Re: Labor theory of cost

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:42:46 +0000, jmh wrote:

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 08:29:44 -0700, The Trucker in sci.econ
confessed to the world saying:
On Tue, 29 May 2007 00:59:28 +0000, jmh wrote:

On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:04:06 -0700, The Trucker in sci.econ
confessed to the world saying:
On Mon, 28 May 2007 15:58:00 +0000, jmh wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2007 20:48:19 -0700, The Trucker in sci.econ
confessed to the world saying:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:33:57 +0000, jmh wrote:


The conomic costs are critical to political economic analysis
because that's extact what is driving the soocial process.

Rather lumpy but essentially correct. Gald to see that we agree about
cost actually being the correct focus as opposed to _value_.


The cost of Land still exists regardless of who's collecting
the rent.

Land has no cost. The APPARENT cost of particular locations is _labor_

Then you are not talking about economic cost.

Oh but I am. All costs are labor. That is my point.

The economic cost of Land is the foregone opportunities it
could have been used for.

The mantra repeated. You gonna count some beads, too?

That is simply neoconomic horsecrap. The entire purpose of neoclassical
econ is to exalt the preiminence and authority of the "nobles" who
decide how everything is to be allocated. In the minds and mouths of the

You're clearly delusional.

No. All of the exalted economists take an aristocratic view of the
economy and of labor. Most especially in the neoclassical view labor is
simply a means to an aristocratic end. Labor (people) are commodities to
be the used and discarded.

authoritarian nobility the amount of work put forth by the actual people
is irrelevant and "God and Country" are the objective of economic
activity. And they, of course, will maintain their positions of authority
based on their supposed moral and God given "rights" supported by a
virtual army of neoclassical handmaidens. It is classical econ on bad
steroids. After all, Smith's book was about "The Wealth of Nations", not
"The Wealth of the Common People". A slow and careful reading of "Progress
and Poverty" is recommended. Henry George was not an economist. Ask
yourself who pays the economist.

If you wish to continue claiming Land has no cost then you're
claiming that human are not facing any resource constrain
on land -- which would mean that Land cannot really generate
any rent.

I dealt with this in the verbiage you have so conveniently deleted.
Perhaps you'd like to resurrect it and actually address it as opposed to
crouching in the corner with your index fingers crossed in front of you,
Land has no cost.

Feel free to repost it.

OK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The APPARENT cost of particular locations is _labor_
saved by virtue of that location. In a good location I need only work
half as much to produce the same personal benefits for myself as I would
have in some other location. I can afford to give up some amount of my
produce as payment for the use of the location and still PROFIT from the
benefit of the location. I labor LESS for the net personal benefits I
receive after paying the rent or I would not locate myself in that
location. The net cost to me in labor for the use of the location is zero
or less. And the fact remains that labor is what is being expended for the
land rights and the benefits I receive, i.e. all goods are produced by
labor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the above discussion it is seen that the actual cost of land use
(using the term generically here) is a big fat zero. Ricardian rent is
not a true economic cost because no additional labor was expended to
create it. I is the quintessential unearned income and the privatization
of it is merely a theft of surplus value that rightfully belongs to all.
The value does not belong to a "landowner" or to the person working the
particular plot of land. The surplus value is a social endowment. The
same mechanism operates on economies of division and specialization of
labor in that the "clumping" of people into close proxiomity is necessary
to the division and specialization or labor. The clumping gives rise to
scarcity rents which are again unearned surplus value. Land rents do not
represent a "cost" because no additional labor is expended for the use of
the land. The proper recipient of the VALUE is the issue.

If one assumes pigs are birds it readily follows that pigs can
fly.

I can agree with what you are saying without applying it to what I have
said. I would suggest that instead of simply claiming that I have
mischaracterized or made invalid assumptions that you actually point them
out.

Neither the premise or the conclusion holds true regardless
of the valid form of argument (though at least one step is
left out in the above).

That assumes incorrecly that I have assumed something into existence that
is erroneous. What is it?

You're assumption of zeor cost to use the land requires the
assumption that not other activites have been prevented by
your use.

No. I do not assume a lack of competition. The cost is not the cost of
the land. It is, instead, the cost of the competition. If there were no
competition then there would be no aristocratic rent at all and the
producer would claim as much produce as (s)he wanted in trade for her/his
labor, i.e. the amount of produce would depend entirely on the
individual's desire for goods and the labor performed in pursuit thereof.
You are converting cost to value. The locations have value both because of
Ricardian effects and because of population effects. But the cost of land
in either case will still be zero; The stuff just _is_. No labor is
required to make _land_. It has no cost in and of itself. In a world
where privatization of natural resources is touted as "capitalism", so
called "opportunity costs" are nothing more than an aristocratic pretense
to legitimize rent collection in the hands of idle owners. For if the rent
proceeds were redistributed on an egalitarian basis then it would be
readily apparent that any "cost" of land use is, in fact, due to the
scarcity of land which is in turn due to population growth. The "cost" is
not a cost of land. The "cost" is a cost of babies. That cost will occur
in the microeconomy where I have free use of the land just as it does in
the macro. As I bring children into the world I must feed, cloth, and
educate them and THAT has a cost. We do not have a scarcity of land. What
we have is an overabundance of people and an aristocracy and a clergy that
keeps whipping that dead horse so thay can collect the land rent.

That means land is not an economic good. In such a
case land has no an economic cost.

If we accept my definition of the word "goods" as things produced by labor
then, yes, land is not an economic "good". It is just land. But I don't
think that is what you mean when you use the word "good". You are using
the word in the normal vernacular. In that sense land is most definitely
an economic good as humans being cannot exist without it. But the natural
"goodness' of the land is not a function of labor applied. i.e. no cost.

The claim that surplus value belongs to all is the same as the
claim nature belongs to all. It's not a fact.

An alternative view is also not a hard irrivocable fact. Rights claims
are not on a par with gravity. I say that we all have equal use rights to
that which nature provided because that is, to me, a matter of justice. It
will also produce the best economic results if we are attempting to
maximize productivity, freedom from want, longivity, and quality of life.
I'm not particularly interested in how high the skyscrapers are or what
the GDP is doing this year, or how many polo ponies the Bush family may
own.

What we do see
in a market economy is a division of surplus between the
producers and the consumers that are actually directly
involved in those exchanges.

Only a very special pair of glasses would allow anyone to see that
in our current economy. We can debate as to whether or not the current
economy is a "market economy", but you will lose if you insist on
privatization of natural resources. That is because it is such
prizatization that prevents the market from working as it should. Wages
are continually depressed by the privatization of natural resources.

There is also the other can of giant worms which has to do with peak oil
and global warming. It occurs to some of us that while the current
version of "capitalism" loves to lay claim to the amazing advance of
population and living standards it may well be that the same version of
capitalism is also going to be the cause of a massive die off. I am not
going to wager a big pile of my chips on this capitalism bashing, but I
fail to see how privatization of natural resources is an adeguate answer
to our forthcoming environmental problems. And defining "capital"
correctly allows me to attack true rent without attacking capitalism.

--
"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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