Re: Capital and Mark Monson's Land

On 5 May 2005 13:48:47 -0700, "Quirk" <quirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>How, in your oppinion, has the Capitalist settled his liability to
>land?

I already explained that: he has paid the rent (severance tax,
royalty, whatever). The fact that he probably paid the wrong party
(i.e., a private landowner) does not put the liability back on him,
because the community accepted that arrangement at the time. We can't
go back and undo it.

>> In a system where land use is open to all on equal terms, there is no
>way for tool
>> ownership, however complex, to give monopoly advantage over labor.
>
>However, in the Capitalist mode of production the price of labour is
>driven towards its cost by competition, yet the price of Capital is
>kept above its cost by all sorts of anti-competetive practices that are
>in some part granted and protected by the State. Examples include
>legal/financial barriers to entry, specious market and safety
>regulations and outright collussion.

?? The same sorts of things go on with union monopoly laws, minimum
wages, professional licensure, etc. I would suggest to you -- indeed,
you would have to be an idiot not to know it already -- that the price
of labor is _much_ farther above its cost than the price of capital.

>In theory, with perfect competition, the price of Capital should be
>driven to its cost, so therefore the only way for the Capitalist to get
>any long term yield is exactly by antcompetetive practices.

Not really. If better yields are available elsewhere, the competition
will not put enough resources into capital production to reduce its
price to cost.

>What is the advantage of this system?
>
>My claim remains, that the only uncontested direction of the transfer
>of Capital is towards mutual ownership.

I'd hardly call it "uncontested"...

>> Tools must be constructed by labor and maintained by labor,
>
>Then it makes the most sence to construct a system where tools are
>available to labour at cost, without any requirement to pay interest.

You still haven't explained what motive anyone would have to make
tools available to labor at cost.

>> and made up material
>> that was originally land.
>
>Yes, and as the liability for labour can be settled with wages, it is
>most efficient to leave capital as mutual property, exactly as you
>propose land should be.

No, because land is not a product of labor. Capital is.

>> Thus there are only two fundamental factors of production: land
>> and labor. Capital is the product that is recycled to aid in
>greater production.
>> As long as the fundamental factors are free to engage, there can be
>no monopoly in
>> derivatives of those fundamentals.
>
>Except that if Capital yield is private, and its formation reduced the
>value of Land,

Depleting a resource to produce capital may or may not reduce the
value of _that_ land, but very likely does not reduce the aggregate
value of land, for reasons well explained in "Progress and Poverty."

>then Rent "leaks" into Capital Yield and further that
>this creates a situation where there is incentive to push the price of
>Capital above its cost, and thus reduce the efficiency of the market.

I'm not sure what you are getting at, here, but it is true that when
capital ownership must compete with rent collecting, the return to
capital will be higher than otherwise.

-- Roy L
.

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