Basic economics for Democrats/Socialists

[Seymour Flops]

In this hypothetical situation your entrepreneurs created scarcity where none existed before. Scarcity wasn't created because resources were reshaped, scarcity was created because some claimed ownership of the resources that were once shared among all.

A constructed house should not be the property of the person who constructed it?

 

[Curried Goats]

A constructed house should not be the property of the person who constructed it?

It's your scenario, you answer it. All you're doing is reiterating my own critique of your hypothetical. In your own scenario there was no scarcity because the trees that produced the fruit belonged to no one. If you're going to cut the tree down that we all shared to build your house why does the wood you used belong to you? That is exactly my question to you.

 

[Seymour Flops]

It's your scenario, you answer it. All you're doing is reiterating my own critique of your hypothetical. In your own scenario there was no scarcity because the trees that produced the fruit belonged to no one. If you're going to cut the tree down that we all shared to build your house why does the wood you used being to you? That is exactly my question to you.

Fair question. Very good question in fact.

The wood belongs to me for the same reason the fruit belongs to you when you pick it and eat it.

Now if the one and only wood bearing tree is also the one and only fruit bearing tree you have a point. The Islanders should stop it from being chopped down.

But in the scenario I envision and in the reality prior to the beginning of agriculture and construction, trees are effectively unlimited.

But houses are not. One person builds a house then five people see it and say "I want one of those!" Now there is scarcity because six people want a house but there is only one.

But the five houseless people have lost nothing and are free to copy the design and build houses of their own. Scarcity is an economic motivator that provides impetus to progress.

 

[Curried Goats]

Fair question. Very good question in fact.

The wood belongs to me for the same reason the fruit belongs to you when you pick it and eat it.

Now if the one and only wood bearing tree is also the one and only fruit bearing tree you have a point. The Islanders should stop it from being chopped down.

But in the scenario I envision and in the reality prior to the beginning of agriculture and construction, trees are effectively unlimited.

But houses are not. One person builds a house then five people see it and say "I want one of those!" Now there is scarcity because six people want a house but there is only one.

But the five houseless people have lost nothing and are free to copy the design and build Hauser of their own. Scarcity is an economic motivator that provides impetus to progress.

What does it mean to say the fruit belongs to me? I agree if I pick fruit off a tree it is in my possession but does it belong to me? If I decide to drop it on the ground instead of eat it is it still mine? If I pick all the fruit off all the trees and put them in my closet for later are they all mine? I'm guessing some hungry people are going to disagree. The fundamental question I have is at what point do things in this hypothetical world go from being a part of nature that we all share to being personal possessions and how? By force? By labor? What happens if after you leave your house for the day I take that wood that you used to build your house and are now not using and build my own. Why would that be less acceptable than you cutting down the tree we all used in the first place?

The problem with this scenario and trying to equate it to Marxism or Democratic thinking is that it assumes resources are infinite and what is scarce is labor or the will to labor. This isn't reality. What we have isn't scarcity of labor or desire it is one of resources. A very small number of people own the vast majority of resources and its not because they labor more than everyone else.

 

[Seymour Flops]

What does it mean to say the fruit belongs to me? I agree if I pick fruit off a tree it is in my possession but does it belong to me? If I decide to drop it on the ground instead of eat it is it still mine? If I pick all the fruit off all the trees and put them in my closet for later are they all mine? I'm guessing some hungry people are going to disagree. The fundamental question I have is at what point do things in this hypothetical world go from being a part of nature that we all share to being personal possessions and how? By force? By labor?

Ownership of personal property in small amounts for personal consumption of consumption by friends and family is a part of nature. It was not a concept invented by evil men, after we rose from the lower animals.

Dogs bury their bones to protect them from being taken by other animals. Wild dogs bury meat and bones for the same reason. They don’t understand ownership on any kind of philosophical or ethical level, but the know that they will take steps to protect the bone, even without knowing the words “mine.”

Other than humans, primates do not store food. They live on what they can find and immediately consume. So we did not develop the idea of keeping things until after we became more intelligent primates.

If one person on the Island of Enough picked all the available fruit and brought it to his closet for themselves, then the other islanders would be perfectly right to stop them, the same as if he wanted to cut down the tree to build his house (if it is the only fruit tree). Not sure what motivation he would have to keep more food than he could eat.

Unless, that is, he wanted to use his sole possession of the fruit to get people to work for him. In that case, he was wrong to take more than he could eat in order to deprive others.

I’ll put you a question: Suppose the house builder turned to planting. If he plants potatoes and carrots, and digs them up to keep in his root cellar, and if he plants wheat and rice and stores the harvest in a silo, is that the same ethically as if he had picked all the fruit and kept it in his closet?

Suppose he offered the other islanders payment in vegetables to work for him on his farm or in his house. Is he stealing something from them, assuming that the fruit and fish and small game animals are still available to all?

What happens if after you leave your house for the day I take that wood that you used to build your house and are now not using and build my own. Why would that be less acceptable than you cutting down the tree we all used in the first place?

Again if there is only one tree, it would be wrong to cut it down for personal use. There are and have been since human history, an abundance of trees.

The built house is property, not by force, but by labor. Taking pieces of it instead of cutting down other trees would be force.

The problem with this scenario and trying to equate it to Marxism or Democratic thinking is that it assumes resources are infinite and what is scarce is labor or the will to labor.

That is a very good way to put it! Except that I would say “effectively unlimited” not “infinite.” Obviously, nothing is infinite. It is indeed labor that creates wealth in addition to what exists in nature. That wealth is then owned by the person who created it.

The desire to increase one’s own wealth is what creates scarcity, because in nature nothing is effectively limited. If something is, tell me what we have run out of, due to its being limited.

Nothing perpetuates the scarcity that occurs when one person creates something and others want one also, except lack of will to produce OR interference by force with the will of the individual.

This isn't reality. What we have isn't scarcity of labor or desire it is one of resources. A very small number of people own the vast majority of resources and its not because they labor more than everyone else.

Now that is true. Take land as a resource. There is no benefit to one person owning a million acres of land that he is not using for anything, if there are countless people who have the desire to labor on that land to address scarcity. There is no benefit to one person owning all the fish in the ocean, and only harvesting some of them, so that fish could be sold as a delicacy.

The second never happens because no one can keep everyone who wants to fish out of the ocean. The first happens very, very often. People claim hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of acres and enforce their will that no one else use it.

So I put this second question to you: How is it that one person can own a hundred thousand acres of land, when there are countless people who want to move onto the land and use it productively? Even old widows are able to cling to inherited vast tracts of land, even if their children are eager to start farming, ranching or building on it, they can say “no.” And leave their land to non-relatives.

