Political Theory

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Autolykos — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:50:17 GMT

z1235:
So the victim gets exposed to all the profits from the stolen property but to none of the loses?

My thinking is that, since the investment was illegitimate, the profits received are also illegitimate. Does that make sense?

z1235:
Quotes were a mistake. My bad.

Okay, if you say so. I'm not sure why you'd make a mistake like that, to be honest.

z1235:
Things are not so clear cut in real life. What if person B also had 10 ounces stolen from him by the government? What if person A received free schooling or free road usage for ten years from the govt (paid with B's stolen 10 ounces), but person B didn't? The math gets really complicated. I think the best way to do a transition to a state-less society is for all govt property to be auctioned off to private interests, the proceeds used to pay off any govt debt, and the rest returned back to taxpayers in proportion to the amounts they can show the govt has taken away from them. I don't think there exists a "perfectly" consistent answer to this question.

I already understood that things aren't (always/necessarily) so clear-cut in real life. My point was simply to weigh in on the scenarios presented, nothing more. Likewise, I directly addressed the different scenario you presented. So what question were you really asking? If it's different from the one you did ask, why didn't you ask it directly?

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

z1235 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:37:16 GMT

Autolykos:
I'd say he still owes 5 pounds. He doesn't owe more than that because there was no profit.

So the victim gets exposed to all the profits from the stolen property but to none of the loses?

I don't understand why you put quotes around the word "stolen". Do you not consider taxation to always constitute theft?

Quotes were a mistake. My bad.

If B invested 20 pounds, of which 25% (5 pounds) had been given to him by the government, who had taken it from A, and B received 2 pounds of profit, then I'd say he owes 5 pounds and 8 ounces to A. The 8 ounces constitute 25% of B's profit.

Things are not so clear cut in real life. What if person B also had 10 ounces stolen from him by the government? What if person A received free schooling or free road usage for ten years from the govt (paid with B's stolen 10 ounces), but person B didn't? The math gets really complicated. I think the best way to do a transition to a state-less society is for all govt property to be auctioned off to private interests, the proceeds used to pay off any govt debt, and the rest returned back to taxpayers in proportion to the amounts they can show the govt has taken away from them. I don't think there exists a "perfectly" consistent answer to this question.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Autolykos — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:24:57 GMT

cab21:
i meant some capitalists , not all per say.

Fair enough then.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Autolykos — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:08:27 GMT

z1235:
What if the invested 5 lbs became 3 lbs (due to a 2 lbs loss)?

I'd say he still owes 5 pounds. He doesn't owe more than that because there was no profit.

z1235:
If B owned/invested 20 lbs, how do you know/prove that his 2 lbs profit came from the "stolen" 5 lbs?

I don't understand why you put quotes around the word "stolen". Do you not consider taxation to always constitute theft?

If B invested 20 pounds, of which 25% (5 pounds) had been given to him by the government, who had taken it from A, and B received 2 pounds of profit, then I'd say he owes 5 pounds and 8 ounces to A. The 8 ounces constitute 25% of B's profit.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

cab21 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:31:34 GMT

i am claiming some capital has been gained through government and that has made it hard to track legitmatly owned and gained wealth. a lot of land has gained gained through war, government privalalage monopoly, taxes, and other government means, while other capital has been gained more through a free market without or inspite of government.

i meant some capitalists , not all per say.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Anenome — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:02:43 GMT

cab21:
i'm not sure how to phrase this question but ill put in in a few examples

a king takes 5 pounds of gold from person A and rewards it to person B. person B uses the gold to invest and ends up with 2 additional pounds of capital gains for 7 pounds gold in a year, while person A labors to get paid 1 pound of gold in a year. person B now has 7 pounds gold and person A now 1 pound gold. the king taxes person B at 15% or 4.8 ounces, person A gets taxed at 35% or 5.6 ounces. now A and B decide that there will be no more kind and abolish the king to start a free market economy without taxes. person B brings 6 pounds 11.2 ounces of gold with him, and person a brings 10.4 ounces with him, is this fair, or should there be some redistribution of the gold between the two?

The real question is whether B's title is legitimate.

You start saying the king toook, by force, 5 pounds of gold from A and gives it to B. Therefore B has illegitimate title, and A has a claim against the King for the theft and still properly owns the 5 pounds of gold.

With the king gone, B should be made to give back the 5 pounds to A. The taxation amounts don't figure into this. That's each's claim against the king. As for whether B should be able to keep the profits depends on whether he was complicit in the original theft, and whether the profits are separable from the original amount. If he had no part in the theft, and it's separable (gold is separable), then he can keep his 2 pounds profits. However, A should still be able to gain additional amounts beyond the 5g from the King as recompense. So, it's the King who owes A more than just the 5 that B gives back. And both have a claim on the king for his taxation profits.

cab21:
another example would be two baseball teams play a game , the score is 10 to 2 in the 8th inning. the team with two catches the team with 10 cheating with the umpire and the team with 10 admits it has bribed the umpire and cheated with the umpire the whole game, but promises to play fair for the rest of the game. it is fair that the team that cheated gets to keep all 10 runs or should the game be made 6 to 6 to make the rest of the game fair?

