I don't understand what you mean by double and triple posts. I haven't posted any message twice.
On your last point, I don't agree that all leftists like fixed economies. I don't even agree that leftist and rightism are about economics.
I'm not saying "no labels". I'm saying "helpful labels only, please". "The left" is such an inchoate jumble of positions that it only serves to distract, and not enlighten.
Do you mean that in the thought experiment the renters will be legally prohibited from purchasing parts of the land? Or are you assuming that the market doesn't work just because land ownership happens to be unequal? Capitalism is the most advantageous economic order, no matter what has occurred in the past. Interventionism only hampers standards of living, no matter what has occurred in the past. If you can undo the confiscation by taking away the clear effective property rights of the two confiscators, then do so. Otherwise, leave them with clear effective property rights. It helps no one to cripple the market by establishing the regime of effectively collectivized property rights that measures like rent control entail.
Left-libertarians aren't anti-free market. A lot of people here have the wrong idea. Left-libertarians are market anarchists (and perhaps minarchists) who oppose capitalism (in the sense of a highly stratified economy based on wage labor, capital-ism, capital as ideology/religion) and have egalitarian/leftist social views. Some are mutualists, some are Rothbardians, some are geolibertarians... it's very diverse.
So basically they have a different, strawman definition of capitalism and then oppose it.
how is being anti-wage labor pro-market?
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
Vaguely,
As someone who is familiar with AE, surely you know that capitalism has a precise meaning at a place like this. You're using Marxist definitions at a Misesian website.
Why on earth should they be required to purchase what was just stolen from them? You're claiming that it is not beneficial, if I have had my land stolen out from under me, to put a limit on the rent that can be required of me. You can throw buzzwords at the situation all day, but clearly the optimal rent here is 0, and the lower it is, the better. Controls on the rent aren't ideal, but the situation was that while a middle of the road position was possible, reversing the theft was not. What you're saying here amounts to a demand that, after a thief has stolen my wallet, the court must recognize his property, not hinder the capitalist system by making him give it back.
>"Why on earth should they be required to purchase what was just stolen from them? "
Because, outside of restitution, it is the best way to improve their standard of living.
>"You're claiming that it is not beneficial, if I have had my land stolen out from under me, to put a limit on the rent that can be required of me."
In the long run it would not be beneficial, because the social process of production would be stymied thereby.
>"Controls on the rent aren't ideal, but the situation was that while a middle of the road position was possible, reversing the theft was not."
Middle of the road economic policies do nothing but hamper the market, and harm the interests of the very people they are meant to help.
>"You can throw buzzwords at the situation all day"
They're not buzzwords. They're economic terms. Instead of moralizing, you might want to apply economic terms and economic science to problems concerning human welfare.
>"the optimal rent here is 0, and the lower it is, the better."
The optimal rent is whatever rent consumers establish via the market process of imputation.
>"What you're saying here amounts to a demand that, after a thief has stolen my wallet, the court must recognize his property, not hinder the capitalist system by making him give it back."
No, making him give it back would be ideal, in terms of consumer (human) benefit. Letting him keep the wallet would be second best. Establishing a regime of collective ownership over the wallet would be by far the worst.
It will not improve their standard of living, it will hurt their standard of living. Their standard of living would be improved had they not been robbed in the first place. Since the thief is the only available seller of land, what do you imagine the price will be?
How would the social process of production be hindered by not allowing the collection of rent on stolen property? You're acting as if these prices conveyed some information, but they don't. They would convey information had they been paid by people willing to rent. Here they just convey how much theft took place. They don't reflect relative scarcity, at least not accurately, because the participants in the transaction have been coerced into it, rather than entering into it voluntarily.
Yes, it's too bad that the statist policies were implemented in the first place, I agree. They shouldn't have been. We don't improve the situation by simply giving in to them, though.
Property is a moral concept. Rights are moral concepts. It's not useful to boost production if all the excess production goes to thieves and the people doing the producing do not share in the increase. What we care about is that production must reward good economic activity. That's how prices work. You provide a good or service on the market and are paid for it, and this amounts to saying that others do things for you because you've done things for others. That's a well-functioning market. Theft is not a market activity, and rewarding theft does not make the society more productive.
