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Thread: We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

  1. #1

    We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

    Where the problem lay in the current economic system......

    By Martin Wolf. Chief economic writer of the Financial Times.

    Why were resources expunged from neo-classical economics?

    Something strange happened to economics about a century ago. In moving from classical to neo-classical economics — the dominant academic school today — economists expunged land — or natural resources. Neo-classical value theory — based on marginalism and subjective valuation — still makes a great deal of sense. Expunging natural resources from the way economists think about the world does not.

    In classical economics, land, labour and capital were the three factors of production. With neo-classical economics, the standard production function had just two factors of production: capital and labour. Land — by which we mean the totality of natural resources — was then incorporated into capital.

    All thinking about the world involves a degree of abstraction. Economics has taken this principle further than any other social science. This is a fruitful intellectual procedure. But it is also risky. The necessary process of abstraction may end up leaving essential aspects of the world out of the analysis. That can be intellectually crippling. I believe that that is exactly what has happened, in this case.

    The idea that land and capital are the same thing is evidently ludicrous. It requires us to believe that the economic machine is self-sustaining — a sort of perpetual motion machine. Capital is the product of savings and investment. It is the result of human frugality and the invention required to imagine and create new capital goods. Labour is also — and in today’s circumstances, increasingly — a form of capital. Parents, governments and individual people invest in their own skills, so making themselves more productive. Yet there would be no economy — indeed no humanity — without a constant inflow of natural resources into the system: what lies above our heads (the sun and the atmosphere), what lies close to us (the soil, the seas and location itself) and what lies beneath us (fossil fuels, metals and minerals and heat). Humanity does not make these things; it exploits them. Some of these resources are also appropriable and so a source of unearned personal wealth.

    Why did this compelling distinction disappear from economics? After all, no economist can believe that the economic system will move without a constant infusion of external resources.

    One reason was that the classical world view implies diminishing returns. Since the supply of land was fixed, it would become ever scarcer. Rents — the price of resource scarcity — would rise, profits would fall and growth slow. But the economy did not show signs of diminishing returns. Technical progress seemed to offset any tendency towards diminishing returns. So assuming that land, like capital, could be effectively expanded, without limit, via land-augmenting technical progress, seemed to be the right thing to do.

    Another reason may have been political. Henry George argued that resource rents are not a reward for the efforts of the owners, but the fruit of the efforts of others. It would be both just and efficient to socialise rents, he argued, and then use the proceeds to finance the infrastructure that makes resources valuable. But the powerful owners of natural resources wished to protect their unearned gains. In practice, therefore, the tax burden fell on labour and capital. Economics, one might argue, was pushed into supporting this way of organising economic life.

    Yet it would seem to me that this way of thinking by economists is no longer sensible, if it ever was. Land must again be treated as separate from labour and capital.

    First, resource scarcity is an increasingly pressing issue. It shows up in concerns over pollution (including global warming), in the discussion of “peak oil” and so forth. The idea that diminishing returns will become a more significant factor in the next century than in the past two seems to me to be compelling, now that modern economic growth has spread across the globe. So we need to return to economic models that incorporate resources, as a matter of course.

    Second, in a globalised economy, taxing labour and capital will become increasingly difficult. That leaves land. The Australian government is right to want to extract the full rental value of its mineral resources for the benefit of the Australian people. Similarly, the people of the UK should wish to extract the rental value of London for their own use. The benefits of infrastructure investments that make London more productive would automatically be recouped if land rents were heavily taxed. Meanwhile, the taxation of capital and land could be reduced.

    I can see the objection that natural resources are necessary for the operation of capital and labour. Thus, the distinction between land, labour and capital is hard to draw. I agree with this. But there are two responses: first, from the point of view of economics, resource scarcity may mean diminishing returns, which are economically important; second, some natural resources are not appropriable and can be treated as free (sunlight, for example), but others are indeed appropriable.

