Question for strident capitalists...

Possibly, for a time and for some. But it will also lead to corruption, resource wastefulness and environmental degradation.

 

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My point was that you were confused about whether the cheap baby food would have nicotine in it, in my little thought game there.

The poor in the US cannot usually make baby food at home cheaply out of fresh ingredients. But you are changing the subject: the subject was the willingness of baby food manufacturers to put toxins in baby food, and baby food buyers to purchase it, in real life.

If you want more examples, try BHT and BPA and trans fats and tetraethyl lead fumes and artificial sweeteners and sugars and high fructose corn syrup and so forth an so on. Or take child labor and lead paint and fabric treatments. Free market capitalism cares nothing at all about other people's children, nor is it liable for anything that happens to them unless a coercive and well armed government makes sure that it is.

Can't have a trial without a crime. People have a right to buy whatever kind of baby food they want to, and the consequences are none of the business of the government. Right?

That's what Karl Marx said. But being born owning stuff you didn't pay for is not a tenet of capitalism - free market or otherwise.

No, you are trying to change the subject. You are trying to pretend I was advocating installing a Japanese system in the US - I was, instead, pointing out that you had once again (five or six times now, just in threads I was in) chosen to illustrate one of your historical or political or economic assertions with an example that flatly and flagrantly contradicted it. You have a genuinely surprising tendency to do that, and I find it kind of odd - it's as if somewhere in your brain logic and reason were happening, and desperately attempting to communicate with the outer world.

Of course. Same is true of their health care. At the same time the Japanese health care is more socialistic and communal, and less capitalistic and free market, than the US setup.

And this is true generally - that exact same comparison is possible with thirty or more other Western industrialized countries, all of whom have health care systems more socialistic than the US and better performing.

So whatever is wrong with the US setup seems to have nothing to do with its lack of capitalism or markets, and making it less like the better ones and more like the worse ones is unlikely to be a good idea.

 

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Why do you think all this when those living under the moneyless model will have unobstructed free access to land and therefore resources? They will not be obstructed from the full practice of a moneyless society by the imposition of capitalist land management restrictions. I won't have to buy land to gain access to its resources or to have a parcel on which to produce goods. I'm not constricted by the dictates of capitalism. I can get right to practicing and participating in a moneyless resource model.

The "higher standard of living" you point out of the the participant in a monetary system is merely the result of the ability to over-produce, which will not be prohibited in my moneyless model. You just will have to go about in other ways producing that abundance for yourself. That is an individual preference and as such, should be left at the descretion of the individual and those that share a similar interest, not a universally enforced pursuit imposed on all citizens. In other words, if you want to be a capitalist, fine. But you can't force, through governmental favoritism of a monetary system, other people to engage in Capitalism.

 

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On (1):
I am a popular "artist," and I like the inspirational view of the distant mountains. What would induce me to let someone farm my land, even if they agree to not use pesticide?

The obvious answer, (You said you will not force everyone to abandon money.) is: I will accept rent payments monthly for someone of the money using group. I assume that I am allow to buy a car with those payments, etc. even though occupying land that cannot be sold. This will happen with most occupying high fertility land. A money rich person (or corporation) will rent a few dozen adjoining parcels and with that scale use tractors, not horses, to till it, buy fertilizer cheaply in bulk, not just the low quality each can slowly make with an organic waste pile, etc. I. e. this is desired by all as food production per acre will greatly increase but mainly benefit the money using group who can buy it.

For discussion only, I have assumed there are two systems co-existing, but I have in prior post noted that the two systems can not co-exist. The above is yet another reason. I. e. All the good farm land will be controlled (by rent, not ownership) by the wealthy of the money using group. Remember, even a 5,000 member commune is too small to make steel, so must buy its nails, hammers, saws, and complex to make pharmaceuticals from the money using global population. Thus presumably, the commune members are allowed to sell some produce, like tomatoes to the money group, to get essential things they can not make. (For practical purposes, the no-money people become serfs, tied to their land but do not control it. I. e. the self-sufficient, and thus powerful money using group will exploit the others, as they do today.)

