Re: Historical comparisons

royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 23 Mar 2006 00:48:34 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 19 Mar 2006 08:54:10 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I know you've stated that there's no way natural resources can become
property Roy. Its just that I disagree with your contention, despite
your appeals to authority!.

You are either willing to know the difference between rightful
property in products of labor and wrongful violation of others'
rights, or you're not.

Bull***. Your 'wrongful violation of others' rights' so-called derives
from your bogus 'definitions' and nothing else!

OK, so you're not willing to know the difference.

I am perfectly willing to know the difference if you can describe it in
clear concise terms derived from real world interactions.

Your refusal to debate me directly on just why we should use YOUR
definition of rights and property shows you are incapable of having a
rational discussion on this topic.

I am happy to debate you on the question of definitions. You have yet
to offer anything that could be considered an argument on the matter.

I have offered countless examples of what I'm talking about, you have
chose to ignore those or speak ill of me and my motives rather than
approach them honestly and logically.

To recap, here's the short list of problems I have with your defintion:

If products are made from materials extracted from property - and this
includes all material products - there is no way by your definition
that that material can be owned by anyone.

?? What does that nonsensical claim have to do with my definition?

I think has something to do with it. If it doesn't then explain it
step by step. You're the one making bold claims about theft and so
forth. The only thing you've said about things being consumed - such as
coal, or oil,or iron ore or granite, etc.,etc.,etc., - is that my
examples are 'strawmen' which as a practical matter doesn't answer my
concerns.

But rather than bitch about how illogical your response to me is, let
me try once againt to patiently explain my concerns in the vain hope
that you will answer it as its asked.

If a developer creates marketable products made from materials
extracted from rental property - you know, things like oil, and coal,
and granite, and iron ore, or anything really - that's pre-existing in
the property and extracted - and that's the entire value the property
has to someone who has an efficient means of making use of this
material to create value for society - then does the rent you propose
involve a working interest in these materials?

If the answer is no, then how does any individual in a society come to
possess those things? You know,a coal mining operation rents land and
mines coal and sells it to me so that I can heat my home. Am I robbing
society of this resource because I use it to heat my home? If I cannot
use it to heat my home, then no one can use it to heat their home, and
if no one can use it to heat anyone's home,then what use is it as a
source of heat? I'm seriously confused if the answer is no.

If the answer is yes, then I understand how someone renting property
may obtain a working interest in the extracted materials. I also
understand how people can buy things like coal, by paying market rates
for them, and use these things to fulfill their wants - like heating
their homes in winter - and I can see how society benefits thereby. No
problem.

But, then I have a problem with the rents. Because there is only so
much coal for example in any parcel of land. And the value of that
land declines with the coal is remoed. But rents are paid, which is a
good thing I suppose, but then, only so much rent is paid. Let's say
there are a million tons of coal in a given area of land. And lets say
that the coal company extracts the coal at a rate of 100,000 tons per
year. And that' it pays $500,000 per year for its rent, and it rents
the property for 10 years and then stops renting the land after the
coal is gone. It obtains a working interest with its rents, because
you answered yes to my question. So,over 10 years it pays $5 million
and extracts 1 million tons of coal.

Now my question becomes, what's the difference between this scenario
one where the company just pays $5 million to buy the coal outright?

The only thing the State has done in this case in collecting rents is
provided an interest free loan to the coal mining operation at risk to
the public for using the land.


Can you even accurately paraphrase my definition?

Is this a test? lol. If so its a test of your ability to communicate
your idea. I *think* you said that all of the natural world belongs to
everyone. From this you conclude that any individual who makes any
claim whatever to own a piece of the natural world is stealing from the
rest of humanity. This is what I think you're saying. When I think
about this, my head hurts, because it doesn't make any sense. I mean,
if no one can burn a piece of coal because EVERYONE owns it, then
everyone is going to be cold in the winter. I don't understand why you
can't see that, and I don't understand why you are so damned convinced
that your logic is impeccable. It just doesn't compute with me.

One way to communicate with people, and you're the one trying to
convince me remember? lol. One way to communicate is take them where
you find them and lead them through the process step by step.

Take a piece of coal found in nature. How can anyone come to burn that
coal in their own furnace to make heat in the winter for their family?
Show me how that's done and maybe I can follow your logic and in that
way come to understand your definition. If you can't answer this
simple question, then I have grave reservations about your definitions
and where they're leading us.

Can you even
_quote_ my definition?

Do you have a habit of asking things twice? lol. I DON'T HAVE TO
QUOTE YOU TWICE! lol.

Look, answer my damned question the way I've asked it, rather than
talking around it and railing against it and railing against me, and
maybe you'd convince me and a few others. If you can't honestly do
that, then I'd suggest that you shut the f*** up! lol

How do the extracted materials get to _be_
property in the first place? How on earth do you imagine applying
labor to create a product can convert property into not-property,
rather than the other way around?

I don't know what you're talking about. I really don't. Because what
you said there is nonsensical to me as your other stuff. Its really
very simple. There exists a coal seam in the world and I need coal to
keep my family warm. So, I go out and grab some coal and put it in my
basement, and burn it all winter long. My family is warm. There wants
are met. By your definition, according to my admittedly limited
understanding of what you've said, I have stolen that coal from the
rest of humanity. How can I redress this horrific act?

Now, in a market where property can be owned,I can come to own the coal
I burn quite simply by buying from its owner.

But, if owners aren't allowed, how can I buy it?

If I'm allowed own coal because I dig it out of the coal seam and pay
rent to do so, then how is that different than buying it outright - as
in the example above (time payments and lump sum payments are
convertible into one another) - If I can hire someone to dig it out for
me, and THEY have to pay the rent, then how is that any different than
allowing them to buy it and sell it me for a profit?

None of what you propose makes any practical sense to me. Sorry.

Further your proposal to have some sort of central committee take
possession of the natural world and charge rents for the use of it -

A proposal I have of course not made.

Really, I thought I read that in some of your writings or perhaps Roy's
writings. It was written somewhere when somebody was quoting Georgists
or something. I didn't see anyone but me object to it, so if it was
written by someone not you, and you didn't object to it, then you
accepted it, so, whether you or Roy or another party wrote it, doesn't
really matter.

Government administers
possession and use of natural resources in any case.

Government's don't generally own natural resources, except where they
occur on government lands. Government's are abysmal at developing and
making useful resources - private entitities on the other hand, when
operating in a free-market, seem to do rather well. The world made $50
trillion in 2005 - nearly all of it by private industry operating
privately owned capital on privately owned land with privately owned
resources.

I just want to know how the heck someone who consumes something ends up
paying for it, and if they do, how is that different than just owning
it in the first place?

That's what
government _is_. It's simply a question of whose benefit it will
serve in the course of doing so: all the people, or a small, idle,
wealthy, privileged minority.

What small idle wealthy privileged minority are you speaking of?

but provide no way people could own natural resources to make material
products IN the natural world,

So you refuse to know the fact that you don't have to own resources in
order to use them or make them into products that you _do_ own.