How are they able to do that?

 

[Curried Goats]

Ownership of personal property in small amounts for personal consumption of consumption by friends and family is a part of nature. It was not a concept invented by evil men, after we rose from the lower animals.

Dogs bury their bones to protect them from being taken by other animals. Wild dogs bury meat and bones for the same reason. They don’t understand ownership on any kind of philosophical or ethical level, but the know that they will take steps to protect the bone, even without knowing the words “mine.”

Other than humans, primates do not store food. They live on what they can find and immediately consume. So we did not develop the idea of keeping things until after we became more intelligent primates.

I don't believe in evil and I don't use evil as a basis for my arguments. The biological nature of human beings is to require food and water for fuel and to desire shelter for safety. We aquire these things through labor. Either by picking or growing food and building shelter ourselves or taking it from others who already have. That's why dogs bury their bones, they want to stop other dogs from taking them. Ownership in the way you appear to be thinking about it doesn't exist in nature. What exists in nature is your natural ability. Are you physically able to pick fruit from trees and defend your bounty from others? Ownership, the idea that the fruit you picked belongs to you and that you are right to defend it and others wrong for taking it is imaginary. Nature doesn't care if you or I get the fruit. It doesn't care if one of us bludgeons the other to death over the fruit any more than it cares if two dogs fight over a bone.

If one person on the Island of Enough picked all the available fruit and brought it to his closet for themselves, then the other islanders would be perfectly right to stop them, the same as if he wanted to cut down the tree to build his house (if it is the only fruit tree). Not sure what motivation he would have to keep more food than he could eat.

Unless, that is, he wanted to use his sole possession of the fruit to get people to work for him. In that case, he was wrong to take more than he could eat in order to deprive others.

I can imagine all sorts of motivations. Maybe he can't eat all the fruit right now but he can envision needing some later when he and his family are hungry again. I don't particularly care about the motivations of either party. I can understand why both sides would find their individual actions to be prudent. Hunger won't stay satiated and starving on behalf of someone else's food security seems unreasonably selfless. What I question is that line in there that the Islanders would be perfectly right to stop them. It's the nature of this right that must be addressed. What is it? Where does it come from?

To be perfectly honest I've found arguments in favor of a rights especially rights to property to be circular in logic. Having a right to defend property by force is the same as saying you have a right to keep people from those resoursces by force and so the utlimate question is where did this right come from? You seem to say through labor but when one man labors to take all the fruit you then say it's wrong. That doesn't seem to be consistent. Is it according to need? If that's the case then I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that now you're the one sounding like a communist.

I’ll put you a question: Suppose the house builder turned to planting. If he plants potatoes and carrots, and digs them up to keep in his root cellar, and if he plants wheat and rice and stores the harvest in a silo, is that the same ethically as if he had picked all the fruit and kept it in his closet?

What even are ethics. Are they objective realities or are they personal opinions? I believe them to be personal opinions and are therefore not great measurements in debates.

Suppose he offered the other islanders payment in vegetables to work for him on his farm or in his house. Is he stealing something from them, assuming that the fruit and fish and small game animals are still available to all?

Objectively the man is keeping others from taking advantage of the resources on that land by claiming it for himself.

Again if there is only one tree, it would be wrong to cut it down for personal use. There are and have been since human history, an abundance of trees.

But not an unlimited supply of trees or equally desirable trees but that really isn't my over all point. My point is that this philosophy of yours doesn't seem well thought out and has seemingly embraced communism while it started out eschewing Marxism. I'm not sure what the defining principles of this philosophy of yours are.

The built house is property, not by force, but by labor. Taking pieces of it instead of cutting down other trees would be force.

But in this scenario you didn't own the original wood you took from the community tree to build your house and you are keeping others from using that wood by force.

That is a very good way to put it! Except that I would say “effectively unlimited” not “infinite.” Obviously, nothing is infinite. It is indeed labor that creates wealth in addition to what exists in nature. That wealth is then owned by the person who created it.

The desire to increase one’s own wealth is what creates scarcity, because in nature nothing is effectively limited. If something is, tell me what we have run out of, due to its being limited.

Everything in nature is limited and just because we haven't run out resources yet doesn't mean we all have equal access to it.

Nothing perpetuates the scarcity that occurs when one person creates something and others want one also, except lack of will to produce OR interference by force with the will of the individual.

You don't create out of nothing. You use resources to create. In one scenario scarcity is either produced or not produced by nature. In the other it is produced by you and then you seek to divorce yourself from the scarcity you caused.

Now that is true. Take land as a resource. There is no benefit to one person owning a million acres of land that he is not using for anything, if there are countless people who have the desire to labor on that land to address scarcity. There is no benefit to one person owning all the fish in the ocean, and only harvesting some of them, so that fish could be sold as a delicacy.

The second never happens because no one can keep everyone who wants to fish out of the ocean. The first happens very, very often. People claim hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of acres and enforce their will that no one else use it.

So I put this second question to you: How is it that one person can own a hundred thousand acres of land, when there are countless people who want to move onto the land and use it productively? Even old widows are able to cling to inherited vast tracts of land, even if their children are eager to start farming, ranching or building on it, they can say “no.” And leave their land to non-relatives.

How are they able to do that?

Through force. Usually the force of government.

 

[georgephillip]

Well that is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. As soon as people started trading those IOU’s for other goods, with the understanding that the seller of goods would cash the IOU with the original borrower, those IOU’s were indeed a form of money. It makes sense for them to have been the first form of money, with shell money, precious metal money, and precious metal backed paper coming later.

I’m glad you brought up agriculture. Of course it was agriculture that was the game changer away from the communal “Enough” economy of hunter-gatherers.

Interestingly, while agriculture made excess production possible, i.e. producing more by one’s labor than one can consume, it also preceded frequent periods of famine that were not seen by hunter-gatherers.

I’ll discuss that more later.

If you haven't explored Michael Hudson's opinions, you might find them worth your time; he came to Economics from a background that was very different from his peers:

The Platypus Affiliated Society – The destiny of civilization: An interview with Michael Hudson

"Well, I (Hudson) grew up in a Marxist household.

"My father was a political prisoner, one of the Minneapolis 17.[1]

"Minneapolis was the only city in the world that was a Trotskyist city, and my parents worked with Trotsky in Mexico.

"So, I grew up not having any intention of going into economics.

"I wanted to be a musician, and when I was 21, I began writing a history of the connection between music, art, drama theory, and the Renaissance in the 19th century.

"But then I went to New York and went to work on Wall Street just to get a job.

"I met the translator of Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value, Terence McCarthy, who convinced me that economics was more interesting than anything else that was happening.

