aludanyi:Let’s try to avoid the deadly trap, the Austrian school shows us that Adam Smith made a “mistake” (and Marx also made the same mistake), and that the labor theory of value is nonsense. Talking about “full reward” for our labor will lead us to nowhere.
You should look at the US mutualist Kevin Carson's "subjectivized" labor theory of value (the Journal of Libertarian Studies did a full article on it). Capital uses privilege to command labor. Remove privilege to capital and labor would get it's full product and just due.
The location that defines a specific piece of land itself is not labor-based property but what is created is now called "capital" not "land".
Of what relevance is location? It is clearly possible to labour upon land to transform it into something else (capital, a lawn etc.) Why should one not own this then?
Torsten:So why did the state emerge in the first place?
I would look at Wendy McElroy's difference between the "consent theory of the state" and the "conquest theory of the state"
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/state.htm
Inquisitor:The location that defines a specific piece of land itself is not labor-based property but what is created is now called "capital" not "land". Of what relevance is location? It is clearly possible to labour upon land to transform it into something else (capital, a lawn etc.) Why should one not own this then?
You would own that which you transform with your labor into capital (a lawn, a fence, a building, a driveway, a crop of corn, etc). But you do not labor to create the location and it is the location that you have exclusive use over. The location itself pre-exists humans and thus your labor.
“Political means” is possible only by the state. If a private organization or an individual use “political means” that would be robbery by any definition and as an immoral act it isn’t allowed. It is a robbery even if the state use it, but… the state legalize it so what can we do :(
But I don’t see the problem, because “we” wouldn’t live better if someone use political means, it is nothing but redistribution of wealth (capital). There are no more goods produced than consumed. Actually there is less goods produced, because the one who use political means don’t produce at all. So it could be in a short run that state would be richer and live better, but overall the society isn’t better off, it’s quite the contrary, and in a long run even the state is a loser, because the overall progress is slowed down.
WmBGreene:You should look at the US mutualist Kevin Carson's "subjectivized" labor theory of value (the Journal of Libertarian Studies did a full article on it). Capital uses privilege to command labor. Remove privilege to capital and labor would get it's full product and just due.
There is no privilege in a free market. Capital can't command labor, because in the free market capital and labor are both "goods" and are commanded by supply/demand. It is possible that for a short temporary period there would be less capital than labor and in that case “capital would command labor” but this is possible vice versa also. Anyway in a free market we ultimately come to an equilibrium (I don’t have formal education in economics, but I believe Leon Walras worked on this theory).
Anyway in the current market of our world, I agree, you are right, capital command everything not just labor.
All things must have some location. If you own the lawn, how do you not own the location it is situated upon?
aludanyi:“Political means” is possible only by the state. If a private organization or an individual use “political means” that would be robbery by any definition and as an immoral act it isn’t allowed. It is a robbery even if the state use it, but… the state legalize it so what can we do :(
Did you read the McElroy article? Nock drew a distinction between the state as illegitimate authority and governance as legitimate agency.
aludanyi:But I don’t see the problem, because “we” wouldn’t live better if someone use political means, it is nothing but redistribution of wealth (capital). There are no more goods produced than consumed. Actually there is less goods produced, because the one who use political means don’t produce at all. So it could be in a short run that state would be richer and live better, but overall the society isn’t better off, it’s quite the contrary, and in a long run even the state is a loser, because the overall progress is slowed down.
In anarchy where all land is legally claimed, those with access have a claim on labor-based wealth of those who don't.
So exclusive use of land backed by force is the political means to steal the labor-based wealthof those excluded by privilege.
Inquisitor:If you own the lawn, how do you not own the location it is situated upon?
It is a similar concept to our common right of ways contained within collectively owned sidewalks to excercise our common rights to speech, assembly, and petition.
aludanyi:Anyway in a free market we ultimately come to an equilibrium
Yes, so the price of goods get driven to costs. So how does one go about capital accumulation in a free market?
You can't, hence the temptation to use the political means - privilege to protect profits. Owners of capital don't want privileges to be removed in a free market and as long as they have privileges then capital can command labor.
WmBGreene:Yes, so the price of goods get driven to costs. So how does one go about capital accumulation in a free market?
I don’t see any problem about this, because the cost aggregates the profit. I understand that the profit is the “wage” for the capital just as the salary to the labor is the “wage” of the labor. Both are part of the cost. It is another matter that accounting practices is somewhat different, but :) you know what… economics laws don’t give a damn about accountant practices. The price come to the cost is true only if your cost aggregates the profit. You have to add value to a good in order to be able to sale it for a greater price, and part of that plus value is here thanks to the labor (this is the salary to the labor) and part thanks to the capital (this is the profit). So there is no problem with accumulation of capital.