This makes no sense to me. If I pull a lump of coal out of your pocket
and burn it to keep warm, I have stolen that lump of coal from you. If
I pull a lump of coal off of public land and burn it to keep warm - and
all land is now public land according to my understanding of your
definition - then I have been enriched by that act by stealing public
property and converting it to private use.

This is my understanding of what you are saying.

If it is accurate, then say so. If it is not, then say how not. If
accurate, then tell me how the hell I get a lump of coal to keep warm?
If I have to pay rent to obtain the right to extract the lump from
public land, then how is that different than buying the coal outright?
That' is, what's to stop me from taking my lump of coal obtained
according to the rules you've set up and deciding to hoard it and
selling it for a profit to someone else by sitting on it? If I can do
this with materials extracted from land, all following your rules -
then what's the point of the rules? What's the difference between me
owning the coal and owning the land the coal is on?


OK.
I'm not sure that I can find a way to make you willing to know it.

I'm perfectly willing, if you'd just answer the questions your
statements cause me. You make big claims about how rents are going to
fix problems of people sitting on their asses and earning income, or
getting rid of privileged classes and so forth.

You have yet to answer the question how natural resources come to be
used in the economy. If they cannot, then the economy collapses
afaict. If they can, then the economy will have the same abuses. That
is, someone with lots of cash can agree to pay lots of rents, and then
mine out all the coal seams they rent, and then store the coal in
warehouses that they have rented partially to others to cover all the
rents on the property in question.

If I can figure out how to get around the rent issue, so can others,
and more efficiently.

If you propose to make rules to cover all sorts of ways people can get
around the rules initially, then, you are delimiting the rights of
everyone to use things in a natural way. You are making things very
complicated.

smacks of communism and by operation of
Ricardo's law, IS communism.

I have no idea what "Ricardo's Law" you think you are talking about,

ROTFLMAO! hahaha.. <whew> That's a good one! And you say I'm
ignorant? LOL!

Sheez.- read this and weep sir... lol.

http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/ricardo.htm

Jesus, you talk like you're so f**king superior to me I thought you
knew at least a LITTLE economics history.

David Ricardo was one of the most brilliant economists in history.

In 1815, Ricardo published his groundbreaking Essay on..Profits.
There he introduced the differential theory of rent and the "law of
diminishing returns" to land cultivation. Coincidentally, this
principle was discovered simultaneously and independently by Malthus,
Robert Torrens and Edward West. (more astoundingly, all of them
published their tracts within three weeks in February, 1815!)

If you claim that humanity owns the natural world and all individuals
or economic entities are to be denied ownership in property - THEN - by
operation of Ricardo's theory of rent - the government owns everything
- hence, communism buddy - pure and simple.


and I have said nothing that "smacks of" communism, except to someone
who sees communists in his bedroom closet.

Hey, you're the one that's trying to convince me that property is
theft! lol

You're masquerading as a non-communist because you think real-property
is theft and all other property is ok. Well, this just makes your
crypto-communist according to Ricardo's law. lol.


And besides, Whenever I hear 'property is theft' in ANY guies, I
remember my history of communism. Do you?

No, I don't see communists in bedroom closets. But I do remember who
first said property is theft, and what trouble *that* caused! lol.

French anarchist and socialist Pierre Proudon wrote WHAT IS PROPERTY?
and coined the term property is theft in that work. In his socialism,
Proudhon was followed by Mikhail Bakunin. After Bakunin's death, his
libertarian socialism diverged into anarchist communism and
collectivist anarchism, with notable proponents such as Peter Kropotkin
and Joseph Déjacque.

It was Proudhon's book What is Property? that convinced the young Karl
Marx that private property should be abolished. In one of his first
works, The Holy Family, Marx said, "Not only does Proudhon write in the
interest of the proletarians, he is himself a proletarian, an ouvrier.
His work is a scientific manifesto of the French proletariat

That's where my concern comes from.

Finally, your definition of things giving everyone rights to something
having no practical value to the community eliminates the possibility
of any individual or company developing new uses for resources in the
natural world.

?? How? Your claim is false and absurd.

Explain why you think so? Explain how I can take a piece of coal from
a piece of land and burn it to meet my own personal wants without
violating the rights of everyone?

Your definitions, afaict speaks of everyone's rights, but everyone
collectively really doesn't have rights. Its only we as individuals
that have rights to meet our own individual wants and needs. When we
deny individuals rights to fulfill their wants and needs on the basis
of some universal rights - we impoverish eveyrone - AS HISTORY SHOWS.

Someone who says my family must starve because everyone has a right to
food - is not someone that I'm going to listen to. Everyone's right to
eat doesn't assure anyone has food. Its only by looking at each
INDIVIDUAL'S NEED AND WANTS that those needs and wants can be
fulfilled.

It is therefore in EVERYONE'S interest to make sure that everyone's
right AS INDIVIDUALS is preserved. The one who knows my needs and wants
the best - is me. So, why not give me the liberty to fulfill my needs
and wants? And why not give everyone else this right?

You speak grandly of wealthy minorities and everyone's rights. But WE
ARE ALL A MINORITY OF ONE - and OUR INDIVIDUAL NEEDS CAN ONLY BE
FULFILLED IF MINORITIES OF ONE CAN FULFILL THEM ON THEIR OWN BEHALF

You have claimed that there is a wealthy minority that is abusing its
privileges and is thereby impoverishing humanity. WHO? Last time I
looked those who owned property created $1 trillion per week in wealth.
Those who took over half that wealth and wasted it building weapons
and hiring armies and doing other useless things like interfering with
the rights of owners to create as much wealth as they might with their
properties, or taxing them out of existence - were governments.


For example, there could exist something of tremendous value somewhere
in the natural world of which we today are totally unaware, and
wouldn't know how to make use of even if we were to know of it.

Equivocation. If no one knows of it, or any way to make use of it, it
has no value, by definition.

Right, but someone COULD! And by operation of markets - someone WILL!

But its not humanity that is doing this. It is an individual motivated
by potential profit and willing to take risks that will do it!

See this and now you see EXACTLY how wealth is CREATED in the natural
world by the operation of CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS! Those creative
individuals create the wealth the world enjoys, and your definition of
theft and collective ownership of the natural world and so forth would
rob them of the profits they deserve from their creative acts, and more
importantly, ROB THE WORLD OF THE WEALTH THEY WOULD OTHERWISE CREATE!
..

But, due to the confused and foolish nature of your definitions

Of which you have apparently failed to comprehend even a tithe...

Not for lack of trying! lol. Your abilities to clearly and concisely
explain the practical consequences of your definitions, is what is
lacking here! lol.

Hell, you don't even know about David Ricardo! hahaha.. I thought I
was talking to an educated man. Clearly I'm not. lol.


this thing
would never be discovered or developed by anyone because doing so would
be a 'wrongful violation of others' rights' so-called.

Flat false. Discovery does not deprive anyone of anything

Depends on the details. For example, what if the discoverer sits on
his information - keeping it secret - perhaps because he has developed
a technology or method of analysis that know one yet knows of? And
then rents it for far less than it is otherwise worth? But because the
government or whomever he rents it from, knows nothing of what he
knows, accepts a very low rent, and then he develops the resource?
Isn't he unjustifiably enriching himself at the expense of the public
according to your definition? What then? Say the government finds
they've been hoodwinked - what happens then?