"He became my mentor, I took a PhD in economics, and that’s it."

 

[Seymour Flops]

I don't believe in evil and I don't use evil as a basis for my arguments. The biological nature of human beings is to require food and water for fuel and to desire shelter for safety. We aquire these things through labor. Either by picking or growing food and building shelter ourselves or taking it from others who already have. That's why dogs bury their bones, they want to stop other dogs from taking them. Ownership in the way you appear to be thinking about it doesn't exist in nature. What exists in nature is your natural ability. Are you physically able to pick fruit from trees and defend your bounty from others? Ownership, the idea that the fruit you picked belongs to you and that you are right to defend it and others wrong for taking it is imaginary. Nature doesn't care if you or I get the fruit. It doesn't care if one of us bludgeons the other to death over the fruit any more than it cares if two dogs fight over a bone.

I believe that my dog example is an example of ownership, but it is reasonable to disagree.

I can imagine all sorts of motivations. Maybe he can't eat all the fruit right now but he can envision needing some later when he and his family are hungry again. I don't particularly care about the motivations of either party. I can understand why both sides would find their individual actions to be prudent. Hunger won't stay satiated and starving on behalf of someone else's food security seems unreasonably selfless. What I question is that line in there that the Islanders would be perfectly right to stop them. It's the nature of this right that must be addressed. What is it? Where does it come from?

I didn't say they have "a right," to stop them, I said that they would be right to stop them. But it is an interesting question.

Upon reflection, I say that it is a right. It comes from the right of self-defense. We're not talking about a miner hoarding all the gold that he digs up, so nobody else gets the Island equivalent of a class ring, we are talking about a fruit picker deliberately hoading the fruit to the point that others will die from the lack of it.

To be perfectly honest I've found arguments in favor of a rights especially rights to property to be circular in logic. Having a right to defend property by force is the same as saying you have a right to keep people from those resoursces by force and so the utlimate question is where did this right come from? You seem to say through labor but when one man labors to take all the fruit you then say it's wrong.

Yes, that is inconsistent. The missing factor is the benefit that all obtain by allowing people to keep and trade the fruits of their labors. Fruit, in my scenario, is a labor free resource. It is a product of nature, not work. Oobviously, fruit planted, nurtured, and harvested, is a product of labor.

If a person decided to take all of the natural fruit for himself with one of many motivations I agree would be possible, I would not call that work. It may feel like work, if his back gets sore, and he has to climb up and down a ladder and carry heavy baskets to his house, and shelve them. But it is not work, any more than it is work when a burglar climbs up a ladder to lug a heavy safe to his home and spend hours breaking into it.

Work is effort that creates products or services.

That doesn't seem to be consistent. Is it according to need? If that's the case then I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that now you're the one sounding like a communist.

It is not about need. If there were spices that naturally grew, and one of the islanders took all the spices for himself, the others do not "need" the spice in the same way they need the fruit that they would starve without. But they would still be justified in preventing one person from gathering it all when it is a product of nature.

What even are ethics. Are they objective realities or are they personal opinions? I believe them to be personal opinions and are therefore not great measurements in debates.

Fair.

Objectively the man is keeping others from taking advantage of the resources on that land by claiming it for himself.

Not if there is other land available to farm. If such land exist and anyone can use it, helping themselves to his potatos is stealing his labor.

But you make an interesting point that I was planning to address in a post about ownership of land. I think you are losing the thread of my island scenario - I don't blame you, it's not the best - and thinking this is a society with private ownership of land.

In my scenario, the islanders are unlikely to see the farmer as taking the use of the land away from them, they have plenty of land to walk on - or at least "enough." They would be more concerned with how they can have potatoes and carrots along with the widely available fruit. One way would be for the farmer to simply give them potatoes. Another would be for them to labor at the farmer's direction with payment in veggies.

In the real world, people can and do own large enough tracts of land that their ownership violates the rights of others to walk freely on the Earth they were born on. My argument is that the act of working to produce creates ownership of the product.

But not an unlimited supply of trees or equally desirable trees but that really isn't my over all point. My point is that this philosophy of yours doesn't seem well thought out and has seemingly embraced communism while it started out eschewing Marxism. I'm not sure what the defining principles of this philosophy of yours are.

I haven't gotten to the part about my philosphy which I believe is fairly well thought out. I happily went on a tangent with you about property rights.

But my main point is that there is a difference between produced goods and natural resources. Marxist do not see that difference. When Marxists speak of a factory and the owner's theft of the labor of the workers, they seem to think that the factory is a natural resource that should be available to all. It is a bit of doublethink for them, because they have to understand that the factory is itself a product, brought about by the owner's marshalling of labor, raw materials, and building materials, all of which he bought.

It is no coincidence that Marx and Engels appeared only after the Industrial Revolution was well underway, and there were numerous factories producing wealth. Their philosophy on works in theory if there are existing means of production in operation to be taken over by "the people." They would never have envisioned the people working together to design, create and manage factories, where none existed.

But in this scenario you didn't own the original wood you took from the community tree to build your house and you are keeping others from using that wood by force.

I own the product that I made with the wood. Wood was not and is not in short supply. Nobody was using it until I came up the the house idea. There are no patents on the Island, so anyone is free to copy my design.

Everything in nature is limited and just because we haven't run out resources yet doesn't mean we all have equal access to it.

True in the real world, but on the Island of Enough, we all have equal access to natural resources. But we don't have equal access to the products of labor. Those belong to the individual laborers.

You don't create out of nothing. You use resources to create. In one scenario scarcity is either produced or not produced by nature. In the other it is produced by you and then you seek to divorce yourself from the scarcity you caused.

How did I produce scarcity by making a house out of wood when there is enough wood for everyone to make a house also, if they are willing? It was the desire of the others to have their won houses when only mine existed that created the scarcity. Scarcity is the engine of economics, that's why herds of wild dogs, schools of fish, and hunter gatherers who are happy with "enough," don't have economies.

Through force. Usually the force of government.

Yes. Nearly always by force of government. Government is the way to maintain private ownership of land, therefore private ownership of land is necessarily a function of government. Government is much more capable of enforcing private ownership of land than a security force hired by the owner. Because government often must only imply that they will use force to keep you off of that land.

A bureaucrat with a printed notice and a thumbtack can often convince people to leave the property of others, even if they have made it their home and have nowhere else to go. Because behind the notice is the threat of a visit from a deputy, and the lone deputy has behind him a much greater force if the tresspassers refuse to leave still. Government doesn't give up enforcing its will unless it has to, and it rarely has to. They see no need to "play fair."

