Libertarian property rights & problem of original acquisition
Immortalist
Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation is
backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as morally
equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
that people have strong rights over the property that they own, rights
that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
rights? What is the connection between property rights over things and
the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
rights over things?
The Problem Of Original Acquisition
Suppose we were to trace the ownership history of some piece of
property, either in land or in some other kind of good. The object
will have a history of transfers from one owner to another. These
transfers may involve sale, trade, gift, or bequeathment, for example.
The history of an object may also involve some process of manufacture,
where the manufacturer purchases raw materials and combines them to
form a finished product, which is then sold to a customer. All of
these transfers involve a change in ownership rights from one person
to another. But how did anyone ever first come to own anything? If we
trace the ownership of any object backward in time, eventually we must
reach a point where land, or ore, or trees, or some other natural
product that was not owned by any human being comes to be owned by
someone. Strong property rights of the kind envisaged by the
libertarian give the owner of the thing complete control over the
thing, control that includes the right to prevent others from using
the thing without permission of the owner. How can this be? How can
some individual come to have exclusive rights over a part of the world
that previously was not owned by anyone at all? The idea that
individual human beings can somehow acquire ownership rights over
parts of the earth has struck many people as strange. Many of the
native American peoples believed that the land belonged to the people
as a whole for their use. A similar view, that the earth belonged in
usufruct to the living, was held by Thomas Jefferson as well.
This problem of original acquisition is important for the libertarian
in at least two ways. First, according to Nozick's libertarian theory
of justice, the justice of any distribution of goods is a function of
the history of that distribution rather than of the pattern exhibited
by that distribution. If the distribution was reached by just
transfers from justly acquired initial holdings, then and only then is
the distribution just. This account needs some theory of justice in
original acquisition. Second, libertarian complaints that taxation to
support welfare safety nets is slavery requires property rights of a
very strong kind, rights that are not in any way encumbered by social
obligations. But since transfer can only transfer rights previously
acquired, the libertarian is going to need some account of original
acquisition that yields strong property rights of the kind presupposed
by the criticism of taxation for social welfare programs. Can the
libertarian deliver?...
...Suppose you and I are hunter-gatherers living in proximity to one
another. Suppose there is a section of woods that is particularly rich
in wild fruit, berries, nuts, and small game. Now suppose I claim this
woods as my own property and forbid you to forage for food there. But
surely in doing so I damage or impede your use of the woods. After
all, before I claimed it as my personal property, you were free to use
it as you liked. Now, wouldn't this be true of all original
acquisitions? Strong private property rights of the kind claimed by
libertarians certainly do include the right of the owner to exclude
others from use of the thing. So don't all original acquisitions
damage or impede the use of the thing acquired by others?
Narveson [objects] that my claiming the woods as my own must not
damage or impede your use of "such objects." To be sure, my claim
impedes your use of this woods, but so long as there are plenty of
other woods readily available to you, you retain access to "such
objects." Here Narveson clearly has in mind a proviso that Locke
attached to his own account of original acquisition: I am entitled to
make a part of nature my own only if there be "enough and as good left
in common for others." The idea, then, is that I can make some part of
nature my own private property so long as equally good portions of
nature remain available for other people to use in common or claim as
their own. If I were to claim the only source of water in the area as
my own, I would be violating the proviso, while if I claim an acre of
land, leaving plenty more available, I would not.
There is a certain reasonableness to the Lockean proviso. Clearly, if
I claim the only source of water as my own, I seriously damage your
interests in a way that I do not when I claim the single acre as my
own, leaving you with ample land for your own use. But can the
libertarian go along with Locke, as Narveson appears to do? Prior to
any act of original acquisition you were at liberty to cross this
piece of land. Now I claim this piece of land as my own. You are no
longer at liberty to cross this piece of land. By my own unilateral
action I have canceled your right to cross this piece of land. That
there is as much and as good left over should not be relevant for the
libertarian, for whom the right to liberty is inviolable.
There is also a regress problem that seems to render the Lockean
proviso unsatisfiable. Nozick provides a clear formulation of the
problem:
Consider the first person Z for whom there is not enough and as good
left to appropriate. The last person Y to appropriate left Z without
his previous liberty to act on an object, and so worsened Z's
situation. So Y's appropriation is not allowed under Locke's proviso.
Therefore the next to last person X to appropriate left Y in a worse
position, for X's act ended permissible appropriation. Therefore X's
appropriation wasn't permissible. But then the appropriator two from
last, W, ended permissible appropriation and so, since it worsened X's
position, W's appropriation wasn't permissible. And so on back to the
first person A to appropriate a permanent property right.15
If satisfaction of the Lockean proviso is necessary for just
acquisition, and if, as the regress argument seems to show, it cannot
have been satisfied in the real world, where enough and as good is
clearly not available for future appropriation, then it seems to
follow that no actual property rights can be acceptable.
Modern Political Philosophy by Richard Hudelson
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Political-Philosophy-Explorations/dp/0765600226/
http://tinyurl.com/ModPolitPhlosophy
hal
<reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
Interesting. Kind of shoots the legs out from under the libertarians
claim of inalienable private property rights, don't it? Thanks for
posting.
Beam Me Up Scotty
> On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:24:36 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
> <reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>
> Interesting. Kind of shoots the legs out from under the libertarians
> claim of inalienable private property rights, don't it? Thanks for
> posting.
I need some furniture, I'll be over later to pick up what ever I want,
later. You don't own it, that means it belongs to the people and I want it.
--
ZerkonXXXX
> How do we come to have property rights over things?
> Suppose we were to trace the ownership history...
Ok, suppose we do.
Property rights are historically based upon force.
Who has the most force can claim a right to the most property but this
became unworkable after a while. It was too dependent upon local
destruction, local wars, local petty division and a basic human repulsion
towards these when done locally.
Enter contract law of the kingdom. Enter a government that then made,
interpreted and enforced these contracts. Enter common tax to pay for all
this.
The thug king and his gang of nobles (ie prized fighters) became
protectors and tax rich, not needing to work the land they controlled
only protect the people who actually did the work. Add church and
suddenly all this power becomes Divine by a will and right of a chosen
god. Remove the god, extortion.
A counter 'force', of sorts, was also evolving over this entire time. It
was a force of thought, a philosophy which culminated and had a peak in
the middle 1700 to early 1800's.
One result of this was a very new and quite liberal notion that a person
was free to own for the simple reason that they were a human and not
because they were 'noble' and ordained by a church or only had the brute
force to do so.
It was this idea which evolved over thousands of years in hundreds of
forms by millions of people which 'gave' today's Libertarians their
rights. The fact that much land was also 'free' at the time did not hurt
matters at all. Now that this is no longer the case and has not been for
a couple hundred years now, neither is 'free to own'.
Speaking of FREE ownership, if you are in debt, you do not own and do not
have ownership liberty. You can keep others from using it, be charged tax
for it, like a serf, but it is not yours.
Fred Weiss
> The Problem Of Original Acquisition
There is no problem.
What happened centuries ago hardly matters any more. The original
victims, whomever they may be, are obviously no longer around. Nor can
their descendants make any claims since their own distance from the
original events are too long ago and tenuous at best (even apart from
the total lack of a moral issue any longer).
We can take it as a given that much original property was acquired by
force, most of it perhaps even immorally by today's standards. So
what?
The distance of time has given all owners ample opportunity to either
earn - or lose - their titles. (That is, of course, assuming a free
market in the trade of property, rather than title by birth, e.g.
aristocracy).
What is important is that (1) now rights and title be clear and (2)
that events in the distance past gives no one alive today any moral or
legal claims.
There are in fact some real issues relevant here, e.g. the return of
property from Nazi and/or Communist confiscation. That is recent
enough so that even original owners - or perhaps their immediate
descendants - might have legitimate claims. But even that can be
complicated. So trying to go back even further into the distant past
is obviously absurd on its face.
Fred Weiss
1Z
> There are in fact some real issues relevant here, e.g. the return of
> property from Nazi and/or Communist confiscation. That is recent
> enough so that even original owners - or perhaps their immediate
> descendants - might have legitimate claims. But even that can be
> complicated. So trying to go back even further into the distant past
> is obviously absurd on its face.
Maybe you could be more explicit about where the line is drawn.
Indegeneous people have had entire countries taken from them
well within recorded history.
John Stafford
<d430bc45-5694-44f7...@l33g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
Fred Weiss <fred...@papertig.com> wrote:
> [...]
> What is important is that (1) now rights and title be clear and (2)
> that events in the distance past gives no one alive today any moral or
> legal claims.
Would your opinion change if I could show you that some people alive
today are physically disadvantaged because their land was taken by force
two hundred years ago?
*Anarcissie*
My understanding is that there are people living today
who have been deprived of their countries as well as their
personal property. In fact, I doubt if there has been a year
in the last several thousand when that sort of thing didn't
happen somewhere.
AZDuffman
> In article
> <d430bc45-5694-44f7-9a63-63544d441...@l33g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
> Fred Weiss <fredwe...@papertig.com> wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > What is important is that (1) now rights and title be clear and (2)
> > that events in the distance past gives no one alive today any moral or
> > legal claims.
>
> Would your opinion change if I could show you that some people alive
> today are physically disadvantaged because their land was taken by force
> two hundred years ago?
Someone alive today was alive 200 years ago and is thus
disadvantaged? YES, please show us that one.
Fred Weiss
> In article
> Would your opinion change if I could show you that some people alive
> today are physically disadvantaged because their land was taken by force
> two hundred years ago?
They would also have to be mentally "disadvantaged" to not have
overcome by now whatever setbacks their ancestors experienced.
Let's not forget that 10's of millions of immigrants came to this
country, often with not much more then the clothes on their backs, and
still managed to prosper.
