Economics is Taught with a Left Wing Bias

The point is simple.

Left-wing = Liberalism
Right-wing = Conservatism

All of the economics in America are based upon conservative economic philosophy so people are always discussing 'right-wing' economics and the only issue is whether it's "far-right" or "medium-right" in the in addressing the economics being taught in our schools. The entire discussion is based upon right-wing conservative economic philosophy.

We're never teaching left-wing liberal economic philosophy that's based upon the Natural Right of Property in any of our schools

 

This conclusion seems to follow from your own definitions. I've never seen them anywhere else. Prima facie it seems to be a bit awkward to say that Marx was teaching right-wing economics.

 

It's certainly understandable that many wouldn't understand this but that's because we don't teach "left-wing" (liberal) economic philosophy in our schools nor do we refer to them in our common discussions of economics. Everything people know about economics is based upon the historical institution of "property ownership established by Title" established under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. This is exactly what John Locke argued against but Locke's arguments for the "Natural Right of Property" were fundamentally swept under the carpet.

Perhaps I can provide an example based upon positive and negative numbers. "Ownership established by Title" is reflected by negative numbers because it violates the natural rights of the person while the "Natural Right of Property" is reflected by positive numbers because it protects the natural rights of the person. To align the scale with "left and right" it would look like this:

+10, +9, +8, +7, +6, +5, +4, +3, +2. +1, 0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9, -10

If we use a 1-10 scale on both sides of zero then a monarchy where the king owns everything and then grants "title" to the nobility which includes the "title" to the land, resources and people within a geographical territory then that would be a -10. Economists like von Mises embraced would probably be about a -5 and Marx would be a -2.

Locke, on the other hand, in proposing the "Natural Right of Property" would be a +10 on the opposite end of the scale.

Effectively when we refer to "left" or "right" in our common conversations we're simply referring to how far along the scale in the violations of the rights of the person we're talking about with -1 being called "left-wing" while -10 is called "right-wing" but we're leaving out all of the positive numbers, or the entire left side of the scale.

Once again it's not surprising that most people are completely unaware of the "left-wing" side of the scale that represents the protections of the natural right of property because no one is teaching it. The only thing people know is the "negative" numbers that represent the violations of the natural right of property because that's all that we teach. So yes, Marx represents the "left end" of the negativity of conservative economic philosophy but he's still on the "right-wing" of zero when we address the natural rights of the person.

 

So according to Locke, once I'm finished brushing my teeth and put my toothbrush back in its holder, I no longer have a natural right to it because my use has ceased? My neighbor can come and take my toothbrush and put it to use, according to natural right?

 

You are using your toothbrush on a consistent basis and you do not lose the "right to use" the toothbrush. If you stopped using it completely then it's "abandonment" and anyone could pick it up and use it.

Instead of presenting absurdities why don't you take the time to actually read and understand Locke on the issue of the natural right of property.

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.txt

Don't try to simply read it one time and think you understand it. It takes a lot of study to actually understand what Locke is saying.

 

Apologies if you thought I was trying to ask you a "gotcha" question, I admit I haven't read Locke and was simply asking for some clarification.

But I don't want to really get into a debate on property norms here, since the real topic is right vs. left economics. Can you name other authors or a lineage of thought which takes Locke seriously on this matter? Rothbard is supposed to be a neo-Lockean but this does not sound remotely Rothbardian. So far you present Locke as some obscure outlier, which calls into question having a spectrum as large as you've illustrated.

 

According to Locke, how are we to determine, say in a court of law, who owns the toothbrush?

 

there is nothing else. If there is why so afraid to tell us what it is??

 

Based upon who's using it "title" (to use the toothbrush) is granted but the title only exist so long as it's actually being used. If someone else seeks to claim it then they would have to prove to the court that the person was no longer using it. They would have to document "abandonment" where the tooth brush was no longer being uses for reasonable length of time (e.g. two years or whatever based upon the provisions of the title).

Please read Locke so that foolish questions aren't being asked.

 

So you own something until it can be proven that you've abandoned it. So pretty much the same as our current system.

 

of course thats stupid, then all property is subject to constant litigation

 

Locke included life, liberty, and estate (i.e., external goods) in his generic conception of property, so when he argued that the primary purpose of government is to protect property rights, he was not merely referring to material objects. Rather, he meant that a government should protect those fundamental rights (including the right to enjoy the fruits of our labor) that are essential to self-preservation and happiness.

Locke stressed labor as the foundation of private property because some form of labor is the basic method by which we sustain ourselves, even if that labor consists of nothing more than picking up acorns off the ground. Humans cannot survive without labor, so coercively to expropriate the fruits of another man’s labor is to violate his fundamental right of self-preservation. Labor is involved in every life-sustaining activity.

