like land are not unproductive, only their owners are.

We've been over this on past threads -- using land for food production is basically a social 'must', so food production itself isn't really *sufficient enough* to be 'capitalism', since the extents of a backwards *feudalism* could accomplish food production alone.

Capitalism really implies some kind of *surplus production*, and particularly of *crafts*-type / industrial production, meaning tangible commodities and sought-after services, ultimately for *export* -- mercantilism, and, later, the export of *capital*, meaning imperialism.

Natural resources like land are definitely not productive -- it requires human *labor*, particularly, to transform raw nature into a saleable commodity in the first place, anyway, all of your 'administrative' concerns aside.


Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show

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Okay, good to hear. So you're *pro* digital-commons, basically.

I'd go further, and abolish all patent and copyright monopolies.

That's at the *national* level, right?


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You're saying that brands and trademarks hold some kind of *social* / mindshare / reputational value -- can you expand on this part at all -- ?

They certify the source of a product, preventing fraudulent pretenses of quality. Note that a person's name is also a brand. So for example, in the absence of copyright one could rewrite and republish the Harry Potter novels, or even just photocopy and sell them, but one could not claim they were JK Rowling's work without her permission to use her name.

So here again your politics requires an 'administrator', or an entire governmental *administration*, yet you're scarce with details on any of this. Hmmmmm!


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Should the same government administration that you're critical of

I don't criticize government per se, mainly just its subservience to the narrow financial interests of the privileged super-duper uber-rich.

But how could it be *otherwise* -- ?

You *know* that it's a *symbiotic* relationship between the ruling class and its governmental bureaucratic elite (they don't produce any commodities themselves).


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be the social institution to regulate over brands and trademarks -- like perhaps the 'recycle' (triple-arrow) logo, since that's been corporate and controversial.

I'm not familiar with the controversy. Nothing is perfect, and greedy people will always concoct schemes to take advantage of any system, but I have no a priori objection to government regulating use of brands and trademarks.

How about weights-and-measures -- ? (Anything else?)

How is your 'government' *funded*, again -- ?


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What if some company's brand or reputation has been aggressively *attacked*, resulting in *devaluation*, or an individual has been socially *harmed*, through unwarranted malicious discourse -- how would the government handle these kinds of 'justice' situations, if people are seeking 'compensation' or 'public acknowledgement' -- ?

There are libel laws, etc. Admittedly, the age of the Internet makes enforcement problematical, as so much can be done anonymously.

So would you be 'pro' or 'anti', regarding Silk Road -- ?


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In other words -- if I may -- the market will inherently provide a *market* valuation for any-given parcel of land, as a function of sheer emergence.

Right.

So this isn't saying much, *politically* -- you're saying 'the face value of the land parcel will default to indexing the current market rate for its *rental*, so that the valuation, even if just nominal, is still 'officially' provided and available, 'automatically' (yet not exactly technologically). Got it.

So, *politically*, your statist governmental administrative bureaucracy has to *enforce* this kind of thing, as for 'trespassing', etc. How would the 'favoritism' / corruption that you bemoan be *prevented* with this approach, exactly -- ?

What would prevent the entire *industry* (of land provisioning, by a nationalist entity) from being constantly *fought-over*, as in the sense of runaway *warlordism* -- ?

This also doesn't cover the real-world history of statist colonialist *genocide* of indigenous populations, for the original 'sourcing' of land into the land-commodity.


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In all of these cases / examples it's the *state* (bureaucracy) that enjoys the quantification / financialization of whatever natural and social resources / natural-monopolies exist.

The idea is that the state (i.e., its government) is democratically accountable to its citizens. How that is managed in practice is a different issue, but I'm not talking about historical situations of monarchy, or contemporary dictatorships.

You previously acknowledged that the system is a *plutocracy*, so how do you reconcile *that* description with this one, of the *gentry*-based popular representation?


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And how *would* such a bureaucracy / administration / government *valuate* those state assets if they happened to go unclaimed by the private sector, like an abandoned building that's financially 'under-water' -- ?

As it was privately produced, the building would be privately owned; only the land under it would be public until such time as some private person paid for secure, exclusive tenure.

And who would have ultimately authority over any given piece of land -- would private interests (of potentially $1 leasing) override 'public' interests for a piece of land -- ? Would this government be able to use 'eminent domain', and, if so, over what conditions?


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There's no 'rental value' available as a measurement if there's no *renting*, or purchasing / auctioning going on due to lack of economic activity.