Either they take corrective action to eliminate this unjustified profit
(not recognizing the value of this knowledge) - in which case they
undercut all future impetus to develop such knowledge. OR they allow
the profiteering to take place - in which case they might as well have
just sold the land and be done with it. lol.
..
Development might, but it is not a violation of anyone's rights as
long as the deprivation is justly compensated.

How? That's what I'm asking. If by paying rents I can mine as much
coal as I like, then why not just sell the coal to me in the first
place and be done with it? If I can own things I extract from property
and that's the only value the property has to me, then I can horde
those things. If I have plenty of cash, I can rent all the farmland to
grow corn in a region and horde it in silos until I get a better price
than I otherwise might - starving that region into submission. What's
the difference between that scenario and one where I buy all the corn
and horde it?

Are you going to eliminate arbitrage? Eliminate hording? What are you
going to do to hoarders? Shoot them the way Stalin did? lol.

Hell, you or your buddy Roy said I should be shot for arguing with you.
I sure as hell don't want you administering anyting around me! lol.


Clearly if someone discovers something of tremendous value and figures
out a way to make useful products out of it for the rest of humanity
that person or persons has a rightful claim to profit from those
products

Yes. But not to deprive others of resources they would otherwise have
been able to use, without compensating them for the loss.

This is where I don't understand you. You just said that if no one
knows about it, and no one knows what something is good for (until a
creative genius comes along and shows them) - there is no value. So,
what is the loss you speak of? If there is no value until the creative
genius comes along and creates that value, there is no loss to
compensate anyone for - so in this case the creative genius deserves to
profit from his or her creative acts.

even though those products use materials found in the
natural world and is 'taken' (by your definition only) from the rest of
humanity, who knew nothing of it, and nothing of its potential value in
the hands of this dveloper.

?? If they knew nothing of it, they suffered no deprivation.

You seem constitutionally unable to understand that collectively people
have no rights, yet ALL people AS INDIVIDUALS have the same rights.
So, lets go over this rather simply...

You agree that no value exists until a creative INDIVIDUAL DISCOVERS a
resource and how to make use of it. Great. Now you understand how
wealth is CREATED in the natural world. Clearly people deserve to be
paid for what they create. Plainly it makes sense to reward this
creativity since it inspires others to similar acts of creativity, and
thereby enriches everyone.

I have
no idea what you think you are talking about, but it certainly isn't
anything implied by my definitions.

Its you who don't understand what you say implies.

Its you who refuse to know important aspects of how wealth is really
created by individuals.

You are really rather very narrow minded in addition to being ignorant
of rather basic economic theory, not even knowing who David Ricard is,
and his theory of rents - even while you spout how wonderful rents are!
lol.

Plainly in this situation it makes sense for humanity to give
possession to that developer since humanity is richer because of it.

?? Possession of _what_?

The thing in the natural world that has zero value until a creative
genius comes along and creates value with it.

How is humanity made richer by privatizing
a resource?

Because humanity collectively cannot be rich.. NOTHING has any value
until it is used by an INDIVIDUAL to fulfill their PRIVATE WANTS AND
NEEDS. By denying ANYONE from owning something privately individually,
you are denying ALL the right to fulfill their wants and needs with
that thing - and you are thereby impoverishing humanity by claiming
collective ownership of it.

A simpler way of saying this is, you avoid the rents your proposed
government agency would impose - and the tortuous interference it will
most certainly have in the operation of private enterprise and free
markets..
..
It doesn't change the amount of the resource, and just
makes it harder to access.

If creative geniuses are not rewarded for discovering new uses for
their property then the resources they create will be denied to the
rest of society. By placing everything under a centralized management
structure, by operation of combinatorial explosion - making unique and
novel uses of these resources becomes exponentially harder.

Since you didn't know who the heck David Ricardo was, I feel compelled
to explain to you what the hell combinatorial explosion means.

In administration and computing, a combinatorial explosion is the
rapidly accelerating increase in lines of communication as
organizations are added in a process. (Casually described as
"exponential" it is actually strictly only polynomial)

If two organizations need to communicate about a particular topic, it
may be easiest to communicate directly in an ad hoc manner-only one
channel of communication is required. However, if a third organization
is added, three separate channels are required. Adding a fourth
organization requires six channels; five, ten; six, fifteen; etc.

See? So, you are proposing to add a third organization to mediate what
is now communicated on an ad-hoc basis between two people. Or to put
more simply, in terms that you might better understand, a buyer and
seller of land must in your system deal with a government agency who
rents the land, and will likely have a host of rules made up by
bureaucrats to avoid what they think of as abuse! lol.

Under your proposed system EVERYTHING WILL GRIND TO A SCREECHING HALT!
and wealth will be destroyed at a prodigious rate - and people will
starve to death. lol. All in the name of fairness, and a bogus,
priviliged minority you keep talking about but never name explicitly.
lol.


Obviously, this same argument can be made for any developer,

?? No, of course it can't. Most developers use known resources of
known value. Duh.

You don't even have a clue of what I'm talking about - and everything
you say makes you look dumber and dumber. Sheez.

and so,
clearly, there is no need for humanity to take possession of the
natural world in the way you describe.

Depends what your definition of "need" is. Humanity doesn't "need"
the unprecedented freedom, justice and prosperity that would follow
from the implementation of my proposals, either.

By operation of combinatorial explosion and Ricardo's law, people will
be impoverished. Who is unfree today? Who is impoverished today?
Nations that allow ownership of property by any individual? Or nations
that admit only public ownership? Wake up and look around you. Your
proposal would impoverish humanity, and if widely practiced kill most
of us in your stupid adherence to things that only make sense because
you've buried your head in the sand and chosen only to do things based
on some bogus definition.


Once a region or a process is maturely developed, then one can imagine
some sort of system of taxation that supports the efficient use of a
known resource. But such a system of taxation shouldn't become a
barrier to development of more efficient methods or new resources at
present unknown.

It wouldn't. It would stimulate them.

How? By destroying adhoc relationships that respond to market forces?
By creating a third party that guarantees combinatorial explosion of
decisions to achieve the same ends? By denying individuals the right
to meet their wants and needs because doing so would 'steal' resources
from some theoretical collective humanity? You are a f***ing
laughingstock! lol.

And so does everyone else afaict!

Wrong.

No, look around you dude! lol. The world is OWNED by people, not a
central committee. LOL.

So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind,"

F**k you too sweetheart! lol. You're not convincing anyone with this
bull.

the broad
acceptance of slavery by the general population in the 17th C not only
meant that slavery was rightful,

We've already had this discussion.

PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

It is only by the tortuous operation of your definitions that you see
any equivalence between slave ownership and ownership of land. It
ain't surprising people lose according to your definitions! lol.

Land ain't people dude! People ain't property. lol. No matter how
you cut it!

but that no more than one person at a
time could think otherwise?

We've already had this discussion.

Look, slavery was wrong. People don't have the right to own other
people. Period. No amount of wealth created for the owner justifies
the loss of liberty to those enslaved.

People aren't property. Don't insult me by trying to convince me they
are! lol.