On (2):
The land available for someone forced off the land he was born on when the last of his two parents dies will be the poor quality land no one wants to farm. (Why it is still on the "available land list") However, when the last of a couple that has spent decades improving the productive of their land (like the Almish have as they hand it down thur many generations) does die, some good agricultural land will come available. Who gets it?

Again the answer is obvious (assuming your prior statement that land goes on a first to ask for it basis):
The ambulance driver, who took the 2nd dying spouse to the hospital gets this good land, as he goes straight to the land claim office after delivering that last spouse to the hospital - Gets there before the official in charge of new land assignments even gets the death notice. After filing his claim the driver immediately re-enforces it by going to land and planting some seeds, etc. Thus there will be no shortage of "no-money" people wanting to become ambulance drivers.

 

Which of these mutually contradictory statements is correct?

Can I as a popular artist live on the good farm land and only watch the weeds grow, as I am inspired by the beautiful view of the mountains? That inspiration is why my painting are is such demand that via barter, I want for nothing - even have a new car, a swimming pool - That costs me one of my best paintings, but the pool construction company wanted it to hang in their entrance lobby.

You seem to have two classes of land but ALL land is "resource land." - It could have an array of solar cells on it, or be hydro-pontic farm, be a grave yard, or site of factory, or in an urban area, be at least a parking lot, etc. Land, fresh water, and sun light are man's only resources and all have potential value. How do you draw the line that states this parcel is not a resource?

 

There is another more obvious solution you missed: Just ask the artist if he / she would be willing to find another parcel so you could put the land to a use more appropriate to its possibilities. In a land management model where land is provided free, the artist doesn't require money to obtain a different parcel of land so why would he require money from you to abandon the parcel? Whether you negotiate with money or arguments of utility and the plentiful availability of access, the artist can still refuse anyway. So money doesn't guarantee access to desired land anymore than a convincing argument of utility would.

If I'm an artist who is doing nothing with the land I'm living on, I'm going to be largely indifferent to where I live. It's not like the beauty of nature can't be found on both fertile and infertile land alike, especially in a land management model that encourages the preservation of nature. How will it harm me if I move somewhere else that might be available down the rode? And suppose I agree to move, how will it harm the farmer if the artist asks to return to paint periodically?

Under the monetary system the artist could just as likely refuse the farmer's monetary offer as he could the farmer's logical argument of use under a moneyless system.

The point is, the whole concept of managing resources by money is the ancestor of management of territory by force. So there is always this conception of "I need to use a means that enforces my will upon someone else, regardless of their purposes, instead of just asking them and reaching a mutual agreement based on logic as a basis for action". If you use money, you don't have to be the artist's friend or convince them with logic and you can interact through the cold calculation used by adversaries. Money enables you to sustain the distance a foe would have from the rest of humanity. Whereas, in a species truly united for the cooperative benefit of all, results could be achieved simply by convincing the other of the utility of something in respect to natural laws. Agreements can be struck without the use of money. We just use money out of habit the same way the lower animals (and still sometimes ourselves) use force.

We're so in the habit of using these two methods of force and money, which are by no means guarantors of success or agreement themselves, we never think to just ask each other for what we want. We need a world structured where we can ask each other for what we want and employ logic to persuade, not force each other.

 

Money is not the main form larger bribes take. I may bribe my child to study more by offering $10 for each "A" and $5 for each "B" but if I am lobbyist bribing a congress person* for a large corporation, it is too risky to give them $50,000 in cash. So instead I make the corporate jet (and our apartments in Bermuda) available when ever they want to take their family on vacation.* For young single congressman, the resident "house keeper of the apartment" is actually an attractive whore on the company pay role. There may be even a motion activated hidden camera in the bed room. (Bribes can be negative too.)

