R E D E F I N E
Rant
12.2.1 Return to market pricing.
13.2.1 Overvalued, overpaid, and overemphasized.
14.2.1 Better mathematicians than social psychologists.
15.2.1 Control and dependency.
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:19:13 -0800 (PST)
From: John Yu cyu@oz.net
To: ipe@csf.colorado.edu
CC: pgunning@aus.ac.ae
Subject: Re: Adding to Alfonso's Comments about the California Utilities
URL: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/ipe/2001/msg00201.html
Patrick Gunning wrote:
> By the way, I think that the idea that people have a _moral right_ to cheap
> electricity borders on the absurd. We can certainly imagine cases in which
> the sudden loss of electricity would result in deaths. However, there is a
> fairly high percent of people in the world who have no electricity and who
> lead quite happy lives. Many of these feel no particular need for
> electricity. And many who could afford it are quite comfortable doing
> without and spending their money on other things.
Because disagreements have little hope of being settled when starting from
different axioms, I would like to seize this opportunity to discuss your
axioms. Let's take as an assumption that there is no moral right to
electricity. What, then, is it that you do have a moral right to? Life,
liberty, and property? Most fundamentally, what is it that gives you a moral
right to life? Why shouldn't anybody just go and randomly kill anyone they
feel like? Or are these your axioms that require no explanation because they
are "self-evident"?
Let's start with the Social Darwinist view that it is competition among
companies that drives progress and innovation. The less fit companies die
economically and are replaced by more "fit" companies - either more able to
satisfy the needs of their consumers or more able to prolong their dominance
by "underhanded" efforts that have nothing to do with serving consumers. What
we should do, one might say, is to just prevent the second form of self-
perpetuation from occurring.
However, in the spirit of competition, all is fair. What could be more
competitive than murder? From Social Darwinist assumptions, those most able
to kill, restrict, and steal would be the most fit to survive, and thus
produce subsequent generations of "supermen" or "supercompanies." However, we
now have a contradiction, because this violates our axioms of the "moral
rights" to life, liberty, and property. Where did these moral rights come
from if they are unfit for a Darwinistic world? Common moral rights can be
found in every major religion - did they really come from God or did they come
from mere insanity?
Moral rights can instead be explained from the advancement of society through
cooperation rather than competition. From this viewpoint, it is not
competition between individuals and groups that are important, but rather
competition between various methods of social organization. The legal, moral,
and religious systems that better enable their populations to cooperate are
the ones that survive and are passed down to subsequent generations. The
individuals within these societies are better able to survive because they
work together rather than against each other. The aspects of behavior that
best enable such cooperation are passed on as legal, moral, and religious laws.
Thus, while there is no absolute moral right to electricity, there isn't one
for life either. However, the evolution of our "memetic" code favors the
enabling of people to help each other - through whatever means available.
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:08:23 -0800 (PST)
From: John Yu cyu@oz.net
To: alfonsoa@prodigy.net.mx
CC: ipe@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Adding to Alfonso's Comments about the California Utilities
alfonsoa@prodigy.net.mx wrote:
> > The islanders have in effect given up much of their ability to control
> > their own destinies.
> On this issue, one might wonder if the islanders did in effect "control
> their own destinies" before, since I do believe that they were subject to
> external factors, such as the wheather and the distribution system within
> the island.
Agreed - but I don't believe "control of destiny" is a binary have-or-have-not
condition, but instead a sliding scale all the way from having no control what-
so-ever to having total control. The growing dependence on tourism is one of
the things that pushes the scale toward having less control.
> After becoming dependent on tourism, their concern is to keep tourist
> coming back, something that they do have a certain degree of control
> over (they keep being polite, conserve the beaches, etc.)
Yes, this is true, but it is still less control than they had before, because
they have added an extra variable to their economic prosperity that now
depends on outside sources. More things could go wrong - the wealth of these
tourists could be wiped out by politics, revolution, recessions, or stock
market crashes - and there would be very little the islanders could do about
it, because the source of this vital part of their economy is not within its
own borders.
> Regarding the food issue, that they are now dependent on imports fron
> other agricultural nations, that might be a less clear-cut case, but in
> general terms, with the dollars from the tourists they can access the
> world economy for food products.
That too is true as well, but again, the source of their security is no longer
within their own jurisdiction. Security is not built on trust, but mistrust -
even if all nations (and natural forces) are friendly now, there's no
guarantee that they will be in the future. The island may become the victim
of international trade sanctions for whatever reasons - whether just or
unjust. A crop failure in remote parts of the world could drive up prices to
the point of deprivation in the local economy. (The converse of possible crop
failures locally, however, means the island should not attempt to sever all
ties with other countries.) It is, of course, in the interest of the island
for all nations it deals with to be prosperous (because they can come to the
island's aid if needed), but the island should not rely on the fact that they
will always be prosperous because they won't. As the old saying goes, "Trust
in God, but row away from the waterfall."
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 13:47:00 -0800 (PST)
From: John Yu cyu@oz.net
To: ipe@csf.colorado.edu
CC: pgunning@aus.ac.ae
Subject: Re: Adding to Alfonso's Comments about the California Utilities
URL: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/ipe/2001/msg00172.html
> > When all available resources are in use, it is those who are richest that will
> > be able to have most of the resources allocated to fulfill their wants and
> > needs. The greater the spending disparity, the more skewed the economy
> > becomes.
> Your view of resources is that they are fixed. However, the supply of
> electricity to California is not fixed.
Not fixed, but limited - that is, the supply of something isn't constant, but
it cannot be increased without bound. At any given time, there is only so
much labor, raw materials, and technology available to produce any good. When
one small segment of the population can afford to hire away a large percentage
of the resources availabe, the result is less resources available to fulfill
the needs of the rest of the population.
> > Indeed, I agree with you that capping prices is not the best solution.
> Of course, the wealthy take a larger share of the goods produced. If one
> wishes to change this, he must be willing to pay the price of removing the
> incentive to produce wealth in the first place. Of course, some people acquire
> wealth through cheating, stealing, corruption, and so on. To take away their
> wealth would not reduce the incentive to produce goods for consumers. However,
> capping prices does not target this group.
Again, I am not defending price caps - I am merely pointing out some of the
effects of allowing overconcentration of wealth to develop within a market
system. If overconcentration of wealth does hurt the general population and
if preventing the overconcentration of wealth will remove the incentive to
produce, then we have a dilemma - we'll be damned no matter what we do.
However, one misunderstanding shared by many economists is that they believe
all incentive derives from material goods - they are better mathematicians
than they are social psychologists. There are other ways to create incentive
without rewarding someone with so much economic power that they are given the
ability to disrupt normal market prices. Why do some filmmakers prefer to
make art films instead of box office blockbusters? Why do some otherwise
rational-thinking men decrease their wealth by buying flowers for a woman on
Valentine's Day? Why would early Greeks waste so much effort competing in the
Olympics if all they could get out of it were a few leaves of laurel? Why do
people do these apparently irrational (from the economic standpoint) things?
Respect? Ego? Self-esteem? The need to feel loved? In any case, these
things are not measured economically nor materially.
Such alternative ways of spurring incentive should be kept in mind by a
company's employees and a company's consumers if they do not want to enable
any single individual from disrupting market prices, no matter how valuable
that person's contribution. As Woody Boyd might have said, "No I didn't get
the raise, but you're now looking at the new Senior Bartender..."
