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By Torus34
#15234001
I've watched with a degree of interest and amusement the rise and now the fall of the value of Bitcoin(r) and its ilk. The whole area of non-governmental means of exchange is itself a fascinating study.

The amusement? Bitcoin(r) has been touted by its pitchmen as a hedge against inflation.

Regards, stay safe 'n well. ['n solvent.]
User avatar
By Rancid
#15234010
Torus34 wrote:I've watched with a degree of interest and amusement the rise and now the fall of the value of Bitcoin(r) and its ilk. The whole area of non-governmental means of exchange is itself a fascinating study.

The amusement? Bitcoin(r) has been touted by its pitchmen as a hedge against inflation.

Regards, stay safe 'n well. ['n solvent.]


Not all digital money is crypto. Crypto is a type of digital money.

You know, kind of like how a square is a rectangle, but not all rectangles are squares.

It's an interesting concept, however, the keep thing that needs to be shown is the value add of using such a system. People tend to throw around works like "liberation", "security", "efficiency", but they never go into detail on the value add of these buzz words. Until then, it's just a casino.
Last edited by Rancid on 19 Jun 2022 22:59, edited 1 time in total.
#15234012
Torus34 wrote:The amusement? Bitcoin(r) has been touted by its pitchmen as a hedge against inflation.

90% of $#!+coins are owned by 1% of owners. That's all you need to know to know that it is a scam for the unearned profit of the 1%.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15234099
Truth To Power wrote:90% of $#!+coins are owned by 1% of owners. That's all you need to know to know that it is a scam for the unearned profit of the 1%.

Rather like capitalism itself then? :)
By Truth To Power
#15234132
Potemkin wrote:Rather like capitalism itself then? :)

Worse. Despite its subservience to landowner privilege, capitalism at least stimulates factory owners to be productive and efficient.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15234135
Truth To Power wrote:
Worse. Despite its subservience to landowner privilege, capitalism at least stimulates factory owners to be productive and efficient.



(Translation: Land holdings are *rentier*-type assets / resources, and are *non-productive* of commodities, in contrast to capitalism's *equity values* ('factory owners'), which *do* produce commodities for society, using economically exploited labor, including many much-needed commodities, for individuals' own consumption.)

The *logic*, though, is *circular*, since capitalism can't be 'worse' than capitalism itself -- if Bitcoin / cryptocurrencies are *deflationary*, and they are, sucking pre-existing value out of the system / people, then, yes, such deflationary assets, and their cumulative drain on the economy, *are* worse-than-capitalism, in more of a *feudalism* kind of way.

All that said, though, TTP continues to bark up the wrong tree particularly due to the rise of financialization in the 1980s -- the mom-and-pop days are *over*.
By Truth To Power
#15234163
ckaihatsu wrote:(Translation: Land holdings are *rentier*-type assets / resources, and are *non-productive* of commodities, in contrast to capitalism's *equity values* ('factory owners'), which *do* produce commodities for society, using economically exploited labor, including many much-needed commodities, for individuals' own consumption.)

No, that's just false and absurd Marxist claptrap designed to evade the relevant fact: that both land and factories aid production, but the land (natural resource) already existed and was available for production with no help from the owner, who only has a legal privilege of depriving workers of access to economic opportunity that would otherwise have been available, while producer goods like factories ("capital" in classical economics) did not otherwise exist, and had to be provided by their initial owners, who created them, in order to be available for production, thus affording workers access to economic opportunity that would NOT otherwise have been available.
The *logic*, though, is *circular*,

Garbage.
since capitalism can't be 'worse' than capitalism itself

$#!+coin is not capitalism itself.
-- if Bitcoin / cryptocurrencies are *deflationary*, and they are, sucking pre-existing value out of the system / people, then, yes, such deflationary assets, and their cumulative drain on the economy, *are* worse-than-capitalism, in more of a *feudalism* kind of way.

$#!+coin is based on pure rent-seeking, and wastes resources on "mining" numbers that have no actual utility except in the $#!+coin system, which is itself very wasteful of the resources -- electrical energy -- needed to record transactions in the blockchain.
All that said, though, TTP continues to bark up the wrong tree particularly due to the rise of financialization in the 1980s -- the mom-and-pop days are *over*.

Mom and pop have nothing to do with it. They are just another disingenuous attempt on your part at Marxist evasion of the relevant facts: that natural resources would be available for production anyway, without their owners, while factories would not.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15234200
Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's just false and absurd Marxist claptrap designed to evade the relevant fact: that both land and factories aid production, but the land (natural resource) already existed and was available for production with no help from the owner, who only has a legal privilege of depriving workers of access to economic opportunity that would otherwise have been available, while producer goods like factories ("capital" in classical economics) did not otherwise exist, and had to be provided by their initial owners, who created them, in order to be available for production, thus affording workers access to economic opportunity that would NOT otherwise have been available.

Garbage.

$#!+coin is not capitalism itself.

$#!+coin is based on pure rent-seeking, and wastes resources on "mining" numbers that have no actual utility except in the $#!+coin system, which is itself very wasteful of the resources -- electrical energy -- needed to record transactions in the blockchain.

Mom and pop have nothing to do with it. They are just another disingenuous attempt on your part at Marxist evasion of the relevant facts: that natural resources would be available for production anyway, without their owners, while factories would not.



Your sustained concern for the sanctity of the land and its natural resources is *touching*, but all of your lashing-out isn't really justified since the land has already *been* developed, by Western imperialism, and your favored 'caretaker'-type government can't even get off-the-ground if it doesn't have the land to *begin* with.

So what you have is closer to a proposed *charity*, than to any actual *politics*. Thanks for playing, though.
By Truth To Power
#15234220
ckaihatsu wrote:Your sustained concern for the sanctity of the land

You made that up.
and its natural resources is *touching*, but all of your lashing-out

I'm not lashing out. You made that up. I'm just identifying relevant facts, something you are really, really bad at.
isn't really justified since the land has already *been* developed, by Western imperialism,

That's nonsensical gibberish, as imperialism of any sort is inherently incapable of developing land.
and your favored 'caretaker'-type government

You made that up.
can't even get off-the-ground if it doesn't have the land to *begin* with.

All governments administer possession and use of land, as that is what government is: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land.
So what you have is closer to a proposed *charity*, than to any actual *politics*.

No, you made that up.

Thanks for playing, though.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15234228
Truth To Power wrote:
You made that up.

I'm not lashing out. You made that up. I'm just identifying relevant facts, something you are really, really bad at.

That's nonsensical gibberish, as imperialism of any sort is inherently incapable of developing land.

You made that up.

All governments administer possession and use of land, as that is what government is: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land.

No, you made that up.

Thanks for playing, though.



All you've done is to tout the *one* natural-monopoly of *land*, to suggest that somehow it could be Stalinistically collectivized out of the hands of present-day private owners, to a caretaker-type monolithic benign governmental bureaucracy that *leases* it out, by parcel, to give rise to a fair land administration system, and to the rise of 'pure' equity values, for your 'equity heaven'.

But -- you don't really care about *all* rentier-type, economically-deleterious, non-commodity-productive assets and resources, but only the one case of *land* rentier-capital economic privileges. You don't bemoan, in parallel, all interest payments on all rentier -- *idle* -- capital. You don't bemoan *all* of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate).

On the *equity* side of things, you don't acknowledge the monstrous real-world outcomes of *finance capital* and corporatization, preferring instead to pretend that we're all still living in the political economy of *colonial* days, pre-industrialization.

And, not all equity capital itself -- however revered -- is 100% *productive*, anyway, since even commodity-producing enterprises have their own *overhead*, or internal costs, that are *not* inputs into the productive process (that inherently exploits the labor commodity). (See 'financialization'.)
By Truth To Power
#15234330
ckaihatsu wrote:All you've done

That's the signal that you are about to spew garbage with no basis in fact. Watch:
is to tout the *one* natural-monopoly of *land*,

See? I have explicitly identified other natural monopolies and the appropriate way to handle them. But they are producer goods, not land.
to suggest that somehow it could be Stalinistically collectivized out of the hands of present-day private owners,

See? I've said no such thing. My proposal is merely that present private owners either make just compensation to the community of those whom they deprive of the land for what they are taking from them, or yield it to someone who will.
to a caretaker-type monolithic benign governmental bureaucracy

Are you saying you prefer the sort of malign monolithic government bureaucracy that socialism inevitably gives rise to...?
that *leases* it out, by parcel, to give rise to a fair land administration system,

Just compensation does sound fair to me. What part of justice do you claim is unfair?
and to the rise of 'pure' equity values, for your 'equity heaven'.

I have no idea what you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about.
But -- you don't really care about *all* rentier-type, economically-deleterious, non-commodity-productive assets and resources, but only the one case of *land* rentier-capital economic privileges.

See? That's just baldly false. I have identified relevant facts about privileges like IP monopolies, bank licenses in the debt money system, etc., and how they should be handled. Hence my participation in this thread, which has almost nothing to do with land.
You don't bemoan, in parallel, all interest payments on all rentier -- *idle* -- capital. You don't bemoan *all* of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate).

Because unlike you, I am willing to know the difference between financial intermediation and exercise of a money issuance privilege, between managing risk and forcing risk onto others, and between land and fixed improvements thereto.
On the *equity* side of things, you don't acknowledge the monstrous real-world outcomes of *finance capital* and corporatization,

No, I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the difference between between deploying one's saved purchasing power to aid production and deploying it to extort wealth from the productive by charging them for permission to produce.
preferring instead to pretend that we're all still living in the political economy of *colonial* days, pre-industrialization.