Since you already understand that owning land is a natural right, I'll ask rhetorically how land goes from an unowned resource to a private resource. I think you know that privately owned land originated as conquered territory. Within that counquered territory, the ruler has the right to take whatever farm product is created, leaving only enough to the workers of the land to keep working.

The ruler would likely be more secure in his position as ruler if he left the workers only enough to remain barely alive, but the nature of agriculture is that it produces more food than the workers need, and the ruler can't eat it all. That is the big difference between agriculture and hunter-gathering, which requires each person to get as much food as they need to stay alive, and there is little left over.

So the ruler trades his excess produce for goods produced by the labor of more free individuals and wealth is created. The ruler likes wealth and eventually has the idea to sell tracts of his conquered territory as privately owned land.

 

[Curried Goats]

I believe that my dog example is an example of ownership, but it is reasonable to disagree.

I don't understand what ownership means in this context. Do you simply mean he is in possession of the bone or something else? If another dog can come and dig up his bone in what way is "ownership" a tangible thing?

I didn't say they have "a right," to stop them, I said that they would be right to stop them. But it is an interesting question.

Isn't that the same thing though? What's the difference between they have a right to stop them and they would be right to stop them? In the end you are making a distinction between right and wrong.

Upon reflection, I say that it is a right. It comes from the right of self-defense. We're not talking about a miner hoarding all the gold that he digs up, so nobody else gets the Island equivalent of a class ring, we are talking about a fruit picker deliberately hoading the fruit to the point that others will die from the lack of it.

I don't think it matters what we're talking about you must first define what this right is and where it comes from. Until then why should I accept it as a real thing?

Yes, that is inconsistent. The missing factor is the benefit that all obtain by allowing people to keep and trade the fruits of their labors. Fruit, in my scenario, is a labor free resource. It is a product of nature, not work. Oobviously, fruit planted, nurtured, and harvested, is a product of labor.

In your original hypothetical there was no benefit gained. The Islanders went from having plenty to scarcity.

If a person decided to take all of the natural fruit for himself with one of many motivations I agree would be possible, I would not call that work. It may feel like work, if his back gets sore, and he has to climb up and down a ladder and carry heavy baskets to his house, and shelve them. But it is not work, any more than it is work when a burglar climbs up a ladder to lug a heavy safe to his home and spend hours breaking into it.

Except in your original scenario those trees and fruits belonged to no one. They were free for all to pick so how is it like burglaring private property?

Work is effort that creates products or services.

Work is simply an exchange of energy. That's universal physics. Your idea of what does and doesn't constitute work seems to be based on your personal feelings towards the work being done.

It is not about need. If there were spices that naturally grew, and one of the islanders took all the spices for himself, the others do not "need" the spice in the same way they need the fruit that they would starve without. But they would still be justified in preventing one person from gathering it all when it is a product of nature.

Fair.

View attachment 732932

Not if there is other land available to farm. If such land exist and anyone can use it, helping themselves to his potatos is stealing his labor.

But you make an interesting point that I was planning to address in a post about ownership of land. I think you are losing the thread of my island scenario - I don't blame you, it's not the best - and thinking this is a society with private ownership of land.

It's not the best because it doesn't reflect reality. Resources and land are finite.

In my scenario, the islanders are unlikely to see the farmer as taking the use of the land away from them, they have plenty of land to walk on - or at least "enough." They would be more concerned with how they can have potatoes and carrots along with the widely available fruit. One way would be for the farmer to simply give them potatoes. Another would be for them to labor at the farmer's direction with payment in veggies.

In the real world, people can and do own large enough tracts of land that their ownership violates the rights of others to walk freely on the Earth they were born on. My argument is that the act of working to produce creates ownership of the product.

What is the right to walk freely on Earth and if working creates ownership what's wrong with the person who works to pick all the apples in orchard? Your argument mentions no consideration towards whether other people are starving.

I haven't gotten to the part about my philosphy which I believe is fairly well thought out. I happily went on a tangent with you about property rights.

But my main point is that there is a difference between produced goods and natural resources. Marxist do not see that difference. When Marxists speak of a factory and the owner's theft of the labor of the workers, they seem to think that the factory is a natural resource that should be available to all. It is a bit of doublethink for them, because they have to understand that the factory is itself a product, brought about by the owner's marshalling of labor, raw materials, and building materials, all of which he bought.

It is no coincidence that Marx and Engels appeared only after the Industrial Revolution was well underway, and there were numerous factories producing wealth. Their philosophy on works in theory if there are existing means of production in operation to be taken over by "the people." They would never have envisioned the people working together to design, create and manage factories, where none existed.

I'm less interested in you strawmaning other people's arguments and more interested in your ability to argue your own.

I own the product that I made with the wood. Wood was not and is not in short supply. Nobody was using it until I came up the the house idea. There are no patents on the Island, so anyone is free to copy my design.

But did you own the wood? What if wood wasn't plentiful? In the real world resources are finite.

True in the real world, but on the Island of Enough, we all have equal access to natural resources. But we don't have equal access to the products of labor. Those belong to the individual laborers.

How did I produce scarcity by making a house out of wood when there is enough wood for everyone to make a house also, if they are willing? It was the desire of the others to have their won houses when only mine existed that created the scarcity. Scarcity is the engine of economics, that's why herds of wild dogs, schools of fish, and hunter gatherers who are happy with "enough," don't have economies.

You make scarcity of wood by claiming wood for yourself. If you (and others) have claimed all the wood in the area around us there being wood on the other side of the world is of no use or comfort to me. You only look at it terms of there being a scarcity of houses because of the desire you created in others for homes when you built one but homes require natural resources to build, like wood and land to sit on and these resources are finite.

Since you already understand that owning land is a natural right, I'll ask rhetorically how land goes from an unowned resource to a private resource. I think you know that privately owned land originated as conquered territory. Within that counquered territory, the ruler has the right to take whatever farm product is created, leaving only enough to the workers of the land to keep working.

I don't agree that owning land is a natural right. I've been endeavoring for people who do to explain what this natural right is and where it comes from.

 

[GMCGeneral]

Love watching the Communist circle jerk here. They're exposing themselves for what they really are. Anti American scumbags.

 

[Ringo]

"Any assumption of the idea of peaceful subordination of the capitalists to the will of the majority of the exploited, of a peaceful, reformist transition to socialism is not only extreme petty-bourgeois stupidity, but also a direct deception of the workers"
V. Lenin

 

[Seymour Flops]

I feel as though I'm answering your question, but you aren't see it:

If it doesn't matter what we are talking about, what are we talking about?

Let me ask a question of you before I try again: Are there any such thing as rights? Of so, give an example and where does that right come from?