Japanese-Americans had property taken from them during WW11 but within
a generation they became either the highest or one of the highest
earning groups in the country.
All the rest is excuses.
Fred Weiss
AZDuffman
Yes, and Asian-Americans are among the staunchest GOP supporters.
Maybe there is a correlation between not listening to leftarded
democrats telling you "you can't make it" and making it?
hal
<srduf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Oct 28, 3:45=A0pm, Fred Weiss <fredwe...@papertig.com> wrote:
>> On Oct 28, 2:17=A0pm, John Stafford <n...@droffats.ten> wrote:
>>
>> > In article
>> > Would your opinion change if I could show you that some people alive
>> > today are physically disadvantaged because their land was taken by forc=
>e
>> > two hundred years ago?
>>
>> They would also have to be mentally "disadvantaged" to not have
>> overcome by now whatever setbacks their ancestors experienced.
>>
>> Let's not forget that 10's of millions of immigrants came to this
>> country, often with not much more then the clothes on their backs, and
>> still managed to prosper.
>>
>> Japanese-Americans had property taken from them during WW11 but within
>> a generation they became either the highest or one of the highest
>> earning groups in the country.
>
>Yes, and Asian-Americans are among the staunchest GOP supporters.
liar
>Maybe there is a correlation between not listening to leftarded
>democrats telling you "you can't make it" and making it?
>
The Democrats made gains among the Asian American population starting
with 1996 and in 2006, won 62% of the Asian American vote. This is due
to demographic shifts in the Asian American community, with growing
numbers of well-educated Chinese American and Indian American
immigrants that are typically economic centrists and social
progressives, and newer generations of more liberal Vietnamese
American and Filipino American youth have also began to replace older
more conservative generations that have voted reliably Republican.
Vietnamese Americans still vote mostly Republican (though this has
lessened recently), while Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans,
Indian Americans, Southeast Asian Americans other than Vietnamese, and
Pacific Islander Americans have voted mostly Democratic. Filipino
Americans, Korean Americans, and Pakistani Americans have recently
begun to lean Democratic. Younger Asian-Americans of all ethnic
backgrounds aged 18�30 have gravitated towards the Democratic Party in
the last few elections.
Michael Coburn
> hal wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:24:36 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
>> <reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>>
>> Interesting. Kind of shoots the legs out from under the libertarians
>> claim of inalienable private property rights, don't it? Thanks for
>> posting.
>
>
> I need some furniture, I'll be over later to pick up what ever I want,
> later. You don't own it, that means it belongs to the people and I want
> it.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
If the PRODUCER of the owned _stuff_ has paid for the raw materials
needed to produce the stuff (the furniture in this case) then the
furniture is "rightful" private property as it is now separate and
distinct from nature and the result of a person's labor. As it turns
out, the raw materials may well be naturally reproduced and not even
diminished by the taking. It is _PRODUCTION_ that makes _stuff_ a
candidate for rightful ownership. All naturally occurring _stuff_ has no
labor component, is the commons, and is rightfully accessible and usable
by all until there is a scarcity problem (the Lockean proviso). The
scarcity problem results in what is called "rent" and it is a natural
result of population in a FIXED natural world.
http://www.greatervoice.org/essays/LaborTheoryOfCost.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent#Land_rent
--
"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson
Michael Coburn
> On Oct 27, 9:24 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> The Problem Of Original Acquisition
>
> There is no problem.
>
> What happened centuries ago hardly matters any more. The original
> victims, whomever they may be, are obviously no longer around. Nor can
> their descendants make any claims since their own distance from the
> original events are too long ago and tenuous at best (even apart from
> the total lack of a moral issue any longer).
This is the "conservative view". I own it now and fuck you. It matters
not that you never entered into any contract or agreement that would have
set aside your rights to naturally occurring land. My great grand daddy
screwed yours out of the land rights and tough shit for you. And as you
can see we are absolutely NOT all created equal with regard to liberty
and pursuit of happiness. I did not earn what I own, but that is
irrelevant because I own it and you don't. Tough Shitsky.
> We can take it as a given that much original property was acquired by
> force, most of it perhaps even immorally by today's standards. So what?
You think you own that stolen car cause your daddy gave it to you or
because you paid good money for it?
> The distance of time has given all owners ample opportunity to either
> earn - or lose - their titles. (That is, of course, assuming a free
> market in the trade of property, rather than title by birth, e.g.
> aristocracy).
However, that is what inheritance is and it should not matter anyway.
Natural resources should no be privately owned. They are not even
"owned" in common. But that sort of relationship is all the conservative
rightarded can understand and so it is the only means of communication
with a propertarian.
> What is important is that (1) now rights and title be clear and (2) that
> events in the distance past gives no one alive today any moral or legal
> claims.
That is a religious position without righteous merit or even an economic
justification.
> There are in fact some real issues relevant here, e.g. the return of
> property from Nazi and/or Communist confiscation. That is recent enough
> so that even original owners - or perhaps their immediate descendants -
> might have legitimate claims. But even that can be complicated. So
> trying to go back even further into the distant past is obviously absurd
> on its face.
>
> Fred Weiss
As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of ownership
as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
Michael Coburn
That is a two edged sword. The rights to an object that existed 200
years ago cannot have been earned by anyone living today.
Fred Weiss
> As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of ownership
> as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
Fred proudly advocates private property and consider it essential for
the common good.
Some of us learned something from the 20th Cent. when private property
was absent or attacked. Clearly, you learned nothing.
Fred Weiss
Zinnic
dog.com> wrote:
> hal wrote:
> > On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:24:36 -0700 (PDT), Immortalist
> > <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>
> > Interesting. Kind of shoots the legs out from under the libertarians
> > claim of inalienable private property rights, don't it? Thanks for
> > posting.
>
> I need some furniture, I'll be over later to pick up what ever I want,
> later. You don't own it, that means it belongs to the people and I want it.
>
John Stafford
<1f8f6b73-c17c-4b9d...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Zinnic <zeen...@gate.net> wrote:
Been there, done that. Had lots of acres with a peninsula sticking out
into a lake. Dynamite is your friend. (Lots and lots of it.)
Rod Speed
> Beam Me Up Scotty <Then-Destroy-Everyth...@Talk-n-dog.com> wrote
>> hal wrote
>>> Immortalist <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote
>>>> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>>> Interesting. Kind of shoots the legs out from under the libertarians
>>> claim of inalienable private property rights, don't it? Thanks for posting.
>> I need some furniture, I'll be over later to pick up what ever I want, later.
>> You don't own it, that means it belongs to the people and I want it.
> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land !!
Its just harder. The whole of HongKong's new airport is on newly made land.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land !!
Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land
valuable is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a
product of labor as furniture.
Michael Coburn
Nit, nit, nit, nit. Nit pick by nit wit.
Michael Coburn
Sure it is! And the moon is made of green cheese produced in Wisconsin.
Mark M.
> On Oct 28, 11:23 pm, Michael Coburn <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of ownership
>> as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>
> Fred proudly advocates private property and consider it essential for
> the common good.
Which is more important, the private good or the common good?
Mark M.
Coffee's For Closers
says...
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:32 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
> > On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:44:55 -0700 (PDT), Zinnic <zeen...@gate.net>
> > wrote:
> >> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land !!
> > Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land valuable
> > is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a product of
> > labor as furniture.
> Sure it is! And the moon is made of green cheese produced in Wisconsin.
So how do you explain the difference between the cost a land in
remote areas, versus land in cities?
Why is an acre of ground space forty miles outside of Smallville,
Montana, cheaper than an acre of ground space in New York City?
Do you really think that has nothing to do with the amount of
human labour put into those environments?
--
Get Credit Where Credit Is Due
http://www.cardreport.com/
Credit Tools, Reference, and Forum
Les Cargill
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:32 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:44:55 -0700 (PDT), Zinnic <zeen...@gate.net>
>> wrote:
>>> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land !!
>> Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land valuable
>> is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a product of
>> labor as furniture.
>
> Sure it is! And the moon is made of green cheese produced in Wisconsin.
>
Land *rent* is a product of social-capital value added and
access to goods and services. It is human-generated.
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
There is no common good. There may only be goods in common.
The private. Oxygen is the ultimate private good.
--
Les Cargill
Beam Me Up Scotty
> Michael Coburn wrote:
>> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:32 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:44:55 -0700 (PDT), Zinnic <zeen...@gate.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land !!
>>> Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land valuable
>>> is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a product of
>>> labor as furniture.
>>
The land is worth the same, it's the location that becomes more valuable.
Bottom land nowhere near people is worth more than desert nowhere near
people.
It will raise more food. The people have zero to do with the difference.
>> Sure it is! And the moon is made of green cheese produced in Wisconsin.
>>
>
> Land *rent* is a product of social-capital value added and
> access to goods and services. It is human-generated.
>
> --
> Les Cargill
--
James A. Donald
<Then-Destro...@Talk-n-dog.com> wrote:
James A. Donald:
> >>> Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land valuable
> >>> is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a product of
> >>> labor as furniture.
Beam Me Up Scotty
> The land is worth the same, it's the location that becomes more valuable.
Exactly so. The same land located in the middle of nowhere is worth
only a hundred dollars or so.
Rod Speed
> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:19:27 -0400,
> <Then-Destro...@Talk-n-dog.com> wrote:
>
> James A. Donald:
>>>>> Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land
>>>>> valuable is other people and what they have made. Land is as
>>>>> much a product of labor as furniture.
>
> Beam Me Up Scotty
>> The land is worth the same, it's the location that becomes more
>> valuable.
> Exactly so.
Nope, its only roughly so.
> The same land located in the middle of nowhere is worth only a hundred dollars or so.