But even accepting your *** logic, for a minute, as unpalatable as
that is, the answer to slavery, is liberty - not public ownership of
eveyrone!

You are proposing the government take control of all the natural world
as a remedy .to privilege. lol. This is akin to the government
enslaving everyone so that the privilege of the slave owner is
eradicated. lol. DUDE! You are so wrong on so many levels, it
boggles the mind how I can communicate it all to you. lol.


You are not proposing liberty here. You are proposing we all be owned
by a central committee. That's just wrong!

There is a reason for that, and that has to
do with the efficiency of ownership as a means of organizing human
affairs.

It's more a matter of traditions established long before the relevant
facts were understood.

In free and open economies its a matter of what works to create the
greatest wealth for the greatest number.

Economic analysis shows that private ownership
of the products of labor is indeed efficient, but private ownership of
natural resources is not.

Then, tell me what your analysis predicts for the world's current $50
trillion per year economy? What will it get to? Why? Where will the
new sources of wealth come from?

If central ownership of property was more efficient than private
ownership centrally organized economies would have kicked freely
organized economies butts.

"Freely organized" sounds like an oxymoron to me, but I certainly
advocate a free economy.

Do you know what is an oxymoron? Property is theft! LOL! Do you know
why? Because if there is no such thing as property, how can you steal
it? lol.

THEY DIDN'T and no amount of redefining
things will change that. That's the discussion I want to keep having
with you - and one you consistently avoid appealing to authority, made
up definitions, and avoiding entirely common sense and the bald fact
that markets and private property works.

I agree that markets work.

Very good.

But you refuse to discuss, and seek to
elide, the difference between private property in the products of
private labor and private property in natural resources.

No, I just want to have a very simple question answered. There's coal
on some government land. Okay? And I'm cold. And I have a coal fired
furnace. So, I want to hire some blokes to dig some coal for me and
carry it over to my coal bin. And then, I burn it to keep warm.

AM I ENRICHING MYSELF AT THE PUBLIC'S EXPENSE?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is the question I want answered.

Then maybe I can understand on my own terms what you are proposing.

If you cannot answer it, why not? Its a simple question.

IF I AM - THEN HOW CAN I OBTAIN POSSESSION SO I CAN BURN IT?


Whenever I
talk about property in natural resources, you refuse to talk about
that, and immediately switch the terms to property simpliciter, just
as you did above.

Don't know what you mean by property simpliciter - hmm.. wow - seems
to be quite a debate over it.

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/lz.html

This from the law library is the simplest I could find;

EFFECTS
This word used simpliciter is equivalent to property or, worldly
substance, and may carry the whole personal estate, when used in a
will. 5 Madd. Ch. Rep. 72; Cowp. 299; 15 Ves. 507; 6 Madd. Ch. R. 119.
But when it is preceded and connected with words of a narrower import,
and the bequest is not residuary, it will be confined to species of
property ejusdem generis with those previously described. 13 Ves. 39;
15 Ves. 826; Roper on Leg. 210.

Dude, why not use the term 'effects'?

Okay back to your question now that I might understand it.

Well, okay, so if you're saying the coal seam or oil deposit, or gas
deposit, or the corn or the iron ore or the granite is an effect ON the
property and I don't have to pay for it, as I'm just paying for the
space I take up and the time it takes me to take those effects OFF the
property - then, you've answered my question.

But is that what you're saying in the beginning?

People can own these effects and not have to pay rents. They're just
paying rents for the time and space they're taking up. If the
definitions I read are what you mean.

This isn't what I thought you said before. IF all you're charging for
is square footage and time - then the effects can be removed at no
charge. Is this what you're saying?

But clearly you see don't you that the economic utility of a property
might be solely these effects don't you? don't you? You really aren't
doing anything to increase fairness. And folks can mine out all these
resources and keep them efficiently somewhere in the basements of
property they rent to others and have them pay for the rents involved,
and hang onto them to control the resources of the world the same way
you claim they're doing now.


I could cite you dozens of eminent people agreeing with me.

I can point to billions of people who buy and sell property and
products made with natural resources privately owned every day. Its
the way the world works dude. You and your dozen eminent people have
got to wake up and live with it!

The exact same argument was used to defend slavery.

DUDE! LOL. NO, NO NO - the argument that people are property first had
to be swallowed to even begin to defend slavery - I don't swallow it,
you obviously do to believe that this is an argument for slavery!
PEOPLE AREN'T PROPERTY!


It is therefore
known to be fallacious,

My point exactly. So, why did YOU BRING IT UP? YOU'RE THE ONE WHO
SAID YOU COULD CITE DOZENS OF EMINENT PEOPLE AGREEING WITH YOU? LOL.
MY POINT WAS TO SHOW YOUR CITING EMINENT PEOPLE WAS BOGUS AND AVOIDING
THE ISSUES I RAISED. LOL.

without any additional argumentation needed.

EXACTLY! So, why do you say you could cite dozens of eminent people?
lol.


Your appeal to authority is meaningless and reflects the fact that you
have not the slightest bit of rational support for your baseless
definition.

I did not appeal to authority.

Yes you did! What does "I could cite dozens of eminent people agreeing
with me" mean to you?

hahaha...

You are a liar.

No, you are, if you're trying to make us believe you weren't appealing
to authority in that last sentence! lol.

You said that no one
agreed with me, and I disproved your claim by quoting someone who did.


Liar. You didn't quote anyone who did. You merely referred to dozens
of eminent people without quoting anyone. There were no quotations.
Just a vague reference to eminent people. That's appealing to
authority dude. lol.

And I could quote a lot more.

You have yet to quote one! lol.

And, appeals to authority are at root useless. Plainly, I can point to
hundreds of eminent people who agree that ownership of ANYTHING is
theft. That doesn't make it right. This is what is known as appealing
to authority. Its a last ditch effort of a person who doesn't have a
snow ball's chance in hell of honestly winning an argument on its
merits. lol.

<yawn> If you don't want me quoting the authority of eminent people
in support of my views, stop citing the authority of the mob in
support of yours.

I'm not - I'm using it to point out the fallacy of your supposed
argument at this point. Look, you want to put forth a rational
reasonable defense of your position? Do so. Has someone else done the
work for you? Great! Trot it out and see how it flies. Do it!
Pointing out how eminent they are and how many dozen you have - WITHOUT
SAYING ONE GODDAMNED THING OTHER THAN THAT - is a direct appeal to
authority.

AND, the world created $50 trillion in 2005 - $50,000,000,000,000.00
!!! The bulk of this was created by private owners of property. It
flowed to everyone in the world.

You're the one speaking as if the world is impoverished by some elite
class of royals. Who the hell are you talking about? Where are they
destroying wealth? What specifically would your proposals achieve in
creating new wealth? How much new wealth? Where would it come from?
What resources specifically that are not being used now would come to
market?

You are very good at deriving conclusions from you bogus definitions,
not very good at explaining what the hell you really mean in any
practical sense.


"Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed
poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended
as to violate natural right."
-- Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to James Madison), 1785

Half truths and lies.

