Spindoc!

#...however, what you ignorant low life just don’t understand is that this must be viewed through the prism of global citizenship, social equity and justice, as perceived by academia and progressive politics in you best interests…#

…Do I understand from this quote , you agree that Globalism and the free market will be “The Prism” through which we will view (Global) social equity, where all mountains and valleys will be levelled in time, to produce social equity and justice for all. Where all citizens of the world will live under cardboard boxes and exercise the Globalist right to private entrepreneurial enterprise and personal freedom; to free themselves of poverty by displays of intelligence and ability and plain hard work, as the hallmark to success, to be displayed in the village for others to aspire to: Sounds like “Soweto, SA-now” to me.

...No Taxation = no life! The problem with taxation is NOT taxation, the problem lies in its redistribution in the hands of the Political “CLASS”. Democracy has a need to eliminate the Political class from the scene with “Anarchist Revolution” as in the Middle East at present

Criticising double-entry book-keeping for not being able to express non-money values that it does not, cannot, and was never intended to express, is like criticizing an Excel spreadsheet because it can’t run a David Attenborough documentary.

But there is a more profound confusion operating here: in the demonstrably false idea that natural resources can be better conserved, or services better provided, by public than by private ownership.

Of course it is legitimate for the humanities to make a radical critique of the sciences, or of any form of social organization. But the fatal flaw that infests the contemporary humanities, is simply to ignore the fact that the principles of logic still exist and still apply. Not every claim to truth has equal validity. If your argument contains self-contradictions or infringes logic, crying “ideology” or criticizing economics will not defend it from being merely wrong. Contrary to popular academic neo-Marxoid beliefs, economics is not just a collection of arbitrary value judgments put forward to conceal the interests of a class of rugged exploiters. Even if it were, there is still a need to refute the arguments based on the logical implications that necessarily flow from the fact of human action when faced with scarce resources. It is not enough to personalize the argument to me, and repeat the catechism in favour of the state. There is a need to actually deal with the actual arguments – not mere misrepresentations of them.

If depletable natural resources belong to future people, then obviously those future people could never consume them either, but they in turn must hold them on trust for still future people. Such a theory amounts to asserting that no-one may consume depletable natural resources, ever.

Once we accept that they may be consumed, the question is how to balance the interests of present, as against the interests of future people in consuming the same resource. In market terms, the interest of *present* consumers is expressed to the owner through calculation of *profit*. The higher the profit, the more they value it.

(cont.)

The interest of *future* consumers is expressed through the calculation of *capital value*, for what is the capital value but the sum of expected future values, discounted for futurity [i.e. a present satisfaction is universally valued more highly than the same satisfaction in the future].

It is true that the market assessment of value has limitations and imperfections. The expected future value still falls to be calculated by the current generation. But this same problem inheres just as much in any other way the same question is to be answered; else we are back to the “no-one may use it, ever” problem. And there is no guarantee that the next generation will respect current fashions! Furthermore by participating in the discussion, one appropriates resources from nature, and therefore affirms the ethical principle of the priority of earlier users over later.

On the other hand, a scarce resource that is valuable to use now, may be of no value to future generations because they have invented or discovered better alternatives, as we did for caves and whale oil. In that case the present should get a *credit* as against future generations. As a matter of inter-generational equity, they should be entitled to use more not less.

How is public ownership to answer this question better? Obviously it can’t. It is faced with the same knowledge limitations as private ownership, but instead of being able to harness the knowledge of 6 billion people with an interest in to the next generation, it will harness the knowledge of committees of 300 or so – mostly sociopaths! – territorially limited, with time horizon to the next election, blind to economic calculation, and with no negative consequence for making the wrong decision!

Rhostry
People are free to form workers' co-operatives if they want. The reason they have never prospered in the market place is because workers don’t want to have to go without income during the period of production. The workers get paid now, regardless whether the finished product may not be sold for years; or may eventually be sold at a loss.

(cont.) The social function of the entrepreneur is to undertake that risk and that charge.

Government gets all its revenue by confiscating property from its private owners, so I don’t know how you got the idea that all capital is originally public.

“Those that claim that only private capital can create projects; need to study the Snowy Mountain's scheme; “
I’m not saying only private capital can “create projects”. I’m saying the government is unable to calculate whether it is providing too much or too little of a service; and whether those enormous funds would have been better spent providing other services. Private providers can figure it would by consulting profit or loss. Governments can’t. So you get the tragedy of the commons – the wastage of resources held in common.

For example, how do you know society would not have benefited more if, instead of the state confiscating the funds to pay for the Snowy, private capitalists had instead devoted them to developing renewable energy, or the cure for cancer, or any of the *thousands* of things the money would otherwise have been invested in?

The very fact that the money had to be confiscated for the state to get it, irrefutably proves that the owners valued their own use of it more than the state’s. And to the extent that their judgment was based on money calculation, it was because everyone else in the world valued it more highly in private hands than in the state’s.

All the case for public ownership keeps coming down to is “might is right” – arbitrary power – smash and grab – the philosophy that people and everything they own are nothing but chattels owned by the elite who direct the most aggressive party – the state.

Its advocates never logically answer – because they can’t – how they a) know or b) can prove that the state’s usage of scarce resources yields a higher value return to society than if they had simply not been taken and diverted in the first place.

No diver dan, that is NOT in quotes, it's a summation. Try reading the post instead if feeling the emotion.

spindoc...

...Then it appears to be a “Yes-But”. What you argue is a position of fracture between humanities and science; that Humanities assumes the right to guide “humanity” into the future, and not science; and that point is your “beef”. (I assume you are including economics into a role of science in the argument, otherwise there is no argument).

...I think yours is a superfluous argument, even though correct it may be. To the 65% of Australians holding no asset stake in their country outside of a “few bob” In a bank account, and a “dog biscuit” in the cupboard if they are lucky, then it’s all "academic" to the majority of Australians.

Continued...