That is a silly, disingenuous strawman fallacy unrelated to anything I have said.
And, not all equity capital itself

See? Your economically meaningless term, "equity capital" is merely a disingenuous contrivance to help Marxists avoid knowing the difference between producer goods and privilege.
-- however revered --

See? Willingness to know facts is not reverence. Your fear and hatred of facts merely leads you to make $#!+ up about those who respect facts.
is 100% *productive*, anyway, since even commodity-producing enterprises have their own *overhead*, or internal costs, that are *not* inputs into the productive process

You have proved many times that you do not know anything whatever about the productive process, especially what is and is not an input to it.
(that inherently exploits the labor commodity).

No, that's just more of your false, absurd, and disingenuous Marxist claptrap with no basis in fact.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15234423
ckaihatsu wrote:
All you've done



Truth To Power wrote:
That's the signal that you are about to spew garbage with no basis in fact. Watch:



You sound like some kind of street huckster, *presenting*, with showmanship, to the crowd.


ckaihatsu wrote:
is to tout the *one* natural-monopoly of *land*,



Truth To Power wrote:
See? I have explicitly identified other natural monopolies and the appropriate way to handle them. But they are producer goods, not land.



Producer goods aren't natural monopolies, but often they *may as well be*, since many corporations *are* monopolies in their respective industries, and/or in their area.

Do *you* think that producer goods are natural monopolies?


ckaihatsu wrote:
to suggest that somehow it could be Stalinistically collectivized out of the hands of present-day private owners,



Truth To Power wrote:
See? I've said no such thing. My proposal is merely that present private owners either make just compensation to the community of those whom they deprive of the land for what they are taking from them, or yield it to someone who will.



Would you please admit that it's a *pipe dream*, then, since the world's total sum of private landowners is not going to synchronously turn over their ownership, to whatever. (Do I have to convince *you* of this?) (grin)


ckaihatsu wrote:
to a caretaker-type monolithic benign governmental bureaucracy



Truth To Power wrote:
Are you saying you prefer the sort of malign monolithic government bureaucracy that socialism inevitably gives rise to...?



Nope, *still* not a Stalinist, and next time I'm going to be going back to my notes for that. (grin)


ckaihatsu wrote:
that *leases* it out, by parcel, to give rise to a fair land administration system,



Truth To Power wrote:
Just compensation does sound fair to me. What part of justice do you claim is unfair?



Wow. Yeah. Thanks for asking. Let's see, where do I start?

[01] How is this 'fair land administration system' *funded* -- ?

[02] How is it *composed* -- is it a *technocracy*, by any chance -- ?

[03] What about the rest of F.I.R.E. -- will land leasees continue to be made economically subservient to the equity costs of *insurance*, and *finance* -- ?

[etc.]


ckaihatsu wrote:
and to the rise of 'pure' equity values, for your 'equity heaven'.



Truth To Power wrote:
I have no idea what you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about.



You want strong currency values -- that's colonialist nationalist monetarism. I just addressed this topic at this other thread:


ckaihatsu wrote:
[N]ationalist monetarism, or strong currency values, for the valorization of *private property* above all else, even over non-propertied / social-minority people's lives and livelihoods (people who would *benefit* from state intervention in the economy, with government subsidies for *social services*, at the expense of underwriting capital valuations).



viewtopic.php?p=15234222#p15234222



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
But -- you don't really care about *all* rentier-type, economically-deleterious, non-commodity-productive assets and resources, but only the one case of *land* rentier-capital economic privileges.



Truth To Power wrote:
See? That's just baldly false. I have identified relevant facts about privileges like IP monopolies, bank licenses in the debt money system, etc., and how they should be handled. Hence my participation in this thread, which has almost nothing to do with land.



Okay, noted, but you *harp* on the land thing to the detriment of all else -- you're 'single issue', at best.


ckaihatsu wrote:
You don't bemoan, in parallel, all interest payments on all rentier -- *idle* -- capital. You don't bemoan *all* of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate).



Truth To Power wrote:
Because unlike you, I am willing to know the difference between financial intermediation and exercise of a money issuance privilege, between managing risk and forcing risk onto others, and between land and fixed improvements thereto.



Would you say that finance is 'freedom', though, or is it more of a commercial / fiduciary *obligation*, or *duty*, to the ownership of private assets? Ditto for insurance. Would you *gush* for insurance, the way you do for *equity values* -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
On the *equity* side of things, you don't acknowledge the monstrous real-world outcomes of *finance capital* and corporatization,



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the difference between between deploying one's saved purchasing power to aid production and deploying it to extort wealth from the productive by charging them for permission to produce.



Yeah yeah yeah, land vs. factories and all that -- a million times before.

*I'm* trying to say that you can't so recklessly imply that capital / economics / capitalism is *correct*, and that its scaffolding upholds widespread satisfaction with its functioning.

In other words you can't take the 'people' factor / variable out of things, and treat economics as a far-away, distant-galaxy-type machine in outer space that operates on its own, in a vacuum -- sure, *I* do it, anyway, but I'm doing it from the *left*, with a class critique, though even *that* extent isn't absolutely necessary, if any given person simply knows about capitalism's inherent boom-and-bust cycles ('business cycles').


ckaihatsu wrote:
preferring instead to pretend that we're all still living in the political economy of *colonial* days, pre-industrialization.



Truth To Power wrote:
That is a silly, disingenuous strawman fallacy unrelated to anything I have said.



Tight-lipped, huh? (grin)


ckaihatsu wrote:
And, not all equity capital itself



Truth To Power wrote:
See? Your economically meaningless term, "equity capital" is merely a disingenuous contrivance to help Marxists avoid knowing the difference between producer goods and privilege.



Sorry, TTP, but we've been over this ground enough for me to say that 'producer goods = equity values', and 'privilege = rentier capital (including land)', so that's what I'm going-by.


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- however revered --



Truth To Power wrote:
See? Willingness to know facts is not reverence. Your fear and hatred of facts merely leads you to make $#!+ up about those who respect facts.



If you have something to say, just say it. The theatrics aren't really for *anybody*, though I suppose it's mildly entertaining.


ckaihatsu wrote:
is 100% *productive*, anyway, since even commodity-producing enterprises have their own *overhead*, or internal costs, that are *not* inputs into the productive process



Truth To Power wrote:
You have proved many times that you do not know anything whatever about the productive process, especially what is and is not an input to it.



Okay, well, put-up-or-shut-up.


ckaihatsu wrote:
(that inherently exploits the labor commodity).



Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's just more of your false, absurd, and disingenuous Marxist claptrap with no basis in fact.



Here -- just did a diagram. Enjoy:


material-economic exploitation

Spoiler: show
Image
By Truth To Power
#15235297
ckaihatsu wrote:You sound like some kind of street huckster, *presenting*, with showmanship, to the crowd.

No, I am identifying the relevant indisputable facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications.
Producer goods aren't natural monopolies, but often they *may as well be*, since many corporations *are* monopolies in their respective industries, and/or in their area.

Usually only when they hold government-issued monopoly privileges like IP, or are in the transportation or utility infrastructure business, which are natural monopolies.
Do *you* think that producer goods are natural monopolies?

Only in certain cases like transportation and utility infrastructure, which have monotonically increasing economies of scale.
Would you please admit that it's a *pipe dream*, then, since the world's total sum of private landowners is not going to synchronously turn over their ownership, to whatever. (Do I have to convince *you* of this?) (grin)

Was emancipation of slaves a pipe dream? Why is self-evident justice and indisputable economic efficiency a pipe dream, but brainless, anti-economic Marxist idiocy somehow a practical alternative? Read and learn:

“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”
– Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850
Nope, *still* not a Stalinist, and next time I'm going to be going back to my notes for that. (grin)

Calling socialism Stalinism doesn't make it not socialism, sorry.
[01] How is this 'fair land administration system' *funded* -- ?

By repayment of the community's subsidy to landholding.
[02] How is it *composed* -- is it a *technocracy*, by any chance -- ?

It's administered by qualified and competent people hired and trained to do so.
[03] What about the rest of F.I.R.E. -- will land leasees continue to be made economically subservient to the equity costs of *insurance*, and *finance* -- ?

Finance capitalism is driven by the debt-money system, which geoism abolishes. Real estate without landowner privilege, which geoism also abolishes, is just the construction industry. Insurance is a more complex problem, as it is driven by debt money, but also by financial threats created by, e.g., medical IP monopolies. Absent those privileges, insurance would be a normal, boring risk management business.
You want strong currency values

No, just a stable and reliable medium of exchange.
-- that's colonialist nationalist monetarism.

No, that's absurd and disingenuous Marxist garbage.
I just addressed this topic at this other thread:

Proving you don't know anything about money, either.
Okay, noted, but you *harp* on the land thing to the detriment of all else -- you're 'single issue', at best.

No, you made that up. I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that land is the most important issue.
Would you say that finance is 'freedom', though, or is it more of a commercial / fiduciary *obligation*, or *duty*, to the ownership of private assets?

Finance without private commercial banks' money issuance privilege would be a small and economically insignificant part of the economy.
Ditto for insurance. Would you *gush* for insurance, the way you do for *equity values* -- ?

Insurance is problematic and complex as explained above. Land and money are by comparison easy to understand -- but you refuse to understand them, either, even when I have explained them to you, very patiently, multiple times, in clear, simple, grammatical English. So I won't even try to get into the problem of insurance.
Yeah yeah yeah, land vs. factories and all that -- a million times before.

As long as you continue to insist on being wrong in the same way, I will continue to identify that fact in the same way: clearly, simply, grammatically, and irrefutably.
*I'm* trying to say that you can't so recklessly imply that capital / economics / capitalism is *correct*, and that its scaffolding upholds widespread satisfaction with its functioning.

