Free market economics vs. Keynesian economics

What is this "monopoly of land" ?

Some societies did not have any concept of ownership of land, is that what you mean?

I asked before for specific examples of this that need to be abolished in your POV.

 

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The claim of ownership over vast stretches of land by a body of politicians that we call the "government", even though they have not done anything at all in order to derive authority over that land. They have not worked it, nor done anything else; all they have to back their claim is brute force.

Ownership of land is a heated debate among the libertarian community.

Personally, I do not feel that land is something that can be "owned", but it can be acquired to the exclusion of others for private use and enjoyment. This is fine, as long as the "owner" of this land pays the property tax, or land "rent", back to the community

Buildings are a different matter, of course; buildings are the product of labor, and thus they are property. Since land was not created by any one, it cannot be "property". However, an artificial island, for example, would be property.

However, even though it cannot be property, you must have some mechanism for ensuring that individuals can have private enjoyment of the land, otherwise you lack any foundation for the estates of men, and their homes, and their farms and their liberties.

Any interference by the government that is not done to prevent fraud, murder, theft, and other acts of aggression.

 

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For the third time: Give a few SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of government's "immoral" interference with people's freedoms. (You do know what "specific examples" means, do you not?)

Perhaps you are just spouting vague meaningless phrases? We all agree that government should restrain murder, cheating, etc. but you assert it "immorally" is restraining things it should not - give specific examples.

 

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Freedom of movement inside and between the various tracts of land which the various respective states monopolize. The number of states which do not openly, proudly enforce strong, systematic, indefinite violations of the basic human right to travel where one sees fit can probably be counted on one hand.

 

Are you speaking of limitations on the number of visitors to parks?

~35 years ago, I walked across the grand cannon. I had to reserve (and pay for) a nite in the "phantom ranch" about one year in advance. The demand for simple bunk in the men's dorm was so high. I bet you need to apply three or more year in advance now. I like the first come, first served, policy when physical or environmental limitations exist. Are against this? Or speaking of something else?

There are military and other installations with very limited access to the public. For example, most of the national laboratories - I spent two summers in my student years working at LASL. You need a security clearance to work there. Are you speaking of this and against that?

You are not allowed to park your car on the run-way at Dulles Airport.

During dry periods with high fire risk many forests, both public and privately owned by paper companies etc. are closed to all.

Many large water resievours will not let you swim in them. One north of Baltimore (Loch Raven) did let me fish, but only with their rentable row boat - no gasoline motors. When all boats were rented that was it. Also you were not allowed to go on the shore for your lunch etc. all these restriction seem very reasonable and desirable parts of the "social contract" to me.

You, I know, understand what "specific examples" means. For fourth time, please give some so I will know what the hell you are complaining about.

 

So you believe in the Labor Theory of Property? The basis of the Marxist Labor Theory of Value? It was sophistry when Locke pulled it from his ass, and remains so. Just question, why labor? Why isn't first possession enough? Why is Georgism wrong? Utilitarian Property Theory? The answer is "no reason." There is no objective way to determine whether labor theory or possession theory or any other theory is objectively "better." Also, though, why only labor? Why not the use of capital to improve land? (That was somewhat of a theme for Marx, that "showed" that laborers are philosophically privileged over capitalists.)

Further thought, if everyone on Earth were hunter-gatherers (as they once were), do you think *they* would agree that a fence makes formerly free hunting/foraging land "exclusive" property? I am thinking not. "Private Property" as a so-called right is possibly (and most likely, with respect to land) thinking that took root during the agricultural revolution and lingers as a meme, but humans did not evolve to be farmers.

In a legal realist sense, rights in land come from history, and in the distant past ultimately may have come from the use of force or the threat of it (though actually just as likely some degree of common assent of the governed, who may or may not have feared the use of force depending on the circumstances). Even assuming it was force many thousands of years ago, that force is about as important to the modern state of affairs as historical slavery is to the question of how much to pay black workers.


Upset that apple cart, and I guarantee you you'll find that virtually *every* grant of land in the West ultimately traces from some grant by a sovereign, and so should be ignored. Even homesteaders and 19th century miners *bought* their land/claims from the government.

 

Here is part of a concise discussion of economic ideas in US history. It starts with the conflict between Jefferson and Hamilton on how to pay for the war of independence debts, but I jump past that and most of the panic of 1907 and begin quote sample here:

"... The era of laissez-faire government was quietly ushered in by French economist Louis Bachelier. In his "Theorie de la Speculation," published in 1900, Bachlier's simple premise that all asset prices accurately reflect all known information and are therefore correctly priced was revolutionary.