There is always economic activity. If no more than one person was willing to pay for secure, exclusive tenure to a given location, they would get it for free. If more than one person was willing to pay, the person who was willing to pay the most would get it for a bit more than the person who wanted it second most was willing to pay. Some people advocate "Vickrey auctions" where the high bidder would get it for the second highest bidder's bid.

Yeah, never mind on this one -- I already covered it above.


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How is the (presumably national) government *funded* -- ?

IMO national governments are best funded by seigniorage on money issuance and Pigovian taxes. Location subsidy repayment (LSR) is better suited to junior governments. Of course, revenue sources and responsibility for expenditures have to go together. As most land value is locally created, the local community should recover it.

And then *operational* costs -- what *then* -- (!)

(Government is a little more than just a statue that's made once and then just sits there.)


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Why does the local 'community' get to benefit from 'land creation',

There is no land creation, obviously. The local community is largely responsible for providing the desirable public services and infrastructure -- and enabling the private activities that create the opportunities and amenities -- that make the land more advantageous, so it rightly recovers the value it creates.

Who enforces *trespassing* laws -- ? (Maybe I happen to like finding camping spots. What if I inadvertently *overstep* one or more times, and someone has a cause for a complaint?)


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and why would the national government be so *generous* in not-claiming control and administration *itself*, instead magnanimously devolving such economic activity to 'the community' in all cases,

People have generally found that devolving some responsibilities to junior governments is more efficient and accountable, especially if the nation is large and geographically diverse.

How is 'the community' entity defined?


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while still having to spend on (aforementioned) 'desirable public services and infrastucture' -- ?

Most of that spending is local. Of course it depends on the country. In a place like Singapore, the national government IS local. In big, diverse countries like Russia, Canada, China, Brazil or the USA, there are states or provinces as well as city governments that handle a lot of the spending on services and infrastructure. The various levels of government come to a modus vivendi.

What role(s) would this national bureaucracy of yours have, exactly -- is it a confederation or is it federalism?

[late]

Did you see my thread in Science and Tech, about 2 ways being perfected to store solar energy by either 1] melting aluminium and then using the heat given off as it re-'freezes'? Or 2] heating crushed rock very hot, and then using the heat as it cools? They are both past the planning stage and into the working prototype stage or by now being produced commercially.

They seemed very practical to me.

A properly built dam is good for a 100 years, or more.

This is new tech, there's going to be problems.

[Pants-of-dog]

I see that you continue your false claims.

Yes I have.

Again??

No, you did not read the posts properly or you are lying.

Let us start with the first claim that I just discussed, about rich people making a lot more GHGs.

Did you refute that? Yes or no? If yes, what is your refutation?

[QatzelOk]

Did you see my thread in Science and Tech, about 2 ways being perfected to store solar energy by either 1] melting aluminium and then using the heat given off as it re-'freezes'? Or 2] heating crushed rock very hot, and then using the heat as it cools?

I don't mean to argue against your science, Steve. But I do disagree with your tactic here.

See, the best way for the 1% to do NOTHING about pollution is to... talk about future tech.

Just talk and talk and talk about future gadgets and chemicals... until the Gretas of this world give up and go home with nothing from you.

"Did you hear the one about cod-liver carburetors and how the oil companies won't let us have them? The reduce oil use to 10000 km per liter and eliminate all pollution. Why, if it wasn't for the oil companies holding this miracle tech back..."

[ckaihatsu]

I don't mean to argue against your science, Steve. But I do disagree with your tactic here.

See, the best way for the 1% to do NOTHING about pollution is to... talk about future tech.

Just talk and talk and talk about future gadgets and chemicals... until the Gretas of this world give up and go home with nothing from you.

"Did you hear the one about cod-liver carburetors and how the oil companies won't let us have them? The reduce oil use to 10000 km per liter and eliminate all pollution. Why, if it wasn't for the oil companies holding this miracle tech back..."

Qatzel, I can understand your concern here, but don't you think it's somewhat *ultra-left* -- ?

Yes, I know that the implementation of technology in society is entirely *top-down*, and that tech is more about *corporate policy* than it is about finding the 'right' device to use ('magic-bullet'), but, all of that said, I don't see why there can't be more 'bottom-up' approaches as well, maybe akin to the 'mesh' movement in some cities to provide broader Internet access, guerrilla-style.

People *should* be conscious of various technologies, anyway, and we're all now *having* to be more tech-aware due to this global-warming thing.

I think the point here is to have *control* of tech, as over energy production, the same way that we now have control over *communications*, on the Internet, instead of remaining beholden to the corporate media conglomerations, as in past days of network TV.

[Truth To Power]

No, you did not read the posts properly or you are lying.