This would certainly be true on the market. But the question here was the optimal rent to pay on land that was originally mine. You've already told me that, if feasible, the land should be returned to the people it was stolen from. Since the people it was stolen from are still occupying it, the only impact that would have would be that they would stop paying rent. Hence, that would be exactly the same as the rent simply falling to 0.
In fact, if you wish, look at it this way: since the theft didn't change occupancy, just imposed rents, the same effect could have been achieved in the first place by, instead of stealing the land, simply passing a law requiring everyone to make payments to the 2 favored guys, with the penalty that if they didn't pay, they'd lose their land. Surely you'd agree that the optimal tribute would be 0. You wouldn't be telling me that by lowering or eliminating the tribute I'm messing with market mechanisms, and you wouldn't be thinking that the amount of the tribute should be controlled by the market. More to the point, you'd agree that the only real distortions here have to do with the 2 guys having unearned wealth. They get to take that tribute money into the marketplace and buy things with it without producing anything, and direct production into the channels they're interested in (voting with their dollars) rather than the channels desired by market participants who actually produce anything. They aren't at all different from Senators getting rich off of tax dollars, except that these guys, since they're only friends with politicians, and not politicians themselves, get to call themselves "businessmen" although they actually have no businesses.
What is good about letting him keep it? That's creating a system where people do not expect property to be secure, and can profit by theft.
"Their standard of living would be improved had they not been robbed in the first place."
Of course. But that's not one of the possibilities you've permitted in your thought experiment, so why bring it up?
"How would the social process of production be hindered by not allowing the collection of rent on stolen property?"
I already explained it to you. If you don't re-expropriate the land, but merely constrain its uses, and effectively collectivize it, then you only impel the primary controller to allocate it to uses that are less value-productive for consumers.
"You're acting as if these prices conveyed some information, but they don't. They would convey information had they been paid by people willing to rent. Here they just convey how much theft took place. They don't reflect relative scarcity, at least not accurately, because the participants in the transaction have been coerced into it, rather than entering into it voluntarily."
They've been coerced into losing their property. Assuming irrevocable past expropriation, the preference scales individuals henceforth demonstrate matter. Prices convey information about consumer preferences given any state of affairs that have been made irrevocable by assumption. Ongoing confiscation leads to capital consumption. Even the one-time confiscation we have under consideration causes capital consumption. But a prior "original sin" doesn't somehow make the future perpetually market-free. However price controls always break the market.
"Yes, it's too bad that the statist policies were implemented in the first place, I agree. They shouldn't have been. We don't improve the situation by simply giving in to them, though."
The fact of the matter is, according to your assumption of no restitution, you can't make the situation as propitious for the victims as they would have been had the confiscation not occurred. But you certainly won't improve the situation by introducing price controls into the market. Price controls aren't simply transfers of wealth. They break the market. And breaking the market doesn't do anybody any good.
"You've already told me that, if feasible, the land should be returned to the people it was stolen from. Since the people it was stolen from are still occupying it, the only impact that would have would be that they would stop paying rent. Hence, that would be exactly the same as the rent simply falling to 0."
No, the key impact is that the people it was stolen from would have complete ownership of the land's full capital value again: that they can do what they will with it (whether that means investing or selling it, either fully or in part). Therefore, the land could be optimally allocated again. By only looking at how much rent the occupants pay, you are looking at the matter completely superficially, and ignoring the market process. This is what liberty student is talking about regarding the blithe, superficial approach to economics taken by so many people who call themselves left-libertarian. And it is why it must be so frustrating for people like Peter Klein to debate philosophers who don't really study econ enough to be aware of 95% of the implications of their proposals.