Of course it is important to know (and both Mises and Rothbard wrote about this a thousand times), that in a free market we never have an exchange of equal values, if the two goods are equal in value, no exchange would take place, so in a voluntary exchange both side is at gain, otherwise there wont be an exchange at all. And a very important prerequisite for this is that both sides must add value the “merchandise”, so if both side add value and if that value is more than the consumed value, there will be an accumulation of capital. The only important thing is, that capital is made by man, and as man can produce more than he consume (with the help of the existing capital) he will produce more capital. Now if half the population lives on political means (as today) it is clear that the accumulation of capital is impossible and that there is actually a zero saving or maybe even a consumption of capital, because we consume more than we produce.
aludanyi:I understand that the profit is the “wage” for the capital
Actually the return on the factor of production called capital is "economic interest"
aludanyi:Both (labor and capital) are part of the cost.
What about land? Much of what is called "profit" these days is a misunderstanding of the return on the factors of production, particularly economic rent (the return on land).
Land is a very peculiar factor of production because it doesn't respond to market forces as it's supply is inelastic.
If I remember correctly, Mises and Rothbard made a categorization:
Original factors of production: Labor and Land (Land = natural resources)
Capital goods: Tool, equipment, building, etc.
In order to produce, we also need general conditions.
Today I am afraid, we don’t live by this categorization, and that's the source of our problem.
Without a doubt today we have this problem because the language is actually manipulated and weakened, so profit means an incredible wide range of things. But I am not talking about our planned economy here; I am talking about an anarcho-capitalist world where free market is supreme. Of course rent is not profit, even if people handle it like it is the same, in reality it is not and of course elasticity is also different for different goods that’s why the free market is the only way to handle it correctly.
WmBGreene: You should look at the US mutualist Kevin Carson's "subjectivized" labor theory of value (the Journal of Libertarian Studies did a full article on it). Capital uses privilege to command labor. Remove privilege to capital and labor would get it's full product and just due.
Though I do certainly love Kevin Carson, I love truth more.Carson's theory is LTV in name only. What it comes down to is that input prices will end up being the only prices that are paid for by a consumer.Aside from being ambiguous though, it still does not get to the heart of the matter, being what causes prices. It is not, in fact, labour, sorry it just isn't. Carson's argument has to focus on prices as pre-existing constructs, but it does not in any actuality get to the point of the origin of price.
The Origins of Capitalism
And for more periodic bloggings by moi,
Leftlibertarian.org
I don’t want to discourage you all, but it is very hard if not impossible to get to any meaningful conclusion on price theory if our thoughts are greatly influenced by fiat money. The free market can’t exist in a fiat money world, therefore can’t work with fiat money, so any further discussion about profit, price, rent etc. is impractical in a fiat money world using free market laws.
WmBGreene:Did you read the McElroy article? Nock drew a distinction between the state as illegitimate authority and governance as legitimate agency.
The questions posed in the article have already been answered by Weber, Rothbard, Mises and others. Society, according to Mises, is the result of voluntarism, that which is the product of human action but not of human design. Agencies like the state do not appropriate land from labor or voluntary trade, and so are destructive to society. To the extent that states are the product of voluntary agreements or contracts between individuals (which implies the state obeys its contract, which would likely not prohibit secession), they are synonymous with market anarchism.
The problem which Jefferson noted was that future generations should not be burdened with the government of past generations. Our generation have inherited all sorts of tyranny. This is not a voluntary contract, this is coercion.
What common right if ways are you alluding to? Easements? These only arise from use.
Grant: Agencies like the state do not appropriate land from labor or voluntary trade, and so are destructive to society.
According to Rothbard almost none of the land titles here in the US today were legitimately homesteaded from unowned land. How could they be?
What is destructive to society is a state that grants privilege without any obligations to those being excluded because it violates the absolute right of self-ownership of those excluded. This is Nock's definition of a state. Whereas local governance as legitimate authority requires an obligation which is the defensive use of force.
Inquisitor:What common right if ways are you alluding to?
The ones contained within the sidewalk that allows you to publicly protest so long as you do not infringe on the equal rights of an other individual to the same.
That means you can't block the sidewalks you must keep moving.
Whence does such a right arise? The justification for easement rights is very different.
WmBGreene: According to Rothbard almost none of the land titles here in the US today were legitimately homesteaded from unowned land. How could they be?
They probably couldn't have been originally. But unless you believe that the current generation should pay for the crimes of past generations, you can't really redistribute anything.