If rights are like unicorns and fairies to you, then of course any debate about what is or is not a right is pointless. Not saying that you're wrong, but whether rights exist is a different debate than what is and is not a right.

In your original hypothetical there was no benefit gained. The Islanders went from having plenty to scarcity.

Of course there was a benefit gained. Say there were one hundred islanders and one family of five built a house. Now 1/20th of the islanders live in a house instead of sleeping on the ground in the open. That's an immediate benefit. If families see the house and build their own, they will also benefit. The scarcity itself is a benefit, is my point. It drives innovation and effort.

The word is scarcity, not famine, deprivation, etc.

They are alike in that neither are work, because they are not creating anything new, but only taking what is already there with the intent to deprive others of it.

Work is simply an exchange of energy. That's universal physics. Your idea of what does and doesn't constitute work seems to be based on your personal feelings towards the work being done.

In physics, work is an exchange of energy. This is a discussion of economics. Thieves may call what they do "work," "a job," etc. and if they are in a gang, they may be called "earners." But they are not workers or earners, they are takers.

It's not the best because it doesn't reflect reality. Resources and land are finite.

They are not infinite, but they are effectively unlimited. What economic resource have we run out of? Diamonds? Gold? There are plenty. They require more work to get out of the ground than iron or corn, so they are more expensive. But we're not out of them.

What is the right to walk freely on Earth and if working creates ownership what's wrong with the person who works to pick all the apples in orchard? Your argument mentions no consideration towards whether other people are starving.

Again, I need to know whether rights are a real thing to you. It is fine if they are not, I get that approach. But I need to know your perspective.

Yes, but effectively unlimited, if there is enough wood for everyone to build a house if they make the effort.

I'll ask at this point whether you believe that ownership is a real thing?

You make scarcity of wood by claiming wood for yourself. If you (and others) have claimed all the wood in the area around us there being wood on the other side of the world is of no use or comfort to me. You only look at it terms of there being a scarcity of houses because of the desire you created in others for homes when you built one but homes require natural resources to build, like wood and land to sit on and these resources are finite.

That did not happen in my scenario, nor in the real world.

I don't agree that owning land is a natural right. I've been endeavoring for people who do to explain what this natural right is and where it comes from.

Wow! I apologize! I left out the word "not." Obviously, that changed my meaning completely.

You agree with me that owning land is NOT a natural right. Few people understand that. Here is what I should have said:

Since you already understand that owning land is a NOT natural right, I'll ask rhetorically how land goes from an unowned resource to a private resource. I think you know that privately owned land originated as conquered territory. Within that counquered territory, the ruler has the right power to take whatever farm product is created, leaving only enough to the workers of the land to keep working.

 

[Curried Goats]

I feel as though I'm answering your question, but you aren't see it:

View attachment 733370
If it doesn't matter what we are talking about, what are we talking about?

Let me ask a question of you before I try again: Are there any such thing as rights? Of so, give an example and where does that right come from?

If rights are like unicorns and fairies to you, then of course any debate about what is or is not a right is pointless. Not saying that you're wrong, but whether rights exist is a different debate than what is and is not a right.

There are such things as legal rights, these are manufactured by governments. I don't believe in natural rights. If you want to make arguments in terms of natural rights then you must first prove natural rights actually exist.

Of course there was a benefit gained. Say there were one hundred islanders and one family of five built a house. Now 1/20th of the islanders live in a house instead of sleeping on the ground in the open. That's an immediate benefit. If families see the house and build their own, they will also benefit. The scarcity itself is a benefit, is my point. It drives innovation and effort.

The benefit is to the family sleeping in the house. The rest of the community lost a bit of shade and fruit from the trees you chopped down and lost a little land where you decided to put your house down. Those things were shared but your house, which was made from shared material, is now being used solely and exclusively by you.

The word is scarcity, not famine, deprivation, etc.

View attachment 733372They are alike in that neither are work, because they are not creating anything new, but only taking what is already there with the intent to deprive others of it.

In physics, work is an exchange of energy. This is a discussion of economics. Thieves may call what they do "work," "a job," etc. and if they are in a gang, they may be called "earners." But they are not workers or earners, they are takers.

Physics is universal, economics is a discussion on politics which is subjective. As I suspected your definition of work is personal. It is directly related to whether or not you value what is being done. When you say the person is picking fruit with the intent to deprive others of it you are admonishing and judging. I have not made personal judgments against these hypothetical actors. As I said previously he could simply forsee there being a time where fruit isn't plentiful and want to ensure against its scarcity. From my perspective the man who chops the wood to build his house that is only for him has effectly deprived others of the resources of the wood and land it sits on. I don't care about his intent, only the result. I speak in terms of actions and results and you speak in terms of right and wrong.

They are not infinite, but they are effectively unlimited. What economic resource have we run out of? Diamonds? Gold? There are plenty. They require more work to get out of the ground than iron or corn, so they are more expensive. But we're not out of them.

They are not effectively unlimited to people with no reasonable hope of accessing them. It isn't just about availability of resources its about access to them.

Again, I need to know whether rights are a real thing to you. It is fine if they are not, I get that approach. But I need to know your perspective.

Legal rights are real so long as the government has the power to enforce them. Natural Rights not so much.

View attachment 733379
Yes, but effectively unlimited, if there is enough wood for everyone to build a house if they make the effort.

Only in the imaginary land of Plenty. In the real world you can't have economics without a government to manage and maintain an economic system and a government holds a monopoly on the land and how people are able to use and access it.

I'll ask at this point whether you believe that ownership is a real thing?

Legal ownership so long as there is a government able to enforce it.

That did not happen in my scenario, nor in the real world.

It did. It happened to the indigenous people of North America when Europeans landed.

Wow! I apologize! I left out the word "not." Obviously, that changed my meaning completely.

You agree with me that owning land is NOT a natural right. Few people understand that. Here is what I should have said:

Since you already understand that owning land is a NOT natural right, I'll ask rhetorically how land goes from an unowned resource to a private resource. I think you know that privately owned land originated as conquered territory. Within that counquered territory, the ruler has the right power to take whatever farm product is created, leaving only enough to the workers of the land to keep working.

It goes to being a private resource through force. Specifically your ability to use force to keep others from it.

 

[Seymour Flops]

There are such things as legal rights, these are manufactured by governments. I don't believe in natural rights. If you want to make arguments in terms of natural rights then you must first prove natural rights actually exist.

I would love to make that argument, but not on this thread. I'll start one as soon as this one play out. Progressives are often "accused" of believing that we have no rights other than those granted by government, but few "admit" to it, so I appreciate you being upfront.