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 18:06:41 -0800 (PST)
From: John Yu cyu@oz.net
To: ipe@csf.colorado.edu
CC: pauldv@vanuatu.com.vu
Subject: Re: Adding to Alfonso's Comments about the California Utilities
URL: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/ipe/2001/msg00169.html
> I think it just increases demand while the supply is limited, and therefore
> prices go up. But here is an example where the demand driven market is
> beneficial to the poor: in most Pacific Island Countries, rich tourists create
> a demand for transport, making it feasible for investors to run local airlines
> profitably with affordable fares. Without these rich tourists, only a very few
> wealthy islanders could ever afford to travel (or be flown to hospitals) in
> scarce planes.
This is true. However, one of the effects of industries springing up to cater
to the rich (tourism in this case) is that the economies of these countries
changes from an independent one to a dependent one. While it is true that the
money paid by the wealthy tourists may enable the islanders to purchase more
goods from other agricultural nations than they can grow themselves, the
resulting shift in the allocation of human resources on the island results in
an economy that becomes dependent on two things: the cash from the tourists
and the products from the third-party agricultural nation. Such dependence is
dangerous to the security of the local economy - they must now both ensure
that wealthy tourists will continue coming and that the third-party nation's
agriculture runs smoothly. The islanders have in effect given up much of
their ability to control their own destinies. Instead of letting its tourism
industry overcome its agricultural industry, it would be a more secure goal
for the island to use the money, coming into the country from tourism, to
build up its own ability to sustain itself - thus even if wealthy tourists
stop coming one day (for whatever reasons), they will not be reduced to
begging for tourism, but merely returning to the self-sustaining economy they
have built up for themselves. If there are cries of "unfair" protectionism,
they may have to change their finance structure such that the industries being
protected are more directly reflected in their measures of national wealth -
who would then accuse them of irrationality for attempting to preserve their
wealth?
> The market structure has NEVER had the ability to provide for wants and needs
> of the general population. This only happens in the economics manuals. The most
> vulnerable in any given population have no chance whatsoever to see their needs
> fulfilled through the market structure.
> Market-based political economics ARE a political ideology.
True, it indeed is - the ideology states that a market is one of the better
ways to run an economy, and there are some fairly convincing arguments that go
with it. However, economic theories rely on models of the world in much the
same way that physical models of the world may not actually correspond to
reality. "Consider an ideal pulley operating without friction..." a question
in mechanics might say... the trouble is, there are no ideal pulleys, nor
systems without friction. One of the reasons economic manuals fail is because
they assume participants in the market have fairly equal amounts of spending
power - thus each individual's spending contributes to an overall picture that
reflects all the participants. Of course, when a capitalist gets a cut of
everything produced by thousands and thousands of people and thus amasses vast
amounts of spending power, the model breaks down - and market prices no longer
reflect what everyone wants, but what the capitalist wants. The things he
desires become overvalued, the labor going into producing the things he wants
is overpaid, and the skills necessary to fulfill his needs become
overemphasized, both in education and in society at large.
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 15:17:54 -0800 (PST)
From: John Yu cyu@oz.net
To: ipe@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Adding to Alfonso's Comments about the California Utilities
URL: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/ipe/2001/msg00164.html
> > In the absence of price controls, the good
> > might be on the market, but only accessible for those
> > who can dish out lots and lots of dosh - creating what
> > is in fact a shortage of AFFORDABLE electricity.
> > Now some might respond to this point by saying that
> > "hey, that's not an economic argument, that's
> > political." But then, remember that many radicals
> > don't accept any division between these two 'spheres',
> > and questions of 'who gets what' are as economic as
> > they are political.
> I agree that the market-determined price of electricity in California may be
> higher than many people can afford. But so are computers, internet service
> providers, good schooling and healthcare, TV sets, new clothes, steak for
> dinner, and housing. What, in your opinion, makes electricity in California
> special?
> If I understand you correctly, you believe that the government should somehow
> see to it that people who could not otherwise afford electricity should be able
> to afford it.
Nothing, in fact, makes electricity different from, for example, health care
or housing. You ask what the purpose of government is, and whether one of its
purposes is to make electricity available to those who cannot afford it. I
ask what the purpose of an economic structure is and whether one of its
purposes is to provide for the wants and needs of those who live within it.
Indeed, I agree with you that capping prices is not the best solution. Even
if there were more than enough electricity for all Californians, capped prices
mean buyers will be able to resell their electricity to places where prices
are not capped, and thus reaping profit for something they did not produce -
hardly an incentive to encourage productive activity.
However, let me paint you this picture. You walk downtown on a Saturday
afternoon to do some shopping. Incredibly large mega-shopping complexes have
been built with polished marble-like stone. The floors in these shopping
centers are cleaned to a polished shine. The sun is blisteringly hot outside
but it is blissfully cool inside these malls. The doors to these places are
wide open, in order to entice shoppers to come inside. While this results in
a constant drain on their attempts to cool the building, it is worth it
because (1) they can afford the electricity and (2) they want to make it
inviting for potential shoppers. All sounds good so far eh? But go down the
road just a little bit and you enter the "slum" areas. Here live the people
who polish the floors of the shopping centers, the people who poured the
cement, lifted the rock, laid the foundation, and constructed these giant
buildings, and yet their own homes are not nearly as shiny, and they actually
have to close their doors to maintain their air conditioning, if they are
lucky enough to afford an air conditioning unit at all.
Why is this so? What is it about the economic structure that results in two
such starkly contrasting conditions? Surely people should buy what they can
afford. What does it matter if some people (or businesses) can afford massive
air conditioning bills with their doors wide open, while other people who
can't afford it simply have to put up with the hot weather? Just because I'm
rich doesn't mean I'm hurting anyone. Actually, that last statement is false
in the case of a market economy. The fact that some people can and are buying
a lot of electricity "takes it away" from those who can't, because their
purchase of it lowers the supply of electricity (and thus raises the price).
So what, you may ask, that should just encourage more businesses to be started
to meet the demand. Yes, to an extent it does (so long as the existing
electricity providers aren't actively trying to keep out competition).
However, resources are limited - whether it's people or natural resources.
When all available resources are in use, it is those who are richest that will
be able to have most of the resources allocated to fulfill their wants and
needs. The greater the spending disparity, the more skewed the economy
becomes. As a result, even businesses that serve the poor will eventually not
be able to afford the electrity (or labor) to keep themselves running, because
the rich can afford to pay more.
Thus market pricing only best reflects the wants and needs of a population if
all participants in the economy are fairly represented. Because market
representation comes from the amount of money one can spend, market pricing is
only an accurate determinant of relative values between goods when all
participants exercise fairly equal amounts of spending power. If they do not,
the market structure will lose its ability to provide for wants and needs of
the general population (and overvalue goods and services wanted only by the
rich - such as paintings by long dead artists). As for how an economy can
return to the point at which market pricing represents the entire population,
possibilities have been proposed by various contending political ideologies
and would be the subject of another thread.
From: "E. Zapata" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.tanaka-tomoyuki, sci.econ, soc.culture.japan, soc.culture.korean, alt.anarchism, alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: counterfeit US $100 bills (Super K's) from N. Korea
Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 11:54:23 -0700
Shi Hwang Ti wrote:
> > As opposed to other currencies which are backed by what? Shiny rocks?