Watch:

Let us start with the first claim that I just discussed, about rich people making a lot more GHGs.

Did you refute that? Yes or no? If yes, what is your refutation?

If you had read my posts properly -- or at all -- you would know I never disputed the fact that rich people use a lot more fossil fuels, releasing a lot more greenhouse gases. In fact, I even noted that they were thereby contributing to the greening of deserts and enhanced agricultural yields, and (in some much smaller measure) to the Modern Climate Optimum. Remember?

[Pants-of-dog]

:lol: Watch:

If you had read my posts properly -- or at all -- you would know I never disputed the fact that rich people use a lot more fossil fuels, releasing a lot more greenhouse gases. In fact, I even noted that they were thereby contributing to the greening of deserts and enhanced agricultural yields, and (in some much smaller measure) to the Modern Climate Optimum. Remember?

So you concede that you never refuted the first claim.

Moving on,

Show your refutation for the claim that GHGs are causing climate change.

[Truth To Power]

So you concede that you never refuted the first claim.

No, I corrected your false and disingenuous implication that I ever disputed it.

Show your refutation for the claim that GHGs are causing climate change.

That's easy: Occam's Razor suffices. As climate changed in much the same way many times before without anthropogenic GHGs, the claim that anthropogenic GHGs must be causing it this time is logically equivalent to a shaman's claim that dancing the Rain Dance is what made it rain this time.

[Truth To Power]

According to your stated politics it would be the national *government* / state that would administer all parcels of land -- you're ultimately a *statist* for this reason.

Government administers possession and use of land in any case because that is what government IS: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land. If a "statist" is someone who is willing to know the fact that a state has to be very bad indeed to be worse than no state, then yes, I am a statist.

Since you often discuss monopolization you may want to familiarize yourself with the (highly controversial) *benefits* of monopolization, as over any given parcel of land, or any other 'natural monopoly' like broadcast spectrum allocation.

I am aware that secure, exclusive tenure is often beneficial: civilization would be impossible without it. But those who get that benefit at others' expense should make just compensation to those whom they exclude.

It's strange that you bemoan the landowning 'privilege' of private-interest rent-seeking -- which is an inescapable claim on government-provided social subsidies to the renter, as you describe (also a claim on wages and revenue), but then you basically *sanction* this government administration / bureaucratic establishment of land-parcel-commodification for the private sector.

Advantageous land is scarce, and all have equal a priori liberty rights to use it. Yet secure, exclusive tenure is indisputably in the economic interest of the community. How can the community most justly and efficiently reconcile these conflicting considerations? I simply propose that those who get the benefit of secure, exclusive tenure make just compensation to the community that provides it, and the community make just compensation to its citizens who are thus deprived of their liberty rights to use it. If you think there is a better way, describe it, and I will explain why it is inferior.

If you're so concerned with government *favoritism* and officially sanctioned rentier-type 'privileges' of usage that tend towards monopoly-control, then why aren't you calling for some kind of *land reform*, at a minimum -- ?

That is exactly what I am calling for, one more profound and radical than you can possibly imagine.

It's starting to sound like crocodile tears -- either you're half-heartedly criticizing nationalist government administration of natural-monopoly-type commodities, like land, or else you're being outright *hypocritical* by not-suggesting an improvement-minded politics.

I'm not criticizing the fact that government administers possession and use of land, I'm criticizing HOW they do so.

We've been over this on past threads -- using land for food production is basically a social 'must', so food production itself isn't really *sufficient enough* to be 'capitalism', since the extents of a backwards *feudalism* could accomplish food production alone.

And not all communities need to produce their own food. HK, Singapore, etc. certainly can't.

Capitalism really implies some kind of *surplus production*,

No, it's only about private ownership of land and capital goods.

and particularly of *crafts*-type / industrial production, meaning tangible commodities and sought-after services, ultimately for *export* -- mercantilism, and, later, the export of *capital*, meaning imperialism.

No, let's stick to the definition, and not get tangled in stupid Marxist fabrications.

Natural resources like land are definitely not productive -- it requires human *labor*, particularly, to transform raw nature into a saleable commodity in the first place, anyway, all of your 'administrative' concerns aside.

They are productive in the sense that producers have to use them to relieve scarcity. IP monopolies, by contrast, are counter-productive: they reduce production and aggravate scarcity. That is the relevant distinction.

That's at the *national* level, right?

The level of government is not relevant.

So here again your politics requires an 'administrator', or an entire governmental *administration*, yet you're scarce with details on any of this. Hmmmmm!