I will refer to the fact that you don't believe in rights as I answer your arguments. You may see that as a dick move since I don't want to stop talking about basic economics. You'd have a point, but if you are eager to talk about rights, please start a thread called, "Rights only come from government," or whatever and I'll join in the fun that is sure to follow.

The benefit is to the family sleeping in the house. The rest of the community lost a bit of shade and fruit from the trees you chopped down and lost a little land where you decided to put your house down. Those things were shared but your house, which was made from shared material, is now being used solely and exclusively by you.

It is really a stretch to talk about that tiny loss especially since I don't know that fruit trues would be vital to building any house. They gained a far greater benefit by seeing how to build houses.

Physics is universal, economics is a discussion on politics which is subjective. As I suspected your definition of work is personal. It is directly related to whether or not you value what is being done.

Yes, I'm sure the burglar, the pickpocket, and the bank defrauder consider themselves to be working. Economics is subjective, of course. It is psychological and socialigical, not a hard science.

When you say the person is picking fruit with the intent to deprive others of it you are admonishing and judging. I have not made personal judgments against these hypothetical actors. As I said previously he could simply forsee there being a time where fruit isn't plentiful and want to ensure against its scarcity.

Scarcity of that kind would come if either trees died or the population grew. Since it is an island hypothetical, the result would be that the population thinned to match the available resources.

From my perspective the man who chops the wood to build his house that is only for him has effectly deprived others of the resources of the wood and land it sits on. I don't care about his intent, only the result. I speak in terms of actions and results and you speak in terms of right and wrong.

Yes, because the whole point of the thread is to help progressives/marxists understand how wrong they are to think that they are right to take the work product of others for their own benefit. I can certainly see how an amoral approach to economics benefits the dedicated Marxist. Again, it is exactly what progressives are often accused of.

They are not effectively unlimited to people with no reasonable hope of accessing them. It isn't just about availability of resources its about access to them.

Legal rights are real so long as the government has the power to enforce them. Natural Rights not so much.

Cynical, but on many levels, true.

Only in the imaginary land of Plenty. In the real world you can't have economics without a government to manage and maintain an economic system and a government holds a monopoly on the land and how people are able to use and access it.

Absolutely.

Legal ownership so long as there is a government able to enforce it.

Of land, yes. That is a point I make often, and have a hard time getting people to understand.

It did. It happened to the indigenous people of North America when Europeans landed.

Not at all. The Europeans landed either in areas in which the indigenous people were nomads with no idea of land ownership, or who had a system of land ownership. Land was effectively unlimited ot them.

In the former, the Indies lost nothing when Europeans "claimed" patches of land to grow food on, because there was enough unclaimed land that it was still effectively unlimited. In the latter, they only "lost" what their own kings had already taken away from them.

It is only after an area is conquered by government, that the people begin to lose the right to walk freely on the land. Private efforts at land improvement in areas small enough to be used by individuals takes the rights to only those small areas, leaving the rest effectively unlimited.

At some point, if people are going to own large farms such that each farmer can feed hundreds and therefore be freed from the work of farming, people do start to lose the right to freely travel over the Earth they were born on. Absolutely, that is a loss of rights, which I think you would agree if not for not believing in individual rights.

It goes to being a private resource through force. Specifically your ability to use force to keep others from it.

Even then, land is not a fully private resource. It is only "yours" as long as government says it is.

 

[Curried Goats]

I would love to make that argument, but not on this thread. I'll start one as soon as this one play out. Progressives are often "accused" of believing that we have no rights other than those granted by government, but few "admit" to it, so I appreciate you being upfront.

Considering you keep making your other arguments in terms of these notions I'm not sure how you can have this discussion without the other. It's like building a house without solidifying your foundation.

I will refer to the fact that you don't believe in rights as I answer your arguments. You may see that as a dick move since I don't want to stop talking about basic economics. You'd have a point, but if you are eager to talk about rights, please start a thread called, "Rights only come from government," or whatever and I'll join in the fun that is sure to follow.

I don't see it as a "dick" move I see it as you wanting to lecture progressives about a topic you get to shape and design and invent without agreement on whether it actually exists outside of your imagination.

It is really a stretch to talk about that tiny loss especially since I don't know that fruit trues would be vital to building any house. They gained a far greater benefit by seeing how to build houses.

This is a great example of what I'm talking about. You get to decide what the benefits and losses are to all parties involved based on your own subjective beliefs. I don't argue based on subjective beliefs I argue based on objective facts. Things that can actually be proven. I don't know if hypothetical people would prefer knowledge of home making over fruit trees or trees for shade or trees that produce vital oxygen so you can have a house that stands as an example to all. That's speculation. I do know that they all shared some trees and land that you took some for yourself and now they have less to share. That's basic math. It's provable.

Yes, I'm sure the burglar, the pickpocket, and the bank defrauder consider themselves to be working. Economics is subjective, of course. It is psychological and socialigical, not a hard science.

And I'm sure you don't consider yourself a burglar when you take trees that were shared among all to build your house because that's your subjective opinion but objectively the rest of us have fewer trees to share.

Scarcity of that kind would come if either trees died or the population grew. Since it is an island hypothetical, the result would be that the population thinned to match the available resources.

Eventually this hypothetical must bear some resemblance to the real world or it loses its usefulness as an example of progressive folly.

Yes, because the whole point of the thread is to help progressives/marxists understand how wrong they are to think that they are right to take the work product of others for their own benefit. I can certainly see how an amoral approach to economics benefits the dedicated Marxist. Again, it is exactly what progressives are often accused of.

Then you can't really have this discussion without discussing right or wrong or morality.

Cynical, but on many levels, true.

Absolutely.

Of land, yes. That is a point I make often, and have a hard time getting people to understand.

Not at all. The Europeans landed either in areas in which the indigenous people were nomads with no idea of land ownership, or who had a system of land ownership. Land was effectively unlimited ot them.

In the former, the Indies lost nothing when Europeans "claimed" patches of land to grow food on, because there was enough unclaimed land that it was still effectively unlimited. In the latter, they only "lost" what their own kings had already taken away from them.

It is your subjective opinion that they didn't effectively lose anything because there was more land available to them but I can prove their loss with simple objective math. You want to prove the folly of progressives but the folly is all in your imagination. You have no notions or arguments that are objective. They rely on all of us agreeing on your perspective. Why should we have to? We have our own perspectives. The only thing we can agree on is objective facts. If they had 100 acres of land to share and the Europeans took 10 for themselves then that is an objective loss of 10 acres whether or not you feel they still have plenty left.

It is only after an area is conquered by government, that the people begin to lose the right to walk freely on the land. Private efforts at land improvement in areas small enough to be used by individuals takes the rights to only those small areas, leaving the rest effectively unlimited.

