Question for strident capitalists...

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by cosmictotem, Apr 5, 2015.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    A strange misuse of the word. Capital does not own. Capital is something that is owned.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I was not discussing post WWII - I said that's where you seemed to be getting your description of urban jobs and life, such as the 40 hour week and burgeoning prosperity.

    Everything I posted, including the part about the economic crashes and the desperate refugees from the Confederacy, was directly addressed to the period 1890 until 1920.
    The Mennonites manage communal facilities and technology when it works, and they use technology and money freely, without the extreme restrictions of Amish practice.

    Depends on how you measure efficiency. Capitalists tend to measure the return to invested capital, without including externalized costs.

    It means owned by a quantity of capital - a hedge fund, a corporation, a partnership of investors, etc. It's called "capitalism".

    Ownership assigned to a pile of capital - a hedge fund, a large number of shares of stock, say - is the defining characteristic of capitalism.
     
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  5. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed.
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Somebody who thinks being owned and owning are mutually exclusive is going to have a really hard time figuring out what's going on in a modern industrial economy.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Side issue - I meant to provide examples of both individual and communal farming prosperity without the alleged efficiencies of the industrial operations, but my memory glitched and I posted Amish (for the individual) and Mennonites, who are not the completely communal Anabaptists I meant to reference.

    The Hutterites, were the example I meant. They farm in communes, usually referred to as colonies, and have prospered substantially despite choosing (in their desire to be left in peace) difficult and marginal farmlands in some of the harshest agricultural circumstances on the planet. (the northern and western steppe regions of North America, mostly North Dakota and Canada).

    One interesting aspect of Hutterite communities is their deliberate and calculated avoidance of indiscriminate increase in operational scale - rather than fostering growth without bound to enjoy those alleged "economies of scale", they split up colonies that get too big, more than about 150 people. Yet they work hard, and farm very efficiently, and have for a very long time now.
     
  9. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    I guess they gave up? My and your last post have yet to get responses. I can't say they ever had much of an argument than "some people will not want to participate".
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    A good example of the maximum size that a collective can reach.
     
  11. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    Maybe but notice there is no limit to how many 150 head collectives there can be.

    On a side note concerning this entire thread, through encountering similar arguments against a moneyless system in various places online, I am becoming convinced the opposition is based on ignorance of how such a system would work and an inability to visualized the effectiveness of its solutions.

    I don't want to deny some good questions and critiques have been raised here; some have certainly inspired to advance my own solutions- but there seems to be an inability to both provide and identify solutions inherent in a moneyless system to criticisms by some moneyless proponents as well as an inability of the opposition to recognize when the solution is right in front of them.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed - provided there is no commerce between them, nor need for government.
     
  13. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    I would not work (or, only as much as they can enforce with violence). As all other people too.
     
  14. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    But why would commerce between them require a government?
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    It would not. Those are two separate issues. Commerce requires a medium of exchange, and government imposes taxation which requires the same.

    As an example, the Hutterite communities use money to purchase land from an outside community (the real estate markets of the US and Canada.) That means they have to make it, which means they have industries where they sell goods to customers, collecting money in the process.
     
  16. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    If you could get a dozen or so others who want to cease using money, produce every thing they need and share equally their production, they could sell every thing they now own such a cars, private homes, TVs, computers, cameras, etc. and ALL other things they can not produce themselves to raise funds to buy some nice fertile land even within the US.*

    Problem, I think, is you and they only want to dream of living that way, not actually try it.

    * After the US's civil war ended, several thousand former slave owners, wanted to continue that life style, so they sold all they had and it was not only enough to buy some of the best agricultural land in Brazil, but dozens of slaves. That area is now in and around the city called "Americana." - It is a big city in the state of Sao Paulo - See it on any detailed map. When I moved to Brazil about 21 years ago, I bought slightly more than 21 acres which had two small houses (2BR only with Living room, bath & kitchen each and two small streams, one with a lake of about one acre, with fish) ** all for $21,000. It might cost $70,000 now.*** The pasture was over grown with weeds, so only supported 10 scrawny milk cows. There are many more like that, and thus cheap. After about $3000 in seeds and plowing it supported 50 fat steers 10 years later when I sold it for twice what I paid. (Plus the steers alone returned my investment. - I got about $500 for each.)