That's up to individual communities' legal and historical circumstances and democratic choices. I'm just identifying the correct solution, not how to implement it, because that is a contingent local matter.

But how could it be *otherwise* -- ?

By people somehow finding a willingness to know facts, and voting accordingly.

You *know* that it's a *symbiotic* relationship between the ruling class and its governmental bureaucratic elite (they don't produce any commodities themselves).

It doesn't have to be.

How about weights-and-measures -- ? (Anything else?)

Lots of things.

How is your 'government' *funded*, again -- ?

Junior governments by location subsidy repayment (LSR) and national ones by seigniorage and Pigovian taxes.

So would you be 'pro' or 'anti', regarding Silk Road -- ?

I don't know much about it, but I suspect it would not be a high priority in a democracy.

So this isn't saying much, *politically* -- you're saying 'the face value of the land parcel will default to indexing the current market rate for its *rental*, so that the valuation, even if just nominal, is still 'officially' provided and available, 'automatically' (yet not exactly technologically). Got it.

No, I would definitely advocate using IT to measure market location rents.

So, *politically*, your statist governmental administrative bureaucracy has to *enforce* this kind of thing, as for 'trespassing', etc. How would the 'favoritism' / corruption that you bemoan be *prevented* with this approach, exactly -- ?

The usual way: eternal vigilance.

What would prevent the entire *industry* (of land provisioning, by a nationalist entity) from being constantly *fought-over*, as in the sense of runaway *warlordism* -- ?

Civilian control of the military.

This also doesn't cover the real-world history of statist colonialist *genocide* of indigenous populations, for the original 'sourcing' of land into the land-commodity.

No one ever produced land, so indigenous populations have exactly the same right to it as everyone else.

You previously acknowledged that the system is a *plutocracy*,

The current system, yes. I'm proposing abolition of the principal privilege that makes it a plutocracy.

so how do you reconcile *that* description with this one, of the *gentry*-based popular representation?

There's nothing "gentry-based" about it. You simply made that up.

And who would have ultimately authority over any given piece of land -- would private interests (of potentially $1 leasing) override 'public' interests for a piece of land -- ?

The ultimate authority is of course the geographic sovereign government.

Would this government be able to use 'eminent domain', and, if so, over what conditions?

Eminent domain would be kind of irrelevant, as the land would have only a derisory exchange value.

And then *operational* costs -- what *then* -- (!)

I have no idea what you think the problem is. Governments have operating as well as capital budgets, and land rent depends on both.

(Government is a little more than just a statue that's made once and then just sits there.)

No idea what you think that is apropos of, either.

Who enforces *trespassing* laws -- ?

The same people who do it now.

(Maybe I happen to like finding camping spots. What if I inadvertently *overstep* one or more times, and someone has a cause for a complaint?)

Mind your manners.

How is 'the community' entity defined?

All citizens living in the geographical area over which a given government is sovereign.

What role(s) would this national bureaucracy of yours have, exactly

What do you mean? It would administer the same sorts of things governments administer now, except that the revenue and land tenure systems would be just.

-- is it a confederation or is it federalism?

It doesn't matter.

[Pants-of-dog]

No, I corrected your false and disingenuous implication that I ever disputed it.

That's easy: Occam's Razor suffices. As climate changed in much the same way many times before without anthropogenic GHGs, the claim that anthropogenic GHGs must be causing it this time is logically equivalent to a shaman's claim that dancing the Rain Dance is what made it rain this time.

Occam’s razor is not a description of reality. It is a heuristic maxim. To assume that simpler things are more likely to be true than complicated things is not logical or supported by science.

Also, you are assuming that the only possible cause of an effect is a previous cause, when in reality, the same effect can arise from new causes.

But if you are conceding that you have no evidence except these logical fallacies, then I will move on to the next claim and accept that you could not refute this.

[Unthinking Majority]

I don't mean to argue against your science, Steve. But I do disagree with your tactic here.

See, the best way for the 1% to do NOTHING about pollution is to... talk about future tech.

Just talk and talk and talk about future gadgets and chemicals... until the Gretas of this world give up and go home with nothing from you.

Is it a weird coincidence that both Elon Musk and Greta have Asperger's syndrome?

[ckaihatsu]

Is it a weird coincidence that both Elon Musk and Greta have Asperger's syndrome?

I just wanna let you know that I'm considering your tabloid-paper gossip content for my new graphics project.

[Steve_American]

I don't mean to argue against your science, Steve. But I do disagree with your tactic here.

See, the best way for the 1% to do NOTHING about pollution is to... talk about future tech.

Just talk and talk and talk about future gadgets and chemicals... until the Gretas of this world give up and go home with nothing from you.

