Squeers

You give no reason (oh that's right, you don't do reason - that's just bourgeois rationalism) for thinking that taxing or capping wealth would make matters better or more equal *even in your own terms*, which in any event you haven't defined.

Besides, why just cap wealth? If your reasons are sound, why not abolish this evil altogether? Or if the desideratum is equality, why not enforce it uniformly? But then you contradict yourself by setting yourself up as the unequal authority for the whole world on what should be permitted to have what of the fruits of their labours.

You can't justify the policies you propose even in your own terms because all you have is a jumbled load of self-contradictions at every turn.

The restraining factor that obviously annoys you most is the human desire for life, health and an improvement of material conditions. So spare us your pretence to be more concerned for people, than people.

But thanks for showing us how the objections to free trade amount to nothing more than anti-rational, anti-human, curmudgeonly prattling Marxism.

I don't know where you got the idea that you're some kind of superior kind of philosopher. You wouldn't know a syllogism if you fell over it.

Keen writes:
<<Since capital is destroyed when trade is liberalised, the watertight argument that trade necessarily improves material welfare springs a leak. If economics were a real science, this real-world complication to Ricardo's argument would be considered, but it has never been seriously addressed.>>

Keen’s assertion is patently false and this can be shown both in terms of theory and for applied analysis. In terms of applied analysis, one need only google “free trade with adjustment costs” or “general equilibrium with adjustment/transactions costs” and you’ll find plenty of serious scholarly works within the neoclassical tradition that allow for adjustment costs impacting on the owners of industry-specific capital and skills.

Here are 2 examples:

Trade liberalisation with costly adjustment, Alvaro Forteza and Rossana Patrón*
http://decon.edu.uy/~alvarof/TradeGov10.pdf
Evaluating Labour Adjustment Costs from Trade Shocks: Ramon L. Clarete, Irene Trela, John Whalley
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4628

In terms of theory, a standard model that all international trade students are taught early in their semester is called the "specific-factors model" . This will assume at least one factor, labour or capital, is specific to a sector, so when the terms of trade changes (eg due to a lifting of tariffs) then the model makes predictions about the impact on real returns to the specific factor, income distribution, production and trade patterns and the allocation of resources.

This is exactly what Keen is saying economics does NOT do. Using Keen's terminology, the ''capital destroyed'' would be the capital specific to the sector that is competing against imports (he does not mention the capital specific to the export-sector which would gain...eg mining equipment in Australia's case).

Keen is plain ignorant about his favouraite topic ("economics") and should be ignored by anyone serious about public policy and trying to gain an understanding the economics of the underlying issues.

Yabby,
"What a foolish idea, Squeers. You clearly have not thought it through".

Yes I have thought it through; of course I'm aware of the implications and how everything holds together, and what impacts even such a measure as a wealth tax would have. I'm hardly at liberty to follow all the extrapolations here. I am talking about alternatives, and I've already opined that overall collapse is inevitable. Nature shall ultimately impose much sterner and more disruptive measures than a wealth cap.
BTW I did speak of "personal" wealth and assets cap. I'm aware that industry needs investment dollars and that funding would have to be provided. As far as I'm concerned though a great many industries generated by the wealthy could just fold.

I see disproportionate wealth and privilege as not only wrong and indefensible in itself, but as the root cause of all forms of corruption and abuse of power.

But I'm done here. Catch you later.

Interesting variety of posts. For my few cents, I'd say:

Squeers: I've got to agree with Yabby in terms of defining what we do and don't "need". The Chinese regime has decided that the people don't "need" access to information about say, Liu Xiaobo, the dissident arguing for a separation of powers. What this amounts to is restriction.

So yes, we don't actually "need" plasma TVs. (In fact, I don't have nor want one). As I see it, there are only two options - restrict or don't restrict people from having luxuries and consuming resources. Sure, you can discourage people from having them, but judging from the limited success of say, anti-binge-drinking campaigns, changing ingrained cultural habits are hard and I think in this case, it's presumptuous to think you can decide for everyone.

And you would need to be deciding for everyone. Human nature being what it is, regardless of whether we reduce our consumption, other nations are forging ahead with theirs. My experience is with China, and if anything, many of the wealthy there are far more enamoured with gaudy, resource-intensive status symbols. Hell, Rolls Royce is releasing a limited edition Phantom with gold dragons on the side, for just under a cool million US dollars.

Continued:

I agree with you in that we do live in a closed environment. Some spent resources can't be recovered. This is also true. But if we have a free(ish) market, then as the price of a non-renewable resource becomes prohibitive, then alternatives become more viable. Consider for a moment, this biofuel - a grass that can be grown in poor quality soil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/mid_/8378232.stm

A viable prospect now? Probably not. In the future? Who knows?

Granted, there are problems. Consider the fact that we burn oil that can be used to produce long-lasting polymers. This is indeed short sighted, but unless you have an alternative economic system that is not also subject to imperfection via the potentially faulty predictions of experts and governments, then I don't see what other choice we have.

Yabby: for the most part I agree with your points and in general I agree about kids needing to be factored in, but you also need to appreciate that there is a kind of sustainable ecological equilibrium (granted, few of us get anywhere near there, at least not without the input of time and resources that is beyond most of us). Thus, while we need to factor in children to our ecological footprint, it is possible that eventually we'll find ways to live within a more sustainable way - indeed, we may find we eventually have no choice.

KAEP - you're a racist bigot who isn't worth listening to. No amount of capital letters changes that. Instead of the capital letters, tone down the offensive rhetoric and provide backing for your arguments instead of shouting them in capitals at us like we're all toddlers.

TRTL, thanks for the article about ryegrass. What I think it will
come down to in the end, is that energy is energy, no matter if its
used as a human fuel or an engine fuel. The thing is though, it
would still need fertiisers to replace nutrients removed from the
soil, or its essentially mining.

*So yes, we don't actually "need" plasma TVs. (In fact, I don't have nor want one).*

Ok, so you don't need a plasma, but do you need a TV? If you do,
then what if I tell you that instead of a plasma, you could buy
an LED TV. The picture would be as good as plasma, but the power
consumption would be less then your old present tv, so you'd
be saving energy by switching to it.

Its the same with an Ipad. No more rooms full of books and cupboards
full of old LPs etc, which chewed up their share of oil to manufacture. All on a small unit weighing a few hundred grammes.