That varys considerably with the type of land. Desert land isnt worth
much compared with good agricultural land, even when both are in the
middle of nowhere, particularly with high value crops like opium etc.
Gold bearing land in spades.
Michael Coburn
> In article <hcct6...@news6.newsguy.com>, mik...@verizon.net says...
>
>> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:32 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>> > On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:44:55 -0700 (PDT), Zinnic <zeen...@gate.net>
>> > wrote:
>> >> Pretty weak! You can make your own furniture. Try making some land
>> >> !!
>
>
>> > Land that is far from people is pretty cheap. What makes land
>> > valuable is other people and what they have made. Land is as much a
>> > product of labor as furniture.
>
>
>> Sure it is! And the moon is made of green cheese produced in
>> Wisconsin.
>
>
> So how do you explain the difference between the cost a land in remote
> areas, versus land in cities?
Lets make sure we understand the language before we go any further. You
would do well to grasp the labor theory of "cost". For labor is the only
coin with which any honest man can pay.
http://www.greatervoice.org/essays/LaborTheoryOfCost.php
But your question is well addressed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent#Land_rent
And more specifically addressed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_Th%C3%BCnen
And the reality of all of this is simply that land rent (what you see as
price or value) is always reflective of population both proximate and
total. We leave aside _WHY_ people want to _USE_ some location and
concentrate on the reality that all locations are up for bid. The more
bidders there are then the higher the rent will be.
> Why is an acre of ground space forty miles outside of Smallville,
> Montana, cheaper than an acre of ground space in New York City?
Already answered.
> Do you really think that has nothing to do with the amount of human
> labour put into those environments?
Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But a lot in the burbs is valued
based, not on the labor of a land owner, but on the labor of those who
built whatever it is that entices people to the particular locale. The
location and the land is naturally occurring and has no cost. It is just
"there".
Rod Speed
Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.
No surprise that the best it ever managed is truck driver, for a while.
Zinnic
> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:47:29 -0800, Coffee's For Closers wrote:
>
> >> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:50:32 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
>
present populations. Future populations are unable to make a bid for
ownership so land purchase (for eternity?) is as unfair as is inside
trading.
So called 'ownership' of land should entitle the 'owners' to the
right of first refusal to pay to renew their leaseholds, or to be
recompensed at the discretion of the population that confers value on
the land.
IMO this is not Socialism but the communalism exemplified by mutual
agreements to pay for community services.
Zinnic
Mark M.
> Mark M. wrote:
>> Fred Weiss wrote:
>>> On Oct 28, 11:23 pm, Michael Coburn <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of
>>>> ownership
>>>> as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>>>
>>> Fred proudly advocates private property and consider it essential for
>>> the common good.
>>
>> Which is more important, the private good or the common good?
>>
>> Mark M.
>
> There is no common good. There may only be goods in common.
Proving the negative, eh, Les?
To do that you must show there is no possible condition, physical environment,
knowledge, tool, technology, that has ever existed or ever could exist that
could be a universal boon to humankind or even a boon to a specific inclusive
community of humans that happen to inhabit a particular geographical area.
Not one.
How will you prove it?
>
> The private. Oxygen is the ultimate private good.
To prove the negative you have to list every possible common good and prove that
in every particular case there is at least one person who does not benefit. And
no fair counting people who are doing things counter-productive to the common
good concept.
For example, you can't say a crime free environment is a common bad for a criminal.
Let's see the proof.
Mark M.
*Anarcissie*
> Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But a lot in the burbs is valued
> based, not on the labor of a land owner, but on the labor of those who
> built whatever it is that entices people to the particular locale. The
> location and the land is naturally occurring and has no cost. It is just
> "there".
There is also the cost of keeping other people off the land,
that is, propertizing it and defending the property as such.
That could include military and police operations.
Les Cargill
> Les Cargill wrote:
>> Mark M. wrote:
>>> Fred Weiss wrote:
>>>> On Oct 28, 11:23 pm, Michael Coburn <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of
>>>>> ownership
>>>>> as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>>>>
>>>> Fred proudly advocates private property and consider it essential for
>>>> the common good.
>>>
>>> Which is more important, the private good or the common good?
>>>
>>> Mark M.
>>
>> There is no common good. There may only be goods in common.
>
> Proving the negative, eh, Les?
>
> To do that you must show there is no possible condition, physical
> environment, knowledge, tool, technology, that has ever existed or ever
> could exist that could be a universal boon to humankind or even a boon
> to a specific inclusive community of humans that happen to inhabit a
> particular geographical area.
>
> Not one.
>
> How will you prove it?
There is no collective anything, only individuals. Public
goods are explicitly nonrival and nonexcludable, the common
*weal* is a social construct of language only. And the common
weal is not what people mean by "the common good".
QED.
>>
>> The private. Oxygen is the ultimate private good.
>
> To prove the negative you have to list every possible common good and
> prove that in every particular case there is at least one person who
> does not benefit. And no fair counting people who are doing things
> counter-productive to the common good concept.
>
> For example, you can't say a crime free environment is a common bad for
> a criminal.
>
We pay taxes to support the criminal justice system. The benefits are
just as private as any other good.
> Let's see the proof.
>
> Mark M.
See away.
--
Les Cargill
Fred Weiss
The private good. Because without it there will be no common good. As
soon as the individual is sacrificed for the common good, there will
no longer be any common good. There will only be "the good" of the
sacrificers, of those collecting the sacrifices.
The recognition - and protection - of individual rights was an
enormous achievement of mankind. After the 20th Cent. we should have
learned where its rejection will lead.
Fred Weiss
Fred Weiss
> Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But a lot in the burbs is valued
> based, not on the labor of a land owner, but on the labor of those ...
Labor is not the basis for value. We've been over this before.
Fred Weiss
Michael Coburn
That is beside the point. The value of a lot in the burbs has nothing to
do with anything the owner of the lot might have done in his capacity of
"owner" of the lot. If there have been "improvements" in the surrounding
area then labor was most certainly performed to produce the improvements.
And it is these "improvements" produced by others that add value to the
lot.
Strabo
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:23:36 -0700, Fred Weiss wrote:
>
>> On Oct 27, 9:24� pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The Problem Of Original Acquisition
>> There is no problem.
>>
>> What happened centuries ago hardly matters any more. The original
>> victims, whomever they may be, are obviously no longer around. Nor can
>> their descendants make any claims since their own distance from the
>> original events are too long ago and tenuous at best (even apart from
>> the total lack of a moral issue any longer).
>
> This is the "conservative view". I own it now and fuck you. It matters
> not that you never entered into any contract or agreement that would have
> set aside your rights to naturally occurring land. My great grand daddy
> screwed yours out of the land rights and tough shit for you. And as you
> can see we are absolutely NOT all created equal with regard to liberty
> and pursuit of happiness. I did not earn what I own, but that is
> irrelevant because I own it and you don't. Tough Shitsky.
>
Equal ends where it begins - at birth.
You were created equal to others by your creator. You have equal
capacity for awareness and all have inalienable rights.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
*created equal*, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness."
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
- The Declaration of Independence.
"Rational expectations or common good" is code for redistribution
of wealth.
If he has property you can:
- take it by force;
- pay for it;
- use democracy to legalize a band of criminals to take it by force.
Either pay the owner/holder or kill him.
Strabo
Either the common good is the consensual condition of all individuals,
or, a "common good" is imposed by an authoritarian.
Rod Speed
>>>> As you can see, Fred is hopelessly ensnared in justification of
>>>> ownership as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>>> Fred proudly advocates private property and consider it essential for the common good.
>> Which is more important, the private good or the common good?
Mindlessly superficial question, both are obviously important.
> The private good. Because without it there will be no common good.
That is just plain wrong.
> As soon as the individual is sacrificed for the common good,
Doesnt have to sacrificed for the common good.
> there will no longer be any common good.
Wrong, as always.
> There will only be "the good" of the sacrificers, of those collecting the sacrifices.
Wrong, as always. Most obviously what happens in wartime.
> The recognition - and protection - of individual rights was an enormous achievement of mankind.
Yes.
> After the 20th Cent. we should have learned where its rejection will lead.
Yeah, winning world wars etc.
Rod Speed
> Fred Weiss wrote
>> Michael Coburn <mik...@verizon.net> wrote
>>> Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. But a lot in the burbs is valued
>>> based, not on the labor of a land owner, but on the labor of those
>> Labor is not the basis for value. We've been over this before.
> That is beside the point. The value of a lot in the burbs has
> nothing to do with anything the owner of the lot might have
> done in his capacity of "owner" of the lot. If there have been
> "improvements" in the surrounding area then labor was most
> certainly performed to produce the improvements. And it is
> these "improvements" produced by others that add value to the lot.
Wrong, most obviously with the difference in good bottom land and desert land.
Or land with oil under it and land with nothing useful under it.
Michael Coburn
> Michael Coburn wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:23:36 -0700, Fred Weiss wrote:
>>
It is "code" for rightful privatization versus equal use rights.
> If he has property you can:
>
> - take it by force;
>
> - pay for it;
>
> - use democracy to legalize a band of criminals to take it by force.
>
> Either pay the owner/holder or kill him.
You seem to totally misunderstand the DCI and the concept of "rightful
property". You begin as all rightarded do and insist that simple
possession is rightful ownership. As above:
"If he has property". For you that is the beginning of all things.
You seem to believe that there is no contradiction in regard to the DCI
and natural resources such as oil or land.
That is a case of cognitive dissonance.
Strabo
> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:23:12 -0500, Strabo wrote:
>
>> Michael Coburn wrote:
>>> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:23:36 -0700, Fred Weiss wrote:
>>>
Not at all. As you travel through the universe you will find property
which may or may not be controlled by others. That is the condition -
land, water, etc., is either 'owned' by some entity or it is not. If it
is you can ask to buy or share. Make a deal. If refused you must force
him to relent or move along.
