surplus labor value

Yes it does. The profit might not be monetary, it might just be for the owners enjoyment, but the profit is there, otherwise why own the land in the first place.

First of all, conventional property taxes also tax improvements which is known to discourage production. Taxation should not punish people for making improvements, that is economically destructive. Second, the government should be a part of the free market. Government services and infrastructure add value to land and government should sell these services in the free market, i.e., what the market will bear. In other words, government should allow individuals to make competing offers on land parcels in a free and open market, and government should accept the high bid. If government just accepted what individuals would willingly offer (in annual taxation) for secure, exclusive possession of land this would supply the government with enough revenue that all other forms of taxation could be abolished. This is desirable because other forms of taxation discourage production but land value taxes do not discourage production. Land value taxes actually stimulate production by allowing the market greater access to land, allowing the market to find the best use of any given land parcel.

"The striking result is that a tax on rent will lead to no distortions or economic inefficiencies. Why not? Because a tax on pure economic rent does not change anyone's economic behavior. Demanders are unaffected because their price is unchanged. The behavior of suppliers is unaffected because the supply of land is fixed and cannot react. Hence, the economy operates after the tax exactly as it did before the tax—with no distortions or inefficiencies arising as a result of the land tax."—Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in Economics (1970)

 

And if the enjoyment is less than the cost the owner would experience a loss? Or in the case of the home I grew up in, the property tax over time grew larger than the original purchase price of the land and the house forcing my parents to have to sell and move.

Your response appears tangential relative to what I posted.

 

In a market where labor enjoys total freedom of movement labor will flood into any activity or occupation which yield greater returns. This flood of competition does not end until such activity or occupation is sufficiently saturated with suppliers that it yields only ordinary returns. The theoretical limit of free market is referred to as “perfect competition”. Perfect competition is a theoretical state where all players have sufficient freedom of movement and knowledge of the market that all profits are driven out, resulting in maximization of wages. In a market with perfect competition a toilet cleaner and a heart surgeon would earn near identical wages for a given amount of effort.

To help you visualize what a market with perfect competition would look like just imagine a a large island where all the inhabitants have an I.Q. of 180. All of these island inhabitants would be equally capable of fulfilling any occupational role. Since toilet cleaning is a dirtier job than being a bank manager, a toilet cleaner on this island would actually have to earn a higher wage than a bank manager, because a higher wage is the only thing that could draw anyone on this island to perform this task.

Perfect competition does not exist in the real world, but we could move much closer to it than we currently are.

Finally, I am much more selective about what I refer to as profit. In my view profits only exist because of inefficiencies in the market, and society should strive to eliminate profits. In a free market, a high I.Q. individual might earn a higher wage than a low I.Q. person due to greater productivity, some people confuse this wage differential as being a profit. Given a sufficiently free markets, in my view, a successful business person does not earn a “profit” but rather earns a higher wage based upon his superior productivity, and I don't have a problem with that.

 

Actually I was only wanting to know Teds answer to the question since it was Ted who made the claim, "Capitalism is always reducing profits to $0."

Of course, if you agree with Ted I would then be interested in your answer.

 

of course that's 100% wrong. 10,000 firms a month go bankrupt because capitalist competition reduced their profits to $0. Capitalism is absolutely brutal to business and wonderful to workers who take no risk at all and to consumers who always get better jobs and products from the carnage among businesses. Now do you understand.

 

I didn't make the claim, its been made for 50 years in Micro Economics 101, class one, day one. Notice the way the MSM tricks the common liberal about the essential nature of capitalism? If you want to know how the Nazis took over, well now you know. Liberal propaganda can make black seem white to the average person.

 

You misunderstood what I was talking about, which was overall profits in a given market. I agree firms can go bankrupt, which is a good thing. But as long as their product is still in-demand, their competitors that survived are making profits in their place.

 

wrong of course since there is, 1) no way to compare the effort of a cleaner and surgeon and , 2) no one would bother to become a surgeon and pay to become a surgeon to earn the same as a cleaner. 1+1=2 .