In China until the recent crack down on bribery, there was one very expensive whisky that was given as bribes. - Now the sales volume of it are only about 20% what it was a couple of years ago. (No on bought it to drink.) I forget its brand name.

No one knows, but on a global scale I would guess that at least 80% of the total value of bribes is of a non-monetary form. Perhaps as a good high-pay job for your father, etc. The son of Brazil's president Lula, is not very talented, but during his father's two term, he became a multi-millionaire.

None of this would change in your system, as money is usually not used in the current system except for tiny bribes that can be deposited to your bank account or spent, without raising any eye brows. If you want less bribery, you do what China is doing - send people to jail, not abolish money.

* The Congress person was not taking a bribe, only saving the tax payers the expenses of his "fact finding mission."

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They are not mutually contradictory. There is land you live on (which also can have resources) and there is also the possibility allowed that land with resources on it is not necessarily livable land but still land to which access is required. To resolve this, citizens with livable land would also be permitted access to another five acres or less of purely resource land, if and as long as they can demonstrate the production of goods from the use of that land.

Yes. You could do that now under a monetary system by simply refusing all monetary offers for your land. I don't understand why you see this as a problem under a moneyless system. Are you trying to wear me down throwing questions at me with such obvious resolutions?

 

But bribes occur because access in a monetary system is determined by ones access to money. Why does a briber offer their vacation home? Why does that bribe have value for the one being bribed? Because in the monetary system he would have to posses money, which he doesn't have, to gain access to anything. If a resource management system grants me access to vacations, why do I need to give in to your bribe?

Oh, as I demonstrated above, you most certainly abolish money.

 

I explained why he wants to remain on that land - from it the mountain view inspires him to do his best work. Also it is a pain in the ass to pack up things and move elsewhere, when you are very happy where your are and want for nothing as your paintings are in high demand. Provided you already with new car and swimming pool, as I mentoned in prior post.

 

Right. And so this refusal to vacate land undermines my resource based economy anymore than it does your monetary system, how?

 

You have ignored my post 385, last paragraph question: Where and how do your draw the line between "resource land" and non-resource land?
Or do you now agree with me that all land is a resource - can be used in many ways, not just the first I listed (array of solar cells) as I asserted in post 385?

 

No. I never said it was different - only noted that problem is not solved by your RBE system.

However, in the money system, a lone hold out blocking construction of a large apartment complex by refusing to sell lot his house is on, can normally be persuaded to do so if offered several times more money than his lot is worth. I. e. there are usually solutions within the money system that do NOT exist within your system (except murder of the non-willing to move land user.)

 

As all uninhabited land is neutral in nature, the determination of land as strictly resource, habitable or a combination would be left to the individual who has gained access to the parcel.

 

Yes. All land, as space in which to exist is the fundamental resource, can be regarded, to varying degrees, as a resource. The one with access determining which use that parcel should be put to.

 

That's not a problem in my RBE anymore than it is a problem if an occupant of a parcel refuses to sell his parcel at any price to someone in a monetary system.

The only reason money is a solution in a monetary system is because a monetary system requires money to access resources. An owner of land in a monetary system therefore, can't be persuaded by pure argument because he too has to have money to obtain a new piece of land. But you make it sound like there is no other piece of land that could inspire the same or a better painting for the artist than the one he is on. And if that is truly the case, no amount of money would persuade him to sell. After all, he would lose his access to the land that provides such inspiration.

In effect, the artist is already being made the same offer in the RBE that he is being offered with a large sum of money: the ability to access other land and resources (admittedly of a less inspiring nature) in exchange for parting with his current parcel. The artist, in a RBE, would have the ability to live wherever they choose, much in the same way a large sum of cash would enable him to do in a monetary system.

Moreover, the artist in a RBE is being made that offer every day of his life. Whereas, in a monetary system, you can't move if you can't sell and you can't sell if no one is offering to buy.