 

No because under the Natural Right of Property it is "Title of Use" and not "Title of Ownership" and the "Title of Use" would require provisions that must be complied with. For example "Title of Use" for land being farmed could require the farmer to annually plow, plant and harvest the crop. If the farmer fails to plow and plant the field then they would lose the "Title of Use" for the land.

That is not how our current laws of property exist. Millions of acres of unused land exist in the United States today and no one has any natural right to the use of land that they're not using.

 

It's obvious that some people actually take the time to read and understand what Locke's arguments are.

Locke also includes several caveats to the Natural Right of Property. A person can only take possession of what they can use or consume based upon what they require and must always leave "enough, and as good" as for all others in society. They're also prohibited from despoiling or destroying nature. In short you don't have a right to pollute or to contribute to the extinction of any species as nature itself must be preserved.

Once again we don't teach this "liberal" ideology that was a result of the Age of Enlightenment in our economics classes because it contradicts the "traditional" economics established under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings were ownership was established by "Title" granted by the monarch that "owned" everything because "god" gave everything to the monarch.

We can go one step further based upon Locke. When an employee produces something they actually own the "Right of Property" to that which they produce and a natural right is non-transferrable. The employer at best can obtain the "title" to that which the employee produced but because the employee, with the natural right of property, is entitled to their "support and comfort" based upon their labor the employer has an obligation to ensure the support and comfort of the employee in obtaining the title to what the employee produces. If the employee cannot live off of what the employer provides in exchange for the "title" then the employee's natural right of property has been violated.

 

Because our economy is based upon capitalism as advocated by those like Adam Smith that's based upon "Title" and to convert to the Natural Right of Property as the foundation would upset capitalism as we know it during the transitional phase. While there are those of us that understand the differences I've not heard of anyone that actually knows how to make the transition from our current property laws based upon "Title" to future property laws based upon the "Natural Right of Property" so there's a pragmatic problem that would have to be overcome.

It was potentially possible when the United States was a young nation but it wasn't attempted and now we've become so complex that it's staggering to even contemplate. Of course had we transitioned to the Natural Right of Property then the Native-Americans would still be in possession of most of the United States because the "nomad" and the "settler" have an equal Right of Property to nature and the nomad has the need of hundreds of times more land per person than the settler.

 

Not really although when discussion small personal items such as the toothbrush the person could easily hide it away so no one knew they were "hording" property they have no actual right to. Other issues of property, such as the person obviously possessing far more than they could ever pragmatically use (e.g. the super-wealthy), it's obvious that they have more than they can possibly have a natural right to possess which is a violation of the Right of Property of the "common" (i.e. all people).

We can see it in other actions as well. When the "tuna fishermen" combined take more tuna from the ocean than nature provides as a surplus they're violating the Natural Right of Property of the common because they're not leaving "as much, and as good" as for the rest of the world.

When the logging company clear-cuts a forest it's violating the Natural Right of Property of the common because it's taking far more than the "sustainable" harvest of the forest allows. The best example of this was the harvesting of the giant redwoods during the 19th Century. Sustainable logging required about a 1,000 year cycle or more because that's how long it takes for a giant redwood to grow. Based upon the Natural Right of Property they were limited to only harvesting about 1/1000th of the total number of trees per year. That didn't happen so today we don't have any giant redwoods that we can harvest and our Natural Right of Property was violated.

 

Your proposal is ludicrous. So farmer who decides to leave his farm and go traveling for a few years would lose ownership of his farm? Are you crazy?

 

got it, so in your LibNazi world we'd have to hide our toothbrushes and everything else so your libNazi govt would not take it away!! Sort of like when the Red Chinese would raid every house looking for grain that was not contributed to the collective. Only 60 million dead!!!

 

It wasn't the state my friend, from what I have researched of Guatemala at the period you could essentially term it a minarchy (a shadow of what a state was). As for the private ownership, that was essentially what UFCO did in Guatemala, it held at one point a majority of the land in Guatemala and resisted all attempts to distribute it evenly.

Also for the point of economic 'liberty' you argue, I will mostly ignore it as ideological drivel. Even capitalists do not have complete economic liberty in a gilded age-esqe libertarian capitalist society. Your proposition is admirable, i.e you want entrepreneurial liberty and believe that the market will apparently fix everything, however the issue with that is that markets even without state intervention are unstable and that is why Keynesianism (I'm not defending it) was brought to act as a mediator.
Even in a free market the tendency of the haves and have-nots still persists. Essentially what I'm saying is that not everyone will have economic freedom. Even Mises stated that homeless people and the poor would still persist in a Austrian society.

As for another example of the state being left off and market forces being dominant is the the gilded age in the American west. Well, it was utter chaos and resulted in several major corporations taking over and creating an oligopoly that was only stopped when the US federal government split them into smaller corporations.

