We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

[Roy L]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4cEyCaldH4
http://www.exploratorium.edu/venus/question4.html

Seriously....Jupiter only blocks 1% of the Sun's rays...

Where on earth did you get that absurd notion? It blocks about 2 billionths of the sun's rays.

JUPITER, which is 2.5x the size of all the other planets combined.

Hmmm. A sphere is like, the least efficient possible shape for a solar energy collector...

Uh, Jupiter is a spheroid, not a flat disc.

So, you are telling me, that there is enough resources let alone the economic capacity of one entity controlling such amount of resources, to blot out enough of the sun as to make it economic (e.g. rentable).

No, now you are moving the goalposts. I never claimed such an entity existed NOW. I simply stated the fact that it is far from impossible. Consider: during a total eclipse of the sun, the moon, which is less than 3500km in diameter, completely blocks out the sun. The L1 point is about 1.5Mkm from the earth, or about 1% of the distance to the sun. Therefore, a solar energy array -- or just a thin, flat, opaque disc -- just 1% of the sun's diameter (about 14Kkm) at the L1 point would be enough to block out the sun completely. That is not only possible, it is something we could probably build in a few decades if we wanted to do it. In the near future it will be as trivial as building a bridge is now.

Never mind, the fact that if we were to intercept most of the sun's energy output that would destroy all life on Earth,

Huh? The earth isn't going to intercept it. Give your head a shake.

so who exactly is going to be renting this energy?

People who don't want to freeze when the "homesteader" blocks the sun.

 

[Roy L]

You sound like Obama.

Obama is a puddytat compared to me.

How can the landowner not have built the road, since building the road is the precondition for owning the land in the first place?

?? On what planet? How many people who own land have built the roads that run beside it?

You said you understood Lockean property rights, but evidently, you do not. LOL.

You are spewing idiotic non sequiturs.

Also, I've never ever seen free rider being used to denote the property owner....

Then listen up, because I'm schooling you.

 

[Roy L]

Again, no one can charge you for the suns rays because the sun is impossible to homestead, same with air.

I just proved you wrong about the sun. And air can certainly be "homesteaded" by compressing and storing it.

You can only own the air that resides within you, just like you can own the product of the sun (radiation = energy = photovoltaic panels).

Absurdity. Photovoltaic panels are products of labor, not of the sun. You know this.

Let me know when someone mixes their labor with the sun. HAHA.

There is no such thing as "mixing labor" with physical objects. It is impossible, nothing but a misleading metaphor.

 

[Roy L]

When you need to not know facts, there are always ways to arrange your mind not to know them.

 

[Roy L]

Yes, I know, the "liberty" for everyone to keep options open on everything they would "otherwise be at liberty" to choose, even when their actual liberty is EXERCISED, and the other choices are deliberately not made.

Of course. That's what liberty MEANS. Having the liberty to live where you want to live doesn't stop when you choose a place to live. You are still at liberty to live elsewhere. Having the liberty to choose your employment doesn't stop when you land a job.

Why spew such stupid, dishonest drivel, Steven?

So by "actual physical liberty" you mean, of course, the liberty for everyone to have the option to use any nearby land, occupied or not -- which was never, and is not now, a physical reality, let alone a right.

Of course it was. It isn't now because the right to liberty has been forcibly removed by landowners.

From humanity's earliest beginnings, people have had physical limitations, with choices that had to be made about what land to occupy and what lands to benefit from.

A physical limitation is not a violation of liberty.

The notion that you can make a choice, and have it fulfilled (you have a plot of land of your own), but are STILL suffering a "liberty deprivation" from others, is nothing more than the imaginative ramblings of a madman.

It is self-evident and indisputable fact. If you have a spot for your house, it doesn't do much good if a greedy, evil, thieving, murdering sack of $#!+ -- let's call him, "Steven" -- figures he owns the local water supply.

Bullshit. Complete and utter Geoist fantasy bullshit.

Indisputable physical fact.

There have always been shared lands and exclusively used lands, with no LVT bullshit involved.

Until a few thousand years ago, there was no OWNERSHIP involved, so people were at liberty to use the land. You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

Our ancestors survived by simply surviving,

No, they did not.

having nothing to do with some fantasy bullshit arrangement regarding shared lands,

It is indisputable that hunter-gatherers share access to the land they live on. It is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality. You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

or the even worse fantasy bullshit where "just compensation" is somehow due to a gang of covetous morons with their hands out,

Oh, you mean landowners?

howling that they were not justly compensated for their deprivation...as if they actually did have an actual "liberty right" to a free, perpetual option on all nearby lands.

They indisputably did have that liberty right: the option to use it when and as they wanted, for free.

...was never a right to begin with, so nothing was removed, nor did anything need to be "removed".

It was indisputably a right, and was indisputably removed by landowning. The history of conflict between the natives of North America and the landowning culture that conquered, dispossessed and slaughtered them proves that fact beyond any possibility of honest dispute -- which obviously won't be stopping you from disputing it. You just have to refuse to know that fact, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

Like trespassers are physically "coerced" into leaving land that is already occupied, and defended from encroachment.

I.e., land that has been stolen, forcibly removing their liberty right to use it.