"Did you hear the one about cod-liver carburetors and how the oil companies won't let us have them? The reduce oil use to 10000 km per liter and eliminate all pollution. Why, if it wasn't for the oil companies holding this miracle tech back..."

Sir, I guess we will just have to disagree.
IMO, it is obvious that some new tech will be necessary to get to net zero without killing a few billions of people.
This is because the Earth is way past its carrying capacity, which might be about 3 billion people.

To avoid the early deaths of billions we must have a soft landing.

To do that we must go to solar energy. To do that we must solve the energy storage problem.

The 2 storage systems I pointed to are very simple, they just use known tech. Nothing fundamentally new must be developed. Yes, there are some kinks they were still working on 2 years ago. E.g., the heated rocks one had the problem that thermal expansion of the rocks would slowly crush them tiny bit by tiny bit. They said they think they had solved this. The molten aluminium one was almost totally solved. AL shrinks as it solidifies, so it is less of a problem. The 2 systems relied on neat pumps to convert the electric energy into high temp thermal energy, they didn't only rely on the energy in the current. They used the electric energy to move energy from the air around us into the AL or rocks being heated. This is very basic science/tech.

[The video didn't mention it, but I just realized that a by product of the processes is cool/cold air. This could be used to cool near by buildings which will save on AC costs and energy use. In the winter this will make the area around the plant colder, though.]
.

[ckaihatsu]

According to your stated politics it would be the national *government* / state that would administer all parcels of land -- you're ultimately a *statist* for this reason.

Government administers possession and use of land in any case because that is what government IS: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land. If a "statist" is someone who is willing to know the fact that a state has to be very bad indeed to be worse than no state, then yes, I am a statist.

So, as usual, the *status quo*, and there's a problem with that. Policy-wise, for example, there's the unjustifiably-punitive international sanctions still in place from the U.S., and also the unresolved issues of immigration, and abortion, etc.


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Since you often discuss monopolization you may want to familiarize yourself with the (highly controversial) *benefits* of monopolization, as over any given parcel of land, or any other 'natural monopoly' like broadcast spectrum allocation.

I am aware that secure, exclusive tenure is often beneficial: civilization would be impossible without it. But those who get that benefit at others' expense should make just compensation to those whom they exclude.[/quote]


Yeah, whatever, but you're back to your backstop of *the state* -- whatever it says, you do. Just keep that in mind, regarding further words.

I appreciate the 'collectivization' aspect of overall state administration -- compared with today's financial / economic situation -- as any pro-republic person would, to get the fledgling country past its most vulnerable point.

Regardless, it remains sick, as in sick-and-depraved, that economically expanding equity capital should be channeled into the little ritualistic *games* of purportedly capitalist economic competition. All of the scandals and meltdowns of the last 20 years throw into stark relief that equity capital isn't up to the task, and *rentier* capital is outright *vampiric*.

Let's maybe talk equity capital and rentier capital, over coffee, sometime, since your conception of economics *requires* them, regardless.

Would your conception of things be so different as to prevent your own kind of 'Evergrande', or garden-variety overfinancialization -- ?


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It's strange that you bemoan the landowning 'privilege' of private-interest rent-seeking -- which is an inescapable claim on government-provided social subsidies to the renter, as you describe (also a claim on wages and revenue), but then you basically *sanction* this government administration / bureaucratic establishment of land-parcel-commodification for the private sector.

Advantageous land is scarce, and all have equal a priori liberty rights to use it. Yet secure, exclusive tenure is indisputably in the economic interest of the community. How can the community most justly and efficiently reconcile these conflicting considerations? I simply propose that those who get the benefit of secure, exclusive tenure make just compensation to the community that provides it, and the community make just compensation to its citizens who are thus deprived of their liberty rights to use it. If you think there is a better way, describe it, and I will explain why it is inferior.

I just did -- you seem to think that just having a baseline of emergent property / rental values is a sufficient basis for a political economy. You're such a force of fandom for the ground-level valuations that you don't / can't even acknowledge matters of *scale*, like corporations and mergers-and-acquisitions.

I think you just made yourself 'land guy'.


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If you're so concerned with government *favoritism* and officially sanctioned rentier-type 'privileges' of usage that tend towards monopoly-control, then why aren't you calling for some kind of *land reform*, at a minimum -- ?

That is exactly what I am calling for, one more profound and radical than you can possibly imagine.

Well, feel free to give it a name and describe it a little bit. I'll be here, of course.