It's that simple.
darwinist
> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>
> with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation is
> backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as morally
> equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
> slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
> that people have strong rights over the property that they own, rights
> that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
> that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
> rights? What is the connection between property rights over things and
> the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
> rights over things?
>
> The Problem Of Original Acquisition
>
> property, either in land or in some other kind of good. The object
> will have a history of transfers from one owner to another. These
> transfers may involve sale, trade, gift, or bequeathment, for example.
> The history of an object may also involve some process of manufacture,
> where the manufacturer purchases raw materials and combines them to
> form a finished product, which is then sold to a customer. All of
> these transfers involve a change in ownership rights from one person
> to another. But how did anyone ever first come to own anything? If we
> trace the ownership of any object backward in time, eventually we must
> reach a point where land, or ore, or trees, or some other natural
> product that was not owned by any human being comes to be owned by
> someone. Strong property rights of the kind envisaged by the
> libertarian give the owner of the thing complete control over the
> thing, control that includes the right to prevent others from using
> the thing without permission of the owner. How can this be? How can
> some individual come to have exclusive rights over a part of the world
> that previously was not owned by anyone at all? The idea that
> individual human beings can somehow acquire ownership rights over
> parts of the earth has struck many people as strange. Many of the
> native American peoples believed that the land belonged to the people
> as a whole for their use. A similar view, that the earth belonged in
> usufruct to the living, was held by Thomas Jefferson as well.
>
> This problem of original acquisition is important for the libertarian
> in at least two ways. First, according to Nozick's libertarian theory
> of justice, the justice of any distribution of goods is a function of
> the history of that distribution rather than of the pattern exhibited
> by that distribution. If the distribution was reached by just
> transfers from justly acquired initial holdings, then and only then is
> the distribution just. This account needs some theory of justice in
> original acquisition. Second, libertarian complaints that taxation to
> support welfare safety nets is slavery requires property rights of a
> very strong kind, rights that are not in any way encumbered by social
> obligations. But since transfer can only transfer rights previously
> acquired, the libertarian is going to need some account of original
> acquisition that yields strong property rights of the kind presupposed
> by the criticism of taxation for social welfare programs. Can the
> libertarian deliver?...
>
> ...Suppose you and I are hunter-gatherers living in proximity to one
> another. Suppose there is a section of woods that is particularly rich
> in wild fruit, berries, nuts, and small game. Now suppose I claim this
> woods as my own property and forbid you to forage for food there. But
> surely in doing so I damage or impede your use of the woods. After
> all, before I claimed it as my personal property, you were free to use
> it as you liked. Now, wouldn't this be true of all original
> acquisitions? Strong private property rights of the kind claimed by
> libertarians certainly do include the right of the owner to exclude
> others from use of the thing. So don't all original acquisitions
> damage or impede the use of the thing acquired by others?
>
> Narveson [objects] that my claiming the woods as my own must not
> damage or impede your use of "such objects." To be sure, my claim
> impedes your use of this woods, but so long as there are plenty of
> other woods readily available to you, you retain access to "such
> objects." Here Narveson clearly has in mind a proviso that Locke
> attached to his own account of original acquisition: I am entitled to
> make a part of nature my own only if there be "enough and as good left
> in common for others." The idea, then, is that I can make some part of
> nature my own private property so long as equally good portions of
> nature remain available for other people to use in common or claim as
> their own. If I were to claim the only source of water in the area as
> my own, I would be violating the proviso, while if I claim an acre of
> land, leaving plenty more available, I would not.
>
> There is a certain reasonableness to the Lockean proviso. Clearly, if
> I claim the only source of water as my own, I seriously damage your
> interests in a way that I do not when I claim the single acre as my
> own, leaving you with ample land for your own use. But can the
> libertarian go along with Locke, as Narveson appears to do? Prior to
> any act of original acquisition you were at liberty to cross this
> piece of land. Now I claim this piece of land as my own. You are no
> longer at liberty to cross this piece of land. By my own unilateral
> action I have canceled your right to cross this piece of land. That
> there is as much and as good left over should not be relevant for the
> libertarian, for whom the right to liberty is inviolable.
>
> There is also a regress problem that seems to render the Lockean
> proviso unsatisfiable. Nozick provides a clear formulation of the
> problem:
>
> Consider the first person Z for whom there is not enough and as good
> left to appropriate. The last person Y to appropriate left Z without
> his previous liberty to act on an object, and so worsened Z's
> situation. So Y's appropriation is not allowed under Locke's proviso.
> Therefore the next to last person X to appropriate left Y in a worse
> position, for X's act ended permissible appropriation. Therefore X's
> appropriation wasn't permissible. But then the appropriator two from
> last, W, ended permissible appropriation and so, since it worsened X's
> position, W's appropriation wasn't permissible. And so on back to the
> first person A to appropriate a permanent property right.15
>
> If satisfaction of the Lockean proviso is necessary for just
> acquisition, and if, as the regress argument seems to show, it cannot
> have been satisfied in the real world, where enough and as good is
> clearly not available for future appropriation, then it seems to
> follow that no actual property rights can be acceptable.
>
> Modern Political Philosophy by Richard Hudelsonhttp://www.amazon.com/Modern-Political-Philosophy-Explorations/dp/076...http://tinyurl.com/ModPolitPhlosophy
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
Clave
news:2ce65a71-0bc7-499f...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
<...>
> Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
> if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
> of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
> of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
> facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
> standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
> frequencies. I could go on.
Libertarianism makes you stupid.
http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
Jim
John Galt
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly), but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
JG
Rod Speed
Wrong, as always.
> Whenever any of these systems are tried in heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
The mix of capitalism and socialism seen in EVERY modern state doesnt.
> All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great
> if....?"
The mix of capitalism and socialism seen in EVERY modern state isnt.
> In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes, and neither approach works.
> They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is possible to have a political class that will work
> in the best interests of a populace, rather than themselves;
Mindlessly silly.
> and also to point out that there is such a thing as economic freedom;
Corse there is for most of us.
> if 100% taxation is perfect slavery,
You dont tax slaves, fool.
> the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the less personal liberty one has.
More utterly mindless silly stuff.
> Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always good for you, are you?
Having fun thrashing that straw man ?
darwinist
> > if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
> > of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
> > of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
> > facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
> > standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
> > frequencies. I could go on.
>
> You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
> but
> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
> All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
> will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
>
> In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
> They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
> possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
> of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
> is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
> slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
> less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time
> Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
> good for you, are you?
Of course not.
> JG
(David P.)
> "darwinist" <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Libertarian theory has problems which would quickly appear
> > if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
> > of road/communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies,
> > de-facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food/drug safety
> > standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
> > frequencies. I could go on.
>
> Libertarianism makes you stupid.
>
> http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
Seth Finkelstein - anagram
****************
See the skinflint.
****************
.
.
--
Clave
news:0e57f526-bd17-474c...@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
Wow. What must that MEAN?
Jim
Michael Gordge
> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>
> Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
> with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps.
Tax is legalized theft, end of story.
> Such a view rests upon the assumption
> that people have strong rights over the property that they own,
You breath your air, you digest your food, your actions can not begin
without your mind, you therefore are the owner of the results of those
actions, end of story.
MG
John Galt
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
>
>> but
>> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
>> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
>> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
>> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
>
> Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
> libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
> address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
>
>> All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
>> will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
>>
>> In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
>
> Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
> except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
>
>> They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
>> possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
>> of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
>> is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
>> slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
>> less personal liberty one has.
>
> On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
> than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
> since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
> time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
>
>> Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
>> good for you, are you?
>
> Of course not.
*Whew*.
JG
>
>> JG
darwinist
> darwinist wrote:
> > On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> darwinist wrote:
> >>> Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
> >>> if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
> >>> of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
> >>> of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
> >>> facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
> >>> standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
> >>> frequencies. I could go on.
> >> You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
>
> > Which ones are they?
>
> Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
> become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
> that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
> depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
> selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
>
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
>
> >> but
> >> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
> >> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
> >> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
> >> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
>
> > Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
> > libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
> > address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
>
> I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
> I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
> inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
> economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
> free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
> up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
> of government.
>
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
> >> All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
> >> will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
>
> >> In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
>
> > Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
> > except eggs and bananas.
>
> Quite so.
>
>
> >> They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
> >> possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
> >> of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
> >> is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
> >> slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
> >> less personal liberty one has.
>
> > On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
> > than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
> > since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
> > time.
>
> I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
> none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
> the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening. There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
market. IOW: State capitalism.
John Galt
> On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> darwinist wrote:
>>> On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> darwinist wrote:
> [...]
>>>>> Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
>>>>> if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
>>>>> of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
>>>>> of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
>>>>> facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
>>>>> standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
>>>>> frequencies. I could go on.
>>>> You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
>>> Which ones are they?
>> Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
>> become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
>> that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
>> depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
>> selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
>>
>
> Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
>
>>>> but
>>>> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
>>>> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
>>>> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
>>>> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
>>> Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
>>> libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
>>> address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
>> I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
>> I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
>> inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
>> economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
>> free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
>> up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
>> of government.
>>
>
> Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
> depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
> I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
> role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
> property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
> taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
>
>>>> All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
>>>> will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
>>>> In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
>>> Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
>>> except eggs and bananas.
>> Quite so.
>>
>>
>>>> They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
>>>> possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
>>>> of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
>>>> is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
>>>> slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
>>>> less personal liberty one has.
>>> On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
>>> than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
>>> since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
>>> time.