WmBGreene:What is destructive to society is a state that grants privilege without any obligations to those being excluded because it violates the absolute right of self-ownership of those excluded. This is Nock's definition of a state. Whereas local governance as legitimate authority requires an obligation which is the defensive use of force.
Granting privilege necessarily includes violation of other's rights. If it granted privileges to one group in exchange for some other privilege to another that each group agrees to, it would be a voluntary market transaction. Then privilege would not be granted, it would be traded, and a state-like entity might enforce the contract, but would not be the thing that initiated it.
In my opinion, the problem with defining a state as anything other than a monopoly on force is problematic. Without a monopoly, the state could not exploit its populace. With a monopoly, the state would have no reason to do anything like Nock's proper governance unless it increased their own power by doing so (which I think is why states allow any freedom).
But if you define society as a collection of individuals who voluntarily associate (or don't) with each other in various ways, I think anything which interferes with the process (or externalizes the costs of) spontaneous ordering is destructive.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
http://www.mutualist.org/id45.html
Grant:In my opinion, the problem with defining a state as anything other than a monopoly on force is problematic. Without a monopoly, the state could not exploit its populace. With a monopoly, the state would have no reason to do anything like Nock's proper governance unless it increased their own power by doing so (which I think is why states allow any freedom).But if you define society as a collection of individuals who voluntarily associate (or don't) with each other in various ways, I think anything which interferes with the process (or externalizes the costs of) spontaneous ordering is destructive.
The reason why a monopoly on force is legitimate (in this case requiring an obligation for exclusive use) is because exclusive use forces costs in the form of negative externalities upon those in proximity (a territory) to the exclusive use of a location which violates the excluded's absolute right to self-ownership.
In other words... we can ultimately conclude that the state is an evil. The only questionable point is it is necessary or not necessary. :)
Everyone knows the words: “the state is a necessary evil”. I think there are some good arguments at both side.
WmBGreene: "The ones [such that] you do not infringe on the equal rights of an other individual to the same."
This is the definition of what should be called a liberty.
Then the question (Inquisitor): "From whence does such a right arise?" has no meaning. A right must be obtained somehow (through the market, we would hope); a liberty does not to be.
It is quite a useful distinction.
Brett_McS:This is the definition of what should be called a liberty.
In civic republicanism, individual liberty could only be achieved by practicing virtuous behavior within small-scale, face-to-face, deliberative bodies.
I am only interested in equal liberty!
Brett_McS could you expand on what you mean a little? I'm not sure if your in agreement with me or not, or if you have some entirely different point to make.
I'm trying to make the distinction between a right and a liberty. We often buy (in one way or another) rights. Typically I buy a right to property. We can distinguish this from a liberty - something that I do not need to buy, since, as WmBGreene says, it doesn't diminish anyone elses "supply".
Thus, rights are seen as something that can be set purely within a market system. All rights can (and ideally, should) be bought and sold. Liberties are, on the other hand, self-evidently and logically non-saleable.
Does that make sense to you? It seems a useful distinction to me.
When you buy property, you don’t diminish anyone else "supply" you exchange your property (the money) for the property you are buying. The worst mistake is to think that you diminish someone property by buying it, it is nothing but an exchange of properties, and the money is just a "middleman". And of course you both are better off (if the exchange is voluntary), because you value the property you are buying more than the property you are "selling" (the money), and the seller value the property he are buying (your money) more than the property he are selling. You can't sell your right therefore nobody can buy rights, rights are not property, rights are the condition which can lead you to have property, without rights you can't have property.
Also there is a distinction between rights to have property and property, you have the rights even if you don't have a property... property is the materialization of your rights. Now the problem is that the state changed the meaning of the word "rights" the state tell us that rights are what the state granting to us, but the Declaration of Independence & the US Constitution actually said that we have those rights at the beginning and that actually we give the power to the state (enumerable limited powers) and not the other way around. Of course this is the case in the US, in other countries the sovereignty belong to the state, in the US the sovereignty belong to the individual, to the people.
Brett_McS: I'm trying to make the distinction between a right and a liberty. We often buy (in one way or another) rights. Typically I buy a right to property. We can distinguish this from a liberty - something that I do not need to buy, since, as WmBGreene says, it doesn't diminish anyone elses "supply". Thus, rights are seen as something that can be set purely within a market system. All rights can (and ideally, should) be bought and sold. Liberties are, on the other hand, self-evidently and logically non-saleable. Does that make sense to you? It seems a useful distinction to me.
I think you're making a distinction between alienable and inalienable rights. The right to property is a bundle of rights - the right to appropriate cannot be exchanged; the right to a title of appropriated resources, on the other hand, can be. One's will is not alienable too, and thus slavery contracts are ruled out on a libertarian view. Rothbard is instructive in this regard.
