Re: Gold mental exercise sentence of the day

From: The Trucker (mikcob_at_verizon.net)
Date: 01/10/05 

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 13:46:13 -0800

royls@telus.net wrote:

> On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 10:01:13 -0800, The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
>>royls@telus.net wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 13:03:17 -0800, The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>royls@telus.net wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 30 Dec 2004 01:36:30 -0800, quirk@syntac.net wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>In my (perhaps limited) understanding, Capital//ism// is distinguished
>>>>>>by the private ownership of Capital, including ones labour, land and
>>>>>>capital goods.
>>>>>
>>>>> Capitalism is defined as private ownership of the means of production
>>>>> -- land and capital -- but this does not include labor because labor
>>>>> cannot be owned. It is performed only in the present moment, and
>>>>> passes out of existence immediately. Those who talk of owning labor
>>>>> know that it is impossible, and are mainly trying to sneak in the idea
>>>>> that land can rightly be owned.
>>>>
>>>>This is why we should seek to define _real_ capitalism as a system that
>>>>enhances the creation of _capital_.
>>>
>>> IMO it's better to leave current terms' definitions alone, and think
>>> of new terms for new concepts. In this case, no new terms are needed,
>>> as freedom, justice and prosperity already have perfectly good
>>> definitions.
>>
>>So we have "justiceism and freedomism"??
>
> ?? What's wrong with freedom and justice?

I need an "ism" here. Capital "ism" and social "ism" don't
work very well.
 
>>"capitalism"
>>is defined in many dictionaries as a system of rules that provide for
>>private ownership of capital goods. Unfortunately, these dictionaries
>>then proceed to list labor and land among capital goods. Other entries
>>simply say that capitalism is individual ownership of the means of
>>production. In essence, the same thing.
>
> The "means of production" that can be privately or collectively owned
> includes land and capital, not labor.

It is better to look at land as being equally owned by all as
opposed to "collectively" owned by some. And capital can be owned
because it is the fruit of labor that was _owned_ or rented by the
individual or group that created it. The labor itself, however,
can only be owned by the individuals that supply it and is owned
by the individuals that supply it.

>>There seems to be no real
>>distinction between owning labor (this is a person),
>
> People are not labor, and labor is not people.

The labor is an inalienable part of the person.

>>and land (that
>>which occurs naturally), and actual "goods" or "capital goods"
>>(the productions of labor; the productions of people). I propose
>>_real_ capitalism as a system that enhances the creation of _real_
>>capital.
>
> IMO that dog won't hunt.

I would appreciate an explanation of _why_ you believe "that dog
won't hunt".

>>>>>>Communism, by contrast, mutualizes the inputs, making Human Capital
>>>>>>("from each..."), Natural Capital, and Capital Goods.
>>>>>
>>>>> Communism abolishes private property, but labor is not and cannot be
>>>>> private property.
>>>>
>>>>Something is wrong here... A misstatement, I suppose. Labor is the
>>>>private property of the individual who provides it.
>>>
>>> Labor is not and can never be property _at_all_. It is absurd to
>>> think anyone can own an individual's application of productive effort.
>>> The result can be owned, but not the effort per se. It doesn't even
>>> exist until the moment of application, and then immediately ceases to
>>> exist, leaving only the result. The idea of labor being property is
>>> like the idea of "mixing" labor with land: an outright physical
>>> absurdity.
>>
>>I see no reason for this distinction of the corporeal. I speak of
>>potential labor here.
>
> You mean an _intent_ to labor?
>
>>And as I own my own body
>
> I don't buy that (;^) either.
>
>>I own the labor
>>my body can and will provide. My labor belongs to ME. It is mine;
>>I own it.
>
> No, you do not, any more than you own the rotation of your truck's
> wheels, or the light refected from its license plate.

The wheels and the light are not an inalienable part of my being.
My labor _IS_.

>>What danger lies in recognizing that each individual owns his
>>body,
>
> That one should be obvious: if you own it, someone else can, too.

Nope. You cannot take labor from my body and have anything.
As soon as the body is detached there is no labor. The fruits of
labor OTOH are another matter. IMHO my labor (and by extention
the fruits thereof after owners of land and capital have been paid)
is the only thing that logically, morally, rationally, can be
_owned_ by me and nobody else.

>> his mind, his talents,
>
> Likewise.
>
>>and his _potential_ labor.
>
> How can you own something that doesn't exist except at the moment you
> produce it?

Self determination says that my actions and potential actions belong
to me. I don't understand why that is not "ownership".

>>>From this
>>point of view then flows the idea of intellectual capital being
>>learned ability which is owned by the individual and employed in
>>the actual expenditure of his labor.
>
> It is controlled, not owned.

I see no duplicity or misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, or
"fuzziness" in saying that such things are _owned_ by the individual
that can supply, withhold, or destroy them.

>>And again I see no conflicts
>>with any rational system of economics.
>
> To say that labor is owned is itself irrational.

Don't see why....