Nah, false choice, the cheating team forfeits. Your previous example was much better.

cab21:
with all this capital accumulation through government means, would a ancap society try and fix any of the unfair play some have had through use of the government, or would it just let those with capital be the rulers with the wealth accumulated through government favor?

cab21:
through history, capitalists have not gained capital through the free market, but through government, what would be done about this?

In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard devotes a whole chapter early on to how title should be handled in the case of a libertarian take-over, and that's where I've drawn my analysis of your first example from. He focuses on title, and does indeed give a couple guidelines for how to restore property to its legitimate owners if gov-force went away. He focuses on two major principles: legitimate title and homesteading.

If the heirs can be found and the current owner (CO) is not legitimate, it goes back to the heirs.

If the heirs cannot be found but the CO is the thief, then the land is taken away, for a thief cannot be allowed to profit by his theft, and the first to discover and prove this situation may homestead the land as it now becomes unowned property.

If the heirs cannot be found but the CO is not the thief, but rather his heirs, they cannot be punished for the crime of an ancestor and can be considered to have homesteaded the property, as the first user of unowned property, and it remains theirs.

There's more to it than that, but that's a good overview. I direct you again to his book.

I think, should the US come under libertarian influence that there's a great deal of property restitution that would need to be made. The American Indians owned huge swaths of land both originally and by treaty and would likely need to be given a lot of that. It wouldn't come down to giving the entire US back, not by a long shot, but they would become very large land-owners.

Secondly, it's surprised me to look into Hawaii recently. It should never have been made a state. The whole thing was a ruse, and Hawaii was not added to the union in any legal way. Hawaii should be restored to the Hawaiians.

It wouldn't make sense to give anything back to statist entities, so you wouldn't go about giving California back to Mexico, but you'd certainly invite people who could prove title to come back. But that would be tough after these centuries now.

The utilitarians would likely want to just say all property is valid now, let's go from here. But the natural rights libertarians would not, and focus on legitimate title and the resulting resitution that would have to be made.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Smiling Dave — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:22:29 GMT

The full quote is relevant to Obama's "You didn't build this, because we built the infrastructure."

"History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government. As far as governments invested in the construction of roads, railroads, and other useful public works, the capital needed was provided by the savings of individual citizens and borrowed by the government. But the greater part of the funds collected by the public debts was spent for current expenditure. What individuals had saved was dissipated by the government."

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Smiling Dave — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:15:04 GMT

a source for this quote.

Human Action, Scholar’s Edition, p. 847

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

z1235 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:33:31 GMT

Autolykos:
My own position here is that the 7 pounds of the gold that B ends up with belong to A.

What if the invested 5 lbs became 3 lbs (due to a 2 lbs loss)? If B owned/invested 20 lbs, how do you know/prove that his 2 lbs profit came from the "stolen" 5 lbs?

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Autolykos — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:24:22 GMT

Fool on the Hill:
"History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government." ~ Ludwig von Mises

I, for one, would appreciate it if you'd provide a source for this quote.

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Autolykos — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:16:30 GMT

cab21:
a king takes 5 pounds of gold from person A and rewards it to person B. person B uses the gold to invest and ends up with 2 additional pounds of capital gains for 7 pounds gold in a year, while person A labors to get paid 1 pound of gold in a year. person B now has 7 pounds gold and person A now 1 pound gold. the king taxes person B at 15% or 4.8 ounces, person A gets taxed at 35% or 5.6 ounces. now A and B decide that there will be no more kind and abolish the king to start a free market economy without taxes. person B brings 6 pounds 11.2 ounces of gold with him, and person a brings 10.4 ounces with him, is this fair, or should there be some redistribution of the gold between the two?

My own position here is that the 7 pounds of the gold that B ends up with belong to A.

cab21:
another example would be two baseball teams play a game , the score is 10 to 2 in the 8th inning. the team with two catches the team with 10 cheating with the umpire and the team with 10 admits it has bribed the umpire and cheated with the umpire the whole game, but promises to play fair for the rest of the game. it is fair that the team that cheated gets to keep all 10 runs or should the game be made 6 to 6 to make the rest of the game fair?

I think that the "winning" team should either forefeit that game or the game should be replayed at a later date.

cab21:
with all this capital accumulation through government means, would a ancap society try and fix any of the unfair play some have had through use of the government, or would it just let those with capital be the rulers with the wealth accumulated through government favor?

No one knows what would happen there. It's all speculation. That said, I'd certainly want to fix the unfair play that some have had through government privilege.

cab21:
through history, capitalists have not gained capital through the free market, but through government, what would be done about this?