Brett_McS:I'm trying to make the distinction between a right and a liberty. We often buy (in one way or another) rights. Typically I buy a right to property. We can distinguish this from a liberty - something that I do not need to buy, since, as WmBGreene says, it doesn't diminish anyone elses "supply". Thus, rights are seen as something that can be set purely within a market system. All rights can (and ideally, should) be bought and sold. Liberties are, on the other hand, self-evidently and logically non-saleable. Does that make sense to you? It seems a useful distinction to me.
Don't like it personally. I believe we are born with rights that don't have to be purchased or gifted. They are human constructs to help us avoid conflicts.
I think that if you list "the rights that we are born with" you will find that they fit the definition of a liberty that I gave (using your words).
The advantage of that distinction (between two types of "rights") is that it avoids confusion in discussion. Are we talking about rights that can be obtained on the market or are we talking about "innate rights". Some (actually, a lot of) people fall into the trap of using the two concepts interchangeably. But they are very different, and should have different words to describe them. Fortunately there already is an appropriate word.
In fact when you buy property you increase both your and the sellers "supply", if you want to use that term standing on its own.
With respect, your second paragraph illustrates the reason why the word liberty should be used instead of some adjectival form (innate, inalienable) of "rights". People tend to drop the adjective and then confuse two very different things.
But that is a good point about the inversion that has occured. We the people, should be listing the rights we deign to bestow on the governmen, not the other way around.
Sorry, that last comment was in response to aludanyi.
Haven't quite got the hang of the comments system here, yet.
Brett_McS:Are we talking about rights that can be obtained on the market or are we talking about "innate rights".
Sorry. Could you give me an example of a right that can be purchased on the market?
Yes, that was in my first post: I can buy a right to property. I can reserve a right to use a picnic table at a certain time.
I'm suggesting that it would be clearer to use a distinct word (not just a different adjective) to distinguish this "mundane" concept from what is a totally different category: The liberty to write a book; the liberty to hold and express a point of view; the liberty to do anything which does not diminish the liberty of others.
Then we can go on to consider what rights we wish to grant to (or with hold from) government, while insisting that it not diminish the liberties of the citizens etc, etc.
I don’t think so… you have the right to property, what you are actually buying is the property, not the right for property. When you reserve a picnic table, you don’t buy a right, you rent a table for a period of time, and you buy a table for a limited period of time. If you don’t have rights to property you wouldn’t be able to buy any property or to reserve a picnic table at all. Slaves throughout the history were deprived from right to property, they couldn’t buy a property and they couldn’t reserve a picnic table. We should make a distinction between right to property and property itself, it is a huge difference. The first told us if we working and make property it is ours to keep. The second is a socialist (leftist) idea that everyone should be entitled with house, education, etc. this is actually because they don’t understand the difference between property and property rights. You don’t have to produce property rights it is there naturally – given by the Creator if you wish, but someone has to produce property it isn’t come from the heaven.
Inquisitor:In the case of property, it is the title to it that is exchanged. The right is inalienable, and it is the right to appropriate unowned resources.
See, now I've got you using two completely different words for the two completely different concepts: you used "title" for one and "inalienable rights" for the other. That's good. (I used "rights" and "liberties" respectively)
But then you dropped the adjective when discussing rights and spoilt the clarity. Something that is commonly done, as I noted before.
That was basically my point.
aludanyi: I don’t think so… you have the right to property, what you are actually buying is the property, not the right for property. When you reserve a picnic table, you don’t buy a right, you rent a table for a period of time, and you buy a table for a limited period of time. If you don’t have rights to property you wouldn’t be able to buy any property or to reserve a picnic table at all. Slaves throughout the history were deprived from right to property, they couldn’t buy a property and they couldn’t reserve a picnic table. We should make a distinction between right to property and property itself, it is a huge difference. The first told us if we working and make property it is ours to keep. The second is a socialist (leftist) idea that everyone should be entitled with house, education, etc. this is actually because they don’t understand the difference between property and property rights. You don’t have to produce property rights it is there naturally – given by the Creator if you wish, but someone has to produce property it isn’t come from the heaven.
I don't think there is any real disagreement. Let me put it this way:
In a free country I am at liberty to buy property. In fact I am at liberty to do anything else, so long as I don't destroy the liberties of others in the process.
In a non-free country, some people (slaves most particularly) are not at liberty to do many such things. The authorities specifically supress their liberties.
If we then adopt Inquisitor's term "title" to describe what we get when we buy property, we can say that renting is buying a time limited useage title, for example. In this way we can leave the rather over-used term "rights" out of it.