I have stated many times, clearly and explicitly, to you, that capitalism is NOT correct, and that modern mainstream neoclassical economics, its PR firm, exists to rationalize and justify capitalism's errors.
In other words you can't take the 'people' factor / variable out of things, and treat economics as a far-away, distant-galaxy-type machine in outer space that operates on its own, in a vacuum --

That bears no relation to anything I have said. Economics (properly understood -- i.e., not modern mainstream neoclassical economics, let alone stupid Marxist garbage) is all about human behavior -- specifically, how human beings relieve scarcity through production, allocation and exchange.
sure, *I* do it, anyway, but I'm doing it from the *left*, with a class critique, though even *that* extent isn't absolutely necessary, if any given person simply knows about capitalism's inherent boom-and-bust cycles ('business cycles').

The boom-bust asset price (not "business") cycle is caused by the debt-money system of finance capitalism, not capitalism simpliciter. Marx did not understand that, because he did not know anything about production, money, employment, exchange, or any other economic topic.
Sorry, TTP, but we've been over this ground enough for me to say that 'producer goods = equity values', and 'privilege = rentier capital (including land)', so that's what I'm going-by.

No, because you persist in conflating them, attributing to producer goods the economic characteristics of privilege, such as monopoly and unearned profits.
Okay, well, put-up-or-shut-up.

I have. You merely refuse to know the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that I identify, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.
Here -- just did a diagram. Enjoy:

Still anti-economic Marxist trash, sorry.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15235704
ckaihatsu wrote:
You sound like some kind of street huckster, *presenting*, with showmanship, to the crowd.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am identifying the relevant indisputable facts of objective physical reality and their inescapable logical implications.



---


Truth To Power wrote:
See? I have explicitly identified other natural monopolies and the appropriate way to handle them. But they are producer goods, not land.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Producer goods aren't natural monopolies, but often they *may as well be*, since many corporations *are* monopolies in their respective industries, and/or in their area.



Truth To Power wrote:
Usually only when they hold government-issued monopoly privileges like IP, or are in the transportation or utility infrastructure business, which are natural monopolies.



You're correctly acknowledging that natural monopolies occur with *assets* and resources (rentier capital), and *also* with equity capital domains, like transportation (a service), or [electricity] (a good).

My point, then, is why are you only addressing *land* this way, as being a natural monopoly (which it is) -- ? Why not all of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate), and all *utilities* as well -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
[03] What about the rest of F.I.R.E. -- will land leasees continue to be made economically subservient to the equity costs of *insurance*, and *finance* -- ?



viewtopic.php?p=15234423#p15234423



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Do *you* think that producer goods are natural monopolies?



Truth To Power wrote:
Only in certain cases like transportation and utility infrastructure, which have monotonically increasing economies of scale.



So then where's the *politics* for all of this -- how do you propose to address this particular 'market failure' (of utilities, transportation, etc.), if not by *nationalization*, as you tout for *land*.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Would you please admit that it's a *pipe dream*, then, since the world's total sum of private landowners is not going to synchronously turn over their ownership, to whatever. (Do I have to convince *you* of this?) (grin)



Truth To Power wrote:
Was emancipation of slaves a pipe dream? Why is self-evident justice and indisputable economic efficiency a pipe dream, but brainless, anti-economic Marxist idiocy somehow a practical alternative? Read and learn:



Truth To Power wrote:
“When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. Worse than all, private property was to be invaded (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.”

– Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850



So you're saying that society / public-opinion will go in the direction of *de-privatizing* *all* land holdings, with the monolithic government *nationalizing* all land parcels. Again, how will it *pay* for such a transfer of ownership? The U.S. went to *civil war* over the issue of the private property of chattel slaves. It took a *wartime victory*, and a presidential proclamation / executive order, to do it. Are you proposing the same for all land parcels, and then also for all *other* natural-monopolies / market failures -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
[01] How is this 'fair land administration system' *funded* -- ?



viewtopic.php?p=15234423#p15234423



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Nope, *still* not a Stalinist, and next time I'm going to be going back to my notes for that. (grin)



Truth To Power wrote:
Calling socialism Stalinism doesn't make it not socialism, sorry.



Yeah, take it up with Mr. Webster:



Noun

socialism (usually uncountable, plural socialisms)

Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

A system of social and economic equality in which there is no private property.

A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.

(Marxism-Leninism) The intermediate phase of social development between capitalism and communism in Marxist theory in which the state has control of the means of production.

Any of a group of later political philosophies such democratic socialism and social democracy which do not envisage the need for full state ownership of the means of production nor transition to full communism, and which are typically based on principles of community decision making, social equality and the avoidance of economic and social exclusion, with economic policy giving first preference to community goals over individual ones.

(chiefly Western, often derogatory, colloquial) Any left-wing ideology, government regulations, or policies promoting a welfare state, nationalisation, etc.



https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/socialism




Noun

Stalinism (uncountable)

The Communist philosophies espoused by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

"Muslimness" would be deemed, by the standards of Leninism and Stalinism, to be a kind of class consciousness.
The act or state of living in accord with the communist philosophies of Stalin.



https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Stalinism



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
[01] How is this 'fair land administration system' *funded* -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
By repayment of the community's subsidy to landholding.



And where does the *funding* for that 'repayment' (by government) come from, exactly -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
[02] How is it *composed* -- is it a *technocracy*, by any chance -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
It's administered by qualified and competent people hired and trained to do so.



So then how is this 'administration' (government) composed? How are individuals deemed to be 'competent', then hired and trained?


ckaihatsu wrote:
[03] What about the rest of F.I.R.E. -- will land leasees continue to be made economically subservient to the equity costs of *insurance*, and *finance* -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Finance capitalism is driven by the debt-money system, which geoism abolishes. Real estate without landowner privilege, which geoism also abolishes, is just the construction industry. Insurance is a more complex problem, as it is driven by debt money, but also by financial threats created by, e.g., medical IP monopolies. Absent those privileges, insurance would be a normal, boring risk management business.



You're begging-the-question -- how would your geoism address natural monopolies *in general*, like that of IP -- and for *insurance*, too, for that matter?

Even if government doesn't run a deficit, to print money, there's still the scenario of *private equity*, which is still finance, and is *not* your cherished equity capital itself.


ckaihatsu wrote:
You want strong currency values



Truth To Power wrote:
No, just a stable and reliable medium of exchange.



But it's always a trade-off, as for any individual or household -- economically you can have 'stability', but only at the cost of foregoing 'risk' and 'opportunities' altogether, by just letting the value just *sit* there.

You're expressing more of a *fiscal* position, rather than a (political) *policy* one.

I'll again remind that if you're so pro-exchange-values, that means that you have to accept F.I.R.E. as well -- you should be railing against the 'privileges' of insurance and finance, as well as that of real estate.


ckaihatsu wrote:
-- that's colonialist nationalist monetarism.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, that's absurd and disingenuous Marxist garbage.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
I just addressed this topic at this other thread:



ckaihatsu wrote:
[N]ationalist monetarism, or strong currency values, for the valorization of *private property* above all else, even over non-propertied / social-minority people's lives and livelihoods (people who would *benefit* from state intervention in the economy, with government subsidies for *social services*, at the expense of underwriting capital valuations).

viewtopic.php?p=15234222#p15234222



Truth To Power wrote:
Proving you don't know anything about money, either.



In other words, any given dollar can't go to both *recipient persons*, as for transportation or electricity, *and* also go to underwriting the *dollar basis* of those transportation or electricity entities, going by the yardstick of *exchange values* -- 'stable currency values' requires *government underwriting* of such, as we've clearly seen in 2008-2009, and again in 2020, with U.S. government bailouts of the stock market.

Your perceived societal need / requirement for *stable currency values* is a social *liability*, because you're buying-into the social institutions of the *private sector* -- and becoming *dependent* on them -- meaning financiers and the whole capitalist system of exchange values.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, noted, but you *harp* on the land thing to the detriment of all else -- you're 'single issue', at best.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, you made that up. I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that land is the most important issue.



What about F.I.R.E.?


ckaihatsu wrote:
Would you say that finance is 'freedom', though, or is it more of a commercial / fiduciary *obligation*, or *duty*, to the ownership of private assets?



Truth To Power wrote:
Finance without private commercial banks' money issuance privilege would be a small and economically insignificant part of the economy.



Do you have a crystal ball for that?

More to the point, though, is that nothing would prevent the re-emergence of *other* conglomerated interests, possibly with *their own*, cryptocurrency-like issuances, *and* they could very well wind up using *force* to *enforce* whatever system of theirs grew up around them, like historical *company towns*.



A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities. They are usually bigger than a model village ("model" in the sense of an ideal to be emulated).

Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative.[1] Others developed more or less in unplanned fashion, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as an LC&N Co. mining camp and mine site nine miles (14.5 km) from the nearest outside road.



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



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Ditto for insurance. Would you *gush* for insurance, the way you do for *equity values* -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Insurance is problematic and complex as explained above. Land and money are by comparison easy to understand -- but you refuse to understand them, either, even when I have explained them to you, very patiently, multiple times, in clear, simple, grammatical English. So I won't even try to get into the problem of insurance.



Okay, so just to *confirm*, you're *forfeiting* any claims to politically address the areas of *insurance*, and *balkanization*. (Several different currencies may wind up being in *competition*, in circulation with each other, like the various cryptocurrencies of today.)


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
On the *equity* side of things, you don't acknowledge the monstrous real-world outcomes of *finance capital* and corporatization,



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the difference between between deploying one's saved purchasing power to aid production and deploying it to extort wealth from the productive by charging them for permission to produce.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Yeah yeah yeah, land vs. factories and all that -- a million times before.



Truth To Power wrote:
As long as you continue to insist on being wrong in the same way, I will continue to identify that fact in the same way: clearly, simply, grammatically, and irrefutably.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
*I'm* trying to say that you can't so recklessly imply that capital / economics / capitalism is *correct*, and that its scaffolding upholds widespread satisfaction with its functioning.



Truth To Power wrote:
I have stated many times, clearly and explicitly, to you, that capitalism is NOT correct, and that modern mainstream neoclassical economics, its PR firm, exists to rationalize and justify capitalism's errors.