Are you claiming here that all capitalists have only ever gained capital through government?

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

LibertarianMarxist — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:52:09 GMT

See Marx: Capital - Volume 1, chapters 26-33. The government wrote the legislation which made the great robbery by capitalists legal. Capitalism needs and reproduces the state. It is the public servants who do the messy jobs for the capital: Police killing demonstrators, police gunning down strikers, police and judiciary protecting the property of the capitalists …

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

Fool on the Hill — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:50:37 GMT

"History does not provide any example of capital accumulation brought about by a government." ~ Ludwig von Mises

Re: origins of capital and the free market.

excel — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:52:18 GMT

a king takes 5 pounds of gold from person A and rewards it to person B. person B uses the gold to invest and ends up with 2 additional pounds of capital gains for 7 pounds gold in a year, while person A labors to get paid 1 pound of gold in a year. person B now has 7 pounds gold and person A now 1 pound gold. the king taxes person B at 15% or 4.8 ounces, person A gets taxed at 35% or 5.6 ounces. now A and B decide that there will be no more kind and abolish the king to start a free market economy without taxes. person B brings 6 pounds 11.2 ounces of gold with him, and person a brings 10.4 ounces with him, is this fair, or should there be some redistribution of the gold between the two?

If a transfer of ownership can be established as illegitimate (difficult, if it's only these two persons, but if they take it to a court who finds that the king had no right to redistribute the gold) then those 5 pounds of gold should be returned to person A.

another example would be two baseball teams play a game , the score is 10 to 2 in the 8th inning. the team with two catches the team with 10 cheating with the umpire and the team with 10 admits it has bribed the umpire and cheated with the umpire the whole game, but promises to play fair for the rest of the game. it is fair that the team that cheated gets to keep all 10 runs or should the game be made 6 to 6 to make the rest of the game fair?

Since it is a game, this is more difficult. The solution that both teams can agree to (in that it is either 10-2 or 6-6 or even 0-0 or whatever combination they deem necessary) is an acceptable one, or if no such solution can be found, then whatever rules exist within the framework of the sport will be put into play, usually this means that the cheating team forfeits the game, which I consider to be just.

with all this capital accumulation through government means, would a ancap society try and fix any of the unfair play some have had through use of the government, or would it just let those with capital be the rulers with the wealth accumulated through government favor?

False dilemma.

through history, capitalists have not gained capital through the free market, but through government, what would be done about this?

Throughout history, government has come to be ruled 'by the people' and they must therefore accept that they have wrought the harvest they now reap. Aside from this, any capital that the government steals from the people is an illegitimate gain by the government, and should therefore be returned if such a demand is made.

Much like if someone purchases goods that turn out to be stolen, they have no right to it, but must return it to the owner. However, in such a case, they now have a tort against the person who sold that stolen good to them.

So let's say that government acquisition of capital is suddenly seen to be illegitimate by all.

In this situation, there is a piece of land that capitalist A bought from the government on the cheap, that was confiscated from Person B.

When A bought the land, government acquisition was seen as legitimate, and therefore his act of purchase was not seen as illegitimate.
But now government acquisition is seen as illegitimate. A now owns stolen goods. Both A and B have been wronged by the government.
So, A should be required to return the land to B, perhaps with some reparations required. (Ie, how much might B have made off the land, and how much did A do to maintain the land, and so forth.)
However, A has a claim on the money he paid the government. How can A have his money returned?

origins of capital and the free market.

cab21 — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:17:06 GMT

i'm not sure how to phrase this question but ill put in in a few examples

a king takes 5 pounds of gold from person A and rewards it to person B. person B uses the gold to invest and ends up with 2 additional pounds of capital gains for 7 pounds gold in a year, while person A labors to get paid 1 pound of gold in a year. person B now has 7 pounds gold and person A now 1 pound gold. the king taxes person B at 15% or 4.8 ounces, person A gets taxed at 35% or 5.6 ounces. now A and B decide that there will be no more kind and abolish the king to start a free market economy without taxes. person B brings 6 pounds 11.2 ounces of gold with him, and person a brings 10.4 ounces with him, is this fair, or should there be some redistribution of the gold between the two?

another example would be two baseball teams play a game , the score is 10 to 2 in the 8th inning. the team with two catches the team with 10 cheating with the umpire and the team with 10 admits it has bribed the umpire and cheated with the umpire the whole game, but promises to play fair for the rest of the game. it is fair that the team that cheated gets to keep all 10 runs or should the game be made 6 to 6 to make the rest of the game fair?

with all this capital accumulation through government means, would a ancap society try and fix any of the unfair play some have had through use of the government, or would it just let those with capital be the rulers with the wealth accumulated through government favor?

through history, capitalists have not gained capital through the free market, but through government, what would be done about this?