> The Argentinian peso is backed by the US dollar. The HK dollar and
> Malaysian ringgit are pegged to the US dollar at 7.8 and 3.8 resp.
> No currency is backed fully by gold these days which is IMO a big
> mistake although nations like Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France,
> UK,US still keep thousands of tonnes of gold just in case. Why do
> they do that if gold is worthless?
Why do some nations back their money with dollars if it's
worthless? The truth is, their are many reasons for
people to keep things - ignorance and fraud are among them.
In fact, it is in the best interest of any country other
than the US to not run their economy on dollars, just as it
is in the interest of any non-gold producing country to
not run their economy on gold.
Here's an example. 3 groups engage in trade. By whatever
reason (whether by force, fraud, or honorable means),
group #1 manages to accumulate almost all the gold. So
group #1 decides to retire, and live out the rest of their
days just buying up the goods produced by groups #2 and #3.
Since group #1 no longer produces anything, groups #2 and
#3 no longer need it. But if #2 and #3 continue to engage
in trade with gold, they have less to trade with each other,
since part of their production is always bought by #1. It
would be in the best interest of #2 and #3 to merely switch
to a different medium of exchange, thus rendering the gold
held by #1 far less valuable, and forcing group #1 to be
productive once again if it wishes to acquire the goods
made by #2 and #3.
The real wealth of nations is how easily they can survive
a total trade embargo. There's no security in assuming
any type of currency will always be honored, even by the
countries that issue them.
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 21:28:50 -0700
From: "J. Calvin" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.anarchism, alt.society.anarchy, rec.org.mensa, alt.politics.socialism.libertarian, alt.politics.libertarian, talk.politics.libertarian, alt.politics.socialism, alt.politics.socialism.trotsky, alt.politics.socialism.mao, alt.society.resistance, alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.society.revolution, alt.politics.radical-left, alt.society.labor-unions, alt.org.food-not-bombs, alt.org.earth-first, alt.thebird, alt.anarchism.communist, alt.anarchism.syndicalist, alt.anarchism.individualist
Subject: Re: Libertarian Socialism
Michael J+S wrote:
> > Libertarian Socialism recognizes that the concept of "property"
> > (specifically, the means of production, factories, land used for profit,
> > rented space) is theft and that in a truly libertarian society, the
> > individual would be free of exploitation caused by the concentration of all
> > means of wealth-making into the hands of an elite minority of capitalists.
> Then who would manufacture computer keyboards for fuckbrains like you
> to short-stroke all over?
The same people who have always done it. Namely, the
working class. Only difference is, they control the
factories... keeping profits for themselves rather
than giving over to capitalists, with a self-staffed
local militia to defend themselves, if need be.
During the years of the American Revolutionary War,
minute men patriots behaved in a way quite like the
farmers who fought with Emiliano Zapata: they worked
their fields with rifles on their backs, were called
to battle at a moment's notice, and returned to their
fields at the end of the day. They owned their land
because they worked it and personally defended it...
not because of deeds drawn up by lawyers.
--------
Who is John Galt?
Emma Goldman's retarded kid brother.
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 21:48:15 -0700
From: "J. Calvin" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.anarchism, alt.society.anarchy, alt.politics.radical-left, alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.politics.socialism, alt.politics.communism, alt.thebird, alt.punk, alt.society.labor-unions, alt.politics.socialism.trotsky, alt.politics.socialism.mao, alt.politics.libertarian, talk.politics.libertarian, talk.politics.theory, talk.politics.misc, alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.individualism, alt.philosophy.objectivism, alt.politics.economics, alt.politics.socialism.libertarian, alt.anarchism.communist, alt.anarchism.syndicalist, alt.anarchism.individualist
Subject: Re: The Anarchist Movement (And Anarchist Theory FAQ)
Michael J+S rhinox@frogged.org wrote:
> My problem is that you're an intellectually dishonest heel from the
> word "go", starting with the name you choose to post under, because you
> aren't one. For instance....
> ....no real "(L)ibertarian" complains about capitalism.
It's always amusing to read something written by someone who's
been subjected to so much propaganda that one can only chuckle
as his misguided misconceptions. Consider this (that's me in
the corner):
http://flag.blackened.net/llr/
Libertarian Labor... you might want to read what they say about
capitalism. The fact that the word "libertarian" is associated
with pro-capitalist ideas is pretty much only limited to the
United States (one would expect no less from the world's prime
source of capitalist propaganda).
The word was an interesting history. The word "anarchist" was
originally used as a pejorative during the French Revolution
to associate opposing factions with murderers, rapists, and
criminals in general. It wasn't for another few decades until
a communist named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon became one of the
first to refer to himself as a political anarchist - as much
out of sheer individualism and to spite his opponents as a
representation of his ideology. It was the more accommodating
"anarchists" that coined the word "libertarian" to avoid the
connotations of assassins and criminals associated with the
word "anarchist". This was back in the 19th century. If you
asked a capitalist back then what he thought of "libertarians",
he'd probably tell you to hang the lot of them... mainly
because their brand of anarchism called for workers to simply
take control over their place of work.
http://flag.blackened.net/intanark/faq/secA1.html#seca13
17.4.99 Timid tactics.
18.4.99 Still slaves.
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:15:52 -0700
From: "E. Zapata" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.society.labor-unions, alt.politics.economics, alt.society.liberalism, misc.education, sci.econ, alt.anarchism, talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The Real Meaning of May Day
James A. Donald wrote:
> Been tried, does not work.
Very funny. I'm sure there must have been a duke in the 14th
century who claimed that democracy was tried in Greece and
didn't work either... or a slave in the 19th who claimed that
Nat Turner tried to create a society without slavery, and
that also didn't work. The fact is, lots of things "work".
Slavery works, monarchy works, military dictatorships work...
just with varying degrees of satisfaction among the
participants.
> To get the money, you need a network of relationships based on
> property rights. If you violate property rights, people will not
> trust you to do business with you.
There are two kinds of property: personal property, as in
what you have at home, and the second kind, you might call
capital, or the means of production, as in what you use at
work. If only rights over the second are "violated",
then the only people you have to fear are your employees.
> Many governments, particularly in South America, have been highly
> tolerant of worker occupations, and have forcefully prevented the
> owners from defending their property, seeing such occupations as a way
> to achieve socialism.
Ever heard of paramilitary mercenaries? Kill a few peasant
leaders here, assassinate a few labor organizers there,
then it's easy to say these movements never work, isn't
it? While I admire the bravery of the Catholic Church in
South America, it's a shame that Christ's teachings
of meekness also tends to make them sitting ducks. The
government, meanwhile, can just twiddle its thumbs or
bury them in paperwork.
Y'know, it's really non-strategic for capitalists to
rail against the government so much. If you drive a
wedge between yourselves and those who have to enforce
back to work injunctions on strikers, who will you
turn to? Of course, if capitalists are only putting up
a false opposition, to give the illuion that there are
two sides, business vs government, when in fact there
is only one side, that is much more strategic. The
illusion of choice satisfies the masses much more
easily than the truth that there is no choice.
http://198.62.75.1/www2/mst/chrono.html
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 09:46:32 -0700
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.society.labor-unions, alt.politics.economics, alt.society.liberalism, misc.education, sci.econ, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: The Real Meaning of May Day
Ernesto Nevarez wrote:
> What will be accomplished?
