The problem of Capitalism

If you don't trust monopolies, then you should be against private landowning. Monopolies are about restricting competition, and thus reducing abundance and increasing consumer prices; meaning more profit for the monopolist. Landowning is always monopoly because by its very nature land cannot be increased in supply, meaning that merely accepting the market rent gets you pure monopoly $$$. There is a way to stop our system of land tenure from being a way for some to extract such economic rents for nothing in return. You choose not to support the solution, which automatically makes you in favor of these monopolies.

 

How could tens of millions of individual owners represent a monopoly? And one single state owner not represent a monopoly?

 

It’s not possible to prove me wrong. Owning land is in no way similar to owning a human being.

It’s not possible to own the atmosphere.

No, it can’t.

By showing your georgist bullshit is batshit crazy? Lol ok.

 

Businessman A constructed some rails for his trains to get people from town Y to town W. Businessman B wants to construct some rails for his trains to get from town V to town X, but his intended rails would come in contact with Businessman A's rails. Businessmen C,D,E and F would also like to have rails which would, unfortunately, come in contact with Businessman A's route. He declines to cooperate in any way. What would be your solution to this natural monopoly? Hasn't Businessman A reserved the right to his route by being the first to "mix" his labor with the land his rails run along?

Longshot: How do you reconcile your distrust of monopolies with Businessman A's right to his property?

 

No problem. They could build their tunnels under businessman A's tracks.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about now. When did I say anything about rights or ownership of rights?

Are you confusing me with someone else?

 

Some North Korea with that indignation, Dear?

 

Yes, the loopiness of this argument is off the charts

 

And what did it achieve? Meanwhile, doers are actually working toward the shared lands/resources you claim to want.

Just admit that you don't want to get your hands dirty, or sacrifice the delicious capitalisty features of your comfortable lifestyle.

 

Definition of a monopoly (from here):

Monopoly applies to the provision of a product or service for which there is no or little competition. (Yes, the manipulation of consumer prices is an objective.)

However, that is NOT the case (yet) of land or even mineral rights - unless of course you have a particularly notable case in mind.

Which you might want to share with us ... ?

 

I'm sure it involves truncheons and machine guns.

 

Lafayette;

I don't know what you mean by "get rich quick". If you are referring to Bill Gates (founder of microsoft), Steve Jobs (founder of Apple), Mark Zuckerber (founder of Facebook), and other innovators in America like them, you would have to agree that without them we would not be able to communicate the way were are tonight.

There are those who have made billions on the backs of America's middle class by closing plants and shipping jobs to China and Mexico. I think they should be exposed.

Oh wait, Donald Trump is challenging those get-rich-quick patrons. He is re-negotiating unfair trade deals and bringing good-paying jobs in manufacturing back--600,000 in 30 months. (President Obama said those jobs were gone for good.)

Asa result of President Trump's policies, Unemployment in the US has dropped to 3.7% (versus 7.5% in France). Wages have gone up for workers 4% and 5% in the last two years. Unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians.. are at records lows. Some 20 states have the lowest unemployment numbers in their history.

In the United States we call this "digging out of the hole".

I believe your poverty statistics are 2017 numbers. We will have to wait until well into 2020 to get 2019 stats.

 

One odd complaint is about the "One-Percenters".

There are about 600 billionaires in the country which is nowhere close to one percent of the population.

In reality, the bulk of the one-percent changes every year which is good for a competitive people. People inherit money, sell property, or some other asset. Some people just have a great year one year and fall flat the next.

Depending on the break-off point, I may have been in the one-precent a couple of times and I am still eating oatmeal.

 

In the long run, Capitalism will always outperform Socialism in creating wealth for the most people.

 

It is a simple prioritization of a national will as regards ANY market-economy. Which must choose between taxation that is fair and unfair. Meaning who gets what and how much.

In Economic Terms, the words applied are Income Disparity or Income Fairness. And, lo and behold, the economists have come up with a .... measure of Income Disparity in a country called the Gini-Index or Coefficient.

Here is what Income Disparity looks like globally according to that index:


Or, if you like, here also as regards uniquely the US.

So, if Income Disparity is a personal issue for you - and for most of America it is not - then "go to Canada"!

I'm going to get a lot of blah-blah-blah flack about the above facts. Of course, it does not matter to me. I don't live in the US. I live in Europe where higher income taxation assures a far lesser Income Inequality for my family (as the map above suggests).

Because higher European taxation is employed for a National Healthcare System and nearly-free Post-secondary Education. Which, supposedly, most Americans do-not-want!

Or, do they ... ?

 

Can anyone point to any economic system during the past 500 years that didn't have winners and losers?

 

.....whether you can afford to buy it or not.....

An erroneous mixing of concepts.

1. So-called 'natural rights' (a misnomer) exist only in human consciousness/self-awareness, from which emanates a sense of 'justice'.

eg the UNUDHR is an aspirational statement of rights based on this 'sense' of justice, as opposed to the self-interested survival instincts of individuals, which always lead to conflict/war if left ungoverned (aka anarchy) ie without rule of law, represented by the scales of justice.

2. Rights do not exist in the animal kingdom, in which creatures are wholly directed by the survival instinct honed over eons of evolution.

3. Animals - and primitive humans (eg in tribal conflict) - may instinctively fight to POSSESS land (as opposed to 'owning' it) as ordained by the instinctive predatory competition for vital resources that we observe in the natural world.

4. The Right to own land is merely a political/philosophical concept not necessary for survival, ie, one can choose to own land, or to rent it in the form of housing (though this latter option is not always a matter of choice, and no doubt the attraction of private property ownership is in part founded in ancient unconscious instincts re possession of land).

