Yet More Anarchism with Roy.

royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> >You do not need to "buy" an election, however it takes wealth to run
a
> >campaign for election, and in the main, whoever spends more, wins.
>
> That is flat false.

I have seen much evidence to indicate that it is indeed so, I have not
seen any serious evidence that refutes this well known fact.

As logic also supports the notion that whoever spends the most wins,
your out of hand dismissal is not enough, please explain why you
believe it is false, I trust you have seen the same evidence that I
have seen, as it is a commonplace reference, why do you not believe it?

> >Land can always spend more than labour,

> Another falsehood.

Again, I would be interested in your reasoning, since you are among the
ones in here that understand the economic apparatus that shovels money
into the pockets of land owners.

> >thus land always wins,
>
> False.

You have made some challenging arguments regarding wether an electoral
victory for labour is impossible, but at best you have only logically
shown
that that my claim that "land always wins" should be slightly moderated
to "land almost always wins," hardly false, or even meaningfully
different in any practical sense.

> >in fact
> >there are virtually no candidates who will even dare run against the
> >interests of land owners.

> Now that is true.

And the economic forces described in my impossibility theory explain
why.

> >And of course, even if you do somehow win, if you go against the
> >interest of land owners, since they hold the basis of power, you can
> >still wind up dead or deposed.

> Also true.

Demonstrating that politically-driven change is not likely sustained
without industrially-driven change as a prerequisite.

> >In the end the economic forces can not be resisted politically.

> The economic forces are _created_ politically.

I see it the otherways around, political power is a derivative of
economic power.

> >> Land rent is "only" about 20% of GDP.

> >So? Add Interest, Capital Gains, returns on Intellectual Property,
etc,

> Interest does not share common interests with rent.

It does share many common interests, and in fact the landowner and the
capitalist is frequently the same person.

> >to the above and then compare the percentage of GDP of wages after
> >their costs of subsistence has been subtracted.

> Wages typically account for a little over half of GDP. Subsistence
> for all working people would account for less than a quarter of that.

So therefore 1/4 of GDP is the absolute ceiling if labour could be 100%
fully mobilized. You do not see how this supports my theory?

And of course, it goes without saying that if you only look an
unskilled workers, the most exploited sector, even that 1/4 does not
represent them.

And of course it does not deal with the well know sociological issue
called "identification" which causes many of the working classed to
support the interests of the elite over their own because they identify
with them, and in fact are them in their escapist imagination.

> >You, of all people, know that labour ends up short.

> Short of justice, but not short of the resources needed for
resistance
> to injustice.

> Do you know how much working people spend on lottery tickets each
> year? It's ignorance and stupidity (oh, sure, and laziness,
> cowardice, greed and inertia), that keep them from exercising their
> political power in their own interests, not lack of money.

LOL. In that case you should see my theory as not incorrect, but
superfluous, your claims above should make even you more sceptical of
the likelyhood of electorally driven reform.

> >Market theory holds that the price of any factor of production is
> >always driven towards its cost by competition.

> False. Workers' labor is all unique, almost like collectibles. Its
> price does not approach cost because the supply of each worker's
labor
> is only elastic in a certain range. How much would it take to get
you
> to work 100 hours a week? How long could you keep it up? How about
> 200 hours a week?

Yet is always driven //towards// cost by competition, and their are
always new ways for property to make further gains. "Deskilling,"
automation, outsourcing, etc.

> >Land, having a fixed supply, does not compete.

> Workers' time is also in fixed supply, and does not compete outside
> the range of feasible work hours.

Yet real wages continue to fall, as does the global economic share of
labour.

> All true, of course. But he is still there. So your claim of
> impossibility is clearly and irrefutably falsified.

No at all, an anomaly on its own does not disprove the theory anymore
than somebody overpaying for an item of eBay disproves price theory,
the general trend is exactly as I describe it.

The Chavez case strengthens my theory, as it shows the shameless and
ruthless degree that property will go to defend itself.

> >And once again, the existence of anomalies like Chavez does not
change
> >the fact that the the general global trend is the increasing wealth
of
> >Property relative to Labour,

> A trend is not a certainty.

Yet certainly a trend.

> And it is not helpful to conflate
> legitimate and illegitimate ownership under "property."

Yet it is helpful in terms of generalizing the basis of unearned
income.

> If you mean
> privilege, say privilege. You would be clearer,

Clearer to you, maybe, however "privilege" itself could be taken to
conflate legitimate and illegitimate privilege, words alone do not
breed clarity, but consistency of usage does, and I try to be clear and
consistent.

> and people would not
> instantly dismiss you as a nitwit communist.

