Re: Distribution & Redistribution

From: The Trucker (mikcob_at_verizon.net)
Date: 11/30/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:27:58 -0800

jmhall@apex.home.net wrote:

> The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> jmhall@apex.home.net wrote:
> big snip
>> >> The return to labor is wages and the return to capital is interest.
>> >> They are not distinct simply because we "name" the return differently
>> >> but because these "factors" are entirely different in their nature.
>> >
>> > Not really.
>>
>> Yes, really.
>>
>> > The really big distinction is that labor is
>> > always perfromed by a person.
>>
>> That is true enough, but "capital" is that which magnifies the effect
>> of labor or that which decreases the discomfort or labor necessary to
>> the attainment of comfort. It is most often a tool. With the exception
>> of intellectual capital it is not an inalienable part of man as is
>> labor.
>
> That's not the defintion of capital that you
> offered previously and I'm not at all sure it's
> the definition that's offered in classical
> economics.

It is the same definition; just presented in a different way.
I have an entire page for a definition:

http://GreaterVoice.org/econ/glossary/Real_Capital.php
 
>> > But what is the physical
>> > work of a winemaker who receives pay for that work 5 years
>> > later when the wine is bottled and sold?
>>
>> There was "physical work" in protecting the wine from theft and
>> from the sun, etc. There is capital involed in the bottles
>> the winecellar, etc. But the wine is not capital. This wine
>> stuff is one of the most loved excursions into "time preference"
>> trash.
>
> I never said the wine was capital--though most people
> do consider inventories to be capital. I was asking
> about the treatment of the physical work perfromed
> by the person that only received compensation at future
> time. How well does that fit into the classical,
> or your, categories of Labor and wages or Captial and
> interest?

Henry George did a pretty good job on this when he showed that
labor always precedes wages, goods, or capital. We do not get
our wages until we have invested our labors. WE ALL RECEIVE
OUR COMPENSATION AT A FUTURE TIME. Some of us get paid every
week, some every two, some once per month, some once per
quarter, and others only once per year. This lag between
our _investment_ and our compensation has nothing to do with
the differentiation between labor-wages and capital-interest.

> The activity i descibe above was chosen because it
> fits perfectly into your previously offered definiton
> of capital: something applied in the pursuit of some
> other good.

I don't recall ever presenting such a definition. Perhaps
you can find it for us. I might have said "the output of
labor not consumed but used in the provisioning of more
goods". And I don't see how bottling berry juice can
be confused with creating a basket or a hammer. But it's
your dead skunk.

> It is true that I did intentionally
> include a temporal element but that element is not
> required to show that your definition of capital
> includes Labor.

My definition of capital does not include labor or land. Your
proposed daffynition of bottled grape juice being capital
certainly is interesting, but it simply shows a misunderstanding
of what has been presented or an attempt at obfuscation.

> So ultimately your defintions are not practically
> applicable but I think the classical economists were
> attempting to produce definitions that had practical,
> or perhaps empirically useful would be better, as well
> as theoretical application. You definition have no
> empirical import whatsoever.

So when all is said and done, we get the bluster, eh. 

-- 
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson.  http://GreaterVoice.org

Relevant Pages

  • Re: interest v. "usury"
    ... >all-important to an understanding of the more complicated phenomena of wages that it ... that labor cannot exert its productive power unless supplied by ... >laborers looking for employment and the amount of capital devoted to hiring them. ... There is a difference between procurement and production. ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: OT - Gunner Memo
    ... and technology costs big bucks with diminishing returns. ... the outcome of things like minimum wages and employment levels. ... even though they were paying through the nose for labor (the long-term ... Before somebody goes off on a toot, I'm not advocated wages set by ...
    (rec.crafts.metalworking)
  • Re: What happened to Japan?
    ... It is one of the effects of the international division of labor that it ... creates an interdependency of wages all over the world. ... connection between the height of wages in both countries. ... Under the existing system of immigration restrictions equilibrium wages ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: OT - Gunner Memo
    ... and technology costs big bucks with diminishing returns. ... the outcome of things like minimum wages and employment levels. ... even though they were paying through the nose for labor (the long-term ... Without substantial labor laws and wage ...
    (rec.crafts.metalworking)
  • Re: U.S. against THEM
    ... >> set wages, working conditions and benefits? ... > these investors via their corporations. ... Home grown business has created the labor competition to destroy ... Rich people hate paying "too much" for labor. ...
    (rec.music.gdead)