 

On (1):
Only true if the bribe is with money, but at least 80% of those offered to Congress people are non-monetary for reason I gave in prior post. Even between congress men their bribes are almost 100% non-monetary. Such as: I'll vote for your bill (a study of sex habits of mountain goat by your state university) If you vote for my bill (that funds money for a study by my state university of why students drop out of school)
On (2):
In my example it was a corporate owned apartment in Bermuda, and ride there in the corporate jet. The Congress man, is not as I noted accepting a bribe, but on a fact finding mission and saving the tax payers money by accepting the corporate offer. Most who want the congressman to vote a certain way, don' have a jet and apartment in Bermuda. The briber may be seeking some thing else, if not trying to bribe a congress person. -For example a good jobs for his son (or back when there was a draft for military service an exception from active duty like GWB got.)
On (3):
You have not demonstrated any difference between bribery in the two system, especially for the 80+% of bribes that do not have any exchange of money.

 

Accidently a double post

 

Right. But why are the bribes even taking place? Because access to resources in a monetary system requires money or monetary funding. So if access to resources is not denied based on monetary considerations and restrictions, on what basis does a system of bribery develop?

Right. And you are describing things that occur now under a monetary system, where some people have more access than others and the others have few or no alternatives. You are describing a system where people can't have these desired experiences without money and feel compelled to bribe people to get them. They have to submit or stoop to bribes to get them because the system says they just can't ask for those experiences, they have pay for them. Money determines access regardless of how it was obtained. This is why the Mafia loves Capitalism.

If someone dies on a parcel in Bermuda in a monetary system, they can be the first one to see the parcel listed, say online, as available and still not be able to claim it under a monetary system. They have to exist at a certain predefined income level to even get near that parcel. If the same thing happened under a RBE, it's first come, first served.

Why, again, is anyone influenced by bribes in my proposed RBE if lack of monetary power does not impede anyone's access to resources or some equivalent substitute?

 

Reply to post 399, is easy. Party "A" wants Party "B" to do something, like vote for congress man A's bill, so offers to do something congressman B wants (eg vote for his pet bill, or use A's privilege to get B's son into the US Naval academy, etc.) Money has nothing to do with 80+ % of these big value deals. Absent money they still occur.

There are not apartment rooms in Bermuda for it to be possible for all who would like to go there and there are real cost to the environment and supply of petroleum to get the visitor there. Again money has nothing to do with these facts. They remain true in your system too.

You post under the false assumption that money is the main problem, but money is just a very flexible means to allow free choice of your reward, instead just get a standard supply package that has diapers in it you don't need so you just trash can them, etc. I.e. you advocate a high waste, low productivity system as almost all just do the minimum required to qualify for the supply package - A system that does not produce any ways near enough of professionals, like heart surgeons etc.

My cousin was an orthopedic surgeon. For his long hard years of study, he was better rewarded* than most are. He has a more than million dollar (three million I would guess) large vacation house right on NC's OBX beach - wood ramp down to top of the sand dune from deck on 2nd floor and then steps down to the beach. (Made back when that was legal.) There are not enough of those for all who want one too. I leave in less than three weeks for my month long visit to US. It includes two weeks in rented house back a couple from the beach near his. That costs me 12 to 16 thousand dollars but lets me and both my US daughters have time together. They invite their friends for some days. This year my oldest grandson is bringing his girl friend for the full two weeks. At peak load time, some of the 16 or so there will be sleeping on couches or air mattresses. As I pay for it, wife and I get bedroom with a private bath room - at my age I need the toilet several times each night.

* and not just in the things money can buy. For example for at least decade, he got a Christmas present of a smoked and honey cured ham from a grateful pig farmer patient who was with many broken bones after a high speed car accident. Only the skill of my cousin in several operations put him back together again well enough to continue raising his pigs, with only a small limp.