In your island hypothetical the individual who built the house effectively conquered that plot of land since he is presumably keeping unwanted people off what he assumes is now his property. Can you see potential problems with this? What happens if me and three other people build our homes in a manner that effectively boxes his home in? You can't have rights to property without some government or some agreement between you and your neighbors. Rights are always a negotiation.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Seymour Flops]

Considering you keep making your other arguments in terms of these notions I'm not sure how you can have this discussion without the other. It's like building a house without solidifying your foundation.

I don't see it as a "dick" move I see it as you wanting to lecture progressives about a topic you get to shape and design and invent without agreement on whether it actually exists outside of your imagination.

The foundation is there. But this thread is about economics, not "rights" as a concept. If it were, we would talk past each other. You believe that "rights" only exist when granted by government. I believe that government cannot grant rights, but only protect rights, and grant privileges, powers, license, subsidy, etc.

That is the beginning and end of our debate on rights as far as basic economics goes. You brought up rights, not I.

If you start a thread titled, "Rights only come from Government," maybe in the ethics section, I will join in the fray. It sounds fun.

This is a great example of what I'm talking about. You get to decide what the benefits and losses are to all parties involved based on your own subjective beliefs. I don't argue based on subjective beliefs I argue based on objective facts. Things that can actually be proven. I don't know if hypothetical people would prefer knowledge of home making over fruit trees or trees for shade or trees that produce vital oxygen so you can have a house that stands as an example to all. That's speculation. I do know that they all shared some trees and land that you took some for yourself and now they have less to share. That's basic math. It's provable.

Yes, and I know that there were zero houses on the Island, and now there is one. There is also effectively unlimited opportunity for the people to build their own.

As far as whether it is better to have a home than not have a home, I do know that the overwhelming majority of them would prefer to have a home. There may be some that prefer the natural existence or are not interested in doing the work to create a home. In that case, for them there is no scarcity, certainly not a scarcity of shade caused by curring down a few of thousands of trees.

That people tend to act in their own interests by acquiring material possessions is a key principle of economics. Particularly in Marxist economics which are entirely materialistic. Historically it has only been when Marxism failed that the people who established it have announced that "materialism" is a bad thing and that we should all pursue more spiritual. The promise of Marxist revolutionaries is never that production will be minimized and we will "return" to a spiritual relationship to nature. The promise is that production will continue as before, or even improve under the wise guidance of worker committees and that the workers will receive the wealth created instead of the parasitical capitialists.

It is your subjective opinion that they didn't effectively lose anything because there was more land available to them but I can prove their loss with simple objective math.

I proved their gain above with math, also: 1 House > 0 Houses.

You want to prove the folly of progressives but the folly is all in your imagination. You have no notions or arguments that are objective. They rely on all of us agreeing on your perspective. Why should we have to? We have our own perspectives. The only thing we can agree on is objective facts. If they had 100 acres of land to share and the Europeans took 10 for themselves then that is an objective loss of 10 acres whether or not you feel they still have plenty left.

They did not have one hundred acres of land. If they can be said to have "had" the land, then prior to the first European/English settlement, they had 1.9 Billion acres of land in the area that became the current United States. By the time they were fully confined to reservations, or living as racial minorities in the White United States, there was plenty of unused land left, expecially given how much smaller their numbers were by then.

Their near-genocide was not at all caused by famers taking up too much of their land, it was caused - as nearly all human misery is caused - by government incompetence or malevelance.

In your island hypothetical the individual who built the house effectively conquered that plot of land since he is presumably keeping unwanted people off what he assumes is now his property. Can you see potential problems with this?

Yes, I do see the problem. I'll discuss that shortly.

What happens if me and three other people build our homes in a manner that effectively boxes his home in? You can't have rights to property without some government or some agreement between you and your neighbors.

Yes, I have made that argument about boxing people in also. Government would grant the use of property, but would also enforce an easement for people to walk through it if that were the only way to leave a given area.

I would argue that it isn't a "right" that government grants to land, but rather an agreement that a person can treat land as if it were his private property, the same as if he had created it. That is a privilege, a license called a deed, not a right. The "right" to own land is a legal fiction, but one which is often very beneficial to many people.

On my hypothetical island, the house builder probably doesn't think of the land as his, even if he correctly believes that the house is his. If the rainy season comes, and his house floods, because he didn't think of that possibility, he will just move it to another spot, not lament that "his" land isn't suitable for building.

Rights are always a negotiation.

Interesting. I had always thought that the government of Nazi Germany, for example, took away rights from Jews in Europe. The Jews actually had no rights except those they negotiated with government?

 

[Seymour Flops]

The Origin of Government

When agriculture first started (and it started at many different times in many different places), there would always be two types of people: Farmers and Hunter/Gatherers. The famers farmed, while the HG's roamed nomadically, looking for game and forage.

Either method of survival is subject to occasional failure. If the farms failed, the farmers might turn to forage and hunting, perhaps permanently, or perhaps to the next planting season. If the game and forage played out, the HG's could not "return" to farming, because they had never done it and did not have the knowledge. Besides, they would not likely consider that kind of back-breaking work until they were desperate and by then there would be no time for a crop to grow and save them.

What they would sometimes do is notice the farmers and their supply of harvested food and decide to take it away from them. A battle would ensue. If the farmers defeated the HG's then they HG's would be gone and life would go on. If the HG's defeated the farmers, the farmers would be gone and the HG's would live off the food until the game returned.

The next time the game ran out, they might say to each other: "Let's go back to those farming people again, kill them all again, and take all their food." But when they got there - no farm. They killed all the farmers and farms don't spring from nature.

Hmmmm.

So the brains of the outfit might say, "Let's find another place where people farm. But this time, Let's not take all their food, let's only take half their food. Let's not kill all of them, let's just kill the first couple of them that smart off. That way, they will still be alive and farming when we come again."

If the farmers go along with it, having no other choice but to fight to the death, the HG's would have no reason not to do it against next year. They may also search for other farming people, since they are still roaming nomads. Eventually, they will have enough farmers working and giving them large parts of their work product, that they don't have to even bother hunting their own food anymore, except if they want to do it for fun.

Voila! Government.

It was a sociology professor who taught that dynamic. He called it "The Iron Law of ____________" but I can't remember for sure what it was supposed to be the Iron Law of.

Land as Territory

The proto-governments described above did not "own land," they held territory. Any other HG tribe who decided to exact tribute from a farming group paying already paying tribute would be a threat to that proto-government. The proto-government will either attack and defeat the interlopers, attack the interlopers and be defeated, or slink away to look for easier pickings.