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It's starting to sound like crocodile tears -- either you're half-heartedly criticizing nationalist government administration of natural-monopoly-type commodities, like land, or else you're being outright *hypocritical* by not-suggesting an improvement-minded politics.

I'm not criticizing the fact that government administers possession and use of land, I'm criticizing HOW they do so.

Which is fine, of course, and you're obviously for more centralized bureaucratic control, which I see as nominally better than capital markets, but is still basically *Stalinism*, and capitalism, since it's constrained to the boundaries of the nation-state.


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We've been over this on past threads -- using land for food production is basically a social 'must', so food production itself isn't really *sufficient enough* to be 'capitalism', since the extents of a backwards *feudalism* could accomplish food production alone.

And not all communities need to produce their own food. HK, Singapore, etc. certainly can't.

Let me rephrase -- I'm saying that a decent political economy would have to surpass mere *food production*, or else it would be no better than feudalism and certainly wouldn't be capitalism, with all of its signature dynamism and growth and such, historically.


---

Capitalism really implies some kind of *surplus production*,

No, it's only about private ownership of land and capital goods.

As I've been explaining, the framework you've been describing has no *dynamism* to it. Look where things are *right now* -- this period is termed 'late capitalism' because it's so sclerotic and self-hindering:

Effects on the economy

In the wake of the 2007-2010 financial crisis, a number of economists and others began to argue that financial services had become too large a sector of the US economy, with no real benefit to society accruing from the activities of increased financialization.[19]

In February 2009, white-collar criminologist and former senior financial regulator William K. Black listed the ways in which the financial sector harms the real economy. Black wrote, "The financial sector functions as the sharp canines that the predator state uses to rend the nation. In addition to siphoning off capital for its own benefit, the finance sector misallocates the remaining capital in ways that harm the real economy in order to reward already-rich financial elites harming the nation."[20]

Emerging countries have also tried to develop their financial sector, as an engine of economic development. A typical aspect is the growth of microfinance or microcredit, as part of financial inclusion.[21]

Bruce Bartlett summarized several studies in a 2013 article indicating that financialization has adversely affected economic growth and contributes to income inequality and wage stagnation for the middle class.[22]

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

---

The defining characteristic of privilege is that unlike, say, a factory, whose owner can only increase his wealth by producing value, relieving scarcity, and making others richer, the owner of a privilege increases his wealth by the abrogation of others' rights, making them poorer. So the problem with privilege is not that it makes its owners richer -- we all want to be richer -- but that it makes others poorer. And to correct your misstatement, natural resources like land are not unproductive, only their owners are.

and particularly of *crafts*-type / industrial production, meaning tangible commodities and sought-after services, ultimately for *export* -- mercantilism, and, later, the export of *capital*, meaning imperialism.

No, let's stick to the definition, and not get tangled in stupid Marxist fabrications.

Okay, let's cut-to-the-chase, shall we -- ?

You're for a *centralization* of government *zoning* over all land, with the status-quo capitalist political economy.

There's nothing to prevent your political economy from *hyper-financialization*, like subprime mortgages in 2008-2009, or Evergrande today.


---

Natural resources like land are definitely not productive -- it requires human *labor*, particularly, to transform raw nature into a saleable commodity in the first place, anyway, all of your 'administrative' concerns aside.

They are productive in the sense that producers have to use them to relieve scarcity. IP monopolies, by contrast, are counter-productive: they reduce production and aggravate scarcity. That is the relevant distinction.

What's your definition of 'producer' -- ? Is it the one who sells their physical labor in the field, for a wage (sharecropper), or is it the person who handles the *capital* and accounts around all of this?


---

That's at the *national* level, right?

The level of government is not relevant.

But yours is a *nationalist* entity since you've alluded to that formulation. *Any* government has to manifest at *some* level, or levels, so yours can't just be 'disembodied' and ghostly.


---

So here again your politics requires an 'administrator', or an entire governmental *administration*, yet you're scarce with details on any of this. Hmmmmm!

That's up to individual communities' legal and historical circumstances and democratic choices. I'm just identifying the correct solution, not how to implement it, because that is a contingent local matter.

Okay, I'm done fucking around. (grin)

Who provides 'peace', through 'security', over all of the included terrain -- ? Who's in charge around here!


---

But how could it be *otherwise* -- ?

By people somehow finding a willingness to know facts, and voting accordingly.

Nope, sorry, the Western Enlightenment patrician democratic ideal is just that -- oppression at the hands of *landowners*, and from all capitalists, generally. The *economics* are hardly changed from previous modes of class exploitation and oppression.


---

You *know* that it's a *symbiotic* relationship between the ruling class and its governmental bureaucratic elite (they don't produce any commodities themselves).