 

Being absurd is nothing more than being absurd. No one is going to be taking that unused toothbrush you have stashed away and you only become absurd due to ignorance about the Natural Right of Property. Repeatedly I've suggested you actually learn something by reading and understanding Locke's 5th Chapter of his Second Treatise of Civil Government and it's obvious you'd rather put forward absurdities as opposed to being knowledgeable.

It's a very sad state of affairs in the United States because our government's very existence is based upon the necessity of government to protect our Natural Rights and then there are those, the "Duh Bubba, hold my beer" Americans, that flat-out refuse to even attempt to learn anything about the Natural Rights of the Person. I have absolutely no clue as to what they could possibly think our government exists for.

 

It isn't a tendency for there to be the "haves and have-nots" in a free market capitalistic society, It's mandatory that this occurs based upon the ideology of Free Market Capitalism. As Adam Smith, often referred to as the Father of Free Market Capitalism, explains in his book The Wealth of Nations the "Capitalist" (i.e. owner of enterprise) is driven by one force and one force alone... pure greed. Any benefit to society is purely accidental under Free Market Capitalism and it only occurs if it fills the pockets of the Capitalist with even more gold. The Free Market Capitalist has no morality and will do anything that the law allows to further enrich themselves. If allowed under the law the Capitalist will destroy the land, water, air and even life on Earth itself. They will poison the people and justify it by saying "it's legal" without any conscious whatsoever. They will enslave the workers ensuring that they barely survive whenever possible so that they have more, much more, than they could ever possible use.

That's not a fabrication because if a person actually reads what Adam Smith states that's exactly what happens every time under the ideology of Free Market Capitalism. It always creates the "Haves" (Capitalists) and the "Have-Nots" (the workers) because that's what it's designed to do.

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In the opposite corner we have the Natural Rights of the person, including the natural Right of Property, as described by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Civil Government that also addresses commerce. By it's very nature it creates a society of the "Haves and Have-Mores" where none of the workers and their households live in poverty based upon the Natural Right of Property and the principles of commerce that are established based upon this Natural Right of the Person.

Basically two schools of economic thought:

1) Free Market Capitalism that, by design, always creates a society of the "Haves" that are the capitalist owners of enterprise and the "Have-Nots" that are the workers and their families that live in poverty.

2) Capitalism based upon the Natural Right of Property that always creates a society of the "Haves" that are the workers and their households and the "Have-Mores" that are the capitalist owners of enterprise and a society where poverty never exists.

Many people ignorantly believe that we can't have a society of the "Haves and Have-Mores" but they have to ignore the economic reality. The United States produces about $16 trillion of wealth each year and economists estimate that it would only cost $3 trillion to ensure a "Living Wage" for all of the workers. I personally believe the economists are cutting it a little too thin and I estimate the cost to be about $4 trillion. Even with my higher estimate all of the workers would become the "Haves" because they would have enough income from the wealth they're creating to provide for their household's "support and comfort" and there would still be $12 trillion to be divided between those with special skills as workers and the capitalists that are the owners of enterprise that become the "Have-Mores" in our society. Any belief that $12 trillion, 75% of all the wealth being created, isn't enough to be divided up by those with specialized skills that warrant more income and the Capitalists that own the enterprise is arguably insane. That's one hell of a lot of money to be divided up by just the "Have-Mores" in our society.

This is NOT wealth redistribution that so many on the "right" condemn because the $4 trillion paid out to ensure that every working household is a "Have" household is based upon the labor expended by the worker. It's wealth distribution and not wealth re-distribution. .

But we don't teach about the Natural Right of Property and how commerce based upon capitalism would exist so we're fundamentally stuck with the "Haves and Have-Nots" because that's inherent in Free Market Capitalism. To mitigate this fundamental flaw with Free Market Capitalism we're required to "redistribute" the wealth from the 'Haves" to the 'Have-Nots" because otherwise the "Have-Nots" will literally die and if they die they can't go to work tomorrow to create more wealth for the Capitalists.

The very people that advocate for Free Market Capitalism ignore the fact that it always requires the "redistribution" of wealth (government welfare assistance) to mitigate the poverty it always creates.

 

Why wouldn't he lease out the farm while he was gone so not only could he enjoy his traveling but would also be earning money while gone?

 

Not the point. You're saying that if he were to leave his farm and go traveling for a few years that he would lose ownership of his property. That's insane.

He bought it, so it's his until he sells it.

 

of course thats totally stupid and 100% liberal. Under capitalism you don't survive unless you benefit society. If you doubt it for even one second try starting a business that sell products that don't benefit society. Sorry to rock your world.

 

of course that's pure liberal insanity America has the most capitalism and its poor are rich compared to 95% of all the people who have ever lived on the planet. China just switched to the free market and instantly eliminated 40% of the entire planets poverty. 1+1=2