    Thus, for both economic and political reasons, we should put natural resources into the heart of economics, thereby remedying a neoclassical mistake.

    The old fallacies are skillfully debunked in this long exchange:
    http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exch...mics/#comments

    Martin Wolf concludes.........

    The essential point is quite simple: the value of resources is created by the economic activity of other factors of production. The owners of these resources can become hugely wealthy and are often untaxed on that increase in wealth: the Duke of Westminster is the richest Englishman simply because he owns a large amount of land in a valuable part of London. So why should he have command over the labour of so many other people?

    That wealth is, in the strictest sense, unearned. If that rise in wealth were taxed away, other taxes - those on labour, capital and entrepreneurship - could fall. This would be both efficient (because taxes on rent do not create distortions, as Ricardo showed) and also just, because the wealth was unearned. Now, surprisingly, the UK allows foreign landowners to enjoy the increase in value created by the British economy, entirely tax-free. This is utterly crazy.

    Let me add four other points.

    First, throughout history, the main source of wealth was land-ownership. The parasitic landowner became wealthy on the efforts of others - peasants, tenants and even developers. Sometimes the parasite was also a farmer or developer, but that does not change the fact that these are two distinct economic roles. The parasite built fine castles and palaces and often sponsored music and culture. But he was still a parasite. The beauty of capitalism is that many of the wealthiest are no longer parasites. This is good. But many of the wealthy still are parasites. Moreover, now everybody wants to get rich by being a mini-landowner. That is a huge diversion of effort.

    Second, the financial system's ills are the result of unchecked credit-creation. Yes. But unchecked credit-creation would be impossible without collateral. Land is always the principal form of collateral (buildings are a depreciating asset). That is why financial bubbles that do not create credit booms (like the dotcom bubble) are economically benign, while property bubbles are potentially catastrophic. When the value of collateral collapses, the financial system implodes.

    Third, there is really nothing new about this understanding of the role of resource rents. They were central to the classical system, from which modern economics, in its various forms, derives. Ricardo's analysis of rent remains intellectually impeccable.

    Finally, as Herman Daly has noted (http://steadystate...zing-henry-george/), today economically valuable resources are much more than just land (and what lies below it). They include all the services of the biosphere - those that are appropriated, those that are appropriable and those that are non-appropriable. If we do not think seriously and intelligently about how to price resources, we are likely to go seriously adrift, perhaps even into disaster. Here land is the least of our problems - it is appropriable and, by and large, appropriated. So, at least, the price mechanism works, even though the distribution of the gain is grossly unjust. But, in other cases, no appropriation is possible, or at least it is not easy. Nobody can appropriate the atmosphere. It is nigh on impossible to appropriate the oceans. How do you own species diversity? These are serious challenges.

    So, I conclude where I started: resources matter. It was a great mistake to exclude them from the canonical neo-classical model. It is also a great mistake not to tax their owners to the hilt.
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 07-29-2012 at 02:50 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)



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  3. #2

    Vested Interests Rigged The Economy

    The Queen Could not be Told the Truth

    When the Queen of England visited the London School of Economics. She asked a simple question about the looming economic disaster,


    "why did no one notice it coming?".


    Professor Garicano replied,


    "at every stage everyone was relying on someone else, and all thought they were doing the right thing".


    As modern economists use a collection of mangled economics the Queen could not be told the truth.

    Economists 100 Years Ago Colluded to Distort Economics

    A century ago a group of influential economists: John Bates Clark, Frank Knight, Francis Walker, Edward Seligan and Richard Ely, colluded to manipulate the building blocks of classical economics. They had an ideological agenda. The future they shaped is our reality. Their mission was clear to protect the vital interests of the privileged few. To so they had to conceal the unique qualities of the classical factors of production - LAND.

    A century of economic disasters followed that literally messed with our lives. Economics has been a tool for contorting our collective consciousness. The current economic crisis as an example to the pathetic state to which economics has been reduced.

