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America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

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Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#951

Post by onethought »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #949
onethought wrote: post #948

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian aboriginals. 60000 years. No capital, no ownership (no words to even express the concept). Plenty of tools and productive work.

Tools are capital. Land is capital. > No capital, no ownership (no words to even express the concept). My understanding is that the Australian government is continuing to expropriate their land (capital). So it seems to be a basic fact that they did own it before, and that is no longer the case.

You are applying future concepts on the past. This is nonsense.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#952

Post by chordalkeyboard »

onethought wrote: post #951
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #949

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools are capital. Land is capital. > No capital, no ownership (no words to even express the concept). My understanding is that the Australian government is continuing to expropriate their land (capital). So it seems to be a basic fact that they did own it before, and that is no longer the case.

You are applying future concepts on the past. This is nonsense.

I don’t understand what you mean. Did Aborigines own the land in what is now called “Australia” before the colonialists invaded and appropriated the territory?

You understand that tools are capital, right?

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#953

Post by onethought »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #952
onethought wrote: post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are applying future concepts on the past. This is nonsense.

I don’t understand what you mean. Did Aborigines own the land in what is now called “Australia” before the colonialists invaded and appropriated the territory? You understand that tools are capital, right?

No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history). Ownership was a concept introduced in the 1700s. The Native title reference you made occurred in the 1980s as a defence not because they wanted ownership, but because they were being denied access to their spiritual home. Also capital has become important to survival now... which wasn’t the case prior.

Like I said, your position ignores a lot of history. Tools are not capital, as they pre-existed the concept of capital/ownership.

This isn’t like a scientific concept that was discovered. This is a human made dichotomy, there are a myriad of other ways to view the resources and how we consume/share/allocate things.

Yes you can put everything in terms of capital (which is what you’re attempting) but there is nothing “more valid” about your concept than any other competing concept. These aren’t laws of physics.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#954

Post by parasubvert »

unishark wrote: post #928
parasubvert wrote: post #910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has been consistently wrong for 15 years, if he was right, it was a half truth by accident. Let’s look harder at his theses since 2007 or so: 1. US Equity Markets Crash. Okay, that happened in 2008. But, did it he get the reason why? He claims it is all about Debt and easy money. That interest rates should be up and ultimately we should be tethered to hard currency. That’s a really, really simplistic and ahistoric…

You mean because his reasoning is Austrian and not Keynesian it is wrong even when the crash happens which he predicted would happen? That's convenient. Gold has also done pretty well hasn't it? You can list wrong predictions all day, but if the guy is occasionally right you need to give credit.

There’s an old saying that Austrians claim a lot of things, but ultimately become Keynesians in a foxhole.

There is no “there” in Austrian economic reasoning or modeling: the fundamental premise is to reject empirical evidence in favour of Praxeology. This is useless for forming economic policy.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#955

Post by parasubvert »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #932
parasubvert wrote: post #488

The amount of upvoted goldbug and Bitcoin cranks pushing their theories as fact and deriding mainstream macroeconomics is pretty appalling.

not my downvote, but Mainstream macroeconomics has not an accurately developed foundation, more appalling than ever as it progresses on its own. Gold and Bitcoin fantasies can not further deride something that is self-deprecating due to poor math.

Textbook macro was pretty accurate post 2008, pity it was ignored.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#956

Post by chordalkeyboard »

onethought wrote: post #953
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #952

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what you mean. Did Aborigines own the land in what is now called “Australia” before the colonialists invaded and appropriated the territory? You understand that tools are capital, right?

No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history). Ownership was a concept introduced in the 1700s. The Native title reference you made occurred in the 1980s as a defence not because they wanted ownership, but because they were being denied access to their spiritual home. Also capital has become important to survival now... which wasn’t the case prior. Like I said, your position ign…

> No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history).

Thats a distinction without a difference. If you say it was wrong for the settlers to take the land, I ask you why? Either the Aborigines had the right to determine its disposition, or they did not. The right to determine its disposition is ownership rights. Therefore you’re not able to criticize the expropriation of the Aborigines without acknowledging that they held property rights in the land.

> Ownership was a concept introduced in the 1700s.

This is not true, Aborigines have (and had) ownership. When the Europeans got here, the Aborigines had things they owned and territories they excluded other Aborigines from.

> Tools are not capital, as they pre-existed the concept of capital/ownership.

This is nonsense, the concept of capital is the same as the concept of a tool. Means of production.

> This isn’t like a scientific concept that was discovered. This is a human made dichotomy,

Thats correct, ownership is a social construct. Its a social construct that has existed for thousands of years [0] and is not something that you can change unilaterally on the basis of some dogma you prefer.

> there are a myriad of other ways to view the resources and how we consume/share/allocate things.

Yes and you are well within your rights to propose any of those ways, and then other people can choose whether to adopt those ways or not. However taking a different way and forcing it on people is not the way to go, as it amounts to you claiming the right to dispose of other people’s property. Furthermore just because you can posit a concept does not make that concept logical, sensical, or coherent; and you should be prepared to justify your proposition.

> Yes you can put everything in terms of capital (which is what you’re attempting) but there is nothing “more valid” about your concept than any other competing concept. These aren’t laws of physics.