I understand your politics to be that of 'geoism', a single-issue reformist politics that uses *exchange values* for its economics.


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
In other words you can't take the 'people' factor / variable out of things, and treat economics as a far-away, distant-galaxy-type machine in outer space that operates on its own, in a vacuum --



Truth To Power wrote:
That bears no relation to anything I have said. Economics (properly understood -- i.e., not modern mainstream neoclassical economics, let alone stupid Marxist garbage) is all about human behavior -- specifically, how human beings relieve scarcity through production, allocation and exchange.



I'm saying that your own approach *dichotomizes* the political and the economic too much -- you don't have a *political economy* as much as you have a single-issue reformist politics, and an economic fetishization / dependence on *stable currency valuations*, meaning that it *has* to work-out on paper, at all costs, regardless of social and material *realities* on-the-ground. (Like bank runs, stock market crashes / failures, funding for government nationalization, and all of the other built-in ills of the market mechanism of capitalism / private property.)


ckaihatsu wrote:
sure, *I* do it, anyway, but I'm doing it from the *left*, with a class critique, though even *that* extent isn't absolutely necessary, if any given person simply knows about capitalism's inherent boom-and-bust cycles ('business cycles').



Truth To Power wrote:
The boom-bust asset price (not "business") cycle is caused by the debt-money system of finance capitalism, not capitalism simpliciter. Marx did not understand that, because he did not know anything about production, money, employment, exchange, or any other economic topic.



If you're going to rail against *finance capitalism*, then you have to object to *private equity* as well. All *you've* done is to *blithely dismiss* the real-world impact / magnitude of its existence, which is often 'vulture investment', or 'financialization':



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]

Cause of financial crises

On 15 February 2010, Adair Turner, the head of Britain's Financial Services Authority, said financialization was correlated with the 2007–2010 financial crisis. In a speech before the Reserve Bank of India, Turner said that the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 was similar to the 2008–9 crisis in that "both were rooted in, or at least followed after, sustained increases in the relative importance of financial activity relative to real non-financial economic activity, an increasing 'financialisation' of the economy."[23]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial ... he_economy



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Sorry, TTP, but we've been over this ground enough for me to say that 'producer goods = equity values', and 'privilege = rentier capital (including land)', so that's what I'm going-by.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, because you persist in conflating them, attributing to producer goods the economic characteristics of privilege, such as monopoly and unearned profits.



Producer goods *do* enjoy monopolies (like tech companies today), and they *do* enjoy unearned profits, as from every hour of every worker's workday, due to economic exploitation of the labor commodity.



A worker who is sufficiently productive can produce an output value greater than what it costs to hire him. Although his wage seems to be based on hours worked, in an economic sense this wage does not reflect the full value of what the worker produces. Effectively it is not labour which the worker sells, but his capacity to work.



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



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
And, not all equity capital itself -- however revered -- is 100% *productive*, anyway, since even commodity-producing enterprises have their own *overhead*, or internal costs, that are *not* inputs into the productive process



Truth To Power wrote:
You have proved many times that you do not know anything whatever about the productive process, especially what is and is not an input to it.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, well, put-up-or-shut-up.



Truth To Power wrote:
I have. You merely refuse to know the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that I identify, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Here -- just did a diagram. Enjoy:


material-economic exploitation

Spoiler: show
Image



Truth To Power wrote:
Still anti-economic Marxist trash, sorry.



Name-calling isn't the same thing as actually *disproving* the material-economic flows that it depicts / outlines.
By Truth To Power
#15235931
ckaihatsu wrote:You're correctly acknowledging that natural monopolies occur with *assets* and resources (rentier capital), and *also* with equity capital domains, like transportation (a service), or [electricity] (a good).

My point, then, is why are you only addressing *land* this way, as being a natural monopoly (which it is) -- ? Why not all of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate), and all *utilities* as well -- ?

Because they are not all natural monopolies. Insurance is not a natural monopoly, and neither is banking. Banks' privilege is based on the barrier to entry, not monopoly.
So then where's the *politics* for all of this -- how do you propose to address this particular 'market failure' (of utilities, transportation, etc.), if not by *nationalization*, as you tout for *land*.

I don't tout nationalization of land, merely taxing it; although where land is already nationalized, as in China, I certainly do not advocate privatizing it, as the XSSR did with such disastrous results. As for privately owned utilities and transport infrastructure, nationalization should be on the table, though sometimes junior governments should do it.
So you're saying that society / public-opinion will go in the direction of *de-privatizing* *all* land holdings, with the monolithic government *nationalizing* all land parcels.

I don't think nationalization is necessary. Just send each landholder a bill for what they are taking from the community. If they won't pay for it, they don't get to keep it, and must yield the land to someone who will.
Again, how will it *pay* for such a transfer of ownership?

It's the landowners who would have to start paying instead of just taking without paying.
The U.S. went to *civil war* over the issue of the private property of chattel slaves. It took a *wartime victory*, and a presidential proclamation / executive order, to do it.

Other countries managed to abolish slavery without civil war. There's no need for violence unless those who currently use violence to inflict injustice on others resort to violence to resist justice.
Are you proposing the same for all land parcels, and then also for all *other* natural-monopolies / market failures -- ?

I don't conflate natural monopolies with market failures. Education and health care, for example, are market failures, but they are not natural monopolies as there is no monotonically increasing economy of scale.
Yeah, take it up with Mr. Webster:

Webster proves me right:
"A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state."
And where does the *funding* for that 'repayment' (by government) come from, exactly -- ?

The repayment is by the landowners who receive the subsidy.
So then how is this 'administration' (government) composed? How are individuals deemed to be 'competent', then hired and trained?

The usual ways.
You're begging-the-question -- how would your geoism address natural monopolies *in general*, like that of IP -- and for *insurance*, too, for that matter?

IP is self-evidently an artificial monopoly, and insurance is not a natural monopoly.
Even if government doesn't run a deficit, to print money, there's still the scenario of *private equity*, which is still finance, and is *not* your cherished equity capital itself.

Private equity is just a layer of ownership. The key issue is not how things are privately owned, but WHAT is privately owned. It doesn't matter if slaves are owned by individuals, corporations, private equity firms, churches, charities, or the government. How many times do I have to explain it?
But it's always a trade-off, as for any individual or household -- economically you can have 'stability', but only at the cost of foregoing 'risk' and 'opportunities' altogether, by just letting the value just *sit* there.

Anti-economic nonsense. The value of money doesn't just sit there, it is used for exchange.
You're expressing more of a *fiscal* position, rather than a (political) *policy* one.

It's both.
I'll again remind that if you're so pro-exchange-values, that means that you have to accept F.I.R.E. as well -- you should be railing against the 'privileges' of insurance and finance, as well as that of real estate.

Non sequitur.
In other words, any given dollar can't go to both *recipient persons*, as for transportation or electricity, *and* also go to underwriting the *dollar basis* of those transportation or electricity entities, going by the yardstick of *exchange values* -- 'stable currency values' requires *government underwriting* of such, as we've clearly seen in 2008-2009, and again in 2020, with U.S. government bailouts of the stock market.

Gibberish. The bailouts were to rescue the debt money system.
Your perceived societal need / requirement for *stable currency values* is a social *liability*, because you're buying-into the social institutions of the *private sector* -- and becoming *dependent* on them -- meaning financiers and the whole capitalist system of exchange values.

No, you simply made that up. It's better to be dependent on the competitive private sector to produce goods and services than a monopolistic state, as the 20th century proved so very conclusively.
What about F.I.R.E.?

Already addressed.
Do you have a crystal ball for that?

I don't need one.
More to the point, though, is that nothing would prevent the re-emergence of *other* conglomerated interests, possibly with *their own*, cryptocurrency-like issuances, *and* they could very well wind up using *force* to *enforce* whatever system of theirs grew up around them, like historical *company towns*.

No, because competition and the absence of privilege would afford them no means to do so.
Okay, so just to *confirm*, you're *forfeiting* any claims to politically address the areas of *insurance*, and *balkanization*. (Several different currencies may wind up being in *competition*, in circulation with each other, like the various cryptocurrencies of today.)

All you have confirmed is that you have no alternative but to just make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me.
I understand your politics to be that of 'geoism', a single-issue reformist politics that uses *exchange values* for its economics.

Liberty, justice and truth are three issues, not one.
I'm saying that your own approach *dichotomizes* the political and the economic too much

No, I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the difference.
-- you don't have a *political economy* as much as you have a single-issue reformist politics, and an economic fetishization / dependence on *stable currency valuations*,

No, I merely observe that a stable exchange medium is advantageous for production.
meaning that it *has* to work-out on paper, at all costs, regardless of social and material *realities* on-the-ground. (Like bank runs, stock market crashes / failures, funding for government nationalization, and all of the other built-in ills of the market mechanism of capitalism / private property.)

I don't advocate capitalism, as I have told you many times and you always ignore, and I have explained why all those "material realities" are merely artefacts of privilege, which I propose to abolish.
If you're going to rail against *finance capitalism*, then you have to object to *private equity* as well.

Non sequitur fallacy.
All *you've* done

That's the signal that you are about to spew more silly garbage you have made up:
is to *blithely dismiss* the real-world impact / magnitude of its existence, which is often 'vulture investment', or 'financialization':

See? As a Marxist, you have to refuse to know the fact that the existence and nature of privilege are more important than who exercises it.
Producer goods *do* enjoy monopolies (like tech companies today),

Only by dint of government-issued and -enforced IP monopolies, which I propose to abolish.
and they *do* enjoy unearned profits, as from every hour of every worker's workday, due to economic exploitation of the labor commodity.

No, it's due to privilege that enables them to exploit both workers and consumers, as I have already proved.
Name-calling isn't the same thing as actually *disproving* the material-economic flows that it depicts / outlines.

It's just absurd Marxist garbage with no basis in fact. I don't have to disprove it, because it is just nonsense you have made up with no basis in fact.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15236205
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're correctly acknowledging that natural monopolies occur with *assets* and resources (rentier capital), and *also* with equity capital domains, like transportation (a service), or [electricity] (a good).

My point, then, is why are you only addressing *land* this way, as being a natural monopoly (which it is) -- ? Why not all of F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate), and all *utilities* as well -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
Because they are not all natural monopolies. Insurance is not a natural monopoly, and neither is banking. Banks' privilege is based on the barrier to entry, not monopoly.



Maybe we need a *referee* on this one, if anyone's actually *out* there (grin), 'cause this is going nowhere.

I've been *repeating* F.I.R.E. only because, *like* natural monopolies, they're *non-productive costs / overhead to equity capital*.

Society / civilization *has* to deal with material-economic realities like consumption, cities, cashflow, economics, land / real estate, *and* the possibility of natural and/or social disasters like hurricanes, flooding, needless deaths, hazards, and so on.

In this way, the *demand* side of things sees nothing *but* natural monopolies -- 'I have to get funding', 'I have to cover risks', 'I have to get a place', and everything else.

From the *supply* side of things utilities are *all* natural monopolies, and society / government may very well go *beyond* that benchmark, to provide a single-payer-type administration for not *just* utilities, but also for healthcare (Medicare, NHS, Canada), financing (social policy), insurance (homeowners), real estate (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) -- effectively *nationalizing* such, along with your precious land reforms.



examples include public utilities such as water services, electricity, telecommunications, mail, etc.[1]



Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources of market failure as early as the 19th century; John Stuart Mill advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good.



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



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
So then where's the *politics* for all of this -- how do you propose to address this particular 'market failure' (of utilities, transportation, etc.), if not by *nationalization*, as you tout for *land*.



Truth To Power wrote:
I don't tout nationalization of land, merely taxing it; although where land is already nationalized, as in China, I certainly do not advocate privatizing it, as the XSSR did with such disastrous results. As for privately owned utilities and transport infrastructure, nationalization should be on the table, though sometimes junior governments should do it.



So are we *good* here -- would nationalization apply to *all* of F.I.R.E. -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
So you're saying that society / public-opinion will go in the direction of *de-privatizing* *all* land holdings, with the monolithic government *nationalizing* all land parcels.



Truth To Power wrote:
I don't think nationalization is necessary. Just send each landholder a bill for what they are taking from the community. If they won't pay for it, they don't get to keep it, and must yield the land to someone who will.



*That's* nationalization / 'single-payer' -- the *nation* sends-the-bill, the *nation* uses force, or doesn't, regarding land, etc. The rest is accounting.

As with all 'upheaval'-type politics, though, you have to provide *some* kind of Point-A-to-Point-B, because otherwise it's mere idealism / wishful thinking.

In your scenario the government would have to be *monolithic* -- sorry for using that word over and over, but you haven't provided any illustration other than that of the CCP, implicitly.

The CCP itself is *problematic*, hopefully for obvious reasons -- though many here at PoFo would gladly go over *details* with you on that. (grin)


ckaihatsu wrote:
Again, how will it *pay* for such a transfer of ownership?



Truth To Power wrote:
It's the landowners who would have to start paying instead of just taking without paying.



Big talk for a big politics. (grin)


ckaihatsu wrote:
The U.S. went to *civil war* over the issue of the private property of chattel slaves. It took a *wartime victory*, and a presidential proclamation / executive order, to do it.



Truth To Power wrote:
Other countries managed to abolish slavery without civil war. There's no need for violence unless those who currently use violence to inflict injustice on others resort to violence to resist justice.



What you're *sidestepping*, though, is the historical, present-day *legacy* of that -- slaveowners *were* compensated by the U.S. government for their slaves 'property', and the South was allowed to continue to participate in the Union:



Reconstruction and betrayal

There was, nevertheless, a contradiction in the established bourgeois society of the North, with its own deep class antagonisms, imposing revolutionary change on the South. This was shown in the immediate aftermath of the Northern victory, and Lincoln’s assassination, in the spring of 1865. A split opened up within the political establishment. Lincoln’s vice-president and successor, Andrew Johnson, followed a policy of conciliating the defeated states. He pushed for them to be allowed back into the Union—and given a position of great influence in Congress—with no change in their social structure apart from the formal abolition of slavery. Given that the plantation owners retained great wealth and most of the former slaves had no land, the result was bound to be a virtual return to the situation before the war.

Johnson immediately ran into opposition from northern blacks and abolitionists, from radical Republican congressmen influenced by the wave of revolutionary democratic feeling generated by the war, and from some of the army officers occupying the South. The opposition soon also included mainstream Republican politicians who did not want the near 100 percent Democratic states back in Congress, industrial capitalists still determined to hegemonise the western territories, and ‘get rich quick’ businessmen who had descended on the South in the wake of the northern armies (the so-called carpetbaggers). This coalition was strong enough to defeat Johnson’s schemes (it came only one vote short of impeaching him in Congress), win the presidential election for the Republican candidate Grant in 1868, and enforce ‘reconstruction’ on the South for the best part of a decade.

In these years, Northern arms kept the old planters from controlling state or local governments. Southern Republicans took their place, black as well as white. Freed slaves were given the vote and used it. Blacks held positions as judges and in state governments. There were 20 black Federal congressmen and two black senators. For the first time, Southern legislatures took education seriously, opening networks of schools for poor white and black children alike. The plantocracy fought back, encouraging the Ku Klux Klan to terrorise blacks who took advantage of their new rights and whites who aided them. There were killings, like the massacre of 46 blacks and two white sympathisers in Memphis, Tennessee, in May 1866. But so long as the Northern army occupied the South, the terror could not destroy gains which blacks were determined to hold on to. After all, 200,000 blacks had been in the Union army, and they knew how to fight.

However, precisely because it was a bourgeois army of occupation, there was one thing the army could not do—confiscate land to provide the freed slaves with a way of making a living independent of the old masters. Sherman had briefly carried through such a measure, giving land to 40,000 ex-slaves, only to see it overturned by Johnson. From then on, the only land available to former slaves was government-owned land, which was often of inferior quality. Most were forced to rely on the former slave-owners, working as sharecroppers or labourers for them. What had been an oppressed slave class became, for the most part, an oppressed peasant and labouring class.



Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 352-353



Fast-forward to today, and we could readily *extend* the politics, to include *all equity capital* -- can it, and along with it, *workers*, be *liberated*, so that all of everyone's life concerns are no longer *subservient* to it, and/or its statist backing.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Are you proposing the same for all land parcels, and then also for all *other* natural-monopolies / market failures -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
I don't conflate natural monopolies with market failures. Education and health care, for example, are market failures, but they are not natural monopolies as there is no monotonically increasing economy of scale.



Right on the knife-edge of politics, huh -- ? (If you were any more centrist you'd be at the earth's *core*.) (grin)

Are you open to considering the *demand* side of things more regularly -- in the case of *education* it could be said that paying the cost of *profits* to private sector management of such 'enterprises' / charter schools, only adds to the *expense* of education 'provisioning' (for lack of a better word).

Society would get more bang for its buck by *not* outsourcing education (etc.) to the private sector, because of the cost of providing profits ('bribes' to private ownership, in lieu of societal-collective (proletarian) administration over the same, according to some).

Ultimately, though, there's no actual 'fine-tuning' possible, of the 'balance' between the state / government / public sector, and the private sector. (In the Western world it's the *bourgeoisie* / merchant class that has prevailed, while in China it's the government bureaucracy that's prevailed.) (Each is either *private*-proprietary or 'state-proprietary' property, regardless, and is *not* made available to the working class.)


[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Yeah, take it up with Mr. Webster:



Truth To Power wrote:
Webster proves me right:




"A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state."



Yeah, fun, so how about when we get around to talking about *that* kind of "socialism", b.k.a. *Stalinism*, you can bring that up.


Political Spectrum, Simplified

Spoiler: show
Image



Political Spectrum, Simplified UPDATE

Spoiler: show
Image



Generalizations-Characterizations

Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
And where does the *funding* for that 'repayment' (by government) come from, exactly -- ?



Truth To Power wrote:
The repayment is by the landowners who receive the subsidy.



If the landowners have to *repay*, then it's *not* a subsidy, since 'subsidy' implies *free*, like a *grant*, and not a loan.

So is it to be loans from an a-priori monolithic beneficient government, or *grants* -- ? What if someone says 'no'?


ckaihatsu wrote:
So then how is this 'administration' (government) composed? How are individuals deemed to be 'competent', then hired and trained?



Truth To Power wrote:
The usual ways.



Enlighten me.

How would, say, *attempted coups* be prevented, exactly -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're begging-the-question -- how would your geoism address natural monopolies *in general*, like that of IP -- and for *insurance*, too, for that matter?



Truth To Power wrote:
IP is self-evidently an artificial monopoly, and insurance is not a natural monopoly.



I'm going to have to point out that, for any given economic-type transaction / exchange, there are *two parties* involved, the current owner, and the prospective or actual buyer. We can shorten the names to be that of 'seller' and 'buyer'. More generically, broadly, we can speak of potential, *unexpressed* 'supply', and 'demand' (until the actual exchange takes place).

So, if 'demand' is agreeable, then it's apparent to anyone that 'demand' has certain objective *interests* in procurement that the seller does *not*, for the same transaction. We could discuss the aspects of *supply*, as in 'supply-side', and, likewise, we could discuss aspects of *demand*, as in 'demand-side' (a term not usually used).

Demand has interests in greater market *competition*, so that the scales tip in the balance of business-chasing-dollars (lower prices), rather than dollars-chasing-products (higher prices).

From the *supply* side of things government intervention, as through oversight of IP, *is* an artificial monopoly -- in the sense of statist-culture / 'mainstream' culture being the final decider / arbiter of what technology is to be officially accepted as 'valid', and what is not.

*Any* competitor who doesn't win-out could lodge any number of 'sour-grapes'-type plaintive pleas on behalf of their own *proprietary* interests to get 'Product X' to market, and the system itself certainly isn't perfect, so there's always some ground for particular case argumentation, whatever that may be.

*But*, especially from the 'demand' side of things, the consumer-type role in technological determination is *always* going to be one of relative *passivity*, only being able to vote-with-dollars *after* the official decision has been made regarding patents, and after the business landscape has put certain products into production, to bring to market. Does the consumer need the product from patent #12345678, or does the consumer need *a* computer, for x-y-and-z. So the buyer / consumer obviously has their own, *unique* interests in the transaction, quite independent from the status quo statist and business systems for making goods and services available to whatever market.

My point here is that, to the consumer / buyer, the particular segment of consumption they're participating in as buyers, *is* more like a 'natural monopoly', because, these days, one *can't* do without a smartphone or computer, or whatever other staples of the current standard of social living happen to be.

Yes, the consumer has some relative choice over brand options, and the market is probably far more responsive and real-time than ever before in history -- but that still doesn't change the role-interests of the *buyer*, versus the seller. To the buyer, it's *an appropriate smartphone*, or a *less-than-appropriate smartphone* -- in *that* sense the buyer is facing a *single hilltop* of optimization potentials, meaning a 'natural monopoly' of consumer 'appropriateness' for any given needed staple item in today's society. Either an item *fits*, or it doesn't-really, and the consumer has no interest or obligation to deal with any of the 'externalities' of any supplier's side of things, such as the story of how their product got to market (no offense).

So, *insurance*, too, could be thought-of in the same way, from the perspective of the buyer, since 'everyone' needs to have insurance these days, for whatever, including the basics of life and living, just like *food*, arguably -- though *certainly* in terms of commerce.

Your continued inability to address *all* of F.I.R.E. means that you're unable to address (obligatory) 'need', especially in business, for *insurance*, for *finance*, and for *technology* (all 'fixed capital', from Marx). Aren't these actually 'natural monopolies', in terms of *need*, since they're *unavoidable*, like existing on land -- ?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Even if government doesn't run a deficit, to print money, there's still the scenario of *private equity*, which is still finance, and is *not* your cherished equity capital itself.



Truth To Power wrote:
Private equity is just a layer of ownership. The key issue is not how things are privately owned, but WHAT is privately owned. It doesn't matter if slaves are owned by individuals, corporations, private equity firms, churches, charities, or the government. How many times do I have to explain it?



You're being disingenuous and evasive by using a 'way-out-there' example for your illustration -- it's *obscurantism*, basically.

But, for the sake of *clarity*, I'll rephrase -- the point here is 'Not all capital is going to be *active* (as equity capital, in ongoing investments), at all times, so whenever capital *isn't* being actively used in the process of commodity production, it's just *sitting around*, and is *rentier* capital, which only *draws* from the pre-existing economy of valuations, and does not *add* any new values to it.

So my *question* / issue is: 'How do-you / would you *differentiate* between active equity capital, and *non*-active capital, which could readily be used as *finance* -- ?

*Your* only concern to-date has been with the overly narrow example of *land* / real estate, and you've been content to *ignore* the full spectrum of *all* rentier capital types, namely F.I.R.E.

Because of this blind-spot you're unable to address how to *treat* rentier capital differently, as for your 'equity heaven' monolithic administration politics.

The hazard here is that as soon as you let private-equity / *finance* into the picture -- which I would argue is *unavoidable* in *any* flavor of capitalism -- then you're no longer dealing with *equity capital itself* -- since it isn't -- and instead you're dealing with valuation-sucking *rentier* capital, or *finance*.


ckaihatsu wrote:
But it's always a trade-off, as for any individual or household -- economically you can have 'stability', but only at the cost of foregoing 'risk' and 'opportunities' altogether, by just letting the value just *sit* there.



Truth To Power wrote:
Anti-economic nonsense. The value of money doesn't just sit there, it is used for exchange.



Sorry, but this just isn't true -- if it *was*, we'd already be *in* your idealistic equity-heaven (where all exchange values are actively-invested equity capital, only, all the time).

In *reality*, capital goods, like a factory building, *can* be idle, *and* they can also be *in decline*, ready to be picked-off and sold for scrap -- also *non-productive* economic activity, a *reshuffling* of ownership, at best, which then has its *own* overhead of existing-values-procurement for the process of doing so, hence the 'vulture capitalist' or barbarians-at-the-gate moniker.


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're expressing more of a *fiscal* position, rather than a (political) *policy* one.



Truth To Power wrote:
It's both.



ckaihatsu wrote:
I'll again remind that if you're so pro-exchange-values, that means that you have to accept F.I.R.E. as well -- you should be railing against the 'privileges' of insurance and finance, as well as that of real estate.



Truth To Power wrote:
Non sequitur.



Aren't insurance and finance actually *overhead*, non-productive claims ('rent-seeking', if you like), against pre-existing equity capital -- ?

I don't see how real estate / land is any different economically from finance or insurance, from the standpoint of equity capital -- they're all different forms of *rentier* capital, and are all *non-productive* of commodities (and commodity-production is what equity capital is *all about*, for some serious potential profit-making, unlike what simpler rentier capital can provide).


ckaihatsu wrote:
In other words, any given dollar can't go to both *recipient persons*, as for transportation or electricity, *and* also go to underwriting the *dollar basis* of those transportation or electricity entities, going by the yardstick of *exchange values* -- 'stable currency values' requires *government underwriting* of such, as we've clearly seen in 2008-2009, and again in 2020, with U.S. government bailouts of the stock market.



Truth To Power wrote:
Gibberish. The bailouts were to rescue the debt money system.



I'm going to call it supply-side-versus-demand-side, since the *capitalist* debt money system (if you like) was the 'supply-side' that required sudden public *underwriting* / bailouts.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Your perceived societal need / requirement for *stable currency values* is a social *liability*, because you're buying-into the social institutions of the *private sector* -- and becoming *dependent* on them -- meaning financiers and the whole capitalist system of exchange values.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, you simply made that up. It's better to be dependent on the competitive private sector to produce goods and services than a monopolistic state, as the 20th century proved so very conclusively.



No, it *isn't* -- one could even say that 'free markets' and Stalinism are somewhat *comparable*, because of all of the 'market failures' under capitalism that then require *government bailouts*, which means that the private sector is *not* self-sustaining, as things are, and have-been.


ckaihatsu wrote:
What about F.I.R.E.?



Truth To Power wrote:
Already addressed.



(See above.)


---


Truth To Power wrote:
Finance without private commercial banks' money issuance privilege would be a small and economically insignificant part of the economy.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Do you have a crystal ball for that?



Truth To Power wrote:
I don't need one.



Okay, spell-it-out, then -- what role would finance conceivably have, if government intervention in the money supply no longer happened, per your politics -- ?


ckaihatsu wrote:
More to the point, though, is that nothing would prevent the re-emergence of *other* conglomerated interests, possibly with *their own*, cryptocurrency-like issuances, *and* they could very well wind up using *force* to *enforce* whatever system of theirs grew up around them, like historical *company towns*.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, because competition and the absence of privilege would afford them no means to do so.



'Competition' could be all-out *warfare*, as has happened historically, which would be *unacceptable* by the axioms of your 'equity-heaven' politics, since warfare is *economically destructive*.

Please address this inconsistency in your monetarist line.



Notable people

Paul Kelly, Italian American mobster and founder of the Five Points Gang, whose members included future crime bosses like Johnny Torrio, Al Capone and Lucky Luciano

John Morrissey, Irish American bare-knuckle boxer, Dead Rabbits gang criminal leader in New York City, Democratic Party New York State Senator, and Tammany Hall-backed U.S. Congressman from New York



Films

Gangs of New York (2002) is a historical film set in the mid-19th century, in the Five Points district of New York City. The film, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, was inspired by Herbert Asbury's nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York (1928).



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Points,_Manhattan



---


Truth To Power wrote:
Insurance is problematic and complex as explained above. Land and money are by comparison easy to understand -- but you refuse to understand them, either, even when I have explained them to you, very patiently, multiple times, in clear, simple, grammatical English. So I won't even try to get into the problem of insurance.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, so just to *confirm*, you're *forfeiting* any claims to politically address the areas of *insurance*, and *balkanization*. (Several different currencies may wind up being in *competition*, in circulation with each other, like the various cryptocurrencies of today.)



Truth To Power wrote:
All you have confirmed is that you have no alternative but to just make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me.



No, I just *asked* for *confirmation* -- I did *not* just interject something of my choosing.

If insurance is a 'problem', then how would insurance *detract* from your equity-heaven scenario?


ckaihatsu wrote:
I understand your politics to be that of 'geoism', a single-issue reformist politics that uses *exchange values* for its economics.



Truth To Power wrote:
Liberty, justice and truth are three issues, not one.



Liberty, justice and truth are not *economics*, though -- there's still the *material world* that any proposed political economy would have to deal-with.

*Your* equity-heaven economics relies on *exchange values*, and also must maintain a stable *pricing regime* on-paper, regardless of what volatilities may be taking place in the real-world.


ckaihatsu wrote:
I'm saying that your own approach *dichotomizes* the political and the economic too much



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the difference.



ckaihatsu wrote:
-- you don't have a *political economy* as much as you have a single-issue reformist politics, and an economic fetishization / dependence on *stable currency valuations*,



Truth To Power wrote:
No, I merely observe that a stable exchange medium is advantageous for production.



*Of course* it is -- that's why your position *requires* it, based as it is in capitalistic *exchange values*.

And look at what lengths the U.S. government has had to go to, to prevent a liquidity crunch from unsold U.S. Treasury bonds (March 2020).


ckaihatsu wrote:
meaning that it *has* to work-out on paper, at all costs, regardless of social and material *realities* on-the-ground. (Like bank runs, stock market crashes / failures, funding for government nationalization, and all of the other built-in ills of the market mechanism of capitalism / private property.)



Truth To Power wrote:
I don't advocate capitalism, as I have told you many times and you always ignore, and I have explained why all those "material realities" are merely artefacts of privilege, which I propose to abolish.



You *do* advocate capitalism because you advocate an economic system based on *exchange values* -- as soon as there's a single transaction / exchange, there's *exchange values*, either explicit or *implicit* (barter).


ckaihatsu wrote:
If you're going to rail against *finance capitalism*, then you have to object to *private equity* as well.



Truth To Power wrote:
Non sequitur fallacy.



(See above.)


ckaihatsu wrote:
All *you've* done



Truth To Power wrote:
That's the signal that you are about to spew more silly garbage you have made up:



ckaihatsu wrote:
is to *blithely dismiss* the real-world impact / magnitude of its existence, which is often 'vulture investment', or 'financialization':



Truth To Power wrote:
See? As a Marxist, you have to refuse to know the fact that the existence and nature of privilege are more important than who exercises it.



Equity capital isn't *hostage* to land, as you're making it out to be -- real estate, like the rest of F.I.R.E., finance and insurance, is a *cost* to capital. So is keeping the lights on at the office. Your politics *fetishizes* the overhead of *land*, to the point of making it sound like the sole *burden* in business practice.


ckaihatsu wrote:
Producer goods *do* enjoy monopolies (like tech companies today),



Truth To Power wrote:
Only by dint of government-issued and -enforced IP monopolies, which I propose to abolish.



Noted, but I'll argue that it's still something of a red-herring, since the material *reality* of necessary 'tech' acquisition will continue to exist, for anyone and for any commercial entity. (See the earlier segment on this.)


ckaihatsu wrote:
and they *do* enjoy unearned profits, as from every hour of every worker's workday, due to economic exploitation of the labor commodity.



Truth To Power wrote:
No, it's due to privilege that enables them to exploit both workers and consumers, as I have already proved.



While, concurrently, *equity* capital, and rentier capital both extract value from the labor commodity.


material-economic exploitation

Spoiler: show
Image


Spoiler: show
Image



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Name-calling isn't the same thing as actually *disproving* the material-economic flows that it depicts / outlines.



Truth To Power wrote:
It's just absurd Marxist garbage with no basis in fact. I don't have to disprove it, because it is just nonsense you have made up with no basis in fact.



Still name-calling. Stick to the *points*, maybe.
By Truth To Power
#15236810
ckaihatsu wrote:I've been *repeating* F.I.R.E. only because, *like* natural monopolies, they're *non-productive costs / overhead to equity capital*.

The epistemological foundations of Marxism are aggregation of unlike quantities and refusal to make relevant distinctions. This becomes a mental habit that makes clear, rational thought impossible. Finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) are three different sectors that have different characteristics and different mixes of production and privilege based on different economic and market conditions. Understanding them requires disaggregation and analysis of the relevant operational conditions in each sector. Pretending they are all the same thing is just the classic Marxist expedient to prevent understanding and evade the responsibility of clear, rational thought.
Society / civilization *has* to deal with material-economic realities like consumption, cities, cashflow, economics, land / real estate, *and* the possibility of natural and/or social disasters like hurricanes, flooding, needless deaths, hazards, and so on.

Do you think it can do so by pretending that all those challenges are the same?
In this way, the *demand* side of things sees nothing *but* natural monopolies -- 'I have to get funding', 'I have to cover risks', 'I have to get a place', and everything else.

That's not what a natural monopoly is.
From the *supply* side of things utilities are *all* natural monopolies,

Depends how you define "utility." Cable TV is a natural monopoly, but broadcast and satellite TV are not.
and society / government may very well go *beyond* that benchmark, to provide a single-payer-type administration for not *just* utilities, but also for healthcare (Medicare, NHS, Canada), financing (social policy), insurance (homeowners), real estate (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) -- effectively *nationalizing* such, along with your precious land reforms.

It may. That doesn't mean it would necessarily be wise or moral to do so.
So are we *good* here -- would nationalization apply to *all* of F.I.R.E. -- ?

No. There is no plausible rationale for nationalizing the financial intermediation function of private banks, the risk management function of private insurance, or the construction and management of improvements in the private real estate industry.
*That's* nationalization / 'single-payer' -- the *nation* sends-the-bill, the *nation* uses force, or doesn't, regarding land, etc.

It's not nationalization, as land would be allocated among free private users by the market, not government officials; and there is no way to administer possession and use of land but by force.
The rest is accounting.

No it is not.
As with all 'upheaval'-type politics, though, you have to provide *some* kind of Point-A-to-Point-B, because otherwise it's mere idealism / wishful thinking.

No. Identifying the fact that people need to eat nutritious food to be healthy is not idealism or wishful thinking if I don't also specify exactly what they should eat, where they should get it, how it should be prepared, by whom, etc. I am identifying the fact that to be healthy -- free, just, and prosperous -- a community has to recover for public purposes and benefit the unimproved rental value of land that government and the community create, rather than giving it away to private landowners in return for nothing. This is a political problem, and all politics is local. The political paths to healthy communities have to be found or blazed locally, depending on local conditions and terrain. I'm just identifying the ultimate direction all those paths have to take if they are going to reach the goal of community health.
In your scenario the government would have to be *monolithic* -- sorry for using that word over and over, but you haven't provided any illustration other than that of the CCP, implicitly.

Local communities can pursue economic health within the legal constraints of their jurisdiction, just as a person can pursue a healthy diet within the constraints of their budget, local food availability, etc.
What you're *sidestepping*, though, is the historical, present-day *legacy* of that

No, I am stating the fact that legal ownership of the land continued to confer on the former slave owners a level of legal privilege, entitlement to exploit labor, and consequent economic advantage similar to that which they had enjoyed via legal ownership of the slaves.
-- slaveowners *were* compensated by the U.S. government for their slaves 'property',

No, they most certainly were not. You simply made that up. They merely discovered, to their general astonishment, that once all the useful land had been appropriated as private property, just owning the land was quite sufficient to sustain the effective master-slave relationships they had become accustomed to.
and the South was allowed to continue to participate in the Union:

It was forced to. Duh.
Fast-forward to today, and we could readily *extend* the politics, to include *all equity capital* --

If we wanted to live in Castro's Cuba, Maduro's Venezuela, the USSR, or Maoist China, rather than in free, just, and prosperous geoist communities.
can it, and along with it, *workers*, be *liberated*, so that all of everyone's life concerns are no longer *subservient* to it, and/or its statist backing.

Sure, but only through the geoist reforms I already described: abolish the privileges that can be abolished, and require just compensation -- from the privilege holders to the community and from the community to the victims -- for those that can't. Never through socialism.
Right on the knife-edge of politics, huh -- ? (If you were any more centrist you'd be at the earth's *core*.) (grin)

I guess maybe I am a centrist. The left is egalitarian, the right elitist. Natural statistical distributions tend to be quite egalitarian (see the normal distribution), but also have room for both small elites and small underclasses.
Are you open to considering the *demand* side of things more regularly -- in the case of *education* it could be said that paying the cost of *profits* to private sector management of such 'enterprises' / charter schools, only adds to the *expense* of education 'provisioning' (for lack of a better word).

No, that is just more ridiculous Marxist trash. Profit is not an unproductive expense like rent. Profit obtained in open competition is the cost of the efficiency and excellence that only open competition for profits can stimulate. You seem to think we would somehow know how to achieve efficiency and excellence in education without competition. We wouldn't and can't.
Society would get more bang for its buck by *not* outsourcing education (etc.) to the private sector, because of the cost of providing profits ('bribes' to private ownership, in lieu of societal-collective (proletarian) administration over the same, according to some).

No, that is just anti-economic tripe from the Anti-Economist.
Ultimately, though, there's no actual 'fine-tuning' possible, of the 'balance' between the state / government / public sector, and the private sector.

Garbage refuted by self-evident fact.
(In the Western world it's the *bourgeoisie* / merchant class that has prevailed, while in China it's the government bureaucracy that's prevailed.) (Each is either *private*-proprietary or 'state-proprietary' property, regardless, and is *not* made available to the working class.)

You appear to have no experience whatsoever of the working class in either the capitalist West or geoist China.
Yeah, fun, so how about when we get around to talking about *that* kind of "socialism", b.k.a. *Stalinism*, you can bring that up.

When the subject is a nutritious diet, why would I want to talk about the different varieties of poison?
If the landowners have to *repay*, then it's *not* a subsidy, since 'subsidy' implies *free*, like a *grant*, and not a loan.

The purpose of requiring the repayment is to end the subsidy by requiring just compensation for the benefit. Duh.

You cannot be that obtuse.
So is it to be loans from an a-priori monolithic beneficient government, or *grants* -- ?

Neither. It's the publicly created unimproved market rental value of the land -- which, by definition, someone is willing to pay in return for the publicly provided economic advantage of exclusive tenure.
What if someone says 'no'?

Government revokes their government-issued title of ownership -- and certainly does not permit them to enforce it themselves, as that would be criminal assault -- which they knew from the outset was conditional on keeping the taxes current.
Enlighten me.

That would require your honest consent to know facts, which you will never give.
How would, say, *attempted coups* be prevented, exactly -- ?

The usual ways.
From the *supply* side of things government intervention, as through oversight of IP, *is* an artificial monopoly -- in the sense of statist-culture / 'mainstream' culture being the final decider / arbiter of what technology is to be officially accepted as 'valid', and what is not.