Universal Rights to Life, Liberty and Security are basic to survival itself. Such Rights are proposed by a conscious and aware homo sapiens wanting to escape - as a species - from the (instinctive) preordained, anarchic "law of the jungle".

 

WHO WAS ELECTED IN 1980?

None. But neither does that change the argument.

Here's what the problem is all about (an image is worth a thousand words):



Americans live in a country that has the highest Income Disparity/Unfairness of any developed nation. But, they love to piss-'n-moan on a blog about how the problem is "all those junkies on meds and drugs".

With an obtuse mentality of that kind, the country is GOING NOWHERE in terms of an ultimate solution based upon a fairer Income Disparity. Brought about by much higher taxation of the rich and ultra-rich and investments in education for the poor. That's the Real Problem!

Absolute Freedom does not mean to benefit wildly from an unfair system of taxation. Not at all - it means that an Elite Few are benefiting from the market-economy of a Very Great Many fellow citizens!

Once-upon-a-time, Income Disparity in the US was on the high-side but within the broad range of most other developed countries. Then, something happened that changed everything in 1980, upon which net upper-incomes began to skyrocket in the US. (As shown in the diagram above.)

Who was elected in 1980 and proceeded immediately to change taxation? Yes, Reckless Ronnie did it!

Worse yet, no PotUS since has dared correct* that TRAGIC MISTAKE ... !

*Ask yourself "Why?"

 

No.....but with AI, IT, and automation advancing apace, that can soon change...if we make the right choices.

eg, in macroeconomics, MMT - with its synthesis of public and private economic activity - describes how universal above poverty participation in the economy can become the reality, since the resources do exist to create that outcome. So, no losers....

 

All the landowner does is accept the market rent. It doesn't matter whether there are millions of landowners or hundreds of landowners who have that same land. The supply of land stays the same thus the amount of owners has little to no effect on the land rent. Thus competition is automatically restricted by the very nature owning a geographical location and withholding it from everyone else (unless paid for doing nothing).

Everyone can produce squeaky toys for for bathing (like ducks). But if one producer was granted an exclusive license to do so, competition would be restricted and he would be able to produce and provide supply as he sees fit to maximize his profit. Your squeky duck toy just got more expensive. The landowner need whatsoever to get any extra exclusive licenses to be a monopolist, the land title IS essentially the exclusive license. You automatically get what the market will bear.

Each landowner(-monopolist) has a unique "product" for which there is no substitute. Land cannot be produced. It cannot be moved. It's fixed in it's geographically perfectly unique location and thus has its own unique distance to what the the government, community and nature provide. Nobody can produce any subsitutes. Somewhat in the same sense that there is only one true Mona Lisa, only one true The Scream, etc.

Government is necessary to break up the landmonopolist's claim to the land rent. The land rent should be devoted to the public's benefit, and not to satisfy the parasitic desires of the parasitic landowner (as landowner, not as individual).

"It is quite true that land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies - it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly." - Winston Churchill

 

Why would businessman A let them dig tunnels in his location, especially while his trains are operating? Doesn't he have his property rights? What if he said "no"? And what does this change about the disadvantage the other businessman are at?

 

Every landowner(-monopolist) is a single seller of a unique "product". Land cannot be produced, and is in its unique geographic location and cannot be moved. It's a monopoly from the very beginning the title is first granted.

 

Longshot, maybe you can answer the question I asked TedInTheShed:

How much labor/m² do I need to "mix" with land to make it mine? And how can this be measured and independently verified so that others can make sure I'm not just pretending to have done so?

 

No, you just need to choose to let yourself be educated. You are smart enough.

 

Then why does bringiton refute you all the time, while all you can ever do is merely claim so without actually ever doing anything other than merely claiming so?

"ROBINSON CRUSOE, as we all know, took Friday as his slave. Suppose, however, that instead of taking Friday as his slave, Robinson Crusoe had welcomed him as a man and a brother; had read him a Declaration of Independence, an Emancipation Proclamation and a Fifteenth Amendment, and informed him that he was a free and independent citizen, entitled to vote and hold office; but had at the same time also informed him that that particular island was his (Robinson Crusoe's) private and exclusive property. What would have been the difference? Since Friday could not fly up into the air nor swim off through the sea, since if he lived at all he must live on the island, he would have been in one case as much a slave as in the other. Crusoe's ownership of the island would be equivalent of his ownership of Friday." - Henry George

Are all of these Nobel Prize winning economists "batshit crazy"...?

"Our ideal society finds it essential to put a rent on land as a way of maximizing the total consumption available to the society. ...Pure land rent is in the nature of a 'surplus' which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency. A land value tax can be called 'the useful tax on measured land surplus'." - Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate

"In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago." - Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate

"It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of government revenue. Some persons who could make excellent use of land would be unable to raise money for the purchase price. Collecting rent annually provides access to land for persons with limited access to credit.” - Franco Modigliani, Nobel laureate

"The user[owner] of land should not be allowed to acquire rights of indefinite duration for single payments. For efficiency, for adequate revenue and for justice, every user[owner] of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government equal to the current rental value of the land that he or she prevents others from using." - Robert Solow, Nobel laureate

"While the governments of developed nations with market economies collect some of the rent of land, they do not collect nearly as much as they could, and they therefore make unnecessarily great use of taxes that impede their economies — taxes on such things as incomes, sales, and the value of capital goods." - William Vickrey, Nobel laureate

"The main, underlying idea of Henry George is the taxation of land and other natural resources. At the time, people thought, "not really that too," but what was underlying his ideas is rent associated with things that are inelastically supplied, which are land and natural resources. And using natural resource extraction and using land rents as the basis of taxation is an argument that I think makes an awful lot of sense because it is a non-distortionary source of income and wealth. - Joseph Stieglitz, Nobel laureate