"In fact, if you wish, look at it this way: since the theft didn't change occupancy, just imposed rents, the same effect could have been achieved in the first place by, instead of stealing the land, simply passing a law requiring everyone to make payments to the 2 favored guys, with the penalty that if they didn't pay, they'd lose their land. Surely you'd agree that the optimal tribute would be 0. You wouldn't be telling me that by lowering or eliminating the tribute I'm messing with market mechanisms, and you wouldn't be thinking that the amount of the tribute should be controlled by the market."
That would not have the same effect, because in your original thought experiment, the confiscators gained complete control over the capital value of the land. In this second thought experiment, they don't. Reducing the tribute to zero in this case does nothing to break the market, since the occupants have full ownership of the land, and therefore can allocate the land rationally with reference to consumer demand.
"What is good about letting him keep it? That's creating a system where people do not expect property to be secure, and can profit by theft."
A one-time hit to the perceived inviolability of private property is better than a permanent wrench in the gears of the market process.
I have been throwing this George Orwell article around lately (1st recommended by someone else on another thread), as I have been having the same frustrations, something that may go somewhat in tandem with your recent article:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
"Being profound and seeming profound – Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water."
Good ol' Fritz - The Gay Science
That is a splendid quote.
Derrida, anyone?
Libertyandlife: ". Besides unless your a mutualist or ansyndicalist, your not really left libertarians." Left-libertarianism is not a set philosophy but a spectrum of broad views. "All leftists like fixed economies of some sort." I don't see that at all.Mutualists are leftists and don't.This is false. "You don't. I'm sure left anarchists and libertarians like chomsky would group as the same, just as we do." Possibly they would.But only because they are on the otherside of the false capitalism= pro market vs socialist = 'anti-market' dichotomy.
". Besides unless your a mutualist or ansyndicalist, your not really left libertarians."
Left-libertarianism is not a set philosophy but a spectrum of broad views.
"All leftists like fixed economies of some sort."
I don't see that at all.Mutualists are leftists and don't.This is false.
"You don't. I'm sure left anarchists and libertarians like chomsky would group as the same, just as we do."
Possibly they would.But only because they are on the otherside of the false capitalism= pro market vs socialist = 'anti-market' dichotomy.
I don't really want to comment or read anything here.I have near zero in common with many of you.I may return periodically when there's something you need to know.
Near Mutualist/Libertarian Socialist.
I already explained it to you. If you don't re-expropriate the land, but merely constrain its uses, and effectively collectivize it, then you only impel the primary controller to allocate it to uses that are less value-productive for consumers
The land is currently being used for the same purpose it was prior to the theft. If we institute the policy suggested, it will still be used for that same purpose, except that more of the production will go to the person who holds the legitimate title, rather than the thief. Now, what you seem to be concerned about is the ability of the thief to say "no, actually, we're going to build a factory there, not farm it." That is, to allocate the land to a different, more productive use. You're worried that restictions on him prevent that from happening, right? Have you ever heard the phrase "it was my desert, and now it's your city?" That is to say, since he effectively controls all the land in the same way, he can go ahead and build the more productive factories, and yet in the end, everyone but the new landowners ends up poorer. On your assumptions that economic productivity is the end-all be-all, sure, that's better since aggregate production is up. What you have amounts to a feudal system, though.
They've been coerced into losing their property. Assuming irrevocable past expropriation, the preference scales individualshenceforth demonstrate matter. Prices convey information about consumer preferences given any state of affairs that have been made irrevocable by assumption. Ongoing confiscation leads to capital consumption. Even the one-time confiscation we have under consideration causes capital consumption. But a prior "original sin" doesn't somehow make the future perpetually market-free. However price controls always break the market.