>>>>> You seem to be referring to socialism, which
>>>>> collectivizes ownership of land and capital. The capitalist and
>>>>> socialist make opposite but essentially similar logical errors: the
>>>>> capitalist seeks to privatize ownership of land, which cannot rightly
>>>>> be owned at all, while the socialist seeks to collectivize ownership
>>>>> of capital, which is rightly owned by its private producers.
>>>>
>>>>Right enough. But labor is owned by the individual who provides it.
>>>
>>> No, it is not and cannot be owned by anyone. The resulting _product_
>>> is owned by the individual whose labor produced it.
>>
>>I see your point quite clearly, but I still insist that my labor
>>belongs to me and to no one else even though that labor has no
>>form of substance as a physical item.
>
> To me, that is literal nonsense.

Perhaps it is _literal_ nonsense, but we be talkin about econ and
not literature.

>>I also insist that my
>>skills and knowledge are my own
>
> Equivocation. Like "my own country."

NO! The country is owned collectively or equally. Not individually.
My country is like _my_ company, or my team.

>>and these are my personal _real_
>>capital and that they are not _real_ capital to anyone else
>>unless I agree to sell shares in my ability.
>
> Chattel slavery is illegal.

We do similar stuff when we agree to work for others. And much of
what we will be paid is based on our _own_ intellectual capital.
That intellectual capital is the fruit of our labor and owned by
us and it is not owned by anyone else. They can rent it like they
would rent a hammer. But it is our _own_.

>>>>And neither of the two "systems", socialism, or current capitalism
>>>>seem to reflect that fact.
>>>
>>> It is not a fact, which is perhaps why they don't reflect it. Labor
>>> is like the energy that imparts motion to a machine, or a sunbeam
>>> falling on a crop. The result can be owned, but not the instantaneous
>>> process of its effectuation.
>>
>>My labor belongs to ME. It is mine to sell or to trade or to use to
>>my own benefit. Why do you reject this proposition? My opinions are
>>also my own, and so too my emotions and my fears and my prejudices.
>
> And your country. Sure. But that doesn't make them all your
> _property_.

I am MY property and no one else's. And my labor is an inalienable
part of that _property_. What do you find so objectionable about
this?

>>>>>>And "Intellectual Property" is simply fraud, it is neither Capital or
>>>>>>even Property since it is neither exhaustable nor rivalrous.
>>>>>
>>>>> Right. It's just a government-granted privilege of having your cake
>>>>> and eating it too: keeping something private while profiting from its
>>>>> release to the public.
>>>>
>>>>Think in terms of depreciation and amortization always.
>>>
>>> No, only when appropriate. I've proposed an amortization-like system
>>> for encouraging creative work, but how would depreciation apply?
>>> Ideas don't deteriorate over time.
>>
>>The value to the creator should deteriorate over time as the idea
>>becomes "owned" by all.
>
> <sigh> Ideas can't be owned, either.

This statement is clearly wrong when I use my knowledge to gain
advantage and do not share that knowledge. This was very clear in
the 60's in the geophysical data processing arena. Companies that
could enhance subsurface stratigraphic images made a lot of dough
and they did it based on their own secret sauce. After a time the
secrets "leaked out". Deconvolution methods and similar "enhancement"
techniques became common knowledge and the oil companies were able
to hire lackeys to do the "application". But quite clearly to my
way of thinking the processing companies _owned_ these things until
others caught on and during that time these techniques were
"capital" just as a hammer.

>>>>How LONG
>>>>should a patent last and should the return not be amortized over that
>>>>time with diminishing returns?
>>>
>>> No, the question is, why would anyone think that the best way to
>>> assure abundance of something is by restricting its supply? The whole
>>> IP monopoly system is based on the pre-existing system of royal grants
>>> of trade monopolies, road-toll privileges, land, etc., and was only
>>> adopted because the royal grant model was already well known, and in
>>> the absence of any understanding of the relevant economics, they
>>> couldn't think of a better way to encourage creative work.
>>
>>Can you?
>
> I have proposed what I consider a better way.
>
>>Better, does creative work need to be encouraged so that
>>it will happen? Seems to me that it will happen with or without
>>encouragement so long as Republicans can be held at bay.
>
> It will happen, but may not happen as much, or be as useful, without
> some institutional framework to support its production, disclosure and
> use.

That is what universities should be doing.

>>>>Should it not look like a decay thing?
>>>>Rapid at first and decelerating in its decay?
>>>
>>> Why should it?
>>
>>Because after a time the idea is well known and the inventor is
>>dead.
>
> Irrelevant. The idea's value may not be recognized or realizable for
> a long time after it is published, like Arthur C Clarke's invention of
> the geostationary satellite.

What is your point? If the owner is dead it does not matter and
Arthur obviously did not do it for the patent money.

>>If "encouragement" is needed than the immediate income
>>is best.
>
> Sometimes the value is not known until long afterwards. What was
> Newton paid for "Principia," which essentially made all of modern
> civilization possible?
>
> -- Roy L

MOST of the time encouragement in the form of a big reward (other
than fame) is unnecessary. 

-- 
"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

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