 

1) demand is always dynamic so your idea is mistaken
2) any profit for a product or industry is likely to be seen as excessive and thus attract competition and thus reduce profits lower and lower until the combination of reduced demand and more competition ends in death. Got it now?

 

OMG!! no profits no investors and we all die!! Great plan to wipe out mankind!!

 

You're going to have to be much more specific and detailed in why you think I'm mistaken, because I thought we were in agreement.

Profits are signals to entrepreneurs for investment. New entrants in the market compete for those profits, and bid down prices (relative to what they would've been otherwise). Thus the tendency is that competition reduces prices and profits.

Do you disagree with this?

 

competition constantly reduces profits and it often reduces them to $0 as many competitors die off. This means the wealth generated by new inventions is mostly distributed to workers and consumers. This is the exact opposite of what the MSM teaches and explains why capitalist countries get rich and others get poor.

. These facts are the exact opposite of the MSM

 

Are you a bot?

 

are you able to disagree or agree and say why????????????

 

This is a huge misunderstanding of Microeconomics. That is a nice way of putting it.

 

if so why not tell us exactly what is misunderstood and why?? Its easy to have a feeling but much harder to have a reason to think someone has misunderstood. Make sense?

 

"Capitalism is always reducing profits to $0."

and in your post #137

"competition constantly reduces profits and it often reduces them to $0 as many competitors die off."

Perhaps you've taken what you're claiming to have been taught out of context?

As long as there is a demand for some product or service it will be produced/provided as long as a profit can be made, and while that may result in some competition unable to survive others remain and as a result of less or no competition can then increase their prices based on the demand and willingness of the consumers to pay a higher price, which if is raised too high might result in decreased demand or new competition.

Yes, I've noticed that in many if not all your previous posts, so stop using it as an excuse.

 

if others remain then there is profit competition until the profit is reduced $0. If someone raises price they either kill demand or create competition. This is the pure beauty and glory of capitalism, all the wealth created is always being pushed out to everyone except the capitalist. The opposite happens under libsocialism but libsocialists lack the IQ to know it.. They won't know for example about East /West Germany.

 

This proves that your mind has been so twisted by lies that you don't even understand what a free market is. In a free market you don't have to “pay to become a surgeon”. In a free market becoming a surgeon is your liberty and in a free market you do not have to purchase liberty, liberty is your birthright.

 

so the tooth fairy trains you to be a surgeon for free for 12 years???

 

In a free market you can become a surgeon via on the job training, and depending on type of surgeon you wish to become that could happen in a few weeks. The only requirement for becoming a surgeon is gaining the confidence of potential patients.

In a free market the American Medical Association cannot dictate requirements – as they do now – only consumers can do that.

In a free market if government does dictate educational requirements, then it is governments responsibility to provide the resources that are necessary for individuals to fulfill those requirements, free of charge. If government makes requirements but does not provide that any and all people can afford to meet those requirements, then government is reducing the freedom of choice, which is EVIL. And yes, I do consider the current system of monopolized medicine to be evil … it is dripping with evil.

 

as if people with jobs are going to train you for free to do their jobs. As if the training would be meaningful when you hadn't been to school to get the proper foundation. Looney Tunes for sure!!

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and a hospital. Whoops

 

Any examples of this?

 

Yes, there are about 10,000 companies [and about 100,000 accompanying personal tragedies] that go bankrupt every month in the holocaust of capitalism merely because they can't satisfy the often trivial whims of fickle and deadly consumers. Indeed, Americans are brutal and deadly to capitalists. If you doubt it try investing your life savings, try going into business to face the long odds against survival that every capitalist faces.

 

Those who remain in business have not reduced their profit to zero, and it is those who are unable to compete or start a business where a consumer demand does not exist or cannot be created and sustained who eventually go out of business or bankrupt.
I've been investing my life savings for well over 70 years now and have had no complaints other than government demanding a share of all my gains which more often than not would have been much greater had it not been for government/inflation/rules/regulations.