Either way, the farmers will continue to be "governed," that is to be robbed of their work product by armed men. Ironically, whoever ends up "governing" them will claim to have protected the farmers from the would-be new robbers. That government might demand even more work product, since they are now providing that service of protection.

Actually, I should not put the word government in quotes. Robbing people of their work product is the key function of government. It is what makes government government. If people voluntarily paid armed men to protect them from being robbed, that would private security, not government. Only the non-voluntary nature of the protection payments make government government.

The Origin of Feudalism

At some point, the use of horses or other beasts of burden to carry loads and to ride became widespread, and the rulers would have been the first to adopt it, in order to carry home more of the workers' output. Rulers get older and may not want to be constantly riding out from village to village collecting the tribute. So, they send their trusted men to ride out and bring back the loot.

But one problem. After a long ride, and days of forcing the villagers to load up the horses with wealth, the rider faces a long ride back just to give the ruler the stuff to be put in the ruler's warehouse. Why not just keep the wealth? What's that ruler going to do? Ride his aging ass on his aging pony out here and fight me?

A ruler may anticipate this, or he may learn the hard way. One village is gone, how to make sure this doesn't happen again? Pick one of his most trusted men for each village (except the closest) and send him to live in the village. Tell each that the village is "theirs" so long as they keep bringing the ruler tribute, minus a cut for themselves, of course. Keep the closest village as "headquarters," with all of the wealth for the ruler. Sons often make the most loyal of such vassals, but new blood in the mix, selected by merit are useful also.

If one of the vassals decides to go rogue, the others will show loyalty by attacking him out. That loyalty to be rewarded by more autonomy in their own fiefdoms, more territory, and maybe a say in who is appointed to the vacant slot.

This is still not private property. This is territory governed by a heirarchy.

The Origin of Wealth

As they get better at farming, farmers can grow more food than needed for survival of themselves and their tribal rulers. The tribal rulers will still take more and more of the food. They will not let the farmers work more slowly or eat more and get fat. Rather than let their now excessive food rot, they may use it for non-farm workers, either to pay empoyees in food or feed slaves. The workers will produce wealth, and the rulers will grow richer.

They will want better clothes than their hunting skins, and will pay/feed workers who make them. They will want furniture, jewels, libations, art, and other luxuries. They may realize that paid workers produce better such products than than slaves, because the paid workers will have the motivation effort and innovation. Those worker will trade also with each other in those goods and wealth will begin to multiply. At whatever point, money will come into use.

Some of the workers and traders will compile enough wealth that the ruler(s) may want to take some of it for themselves. There is no such thing as "enough" for government. They are nothing like the people on the Island of Enough. But mindful of what happened with the farmers, and knowing that these workers are not tied to the land as the farmers were, they may decide to kill two birds with one stone.

The Origin of Land as Private Property

By selling marked off tracts of their territory to wealth producers as "private property," the ruler gains wealth from the producer by trading something that the ruler did not produce. In fact, the ruler still has the privately owned land in his territory, just like before. So what has it cost him to sell it?

The ruler also now has gained the loyalty of the wealth producer, since it is the ruler who the ensures that the wealth producer can keep the land. The new landowner may just enjoy standing on ground that he can call "mine." But he will also likely put it to use in creating wealth. That's what he is good at.

The wealth producer may build a workshop or a trading post on the land, increasing the wealth and bringing it in from other lands, or he may farm it by hiring workers, or he may rent it to a tennant farmer who has the expertise, thus increasing his own wealth and adding to the food supply.

For the ruler, this is all good. The more producers, the more taxes he can collect and the safer his kingdom is from famine or other deprivation that might lead to a revolt. The more food available the more workers he can feed. Not to mention he can also feed many more of those much needed persons for such a complicated government - the soldiers and the enforcers of taxes. Eventually, the sailor and the sheriff.

Now government is really growing. As always, the growth of government and of wealth is funded by the efforts of free men.

Slaves don't innovate, nor are they motivated to greater efforts. In all cases in which government supported slavery over a free labor market, it had the effect (and purpose I argue) of maintaining the status quo, not of facilitating advancement. Slaves did things like build pyramids, which added only to the agrandizement of government, not to the wealth of the nation.

This was true for thousands of years of human history, until formal and legal slavery was finally abolished in the American South and in Latin America.

Government is why that widow woman with thousands of acres protected only by barbed wire that can stop cattle but not men, can hold onto that land as private property. Government knows that landowners create wealth and that without wealth they would have nothing to tax. Try to push grandma off her land, and she will suddenly have effectively unlimited numbers of armed men to hold it for her. It is much more effecient that all landowners everywhere in the government's territory are protected by its readiness to step in than for each landowner to have to hire their own force standing continuous guard.

That's why private landowners are always eager to have a government. Expensive though taxes may be, they are cheaper than the alternatives.

 

[KissMy]

And our last supposed rise in GDP was 100% the diaper dude draining our strategic national reserves to sell overseas & increased sales of arms & aid to Ukraine.

Besides, that 55% of the economy is complete BS & you probably know it.
Our economy was over $21 trillion & total local, state & fed govt spending was less than $7.5 trillion. 2019 numbers.

The DEMPANIC!!! where your masters grabbed the wheel & drove us into a ditch isn't indicative of what DT did as President

• President Trump, in a stunning nighttime tweet, called the $900 billion Covid relief bill passed by Congress an unsuitable “disgrace.”
• Trump demanded lawmakers make a number of changes to the measure, including bigger $2,000 direct payments to individuals and $4,000 to families.
• Trump Government Spending was $11 Trillion & real GDP was only $18.7 Trillion.

 

[johngaltshrugged]

• President Trump, in a stunning nighttime tweet, called the $900 billion Covid relief bill passed by Congress an unsuitable “disgrace.”
• Trump demanded lawmakers make a number of changes to the measure, including bigger $2,000 direct payments to individuals and $4,000 to families.
• Trump Government Spending was $11 Trillion & real GDP was only $18.7 Trillion.

So when the DEMPANIC!!! & UNiparty chosen "experts" grabbed the wheel & crashed us into the ditch, DT tried to help the people their insane policies would've crushed.
He shouldn't have done any of it.
He should have told the prog pussies to blow it out their ass when they started talking about wrecking the country over a flu.
You all were driving & you wrecked us completely just to get rid of mean twits & install a dementia victim in a dirty diaper.
Try your projection on someone that is as gullible & fearful as you are because I see through it all clearly.
You can't destroy our country & convince non-morons it was all DTs fault.
Ya'll have been following Cloward & Piven for years & the coming crash is all on you.
Own it