> No, not the proleteriate revolution.
> But the exercise will be educational and will help develope
> organizational structure.
If we're going to wait for the corporate dominated
political system to institute workplace democracy and
local self-government, our children and grandchildren
will be waiting a long long time. Democracy is claimed,
not asked for.
> In Nov. of 1993 we got our first contract at Calko in Los Angeles during
> the strike.
There are small steps and there are large steps. A
contract still rests on the assumption that the boss
is still in charge. Who does the real work? Who has
to ask permission to pay themselves more out of the
money they themselves earn? Slaves that manage to
convince their master to give them more time off are
still slaves.
http://www.au.spunk.org/texts/groups/wsa/sp000044.txt
-------
We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our
talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of
other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
- John Swinton, Chief of Staff New York Times, 1953
From: "J. Calvin" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.society.labor-unions, alt.politics.economics, alt.society.liberalism, misc.education, sci.econ, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: The Real Meaning of May Day
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 12:39:29 -0700
Zepp wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999 18:40:24 -0700, Ernesto Nevarez
> wrote:
> >Truckers are currently working 15 hour days, 70 hour weeks.
> >In 1973 the first massive labor action occurred.
> >Nov. 1993 there was an attempted National Shutdown, the harbors were
> >strong.
> >There is a growing movement in its infancy to have a national truckers
> >shutdown on July 5.
> >Will history repeat itself?
> As I recall, scab drivers were a big problem in the last two actions.
The fact is, the work stoppage strike is one of the
weakest forms of protest. Why else do you think the
powers that be have legalized it? The fact is that
the work stoppage strike is always acknowledged as
a temporary situation. Both workers & bosses go on
the assumption that this strike will end, one way or
another. The orginal anarchists & anarcho-syndicalists
of May Day would have quite a chuckle at the timid
tactics being used by today's labor.
Keep the trucks running, collect the money yourselves,
stop paying the bosses. A strike like that could last
indefinitely, without even needing a strike fund.
http://www.iww.org/direct_action/s8.html
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 01:22:05 -0800
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: rate of inflation
FTUN wrote:
> The rate of inflation is 100% worldwide.
> 100% inflation--when none of the paper currency is redeemable
> in specie.
You're placing of ultimate value in specie is incorrect.
The value of currency is measured by what the individual
holding that currency needs. And the last time I checked,
humans do not survive on either gold or silver. What if
specie could not be redeemed for food? What if specie
could not be redeemed for payments on your mortgage or
rent? In fact, it is not how much specie you can get for
paper currency, but how much food & shelter you can get
for paper currency.
Then again, maybe you do eat goldburgers. In which case,
paper currency that can't be redeemed for specie is
obvious completely worthless to you.
28.3.99 Land tax.
11.4.99 A little history.
13.4.99 Majority of value.
15.4.99 7:46 Emphasis on non-essential product.
From: Thant Tessman thant@acm.org
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.politics.radical-left, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: Keynesian Economics
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 09:37:58 -0600
Organization: XMission http://www.xmission.com/
"J. Calvin" wrote:
> Ah, but if dollars were a commodity, the effect of having
> a large percentage of the population converting their
> assets to other forms means that there would suddenly
> be much more dollars in circulation than real goods. The
> result is inflation. [...]
I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. Do you mean
that if (as I claim) dollars are "stay-out-of-jail tokens" and therefore
are a commodity, that if people convert their assets to other things,
then inflation will result? I would claim this has already happened
(although not suddenly).
> I would argue that both gold and paper are inferior to
> a commodity that people use on a regular basis, like
> grain. [Of course, you'd carry around notes that represent
> real amounts of grain rather than the grain itself...
> rather like a grain standard, as opposed to a gold
> standard.] [...]
In a system of free banking, nothing would stop people from doing
exactly this. I suspect that in a system of free banking, several
commodities would serve as the basis for moneys. I suspect that as a
matter of convenience one would dominate for smaller transactions and I
suspect it would be gold or some other precious metal, but yes, the
availability of several kinds of moneys would further reduce money's
susceptibility to shock and manipulation. (I don't think grain would
make for good money, but maybe there are people out there that know
something I don't.)
And it's interesting that you bring up the example of grain. In his book
"The Case Against the Fed," Murray Rothbard uses the example of grain
elevators to illustrate the consequences of fractional-reserve banking.
Apparently there was a time when grain elevator operators would issue
more receipts for grain than they actually had grain stored. Of course
the result was that there were occasional runs on grain elevators
exactly analogous to runs on the bank. The "cure" for this problem in
the case of grain elevators was simply to recognize the practice as
fraud. But banks are far more politically influential than grain
elevator operators, so instead, banks eventually won the privilege of
not having to redeem notes at all.
-thant
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 07:46:14 -0700
From: "J. Calvin" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.politics.radical-left, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: Keynesian Economics
Thant Tessman wrote:
> > Feel free to hold all your wealth in gold, or land, or canned
> > food, or whatever, then convert some of it once a year to pay
> > for taxes.
> That one can hold their wealth in forms other than
> dollars doesn't relieve one of the need to convert it
> to dollars when paying taxes. The demand for dollars
> is still there, and is still a product of government
> force.
Ah, but if dollars were a commodity, the effect of having
a large percentage of the population converting their
assets to other forms means that there would suddenly
be much more dollars in circulation than real goods. The
result is inflation. The loans that you owe in dollars
are now worth less, and the money that you owe the
government is worth less. Then again, if you object to
paying taxes in principle, I suggest you move to a
different country or start your own. [Kind of like the
standard capitalist suggestion to find another company
to work for or to start your own.]
> The influence of gold mining companies on the supply
> of gold is minuscule compared to the influence of the
> banks and government on the supply of dollars. And the
> influence they do have isn't nearly as centralized
> and unpredictable and subject to political manipulation.
> That's why gold is better than paper.
I would argue that both gold and paper are inferior to
a commodity that people use on a regular basis, like
grain. [Of course, you'd carry around notes that represent
real amounts of grain rather than the grain itself...
rather like a grain standard, as opposed to a gold
standard.] The fact that mining companies can dig up
more gold is rather like governments printing more
paper: inflation. The fact that gold mining is more
difficult than printing money just means inflation happens
at a slower rate. Since officially using gold as currency
would increase its value, and therefore result in more
effort being put into gold mining, the result is that
the economy would put more emphasis on producing a
relatively non-essential product... as opposed to grain,
which even if there's overproduction, it would tend to
solve a good deal of society's other problems if that
happens.
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 07:36:07 -0700
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Keynesian Economics
Thant Tessman wrote:
> Money is not a creation of the government. Anything that facilitates indirect exchange is
> functioning as money. The only prerequisite for a good functioning as money is that there must be a
> market for that good INDEPENDENT of its function as money. The difference between gold and paper
> money is that the market for gold exists even without government-imposed exchange rates such as that
> of your Hammarabi Code example.
In truth, your average person doesn't do much with gold other
than use it as a decoration. It's use by those with jobs in
electronics or dentistry is limited to a small segment of the
population. It's easy to think up "markets" for anything.
Paper money could be used as insulation, wall paper, even
fuel for a fire. Collectors form a market for old money that's
no longer valid. But the majority of the value placed in paper
money derives from its current use as currency. The majority
of the value of gold derives from its traditional use as
currency (and its current use as a "basis" of the banking
systems of various countries).