So, let's follow through what will happen here. Maybe the factory really is a more productive use of the land than farming. So the owners convert most of the land to factories, making the only jobs available to the former freeholders factory jobs. Their marginal productivity has gone up, so they should be paid more than before, right? As we know, wages equal marginal productivity...on the market. Here, all the factories (however many there are) are owned by the same person, and so are the remaining farms. What drives wages up to marginal productivity is the idea that if you underpay your workers, someone else will see the bargain and offer them more. That can't happen here. Ok, so they'll open a new factory and attract away all the workers? No, they won't, not without the land to build it on - and if they try to rent the land to do so, they'll find that the owners, not wanting competition, will simply raise the rent so that the factory they propose to build would not be worth building. Or, even better, he just won't discuss renting out the land, and certainly won't discuss selling it. Why would he behave this way? Because that's how monopolists behave when the barriers to entry are created by government. Doesn't he see that more production is available if he rents out the land, assuming they can be more productive than he can? Sure - but he faces the same set of incentives as the former farmers. There will be more production, but his slice of it will be smaller. You've also ignored, from the former freeholders perspective, psychic income. Maybe even if their wages are higher as factory workers than their profit was as farmers, they prefer farming enough that this fails to compensate them.
Since we're talking about frustrations, I'll tell you some frustrations I've encountered. When I identify as Austrian, most people don't know what I'm talking about, but of those who do, the most frequent complaint I hear about Austrians is the failure to distinguish disagreement from ignorance.
Moral hazard? By the way, you've discounted a whole bunch of other options. What if he repays some of the money? Is that also worse than the thief keeping it?
Scott F:Basically where I accept kinds of inequality it's because they cannot be otherwise. It is impossible. But even where it is impossible to remove a kind of inequality it does not follow nothing should be done about it at all.
Well, it would be quite possible (if a tad painful) to equalize all penis sizes to 2". What would be the most libertarian way of achieving such a lofty leftist goal?
The level of confusion in some people in this thread is mind-boggling.
Z.
"That is to say, since he effectively controls all the land in the same way, he can go ahead and build the more productive factories, and yet in the end, everyone but the new landowners ends up poorer."
The new landowners cannot benefit from producing for the market except via providing benefits to others.
"On your assumptions that economic productivity is the end-all be-all, sure, that's better since aggregate production is up. What you have amounts to a feudal system, though"
You cannot have a feudal system without a feudal legal order. Mises, Socialism: "As soon as the latifundia are drawn into the sphere of market transactions they begin to crumble, until at last they disappear completely."
"So, let's follow through what will happen here." (...)
So, now we're dealing with an autarkic economy here? The workers and goods can't go anywhere else? If that's the case, think about what you're postulating here: a single isolated vast land-and-capital monopoly/cartel. As Rothbard wrote, such a firm would suffer from the calculation problem just as severely as any socialist state. Therefore, assuming its vast inefficiency (and thus the vastly sub-optimal standard of living for even the landowners) and given a firm private property rights regime, it would be entirely in the landowners' best interest to divest. Furthermore, this latest extension of your thought experiment rests on the notion of monopoly-of-demand prices, which Mises proved is an empty concept. Also an expropriation is not a barrier to entry; the latter term refers to markets, not specific goods.
"Maybe even if their wages are higher as factory workers than their profit was as farmers, they prefer farming enough that this fails to compensate them."
This is an argument for restoring their property, not for instituting rent control.
"Moral hazard?"
Yes, a one-time fostering of moral hazard is preferable to a permanent wrench in the gears of the market process.
"By the way, you've discounted a whole bunch of other options. What if he repays some of the money? Is that also worse than the thief keeping it?"
I did not discount that option. I said the best option was restitution. The above would constitute a partial restitution.
vaguelyhumanoid: Left-libertarians aren't anti-free market. A lot of people here have the wrong idea. Left-libertarians are market anarchists (and perhaps minarchists) who oppose capitalism (in the sense of a highly stratified economy based on wage labor, capital-ism, capital as ideology/religion) and have egalitarian/leftist social views. Some are mutualists, some are Rothbardians, some are geolibertarians... it's very diverse.
Exactly. As I've said till I'm blue in the face the idea of Capitalist= 'pro market' vs socialist= ' anti market'(as if that has any meaning at all) Is false. You can be socialist and 'pro market' or to be more precise socialist and pro-free market and that's what most left-libertarians(myself included are)
Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo: how is being anti-wage labor pro-market?