    Modern Economists are Confused

    We handsomely reward economists to fine tune to the economy to keep it stable. When boom turns to bust they escape into mysticism. They claim,


    "occasional slow downs are natural and necessary features of a market economy".


    The people we trust to keep the economy on an even keel have no idea what makes an economy explode. Take the central bankers, they pontificated, moving interest rates up and and manipulating the money supply. They didn't know what they were doing - it was all an illusion.

    The problem lies in some of the theories invented by encomists. They do not reflect the real world. They are fictions invented to explain an imaginary market economy. When the economy overheats the imaginary equations turn out to be useless.

    Economists Admit Their Economic Models Do Not Work

    The Daddy of all central bankers was Alan Greenspan, of the US Federal Reserve. He said,


    "the models do not forecast recession because the parameters are dominated by what happens in normal times when the economy is growing".


    As the economy crumbled, He said to the US congress,


    "I discovered a flaw in the model which I perceived as a critical function structure which defines how the world works, I was shocked".


    Greenspan's victims are more than shocked, they are traumatised losing their homes and jobs.

    In failing to raise the warning flags, Greenspan was not alone, economists at the Bank of England also failed to forecast the end of the business cycle. They confessed their economic models break down when the going gets tough. Rachel Lomax, deputy governor of the Bank of England confessed,


    "When it comes to quantifying the changes in credit conditions, our workhorse economic models still cannot help us very much".


    If you were caught by surprise when the bottom fell out of the credit market, don't worry, you were in good company. Leading economist at places like the LSE were also shocked. Professor Sir Charles Woodhart, served on the Bank of England monetary policy committee, he now admits that standard forecast economic models are


    "effectively pretty useless".


    Here is an example of the nonsense that can be produced by economic theory. According to the British governments Property Valuation office in Jan 2008, land values will continue to rise until 2013. Six months later the economy had broken down. The graph has been erased from their web site.

    Land Speculators Are the Biggest Gainers

    Who gains from this intellectual mess? One groups of people reap spectacular rewards, property developers, land speculators all reap windfall gains from one asset that sustains us all, LAND.

    In the good times when people go mad buying and selling properties, we lionise these developers. Yet all they are doing is cashing in the on the land values others create. Take the case of a cluster of flats adjacent to a prime brownfields site. Their presence gives value to the adjacent site, yet the thousands of residents of the flats will not share in the increased values they help create.

    Banks Fuelled The Property/Land Bubble

    Bankers around the world played their part in the economic crisis pumping up credit to fuel the property bubble. As land values rose bankers even created more money. This was a self inflated bubble of hot air. It had to burst.

    Economists Who Know The Answers Are Supressed

    For the past century economist have messed with our minds. All is not lost. A few economists have been stewards of the precious knowledge of how the economy works. The Nobel prize winning economist Bill Vickry and the California professor, Mason Gaffney. All voices of reason that have been suppressed.

    We Need To Force Through ChangeTo Eliminate Vested Interests

    With all the global crisis's converging, mass unemployment, poverty, terrorism. It is time to make up our minds and stop playing the game that was rigged 100 years ago. If we do not challenge the vested interests that exploit people, all of us, the environment and future generations will pay the ultimate price.

    We have to oblige our elected leaders to deal with the realities on the ground. In the end it is up to everyone to assume personal responsibility and restore common sense in the way we govern society.
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 07-29-2012 at 03:15 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by EcoWarrier View Post
    Land Speculators Are the Biggest Gainers

    Who gains from this intellectual mess? One groups of people reap spectacular rewards, property developers, land speculators all reap windfall gains from one asset that sustains us all, LAND.
    Sounds like a good job. Where do I sign up?

  5. #4
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 08-07-2012 at 04:04 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  6. #5

    job

    I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point. It's good to be the king!.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by VoluntaryAmerican View Post
    Sounds like a good job. Where do I sign up?
    Owning land is not a job. It is simply a way of taking from the productive without contributing anything in return. It is legalized theft:

    The Bandit

    Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

    A thief, right?

    Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

    But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, and he can even pretend that his profits come from his "property rights," not just a special government-issued license. But in fact, he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is his "business" any different now that he is a landowner?

    And for that matter, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?

    Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed? Does their "free choice" to use the pass make it a consensual transaction?

    If there were two, or three, or 300, or 3 million passes, each with its own resident bandit, would the merchants' being at "liberty" to choose which bandit robs them somehow make the bandits' enterprises a competitive industry in a free market?

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed
    You already have that job, dumpling: voting. But you are almost certainly one of the great majority of people who are too stupid, ignorant, greedy, lazy, stubborn, cowardly, and/or dishonest to exercise your franchise in your own best interests.
    and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point.
    Your "thugs"?? What a remarkably dishonest bit of filth. It is the landowner who needs government thugs enforcing his land title at gunpoint to enable him to rob the productive. Why else would anyone pay him for what nature provided for free?
    It's good to be the king!.
    Indeed. And in the absence of responsible, democratic government, that is exactly what landowners are, as feudalism proved.

  9. #8
    FlatIron
    Member




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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I want the job of choosing where the "socialized" rents are to be distributed and, presumably, having my thugs enforce it at gun point. It's good to be the king!.
    The same is what happens to the money in government coffers right now.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  12. #10
    The difference between a highway robber
    and a free rider is that the free rider does
    not have to draw a gun to take what belongs to others.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  13. #11
    FlatIron nailed it.



    This thread should be merged with one of the other LVT-polluted threads.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by EcoWarrier View Post
    After all, no economist can believe that the economic system will move without a constant infusion of external resources.
    I don't see how lumping land and capital together for purposes of analysis somehow denies the use of natural resources. Over the decades, increases in per capita GDP have been due to massive increases in the productivity of labor. So we may theoretically continue this trend without utilizing any additional land. Maybe we'll just recycle and melt down the worn out capital and reshape it into something new, and with alternate forms of energy.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Owning land is not a job. It is simply a way of taking from the productive without contributing anything in return. It is legalized theft:
    I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
    "Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by erowe1 View Post
    I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
    "Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."
    You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to democratically anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."

    It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are. What is the worst that could happen?

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrock View Post
    You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to democratically anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."

    It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are. What is the worst that could happen?
    ¶ 1 After many days of wandering Henry George did stub his toe upon a rock, which he took as a sign. This caused Henry George to quake and tremble with a vision.

    2 And lo, out of the intense throbbing of his infernal bunion, Henry George did see the power of the landlords, and of private ownership of land rents. And he saw also the power of the taxing emperor, that his taxing and spending was sometimes sort of roughly equal to what the landlords received in land rents. And lo! A lightbulb did appear above his head.

    3 Henry George called his disciples together, and said unto them, "These landowners have suckled their last sip from the collective genitals of generosity. Let us take from the landlords that which is being taken from the people, and give this to the emperor instead, that he may shower that milk and honey and other sticky and liquidy flowing stuffs from the land back upon the people."

    4 And Henry George did charge his disciples to wander about as dirty ragged bands of collectively covetous vagabonds crying in the wilderness, to proclaim to all would listen (and to incessantly troll all who would not) that pure evil in private hands would become naught but pure righteousness and goodliness in the hands of a goodly collective.

  18. #16
    Got to love Henry George. An individual person owning property is inherently flawed, but a group of people doing the same is magically superior.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by erowe1 View Post
    I would be more inclined to give this part of the argument a chance if I didn't know that the next part of the argument went:
    "Therefore, we ought to let one particular gang of thieves anoint itself as the owner of all the land and charge us rent to use it."
    That's not the next part of the argument, so you can relax (and stop lying).

    Those of us who are not stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+ are aware of the fact that the sun, the oceans, the earth's atmosphere, the alphabet, mathematics, etc. can never rightly be anyone's property. All who refuse to know that fact ARE in fact stupid, ignorant, greedy, evil, lying sacks of $#!+. However, as all have equal liberty rights to use those things, honest people need a way to protect themselves against evil, greedy rent seekers who will never leave off contriving ways to charge others for what nature and their cultural heritage provide for free. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Calling such a government "one particular gang of thieves" that "anoints itself as the owner of all the land and charges us rent to use it" is just filthy, despicably dishonest "meeza hatesa gubmint" $#!+. We need government to administer use of the land to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use it, just as we need government to administer the atmosphere, the oceans, etc. to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to use them.

    There is no way for anyone, or any group, or any government, or any corporation, or any church, or any other legal entity whatsoever rightly to own land. It is impossible, as it inherently removes the liberty rights of others to use the land. The only difference between owning land and owning a slave is that when you own a slave, you remove all of one person's rights. When you own land, you remove one of all persons' rights. The more of the land is owned, the fewer rights remain. In the limit, if all the land is owned by one man, all the rest are in exactly the same position as if they were also all his property. He has absolute power of life and death over them. If two people own the land, or three, or 300, or 3 million, the others are only "free" to choose which master owns them, for whose benefit they will labor rather than their own. They are not free not to be owned: their rights to liberty have been removed by force.

    A good man might own land, just as a good man might own slaves. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, as did most of America's other Founding Fathers. But the fact that a good man might own land does not justify landowning any more than a good man owning slaves justifies slave owning. And landowning is inherently an instrument of theft, oppression and murder that serves the greedy and evil no matter who else participates in it, just as slave owning is. Landowning is like the One Ring of Sauron: it is evil in its inherent, fundamental nature, and so ultimately it can serve only evil.
    Last edited by Roy L; 07-29-2012 at 08:59 PM.

  21. #18
    I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cowlesy View Post
    Americans in general are jedi masters of blaming every other person.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrock View Post
    You have it all wrong. "Therefore, we ought to democratically anoint a particular gang of thieves as owners of all the land and charge us rent to use it."
    <sigh> Why even bother telling such stupid, evil lies, like a stupid, evil, lying sack of $#!+?

    A trustee does not own the trust assets, and does not keep the rent of said assets for his own purposes even though he may, on behalf of the trust beneficiaries, charge rent of those who use the assets. Likewise, officials of a responsible, democratic government do not keep tax revenue for their own purposes. They likewise would not keep the publicly created land rent recovered by land value taxation for their own purposes. They administer such funds for public purposes and benefit, according to systems of democratic accountability, or they lose their jobs. To claim otherwise is just a stupid, evil lie. Private landowners, by contrast, DO KEEP publicly created land rents for their own purposes, with no public accountability for what they take from the public by force.
    It makes it so much better if 51% of us agree on who the gang of thieves are.
    That is nothing but stupid, dishonest, "meeza hatesa gubmint" filth.

    Yes, some people are indeed stupid and dishonest enough to vote for a gang of thieves to implement and maintain a system of systematic, institutionalized thievery. You are very likely one of them. I am not.
    What is the worst that could happen?
    I don't know, but one of the better things that could happen is that you could somehow find a willingness to know facts, and consequently want nothing more than to kneel in a cesspool and slit your belly open to atone for the monumental evil you have so dishonestly tried to rationalize, justify, defend, excuse and serve.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    [landownership] inherently removes the liberty rights of others to use the land.
    If'n such an imagined right existed. Until then, you mangy little LVT kids can get off my lawn, afore I fill your scraggly little butts with rock salt.

  24. #21
    Does not change the injustice of taking away property rights. If we elect a dictator and let him only to use dictatorial power within bounds is he no longer a dictator? I argue that he is still a dictator. Same applies to taxes.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cowlesy View Post
    Americans in general are jedi masters of blaming every other person.

  25. #22

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by silverhandorder View Post
    I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.
    "Ah'm puhfectly fahn wid prop'ty rahts, too. If'n you don' think niggahs can be owned, whah, jes' don' own any."

    If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.

    Simple question: do you think the sun can rightly be owned? The atmosphere or the oceans? The alphabet? How about human beings? No? Why, don't you believe in property rights?

    "If you don't think the atmosphere can be owned, don't own it. Meanwhile, where's my rent for the air you are breathing?"

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrock View Post
    Got to love Henry George. An individual person owning property is inherently flawed,
    You just lied again. Inevitably. Henry George was a great defender of owning property: RIGHTFUL property in the fruits of human labor, which can rightly be owned, and whose ownership does not violate others' rights.

    STOP LYING.
    but a group of people doing the same is magically superior.
    And again you lie. No one here has said that groups of people can rightly own land any more than individuals.

    STOP LYING.



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  29. #25
    nm
    Last edited by Adrock; 08-21-2012 at 10:22 PM.

  30. #26
    I believe as long as you are not displacing someone else and you can fence it off or defend it from incursion you should be able to own it. I dont care if it is the sun or your backyard.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cowlesy View Post
    Americans in general are jedi masters of blaming every other person.

  31. #27
    Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. -James Madison

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    "Ah'm puhfectly fahn wid prop'ty rahts, too. If'n you don' think niggahs can be owned, whah, jes' don' own any."

    If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.

    Simple question: do you think the sun can rightly be owned? The atmosphere or the oceans? The alphabet? How about human beings? No? Why, don't you believe in property rights?

    "If you don't think the atmosphere can be owned, don't own it. Meanwhile, where's my rent for the air you are breathing?"
    This is one concept you're exactly right about. (charging rent for super-abundant resources like sunlight, ideas, etc)

    When you say "If you weren't so keen to lie about what I have plainly written, you would know that I am also perfectly fine with property rights: RIGHTFUL property rights in the fruits of labor that can rightly be owned.", do you mean to include gifts and other exchanges of property as "legitimate"? In my idea of rightful property, I don't have to labor for something if another person is willing to voluntarily give (gift) it to me.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  33. #29
    Roy simply does not understand NP Lockean property rights. It's pretty evident by the absurdity of his comments about the sun and the air. No one can own the sun because it is simply impossible to homestead, and with air you do own it, whenever you breathe. You've taken the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. and inhaled it, making it your own, but air outside your body cannot be owned unless you build a large bubble or something and enclose it (say, like a balloon).

    As far as rents, capital, and land go, the Georgists have STILL yet to address Frank Fetter on this issue. What the hell do you think you are saving and investing? Resources....resources are capital. There is no distinction, and to make one is to obfuscate and deceive the issue. Rents are just fine so long as the property has been homesteaded and or, proper title has been traded / gifted.

    Roy has no meaningful basis of his for property rights. I've yet to see something other than Lockean property rights make sense and or not be illogical.
    School of Salamanca - School of Austrian Economics - Liberty, Private Property, Free-Markets, Voluntaryist, Agorist. le monde va de lui même

    "No man hath power over my rights and liberties, and I over no mans [sic]."

    What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.

    www.mises.org
    www.antiwar.com
    An Arrow Against all Tyrants - Richard Overton vis. 1646 (Required reading!)

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by EcoWarrier View Post
    The difference between a highway robber
    and a free rider is that the free rider does
    not have to draw a gun to take what belongs to others.
    There's no such thing as a free-rider. It's only a made up fiction by people who simply ignore exclusivity.
    School of Salamanca - School of Austrian Economics - Liberty, Private Property, Free-Markets, Voluntaryist, Agorist. le monde va de lui même

    "No man hath power over my rights and liberties, and I over no mans [sic]."

    What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.

    www.mises.org
    www.antiwar.com
    An Arrow Against all Tyrants - Richard Overton vis. 1646 (Required reading!)

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