Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site teddy.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!talcott!panda!teddy!lkk
From: lkk@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis
Message-ID: <1381@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 12:24:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.1381
Posted: Wed Oct 2 12:24:05 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 04:24:14 EDT
References: <14@drutx.UUCP> <28200134@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry K. Kolodney)
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 163
In article <28200134@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes:
>
>>/* Written 5:14 pm Sep 26, 1985 by lkk@teddy in inmet:net.politics.t */
>>In article <28200103@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes:
>I think you'd better go on. I asked for an example of a government
>that created wealth. In the list above, *NO* governments appear, and
>as I understand it, the government behind them all had to tax people
>to support its enterprises. If you think this is not an important
>distinction, I suggest you give me ALL of your money, so that I may go
>on a wild trip around the world. I will then claim to have done great
>things with your money, and should anyone argue that you might've done
>greater things, I'll say: "Oh, look at him, he just goes to soup
>kitchens while I go to Paris. What proof is there that he would have
>done anything important had he been allowed to keep his own money?".
OK, this is getting totally rediculous. The fact of the matter is that
there are such things as positive externalities. Your spending my
money in some arbitrary fashion does not count as one of them.
>After all, *I*'ve spent the money in showy, flashy ways, perhaps used
>it to get in good with some corrupt official, but it would be
>ludicrous to claim that I'd "made" money -- I had to take it all from
>you.
Your conception of wealth (value, money) does not make any sense.
If I produce something of value, but get paid for it, does that mean I didn't
create any wealth, since I merely transferred the salary I got paid into
the product I made? Of course not. Similarly, if the govt. gets paid (thru
taxes) for the products it creates (thru organizing people into large projects
for instance), it is still creating wealth.
>
>Remember, we've no way NOW of knowing what would have been
>done with the money left in private hands, except that it would have
>been employed according to what those people thought of as their
>best choices.
Which, as in any tragedy of the commons situation, would not have been
the best macro choice.
>
>People interested in this question should read "What is Seen and
>What is Not Seen", by Frederic Bastiat (an essay about 50 pages long)
>or "Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt.
>
>I suggest that the idea of "creation" of wealth be treated as follows:
>If I steal $1000 of your money, and make a nickel on it (say I bet
>at 1 to 20,000 odds that the sun will rise tomorrow", I've
>made 5 cents, but you've lost (say) 30 cents interest on that
>money, so in fact the money has earned $0.25 LESS than
>it would have. I have thus LOST money, because even if I give you
>ALL of it back, you've $0.25 less than you did have. If I operate
>like a government, I'll probably bill you for the "service" I've
>performed, my burglar tools, and so forth, so you've probably
>lost more.
This assumes that the return on investment in govt. is only 5 cents.
I'd say its quite a bit higher.
>
>By the way, private space programs exist (although NASA dislikes them)
>private nuclear research would be something I suspect you'd make illegal,
>Harvard, MIT, and UCB accept money from the State, but could hardly be
>termed (last I heard) wealth creators. My understanding was that
>colleges depended (2/3'rds on average) on the Alum contributions.
Totally irrelevant information. Private space programs exist by parasitical
use of technology developed by NASA.
Forget about ACCEPTING money from the state Harvard, MIT and UCB were created
by the state. MIT is land grant, Harvard was created by the Mass. Bay Colony
govt., UCB is owned and run by the state.
I don't know about the others, but MIT total budget is around $600 million, of
which almost all comes from government funding. Perhaps they rely on alumni
contributions for 2/3 of their educational costs, but those are relatively
small compared to research.
Not to mention GSL, and Pell grants, and ROTC scholarships.
>
>>Of course the money doesn't appear from nowhere, it comes from
>>govt. printing presses!! (This isn't as facetious as it sounds.
>>The entire economy, without which the concept of wealth would be meaningless.
>>Is based on a governmentally created and controlled system of commerce.)
>
>Governmentally Created? I find that MOST difficult to believe. What
>records do you have to substantiate that government created commerce,
>rather than distorting what was there?
Well, I can point to the fact that the grandaddy of all "free-market" systems,
in 19th century England, was created by the govt. Before the turn of the
19th century, England was still a feudal society. Most of the population lived
on Manors, where they worked the land owned by the Lord.
The Lords discovered that it was more profitable to use this land for grazing
sheep, which could be used in the growing wool industry. So they had a law
passed, "The Enclosure Acts", which kicked all of the peasantry off the feudal
manors, and into the city, where they provided an abundant labor force for the
growing class of factory owners. By almost any comparison, life in the city was
much worse than life on the manor.
This move heralded the start of the rise of brittish "free-market" capitalism,
although from this example, we can see that there was nothing free market about
it.
POINT: No economic system has ever existed in a vacuum. It is always the
result of certain power relations within a society.
There has never in history been anything like your mythical free market.
To create one, using the power of the state, would be just as arbitrary and
coercive and creating any other system. The relations of power in society
today have an historical basis in govt. interference. To withdraw the role of
the govt. now would simply institutionalize certain arbitrary inequalities that
exist today.
In particular, the use of
>non-government-created money (such as gold) predates official money,
>with (so far as I know) the first government inflation being that of
>ancient Rome.
Official money does not a govt. controlled economy make. (You seem to have
this fetish with money). How about govt. controlled agriculture in Egypt in
5000BC. In fact what differentiated "civilizations", in the early history of
man, from mere roaming nomads, was the use of some "authority" to control
agriculture (and thus commerce).
>
>Government "controlled"? Why yes, that's quite true, but it doesn't
>explain why the Chinese starvation dropped when their government
>began allowing folks to sell crops privately. In short, you've confused
>"controlled", with "aided".
Non Sequitor (but what else is new).
--
Sport Death,
Larry Kolodney
(USENET) ...decvax!genrad!teddy!lkk
(INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa
Life is either a daring adventure,
or nothing.
- Helen Keller