The problem of Capitalism

You keep claiming that you have demolished our position, yet are never able to do anything other than merely claiming so, without actually ever having done so. You are unable to show us even one example.

You are somebody whose pants are on fire. Using logic does not make one an aristotelian. Using calculus doesn't make one a newtonist or leibnitzist. Acknowledging that earth and other planets revolve around the sun doesn't make one a copernican. Acknowledging the physical fact that land and natural resources are not made by human effort, and what this morally and economically implies, does not make one a "georgist".

Henry George advocated a single tax on land value. I haven't read bringiton advocating a single tax on land value. Also, new additions have been made to the land value tax proposal, which were not advocated by Henry George. The universal individual exemption, for example. This would ensure that every member of the community gets exclusive tenure to some advantageous land (by value) for free. bringiton has also shown contempt for intellectual property. Henry George showed contempt for patents, but supported copyright privilege: http://www.cooperative-individualism.org/george-henry_on-patents-and-copyrights-1888.htm

 

1. Hong Kong is merely cited as proof that an economy can be prosperous without private landownership, and that the absence of such doesn't make a society "libcommie", "communist", "socialist", or "totalitarian". We never claimed that Hong Kong gets everything right. They are not close to recovering the land's value, as we propose, for example. They also don't have universal individual exemptions as we would.

2. bringiton is cognitively far ahead of you. The idea that you have defeated him even one single time on one single point is absolutely laughable.

 

Which is factually correct.

No it doesn’t. Of the government dissolved tomorrow, I would still own my land.

Rights are purely a human construct.

 

you are fully aware it’s been demolished, and that I’ve specifically shown you.

Sorry, you’re a georgist. Own it.

 

Agreed.

In this scenario: because a worthless bit of paper says so, or even more laughable, because you say so.....? But no doubt
violence might be avoided, if you were prepared to share the land...

Correct.

 

How are you (GY) unable to see that sharing land is exactly what people like myself are advocating? If all of us share our land with our own, then the problem is solved. You get the precise result you're shooting for. Govt would then not be obliged to pick up the slack from our greediness and laziness (aka, "I won't live with others, and I won't support my own").

You can't see that the problem is us, the people - not the system we've shoddily constructed to compensate for our refusal to share. A system which will never be able to do it as well as we can, and will almost certainly mean totalitarianism.

 

im not going to share my land. You can buy it, or lease it.

 

So said the last caliph of Bagdad to Hulagu….. but of course you see yourself as Hulagu, I get it.

 

How about my method? Sharing with kith and kin?

Of course, we can't expect fake commies to like that idea. There's not much they hate more than the collective they claim to want

 

Problem: in a system subject to cyclical unemployment (with last on- first off), loss of income and accommodation, hollowing out of the middle class, and systemic entrenched poverty (eg as in Trump's "s***holes" and"neighbourhoods like war zones"), some of us don't have anything to "share with kith and kin".

Eradicate those systemic blights (hint: this will require specific government policy), and then I'm on board with your …"'real' commie"...view, as opposed to the "fake" variety you despise....

 

No, I just live in reality, not the hippy fantasy land you dwell in. I own the land I own. If you want it, you have to make me an offer. If I reject it, you can’t have it. This is reality.

 

That's PRECISELY the point of the exercise. The shared property survives any individual moments of impecunity. If the shared property is first secured, then there is a perpetual base from which no one need ever be 'evicted'.

If you don't have anything to share, then you've chosen a different path. An 'every man for himself' approach. The capitalist libertarian approach. Nothing wrong with that at all, as long as you never complain about it, or demand that others fix it because you really meant something else.

There are too many fake commies playing with ideas they don't understand AT ALL. They have literally no idea what they're wishing for, and will be the first to implode if it ever comes to fruition.

PS: those 'systemic blights' are seeing some of us go from strength to strength. you make the best of what is, or perish. your choice.

 

And the last caliph of Baghdad, who said: "stay off my land"....? How was he not "living in reality"?

Interestingly today I just came across a study by one Prof. Jeremy Griffith who claims to have explained "the human condition". Instinct versus conscious thought is the basis of his argument.

aka World Transformation Movement. I'll look into it and see if we can progress beyond the irrational Left-Right divide on this board, which he claims to explain.

 

Do you think deflecting to Iraq makes you any less wrong?

 

Do you think your understanding of "living is reality" ie, might is right, is unchangeable?

 

Of course it’s unchangeable. It’s been this way the entirety of human history.

 

You live within a society based on the theft of the 'commons', with your land ownership ultimately part of that process. Its a shame that you can't acknowledge the economic history.

 

Land isn’t “commons” nor is owning it theft.

 

If you're going to attack the Georgists, its a good idea to get the orthodox economics correct first. It is a matter of historical fact that land ownership systems exist because of the destruction of the 'commons' through conquest. And of course, by destroying the commons, land resource for many then effectively falls to zero. Given there is no exchange to justify that reduction, it is indeed consistent with rent seeking (and therefore theft).

We could go further mind you. For example, your insistence on land ownership also creates a form of anti-commons (such that land resource is underused). Its a form of 'get off my land', subsequently restricting rights and therefore destroying possible economic opportunity.

 

Land is not commons. It’s private property, no different than any other form of property.

 

You're merely confirming that you don't understand neoclassical economics. Without property rights, land is the commons. Those property rights, however, were typically imposed through conquest. I appreciate that you might be a fan of imperialism, but get the economics right!

 

No I’m correcting you on the definition of property

 

So far you're only confirming that you don't understand basic microeconomics. Without those property rights, which were indeed typically imposed by conquest, you have the commons (by definition). The argument is that it will lead to over-exploitation. However, that is easily rejected now that economics has caught up and realised our cooperative nature.

 

because you don’t know what property means? That’s silly.

 

Again, you shy away from any economic validity. That seems a strange tactic. How were property rights acquired? Often through the destruction of the commons. This is just factual stuff.

The only interesting aspect is how you're attacking the Georgists without actually having any basic understanding of the orthodox alternative. It indicates that you haven't got an economic argument, preferring only to trumpet land ownership because it benefits you.