>> I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
>> none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
>> the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
>
> What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
> free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
> case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
> taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be optional,
IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales taxes levied
only on materials over and above subsistence products. It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
> at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
> it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
> market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
competitors.
JG
darwinist
How might you fund the police and armed forces, if taxes are
voluntary?
Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
> >>>> but
> >>>> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
> >>>> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
> >>>> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
> >>>> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
> >>> Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
> >>> libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
> >>> address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
> >> I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
> >> I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
> >> inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
> >> economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
> >> free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
> >> up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
> >> of government.
>
> > Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
> > depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
> > I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
> > role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
> > property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
> > taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
>
> That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
> with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
> to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
>
Good to know.
Why tax products but not income or property? Earning an income above
the tax-free threshhold, or owning land is also voluntary.
> It would be
> possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
> using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
> foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
> nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
> would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
> to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
>
> There is a way to substitute
>
> > at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
> > it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
> > market. IOW: State capitalism.
>
> Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
> almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
> marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
> competitors.
Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks, venture-
capital, general investment funds. I think it's short-sighted to rule
them out because they require tax-funding to start with. In the long
run they can - and often do - decrease the proportion of government
funding that comes from tax.
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
John Galt
They're use taxes and sales taxes on all goods which are nonsubsistence.
If you want to live anything over subsistence, you're paying them. Most
states already exempt subsistence goods from sales taxation, so you'd be
collecting at least as much as you are today. I don't think there'd be
much trouble collecting enough for police and fire; you'd certainly be
able to work out a defensive armed forces as well. Would there be enough
to fund an armed forces large enough to maintain hegemonic control over
the entire world and fend off a Klingon attack force, as we do today?
Unlikely, but who needs it? (Libertarians trend neutral/isolationist.)
>
> Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
> others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a way
to cut deals so everyone wins.
I think doing so would be perfectly in keeping with the basic philosophy.
>
>> It would be
>> possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
>> using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
>> foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
>> nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
>> would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
>> to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
>>
>> There is a way to substitute
>>
>>> at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
>>> it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
>>> market. IOW: State capitalism.
>> Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
>> almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
>> marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
>> competitors.
>
> Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
> few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
> or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
> examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks, venture-
> capital, general investment funds. I think it's short-sighted to rule
> them out because they require tax-funding to start with. In the long
> run they can - and often do - decrease the proportion of government
> funding that comes from tax.
There are definitely certain areas that can tolerate state-ownership
better than others. However, it's a complicated matter.
I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
TMobile, etc).
In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
(Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
that forever.
>
> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
> from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
JG
Rod Speed
That almost always is just plain wrong. Plenty of examples of profitable state capitalism.
> Free marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own competitors.
Pity they dont when they are profitable. They object to them anyway.
Rod Speed
Then you need to get out more. Australia's Telstra's profit
leaves all the rest of its competitors COMBINED for dead.
Singtel isnt getting the shit kicked out of it by its competitors either.
> The state-owned structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a status-quo mentality where the way to
> earn more revenues was to ask for a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind in building
> up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
That isnt universal either. In spades with Telstra and Singtel.
> India's a particularly interesting case.
India has one hell of a capacity to completely fuck up all sorts of things.
> They had two state-run companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market to competition in the
> late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
> now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The public players have been unable to keep up; they
> survive by providing bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses.
And that has not happened with Telstra or Singtel or the Japanese either.
> Bharti charges a premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on the tax coffers,
Telstra was a massive contributer to the tax
coffers before it was sold off. Singtel in spades.
> but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market
> and ignore the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly competitive with the high-value competitors.
What matters is whether they are a drain on the tax system or not.
> Same story, though --- India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies cohabiting the peninsula
> else see the larger and poorer one stay like that forever.
>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it makes with with the capital it's already got, the
>> less it has to take from private businesses and personal incomes.
> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
But not with the libertarians being discussed.
> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
Thats a lie.
Les Cargill
> darwinist wrote:
>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
>> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
>> from private businesses and personal incomes.
>
> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
>
> JG
>
>
If it made a profit, government probably wouldn't be
doing it to start with. Government is not the
source of innovation, in general.
Things like fire departments, police departments
have evolved to be public. And defense of land
claims (which includes "provide for the common defense" )
is the reason we have government at all.
--
Les Cargill
Rod Speed
> John Galt wrote
>> darwinist wrote
>>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it makes with with the capital it's already got,
>>> the less it has to take from private businesses and personal incomes.
>> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me. The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical
>> case.
> If it made a profit, government probably wouldn't be doing it to start with.
Wrong with hordes of telcos.
> Government is not the source of innovation, in general.
Doesnt need to be to make a profit.
> Things like fire departments, police departments
> have evolved to be public. And defense of land claims (which includes "provide for the common defense" )
> is the reason we have government at all.
Irrelevant to what is being discussed, whether some govt operations are profitable.
Michael Coburn
It's that stupid. You are talking about "possession" as opposed to
"ownership". But even so, what makes your proposition "righteous"?
Michael Gordge
>
> It's that stupid.
It was closer to the facts of reality than anything ewe have ever
posted here.
> You are talking about "possession" as opposed to
> "ownership".
He was not.
> But even so, what makes your proposition "righteous"?
The non-righteous scumbags are those who support anti-ownership
therefore anti-human invented crimes, e.g. the non-payment of tax,
drug laws, gun licensing laws, minimum wage laws, tariffs, duty.
MG
Mark M.
> Mark M. wrote:
>> Les Cargill wrote:
>>> Mark M. wrote:
>>>> Fred Weiss wrote:
>>>>>> ownership
>>>>>> as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>>>>>
>>>>> the common good.
>>>>
>>>> Which is more important, the private good or the common good?
>>>>
>>>
>>> There is no common good. There may only be goods in common.
>>
>> Proving the negative, eh, Les?
>>
>> To do that you must show there is no possible condition, physical
>> environment, knowledge, tool, technology, that has ever existed or
>> ever could exist that could be a universal boon to humankind or even a
>> boon to a specific inclusive community of humans that happen to
>> inhabit a particular geographical area.
>>
>> Not one.
>>
>> How will you prove it?
>
> There is no collective anything, only individuals. Public
> goods are explicitly nonrival and nonexcludable, the common
> *weal* is a social construct of language only. And the common
> weal is not what people mean by "the common good".
>
> QED.
What QED? You give declarative statements without support. Where is the
syllogism that includes a major premise, minor premise, and conclusion that
answers the points I made above.
It could go something like this:
Major Premise: Since....blah, blah, blah
Minor Premise: And since....blah, blah, blah
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no common good.
QED
Just fill in the blahs.
The major premise could be something like,"Since humans do not inhabit the same
environment," or "Since humans don't have similar bodies and desires."
Mark M.
darwinist
Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the larger
companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
tactics to drive the others out of business, in this case by over-
powering the other's transmissions. I predict you'd get a monopoly
quickly, at least in each region.
Fair enough.
It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
and encourage competition and in the third case a lot of (remote)
people miss out or fall behind on new services because there is no
longer a public company to ensure universal service. At least that's
how it progressed in Australia. I haven't looked into the details of
other countries, but I expect this is not a unique case.
> India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
> companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
> to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
> (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
> now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
> public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
> bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
> premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
> the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
> around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
> the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
> that forever.
>
By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
useful service at the same time then even better.
>
> > The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
> > makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
> > from private businesses and personal incomes.
>
> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
it's not worth ruling it out. Such investments would include banking,
venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
it's profitable.
I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
the organisation in question.
Nart
No it doesn't. Because its a monopoly that very rarely happens.
> and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
> since what choice do people have),
Few telcos do much R&D.
> in the second case they make money
That is the main situation where they can lose money, because they don't compete as well.
> and encourage competition
It's the non govt operations that do that.
> and in the third case a lot of (remote) people miss
> out or fall behind on new services because there is no
> longer a public company to ensure universal service.
Universal service can be mandated legally even when there is no govt operation.
And can be served quite adequately via satellite etc too.
> At least that's how it progressed in Australia.
Like hell it did. Telecom produced a MASSIVE 'dividend' for the govt
every single year before any of it was sold off. That ended up at a
billion bucks a year just before the first tranche was sold off.
And we still have a universal service obligation even when its fully privatised too.
> I haven't looked into the details of other countries,
Have a look at Singtel sometime.
> but I expect this is not a unique case.
It isn't.
>> India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
>> companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their
>> market to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian
>> conglomerates (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel
>> (owned by Bharti) now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to
>> 200m by 2014. The public players have been unable to keep up; they
>> survive by providing bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian
>> masses. Bharti charges a premium for premium services. The public
>> companies are a net drain on the tax coffers, but in the Indian case
>> it's not a bad call keeping them around, since the privates would
>> focus on the high-end market and ignore the villages, where there is
>> little or no wireline.
> Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed
> only to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're
> only mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
That is wrong too, again, most obviously with Telecom/Telstra and Singtel.
>> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
>> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
>> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
>> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
>> that forever.
> By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
> successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
> entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
> only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
> useful service at the same time then even better.
Yes, but the most rabid libertarians hate that sort of thing.
>>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
>>> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to
>>> take from private businesses and personal incomes.
>> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with
>> me. The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
> Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
> inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
> government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
> profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
> it's not worth ruling it out. Such investments would include banking,
> venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
> have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
> owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare,
> and it's profitable.
Yes, but the industry would work fine without it.
> I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
> competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
> the organisation in question.
It's much more complicated than that. It really depends on how well
served the particular industry is. Some are so competitive that no
one can make much money, most obviously with the airline industry.
Its those very difficult to make money in areas where govt operations
tend to lose money, just because of the way they operate.