> The only reason dollars have value at all is because people need
> them to pay their taxes, thereby guaranteeing a market for them.
> As for gold in particular, advocates of free markets don't care what people use as money so long as
> the government doesn't have control over its supply.
Feel free to hold all your wealth in gold, or land, or canned
food, or whatever, then convert some of it once a year to pay
for taxes. Who would you rather have control over the money
supply? Gold mining companies? Banks? Who controls the government,
gold mining companies, and banks? (Probably the same set of
people considering where the campaign money of political
candidates comes from.)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 00:04:00 -0700
From: "J. Calvin" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: Keynesian Economics
FTUN wrote:
> FDR obliged, via the NY Fed and shut down the
> banks for 4 days in 1933, kept the peoples gold and gave them a green shit rag
> instead. Pieter, what if your govt declared wives illegal and ordered all
> subjects(as FDR called them) to bring in and surrender thair wives, and in
> their place you were issued green piece of paper that said, "this wife
> certificate is a real wife, by act of CONgress" would you take that piece of
> paper home and try to make love to it?
Actually, an analogy can be drawn to gold. If all the
major economists claim "this gold bar is a real wife"
because of thousands years of history, would you take that
peice of rock home and try to make love to it? Gold is gold.
Paper is paper. You can decorate your house with gold. You
can decorate your house with paper. You can't eat either one.
If you want to eat, you must exchange it for food.
A little history on gold from the misc.invest.stocks FAQ:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/investment-faq/general/part15/faq-doc-10.html
"According to the Hammarabi Code, the Dinar was worth todays' equivalent
of about $325 (ie., an ounce of gold - only it weighed slightly more).
Within their agricultural economy, it was a piece of metal (more easily
transportable) equal in value to a bushel of wheat, which, according to
the Code, weighed 1 Stone (the Sumerian Standard), which, by our
standards, weighed about 60 pounds.
To Sumerize (pun), an ounce of gold was equal to about 60 pounds of
wheat in value. This was established since it was obviously easier to
carry a bag of gold to the other side of the empire to exchange for a
large quantity of, say, wool, than it was to caravan several tons of
wheat for the same purpose. And so on.
The whole process probably dates back even farther, but the Code of
Hammarabi is basically the oldest known documentation of such things."
In other words, the Sumerians used gold to represent a bushel
of wheat in trade. So the tradition really started when a
fairly arbitrary metal was chosen to be backed by a real necessary
good - wheat. As for how banks started issuing more paper than
they had gold for, that goes way back.
Following in the tradition of the Sumerians, people kept their
fortunes in the form of gold. The local goldsmith had to hire
a good deal of security in order to keep his business safe. As
a result of this security, the goldsmith offered to guard the
gold of other people as well. When a person deposited a certain
amount of gold, the goldsmith issued him a piece of paper
indicating how much gold was deposited. People discovered that
instead of exchanging gold, they could instead just exchange
the pieces of paper that the goldsmith issued. Thus, not only
did traders not have to carry caravans of wheat around, they
no longer even had to carry pounds of gold around either.
Now, with all that gold on his hands, the goldsmith could put
it to some use. He could loan it out in much the same way
banks do today. But since the loanee was going to keep his
physical gold at the goldsmith's anyway, all the goldsmith
really had to loan out was the paper indicating the amount of
gold that was loaned. Goldsmiths quickly discovered that in
this way, there would be more "gold" being used in the economy
than actually physically existed. The same is true of today's
banks with respect to paper money. There is much more "wealth"
(as measured by dollars) being used in the economy than there
exists physical paper bills.
In any case, there are only 2 kinds of people who advocate
using gold over paper money. Those with a vested interest in
gold because of prior investments, or those who are stupid.
Neither gold nor paper money would be as coveted as they are
if it weren't for their being used as a medium of monetary
exchange.
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 01:10:14 -0800
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, uk.politics.economics, talk.politics.theory, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: Keynesian Economics
Brian Bell wrote:
> It all depends on what is tax. Any tax diminished the entity taxed. If you
> tax windows, the result is bricked-up windows. If you tax work, the result
> is unemployment. If you tax land values, the result is that people put land
> to the most productive use and thereby create employment.
Actually, by your logic, taxing land will cause farmers
to give up on food production and go into less land
intensive pursuits like investment banking. But we can't
all do that can we, unless we all want to eat stock
certificates. Some of the most profitable businesses
today (like the software and financial sectors) use
very little land. You can bet that it's those businesses
that will lobby the hardest for a land tax.
What it really should come down to is what the tax money
is used for. If you need more labor to provide the services
you expect from your government, you should expect to pay
more taxes. If you expect no services from your government,
then don't pay.
28.3.99 The threat of making loans.
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 07:52:08 -0800
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.anarchism
Subject: Re: IMF says gold sales would need US Congress backing
John Doh! wrote:
> Selling gold in an already depressed gold market isn't wise. It could be that
> the millennium bug crowd want to prevent the debunking of the financial system
> by people who want hard money, gold, by making it worth - less.
In reality, the contest between paper and hard money is
useless. It is basically a discussion of standards of
exchange. Gold just happens to be an older tradition
than paper as a representation of wealth, but in the end,
it is still just a medium of exchange, like paper money
is.
Imagine if all the paper money and gold disappeared from
the world tomorrow. Did all the planet's wealth suddenly
disappear? No, not really. All you need to do then is
to set a new standard medium of exchange. And if nobody
wants to agree to a standard, a barter economy works just
as well (if slightly more inconvenient).
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:48:50 -0800
From: "T. Hobbes" cyu@geocities.com
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics, sci.econ, talk.politics.theory, alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: IMF says gold sales would need US Congress backing
David Cross wrote:
> Of course, if the IMF continues to be as stubbornly idiotic as they have been
> in the past, Russia will need to carry out that threat they made which is "We
> need this money, or we will be forced to turn to the printing press."
> Actually, I heard Russia's already been printing money to the point where
> inflation as measured by growth in the money supply is hovering at 15%.
Actually, the threat of printing money is little different
than the threat of making loans. Every time a loan is made,
money is being "created". This is why a run on banks leads
to bank failures. Because of all those loans, people think
they have more currency than actually exists. If everyone
withdrew their cash, there would not be enough to go around.
That's why the Federal Reserve believes low interest rates
(easier loans) leads to inflation just as printing money
leads to inflation.
So what is the real difference bewteen making lots of loans
and printing lots of money? The difference is who controls
economic activity. If the government prints money, it's the
government that has the most influence over what businesses
will have customers. If it's the banks that make all the
loans, it's the heads of banks that have most influence over
what businesses will get off the ground.
From: gcf@panix.com (G*rd*n)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism,alt.anarchism,alt.flame.right-wing-conservatives,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy,alt.fan.noam-chomsky
Subject: Re: Capitalist vs Capitalism, free expression vs force
Date: 1 Sep 1997 13:36:44 -0400
Organization: }"{ }"{ }"{ }"{
David Winslow:
| > There are other kinds of Capitalists, passionate people driven by dreams
| > and dragging along with them thousands of others. We see the notable
| > examples in the computer industry. They are enabled by Capitalism and
| > Capitalism is enabled by them.