It doesn't have to be.

Yeah, it does, for the reason of *financialization* (above), in particular, but mostly because capitalism is exploitative and oppressive of most people.


---

How about weights-and-measures -- ? (Anything else?)

Lots of things.

So it's a *phantom* government that only does land zoning and property records and that's it. Fun.


---

How is your 'government' *funded*, again -- ?

Junior governments by location subsidy repayment (LSR) and national ones by seigniorage and Pigovian taxes.

Uh-huh -- again, that pays for about the *statue*, only, and that's about it.


---

There are libel laws, etc. Admittedly, the age of the Internet makes enforcement problematical, as so much can be done anonymously.

So would you be 'pro' or 'anti', regarding Silk Road -- ?

I don't know much about it, but I suspect it would not be a high priority in a democracy.

I ask because you seem to be all 'pro-social' and whatever with your government presence in your model and such, but 'democracy' is only a *buzzword* because you're tight-lipped on any *functioning* of this ghostly outline of a political economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)


---

So this isn't saying much, *politically* -- you're saying 'the face value of the land parcel will default to indexing the current market rate for its *rental*, so that the valuation, even if just nominal, is still 'officially' provided and available, 'automatically' (yet not exactly technologically). Got it.

No, I would definitely advocate using IT to measure market location rents.

That's trivial. More to the point is that the valuation *itself* would be logistically robust, and would 'nominally' exist regardless of sales volume or current ownership, due to it being indexed to the *rental* data, which would presumably be refreshed more often through time.


---

So, *politically*, your statist governmental administrative bureaucracy has to *enforce* this kind of thing, as for 'trespassing', etc. How would the 'favoritism' / corruption that you bemoan be *prevented* with this approach, exactly -- ?

The usual way: eternal vigilance.

Yeah, again, it's sounding more and more like a *campaign promise* -- there's very little in the way of how you would *fund* this model of yours. You'll always have the threat of localist *warlordism* breaking out since there's no overarching authority to speak of.


---

What would prevent the entire *industry* (of land provisioning, by a nationalist entity) from being constantly *fought-over*, as in the sense of runaway *warlordism* -- ?

Civilian control of the military.

And what about military *syndicalism*, like the 'military industrial complex' -- ? That's not democratic, yet it exists within the purported democratic system of political accountability.


---

This also doesn't cover the real-world history of statist colonialist *genocide* of indigenous populations, for the original 'sourcing' of land into the land-commodity.

No one ever produced land, so indigenous populations have exactly the same right to it as everyone else.

Spoken like a true politician. It's a bit *late* for what you're saying, now.


---

You previously acknowledged that the system is a *plutocracy*,

The current system, yes. I'm proposing abolition of the principal privilege that makes it a plutocracy.

Would you be abolishing *wealth inequality* and *income inequality* in the process?


---

so how do you reconcile *that* description with this one, of the *gentry*-based popular representation?

There's nothing "gentry-based" about it. You simply made that up.

The gentry would tend to *prevail* in the kind of representation you're indicating -- those who have the means to not-work for a living have more time for *politics*, and the political (nationalist) industry.


---

And who would have ultimately authority over any given piece of land -- would private interests (of potentially $1 leasing) override 'public' interests for a piece of land -- ?

The ultimate authority is of course the geographic sovereign government.

---

Would this government be able to use 'eminent domain', and, if so, over what conditions?

Eminent domain would be kind of irrelevant, as the land would have only a derisory exchange value.

How can you be so *certain* -- ? I'd imagine things would be dynamically similar to the emergence of *finance* here-and-now, and with all of the accompanying catastrophe.


---

And then *operational* costs -- what *then* -- (!)

I have no idea what you think the problem is. Governments have operating as well as capital budgets, and land rent depends on both.

Could the government issue bonds?


---

(Government is a little more than just a statue that's made once and then just sits there.)

No idea what you think that is apropos of, either.

You're just not trying hard enough. (grin)


---

Who enforces *trespassing* laws -- ?

The same people who do it now.

(Maybe I happen to like finding camping spots. What if I inadvertently *overstep* one or more times, and someone has a cause for a complaint?)

Mind your manners.

Very gentry.


---

How is 'the community' entity defined?

All citizens living in the geographical area over which a given government is sovereign.

Okay, but certainly there's more than *one* 'community' within the given geography of the country. Does the 'government area' have more than one community? How does one community know itself as distinct from the next?


---

What role(s) would this national bureaucracy of yours have, exactly

What do you mean? It would administer the same sorts of things governments administer now, except that the revenue and land tenure systems would be just.