Liar

No, you're the one who said you quoted dozens of imminent people when
you haven't quoted one. You're the one who said you weren't appealing
to authority, you were merely quoting valid arguments, when you haven't
even made an argument, merely attacked me by calling me names. lol.

Sheez. What a bogus ***. I bet you're hard to get along with. Do
you have a girlfriend? lol.


You are twisting the meaning of Thomas Jefferson's words!

No, I most certainly am not.

A gratuitous assertion can be gratuitously countered. lol.

So, yes you are dude,

But I'll put some meat behind mine - Hell, aren't you the one who said
Jefferson was referring to things that happened centuries after he
wrote? lol. He clearly was talking about the right of the US
government to lay claim to land claimed by the native american tribes
and european investors for the benefit and to be deeded to US citizens.
lol.

If this isn't the case, if Jefferson was defending collective ownership
and rents as you are proposing, then rather than making a gratuitous
assertion, why not dig up what you're referring to and hash it out?

HE WAS
DEFENDING THE RIGHT OF THE COMMON PEOPLE TO PRIVATELY OWN PROPERTY in
this message!

Again, you refuse to admit even the possibility of rightful and
wrongful property --

Yes I am.

which Jefferson certainly did in the case of
slavery,

THAT'S BECAUSE PEOPLE AREN'T PROPERTY!

even though he personally owned slaves.

Had to throw that one in didn't you? lol.

Unless you are prepared to go to bat for slavery,

BULLSHIT YOU BOGUS BULLSHITTER! LOL. PEOPLE AREN'T PROPERTY. YOUR
ASSERTIONS THAT DEFENSE OF PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY EQUALS DEFENSE
OF SLAVERY IMPLIES THAT *YOU* BELEIEVE PEOPLE *ARE* PROPERTY.

PLEASE PROVIDE A DEFENSE OF THIS POSITION OF YOURS THAT PEOPLE ARE
PROPERTY! IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO DEFEND THIS POSITION - AND ACCEPT THAT
PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY - THEN, YOU CANNOT SAY THAT DEFENSE OF PRIVATE
PROPERTY IS A DEFENSE OF SLAVERY - IT IS ILLOGICAL SINCE PEOPLE ARE NOT
PROPERTY.

William, just shut
up, _now_, about property simpliciter,

You mean effects - there is real property and effects ON property.
Right? Then what you said earlier doesn't make any sense. I can
extract all the coal from property I rent and hold onto the coal in an
efficient way, and do all the things I could have done with the land,
and leave you and the public with big gaping holes while the value of
coal rises.

ADMIT THAT IF YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T INCLUDE PROPERTY SIMPLICTER IN ITS
RENTS IT IS WORSE THAN USELESS! IF IT DOES, THEN IT IS COMMUNISM.

and start addressing the real
issue: what makes property in some things rightful and property in
other things wrongful?

What is wrongful is giving people collectively more rights than people
have as individuals, because people cannot fulfill the collective needs
of society, they can only fulfill the individual needs of society.

We can speak loosely of collective needs certainly, but when we are in
the business of fulfilling those needs, they must be fulfilled one
individual at a time. So, when we deny the rights of individuals in
the name of the collective, we are really enslaving individuals to an
idea, and denying them of any practical benefit just to defend an idea
that serves no one.

And, he was right! Look at countries where the laws of
property have violated the natural right of people to own it. Look at
countries like the former Soviet Republics, China, Cambodia, Vietnam.
all these countries have violated the natural right of individuals to
own property. And guess what? They are the poorest nations on Earth
despite the fact that the people who live there are some of the
brightest, hardest working, and creative people on the planet. lol.

The countries you identified above violated rightful property in the
products of labor, not just wrongful property in natural resources.

I'm confused again. Is a natural resource property simplicter in your
view? If so, how do we get ahold of it to use it? If we merely have
to pay rent for the space and time we use the property while we extract
it, why not just sell it and be done with it? If we are granted ANY
working interest to natural resources, why not sell us that portion?
As a practical matter what you propose is worse than useless.


That is not what I am advocating.

Okay, what ARE you advocating? EXACTLY?


You appear to be absolutely
unwilling to consider what I am actually saying, to the point where
you refuse even to understand it accurately,

Its not for lack of trying sir. You have had every opportunity to
respond usefully to my questioning, and you have REFUSED TO ANSWER EVEN
THE SIMPLEST OF QUESTIONS!

no matter how often or
how clearly I explain it.

You have failed to explain it clearly even once! Do YOU understand
what property simplicter means? Tell me what it means to you. Is the
coal that exists on a piece of property an effect on the property that
can be removed without payment? IF so, then it is property simplicter.
IF not then it is real property, and my comments about it must be
answered for you to have an honest discussion with me.

I believe I have already identified for you the fact that land in Hong
Kong (the only significant natural resource there) is all public.
Hong Kong has private property in the products of labor, public
ownership of natural resources.

Hong Kong is 1,092 sq km. It has 6.9 million inhabitants. It produces
$0.254 trillion per year and is growing at 5% per year
..
The world is 510,720,000 sq km. It has 6,446.1 million inhabitants.
It produces $55.5 trillion in 2004 and is growing at 4.9% per year.

So, Hong Kong is rich because it is a major port city attached to a
major continent facing a major ocean. Even so, it has 1/1000th the
worlds population 1/500,000th the land area, and 1/220th the world's
wealth! Its growing nearly as fast as the rest of the world. Folks in
hong kong are about 4x wealthier than the average bear - but so what?
Hong Kong is a major port. Folks in NYC and Chicago are 4x wealthier
than the average bear in America.

So I must ask, why the hell is it such a role model for the rest of us?

Check out the US, which does allow private ownership of land -

US has 9,631,000 sq km land; 295.7 million people. And produces $12.37
trillion per year. IT IS BY FAR THE MOST POWERFUL ECONOMY IN THE
WORLD! With 5.6x the wealth of the average bear! lol.

Isn't this a strong argument that private ownership works?

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb973/sb973.pdf

Over 60 percent (1,366 million acres) of the land in the United States
is privately owned. The Federal Government owns nearly 29 percent (647
million acres), over one-third of which is in Alaska. State and local
governments own about 9 percent (195 million acres). Over 2 percent (55
million acres) is held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There
was minimal change in ownership from 1992 to 1997.

Interesting to note that the income of Native Americans lags that of
the rest of the country, and they have the very system of collective
ownership you tout.


That is what I am advocating. It is
very prosperous. In fact, it is a light to the world.

Most Americans own property of some sort.

This to me seems to be a stronger argument than the special cases you
dig up that have little to no impact on the big picture.

What royal class of land owner is impoverishing the average american?
NONE! as far as I can tell. IF there is one, you need to let us in on
it. And tell us in a very practical sense who is keeping America from
being richer than it might be, and how much richer it could be, and
where these riches are coming from? Keep in mind we have the data to
check out any claims you make. So you've really got to be honest here.


If you want to
discuss this issue with me, then please stop yapping about all the
countries that are _not_ examples of what I advocate,

Why? If those who are NOT examples of what you advocate,and they are
RICHER than the examples you cite, then why exclude them? You have to
explain why the US is so rich today, and how much richer it might be
under your plan, and where the heck those riches will come from?