They would be nitwits if they think that I will be dismisses out of
hand with fallacies such as ad hominem and guilt by association. I
can't stop people from being closed-minded, and do not really care to
try.

> >is flat out impossible without a prior change in the mode of
> >production.

> That is your opinion. And IMO the change you advocate is much less
> possible than political change.

Well, the proof of pudding, as always, is in the eating, we can review
this in a decade or so, see how far you have come electorally, and how
far Venture Communism has come.

In anycase, I hope to continue to receive your challenging and
informative feedback.

> >If you have some examples of these reversals, where the interests of
> >property where achieved by political, and not military or industrial
> >means, I would be happy to hear them, I always appreciate the
> >historical facts you present.

> The English income tax of the early 19th C was a clear loss for
> property, and was achieved through entirely political means.

Like usual, any information you care to provide about this is
appreciated, however anomalies still do not disprove the general trend.

> >However, you will be unable to find evidence of general trend of
> >reversal by political means, because it is impossible.

> I agree the current historical trend is toward privilege. But the
Net
> is only a few decades old, and the great majority of users have been
> using it for less than one decade. That is a blink in history, and
> already the cracks are showing in the castle of landowner privilege.

Interesting that we both see the Net as a major part of our strategy,
and altough I continue to use the Net as an advocacy tool, and in fact
have helped many communities use it as such. I am most excited about
using it Industrially, the founding enterprises of the first Venture
Commune will be Net based.

> >No, it does not, because any anomalies which fall short of complete
> >global reversal can only be temporary and will eventually be
> >retrenched, by the economic forces described.

> This is the sort of orotund claim of historical inevitability in the
> absence of plausible evidence that rightly makes Marx a laughing
stock
> today.

Marx is hardly a laughingstock, that is stock reactionary bunk, he is
one of the most cited scholars in history. Or are the likes of Joan
Robinson and Herbert Marcuse, who are influenced by Marx, also
laughingstocks? Are millions of students and researchers studying this
work at any given time all laughing? This sort of trash taking is not a
real argument. Disagreements are best addressed to actual arguments,
not constructed from fallacies, like the bandwagon fallacy/appeal to
ridicule fallacy hybrid used here.

Further, my impossibility theory is no more orotund than the claim that
increased supply with inelastic demand will cause price to drop. It is
a well reasoned economic argument, with a logical conclusion, supported
by observable trends.

> >Second,
> >the fact that even the marginal gains where eventually retrenched
and
> >the general downward trend continued, just further proves my point.

> No, it doesn't, any more than a warm decade proves the global warming
> thesis.

Ok, then instead of "proves" I will say "supports."

> >It takes more wealth than the opposition can spend, no less.

> Garbage. How much do working people spend on lottery tickets?
> Cosmetics? Cigarettes, alcohol, illegal drugs, pet food,
pornography,
> prostitutes, video games, professional sports, junk food, popular
> "music," movies, etc., etc.? The sum is orders of magnitude more
than
> it would take to liberate them by political means.

And you believe that information circulated on the Net alone is enough
to make them change all of the above. (not to mention that even more
information is circulated on the Net to prevent them from changing any
of the above)

That is like saying if all of the world's drug addicts instead spend
their drug money on building rehabilitation centers, the drug problem
would vanish!

In colloquial terms, It ain't gonna happen.

As as allways, whatever money labour can throw, property can throw
more.

> >> But it does take education.
> >> And the Net is providing the means for that.

> >Really? Where do you see the effect of this education, the public
seems
> >as reactionary and clueless as ever to me.

> The advocates of justice are growing in number all the time. The
> Green Party has LVT in its platform,

Link?

I've only seen vague allusion to a "green tax shift," and I live in a
country where the Greens are part of the Ruling Coalition, and know the
Green party folks in the country I come from well enough to have had
extensive discussions with them, including the provincial leader. The
Georgists are a minority, one that will get tossed out the moment they
get a sniff of power and a bone thrown to them by property.

> and is electing members to the
> European Parliament.

It seems to me, not many that oppose private land ownership.

> Anyone interested enough in economics to
> investigate this ng is going to see that all the arguments he might
> have offered against LVT have already been refuted.

Yet logical refutions do not change the basis of power.

> Economics-related
> blogs and websites often have people making the case for LVT,

Not as many as there are making the case for bunk. How many hits does
the Georgist progress.org get relative to say the nonsensical
instapundit?

> and just
> as importantly, showing the spuriousness and dishonesty of the other
> side's arguments.

No doubt, I for one, am indebted to you for helping me understand many
issues here in sci.econ, I hope you don't think you've created a
monster.