It became the mantra in the United States that, if left alone, asset prices and markets would always be self-correcting and fair (this philosophy would later be institutionalized by famed University of Chicago Prof. Eugene Fama's "Efficient Market Hypothesis"). By embracing academic conclusions that free markets were self-correcting, big business - and, more importantly, their financiers - became politically protected by legislators paid to trumpet the benefits of unfettered markets.

In the meantime, more booms and busts would ravage the U.S. economy. Asset prices weren't exactly transparent in the Panic of 1907. The manipulation of a bubble in railroad stocks burst and only the intervention of super-financier J.P. Morgan, who would force New York bankers into providing enough capital to the public to stem bank runs, would save the day.

The lesson for bankers was that they needed government help to keep themselves from undermining each other. But, they weren't looking for more regulation. They wanted less regulation - but with a bailout backstop. Six years later, in 1913, they delivered themselves the Federal Reserve Bank System.

But, the U.S. Federal Reserve didn't have the right solution for fixing the market crash of October 1929. That crash fed into the Great Depression. Big bankers didn't want to extend more credit in a bankrupt economy, so they conveniently used the political argument that the Federal Reserve should tighten credit, as loose credit conditions had led to too much speculation and the crash.

Then along came John Maynard Keynes and the 1936 publication of his "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," which became the guiding light that showed us how to get out of the dark tunnel we were in.

Keynes postulated that aggregate demand drives economic growth. And if the public couldn't facilitate demand, he said that the government should go into debt to provide the stimulus to create demand. One of Keynes' most quoted phrases states that if "the animal spirits are dimmed and spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but mathematical expectations, enterprise will fade and die." Keynes defined those animal spirits as a "spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction."

Well worth your time to read this entire link: http://moneymorning.com/2010/08/06/banana-republic/

 

The problem with free market economics is that it brings greed, If more people with money shared the values of giving and giving back that Andrew Carnagie had (although not nearly as extreme) the government would not have to stimulate a downturn economy.

 

Hello, all. I've looked but not found: has anyone defined a "free market"? Experienced one? Noted what it's free from (not government interference but which policies in particular)? Many thanks. I suspect people are lumping liberty with license, which most of us usually tend to do. If your liberty depends upon my responsibility, that'd be a different free market from "anything goes". Markets would be free, I think, if limited liability gave way to full responsibility, special-interest funding yielded to a Citizens Dividend, and taxes to dues and user fees. Make sense?

 

Never is either "pure" but it seems we are about to have a great experiment to see which helps an economy recover from recession, etc. best.

Great Britain (or England only?) has just decided to strongly cut back on government to reduce the debt. In contrast the US is sticking with the Keynesian path and strongly hinting that QE2 is about to begin.

"... The British government announced deep budget cuts Wednesday, as it tries to fight what its finance minister called "the largest structural budget deficit in Europe." It will include "ruthless privatization" and will leave "no stone unturned in our search for waste," Chancellor George Osborne told lawmakers in the House of Commons. The government will slash 490,000 jobs from the public payroll over four years, he said. ..."

Quote from: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/10/20/uk.budget.cuts/index.html?hpt=T2

If England's economy improves and the US sinks back into recession, the typical Republican POV will gain. If not, then the Democrat's POV gains.

Stay tuned for the exciting finish, but we pause now for a few months of commercials. ...

 

Whats even better is to prevent credit bubbles in the first place...bubbles no one ever complains about.

In the same way that drug addicts never complain about being high.

 

Actually George Osborne has also given the green light for the Bank of England to continue QE2 beyond the £200billion they have pumped in so far.

 

Can you give some details -indications of where the newly created money will go?

It is my understanding that the budgets of almost all government agencies are reduced some more than others, but health and defense are not. Even welfare payments to the poor are reduced and retirement age raised to 66, etc.

Perhaps you are only saying that they will print more pounds than they retire as old and worn out? If so how will the new QE2 money enter circulation or will it just be used to pay interest due on the debt and maturing bonds (Gilts if you are English) as an alternative to borrowing more to make those payments?

 

They are cutting spending. But they are also printing money because BoE is convinced it need to "support recovery". As far as I can tell they are worried about deflation big time.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...ney-an-easy-guide-to-quantitative-easing.html