If you cannot explain how you're going to help those who are good
examples of how ownership works to create vast wealth, then you at the
very least have got to explain how your proposed system is going to
maintain the wealth that exists here, and why we should be motivated to
change a system that works well!

and find some
willingness, somehow, to talk about Hong Kong, which _is_ an example
(though not a pure one) of what I advocate.

Hong Kong is 0.1% of the world's population - and 0.4% of the world's
wealth. The US is 3.8% of the world's populatin and 22.6%of the
world's wealth. Shouldn't we be talking about the US and nations like
the US that are the economic powerhouses of the world? How is your
proposed system going to affect the places in the world where the bulk
of wealth is created today? If its going to make them even stronger,
then you've got to explain specifically how. If its not going to make
them stronger then you have to explain why your system should be
adopted. You've also got to explain how you're going to avoid the
operation of Ricardo's law, and combinatorial explosion, which would
destroy vast quantities of wealth and plunge the world economy into
chaos and bring death to the poorest of nations and hardship to
everyone else.


Capisci?

I think you're the one who isn't getting it. lol.


Since Roy will likely bitch that I'm misreading Jefferson, here are
some other quotes that make it clear that Jefferson DEFENDED PRIVATE
PROPERTY RIGHTS quite in keeping with what I'm saying about it:

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of
every citizen in his person and property and in their management."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:36

"A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with
which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we
acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other
sensible beings." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de
Nemours, 1816. ME 14:490

How can you appropriate natural resources as your private property
without violating others' rights to do the same?

Because people have more rights as individuals than they do as a
collective. See?

This is distinctly different than what Roy proposes - a central
committee laying claim to all of the natural world

That is obviously just another lie.

No it isn't. You say we all have rights to the natural world and
individuals must pay rents or otherwise pay for the value they create
in the natural world. That is my understanding of what you said. If
you didn't say that, then what did you say?


You have simply fabricated the
"central committee" notion out of whole cloth.

No, you folks said that a centralized world agency should administer
property use. If that's not what you said, then what did you say? You
don't need to attack me, you just need to say what you did say. But
you did say that a centralized world agency should administer property
use - I said we should call it a central committee. What would you
rather call it? lol. Does it matter? It would still gum up the works
of a free market where owners who now meet with buyers on an ad hoc
basis would have to go through exponentially increasing amounts of
paperwork just to meet the needs of the market.

to which we common
citizens must appeal to to exercise our natural right and pay tribute
to so that we may fulfill our natural wants - and according to his
definition can not extract one gram of material from that world for our
own wants.

Lie.

A gratuitous assertion can just as gratuitiously be denied. What DID
you say then? What does it mean to have all the natural world
administered by a single global agency then? We wouldn't have to file
reports and the like? How would you collect your rents? It doesn't
make sense that you would collect rents from everyone and administer
uses and so forth and not exercise the right to deny people use of
property. I mean what happens when someone doesn't pay their rent?
You'd evict them right?

Now, if you're saying the property simplicter - or more simply -effects
on the property - include things like ore and deposits and growth like
timber and crops and so forth - then, you're just going to charge rents
for space and time - real property - well, then, your system won't make
a dimes worth of difference to anyone.

Roy doesn't want to have an honest discussion on the core issue of his
foolish defintion because Roy knows he would lose any honest
discussion.

I invite you to paraphrase my definition, so that we _can_ have an
honest discussion about it.

You say the the natural world is owned by everyone collectively and
that anyone who wishes to use the natural world in any way must pay for
that use. You then said that that payment doesn't include effects on
the property . You are unclear as to whether or not those effects
include natural resources on the property. So I'm confused about that.
Because on the one hand you say people wouldn't have to pay for
effects found on the property, but on the other you say people would
have to pay for natural resources. So, i'm unclear about what you
mean.

Beyond that, I have real problems with how your proposed system will
destroy the adhoc nature with whch the market now naturally allows land
use to change - which by adding a third party to the mix creates a
combinatorial explosion of effort to do anything. I also have a
problem with the operation of Ricardo's law of rents - which means that
collective ownership of property ultimately means collective ownership
of everything - which we see didn't work. Finally,I have a problem
with the idea that collective rights are assumed to exceed the rights
of individuals. That's because collective rights are meaningless
unless reduced to rights on a person by person basis. Example, I can't
burn coal to heat my house in the winter because that coal belongs to
EVERYONE. Well, this lump of coal can't be used by everyone - so,
denying me or anyone the right to burn it for my own personal want or
need - denies ANYONE from using it - and so, talk of collective liberty
in the absence of INDIVIDUAL liberty - is a sham.


Go ahead. Let's see if you have even the slightest understanding of
it.

My understanding of issues isn't the point. Your ability to reasonably
state what your propose to do, accurately state what the real world
impact will be,and honestly defend it against those who have questions
about it, IS the point. On all these issues, you have failed
misserably.

"While it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of
property is derived from Nature at all ... it is considered by those
who have seriously considered the subject, that no one has, of natural
right, a separate property in an acre of land ... Stable ownership is
the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Half truths and lies. You again are misquoting Jefferson for your own
ends.

Nonsense.

No dude, read on! lol.


Let's put this in context shall we? Jefferson was talking about
Indians and their use of land, and the right of the US government as an
advanced culture to establish deeds over the lands the Indians used
despite their claims.

Check it out;

Here's a more complete rendition of what Roy attributed to Jefferson;

"It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is
derived from nature at all... It is agreed by those who have seriously
considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a
separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal
law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men
equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who
occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes
with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late
in the progress of society." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson,
1813. ME 13:333

This in no way contradicts the sense of the quote I gave above.

Yes it does - read on.

And here's an amplifcation of what Jefferson was getting at;

"A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the
establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till
after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all
the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a
separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a
field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which
one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be
established and laws provided, before lands can be separately
appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then,
the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as
trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions
of the grant." --Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME
18:45

So property in land is created by government fiat. How does that
contradict what I said?

Did you read GRANT THEM TO INDIVIDUALS part? Jefferson wasn't talking
about collective rights, he was talking about the rights of
individuals.

And here's a statement by Jefferson defending PRIVATE OWNERSHIP of
property as civilized;

"The laws of civil society, indeed, for the encouragement of industry,
give the property of the parent to his family on his death, and in most
civilized countries permit him even to give it, by testament, to whom
he pleases." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Earle, 1823. ME 15:470

Ignoratio elenchi. This says nothing about the origin of property in
land.

You think by using big words you can intimidate me? Or make others
believe you know what the hell you're talking about?

Ignoratio elenchi - irrelevant conclusion.

Dude,you quoted Jefferson above as if he supported your claim that
government had a right or a duty to own land collectively. This is
totally relevant because this quotation defends individual private
ownership of land - by families and passing them on to whomever he
pleases without government interference - PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE OF
WHAT YOU TRIED TO HAVE US BELIEVE ABOUT JEFFERSON'S VIEWS! lol.