"Justin Flude" justinf@xara.com:
| Still gotta make a profit, though, haven't they? How many people have
| Apple laid off recently?
I worked for one of these guys for awhile. He was
passionate about making money, though, not computers;
computers were incidental, although they were a good fetish
in the sense of still being mystical to most people,
including the investors he more or less conned.
Actually, you don't have to make a profit. What you can do
is sell stock, borrow a lot of money, and go bankrupt while
paying yourself well (and maybe salting a bit away). It's
almost as much fun as success, and, who knows, some dumb
old big corporation making money the old way might buy you
out before you go over the brink.
What kind of dream costs ten or twenty or 100 million
dollars? Electronic shears dreaming of electronic
fleece, I guess.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ gcf@panix.com }"{
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,misc.int-property,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: A Gem of an Essay: _Equality and Efficiency_
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 20:11:20 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
jim blair wrote:
> > The only problem I have here is the assumption that people
> > who favor free markets are politically conservative and that
> > those that oppose free markets are likewise liberals. To be
> > a conservative or a liberal means more that just supporting
> > or opposing free markets..
> I agree, and go on to say that in the USA today, the terms Liberal and
> Conservative have just about lost all meaning. National Review is
> "conservative" and wants to legalize drugs, Buchannan and Jerry Browm
> oppose NAFTA, etc. Lets get back to issues rather than labels.
Good riddance too. Political parties, nationalism, ethnocentrism,
etc. are all concepts that grew out of competitive Darwinism,
the stupid assumption that every gain is someone else's loss.
What may be true for lower animals is not true of the species
that have evolved communication. Knowledge is meant to be shared,
not just out of the goodness of our hearts, but because the more
people that have it, the more that can be produced. The fact that
various trades and corporations refuse to give away secrets or
information for free is merely a flaw with our economic system.
Individualism and collectivism are actually very similar concepts
in that they differ from limited individualism and limited
collectivism: refusal to belong to a greater whole and yet
afraid to be alone... and so they fight tooth and nail for
whatever little group, religion, opinion that they share with
their small faction, associating a loss for their faction with
a personal loss, an irrelevant victory of their faction with a
personal victory.
-----------
When all the boasting is over, what is any man but just another
man? And, even though a crooked world came to admit that men
should be honored only according to merit, even human honor
would be of no great value. It is smoke that weighs nothing.
-St. Augustine
2.9.97 19:14 Some banker's whim.
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.labor-unions,alt.society.anarchy,alt.politics.economics,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.anarchism,sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism,alt.fan.banacek,alt.gobment.lones
Subject: Re: Socialism without a state??
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 19:27:20 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Caliban wrote:
> In alt.fan.banacek JMH jmhall@erols.com wrote:
> : Labor also gets to appoint a number of the firm's
> : directors--though not a majority, but then neither
> : to the owners because lending Banks get to name
> : a few.
> In any company, if the workers own some or all of the
> stock -- which I personally think is a good idea --
> then they can appoint some or all of the directors.
> And the Japanese practice, and also that recommended
> by such business gurus as Stephen Covey and Eliyahu
> Goldratt, is to consider the employees to be "stakeholders"
> in the organization just like the stockholders. In
> my opinion, the more receptive any organization is to
> _all_ of its participants, the better . . . but, of
> course, that's just my opinion. Some workers might
> not be interested in a company that encourages initiative,
> or they might prefer higher pay to more pleasant working
> conditions. It's all a matter of personal taste, and
> my argument is with those who want to impose their
> personal taste on groups that don't want it.
As so, we shouldn't impose democracy on autocratic
nations, unless the people there actually want it. They
wouldn't be living with a king or tyrant if they didn't
like the benefits they got from it, correct? Do you know
why monarchy lasted so long? Because "democracy" is a
dirty word in those countries. Say it within earshot of
the king, and you better start voting with your feet
(and fast). Third parties don't stand a chance in this
election system for the same reason... throwing away
your vote. Would peasants under a monarchy vote for
democracy? If the election fails and all democrats will
be setenced to death, who would be so stupid as to
campaign for democracy?
------------------
Yet if we proceed by analogy with the ideal of political
democracy, which we conceive as a politically classless
society with a rotating aristocracy of leaders, we can
at least surmise that an economic democracy must somehow
be conceived as an economically classless society, and
that, too, with a rotating aristocracy of managers.
-M. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.labor-unions,alt.society.anarchy,alt.politics.economics,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.anarchism,sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism
Subject: Re: Socialism without a state?? (was: ... killing fields)
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 19:14:47 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
jw wrote:
> A member of the commune, if
> fed up, can leave; so can an employee of the corporation.
> However, the former cannot take away
> his earnings: all he has produced is sunk
> into the communal property; now he can enjoy it
> only on condition of remaining a member.
You are assuming there's one commune, a tiny island
surrounded by a sea of capitalism, rather than the
other way around. It's like asking if you lived in the
world's only democracy and became fed up with it, why
leave it for a dictatorship, instead of just choosing
a dictatorship in the first place and earn a high rank
as someone's favorite servant.
> Capitalism, then, differs from even *voluntary*
> collectivism as freedom differs from unfreedom.
By what definition of freedom and what definition of
capitalism? The freedom to be commanded by someone
else? The freedom to be told, at some banker's whim,
that society should be digging up shiny yellow rocks
instead of researching agriculture, should be building
fancy corporate buildings instead of places for
people to sleep?
--------
Yet if we proceed by analogy with the ideal of political
democracy, which we conceive as a politically classless
society with a rotating aristocracy of leaders, we can
at least surmise that an economic democracy must somehow
be conceived as an economically classless society, and
that, too, with a rotating aristocracy of managers.
-M. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto
2.9.97 21:52 Suddenly unable to eat dinner.
2.9.97 22:10 Wealth by propaganda.
3.9.97 The dollar bill voted.
7.8.97 Advanced-stage capitalism.
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,alt.politics.radical-left,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,misc.invest.stocks,alt.society.labor-unions,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.socialism,alt.politics.economics,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Keynes' Biggest Mistake: The Snapshot Fallacy
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 15:58:54 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Quetzalcoatl wrote:
>> capitalism eventually leads to great inequality of wealth and
>> power, thereby creating a new monarchy in which essential
>> goods are only produced to the minimum of keeping labor alive
>> while the rest of society is too busy making luxury goods
>> only the elite can afford.
> Where has this happened?
How about the Gilded Age? How about the various "bastions of
anti-communism" (and pretend-democracy) in various Third
World nations?
> The way to stop the monopolists is to keep the
> government in check, otherwise the rich gain control of the politicians and
> use the taxpayer-funded police and military to put down strikes, etc...
> With a small government, the people would have a chance against the
> "monopolists."
Otherwise the rich gain control of the press, creeping
totalitarianism. But that's not all, because when you control
the press, you can also destroy the credibility of competing
companies, or give great reviews to your own products. With
that pesky democratic government out of the way, why bother
with safe beef when you can feed them sheep brains to your
heart's content? Selfish market anarchy doesn't work. You
may think if one company lowers prices by $5, every company
must also do so. But if one company RAISES prices by $5, when
would all the companies ALSO raise prices by $5? When these
companies finally realize they're not competing with eachother
for money, but with consumers for money... inflation.