The validity is the correspondence between concept and real world behavior. Tools are capital because they are literally capital according to the basic definition of the word and we have no reason to say otherwise.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#957

Post by onethought »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #956
onethought wrote: post #953

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history). Ownership was a concept introduced in the 1700s. The Native title reference you made occurred in the 1980s as a defence not because they wanted ownership, but because they were being denied access to their spiritual home. Also capital has become important to survival now... which wasn’t the case prior. Like I said, your position ign…

> No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history). Thats a distinction without a difference. If you say it was wrong for the settlers to take the land, I ask you why? Either the Aborigines had the right to determine its disposition, or they did not. The right to determine its disposition is ownership rights. Therefore you’re not able to criticize the expropriation of the Aborigine…

Okay, so to rewind the discussion as I see you can't be convinced away from Capital as the only way to view this. I'll reframe in terms of capital to point out the problem with how you describe "Efficient Capital Allocation".

Capitalist A hires Worker X to generate some value (P) for them and they pay X: W (wage) - M (margin) (the difference being the surplus value SV). (So W+M = P, and P - W = SV) -- (Edit: Sorry to make that so confusing I could have done that better)

That is how capitalism works. I don't think you'd disagree.

Now A takes SV and hires worker Y and repeats the process and generates another lot of SV.

Why does A have rights to SV at all? The thing you are referring to as "Capital" is really just the "Right to collect others SV" -- where does that right come from?

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#958

Post by chordalkeyboard »

onethought wrote: post #957
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #956

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. They didn’t own the land. They shared the land (it’s really interesting history). Thats a distinction without a difference. If you say it was wrong for the settlers to take the land, I ask you why? Either the Aborigines had the right to determine its disposition, or they did not. The right to determine its disposition is ownership rights. Therefore you’re not able to criticize the expropriation of the Aborigine…

Okay, so to rewind the discussion as I see you can't be convinced away from Capital as the only way to view this. I'll reframe in terms of capital to point out the problem with how you describe "Efficient Capital Allocation". Capitalist A hires Worker X to generate some value (P) for them and they pay X: W (wage) - M (margin) (the difference being the surplus value SV). (So W+M = P, and P - W = SV) -- (Edit: Sorry to…

> That is how capitalism works. I don't think you'd disagree.

I don’t disagree with the formula as presented.

> Why does A have rights to SV at all?

It is the wage he earned for arranging the components (factory, raw materials, worker who has agreed to work, salesman, etc.) in a way that generated SV. Many capitalists are competing to do this, and some of them are better at generating SV than others. Those capitalists make more money, and they invest in more businesses that generate SV. Some capitalists spend all their investment arranging to produce SV and they don’t make any, they lose money and lose their investment; however the worker still gets paid. The worker trades his labor for a guaranteed wage and the capitalist takes the risk of loss along with the possibility of profit.

Thats the long story, the short version is that he has a right to it because he has a right to the payment he received from the customer. It was a voluntary exchange.

> The thing you are referring to as "Capital" is really just the "Right to collect others SV" -- where does that right come from?

I disagree with this framing because “others’ SV” implies that the SV belongs to someone else. Thats something you should support if you believe it is so.

You frame “capital” as “ Right to collect others SV" but the SV came because the laborer was able to use tools that made him more productive. The only reason the capitalist got some of the SV is that he chose to buy a tool and then agreed to let a worker use the tool. This is a valuable activity and thats why it earns a reward.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#959

Post by onethought »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #958
onethought wrote: post #957

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so to rewind the discussion as I see you can't be convinced away from Capital as the only way to view this. I'll reframe in terms of capital to point out the problem with how you describe "Efficient Capital Allocation". Capitalist A hires Worker X to generate some value (P) for them and they pay X: W (wage) - M (margin) (the difference being the surplus value SV). (So W+M = P, and P - W = SV) -- (Edit: Sorry to…

> That is how capitalism works. I don't think you'd disagree. I don’t disagree with the formula as presented. > Why does A have rights to SV at all? It is the wage he earned for arranging the components (factory, raw materials, worker who has agreed to work, salesman, etc.) in a way that generated SV. Many capitalists are competing to do this, and some of them are better at generating SV than others. Those capitalist…

But where did they get wealth to buy the tool? Who owned the tool before them? How did they get the tool?

Doesn't this frame of argument just lead back to the one of three scenarios:

- (a) The capitalist bought the tool from a (b) or (c) through hard earned wealth as a wage-earner (super rare)

- (b) The capitalist was born with more wealth because their parents were one of (b) or (c) therefore could be a capitalist not a worker (most common)

- (c) The capitalist just took the wealth because the opportunity presented itself. (Land grabs, resource exploitation, etc). (less common now, but the origin point for capitalism)

where else can you get "the means of production"? And thus the "right to exploit workers surplus value"?

That's for In modern day information-era capital: What tool does a software company offer an employee that entitles them to SV... couldn't I just as simply frame it the opposite way: The Software Developer IS the tool, the Employer actually has no means of production themselves, but still claims that right.

Re: America's 1% Has Taken $50T From the Bottom 90%

#960

Post by arvinsim »

wernercd wrote: post #797
arvinsim wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Capitalism is not sustainable. And if this the best system that mankind can come up with, then the future looks bleak.

Well, honest question... what's the alternative? because all the other options have proven to be worse by magnitudes of order. Calls that it's not sustainable are like cries of impending starvation and privation... yet "famines" haven't happened because advances created by... capitalism. Better crop yields, better farm results, etc. Driven by "greedy capitalists". can we do better? Sure... fight crony capitalism? cop…

Capitalism, as we have it today is not even a century old. It hasn't had the to probe itself if it can last that long.

Calling it the "best" we got is rather short sighted.

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