Re: More Anarchism with Roy L

On 29 Apr 2005 02:56:54 -0700, "Quirk" <quirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>r...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> On 28 Apr 2005 08:03:32 -0700, "Quirk" <quirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> >But it does exist, embodied in the Capital, presumably what was lost
>in
>> >Rental value was gained in Capital yield.
>
>> Nope. The yield of the capital depends on the value added by labor,
>> not the resources used.
>
>How is that possible?

How could it be otherwise?

>If they add nothing to the sum, then labour ought
>to be able to produce the same value without using land as a resource.

No, the natural resources used to create capital add nothing to the
return to capital, because their full value must be paid out in rent,
up front.

>Land is an input to production, as such, it's value is part of the sum.

Yes, but its value is _subtracted_ from the _return_, because it must
be paid for, in full.

>> >Thus the Rental value of the
>> >population "leaks" into Capital yield.
>
>> Refuted above.
>
>So if I Rent a gold mine from the community, extract all the gold and
>other resources, and poison all the ground water while making an
>advanced computing platform with it, the Rental value of the land has
>fallen by the use of the land being downgraded from gold mining to data
>center housing on a polluted lot, thus the community has lost Rent.

Presumably you pay the community a severance tax for depleting the
resource, and are thus quits on that score.

>However, I, having a giant data center, can then Rent out its storage
>and computational facility back to the community, thus my increase in
>Capital Yield has come directly as a result of a decrease in Rent. This
>is the "leakage" I mean.

But that makes no sense. The amount you can rent out the computing
facility for does not depend on how much you have decreased the
resource rents the community can recover. It depends on how useful it
is. Maybe you deplete the resource a lot, and at the end of the day
the computing center barely pays for its own electricity consumption.
OTOH, maybe you don't deplete any resources at all, but your computing
center attracts related enterprises, _adding_ to total land rent. The
relationship you hypothesize simply does not exist except by accident.

>> >The liability to labour can be settled with wages, the liability to
>> >land can not be settled.
>
>> Garbage. It is settled forever when the resource is used, same as if
>> it is used to produce consumption goods.
>
>Except that consumer goods do not earn income, and is exactly unearned
>income that both both of us are concerned with.

The return to capital is not unearned, because it is obtained in
return for a _contribution_to_production_.

>> >Therefore it is easier to model the exchange in such a way that
>Capital
>> >remains mutual property.
>
>> The only way to make capital "mutual property" against the will of
>its
>> private producers or owners is by stealing it.
>
>As you know, I have no intention of taking anything against anybody's
>will, so this is a straw man.

OK, but I am trying to clarify what you might mean by "capital remains
mutual property," and have not yet succeeded.

>My proposal has always been that organised workers either finance their
>own mutual capital formation, or mutually buy capital outright, and
>never pay interest on it to private interests, nor sell their labour
>for wages alone to owners of Capital.
>
>If the producer of Capital will not sell the product of his labor
>outright,

???

Of course he'll sell it outright. The reason he doesn't is because
the best price anyone offers him is less than the present value of
what he can get by renting it out to those who can't afford to buy.

>let him keep it, and let him also do without our labour.

Why should he, if he offers a better return to it (and makes a better
return on it) than your syndic? It seems you have not grasped a key
advantage of free markets: resources moving into the most productive
hands. That often means capital moving into private hands.

>> >If by 'forced leveling' you mean the removal of the ability of
>owners
>> >of property to rob labour, yes.
>
>> Ownership of capital by those who produce it robs no one, any more
>> than ownership of consumer goods by those who produce them does.
>
>I agree, but labour when sells itself for wages alone to the
>Capitalist, it is robed.

I see no warrant for such a claim.

>I agree that in a truly free market, whatever
>the capitalist takes he only turns over to the landlord, as the price
>of Capital is driven to its cost.

Indeed, historically the risk-adjusted price of capital has often been
driven _below_ its cost. The airline industry as a whole, for
example, has made massive losses over its whole history.