Monopoly is actually great because it prevents the
inefficiency of trade secrets... no wasted effort reinventing
the wheel. The difference between an autocratic monopoly and
a democratic one is whether the large scale decision makers
are there to serve only themselves and whether these decisions
are made behind closed doors or out in the open. The same
applies to where banks make "loans" (thereby dictating what
people should be producing). Whether you want to call
democratic control a "government" or autocratic control a
"government" is all up to you.
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,alt.politics.radical-left,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,misc.invest.stocks,alt.society.labor-unions,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.socialism,alt.politics.economics,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Keynes' Biggest Mistake: The Snapshot Fallacy
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 01:47:26 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Steve Conover, Sr. wrote:
> Glad you agree with most of my definition of "wealth." But I
> have an idea at this point. Rather than theorizing about which
> socio-economic system is better, worse, fair, unfair, greedy,
> oppressive, etc., etc... Why don't we just check the track record
> of capitalism, and then try to find another system that's done
> better? There's a historical record right there for everyone to
> see.
Ah, but how do you know you're looking at the track record of
"capitalism" and NOT, for example, the track record of
democracy? Or the track record of free speech? Gun rights?
High immigration? Unregulated capitalism eventually leads
to a victorious monopoly. Only immigration and free speech
have created an environment of diverse ideas. Unregulated
capitalism eventually leads to great inequality of wealth and
power, thereby creating a new monarchy in which essential
goods are only produced to the minimum of keeping labor alive
while the rest of society is too busy making luxury goods
only the elite can afford. Only democracy and gun rights have
created an environment in which those on the bottom are less
afraid to challenge those in power, and force the
establishment of free education for the many, instead of the
few. What you consider to be "tradional communism" is merely
advanced-stage capitalism: one huge company, all-powerful
CEO, who not only can lay off employees at will, but kill
them as well.
--------
The absent are always wrong. -English proverb
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,misc.invest.stocks,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.socialism,alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Keynes' Biggest Mistake: The Snapshot Fallacy
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 1997 19:42:18 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Steve Conover, Sr. wrote:
> >> Don't forget social organization. Western democratic capitalism
> >> has fostered wealth creation better than any other form so far.
> >"Wealth" creation? As defined by marketing? We could also say
> >autocratic communism produced lots of wealth simply by using
> >propaganda to make everyone love their leaders.
> "Wealth" as defined by life expectancy, nutrition content of
> diet, square feet of living space, and the range of choice of
> what to buy.
> A society's move toward "wealth" is a move away from death,
> disease, famine, illiteracy, superstition, ignorance, discomfort,
> and overcrowding.
> But it is not defined as a move toward "marketing." Who thought
> that one up, anyway? And what could they have been thinking?
Certainly life expectancy. Certainly food, health care, housing,
education and the like. So the question is, who or what produces
those things and who gets them? Democratic capitalism is as
much an oxymoron as autocratic communism. Either the wealthy buy
power or the powerful take wealth. Democratic welfare state is
more like it, because the people of some nations actually believe
in education, and a safety net for the old, infirm, or simple
victims of fate, at the price of taking from the haves if need be.
The real question is should economic decision making be
concentrated in the few or the many? Who has the power to make
investments, loans, whatever you want to call them? The new
kings and their feudal aristocracy? What is this money commanding
a nation's people to make? Plastic boobs and peach fuzzed pates?
Because there's no profit in supporting education and research?
That's EXACTLY what capitalism has given us. Make a profit or
die, doesn't matter if you're a financial institution, health
care provider, technology researcher, or supermarket tabloid.
Investment banks can't retain the power to invest in socially
beneficial projects if they don't turn a profit. The dollar bill
voted them into office and will vote them out again with a snap
of its Almighty finger. We are slaves to paper.
------------
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread.
-- Anatole France
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: Keynes' Biggest Mistake: The Snapshot Fallacy
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 22:10:50 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Steve Conover, Sr. wrote:
> Don't forget social organization. Western democratic capitalism
> has fostered wealth creation better than any other form so far.
"Wealth" creation? As defined by marketing? We could also say
autocratic communism produced lots of wealth simply by using
propaganda to make everyone love their leaders. Instead of an
ounce of yellow rock worth hundreds of dollars, they have an
emperor worth billions. Both sides eventually believe their
own mindcontrol... it always happens under censorship.
If communication defines poverty, then poverty is the lack of
control over communication.
-------------
Don't believe everything you hear. Don't believe everything you say.
-S. Beattie
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.labor-unions
Subject: Re: Keynes' Biggest Mistake: The Snapshot Fallacy
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 21:52:01 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Steven Hales wrote:
> > It isn't just a matter of excess inventory, it's a matter of excessive
> > production *capacity*. Someone mentioned (here?) that Ford built
> > extra capacity in Germany so they could ignore labor demands in
> > the U.S. A specific case well known to me is the semiconductor
> > industries penchant for hastily increasing production capacity in
> > a boom time, then finding itself in deep trouble in the next recession.
> Sure, fixed costs can be a problem when plants are idled. But what's
> your point? We have been running at about full capacity in the high
> eighty percent range for quite some time. Our last recession during the
> Gulf War was mild and we are not likely to have a downturn like the
> recession of 1980 or 1982 in the near to mid-term future. We consume
> almost 90% of what we produce. Foreign markets are relatively
> unimportant to us. Japan is so dependant on foreign markets that if we
> sneeze they get the flu. The whole rest of the industrial world has
> been in a sluggish growth mode since 1991 and won't pull out of it for a
> few more years. There is excess capacity in Europe and Asia but it
> won't effect us because we import so little.
And so the question is, is this a good thing? The fact that
science increases production is a good thing. The fact that
we or other nations are able to produce more than ever is a
good thing. The fact that imports (that is, real wealth
coming in) hurts an economy by creating unemployment and an
associated drop in standard of living is stupid. If real
wealth is coming in why are people being hurt? The answer
is that the economy is stupid. If your son brings home a
loaf of bread, are you suddenly unable to eat dinner?
-----------
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.
2.9.97 This simple stuff.
4.9.97 Printing money and mining gold.
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,sci.econ,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.politics.economics,alt.society.labor-unions,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Antidote to the Debt Virus
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 01:20:36 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Robert Sturgeon wrote:
> > At some point
> > in history, the ruler of some empire decided s/he was going to
> > use gold to mint coins. Why? Because it was easy to identify
> > and difficult to duplicate. The exact same can be said of
> > today's printed currency.
> Printed currency (today's included) difficult to duplicate? Tell that
> to the Germans, circa 1923. All they need do is crank up the presses,
> and add zeros if they really want some action.
Again, tell that to the same "economists" circa 1942. All they need
do is dig gold fillings out of the teeth of concentration camp
victims. It's typical capitalist self-delusion. Wealth is created
NEITHER by printing money NOR digging up gold. Wealth is created by
human labor, or machine labor. You can waste human labor digging up
gold just as easily as you can waste machine labor printing money.
How different is a gold rush from printing money? Inflation in both
cases. One lowers the value of gold with respect to bread, the other
lowers the value of paper money with respect to bread.
> > Two societies
> > land on 2 planets. One goes right to agriculture and building
> > shelter, inventing numbers along the way. The other says, "Hey
> > wait, don't we need to go dig up yellow rocks first before we
> > can trade food for housing?" THINK man, THINK!