No it isn't. It is an artificial monopoly in the literal sense that government uses force to stop others from producing the same product.
*Any* competitor who doesn't win-out could lodge any number of 'sour-grapes'-type plaintive pleas on behalf of their own *proprietary* interests to get 'Product X' to market, and the system itself certainly isn't perfect, so there's always some ground for particular case argumentation, whatever that may be.
*But*, especially from the 'demand' side of things, the consumer-type role in technological determination is *always* going to be one of relative *passivity*, only being able to vote-with-dollars *after* the official decision has been made regarding patents, and after the business landscape has put certain products into production, to bring to market. Does the consumer need the product from patent #12345678, or does the consumer need *a* computer, for x-y-and-z. So the buyer / consumer obviously has their own, *unique* interests in the transaction, quite independent from the status quo statist and business systems for making goods and services available to whatever market.

Gibberish.
My point here is that, to the consumer / buyer, the particular segment of consumption they're participating in as buyers, *is* more like a 'natural monopoly', because, these days, one *can't* do without a smartphone or computer, or whatever other staples of the current standard of social living happen to be.

Lots of people do without computers or smartphones. You are just makin' $#!+ up.
Yes, the consumer has some relative choice over brand options, and the market is probably far more responsive and real-time than ever before in history -- but that still doesn't change the role-interests of the *buyer*, versus the seller. To the buyer, it's *an appropriate smartphone*, or a *less-than-appropriate smartphone* -- in *that* sense the buyer is facing a *single hilltop* of optimization potentials, meaning a 'natural monopoly' of consumer 'appropriateness' for any given needed staple item in today's society. Either an item *fits*, or it doesn't-really, and the consumer has no interest or obligation to deal with any of the 'externalities' of any supplier's side of things, such as the story of how their product got to market (no offense).

So, *insurance*, too, could be thought-of in the same way, from the perspective of the buyer, since 'everyone' needs to have insurance these days, for whatever, including the basics of life and living, just like *food*, arguably -- though *certainly* in terms of commerce.

Gibberish with no basis in fact.
Your continued inability to address *all* of F.I.R.E.

Because unlike a Marxist, I am willing to know the fact that FIRE is not all one thing.
means that you're unable to address (obligatory) 'need', especially in business, for *insurance*, for *finance*, and for *technology* (all 'fixed capital', from Marx).

Marx was the Anti-Economist, and everything he said on the subject was wrong.
Aren't these actually 'natural monopolies', in terms of *need*, since they're *unavoidable*, like existing on land -- ?

No. Our ancestors did without them just fine. None of our ancestors ever did without land.
You're being disingenuous and evasive by using a 'way-out-there' example for your illustration -- it's *obscurantism*, basically.

Garbage. I am illustrating the relevant distinction, which you refuse to make.
But, for the sake of *clarity*, I'll rephrase -- the point here is 'Not all capital is going to be *active* (as equity capital, in ongoing investments), at all times, so whenever capital *isn't* being actively used in the process of commodity production, it's just *sitting around*, and is *rentier* capital, which only *draws* from the pre-existing economy of valuations, and does not *add* any new values to it.

If that was for the sake of clarity, I don't want to see what you concoct for the sake of obscurity.

The relevant distinction is not whether any given asset is being used "actively" but whether its very existence inherently makes others worse off.
So my *question* / issue is: 'How do-you / would you *differentiate* between active equity capital, and *non*-active capital, which could readily be used as *finance* -- ?

Again, the relevant distinction is between saved purchasing power diverted from private consumption, which does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have, and newly issued purchasing power a private commercial bank has created to obtain interest income at the expense of the community.
*Your* only concern to-date has been with the overly narrow example of *land* / real estate, and you've been content to *ignore* the full spectrum of *all* rentier capital types, namely F.I.R.E.

No, you simply made that up, as usual. I have explained some of the complexities of the FIRE sector and how it extracts rents, which does not by any means exhaust the taxonomy of rentier privilege.
Because of this blind-spot you're unable to address how to *treat* rentier capital differently, as for your 'equity heaven' monolithic administration politics.

No, that is simply you refusing to make the relevant distinctions. Some "rentier capital" like IP monopolies can simply be abolished. Others, like utility and infrastructure monopolies, should be owned by the local community. Issuance of additional money should be taken out of the hands of private banks and made the responsibility of an independent national Mint. And secure, exclusive land tenure should be subject to just compensation both from those who enjoy it to the community and from that community to those who are excluded.
The hazard here is that as soon as you let private-equity / *finance* into the picture -- which I would argue is *unavoidable* in *any* flavor of capitalism -- then you're no longer dealing with *equity capital itself* -- since it isn't -- and instead you're dealing with valuation-sucking *rentier* capital, or *finance*.

No, because that is not the relevant distinction, as I have explained to you so very patiently, so many times, in clear, simple, grammatical English, and you always refuse to know. The relevant distinction is between assets that inherently deprive others of what they would otherwise have and assets that do not.
Sorry, but this just isn't true --

Yes it is.
if it *was*, we'd already be *in* your idealistic equity-heaven (where all exchange values are actively-invested equity capital, only, all the time).

No, that is a non-sequitur fallacy. You simply made it up.
In *reality*, capital goods, like a factory building, *can* be idle, *and* they can also be *in decline*, ready to be picked-off and sold for scrap -- also *non-productive* economic activity, a *reshuffling* of ownership, at best, which then has its *own* overhead of existing-values-procurement for the process of doing so, hence the 'vulture capitalist' or barbarians-at-the-gate moniker.

Idle capital goods do not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have. Idle land does. I'm quite sure there is no way to state that fact so clearly and simply that you would consent to know it.
Aren't insurance and finance actually *overhead*, non-productive claims ('rent-seeking', if you like), against pre-existing equity capital -- ?

That depends on how they are obtained. Insurance can be used to manage risk, and finance can divert purchasing power from consumption to production.
I don't see

Because you refuse to:
how real estate / land

See? You even refuse to know the difference between land and fixed improvements thereto.
is any different economically from finance or insurance, from the standpoint of equity capital -- they're all different forms of *rentier* capital, and are all *non-productive* of commodities (and commodity-production is what equity capital is *all about*, for some serious potential profit-making, unlike what simpler rentier capital can provide).

The relevant distinction is not whether an asset is being used for production, but whether it inherently takes from others.
I'm going to call it supply-side-versus-demand-side, since the *capitalist* debt money system (if you like) was the 'supply-side' that required sudden public *underwriting* / bailouts.

I'm not even going to try to explain how comprehensively that misapprehends the situation.
No, it *isn't*

Yes it is, as the history of the 20th century proved so very conclusively.
-- one could even say that 'free markets' and Stalinism are somewhat *comparable*, because of all of the 'market failures' under capitalism that then require *government bailouts*, which means that the private sector is *not* self-sustaining, as things are, and have-been.

See? You refuse to distinguish between the competitive private sector and the rent seeking private sector.
Okay, spell-it-out, then -- what role would finance conceivably have, if government intervention in the money supply no longer happened, per your politics -- ?

My proposal is for a politically independent but nationally owned Mint to directly control the money supply to ensure stable prices. Private banks would function as financial intermediaries and risk managers.
'Competition' could be all-out *warfare*, as has happened historically, which would be *unacceptable* by the axioms of your 'equity-heaven' politics, since warfare is *economically destructive*.

See? You even refuse to know the difference between competition and combat.
Please address this inconsistency in your monetarist line.

There is no inconsistency, only willingness to make the relevant distinctions: i.e., to know the fact that the things you say are the same are actually different.
No, I just *asked* for *confirmation*

Of something you made up and falsely attributed to me.
-- I did *not* just interject something of my choosing.

Yes you did.
If insurance is a 'problem', then how would insurance *detract* from your equity-heaven scenario?

Insurance is a problem because of privilege. Absent privilege, it's just a risk management service.
Liberty, justice and truth are not *economics*, though

They are genuine economics, not socialist or capitalist "economics."
-- there's still the *material world* that any proposed political economy would have to deal-with.

Which has nothing to do with Marxist blather.
*Your* equity-heaven economics relies on *exchange values*, and also must maintain a stable *pricing regime* on-paper, regardless of what volatilities may be taking place in the real-world.

The volatilities even out over time.
*Of course* it is -- that's why your position *requires* it, based as it is in capitalistic *exchange values*.

Capitalism is defined by ownership, not exchange.
And look at what lengths the U.S. government has had to go to, to prevent a liquidity crunch from unsold U.S. Treasury bonds (March 2020).

Don't try to pretend you know anything about it.
You *do* advocate capitalism because you advocate an economic system based on *exchange values* -- as soon as there's a single transaction / exchange, there's *exchange values*, either explicit or *implicit* (barter).

Capitalism is defined by ownership, not exchange.
Equity capital isn't *hostage* to land, as you're making it out to be

Yes it is, as the price of a vacant building lot in almost any major city proves.
-- real estate, like the rest of F.I.R.E., finance and insurance, is a *cost* to capital.

Some parts are. You refuse to know which.
So is keeping the lights on at the office. Your politics *fetishizes* the overhead of *land*, to the point of making it sound like the sole *burden* in business practice.

You made that up. But the astronomical cost of a vacant building lot proves land is a bigger burden than you will admit.
Noted, but I'll argue that it's still something of a red-herring, since the material *reality* of necessary 'tech' acquisition will continue to exist, for anyone and for any commercial entity. (See the earlier segment on this.)

Nope. Information is inherently free.
While, concurrently, *equity* capital, and rentier capital both extract value from the labor commodity.

No, that's false, as already proved. By providing the factory, which would not otherwise have been available for production, the factory owner increases production by more than the portion of it that he retains as compensation for his contribution.

<absurd Marxist tripe snipped>
Still name-calling. Stick to the *points*, maybe.

You don't have any points to offer, just absurd Marxist tripe.
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