-- is it a confederation or is it federalism?

It doesn't matter.

Hmmmm, it *would* matter -- I'd like to see more regarding the levels of 'community', and 'nation', here. Here's for reference:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

Spoiler: show

[ckaihatsu]

Corporate power

Corporate capitalism has been criticized for the amount of power and influence corporations and large business interest groups have over government policy, including the policies of regulatory agencies and influencing political campaigns (see corporate welfare). Many social scientists have criticized corporations for failing to act in the interests of the people, and their existence seems to circumvent the principles of democracy, which assumes equal power relations between individuals in a society.[2]

Criticisms

In an April 29, 1938 message to the Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt warned that the growth of private power could lead to fascism:

[T]he liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.[3][4][5] [...] Statistics of the Bureau of Internal Revenue reveal the following amazing figures for 1935: "Ownership of corporate assets: Of all corporations reporting from every part of the Nation, one-tenth of 1 percent of them owned 52 percent of the assets of all of them."[3][5]

Dwight D. Eisenhower criticized the notion of the confluence of corporate power and de facto fascism,[6] but nevertheless brought attention to the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry"[7] in his 1961 Farewell Address to the Nation, and stressed "the need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage".[7]

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

[QatzelOk]

...it is obvious that some new tech will be necessary to get to net zero without killing a few billions of people.

(my reply is from the 1920s)

Yes, and car-based lifestyles will finally get the horse shit off our streets and then we will all be healthierTM, right?

Or will we be obese and socially clueless? Hmmm, let's look at the car company brochures another thousand times, and then decide.

...

Qatzel, I can understand your concern here, but don't you think it's somewhat *ultra-left* -- ?

Re: ultra-leftTM. Personally, I'm not a brand shopper.

the implementation of technology in society is entirely *top-down*

And "top-down" is a synonym for fascist.

and that tech is more about *corporate policy* than it is about finding the 'right' device to use ('magic-bullet'

And the emotional transfer required to sell "corporate solutions" is accomplished through propaganda - deception, in other words.

I don't see why there can't be more 'bottom-up' approaches

Well, just try suggesting low-cost cures for our current flu bug and see what happens.

Bottom-up becomes illegal when it threatens top-down profit-making schemes.

[ckaihatsu]

See, the best way for the 1% to do NOTHING about pollution is to... talk about future tech.

Qatzel, I can understand your concern here, but don't you think it's somewhat *ultra-left* -- ?

Re: ultra-leftTM. Personally, I'm not a brand shopper.

It's a political term meaning 'too exacting to be realistic' (my wording), as in 'everyone needs to be political lifestylists as well as being political.'

I'm saying you're being *too dismissive*, and even cynical, with your offhand throw-away criticism / critique there.

I don't think that a grassroots lifestylist movement *will* usurp the corporate paradigm of tech, but it has the potential to ground a mass approach to mitigate global warming. Maybe *everyone* will demand that corporate agribusiness use all unused land for growing weed / hemp, or something, as a matter of policy. Currently the Sackler family is reviled for their gargantuan indifference around their legal drug dealing, etc.

And "top-down" is a synonym for fascist.

Yup.

Well, just try suggesting low-cost cures for our current flu bug and see what happens.

Yeah, I found one, actually:


Nebulizing Hydrogen Peroxide - Demo

viewtopic.php?p=15196416#p15196416


---

Bottom-up becomes illegal when it threatens top-down profit-making schemes.

And yet there's the *subjective* factor, such as all of the international anti-coup, anti-military protests and movements in the last few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2019_protests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2020_protests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2021_protests

[Truth To Power]

Occam’s razor is not a description of reality. It is a heuristic maxim.

No, it is a principle of logical and scientific reasoning that enables us instantly -- and correctly -- to dismiss fallacious claims that would otherwise require laborious refutation, such as claims that medical cures were obtained by prayer rather than treatment, or that climate has been changed by the increase in production of cheese, thermometers, or CO2.

To assume that simpler things are more likely to be true than complicated things is not logical or supported by science.

It is definitely logical, and definitely supported by science. See above.

Also, you are assuming that the only possible cause of an effect is a previous cause, when in reality, the same effect can arise from new causes.

No, you simply made that up. My assumption is only that absent any evidence that they have been rendered inoperative, the previous causes are most likely to be the cause of a similar effect.

But if you are conceding that you have no evidence except these logical fallacies, then I will move on to the next claim and accept that you could not refute this.

Occam's Razor is not a logical fallacy, don't be so absurd. It refutes you. Deal with it.