Naturally.

No, not "naturally."

As it has always been, in all societies,

Flat-out lie.

including warring, primitive, highly territorial tribal societies, now and back through time. Someone encroaches, you forcibly run their little would-be thieving panzy-asses off with guns, pitchforks, whatever it takes.

Nope. You're just lying again. The North American natives, for example, did not try to expel the early European colonists. Only after it became clear that the colonists intended to expel them did they resist the encroachment.

They would have made minced meat out of you, Roy.

Murderous, thieving landowners, you mean? Sure. Murder comes naturally to greedy, evil, thieving parasites.

 

[EcoWarrier]

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

Henry George wrote no such thing. He said, reclaim community created wealth that soaked into the land crystallizing as a land values. Land values were NOT made by the landower. Use this community created economic growth to fund community services. He said do not use privately created weath to fund common services. ALL MAKES SENSE.

He did not advocate government ownership of land - well government holding of the title deeds, as the government owns it anyhow.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I am perfectly fine with property rights. If you dont think peoperty can be owned then don't own it.

LAND = the ground under out feet which nature gave.
PROPERTY = the Capital on the land, the buildings, which man made.

Do not confuse the two.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Does not change the injustice of taking away property rights.

Geoism does not take away property rights. It is just a highly just tax shift. All stays the same: land ownership, business laws, business behaviour, civil laws, criminal laws, etc.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I've never ever seen free rider being used to denote the property owner....

A House. Split into two parts. The CAPITAL (the bricks) and the LAND. The Capital depreciates over time, the Land appreciates. think hard about why?

Land values are created by Community created economic growth that soaks into the land and crystallizes as land values.
That is where the land values come from. They do not come from the sky or the fact you may have painted your window frames (the frames are Capital). The landowner DID NOT created the land values, the community did. This is economic fact not opinion.

Once the above is understood the rest is easier. Currently, the landowner keeps the gains created by the community - freeloading. Reclaiming this community created economic growth to pay for community services makes lots of sense.

Community growth pays for community services - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE.
Community services are NOT paid for by private wealth, that stays private by having no Income tax - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE.

 

[EcoWarrier]

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.

Martin Wolf...

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.

As we all know perpetual motion machines do not work

Martin Wolf...

"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."

That is rigging the system.

 

[erowe1]

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.

I agree. Honest people need a way to protect themselves against the state.

 

[Swarmed]

Community created economic growth

No such thing. Communities and societies don't exist.

 

[Roy L]

I agree. Honest people need a way to protect themselves against the state.

Sorry, but you're just spewing stupid, dishonest "meeza hatesa gubmint" swill again. It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic private rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive. Like any other technology, the state confers power, which can be used responsibly or irresponsibly -- and is very attractive to those who want to use it irresponsibly.

But without the state, the honest are absolutely at the mercy of the greedy, dishonest and sociopathic, as Somalia -- and every other historical example of statelessness -- proves. As Washington so astutely observed, government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master -- but responsible, democratic government IS A SERVANT, and a very necessary one to the existence of civilization. So chanting "meeza hatesa gubmint" doesn't solve anything. It's just a way of evading your responsibility to think, and to participate in government BY the people of which you are one.

 

[Roy L]

No such thing. Communities and societies don't exist.

Another example of the dishonest absurdities intended to justify and enable atrocities.

 

[Swarmed]

There is no responsibility to participate in governments or any other collectives.

I'm not being dishonest. Society doesn't exist, only individuals do. Society is just a concept, individuals interacting with one another. My words are intended to justify and enable freedom, not atrocities.

 

[erowe1]

But without the state, the honest are absolutely at the mercy of the greedy, dishonest and sociopathic, as Somalia -- and every other historical example of statelessness -- proves.

Somalia isn't stateless. People there are subjugated to violent gangs who rule them without their consent (i.e. states).

 

[silverhandorder]

I do not believe in community property rights or taxes. And land belongs to whoever is on it first.

 

[Steven Douglas]

It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic private rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.

Substitute public for private, and out of your own words you are denounced:

It's true that greedy, evil, parasitic public rent seekers, being the vicious, cowardly filth that they are, will always try to use the state to create and enforce their rent seeking privileges to rob and enslave the honest and productive.

Yep. LVT, and you, to a tee.

I am thoroughly convinced that you would not have been opposed in principle to slavery or slave ownership prior to its abolition, any more than you are opposed in principle to private landownership or rent-seeking behavior now. That isn't your concern at all. You would accept slave ownership in principle then, just as you accept landownership in principle now, your only concern centering around the notion of "just compensation" and equal (socialized) public access to "unearned" wealth.

 

[Gumba of Liberty]

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.

Under a strict Lockean or Rothbardian definition of property rights, the ONLY way to own land is to USE it. This is called homesteading. If you use it you own it. If not, others can homestead it. Others cannot use what is already in use. Does this make sense to you or am I just typing for my keyboard?

 

[anaconda]

It denies the fact that natural resources don't have to be produced by labor, while capital does.

Workers receive a wage for extracting resources and others receive a wage for transforming them into intermediate or final goods. The cost is included in the final goods and counted in GDP. This does not seem like denial to me.