Do you doubt this? Lookie here - Jefferson considered directly the
communal ownership of property by a group of people. In this letter,
Jefferson clearly states that communal ownership of property cannot be
happily extended to all of society;

"That, on the principle of a communion of property, small societies may
exist in habits of virtue, order, industry, and peace, and consequently
in a state of as much happiness as Heaven has been pleased to deal out
to imperfect humanity, I can readily conceive, and indeed, have seen
its proofs in various small societies which have been constituted on
that principle. But I do not feel authorized to conclude from these
that an extended society, like that of the United States or of an
individual State, could be governed happily on the same principle."
--Thomas Jefferson to Cornelius Camden Blatchly, 1822. ME 15:399

So, IN YOUR FACE ROY - you think by misquoting Jefferson your lies and
distortions can stand? lol. Not by a long shot sir.

You have simply lied about what Jefferson wrote.

Dude, See the references at the end? I got this from the Library of
Congress. Sheez.

Nothing he said
above contradicts my position in any way.

Yeah it does. Jefferson a) defended the right of governments to
establish ownership in land to be b) deeded to individuals so that they
could c) give it whomever they wished at their death, and d)
specifically denied the efficacy of communion of property - which you
have WRONGLY implied he did support!!!!!!!!!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!

If a coal seam exists underground and no one knows its there, or how to
get at it, or what its good for even if they did get at it - then
people are not enriched by claiming the coal seam on behalf of humanity

Yes, they are, because that makes it freely available for use once
discovered. Whereas its private appropriation unquestionably
impoverishes humanity.

Only by your definition. In any practical sense humanity is
impoverished when you undercut the motivation of developers to go out
and develop natural resources by removing their NATURAL RIGHT TO OWN
THE PRODUCTS OF THEIR EFFORTS.

Natural resources are not the products of anyone's efforts. I'm not
sure there is any way to state that fact so that you will become
willing to know it,

I'm willing to know anything you say - and defend logically. Look at
the sentence above and look at the sentence you are responding to. I
ask you quite simply how would your system treat the extraction of coal
from a coal seam. You reply property simplicter, or strawman, or
natural resources are not the products of anyone's efforts. Nowhere do
you say something simple like, coal would - whatever. SAY IT! SAY IT!
I'm not telling you what to say. I'm telling you you're the one
guilty of ingatio elenchi dude! lol. How would coal mining work in
your system? In simple terms?

or to think about or discuss its implications.

Look, you live in a world of made up definitions - I live in a world of
practical wealth creation. Iask you a simple question about how a coal
mine would be run under your system - so that I can come to understand
what the hell it is you're talking about. And instead of answering a
simple question, you call me names, say I'm dumb, quote latin, and do
everything under the sun except answer the damned question. So, who's
not being honest? you are. Well, you can correct it you know. You
can be redeemed. Tell me in simple terms how a coal miner would
operate in your system. Is the coal an effect on the land that can be
freely extracted? or is it a natural resource that is owned by
everyone? If so, how does anyone get a piece of it? If they pay for
it, how is that any different than selling it? And if you sell the
resource on a land whose only real value is the resource, why not sell
the land? And how do you correct for the obvious shortcomings of your
proposed system? Shortcomings that are well documented in history?
Combinatorial explosion? Ricardo's laws of rent?

Now, if people come along lets call them Bessemer and Watt - and they
invent new things that require coal for their production, and if
others as a result come along after and figure out efficient ways to
produce and process coal to feed the processes invented by Bessemer and
Watt - lets call them Carnegie - then, they have done something to
enrich humanity using this coal resource that previously contributed
nothing to the human condition.

But nothing in what they have done in any way requires that they be
given a property right in all the world's unmined coal.

That's not what we're talking about.

?? Yes, that is exactly what we are talking about. We agree that
they have rightful property in the products of their labor.

But when their labor creates new resources that didn't exist in the
land before? Like discovering and developing oil no one knew or even
suspected existed before (and which you said didn't have value if no
one knew of it?)

Our only
disagreement, then, can be over the property you claim they rightfully
have in the things that are _not_ the products of their labor, i.e.,
the ore and coal in the ground, etc.

Okay, so coal isn't property simplicter? (effects?) In that case, how
do I get coal for my furnace then?

We're talking about their ability
to acquire coal once they figure out a use for it. Your proposal
removes that ability

Flat lie.

No its a practical consequence of your defiinition of things afaict.
Instead of making gratuitous assertions why don't you answer my simple
questions which I've asked about a hundred different times. lol.

and removes the motivation for anyone to develop
undeveloped resources.

As above. My proposal _increases_ the incentive for development and
productive use of natural resources.

How does one come to make productive use of natural resrouces if they
cannot own them? If they can own them - then why not allow them to own
the land they come from?

You just refuse to know that
fact.

What fact? You said natural resources unknown to humanity have no
value. So, someone who goes out and discovers a resource CREATES value
throgh their labor. So, they own it right? Its all very confusing the
way you put it - and will just bullocks up the works when applied
without a clear idea of what's going on.

Plainly, Bessemer, Watt and Carnegie became very wealthy. But that
wealth DID NOT come at the expense of humanity. Humanity was enriched
by their efforts.

That is a bait-and-switch.

No it isn't. They would never have done what they did if they were
told by the King of England that they didn't have rights to the natural
resources they needed to make a buck.

Bull$#!+. In almost all cases they _bought_ the resources they needed
for their businesses from idle landowners who contributed
_nothing_whatever_ to production other than a demand that the
producers fill their gaping pockets for doing nothing.

They let them have the resource which is more than your committee will
do! lol.

Humanity was enriched by their _efforts_,
but not by any privileges whereby they became wealthy.

You're avoiding the point - they wouldn't have made the effort if they
didn't have the right to own what their efforts produced. That's the
point.

No, that _can't_ be the point, because that is a point we _agree_ on.

Good. So, what's the point of the rents then? If I go out and
discover a reserve of oil on some land that no one suspected existed on
that land, and thereby own that resource since I created the discovery
of it - and pay just for the space and time it takes to extract the
resource - why not let me own the land in the first place?

if you're not going to let me own resources I create through my genius
- then how is the public served by me not discovering things I would
otherwise discover?

That's because creating uses for coal and creating
methods of extracting and processing coal are CREATIVE PROCESSES - that
just happen to have part of their value associated with a natural
resource.

None of their value is associated with a natural resource.

Bull***. If I figure out how to efficiently mine, shape and transport
granite blocks from a mountain of granite, if I cannot own and then
sell the granite I have absolutely no incentive to put any effort in
CREATING these processes that DEVELOP this resource.

And yet people do exactly that, extracting minerals from mountains
they don't own, building skyscrapers on land they don't own, grazing
cattle on range they don't own, growing crops on fields they don't
own, etc. every minute of every day.

Fine, so if a coal seam is an effect on a land that I can extract
without paying anyone for it, and all I'm doing is paying for the space
I take up, for the time it takes me to extract the coal, why not let me
buy and sell the land anyway? It doesn't make a dimes worth of
difference.

Such a mystery.

The only mystery is what the hell you propose to do in a practical
sense. Do you want a global entity to administer all lands? Or do you
want each nation to administer their own property? How do you
compensate people for the land they now think they own? What about
homeowners? How do you treat resources found in the land that are
extracted and consumed by the owners? It doesn't make any sense to me
the way you've defined it.

