Re: Historical comparisons
- From: royls@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:51:20 GMT
On 27 Feb 2006 16:10:42 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 26 Feb 2006 11:51:25 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 26 Feb 2006 00:24:32 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We would also do well to allow the ownership of space based assets and
resources by people and business.
Private ownership of privately created capital equipment is a very
good policy. But private ownership of natural resources is a very bad
policy that produces increasing inequality and injustice, and eventual
economic and societal stagnation and collapse.
I disagree.
Well, sure. But you're just flat wrong.
That's easy to say. Harder to prove. I not the singular lack of any
countervaling evidence to support your views.
The evidence of history is pretty clear. Increasingly concentrated
private ownership of natural resources (land) destroyed ancient Egypt,
Rome, India twice, China at least three times, France, Russia, etc.,
etc.
Whereas, I pointed out
(and you elited from your reponse) two practical and successful
alternatives (i.e. offshore oil leasing and cell phone channel leases)
But William, I elided those because they support _my_ position, not
yours, and consequently required no response from me. The resources
in those two cases are _not_ privately owned, but leased _from_ the
public owner on a temporary basis by private users.
WIthout private ownership of natural resources there is no
incentive to develop those resources.
Flat false.
What should follow this statement in any honest discussion should be
relevant and accessible references proving the statement.
And where are such references for the preceding positive claim? Blank
out.
I note an
abject lack of such evidence, therefore I must conclude your opinions
are ideologically driven.
Garbage. It is your own positive claim (Look up about 15 lines. Yep.
There it is.) that lacks any evidence.
Somehow, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," an
"honest" discussion is one where all your claims are accepted
unquestioningly, without any evidence, but if anyone disputes those
claims, all the burden of proof lands on them.
vThe incentive to develop natural resources is maximized
when those who wish to prevent others from using them must pay the
market rent of those resources to the community for the privilege of
doing so.
This assumes the cost of developing those resources is zero.
It assumes no such thing. Where is the evidence for such a bizarre
claim? Blank out.
Such is
typically not the case. And, is absolutely not the case for
development of off-world resources!
It could not matter less that it is not the case. The relationship I
identified for you does not in any way depend on the cost of
development being zero. Your claim is just flat wrong, and you have
offered zero, repeat, _zero_ evidence to support it.
Private ownership of natural resources reduces the
incentive to develop them, as the owner can simply hold them out of
use for a speculative gain,
Again, assuming that the cost of developing those resources, and the
market for those resources is zero - yes.
Nope. Flat wrong. No such assumption is made, or required.
But this is clearly not
applicable to the cases I cited, but you elited - and to the case we're
discussing i.e. the development of off-world resources.
I elided them because they are examples of successful _public_
ownership of natural resources -- i.e., examples that _you_ provided,
which prove _your_ claims to be flat false.
rather than take the risk of making an
investment to develop them.
Ha! You make my point.
Uh, no, actually, you made mine.
If there is any cost or risk associated in
developing a resource, then there must be profit sufficient to pay for
this risk.
And your evidence that such profit is only possible if ownership of
the resource is given away to private interests...?
Thought not.
One does not make money by NOT developing a resource in an
environment where the resource MIGHT NOT BE AVAILABLE.
One most certainly does, by idly owning it while its value increases
as a result of others' actions.
Your underlying
assumption is that the market sees the resource and values it fairly.
Well, if you are going to posit some measure of value other (and more
objective) than market value, let's see it.
In that case, as in the case of public grazing lands, then rents make
sense as you suggest.
Likewise with _your_ examples of oil and spectrum leases.
But in the case we're discussing - giving the
private markets incentive to develop off-world resources AND THE
TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE THOSE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO THE MARKETS
(technologies that don't yet exist in commercial form!!!!) you're
approach is tantamount to saying we'll never make the investment.
Evidence?
Thought not. In fact, it is _your_ approach that is tantamount to
saying that no one but a private owner of a resource can ever create
the technology needed to develop it.
This is amply proved by the 11,000 vacant
lots in NYC.
A vacant lot in NYC meets your criterion. That I agree with. However,
a resource buried under the surface of Mars is quite a different
animal. This is clearly obvious to any mammal with anything more than
a spinal column functioning!!!!
Economically, they are the same: natural resources.
AND you totally omit the fact that NYC has tortuous interference in
development of lands within the city - DUE TO OVER-REGULATION OF
DEVELOPMENT.
I agree NYC has stifled development through rent control and
prohibitions of many kinds. But they do that precisely _because_ they
recover so little of the land's economic rent. Would they make land
unusable if releasing it for use it would bring in greatly increased
revenue?
What we haven't been good at
is limiting the growth and breadth of government actvitity once its
begun.
OTC, we have become quite good at that,
Tell that to the millions of Cambodians who suffered under Pol Pot.
OK, you were referring to a wider "we" than I assumed. I agree that
the great majority of the world's people are not good at that. But
people in many OECD countries seem to have become reasonably good at
it.
as the long-term stability of
the fraction of GDP recovered by taxation in the USA proves.
The US is a shining exception to statism run rampant - with notable
exceptions like NYC and LA. The rest of the world still suffers from
excessive government.
True. Either that or weak and insufficient government, as in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, much of West Africa, and a few other
spots.
You make the decision you think benefits you, but those who
set up the system benefit instead.
We can't expect anything to work well or logically until we get a
handle on this shortcoming and fix it. Until then, we should do what
works best, even it doesn't comport with what we think should work
best.
Um, you elited the most important part - the fact the Ken Arrow (who
received a Nobel Prize for his ground breaking work) - showed that it
was LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for systems that use scalar numbers (counting)
to make rational collective decisions.
No, he only showed that individual rationality did not guarantee
collective rationality.
This means that until we
advance to a point where we do have a rational sytem of collective
decision making - we should use systems that have been proven to work.
Agreed.
Systems like licensing regions offshore for developing new sources of
energy, or licensing channels and areas to develop new methods of
communications.
Right. Licensing private users of publicly owned resources. As I
said.
No. The problem is that the system you think will work best will not
work,
You have not made your case! You have taken a statement about public
versus private ownership and misapplied it to a situation quite
different than the one it was intended to cover.
I am just stating facts of economics and history.
while the system I think will work best will, but a system like
your system is the one currently in use. Because your system doesn't
work, you try to convince yourself that mine won't, either.
This statement is not true. Offshore drilling is creating new sources
of oil.
No, it isn't. It is merely accessing a pre-existing source.
Commercial cell phones are a reality - because licenses work.
Licensing private users of a publicly owned resource does indeed work.
Right. As I said, and as you have repeatedly denied.
Public charging of rents work too, but under the circumstances where
the resource is immediately valueable to those paying the rents.
If the resource is not valuable, there is no market rent to pay.
-- Roy L
.
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