>However, unless Capital is owned by the worker, I can not see the
>market for Capital ever being truly free, for reasons explained
>earlier.

Your reasons do not persuade me.

>> >Also, as I am proposing voluntary associations, like all Anarchists,
>I
>> >have no clue where you see any basis of force.
>
>> How are you going to "mutualize" privately produced capital but by
>> force?
>
>By having mutual organisations buy it out right from the producer, or
>produce it themselves.

Well, that does leave others who can't afford to buy it free to rent
it...

>> >If a producer of Capital voluntary joins a Venture Commune, and
>agrees
>> >to its rules, how is this force?
>
>> How is it force if he doesn't?
>
>It isn't. Let him eat it if he wont part with it permanently.

I repeat: owners of capital are willing to part with it permanently,
just not for less than the present value of what they can get by
renting it out.

>He will require force to cause anybody to give him their labour for
>wages alone, when they have the option instead to earn wages plus an
>equal stake in the Capital.

Your confidence is inspiring, but is it based on fact? People are
rightly leery of earning equity in their employers in lieu of wages.

>> >Or more to the point, if a Venture
>> >Commune invests its mutual wealth in the formation of Capital, where
>is
>> >the force when it chooses to Rent it, rather than sell it, to the
>> >Enterprises that put it to productive use?
>
>> ?? You don't seem to understand that the exact same arguments apply
>> to legitimate private owners of capital.
>
>I do, I don't see it as a contradiction with what I am saying.

OK, I guess the problem is in your assumption of better returns to the
worker through mutual ownership of capital. I strongly suspect that
the optimum returns to all will be achieved by placing resources in
the most productive hands, which will usually be private, not
collective.

>I see it
>as a bad deal for the wage earner, and thus the implicit force of
>poverty comes in to make the wage earner accept this deal.

Assuming the problem of landowner privilege can be excised from the
equation, I don't see it as a bad deal for the wage earner at all: he
doesn't have to buy capital he may not want to own, and the owner
bears a portion of the risk.

>Further, as you endorse this logic, then you must also admit that there
>is nothing economicly or morally unsound with the Anarchist
>mutualisation of Capital as described.

I think it's economically unsound inasmuch as it eschews mutually
profitable transactions for reasons that look entirely spurious to me.

>> >If it does not, then please explain how the liability to land has
>been
>> >settled.
>
>> The user's liability for the land has been settled forever when the
>> resource is used. The user either gets to use the resource for free
>> through his pre-existing right of use, or pays the community, in
>which
>> case the liability has been settled, or pays a private owner, in
>which
>> case the liability is on the private owner, not the user.
>
>I don't accept this, seems like a bad deal for the community to allow
>the user of the land to reduce its mutual value for private benefit.

But why? He pays the rent (and severance tax, if applicable)
precisely for the right to use the land for his private benefit.

>> >And I am not at all sure what Groucho has to do with this.
>
>> The conflation of land and capital that serves the purposes of the
>> privileged also serves the purposes of Marxists.
>
>Anarchist and Marxist agree on the exploitive nature of Property,
>Proudhon's "What is Property?" predates Marx's "Communist Manifesto."

And IMO both are wrong to claim that private ownership of privately
produced capital is exploitive.

>The Marxists, like you Liberals, and the Fascists too, seek to use the
>involuntary authority and force of the State to accomplish their aims.

Marxists claim the state will wither away.

>The Anarchists think this path is not only impossible for the working
>classes, but dangerous, as the State itself is the Apparatus of the
>elite, and thus its conquest is more likely to rotate the elite, rather
>than eliminate it.

Well, history certainly does support that view....

>Instead, Anarchists propose that voluntary intentional communities are
>formed, which are organised according to libertarian ideals from the
>start, and that these communities should acquire their own land and
>capital, and furnish their own self-defense and other public goods, and
>work together in networks with other like-minded communities for their
>mutual benefit.

Fine, and good luck to you. Too bad there aren't some unclaimed
tropical islands where we could try out our ideas and see which works
best.

-- Roy L
.

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