How is being anti-wage labour 'anti -market' ? You show here what I've said before.In the mind of an An-cap being pro market/pro free market= wage labour and being anti wage labour = 'anti market' / anti-free market.It's false.An-cap has a lot of assumptions and claimed logical implications.It is much more than the NAP as LS claims.
liberty student: Vaguely, "As someone who is familiar with AE, surely you know that capitalism has a precise meaning at a place like this." Capitalism has a range of meanings and An-caps conflate many of them. " You're using Marxist definitions at a Misesian website." Doesn't mean it's wrong.
"As someone who is familiar with AE, surely you know that capitalism has a precise meaning at a place like this."
Capitalism has a range of meanings and An-caps conflate many of them.
" You're using Marxist definitions at a Misesian website."
Doesn't mean it's wrong.
Scott F:How is being anti-wage labour 'anti -market' ?
Because wages are a fundamental part of the market process, as explicated by Mises, Rothbard, and just about any other economist.
Relative to what? He has to produce what they're willing to buy. He does not have to make them better off than they would be without the theft. He does not have to make them better off than they would be (including psychic income) continuing to farm the land.
If the policy we begin with is to take all the land and transfer it to one or two owners, how is this not categorized as a feudal legal system as well?
This doesn't follow from the calculation problem. What follows from the calculation problem is that it is in the interest of the economy as a whole to divest. There is no reason to suspect that communist leaders do better in a capitalist system than they did personally under the communist system, taking the package as a whole. They might end up making more money and having more stuff in the capitalist system, but they actually have to work or do something productive to have anything. Under the communist system, they could sit lazily and have something. They can well consider that an advantage.
Well of course their property should be restored. I was understanding your point about total control to be the new landowners having the option of using the land for things other than farming. The relevant comparison, then, is the relative position of the former landowners under a system where the new owner is restricted in his use of the land, and where he is not.
The whole point of moral hazard is that you don't have a one-time incident, you've increased the chances of further theft. That is also a permanent wrench in the gears.
"He does not have to make them better off than they would be without the theft. "
Again, without restitution, that is simply impossible.
"If the policy we begin with is to take all the land and transfer it to one or two owners, how is this not categorized as a feudal legal system as well?"
You didn't postulate that as a legal order. You postulated it as a one-time confiscation.
This doesn't follow from the calculation problem. What follows from the calculation problem is that it is in the interest of the economy as a whole to divest. There is no reason to suspect that communist leaders do better in a capitalist system than they did personally under the communist system, taking the package as a whole.
A communist leader does not have complete ownership of the capital value of that which he controls. The unitary monopolist does, and would indeed benefit from divesting.
The relevant comparison, then, is the relative position of the former landowners under a system where the new owner is restricted in his use of the land, and where he is not.
Right, and you have not refuted my case that the latter case would be preferable.
It in and of itself is a one-time incident. It may or may not create a cascade of further thefts. A regime of rent control, on the other hand, is definitely a permanent wrench in the gears.
And the rent control option strikes me as partial restitution in exactly the same way.
As I said, price controls are not mere transfers of wealth. They break markets.
This is really the heart of your response. I believe we've laid out the respective cases, or at least that I've laid out mine. I don't see that there's anything left to say here. You are not convinced by mine. I am not convinced by yours. Very well.
In closing, I wish people would keep in mind that left-libs and yourself are on the same side. We're all against government intervention and for free markets. We believe that government intervention has favored the rich, and has good public-choice reasons to have done so. You disagree. Rather than trading insults and assuming each other to not understand basic economics (as opposed to its application to a particular problem, which is a harder task) I'd hope we can work together to get the government out of the economy.
JAlanKatz:Rather than trading insults and assuming each other to not understand basic economics (as opposed to its application to a particular problem, which is a harder task)
I did get impatient, and I apologize for that.
Scott F: liberty student: Vaguely, "As someone who is familiar with AE, surely you know that capitalism has a precise meaning at a place like this." Capitalism has a range of meanings and An-caps conflate many of them.
liberty student: Vaguely, "As someone who is familiar with AE, surely you know that capitalism has a precise meaning at a place like this."
Mises was not an ancap, and I am specifically talking about Mises. As someone who claims to know something about AE, I shouldn't have to remind you about this.