John Galt
If you do, you move against it; since libertarianism requires a free
market perspective, it cannot logically oppose anti-monopoly regs, since
monopolies subvert free markets.
Haven't seen this in practice.
and in the third case a lot of (remote)
> people miss out or fall behind on new services because there is no
> longer a public company to ensure universal service. At least that's
> how it progressed in Australia. I haven't looked into the details of
> other countries, but I expect this is not a unique case.
Probably not, but not all countries are like Australia (or India, for
that matter). It would be hard to have remote people lose out on a
service in Belgium, for example.
>
>> India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
>> companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
>> to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
>> (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
>> now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
>> public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
>> bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
>> premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
>> the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
>> around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
>> the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
>
> Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
> to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
> mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
They were originally designed to be profitable, but the objective
changed to public utility after it was clear that they were unable to
compete.
>
>> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
>> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
>> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
>> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
>> that forever.
>>
>
> By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
> successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
> entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
> only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
> useful service at the same time then even better.
The government can do whatever it pleases as long as it doesn't fund the
public competitor with the taxes of the private competitors. If that
occurs, all you have is a welfare program.
>
>>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
>>> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
>>> from private businesses and personal incomes.
>> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
>> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
>
> Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
> inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
> government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
> profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
> it's not worth ruling it out.
I would suggest (having done years of business with both public and
private) that there is an inherent difference in the mindset of the
public and the private employee. A very common joke in sales is to never
schedule a meeting that could run long in a government entitty at 4PM.
At 5PM, everyone walks out the door, even if you're in mid sentence. Not
so in the private entity.
Such investments would include banking,
> venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
> have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
> owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
> it's profitable.
>
> I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
> competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
> the organisation in question.
Again, history has far more examples of government companies losing
money than the reverse.
JG
darwinist
> darwinist wrote:
> > On Nov 2, 12:56 am, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> darwinist wrote:
> >>> On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> darwinist wrote:
> >>>>> On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>> darwinist wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>> darwinist wrote:
[...]
> >>> Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
> >>> others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
> >> If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a way
> >> to cut deals so everyone wins.
>
> > Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the larger
> > companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
> > tactics to drive the others out of business, in this case by over-
> > powering the other's transmissions. I predict you'd get a monopoly
> > quickly, at least in each region.
>
> If you do, you move against it; since libertarianism requires a free
> market perspective, it cannot logically oppose anti-monopoly regs, since
> monopolies subvert free markets.
>
If it's a known (I would say inevitable) problem, wouldn't it be more
efficient to prevent it than to counter it? After all it's not like
the available bandwidth is unpredictable or variable the way a market
is. You can release more of it for public use of course, but the
resource itself is of a known and fixed quantity.
[...]
>
> >> I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
> >> my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
> >> divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
> >> hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
> >> today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
> >> independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
> >> TMobile, etc).
>
> >> In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
> >> is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
> >> structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
> >> status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
> >> a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
> >> in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
>
> > It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
> > monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
> > market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
> > company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
> > since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
> > and encourage competition
>
> Haven't seen this in practice.
Well you need look no further than the example I cited. There was a
period between opening up the market to competition, and privatising
the government-owned player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra
> and in the third case a lot of (remote)
>
> > people miss out or fall behind on new services because there is no
> > longer a public company to ensure universal service. At least that's
> > how it progressed in Australia. I haven't looked into the details of
> > other countries, but I expect this is not a unique case.
>
> Probably not, but not all countries are like Australia (or India, for
> that matter). It would be hard to have remote people lose out on a
> service in Belgium, for example.
Fair point
> >> India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
> >> companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
> >> to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
> >> (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
> >> now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
> >> public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
> >> bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
> >> premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
> >> the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
> >> around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
> >> the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
>
> > Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
> > to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
> > mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
>
> They were originally designed to be profitable, but the objective
> changed to public utility after it was clear that they were unable to
> compete.
I'd appreciate any references you've got, but from my cursory
research, here are two public indian telcos that have a positive net-
income.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTNL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
> >> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
> >> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
> >> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
> >> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
> >> that forever.
>
> > By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
> > successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
> > entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
> > only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
> > useful service at the same time then even better.
>
> The government can do whatever it pleases as long as it doesn't fund the
> public competitor with the taxes of the private competitors. If that
> occurs, all you have is a welfare program.
It has to get the startup capital from somewhere, but as for
*continued* funding from tax-revenue, I agree. Then it's just
corporate welfare, which is possibly the worst kind of welfare.
> >>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
> >>> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
> >>> from private businesses and personal incomes.
> >> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
> >> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
>
> > Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
> > inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
> > government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
> > profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
> > it's not worth ruling it out.
>
> I would suggest (having done years of business with both public and
> private) that there is an inherent difference in the mindset of the
> public and the private employee. A very common joke in sales is to never
> schedule a meeting that could run long in a government entitty at 4PM.
> At 5PM, everyone walks out the door, even if you're in mid sentence. Not
> so in the private entity.
I'd agree for public-service departments, but that's a very different
beast from a for-profit business who just happen to have the
government as their majority, controlling or even sole shareholder.
> > Such investments would include banking,
>
> > venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
> > have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
> > owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
> > it's profitable.
>
> > I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
> > competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
> > the organisation in question.
>
> Again, history has far more examples of government companies losing
> money than the reverse.
>
> JG
We don't need the word "government" in that sentence. History has far
more examples of companies losing money than the reverse. To my mind
this is an argument (public or private) to get it right, by learning
from past mistakes and taking a sensible approach. It's not an
argument to dismiss the endeavour, especially when it's a way to
reduce the proportion of funding taken through tax.
Bret Cahill
In that case centuries from now no one will care if today's landowners
are guillotined.
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
> > as opposed to rational expectations or common good.
>
> Fred proudly advocates private property
Land ain't private property.
Read a little Jefferson starting with the DoI.
Bret Cahill
Strabo
> darwinist wrote:
>> On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> darwinist wrote:
>>>> On Oct 28, 12:24 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
>>>>> Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
>>>>> with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation is
>>>>> backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as morally
>>>>> equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
>>>>> slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
>>>>> that people have strong rights over the property that they own, rights
>>>>> that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
>>>>> that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
>>>>> rights? What is the connection between property rights over things and
>>>>> the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
>>>>> rights over things?
>>>>>
>>>> Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
>>>> if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
>>>> of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
>>>> of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
>>>> facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
>>>> standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
>>>> frequencies. I could go on.
>>> You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
>>
>> Which ones are they?
>
> Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
> become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
> that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
> depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
> selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
>
Calvin doesn't apply.
No coercion. Libertarians simply deny the power and legitimacy to coerce
others. In other words, government so minimal that citizens must protect
themselves in some cases.
>>
>>> but
>>> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
>>> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
>>> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
>>> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather
>>> quickly.
>>
>> Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
>> libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
>> address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
>
> I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
> I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
> inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
> economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
> free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
> up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
> of government.
>
Libertarians would not allow the artificial entity of the corporation.
That alone would prevent/eliminate many economic and political problems.
<snipped>
John Galt
Not in my reading, but if you want a heated discussion on the principles
of ideologic libertarianism, you've come to the wrong guy. Milton
Friedman never would have taken that position, to name one writer
usually associated with libertarian views.
JG
>
>
>>>
>>>> but
>>>> there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
>>>> "problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
>>>> fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
>>>> heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather
>>>> quickly.
>>>
>>> Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
>>> libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
>>> address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
>>
>> I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at but
John Galt
I'ts always more efficient to prevent, but proactivity isn't something
that government does particularly well; and when they try, they often
get it wrong, with unintended consequences.
>
> [...]
>>>> I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
>>>> my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
>>>> divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
>>>> hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
>>>> today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
>>>> independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
>>>> TMobile, etc).
>>>> In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
>>>> is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
>>>> structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
>>>> status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
>>>> a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
>>>> in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
>>> It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
>>> monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
>>> market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
>>> company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
>>> since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
>>> and encourage competition
>> Haven't seen this in practice.
>
> Well you need look no further than the example I cited. There was a
> period between opening up the market to competition, and privatising
> the government-owned player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra
I am well aware of Telstra, not just from the outside, but from the
inside as well. It is a the prototypic example of the post-regulatory
dinosaur, and they are more lucky than smart that entering the
Australian market is unusually expensive for the more innovative
competitors that will eventually remove those profits from them. Unless
they streamline, they are unlikely to be making money in the future, and
any frank discussion with a Telstra representative (which I have had)
will tell you no different.
I don't have any others in mind, but I'd check the profit trends over
time on these companies.
>
>>>> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
>>>> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
>>>> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
>>>> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
>>>> that forever.
>>> By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
>>> successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
>>> entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
>>> only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
>>> useful service at the same time then even better.
>> The government can do whatever it pleases as long as it doesn't fund the
>> public competitor with the taxes of the private competitors. If that
>> occurs, all you have is a welfare program.
>
> It has to get the startup capital from somewhere, but as for
> *continued* funding from tax-revenue, I agree. Then it's just
> corporate welfare, which is possibly the worst kind of welfare.
Quite.
>
>>>>> The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
>>>>> makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
>>>>> from private businesses and personal incomes.
>>>> If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
>>>> The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
>>> Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
>>> inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
>>> government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
>>> profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
>>> it's not worth ruling it out.
>> I would suggest (having done years of business with both public and
>> private) that there is an inherent difference in the mindset of the
>> public and the private employee. A very common joke in sales is to never
>> schedule a meeting that could run long in a government entitty at 4PM.
>> At 5PM, everyone walks out the door, even if you're in mid sentence. Not
>> so in the private entity.
>
> I'd agree for public-service departments, but that's a very different
> beast from a for-profit business who just happen to have the
> government as their majority, controlling or even sole shareholder.