However, for all your effort, you can not match the efforts being made
to spread nonsense, spectacle and bunk by the agents of property and
their dupes.

> >The logical proof has been given.

> And refuted.

I haven't seen a refutation.

Here is the argument as a syllogism, refute in kind.

WHEREAS political influence is achieved by the application of wealth,
and

WHEREAS the current mode of production puts the majority of wealth
above subsistence in the hands of those opposed to reform.

SO THEREFORE reform by way of political influence is impossible.

> >Reform can not be achieved so long as the mode of production
> >that funds its reform makes the greater amount of wealth available
to
> >oppose the reform.

> Of course it can. Wealth does not make the decision. People do.

And they make them according to which side spends the most to recruit
them.

> >No, they throw armed guards. Private or provided by their joint
> >apparatus, the State. Often both.

> And the armed guards are working people. All they need is education.

And their Education is coming from the very wealth that is working
against you, an educational effort that you can not afford to
counteract.

> >Understanding is a privilege only available to a few.

> If that is the case, then your proposed method of resistance is also
> doomed to failure.

No, it is not, because my method will work if it is economicly sound,
not if people understand it.

A car will work, even if the person driving it does not understand the
internal combustion engine.

> We have seen in the collapse of the Soviet Union that the loyalties
of
> the military are not always engaged by their nominal command
> structure.

No, they are engaged by their nominal reward structure.

> >As in China, Cuba or Korea, there is also an elite, based in
different
> >factors than the elite where there is a capitalist mode of
production,
> >but not any less of a threat to true freedom.

> Oh, I certainly agree with that. But it shows your notion of a
> uniform and monolithic state in the service of property is just flat
> wrong.

Yet the elite in these places also maintain their status by control of
property, just that control takes a differnet form than in a Capitalist
country, however those that appropriate the products of labour, also
end up controlling the State, whatever the style of State.

> >AFAIK, The SPD-Green coalition has retained power by bringing about
the
> >largest social retrenchments, privatisations and giveaways of public
> >wealth in the history of the modern German state.

> No, the privatization of publicly held eastern German land on
> reunification was the biggest, by far.

True. Yet the SPD-Green coalition has its share too, and have not done
anything to correct for the reunification issues, and continue to
privatize what remaining publicly held east German land they have.

> >And, of course, the Greens support the private ownership of land,
there
> >has been limited talk of a "green shift" in taxation, but that is
> >marginal, and in my experience flat out Georgist reasoning will be
as
> >hotly contested by most Greens as it is by most Democrats.

> Maybe. But of course the Greens are not the same in every
> jurisdiction.

Yup, in regions where they are irrelevant, Georgists, Eco-Taxers and
LETSers have more influence, and they are tossed as the parties
relevance goes, and replaces with the servants of property, who end up
with more wealth behind them.

> >And what is your opposition to it?

> I don't oppose it. More power to you. I just don't think it will
> work. And more especially, I don't think it is helpful, true or
> justifiable to claim that no other route is possible.

At the same time I have by no means discouraged political
participation, as I said, they are complementary.

However, I do believe that without industrial organisation to back it
up, political organisation is futile.

> >That is not clear to me, as unjust a society as the Natives may have
> >had, it is very hard to argue that it became more just for them
after
> >the formation of the USA.

> They were not the only people involved.

Yet their case illustrates the injustice.

The treatment of the Natives proves the US was not ever a just state,
and it is far from the only such proof.

> >Each one of us is capable of self-defense,

> Only to a very limited extent.

And yet that limited extent is sufficient to form the basis of mutual
self-defense.

> >and thus we can form
> >collective organisations for our mutual self-defense, and form
> >alliances of these collective organisations.

> Like the 13 colonies did....?

Except with egalitarian, not elitist, interests at heart. For instance;
mutual ownership of land and freedom for all to voluntarily join and
leave.

> >I am not using any equivocation,

> Then how is it that you use words like property, anarchism, etc. in
> ways that need to be explained, because they do not match dictionary
> definitions?

For the same reason you use words like land and privilege that need to
be explained and do match their dictionary definitions, because any
field has its language, and the language of political economy uses
words differently than vernacular usage.

> >I often endorse many of the arguments
> >you make, and whatever disputes I have are presented logically, not
by
> >making references to popular misrepresentations of your beliefs,
> >instead of your beliefs as you state them.

> Thank you. I am trying to do likewise for you, but your
idiosyncratic
> use of terms makes it hard.