> If I don't agree with you, I'm not thinking? Do you know of any
> society, anywhere, that mined gold before it built shelter and gathered
> food? What is your point? We disagree as to the best arrangements for
> currency.
Why EVER mine gold if it already has a form of currency? And how
much do you mine? It's the same question as how much currency to
print. Basing the value of a dollar on gold is almost as circular
as basing the value of quarters on dimes - it's just one form of
currency for another. Whether it's gold, paper money, or electronic
inventions is not the point. The point is whether the government
(or Gold Mining Corp) uses that to buy existing products, thereby
raising prices, OR instead uses it to hire idle machine/human
labor to create MORE products or research easier ways to make
those products.
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,sci.econ,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.politics.economics,alt.society.labor-unions,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Antidote to the Debt Virus
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 16:59:13 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Robert Sturgeon wrote:
> Gold differs from paper in that you can change the claimed value of
> paper money by merely changing the printing on it.
> Gold differs from pyrite and lead in that it is much scarcer and much
> more valuable per unit of weight.
So scarcity determines value? Would you rather have a pound of
greater Himalayan yak shit or a gallon of water? At some point
in history, the ruler of some empire decided s/he was going to
use gold to mint coins. Why? Because it was easy to identify
and difficult to duplicate. The exact same can be said of
today's printed currency. The difference is in the effort
needed to keep your economy going. "Inventing numbers" is the
whole point, so we DON'T have to waste time doing useless
things just to have a unit of monetary exchange. Two societies
land on 2 planets. One goes right to agriculture and building
shelter, inventing numbers along the way. The other says, "Hey
wait, don't we need to go dig up yellow rocks first before we
can trade food for housing?" THINK man, THINK!
> We don't HAVE to base a currency on some arbitrary rock. Your last
> point sums it up- if we can "just invent numbers," meaning if the
> government can just invent numbers, the government can inflate the
> currency at will. The non-stupidity of using a real material as a basis
> for a currency is that the government cannot arbitrarily inflate the
> amount available. The reason people have, throughout history, used real
> things as repositories of wealth is that their value cannot be
> arbitrarily destroyed by third parties, including governments.
Good, arbitrary destruction is bad. So we prevent the
government from inventing numbers for no reason. Shall we
also pass laws making it illegal to mine gold? Shall we
also pass laws making it illegal to pick up gold if you happen
to find some in the forest? Numbers, paper, random rocks: there's
NOTHING THERE. What IS there is the production ability of a
society and how that society decides what to produce and how to
distribute what it produces. A government, a bank, an investment
firm can make these decisions autocratically or democratically,
with large scale inequality or small scale inequality. THAT is
the difference.
----------
We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don't know . . . and those
who don't know they don't know. - John Kenneth Galbraith
From: "J. Hancock" cyu@geocities.com
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,sci.econ,alt.politics.economics,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Antidote to the Debt Virus
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 1997 21:27:12 -0700
Organization: Dark Side of the Rainbow
Robert Sturgeon wrote:
> The BIG difference between wheat and gold is not just that gold is more
> compact. Warehouse certificates could satisfy the need for compactness
> and portability. Gold does not rot or get eaten by pests (other than
> tax collectors). And an ounce of pure gold is exactly like any other
> ounce of pure gold. Wheat is variable- one bushel is not necessarily
> equal to any other bushel. The "wheat standard" would have to include a
> long and detailed specification as to moisture content, protein content,
> milling qualities, variety, foreign matter, etc. Gold is gold. Gee, I
> thought people already knew this simple stuff.
But how is gold different from paper money? Or pyrite? Or lead?
All are compact, and none spoil. All equally useful as a means
of representing wealth, representing wheat, or representing
labor. BUT they are NOT wealth, nor wheat, NOR labor. If we
drill for oil to use as an energy source, that's great. At
least it has a use. If we mine for gold, or pyrite, or lead
as a decoration, that's fine too. But if we have to base a
currency on first digging up some arbitrary rock, that's pure
stupidity. With today's technology, we don't even have to
print paper money anymore. We can just invent numbers on
computers.
-------------
Old Economist: "If you eat shit I'll give you $20,000!" Young Economist
runs his optimization problem and figures out he's better off eating it
and collects his money. Young Economist: "If YOU eat shit I'll give YOU
$20,000." Old Economist evaluates the proposal and eats it. Young
Economist: "We both have the same amount of money we had before, but I
don't see us being better off." Old Economist: "That's true, but you
overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade."
From: Caesar@augur.demon.co.uk (Caesar)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Exploitation - What is it and Why Should we Care?
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 97 14:18:15 GMT
Organization: Pompeii
In article EFFJA9.355@mv.mv.com David@Winslow.mv.com "David Winslow" writes:
> Well big blocks of votes can bully the minority and big government can
> bully the business man but how does the busines man bully? If he buys me
> out, I will be glad to sell. If he fires me, I really don't wish to work
> for him anyway. If he cuts his price below mine as a competitor, that is
> all part of the game business people knowingly willingly play.
In the same vein, it could be argued that government doesn't
bully you because you can always emigrate to get away from it.
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Caesar@augur.demon.co.uk
"Today is the tommorrow that you worried about yesterday"
----------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism,alt.anarchism,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: socialistic whinings...
Organization: Netcom
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 20:32:33 GMT
In article 5tpmu8$94m@panix2.panix.com, G*rd*n gcf@panix.com wrote:
>However, in a capitalist system, the profits of the company
>ultimately depend on the extraction of surplus labor value
>-- capital sitting in a room by itself does nothing. A
>company which constantly downsizes is putting itself out of
>business, as a good many have found out -- the essence of
>business, in capitalism, is hiring people and finding or
>creating profitable work for them to do. I'm always amazed
>when the stock market rewards layoffs -- it's a sign of
>doom.
I think that many of the ultracapitalists are guilty of a naive
sort of rationalism here (a common vice, it must be said).
One can make the argument that such things would not happen
without there being a good reason for that, but one can also argue that
politicians always make the best possible decisions, or else they would
not get elected.
--
Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
Mirrored at: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pe/petrich/home.html
From: Caesar@augur.demon.co.uk (Caesar)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.socialism,alt.anarchism,alt.flame.right-wing-conservatives,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy,alt.fan.noam-chomsky
Subject: Re: socialist lie
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 97 08:50:17 GMT
Organization: Pompeii
In article 34090699.69761395@news.lava.net jhavok@antibot.stuff.lava.net "James R. Olson, jr." writes:
> jamesd@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> ->Caesar@augur.demon.co.uk (Caesar) wrote:
> ->> Tell that to the Irish of the 1840s. 1.5 million of them starved because
> ->> of the enforcement of capitalist private property rights.
> ->Funny, I thought they starved because of the potato virus.
> Ah, I understand now! When people starve in China, it's because of
> SOCIALISM. When people starve in the British Empire, it's because of
> a POTATO VIRUS. How could I have missed that?
The Irish and Chinese famine issues are IMO examples of libertarian
double standards. They say: "Of course, the British laissez-faire
capitalist regime wasn't to blame for the famine - even though it
could have stopped it". But they also say, "Because it didn't
stop the famine when it could have, the evil communists in China
caused the famine".
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Caesar@augur.demon.co.uk
"Today is the tommorrow that you worried about yesterday"
----------------------------------------------------------
CJohnYu.96@alum.mit.edu
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