It can be. If you're simply talking about government hands-off
investment in a private endeavor, you're quite right. However, as we've
seen from the US banking investments, governments aren't particularly
good at keeping their hands off management once they've made an
investment, as they believe the fact that they've used "taxpayer funds"
gives them a moral high ground.
>
>>> Such investments would include banking,
>>> venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
>>> have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
>>> owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
>>> it's profitable.
>>> I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
>>> competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
>>> the organisation in question.
>> Again, history has far more examples of government companies losing
>> money than the reverse.
>>
>> JG
>
> We don't need the word "government" in that sentence. History has far
> more examples of companies losing money than the reverse. To my mind
> this is an argument (public or private) to get it right, by learning
> from past mistakes and taking a sensible approach. It's not an
> argument to dismiss the endeavour, especially when it's a way to
> reduce the proportion of funding taken through tax.
If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also
remove the "booms." I'm personally not interested in living in any
nation that has removed the risk out of living.
JG
James A. Donald
> companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
> tactics to drive the others out of business,
You are a moron.
Suppose company A sells ten times as much as company B. To drive
company B out of business, it lowers its prices to make a loss - but
oops, it is making ten times as much loss as company B.
There is no such thing as predatory pricing, there is just government
intervention against the consumer.
Rod Speed
That is very arguable indeed. While the country is larger than most
modern first world countrys, it is also one of the most urbanised
modern first world countrys outside europe, with the absolute vast
bulk of the population concentrated in the strip from BizVegas thru to
Adelaide, to that claim that its unusually expensive is just plain wrong.
> Unless they streamline, they are unlikely to be making money in the future,
And that is just plain silly. They make MUCH more profit than ALL THE
REST OF THEIR COMPETITORS COMBINED. VASTLY more in fact.
> and any frank discussion with a Telstra representative (which I have had) will tell you no different.
He either didnt have a clue or you heard only what you wanted to hear.
He wasnt talking about doing either, just rubbing your nose in the fact that
your claims about profit from govt operations is true in spades of private ones.
The mindset difference is real, but the profit claim isnt.
> I'm personally not interested in living in any
> nation that has removed the risk out of living.
Having fun thrashing that straw man ?
Rod Speed
> darwinist wrote
>> Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the
>> larger companies can lose money in the short term in order
>> to use dirty tactics to drive the others out of business,
> You are a moron.
Wota stunningly rational line of argument you have there.
> Suppose company A sells ten times as much as company B. To
> drive company B out of business, it lowers its prices to make a
> loss - but oops, it is making ten times as much loss as company B.
Mindlessly superficial. It doesnt have to lose ten times
as much as company B to put it out of business.
> There is no such thing as predatory pricing,
Bare faced pig ignorant lie.
> there is just government intervention against the consumer.
Bare faced pig ignorant lie.
*Anarcissie*
> ...
> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also
It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
them out through government intervention was thought of.
For those who own much, there is little to be gained by
taking chances. The situation, the behaviors, suggest
pathology.
James A. Donald
<anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
> them out through government intervention was thought of.
> For those who own much, there is little to be gained by
> taking chances.
How do you think they got to own much?
Rod Speed
> John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote
>> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also remove the "booms." ...
> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
> them out through government intervention was thought of.
It did. The USSR never saw the great depression.
> For those who own much, there is little to be gained by taking chances.
Yes, but you're taking one hell of a chance trying that route.
> The situation, the behaviors, suggest pathology.
Or just thats the way things work.
James A. Donald
Millions died of hunger in the USSR while the US was having the great
depression.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed wrote
>>>> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also remove the "booms." ...
>>> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
>>> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
>>> them out through government intervention was thought of.
>> It did. The USSR never saw the great depression.
> Millions died of hunger in the USSR
Not during the great depression they didnt.
And that wasnt due to a depression either.
> while the US was having the great depression.
Utterly mangled all over again.
Rod Speed
> Anarcissie <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote
>> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
>> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
>> them out through government intervention was thought of.
>> For those who own much, there is little to be gained by
>> taking chances.
> How do you think they got to own much?
By fucking over their competition. Thats not taking chances.
Gates didnt take any chances either.
John Galt
The answer is in Vegas.
The human creature consistently believes that their individual abilities
will permit them to navigate the treacherous waters of the investment
markets with better success than average. Research shows this to be
untrue, as the level of knowledge and sophistication required to make it
so is either (1) beyond the ability of the average person to learn, or
(2) once learned, the time involved to be successful is beyond that of
the average person to give.
That doesn't mean we don't want the chance to do so, however.
JG
James A. Donald
wrote:
Rod Speed wrote
> >> The USSR never saw the great depression.
James A. Donald
> > Millions died of hunger in the USSR
"Rod Speed"
> Not during the great depression they didnt.
The worst of the great depression was the US around 1932-33 - the
Ukraine famine.
> And that wasnt due to a depression either.
They would have much preferred a depression.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> James A. Donald wrote:
>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>> Anarcissie wrote
>>>>> John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also remove the "booms." ...
>>>>> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
>>>>> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
>>>>> them out through government intervention was thought of.
>>>> It did. The USSR never saw the great depression.
>>> Millions died of hunger in the USSR
>> Not during the great depression they didnt.
> The worst of the great depression was the US around 1932-33 - the Ukraine famine.
Pity about the rest of the USSR that saw no famine at that time.
>> And that wasnt due to a depression either.
> They would have much preferred a depression.
Irrelevant to what is being discussed, whether the USSR saw the great depression.
James A. Donald
> >>> Millions died of hunger in the USSR
> >> Not during the great depression they didnt.
> > The worst of the great depression was the US around 1932-33 - the Ukraine famine.
> Pity about the rest of the USSR that saw no famine at that time.
People were starving, and often dying of hunger, everywhere in Russia
- just not dying in such huge numbers.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> James A. Donald wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> James A. Donald wrote:
>>>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>>>> Anarcissie wrote
>>>>>>> John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>>>> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also remove the "booms." ...
>>>>>>> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
>>>>>>> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
>>>>>>> them out through government intervention was thought of.
>>>>>> It did. The USSR never saw the great depression.
>>>>> Millions died of hunger in the USSR
>>>> Not during the great depression they didnt.
>>> The worst of the great depression was the US around 1932-33 - the Ukraine famine.
>> Pity about the rest of the USSR that saw no famine at that time.
> People were starving, and often dying of hunger, everywhere in Russia
More of your pathological lying.
> - just not dying in such huge numbers.
AND THERE WAS NO GREAT DEPRESSION IN THE USSR.
James A. Donald
> AND THERE WAS NO GREAT DEPRESSION IN THE USSR.
The crisis in the USSR which occurred at the same time
was immensely more severe. Indeed, the greater severity
of the crisis in the Soviet Union is compelling evidence
that they were both caused by the same measures and same
ideology, applied in a more extreme fashion in the
Soviet Union.
Similarly, today Venezuelans find themselves hungry.
<http://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+%22food+shortage%22>, the
same political measures leading once again
to the same economic results.
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> James A. Donald wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> James A. Donald wrote
>>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>> James A. Donald wrote:
>>>>>>> Rod Speed wrote
>>>>>>>> Anarcissie wrote
>>>>>>>>> John Galt <kady...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>>>>>> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also remove the "booms." ...
>>>>>>>>> It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
>>>>>>>>> indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
>>>>>>>>> them out through government intervention was thought of.
>>>>>>>> It did. The USSR never saw the great depression.
>>>>>>> Millions died of hunger in the USSR
>>>>>> Not during the great depression they didnt.
>>>>> The worst of the great depression was the US around 1932-33 - the Ukraine famine.
>>>> Pity about the rest of the USSR that saw no famine at that time.
>>> People were starving, and often dying of hunger, everywhere in Russia
>> More of your pathological lying.
>>> - just not dying in such huge numbers.
AND THERE WAS NO GREAT DEPRESSION IN THE USSR.
> The crisis in the USSR which occurred at the same time was immensely more severe.
Nothing whatever to do with the BOOMS AND BUSTS being discussed, you silly little pathological liar.
> Indeed, the greater severity of the crisis in the Soviet Union is compelling
> evidence that they were both caused by the same measures and same
> ideology, applied in a more extreme fashion in the Soviet Union.
Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have
never ever had a fucking clue about anything at all, ever.
> Similarly, today Venezuelans find themselves hungry.
> <http://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+%22food+shortage%22>,
Nothing whatever to do with the BOOMS AND BUSTS being discussed, you silly little pathological liar.
> the same political measures leading once again to the same economic results.
Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have
never ever had a fucking clue about anything at all, ever.
darwinist
That's a very broad generalisation. I don't think it justifies ruling
out government-regulation so much as it justifies examining each
specific area on its merits. In the area of broadcast frequencies it's
much more practical to have the resources divided and licenced from
the start, given the inevitable problems that would arise otherwise.
>
> > [...]
> >>>> I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
> >>>> my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
> >>>> divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
> >>>> hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
> >>>> today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
> >>>> independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
> >>>> TMobile, etc).
> >>>> In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
> >>>> is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
> >>>> structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
> >>>> status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
> >>>> a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
> >>>> in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
> >>> It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
> >>> monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
> >>> market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
> >>> company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
> >>> since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
> >>> and encourage competition
> >> Haven't seen this in practice.
>
> > Well you need look no further than the example I cited. There was a
> > period between opening up the market to competition, and privatising
> > the government-owned player.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra
>
> I am well aware of Telstra, not just from the outside, but from the
> inside as well. It is a the prototypic example of the post-regulatory
> dinosaur, and they are more lucky than smart that entering the
> Australian market is unusually expensive for the more innovative
> competitors that will eventually remove those profits from them. Unless
> they streamline, they are unlikely to be making money in the future, and
> any frank discussion with a Telstra representative (which I have had)
> will tell you no different.