The only term I use idiosyncraticly is Property, I use the word
Anarchism accurately, it is you and some others who are perpetuating
perjoratives, and my use of Property is idiosyncratic to Anarchism,
therefore it makes sense that I would use it that way in the context of
a discusion of Anarchism.

> >How is a tax on Income a loss to Property??

> The tax fell almost entirely on unearned income from property,
> especially land. At that time, the word, "income" meant unearned
> income. Earned income was called "wages."

And what was this tax used for? Defending the intertests of land
possibly?

> >And in anycase, has the share of the economy given to Property
fallen
> >since then?

> Sometimes. It is clear that the British landed class has become less
> dominant and lost much of its privilege since the early 19th C.

Having lost this influence to Capital, not labour, so the basis of
property shifted slightly with land still dominant, just less so.
Labour remained unaided, in fact it has hardly seen worse times than
the Dickensian 19th century, which included such innovations as
children chained to machines for 16 hours a day.

The industrial revolution shifted the balance of power within Property,
not between Labour and Property. And yet still I contend that this
change came about precisely because of a change in the mode of
production and the political change was a result of this, not vice
versa.

> >And I know nothing about Meiji-era Japan, but given that it was
ruled
> >by an Emperor makes in unlikely this was the result of electoral
> >activity.

> It was an infant consitutional monarchy at the time.

This is still not enough to apply this example, how did it hurt
property? How was the electoral activity responsible? Who backed it?
With what wealth?

> >And in anycase, like England, the share of the economy
> >commanded by Property in Japan has not fallen.

> Not recently. But it did happen, and more than once.

And whatever gains made, where retrenched, always.

> >Yes, including Property owners, which no longer had to bear the
expense
> >of acquiring and keeping slaves, but could simply buy labour at its
> >cost; subsistence.

> Where in the advanced industrialized countries is the cost of most
> labor mere subsistence?

It is closest anywhere in the unskilled agricultural sector, exactly
where the chattel slaves were displaced. Read Eric Schlosser's article
"In The Strawberry Fields" or even Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath for
colour.

> >Only if by "nonsense," you mean that it is so irrefutable you wont
even
> >hazard an attempt.

> It should be obvious that labor had a choice.

To me it is obvious labour did not.

> What forces working people to buy lottery tickets instead of
donating the > money to a political party

Escapism, they think the lottery ticket is a better chance out.

> that reflects their interests (and would certainly pay
> them back more than the lotteries do)?

Not if the party betrays their interests, as it always does, as
property can always donate more.

> >If labour did choose, please explain why it chose against its
> >interests, and how property had no hand in it.

> It was not aware of where its interests lay.

Lacking the wealth for the needed education.

> I don't claim the privileged had no hand in it, but their wealth is
not
> omnipotent.

It is certainly not omnipotent, neither is the State, but it will
always control the State, that is the expression of their potency.

> >Only those that found the organisations need to understand the
issues
> >in detail. The economic logic will fuel the growth because it is
sound,
> >not because it is understood.

> Well, go for it, with my best wishes. But I personally don't think
> you will succeed, because you don't understand the return to capital.

Thanks, and I hope I can continue counting on you for the feedback to
help me understand it better.

> >> But if they understand the issue, they can
> >> always just _vote_ their interests.

> >Not when they have no candidates to vote for.

> What stops them from running themselves?

They lack the wealth.

> >Who did you vote for in the last election?

> Don't get me started...

Please, get started, if you advocate people chose this path, looking at
the current options must be the starting point.

> >Did anybody run on the
> >Single Tax platform? If no one runs, or whoever runs lacks mass
> >support, how can they "_vote_ their interests?"

> They can vote for whoever is closest.

Like who?

> They just don't.

Because the other guy spends more for their vote.

> Nonsense. It is force that is used to subjugate others, not income.

And the application of force is expensive.

> >However, //it's abolition alone// does not guarantee freedom, this
can
> >only be accomplished by the existence of organisations to defend
> >freedom.

> "... to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

Nice words. However the State is the Apparatus of the elite, regardless
of how they dress it up. These industrial organisations must allow
people the freedom the join and leave at will, and treat them all as
equals. The State fails on both counts.

> >Sorry, I was still using Anarchist terms, because I am trying to
> >demonstrate their usage in context. As I said I'm not hung up on the
> >terms.

> I am. Subversion of the terms is how Marxists and the privileged
they
> claim to oppose both end up on the side of evil.

And the terms they subvert first are those of the Anarchists, their
mutual enemy, a misinformation campaign you and other liberals are
their unlikely ally in.

Further, I am no scholar, I have no education other than my self
education, so you'll have to forgive me if I misuse classic economic
terms, it is never out of intentional equivocation.

Regards.

.

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