To you, that is.

Dude, its not for my lack of trying. Its for your lack of clear
concise, and honest explanation of what it is you are proposing. You
prefer to start and end with your definition and have no capacity
whatever to explain what the practical consequences might be - either
procedurally or wealth wise.

And the
mountain of granite stays there enriching no one in a practical
material sense.

Hehe. You forgot its idle, parasitic owner....

You're avoiding the point again. If no one goes out and develops
efficient means to produce granite at a price the market is willing to
pay, then that granite will enrich no one.

Natural resources have no intrinsic value unless and until someone
creates a use for that resource and a method for extracting and
processing and bringing that resource usefully to market.

There is no such thing as intrinsic value in any case.

Then we agree, all practical material value comes from the creative
acts of an individual.

No, value comes from scarcity and utility.

Avoiding the point again. Scarcity is reduced by creating methods of
discovery. Utility increases from creating new uses for a thing.
Where a resource was unknown and its use unknown - the creative acts of
individuals create wealth where you agree none existed before. For
hunters to exist and the buffalo to be valuable to a tribe, people
first had to concieve of themselves as hunters of buffalo and create
uses for buffalo carcasses. These creative acts define a culture and
define the wealth of a people. The genius of liberty, the genius of
markets, is that it rewards these essential creative acts in such a way
as to allow the emergence of the highest best use of resources by
society at large by the operation of Adam Smith's invisible hand - what
is known scientifically as an emergent property.


Now, all you have to do is see that what
motivates the individual to this creative act is the prospect of
becoming very wealthy from this creative act

Oh, nonsense. Creative people create primarily because they enjoy it.

Your narrow mindedness extends to your definition of creativity as well
I see.

Many even report that they do it because they _must_, not because
anyone is promising them fabulous riches.

Those who create vast wealth do so because they wanted to be fabulously
wealthy.

Give your head a shake.

Only if you do first.


and this requires that
he or she own the resource he or she develops.

Flat false.

Nonsense. 60% of the land in the US is privately owned - and guess
what, 85% of the wealth of the richest people on Earth is created on
that private land.

The Empire State Building was built on _leased_land_.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/ny/empire.pdf
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471403946,descCd-reviews.html?print=true

Only because it was started before the depression was in full force and
completed during the depression - and the major players went bankrupt..
lol.

This is what you want for the rest of America? the rest of the world?
sheez.

Your arguments all now lie in ruins.

In your dreams fatboy.

Without private
property in the hands of individuals, there is no incentive to develop
those resources and so we all suffer in poverty because of it.

Again, please try to make yourself willing to know the difference
between products of labor and natural resources.

Why don't you tell me by answering a simple question.

If I discover a resource no one knew existed in a parcel of land and
develop a means to extract it and make something useful of it - is this
a natural resource owned by everyone? or is this something I created?


It's important, and
this discussion will go nowhere, I promise you, until you do.

You are the one avoiding the question I'm asking again and again and
again. Sure, you utter incomprehensible phrases like property
simplicteur, which says nothing of a practical sense - not even a
sentence. Just a prhase. And so now,what? You say I'm dumb if I say
you can extract coal as an effect, or you say I'm dumb when I say you
can't. But you're the dummy who can't answer a simple goddamned
question! lol.

And the notion
that inventing a use for a resource makes all of that resource that
exists in the world

Now you're twisting the meaning of MY words for your own ends.

No, I'm not.

I never said that someone who invented a use for a resource owns all
that resource throughout the natural world. Never said it. I ASKED
YOU A QUESTION about a person that DISCOVERED A NATURAL RESOURCE ON A
PARCEL OF LAND - a question you refused to answer - but that didn't
stop you from twisting what I said into something else entirely so that
you could make hay with it! lol. I told you what I thought might have
to happen on that parcel of land for that person to be fairly rewarded.

But now that I think about it, I do think rights of patent do grant
owners of processes the right to extract fees from all those who use
their processes to create wealth - so yeah, to that extent I guess I do
agree with that - but I wasn't thinkinga bout that when I asked you the
question or gave what I think should happen to maintain wealth.


But if you now wish to retract your claim, I can't say I
blame you.

You said it not me. I asked you a question about a parcel of land on
which someone discovered a resource unknown to anyone before that
person came along.

And you call me a liar! sheez.

I didn't say that a developer had the right to ALL of a natural resource.

?? Yes, you did.

No, I asked you a question and told you what I thought the answer
should be in order to reward creative acts. But, I do think that a
patent holder does have a right to extract fees from those who use his
processes to create wealth - that's okay.



You said that finding a use for it gave it value,
and that made it rightly his property.

I asked you a question and told you what I thought - you are now
overgeneralizing what I said without answering the question I might
add.

You're avoiding the point - a developer has the right to the natural
resources he brings to market.

?? So all he has to do in order to to own them is try to sell them?
So, he can't sell the Brooklyn Bridge, but the East River is fair
game?

That's not what we're talking about. If someone discovers a naturally
occuring resource that no one before him knew existed and that person
creates things of great value with that resource no one before him ever
even thought of using - clearly that person deserves some consideration
for the wealth he creates by his efforts. You have failed to answer
honestly how your system would work to reward these creative acts -
preferring instead to talk about justifiable ownership, unjustifiable
ownership, labor and all that - without once giving a clear practical
EXAMPLE of what the heck it is you're talking about - while at the same
time beating down any discussion I am trying to have by calling me
names, and twisting the meaning of what I've said.


the inventor's property is plainly just stupid.

No, you're the stupid one, who misquotes me and others to suit your
ends.

I did not misquote you. You just made a claim that you now think
better of.

Bull - I've asked you a hypothetical question about what happens when
someone creates wealth and you've msquoted it rather than answer it.
You have yet to provide one clear example of what it is you're talking
about and take us step by step through things.


As well as evil.

Oooooo! Now I'm evil! Right, and if you could I'm sure you'd dispatch
the NKVD to silence me and everyone like me who believes it is a
natural right of people to own property and use it for their own ends
to fulfill their natural wants without paying tribute to a central
committee.

I am probably in much more danger of being silenced by force than you.

You are probably paranoid! lol.

I'm sure Stalin thought the farmers who witheld food from the cities
because he couldn't figure out how to pay them were evil too! That's
why 20 million of them were killed. And that's why Russia has to
import food even to this day! lol.

Crops are not a natural resource.

Finally! A clear answer.

What about coal? Oil? Natural Gas? Ores? gems? Rocks?

Then, what about a situation where oil is discovered and reclaimed by
processes that effectively create new sources of oil? That is produce
oil on lands that were thought devoid of oil before?


I don't know that there is any way
to state that fact clearly enough to make you willing to know it.

My willingness to know this is not the issue. Your willingness to
explain things in complete sentences in simple step by step terms is
the issue. lol


What is evil dude is trying to fool people by misquoting defenders of
property rights and appealing to bogus authority to maintain the
fiction that your definition of bogus rights held in common by humanity
over all of nature makes an ounce of practical sense.

Let me know if you ever want to discuss anything I have actually said.

I'm responding to everything you've said point by point - you however
are not usefully responding to anything I'm saying.

.