>
Clearly we can only speculate about the future, but I disagree. They
own so much (fixed line) infrastructure that reaches to places no-one
else reaches. Even if they were only an infrastructure company they
would make a lot of money for the foreseeable future. If they are
split up as seems likely, the infrastructure division will continue to
expand and make a profit, providing a useful service that a private
start-up is unlikely to provide due to the cost of entry that you
mentioned. As for the service company after the split, well I feel no
pity for their possible demise. The company's service has gone
steadily down-hill since privatisation, which seems typical of public
companies that privatise (e.g. the commonwealth bank).
[...]
> >>>> India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
> >>>> companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
> >>>> to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
> >>>> (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
> >>>> now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
> >>>> public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
> >>>> bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
> >>>> premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
> >>>> the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
> >>>> around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
> >>>> the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
> >>> Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
> >>> to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
> >>> mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
> >> They were originally designed to be profitable, but the objective
> >> changed to public utility after it was clear that they were unable to
> >> compete.
>
> > I'd appreciate any references you've got, but from my cursory
> > research, here are two public indian telcos that have a positive net-
> > income.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTNL
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
>
> I don't have any others in mind, but I'd check the profit trends over
> time on these companies.
>
Ok thanks for the tip, I will check it out. Still I think it's worth
nothing that they are profitable.
>
> >>>> India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
> >>>> competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
> >>>> India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
> >>>> cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
> >>>> that forever.
> >>> By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
> >>> successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
> >>> entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
> >>> only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
> >>> useful service at the same time then even better.
> >> The government can do whatever it pleases as long as it doesn't fund the
> >> public competitor with the taxes of the private competitors. If that
> >> occurs, all you have is a welfare program.
>
> > It has to get the startup capital from somewhere, but as for
> > *continued* funding from tax-revenue, I agree. Then it's just
> > corporate welfare, which is possibly the worst kind of welfare.
>
> Quite.
>
> [...]
> >> I would suggest (having done years of business with both public and
> >> private) that there is an inherent difference in the mindset of the
> >> public and the private employee. A very common joke in sales is to never
> >> schedule a meeting that could run long in a government entitty at 4PM.
> >> At 5PM, everyone walks out the door, even if you're in mid sentence. Not
> >> so in the private entity.
>
> > I'd agree for public-service departments, but that's a very different
> > beast from a for-profit business who just happen to have the
> > government as their majority, controlling or even sole shareholder.
>
> It can be. If you're simply talking about government hands-off
> investment in a private endeavor, you're quite right. However, as we've
> seen from the US banking investments, governments aren't particularly
> good at keeping their hands off management once they've made an
> investment, as they believe the fact that they've used "taxpayer funds"
> gives them a moral high ground.
>
>
I would not call the recent bailout a hands-off investment.
Nonetheless some of those "investments" have already returned a profit
for the U.S. government.
>
> >>> Such investments would include banking,
> >>> venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
> >>> have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
> >>> owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
> >>> it's profitable.
> >>> I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
> >>> competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
> >>> the organisation in question.
> >> Again, history has far more examples of government companies losing
> >> money than the reverse.
>
> >> JG
>
> > We don't need the word "government" in that sentence. History has far
> > more examples of companies losing money than the reverse. To my mind
> > this is an argument (public or private) to get it right, by learning
> > from past mistakes and taking a sensible approach. It's not an
> > argument to dismiss the endeavour, especially when it's a way to
> > reduce the proportion of funding taken through tax.
>
> If you want to remove the "busts" from the free market cycle you also
> remove the "booms." I'm personally not interested in living in any
> nation that has removed the risk out of living.
I'm not talking about removing the risk out of living, I'm just saying
that business can be worth doing despite the fact that most companies
(public or private) lose money. Rather than abandon the endeavour, I
think the better approach would be to make sure you research and plan
and learn from other people's mistakes, before starting a business.
There are plenty of examples where governments have started large,
useful, profitable companies, and I view this as a good thing.
> JG
darwinist
> On Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:26:02 -0800 (PST), darwinist
>
> > Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the larger
> > companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
> > tactics to drive the others out of business,
>
> You are a moron.
>
> Suppose company A sells ten times as much as company B. To drive
> company B out of business, it lowers its prices to make a loss - but
> oops, it is making ten times as much loss as company B.
These numbers do not add up. Company B could well be making a profit
on each unit sold, but if the volumes are too low those profits won't
cover its running costs. Company A might be making only a small loss
on its product (or breaking even) in order to undercut company B, and
they could have enough cash reserves or be making enough profits from
their other products to sustain this until company B goes broke.
They might even be covering the losses using the same product: Some
companies sell a budget-version of their product under a different
brand-name, because there are enough people loyal to the original
brand, but this way they can undercut the other players in budget
market. This works especially well with drugs where people tend to
stay with what they know and trust. If the other budget-brands go out
of business, they can stop selling their own budget brand.
> There is no such thing as predatory pricing, there is just government
> intervention against the consumer.
Speaking of government intervention: Agricultural subsidies lead to a
kind of predatory pricing. They keep local agriculture down in many
areas because it's cheaper to import subsidised goods from wealthier
countries.
Rod Speed
Not if it gets replaced by the govt's NBN, fibre optic to the premises for 90% of customers it wont.
They'll be left with the most expensive dregs.
> If they are split up as seems likely,
It remains to be seen if that will make it thru the Senate.
Looks unlikely.
> the infrastructure division will continue to expand and make a profit,
Not if the copper network gets replaced by the govt's NBN,
fibre optic to the premises for 90% of customers it wont.
They'll be left with the most expensive dregs.
> providing a useful service that a private start-up is unlikely
> to provide due to the cost of entry that you mentioned.
Yes, but that completely ignores the govt NBN.
> As for the service company after the split,
> well I feel no pity for their possible demise.
That wont happen either.
> The company's service has gone steadily down-hill since privatisation,
Like hell it has.
> which seems typical of public companies
> that privatise (e.g. the commonwealth bank).
That didnt go steadily down hill since privatisation either.
Lot easier said than done.
> There are plenty of examples where governments have started
> large, useful, profitable companies, and I view this as a good thing.
Its very arguable that that is the best approach tho.
*Anarcissie*
> On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 15:31:40 -0800 (PST), "*Anarcissie*"
>
> > It seems rather curious that that hasn't happened already,
> > indeed, hadn't happened long before the idea of evening
> > them out through government intervention was thought of.
> > For those who own much, there is little to be gained by
> > taking chances.
>
> How do you think they got to own much?
In a variety of ways; some, through chances, others, through
luck, yet others, through a long, slow process of accumulation.
That ought not matter to a rational being, or even one with a
modest amount of common sense, however.
John Stafford
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
You better believe they were dying, but not for reasons of the USA
economy. Russia had its own problems with the regime trying to kill,
outlaw, punish anyone not 'in the program'. Research the Kulaks.
John Stafford
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:32:21 +1100, "Rod Speed"
> > AND THERE WAS NO GREAT DEPRESSION IN THE USSR.
>
> The crisis in the USSR which occurred at the same time
> was immensely more severe. Indeed, the greater severity
> of the crisis in the Soviet Union is compelling evidence
> that they were both caused by the same measures and same
> ideology, applied in a more extreme fashion in the
> Soviet Union.
Bullshit. The motive of Stalin was to break the independence of farmers.
It had no fucking thing to do with anything like a capitalist economy
except to erase all nuances of initiative outside of the dictator's.
Learn up.
James A. Donald
> > The crisis in the USSR which occurred at the same time
> > was immensely more severe. Indeed, the greater severity
> > of the crisis in the Soviet Union is compelling evidence
> > that they were both caused by the same measures and same
> > ideology, applied in a more extreme fashion in the
> > Soviet Union.
John Stafford
> Bullshit. The motive of Stalin was to break the independence of farmers.
And similarly for Hoover and Roosevelt, though their measures were
considerably less extreme and their goals less grandiose.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > Suppose company A sells ten times as much as company B. To drive
> > company B out of business, it lowers its prices to make a loss - but
> > oops, it is making ten times as much loss as company B.
darwinist
> These numbers do not add up. Company B could well be making a profit
> on each unit sold, but if the volumes are too low those profits won't
> cover its running costs.
If they don't cover its running costs, it is *not* making a profit.
> Company A might be making only a small loss
> on its product (or breaking even) in order to undercut company B,
Well if company A is producing the same stuff, or better stuff,
cheaper than company B, company B damn well *should* go out of
business.
Your argument is "suppose there are economies of scale, then the
bigger company will win". Indeed it will, and should, but when you
get big enough, there are also diseconomies of scale. The bigger the
company, the more it tends to become bureaucratic and Dilbertesque.
Rod Speed
> John Stafford
>> James A. Donald:
>>> The crisis in the USSR which occurred at the
>>> same time was immensely more severe.
Pig ignorant lie.
>>> Indeed, the greater severity of the crisis in the Soviet
>>> Union is compelling evidence that they were both
>>> caused by the same measures and same ideology,
>>> applied in a more extreme fashion in the Soviet Union.
Another pig ignorant lie.
>> Bullshit. The motive of Stalin was to break the independence of farmers.
> And similarly for Hoover and Roosevelt,
Another pig ignorant lie.
> though their measures were considerably less extreme
Nothing even remotely like Stalin's in fact.
> and their goals less grandiose.
Nothing even remotely like Stalin's in fact.
Rod Speed
Only in theory. In practice there is fuck all in that between competitors producing the
same product and the economys of scale completely swamp the other effects in practice.