Labor is Prior to and Independent of Capital

[DaGoose]

You must be a big supporter of the Ryan budget that suggests a reduction to two brackets of tax rates and virtually no deductions.

dagoose is one of the biggest capitalist on these boards.

Why did you attribute someone else's comments to me?

I never said, "You must be a big supporter of the Ryan budget that suggests a reduction to two brackets of tax rates and virtually no deductions".

And yet you changed the posts to show I did.

 

[DaGoose]

You're 100% correct which was the reason for the need of labor unions. And as a result labor was able to level the playing field and help create a real middle class.

Now we're seeing the pendulum swinging back where the rich getting incredibly richer (with help from the government via HUGE tax cuts) and the working class getting it stuck up their ass.

Labor will always be technology and capital's lil' ***** now. Automation has captured and displaced much of labor's utility to productivity.

You can long for the good ol' days all you want, but they are gone for good.

Capital is king. It takes a hell of a lot less labor now to produce the goods and services we need.

And yet you sound so happy about it.

Why is that?

 

[DaGoose]

WTF is going on here? How are the quotes getting changed around? (See my last post. It switched me and sinpers posts around and reversed who said what.)

 

[The Rabbi]

Probably because substituting capital for labor has led to tremendous growth in productivity and lowered costs across the board. I'd be happy too.

 

[code1211]

WTF is going on here? How are the quotes getting changed around? (See my last post. It switched me and sinpers posts around and reversed who said what.)

I've had that happen to me, too.

You have to be careful where you're cutting off the word "quote" and the surrounding brackets in the quoted posts.

 

[Toro]

How does labor get hired if there's no capital?

It doesn't.

That's why capital has first legal claims on a company's assets before labour.

Unless you are a UAW worker and Owebama is the POTUS.

Yes. That was at the front of my mind when I was typing that.

 

[Dragon]

Probably because substituting capital for labor has led to tremendous growth in productivity and lowered costs across the board. I'd be happy too.

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

 

[The T]

dagoose is one of the biggest capitalist on these boards.

Why did you attribute someone else's comments to me?

I never said, "You must be a big supporter of the Ryan budget that suggests a reduction to two brackets of tax rates and virtually no deductions".

And yet you changed the posts to show I did.

Oh gee? Did I forget the sarcasm tag?

My bad.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Adam Smith made the same point, only his conclusion was different. Out on the Serangetti, each of us was our own source of manufacture and supply.

However, when you start to trade this for that, and recognize different talents and abilities, and we start having division of labor then we start getting capitals and social progress.

When it is more profitable for one guy to spend his whole day making spear points and arrow heads and not bothering to go out and hunt, then you have your first capitalist. His trading stock is a pile of obsidian, his manufacturing equipment might be a couple antlers, a piece of lion skin and a large flat pice of basalt but this is the capital that feeds him better than he could achieve by running after the antelope himself.

and when we get further division where one guy jobs the business of making arrow heads and making shafts and fletching arrows to two other guys, then we have even more capitalism, and even more division of labor and even more social progress.

Labor is the basis for all wealth, but the ever increasing level of division of labor and specialization of capital equipment is what takes equal amounts of sweat and turns them from subsistence living on the edge of starvation to the current levels of health, comfort and enjoyment.

 

[The Rabbi]

Probably because substituting capital for labor has led to tremendous growth in productivity and lowered costs across the board. I'd be happy too.

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

 

[Dragon]

Probably because substituting capital for labor has led to tremendous growth in productivity and lowered costs across the board. I'd be happy too.

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

 

[The T]

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

Is this a threat? Explain?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Unless, of course, the same process has left you unemployed and unable to afford anything even at the reduced prices.

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

One famous example was the cotton gin, which did the labor of 10 people for a 12 hour day in less than half an hour. Did this reduce employment in cotton? Heck no, it made employment in cotton explode.

The Jacquard loom was infamous for taking the craft of weaving and turning a skilled trade into a bit of mechanical supervision. Did you see a collapse in the amount of folks doing weaving? No, you saw a huge increase in the amount of weaving done, a huge decrease in the price of cloth and the number of folks working in weaving mills exploded. Machines took the business of Silas Marner working by himself to produce 9 yards of cloth every three days and turned it into a factory that employed hundreds and produced thousands of yards of cloth in an hour.

