Socialism, American-Style

I'll give you a new example to work with, scrubbed of geometry so you can more easily understand it:

Premise:

>Za is a subset of Z

>Za always results in behavior1

Conclusion:

> Z always results in behavior1

How does this argument prove that behavior1 occurs in all instances of Z, when you've only shown us that a subset of Z (in this case Za) exhibits behavior1?

How do you plan to prove that other subset Zb, Zc, Zd, etc follow this same rule when you've failed to provide even a single example?

Or if you still are unable to answer that question, can you please show us in what way i misrepresented your argument to create a strawman?

you not only have yet to actually address this point, you also have yet to address my point concerning your own words on hierarchy and the incompatibility with that and the idea of co-operative management of resources.

Once you can make your argument make sense, you can begin looking at counterarguments for fallacies and semantics, else you will have this situation where you are digging yourself a deeper hole by misunderstanding counterarguments and rashly trying to mislabel them as fallacies.

Editted formatting

I agree - rents are poorly understood. I read epic flamefests on nntp://sci.econ during the last 20 years and that is the only reason I "got it".

Sadly, I have to differ on multiple other points:

- Substitution pretty much makes resource constraints a nonproblem. We've gotten so good at this that there's a large trade in "antiques" largely based on the numismatic value of old materials.

Whether or not the carbon content of the atmosphere counts is a very slowly closing but still open question. Having dealt with CARB, the California Air Resources Board, the probability of an honest solution based on public goods seems bleak.

- The planet very well can be largely private. Let it be private and tax the rents. This leaves more open the question "what does government do?". Consider private and public as merely possible management - or finance - schemes, each with weak and strong points.

- Perpetual ownership is just a lease with an undefined term. The British renewal rate of 99 years as a standard is just using a different constant.

Of course people overvalue their contributions. It takes a long time to get calibrated properly. And when I was a kid, the grownups were a lot more likely to be blunt about this than I am led to believe they are now.

But Libertarians are still the "R&D" department for politics.

> is ever possible in a government that is rife with dysfunction, graft and bewildering inefficiencies at every level.

This is a fair point, but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the presence of a significant group of politicians in congress who have made their entire careers out of sabotaging government programs. Remember, Republicans have tried to repeal Obamacare at every turn, even taking it to the Supreme Court - twice.

So to say the system can never work because it hasn't worked is confusing the cause for the effect, it seems.

USA contributed most of the world's innovations in science, technology, culture, and institution. It is silly to compare other countries to the USA.

Why Netherlands can be a socialist country, but not USA? Because Netherlands consumes innovations, while USA creates innovations.

Capital driven entities excel by maximizing revenue and minimizing cost. They perpetuate themselves and insulate their volatility by building vast warchests.

A public equivalence however, excels by maximizing utility. They perpetuate themselves by making sure the value they provide is near the cost they incur.

Take a gym for example. A private one wants to maximize membership dues but minimize actual facility use - that maximizes profit. A public one wants to be something that the community utilizes.

Generally speaking, in a public equivalence, the only party to enrich in the exchange is the customer base.

Now given this, a homogeneous state-run society sounds foolish ... but America's homogeneous capitalist society is equally foolhardy. We are sophisticated enough to analyze things and apply appropriate incentivized structures upon them instead of using the same one inappropriately in every use-case.