    ** It was about three hour drive from Sao Paulo up in the coastal mountain chain - but you would not be going to any city with your "no-money, self-sufficient" plan so can get much larger and better**** say 600 west miles from Sao Paulo and Rio for less than $75,000 - go for it. - Put your (and a few "co-believers") money where your mouth is.

    *** Now is a good time to buy. Dollar will get at least 3 Brazilian Real now.

    **** It too will not be high value flat land suitable for big agricultural machines, but you don't believe in that capitalistic system, do you. You can introduce "contour planting" etc. with good, healthy, honest, hard manual labor. Surely all will work hard sun up till sun down and no one will just do the minimum to get their equal share, will they? - I. e. Lean on the hoe more than kill weeds with it.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 26, 2015
  17. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    What is the problem? Different from the problem of the commons, people will invest in their property to improve it. The "hastening the disappearance of their competitors" is not really the point - of course, nobody likes competitors, but there is no harm if they only don't like their competitors, instead of using force against them - but this would be no longer capitalism. [/QUOTE]
     
  18. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    Here is the problem: You don't see the contradiction of expecting people to participate in a monetary system for land acquisition in order to pursue a moneyless system. The fact that you admit people have to raise funds to do this is the admission that a monetary system is imposed by force upon people. I don't know how you can get around this fact. As I said, there must be an unbiased starting point before the actual imposition of your merit based monetary system. And that means, a limited amount of land should be freely accessible to each adult person which they then can choose how to manage within its own confines.

    Certainly, you can subdivide that land you have access to and charge for its use and negotiate with others who share your economic principles but you can't go outside your set free allowance of land and impose your economic philosophy upon others who don't subscribe to it. And if you ask a government to reinforce that economic land management philosophy, you are clearly imposing by force your resource management preferences upon others.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    It is a one-time transition. People have assets in the present system they need to get rid of to switch to the system you advocate.

    You are being silly /wasting everyone's time/ if you think your system can only be tried when the cave man left the cave - not possible to switch to it now.
     
  20. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    No, it is not and you are evading. And even so, one-time transaction is still an imposition. Government would also be complicit in the imposition of your land management system through the requirement of property taxes, taxes, by the way, being the result of a monetary system i.e, a government would not collect money from citizens if it were not participating in a monetary system of exchange to some degree. Furthermore, again with govenment sanction, your land management preferences would permit you to gobble up more and more land without feeding it back into the system for the next person to use, thus giving you the ability to deny increasing portions of land to those who do not share your monetary based land management preferences. This is an undeniable flaw in your so-called "free" system. You would be infringing upon my right to practice the resource management system of my choosing by requiring me to practice capitalism to gain access to land. While, conversely, you would not be required to practice my system with the land you were freely alotted.

    I have now backed you into a corner of which there is now no escape. It is, in fact, a monetary system that imposes itself upon others in this manner. If you do not acknowledge this fact we are getting to a point where I can no longer take you seriously.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015
  21. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    What's your point? Religion probably had its origins in prehistoric time. Shall we just stick with worshipping invisible beings?

    Maybe we should have continued with human sacrifice and canabalism, as well?
     
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    The fact they collectively farm speaks to the "alleged" economies of scale.

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  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, and what is that supposed to mean exactly? The fact is people own things. Horses, and cars own nothing. The money in my wallet owns nothing. The money in my financial accounts owns nothing. These things are owned. Contrary to your assertion money (i.e. capital) own nothing. It possesses nothing. People own things. People possess things. The exception being corporate entities (i.e. fictitious persons) can and are created to own things, but they represent the ownership of people or the interests of people. Money is just a vehicle to store value for purchasing goods and services.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2015

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