Stevedors can empty a ship buy carrying 75 lb loads up and down the gangplank (itself a machine) or we can have them work in the hold while one guy operated the crane. The second way is faster, and as there is more profit in turning the boat around quickly, more guys can work in the hold or on shore because of the guy in the crane than would be otherwise possible

For millions of years more and more mechanization results in more and more productivity which results in more jobs available. This dynamic will not change until the sun goes out.

 

[The T]

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

One famous example was the cotton gin, which did the labor of 10 people for a 12 hour day in less than half an hour. Did this reduce employment in cotton? Heck no, it made employment in cotton explode.

The Jacquard loom was infamous for taking the craft of weaving and turning a skilled trade into a bit of mechanical supervision. Did you see a collapse in the amount of folks doing weaving? No, you saw a huge increase in the amount of weaving done, a huge decrease in the price of cloth and the number of folks working in weaving mills exploded. Machines took the business of Silas Marner working by himself to produce 9 yards of cloth every three days and turned it into a factory that employed hundreds and produced thousands of yards of cloth in an hour.

Stevedors can empty a ship buy carrying 75 lb loads up and down the gangplank (itself a machine) or we can have them work in the hold while one guy operated the crane. The second way is faster, and as there is more profit in turning the boat around quickly, more guys can work in the hold or on shore because of the guy in the crane than would be otherwise possible

For millions of years more and more mechanization results in more and more productivity which results in more jobs available. This dynamic will not change until the sun goes out.

And to boot? You need people to maintain those machines.

 

[Liability]

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Read more: State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com

What did the first human who ever tilled the soil to grow food plant?

Methinks the seed (capital) preceded his labor.

Methinks moreover that it matters not.

For without BOTH the capital and the labor, there would be no cultivated crops.

 

[Dragon]

You make this mistake consistently. Machines do not reduce employment. They lower costs and make product substantially cheaper, which usually makes for hugely increased employment.

It's not a mistake, and what you say here is only true if there is some other area of production to make use of the labor no longer needed in the area automated. There are three and only three sectors of the economy: agriculture, manufacturing, and services. The first to be automated was agriculture. That did not result in lasting unemployment because manufacturing needed labor and could take up the slack. But there remains very low employment in the agricultural sector. That sector itself did not expand to replace the lost jobs. Similarly, when manufacturing automated, services expanded and employed people. Now that advances in computer technology make it possible to automate services, too, there is no fourth sector that can expand to compensate.

This is new. The past is no lesson. This is the point when the jobs disappear and do not return.

 

[Full-Auto]

How does labor get hired if there's no capital?

It doesn't.

That's why capital has first legal claims on a company's assets before labour.

Unless the law is suspended by a tyrant who places himself and his cronies above the law and before the interests of the republic.

You forgot to mention the bullying the president did. Insisting he would out the holdouts.

Meaning he was approving in advance the nasty tactics used by the left that are illegal but would not be prosecuted. Doubt me? Look at the martin case and the left breaking the law by calling for murder and kidnapping.

 

[The T]

If your job skills are so poor you can replaced by a machine then you have problems anyway.

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

Is this a threat? Explain?

How about it Dragoon? What do you mean? Are YOU inciting violence?

 

[Dragon]

You do realize that these days, except for court appearances, lawyers can be replaced by machines, right? Do lawyers have poor job skills?

As the number of people who can be replaced by machines increases, as jobs become scarcer and scarcer, the entire economy will have problems. So will those who continue to advocate a laissez-faire approach, in the teeth of rising public anger.

Lampposts and ropes, folks. Lampposts and ropes.

Is this a threat? Explain?

How about it Dragoon? What do you mean? Are YOU inciting violence?

Just predicting it, not advocating it.

 

[The T]

Is this a threat? Explain?

How about it Dragoon? What do you mean? Are YOU inciting violence?

Just predicting it, not advocating it.

And you've said it a few times in these forums...why is it I doubt you?