Scott F:" You're using Marxist definitions at a Misesian website." Doesn't mean it's wrong.
I don't mind if you reject AE or disagree with Mises, but I do wish you would stop pretending you ever did, because its kinda obvious you do not.
JAlanKatz:They might also predict that on a free market, people would be less likely to be wage earners and more likely to be entrepreneurs, or even that no one would work for a wage because there would be more co-ops and what not, but even this is a prediction, not a demand that someone prohibit wage earning.
In order to believe this, one would have to suspend all understanding of time preference and praxeology.
Hey, both of you - definitions of words need not carry ideological or economic content. Agree to some definition and then use appropriate modifiers to say what you mean. I tend to think it's best here to stick to meanings that people here understand, so for instance, 'capitalism' here is understood the mean the free market without government intervention.
JAlanKatz:Hey, both of you - definitions of words need not carry ideological or economic content. Agree to some definition and then use appropriate modifiers to say what you mean. I tend to think it's best here to stick to meanings that people here understand, so for instance, 'capitalism' here is understood the mean the free market without government intervention.
That was my point.
JAlanKatz:In a society where everyone has equal time preference, there would be no interest. In a society where everyone had very low time preference, everyone might prefer to go into business for themselves.
Liberty Student:In order to believe this, one would have to suspend all understanding of time preference and praxeology.
"I don't mind if you reject AE or disagree with Mises, but I do wish you would stop pretending you ever did, because its kinda obvious you do not."
I did once agree with Mises.As anyone here will know (and can check) I was a a strict An-cap and leading voice in the left-lib purges of 2010 but now I see I was wrong.I was deeply wrong and I admit that publicly and to my eternal shame.
JAlanKatz: how is being anti-wage labor pro-market? "I don't know, most of us, perhaps all of us, are not anti-wage labor. " As far as I can tell that's true depending on how it's defined. " We're against manipulated labor markets. We're against government policies that encourage more cartelization and more consolidation than the market would support, and which artificially lower wages compared to the market outcome. " I agree with you there. " On the other hand, even left-libs who throw around terms like 'wage slavery' don't generally mean that they oppose people working for a wage at all, but that they oppose government interventions making workers worse off, together with interventions making it harder to start a business (licensing, overhead, intervention in credit markets - according to Carson, although I disagree with him on credit markets). They might also predict that on a free market, people would be less likely to be wage earners and more likely to be entrepreneurs, or even that no one would work for a wage because there would be more co-ops and what not, but even this is a prediction, not a demand that someone prohibit wage earning." Agreed.I feel the same way.
Danny Sanchez: Scott F:How is being anti-wage labour 'anti -market' ? Because wages are a fundamental part of the market process, as explicated by Mises, Rothbard, and just about any other economist.
Depends what you mean by "wage labour" and "anti wage labour". And I don't like falling back on the idea that somethings scary because it would contradict what Mises or Rothbard etc said.
Scott F: Danny Sanchez: Scott F:How is being anti-wage labour 'anti -market' ? Because wages are a fundamental part of the market process, as explicated by Mises, Rothbard, and just about any other economist. Depends what you mean by "wage labour" and "anti wage labour". And I don't like falling back on the idea that somethings scary because it would contradict what Mises or Rothbard etc said.
According to just about every work of economics (Austrian or otherwise) the market process involves wages, capitalists, entrepreneurs, and landowners. If you use the term "market" to describe some alternative social system of production and the division labor that doesn't involve the above, then you should use a different name for it than "market" (like, depending on the workings of the system, "syndicalist order", "agorist order", "mutualist order" or whatever). Otherwise, it seem like you are just trying to slip in your doctrine under the radar of those who believe in the efficacy of what over 99% of people think of as the market process.
Well, seeing as how marx(ists) invented the term, I think that's only fair, idnit?
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
LS deemed it a "marxist" definition of capitalism, as I'm sure he considers them both marxists. So, seeing as how the definition that was used is consistent with its original context... it's only fair, isn't it?