Hello everyone, I am new to this community. What brings me here is the fact that I am an anarcho capitalist who wants to converse with and get to know other people who share similar interests. My reason for creating this particular post is that I had a question about the meaning of something in Ludwig von Mises book, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.
I fail to comprehend the following quote:
"In no circumstances can the sum expended on wages exceed the income for any length of time."
At no fault other than my own do I not understand this. I was hoping that someone could explain what it means and why it is so. I might be embarassed to read how simple and clear your responses are, and to think that I couldn't figure it out on my own, but hey, I would rather look silly than not know what he's talking about!
As for my newbie idea, I think it would be great to have a dedicated section for community Q and A. I was thinking that it could work similarily to Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers, in the sense that the community could ask questions and give answers to topics related to Austrian economics, a stateless society, etc. Members of the community could vote on what the best answer provided was, and use a search tool to see if their quesiton has allready been asked.
It wouldn't be for discussion like a regular forum, but instead for Q's that can get A's.
I suppose that the forum may be a better way to get answers in some circumstances, since questions don't always have a clear and agreed upon answer.
Just my thoughts! Anyone like or dislike the idea?
Welcome to the Forum.
Your idea is a decent one, I'm just not sure we really have the capacity to do that very effectively with this platform. It would seem the most likely way to do that would be to create a "Q&A" group and put everything in there...but the groups section doesn't really get noticed. Plus we do have the Ultimate Beginner Meta Thread, which seems to function pretty well, and of course the Mises Wiki, particularly the Argumentation category. I would definitely encourage you to create an account there and see what you might be able to contribute.
As for your question, some context would be nice...but on the surface it would sound like a simple statement of the fact that "for every buyer there is a seller." To me that statement is basically saying that "the collective amount spent on wages can't be more than the amount received in income"...in other words, wages=income.
Hey, great to have you!
In regard to you first question - it must be the case that your income is at least as large as the amount of money you pay you. Otherwise, you can't pay that money out. It's like me trying to spend $10 when I only have $5 (if I understand this correctly).
As to your second question, to add to the list that JJ gave, you might find LibertyHQ interesting:
http://thelibertyhq.org/learn/index.php?listID=5
As well as its forums:
http://libertyhq.freeforums.org
He's talking about how much people would get paid in a socialist society, meaning what rules would there be about who gets what.
In that context, he says that obviously you can't give away endless amounts of stuff to everyone, because you will run out eventually. If you have a supply of 10 million chairs when the revolution comes, and you make a million chairs a year, then you can't hand out 2 million chairs a year, because after ten years you have made ten million chairs, plus your intial stock of ten million. Give away two million a year for ten years, and all the chairs are gone. In the eleventh year, a million more chairs are made, so you can no longer give away two million.
"In no circumstances can the sum expended on wages [= 2 million chairs a year] exceed the income [=a million chairs a year] for any length of time [=more than ten years]."
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer