Bitcoin Forum

I gather from the tone of most posts here that people love the fact that only a fixed number of bitcoins will ever be produced. This is justified when you consider bitcoins as a Store of Value. No one wants their wealth stored in bitcoins to erode. Bitcoins as a Medium of Exchange are also unsurpassed. They can be transferred easily and anonymously.

There is a problem when bitcoin is considered a Unit of Account. Merchants will be constantly lowering the price of merchandise as the economy grows and the demand for money (bitcoins) grows with it. I suppose they can do this. They certainly got used to doing it in the other direction as paper money lost value.

Here’s the subtlety. A merchant changes his prices once in a while. For that reason he looks beyond the current point in time to what he expects his price should be at the next cycle. In other words, he builds in some extra price lowering to account for the fact he won’t be changing his prices for a while. When all merchants do this it builds momentum into price lowering that is very hard to change. (By the way this works with inflation too. It causes an accelerating “core inflation” and is very hard to reverse.) This can be very distorting to an economy because it enriches holder of “money” at the expense of holders of assets (like a home). In can be just as unjust as an inflationary money.

When we consider wages another problem intrudes. Normally an employer would want to lower wages periodically to reflect the fact that demand for “money” is driving up the value of bitcoins. Wages, however, are “sticky”. No one wants to see their salary lowered and will resist this. Real labor costs rise as a consequence and employers end up hiring fewer people. This has a negative effect on the economy as the amount of goods and services produced goes below potential. Again holders of cash are happy but unemployment is causing misery.

These are real problems that have to be solved before an electronic money like bitcoin can take the place of a national fiat currency. No one will want to price things in bitcoin and bitcoin will never be more than a convient replacement for a Store of Value like gold.

Buyers want lower prices, sellers want higher prices. This is good and natural. It applies to buyers and sellers of labor just the same.

I know there are some psychological forces in play concerning wages, but laborers who accept a slowly falling wage instead of striking or quiting will do much better and others will learn and follow their lead.
We've been paying a very dear price in real terms for a little bit of psychological pleasure from watching the digits increase.

Imagine a world where apple prices fall every year and people know and expect this. If you tell them that you have a system in which prices will go up in the store over time they might tell you that just won't work, people simply won't buy apples anymore because prices are sticky downward in this world. Yeah, fine, it's a fact about the current world, it isn't a fact about how worlds have to be in order to work. People can get used to stuff pretty easily if it makes them better off in ways that actually matter.

 

Perhaps the labor force will be largely freelancer so the physiological forces goes away.

I think there is a strong possibility bitcoins will end up being used for something none of us is thinking about.  Maybe big multinational corporations will use them to pay their international supply chains in industries that are used to constant deflation.

Which will solve another problem. According to my understanding, currently more people are fired than should be, because they are no longer worth their current salary and decreasing salary is taboo. If people get used to decreasing salaries, this phenomenon will be eliminated and the labor market will become much more efficient.

By the way, if teaching workers to accept what they're given and no complaining allowed is your predisposition then fine. Deflating prices and wages is the way to go.

However, if you are in favor of limiting the supply of bitcoin because you want to protect your savings then there is an easy way to have your cake and eat it too. It goes like this:

Modern economies tend to grow at 3% in the long run. The base supply of bitcoin should grow at 3% to keep prices and wages stable, but how to do this and keep savings protected? Well the answer is a multiplier associated with blocks that multiplies the cash value of each transaction by effectively 3% by the end of the year (I could calculate the number of blocks per year and tell you the multiplier per block). This is magic that bitcoin can do which is impossible with a paper currency.

So, if someone transferred 100 bitcoins to you and you didn't spend it for a year, in 12 months you would have 103 bitcoins that you can spend from that transaction. There you go; Savings protected and prices stable.

Too much ideas.

It's not about "no complaining allowed". If an employee gets a wage which doesn't reflect his contribution and\or what he can earn elsewhere, he should complain and eventually switch jobs. It's about looking at the salary in real terms and dropping the "O noes the number which represents my salary is now lower" sentiment.

FFE: I have been giving these points a great deal of thought over the past few weeks:

First, I share some of your fears concerning the symptoms of deflation in a growing economy.  Deflationary spirals are, as you said, very hard to reverse when some measures can't be taken.  But the fears are misplaced; this is why:

The fact of the matter is that measures can be taken because Bitcoins are not traded in a vacuum, there are plenty of other mediums of exchange, everything from Yen to seashells.  Just as Stores of Value have not caused deflation in the last decades (because they have not been fixed to fiat currencies as they were in the 30's), neither will BTC.

BTC does indeed face some issues if it were the sole choice for being one's Unit of Account.  But there is no 'sole choice,' there are many choices.

I am not in favor of any Store of Value (Gold, BTC or other scarcities) being reinstated in a Standard system.  If people are given options, then the fears around using BTC as a store of value diminish greatly.  (Because employees will complain about there being fewer raises, etc, and employers will move to using USD as their Unit of Account.  Some U of A's may do well in one circumstance, while another would do best in another capacity.)

Finally, to address your statement:

This is simply not true for the reasons you stated beforehand:  the lack of (necessary) transaction fees, the anonymity, and the convenience (speed and lack of red tape) in using BTC are three reasons of many that businesses and consumers would want to price and consume in Bitcoin.

Errata:
I also posted in the forums a couple weeks ago about an early psychological barrier that will be faced due to the lack of BTC's in circulation. http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4234.0 (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4234.0)

This is unsupported poppycock. There is no such thing as "the long run".

Economies lurch from one short-medium growth phase to another as new technologies come on-line, resources are found or depleted, wars, population demographics change.

Building a fixed inflation rate in to bitcoin would be a very bad idea, in the same way that the Federal Reserve inflating the dollar to oblivion was a very bad idea.
EDIT: the 'miracle' of compounding interest is the flaw, after n years the bitcoin supply becomes 21mill*(1.03)^n ... after 100 years your money is well on its way to worthless and your grandchildren are trying to explain to their children what happened to their 'savings'.

A potentially unlimited number of other crypto-currencies can be generated to satisfy any short term hankerings for easy "money", or you could just use dollars in your trades if an inflating currency is what you prefer to deal in.

Can't everyone who care about some arbitrary numbers and not the actual value just opt in to be paid in Venezuelan bolívars or something?

Or how about this: People with this psychological affliction can represent amounts in inflacoins (= BTC * 1.03^(year - 2009)) instead as they please. No need to change the underlying mechanics of the system.

The solution to 'sticky wages' is to educate people that the value of their wages is going up or staying flat, even if the number on their check goes down. I don't think this would be as hard as people think, especially if there were reliable statistics available on the price deflation rate.

As long as we don't build this crap into bitcoin itself, I don't care what people plug-in to it.

It might well be that bitcoin will in fact be used to a great extent to back other currencies. I keep thinking: bitcoin is more like gold than like fiat currency. People might back their "fungusDollars" with bitcoin to bootstrap value. But it's still a long way to there. First, I think, we need bitcoin to be used for trading a lot more heavily.

It's doesn't have to happen anyway. Average nominal wages don't go down because productivity goes up. There is still the same amount of money per person in the economy. Average nominal wages only go down when the population increases.

I hadn't thought of this. Your right barbarousrelic. Maybe wages don't have to fall. Does anyone know what productivity growth typically is?

If wages stay flat due to productivity growth and people get used to slowly falling prices, that just leaves holders of large assets like homes that are priced in bitcoins to suffer a slow loss.

(By the way a 3% growth in bitcoin is _not_ inflationary if the underlying economy is growing. There are 3% more things to buy at the end of the year. Or , if you prefer, there are newer better inventions to spend the extra 3 coin on.)

What make you thinks people in the bitcoin economy is going to stay at one job for a long time?

An interesting thought with a fixed number of bitcoin; Each coin represents 1/21millionths of the whole economy and as the economy grows the holder of 1 bitcoin still has claim to 1/21millionths of the larger economy. If a home is dropping in value (priced in bitcoin) then this just means it represents a smaller and smaller fraction of the total economy. So maybe it should fall in price.

Being worried about falling home prices may be just my old mindset coming from an era where homes were an investment. Seems silly. A home is a place to live, not an investment. Maybe in real life paying for a place to live does become cheaper with time as the economy grows.

(Of course you could never really buy the whole economy with 21M bitcoin. As you started to buy, prices would leap out of reach.)

People could also abandon wages and take ownership of that which they produce by their labor. Perhaps bitcoin will facilitate outrage against the capitalist wage system.

Divisibility is irrelevant to the point ffe was making here. He could just as easily have said "the holder of 0.01 bitcoin has claim to 1/2.1Billion of the larger economy".

After the Soviet Union collapsed factory workers were paid in whatever the factories produced. People found it very inconvenient:

https://www.economist.com/node/369396

Lost coins also have to be taken into account.

Isn't that owning the the products of those means of production rather than owning the products of your labor?

FatherMcGruder hates wages and profits. I don't mind getting paid in wages, or profiting from an enterprise.

An interesting article, but just another example of capitalism at work. Those poor workers were just paid wages in the form of that which the factory owner told them to produce.

Also, the Soviet Union stopped existing in 1991. The article mentions no events prior to 1993. Not that it would matter, because the state paid the soviets' wages.

Thanks for your accurate explanation, chodpaba.

I kind of try to go to the basics of necessities and then work up from there for appropriate government.

Would one agree, that in order to properly distribute resources, the resources in of itself would need to be equally distributed.

For example: Oil would not be in the Middle East but equally distributed among all countries per capita. And the same for Iron, Coal, Water, Food, etc...

If the resources are not equally distributed then there will be a cost to equally distributing them. This cost would in of itself not be equal since the cost to the Middle East Oil will not be the same as Siberian Oil, or GOM Oil, or Anwar Oil, etc...  And the same for Iron, Coal, Water, Food, etc...

Communism and/or Socialism are grand idealisms but not realistic due to the need for resources (even basic resources). And this is assuming that Greed and Vanity have been eliminated from Human Nature which actually goes against natural laws as currently understood.

It Capitalism doomed to fail? Yes, when wanted resources are extinguished. But then other resources will become relevant and the whole thing starts over with Capitalism taking the lead again. The Key is to make Capitalism as fair as possible. No collusions between companies and people, no illegal behavior, etc... Basically a pure and true Capitalism. 

BTW: Capitalism is not a form of government, it is a Natural Law. It operates under all forms of government (Democracy, Socialist, Communist, Dictator, etc...) 

China is communist using capitalism and many other example around the world.

Democracy has its flaws too. Individuals are smart, people are stupid. Democracy should be used in electing a ruling class that is not swayed by quick knee jerk reactions to public opinion.  Kind of like ehh...  A Republic   

But the Key to a Republic is public trust. Once the Trust of the people is lost, the Republic is lost.  Tell the truth, be honorable, prevent corruption, etc....  As soon as politician started saying what people want to hear rather than what they needed to hear, the system started to fail.

Double speak and fooling sheeple into a belief system is doom for said system. Preventing peoples views and opinions on subject by ridiculing them and forcing them to stop speech is bad even though what they say is stupid.

i.e. there should be a KKK politician somewhere speaking his beliefs. Why it won't matter is that people won't agree with him. But by stopping his speech, what one is really saying is that people "secretly" believe it and will follow him so we must stop him.

There should also be a Black Panther politician, etc...

I would much rather have people speak their thoughts and debate them, then keep those thoughts "Secret" and subversive.

In conclusion: Capitalism isn't going away until Natural Laws cease to exist. Sorry, Nature made us this way. 

The only escape from this is the religious route: God has another method that will supersede Natural Laws. So if your an atheist, Capitalism will rule for ever; If you are religious, God will supply another method when he arrives.

Pfft. Republic is doomed to fail in the same way that democracy is doomed to fail.

Funny in the History of the World, what system has lasted the longest.

What Country has the Longest system of government?

Do improvements need to be made? Yea, sure. But history will tell us the Republic is the starting point. Not Bloodlines (Kings, Lords), Not Communism, not Socialism, not Dictatorships, or even the old Club over the Head methods.

The most stable form is starting with the Republic, but it needs improvement to prevent illegal behavior and corruption.


There is one system that is guaranteed to work but I wouldn't wait for it.

The Theocracy with God as its leader.  So when God shows up, problem solved. No debate necessary, no court necessary, no bad businesses and/or people, etc...  No money necessary, no resources necessary, no elections necessary, etc...

The perfect dictator that never dies = Theocracy = perfect system of government.

BTW: if you are religious God choose a system of 3 Judges to rule, but man wanted a King.

In 200 years, the American republic progress from less regulated to more regulated and more statism. It become an empire in that time.

Wat? How does one naturally not get angry when someone takes something from you that you labored to produce and gives back something of less value? I think that that such a victim must have fallen for a trick called capitalism. He thinks that by capitalism, he will later take more and give back less. Of course, if he isn't already born into such status, he'll have to rely on luck and coercion to achieve it. What a miserable way to live.

How is capitalism not monarchy, wherein capital, and all the power that comes with it, passes from heir to heir?

I think you are confusing Taxes with Capitalism. Taxes are independent of the system, they exist in all governments. The difference is in a democracy we can actually change it, unlike a dictatorship. If you want less taxes then vote to change Congress. Start with your local city, state, then Fed Representatives. The problem is people want the services, they just don't want the taxes. If the majority want it, Government could be reduced to basic necessities (defense and government maintenance(just what is needed)). Give up Social Security, Roads, Health Care, Medicaid, etc... and then demand lower Taxes.

If, however, you are talking about product prices. Then don't buy it, if you feel you are being cheated.



Ahh, but this is how it works. Just one example: Barron Hilton created a vast amount of wealth and a successful business that employs thousands.  Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us, his "heirs" are money wasting idiots that don't produce anything. They waste their money and spend it like a drunken sailor.  Paris Hilton is redistributing the wealth so some other "Barron Hilton" will create a successful business to leave to his heirs.

There are not many true Moguls left. If the Kennedy wealth is diminishing, and the Rockefeller wealth. They have been replaced by the Bill Gates and the Oracle of Omaha and Steve Jobs, etc...

If a lowly no one, wants to be a mogul, then get a garage, drop out of college, and create something useful. You will then take the wealth from someone else, probably Paris Hilton.

And so do employers force their rules on employees and tax them for the privilege.

If I don't like it, leave? Indeed, capitalists can potentially coerce me into abandoning my home.

Yes, but it doesn't have to.

And so too can a new king eventually ruin his father's kingdom, making room for a more coercive newcomer.

And Bill Gates and Carlos Slim once grovelled at the feet of the John D. Rockefeller. Get real. No one ever took turns with him. He got rich, stayed rich, and died rich. All the people he exploited are dead too. They have no recourse and nor will we against our exploiters so long as we tolerate capitalism.

This process is a fluke at best. You can rarely produce anything useful without the consent of your capitalist exploiters.

Capitalism works because its net effect is to take precious resources out of the hands of those that waste, squander and defile them and distributes them in a somewhat optimal way into the hands of those who grow, produce and nurture them.

Dysfunctional capitalistic systems, crony capitalism, centrally-controlled debt fiat-based capitalism, authoritarian capitalism (china) and etc, somewhat work but eventually meet a denouement when the control of resources ends up in too few hands (who are, yes, wasting, squandering and defiling resources). The rich-poor gap becomes untenable and a large majority of people get hungry and angry. Hungry, angry people stop working and revolt or go to war, this is inefficient and destructive but serves to bring about a more productive allocation of resources. It, the free market works and has done for centuries, as long as conflicts between individuals (theft, fraud, exploitation, etc) are settled equitably and it isn't interefered with from on high by the state, large corporations or other forces that attempt to centralise power and control over resource distribution (bail-outs).

Natural capitalism and the free market is the embodiment of the original P2P network for distributing resources (used here to include labour, services, IP, money, anything that has value).

Ancient Egypt. Its theocratic despotism system of government lasted, with some breaks, for 3000 years.

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Employers do not tax, the Government has the employers tax and give the money to them. However, employment is not a right in a capitalistic society. You choose to work for someone else because you don't want to or can't work for yourself. You have indentured yourself and blame the government and its system for your standing.  I know a blind guy that runs his own business, so many things that people complain about fall on my deaf ears. (metaphorically speaking).


If you own your home and want to stay, I doubt anyone could coerce you to leave. You might not have electricity or water from the companies that supply it for you but they can't make you leave your home.  Drill a well, hook up a generator and supply it for yourself. Or go the Amish route and forgo indoor plumbing and electricity. The Amish don't complain about it, they choose to live that way and don't pay an electric bill.


That is why Kings (Bloodline Rule) were terrible forms of government.


The key words are: "He got rich".  Yep he sure did. He was born poor and struggled to become rich. He succeeded.  If he was born poor in India, he would have stayed poor because he was born poor. The Caste system.

What is the greatest reward or promise that America offers?  Is that no matter your station in life, perceived disabilities, or struggles you go through, if you work hard and never give up, you have a chance at changing your status for you and your family.

Abe Lincoln, taught himself, filed for bankruptcy, and became President of the United States. If others find that a flaw in our system, so be it. I find it an admired quality of the system.

Bill Gates dropped out of college, started his own business, IBM tried to take it from him through manipulation, but he out did them. Ditto for Steve Jobs and IBM. The little guy can win in this system.

The point being is that there is no guarantee, there is the "chance."


Curiously though, what system do you think is the best?  Obviously you don't think it is Capitalism, so to which system do you subscribe?

Bloodline Rule? (Kings and Queens)
Dictatorship?
Communist?
Socialist?
Oligarchy?
Republic?
Democracy?
or something else.

I would like to point out that Capitalism was working in each of those systems of governments because Capitalism isn't a system of government, it is a system of survival defined by Natural Laws. Even before money existed, Capitalism was at work all the way back to the stone age.

Don't fight it, accept it and work with it. Your tag is apropos, Capitalism is like Wolves. Wolves trying to survive. Just hope your in the right pack of Wolves.

All these terrible things happen because capitalists use them to make profit.

Technically you could make that point. But the system changed with every Pharaoh. But as soon as people resized that the "Gods" weren't helping them, it collapsed.  Rome's Republic system supplanted it.  Personally I like to think that all the workers asked themselves why they were spending their entire lives building a house for a dead guy and decided to work for themselves.


However, a Theocracy can be the best and longest lasting system, if everyone believes and it is fair and truthful.  You need to fear "God".  Today, in order to fear "God" people need to believe in him first, or he needs to make his presence known.

It wouldn't need to be God, it could be an alien race that every 5 years shows up and kills all wrong doers by reading their minds to find out their crimes against the rules they set down. And there is nothing anybody will ever be able to do about it. Yep, everyone will listen and those who don't will only be around for 5 years.

What terrible things happen because capitalists use them to make profits? You're are not making a lot of sense.

Evil communists make wars for ideological and control reasons, evil capitalists make wars for profits, evil socialists make war on people's minds for "green" power, wtf?. Evil people do evil things in any system but communism and socialism are demonstrably evil because of the servitude to the collective and authoritarianism that is inherent. There is no liberty without capitalism, but capitalism is only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for liberty.

Yea, that confuses me also.

But if I assume your position correctly and you want a system without the natural system of Capitalism.

You wish to for each to live like the fish in the sea. Eat when it is time to eat, and only eat when necessary.  Basically live like any non-pet animal. To each his needs and no more.

Let imagine what that system would bring. Starvation, goodbye Middle East, goodbye Ethiopia, or any country in need of food and they can't get it for themselves. I can't give them mine, I only eat when needed nothing left over. I don't have a house, no one to build it. I don't have a car, no one to build it. 

I make fire by rubbing sticks together, use a bow and arrow to hunt (but I have to be good because there is a lot of other hunters out there eating my food) Hmm... might be some conflict there if there is not enough food to go around. I might have to kill my competition in order to eat.

And on, and on.

Nah, I will stick with capitalism. It is more "Humane" otherwise I have to kill the weak so the strong will survive.

His position is that use of means of production (land, factories, etc) is ownership. If you build or purchase a machine or plot of land and are not using it, others may use it as they wish.

Oh, I see, the American Indian idea. No ownership. Capitalism could still work with that idea. But I foresee problems. Some will be able to use more land than others. I could operate a 200,000 acre tree farm and use it indefinitely for generations to come. Oh, I found Oil under my acreage, and gold, and diamonds. Bummer for my neighbor. Without the principle of ownership, the larger families will always out perform the smaller families. What about those who don't marry or can't have children?

No, ownership was a step out of the animal kingdom. The rules on ownership could be tweaked though. I could agree with that. I would also be for fertile land set aside for "poor" people. But as soon as they start making profits, their profits need to be applied to the next poor persons acre. Sort of like homes for humanity. Pay for through work over time, so the next guy has a chance. If you don't work, you won't stay on your acre very long and hence open up a slot for someone willing to do it.


The factory thing is a little confusing. Without ownership, who builds a factory.  Lets say I put $30 Million into building a factory but my business fails. Under no ownership, I not only lost my investment in the business but I can't mitigate any losses by selling the factory and recover any losses. Any investors must eat the losses, but if they knew that up front, I wouldn't have had investors, and hence no factory.

To build a factory, you must have ownership.

To socialists and commies, profit is an abomination to be extinguished.

To capitalist pigs like me, profit is a natural goal that must be pursued prudently or else you just get rich while squandering resource.

Much sense in that statement.

But I find it curious, that Socialists and Communists don't want profits. They need profits for the their systems to even work (no profits, no taxes, no taxes, no distribution of wealth).

I think they want to redistribute profits equally. And if that were to ever take hold, I just got a hurt back and can't work, send me my check and make sure it is the same as everyone else's.  ;D

If a hurt back doesn't work, I want to be a tenured professor, or an Xbox athlete, maybe a "modern Artist."  Yea, an Artist.

How about a Tenured Professor of Art that is an Xbox Athlete. <--- Yea, that is what I want to be when I grow up daddy.  I like this Socialism and Communism.

Employers certainly do tax their employers. The employees pay the employer a portion of that which they produced with their labor in exchange for the conditional use of his property. The citizens pay the government a portion of that which they produced with their labor in exchange for the conditional use of its property. Same thing.

And you have to get all of these things, or the tools and resources to make these things, from a capital holder. And the more desperate you are, the more of that which you produce, can he take from you. So, depending on the force at his disposal, you can either submit or flee, and that is not a voluntary decision. It is a coerced decision.

You give the Amish too much credit. Within their community, they have their own hierarchical problems in addition to the exploitation they face from the outside world.

And capitalism is just monarchy.

He gained at the expense of others.

An the upper castes capitalistically profit on the backs of the lower ones.

The promise is that you're allowed to use some types of exploitation to get ahead. There's no punishment for taking the product of other people's hard work as long as you do it in a certain way and the people you exploit will get punished for trying to take it back.

And he issued the emancipation proclamation to mitigate the Confederate threat to his profit, not to abolish an evil institution.

Bill Gates was simply lucky enough to attend one of the few schools that had a computer. He subsequently used intellectual property too protect his profits. The amount of hard work he ever did can't possibly, justifiably entail such wealth and power over others. Jobs isn't any better.

More probably, hard work goes unrequited.

Anarchy, wherein most people expect to own the product of their labor.

Capitalism and government are inseparable. Capitalism cannot exist without government. There is no purpose for government without capitalism.

People deserve more than to just try and survive.

Whether it's natural, whatever that means, or not, capitalism is a harmful behavior.

No, you misunderstand. When you produce something from your labor. It belongs to you. That does not mean you have a right to withhold your surplus from someone until they offer something in exchange which took relatively more of work to produce. Capitalists presume that they do have this right, and they create government to protect it.

You are distorting what chodpada said. Your ownership of something does not give you the right to exploit others with their lack of ownership of that something.

That is capitalism and government.

Why can't people just farm on unused land without a government setting aside crumby reservations for them?

You and the other workers still have a useful factory in which to build and sell something else. Oh wait, you live in a capitalist society and had to borrow that $30 million from a usurer. Now he owns the factory and you have to grovel before some other capitalist for the privilege working for a wage with which you will try to pay off the usurer's interest.

So let the factory's builders own it. They can sell it to the workers who will pay them with a certain amount of that which they will produce, equal to the labor associated with building the factory.

Those socialists and communists believe that the state is necessary. Perhaps they don't realize that the state is a capitalist institution.

This is because capitalism persists amongst the citizenry in a state capitalist society.

Capitalism: get other people to work for you.

Ahh... Yea.  Of course, I know that unless I buy enough stock in a company; I will not have controlling interest (enough power to change the company).  Think of it like your vote, except you get to buy more than one vote. If I can get enough stock poor people to pool their shares together, we can control the company.  But most people don't buy stock to control the company, yea they own a "little piece of it", they "expect the price to go up" if it doesn't their investment is null but they may be able to get their original investment back.

But lets take your side, if you don't expect the company to go anywhere or if you think it is doomed to fail, by a PUT and put it to the capitalist pigs as you rake in your money, that you will obviously give back to us because of redistribution of wealth.

BTW: If you bought 100 shares of Microsoft when they went public 25 years ago, and sold at the peak, your non-ownership interest in the company would have gotten you 1.4 Million Dollars. <--Thats why people buy stock, not to loose it but to make it.  Another is hedging, to maintain costs.

I for example bought commodities when the FED issued QE2 (quantitative easing) that devalued the dollar. I pay more for food now, but I offset it buy making more money with the cost of food increases. And I don't even own the food.

But I will agree that the move in established markets are controlled by big investors. I stay clear of them, I go with new companies that I believe in. The Warren Buffet method.

FatherMcGruder,

 
Alas, I understand your position. You are an Anarchist.

As in:  is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Anarchists seek to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations, but widely disagree on what additional criteria are essential to anarchism. According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."

I guess you can call me an Anarchist, an Anarchist that supports gun ownership and my defining position is that Survival of the Fittest rules. Now, in the word of a great South Park episode:  "Lets Get It On"  

I put statism above any anarchy organization, but that is an oxymoron. An Organized Anarchy becomes the State of Anarchy and would need rules to distinguish which Anarchy position is being taken. There would even be different Anarchy Organizations, they might even fight each other and do battle over some perceived difference of opinion. They might want to co-opt your position into their own. You wouldn't want that to happen and be against it.

Out of Anarchy comes Order. It is natural. Lets go back to the Fish, schools of fish would be the closest thing to your anarchy system, maybe flocks of birds, but take a closer look at them. Is it Anarchy? or is their an Hierarchy to their behavior?  Even there, there is a form of government. A natural Government.  The fish don't follow the young ones, they follow the adult fish of good health when the school changes direction. They have a group of leaders and many followers.

Sorry you will have to give me one example of anarchy in a natural system. There are Natural Laws, we must follow them.

  

Well there is a huge fallacy right there, and practically unworkable also. If you produce a surplus from your labours and it belongs to you, you have the right to withhold it from anyone you please, surely. Money is nothing but a surplus of your labour, that is how money began. Are you saying your money does not belong to you? Are comfortable taking my surpluses from me any time you see fit?

This "capitalism bad" mantra might sound seductive but it has no basis in reality and falls apart at the first logical inspection. Capitalism is not inherently bad, flawed maybe, bad people can do terrible things with capital, good people do amazing things with capital ... capital is agnostic, use it how you see fit and let your God do the tally up at the end.

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto the Lord what is the Lord's" some wise guy once said that pithily sums it up in affairs of this matter, (Caesar is an allegory for material wealth in this context, if you were wondering.)

As long as you do not seek authority over me we're cool. However, you seem to be content with the idea of being my employer (for the sake of argument). That is a position of authority and I don't like it. Unfortunately, I rarely have a choice when it comes to avoiding authority in this capitalist society of ours. For the record, I do condone gun ownership as long as their users do not use them to help impose authority over others.

I see no reason why the inhabitants of a society in which the majority of inhabitants represent all the flavors of anarchism cannot coexist without imposing authority on one another and therefore forming states. As long as capitalists--and capitalists are never anarchists--are in the minority, everything will work just fine. People will have disagreements, but I don't see why they'll have to rely on authority to settle them.

Really? How is the behavior of a school of fish relevant? They have little to no power to disobey their instincts. Humans do. They don't mind cannibalism. Humans can. We have evolved the ability to make and follow our own rules. So I don't see any harm in members of society mutually agreeing not to capitalistically eat each other. As such, anarchism seems entirely natural as a human behavior, not that it matters.

As for a natural system that exhibits anarchistic behavior: bacteria. Of course, bacteria are not people, so this example is irrelevant. "Natural Law" remains a crumby argument for just about anything.

Please do not misquote me. I had written as follows:

I've made some edits, in bold, for grammar and clarity. Feel free to critique my complete statement.

Capital is just an accumulation of wealth. Bitcoin allows capital to naturally form. The idea that capitalists are in the minority is just strange. That would implies very few have any saving.

As long you spend less than you earn, then you will begin the process of accumulating capital. That is what I called profit, when expenses is less than income.

Humans will not disobey "their instincts" when adaptive pressure is applied. Some might try, but then reach an evolutionary dead end.

Try not eating or drinking for a week, see what happens. Your instincts will start to rear their ugly head. Your argument assumes that their will alway be an abundance of resources. That is a fallacy. We have been fortunate, but it never lasts. History tells us so.

Bacteria still follow a system, and order for survival. Granted they have been reduce to the simplest basic form that all living organisms try to follow for success (Eat and Propagate)

Not to mention you have given the best example of Capitalism, Bacteria will try to exert their authority over you to gain resources for their survival, if you don't fight them, they will eat you alive and not give a second thought to it. Are they Evil?  No, they are just trying to survive. They work in a group to acquire as much of the resources as possible before someone else gets it.

This.

Think of profit as energy surplus. When you work, you try to get as much surplus as possible to compensate for all the work you done. Some work you do only break even. That mean you don't have any resources you can store for the future. Some work result in a loss, you have less energy now than when you start with.

In summary, capitalists do not seeks to exploit or control anyone. Rather they seeks economic surplus. They want to work as little as possible for as much gain as possible. This is smart.

FatherMcGruder despise my reasoning for this. I strive for any gain at all, even if that mean working for employers. He thought that justify slavery or something. He even compared me to a Libyan supporting her dictator, believing that father do not kill their children. Of course, mine is very pragmatical rather than being a delusion.

Kiba,

 You made me think on that one. There is some age old wisdom, in it. Store the surplus for when there is a time when energy will be needed. Grasshopper and the Ant story.  One stores the energy in their body, the other stores it in a home. When winter comes the Ant is better off because of an energy surplus. The grasshopper must migrate, move on or die. Just like Humans when we get old and are not able to work as much we dip into the acquired resources to help extend us. Others that lived on a day by day system of individual needs, when they get old and are unable to work so much, they will want from others that did save. Hmm... wonder how that will work out.

I wonder if there is a classification of species based on resource storage. Some use external storage, others use internal storage, and some use both.

I suppose I could be swayed to an Anarchy way of thinking when there is no need to acquire resources for survival. Maybe when someone creates one of those Star Trek Replicators the produces whatever you want, using an extremely efficient energy source that lasts for hundreds of years at a time.

Capitalists believe that they have the right use their surplus to maintain a position of power over others.

It's not capitalistic to maintain a surplus as long as you do not make people pay too much in exchange for it. That's why rent, employment, and usury are so exploitative. The worker will keep paying, but he will never own the shelter, the workplace, or the borrowed capital.

Humans can choose to starve and not procreate. And they do from time to time. That such actions might qualify as an evolutionary dead doesn't have to matter to whoever commits them if he doesn't want them too. If I recall ninth grade biology though, evolution typically occurs on a population scale. A few individuals opting out from squirting DNA at each other probably won't matter much, but I digress.

No, I only assumes that humans are capable of making intelligent decisions, not that we always do, of course.

But individual bacterium do not exhibit authority over each other. In fact, they invariably share genetic information and cooperatively form bio-films. Behold, solidarity. Seriously though, Natural Law is irrelevant. Just because I can rightfully consume the energy of a plant or animal, that they contain or produce, doesn't mean I can rightfully consume yours, even if I can afford it.

In some sense, it already happened. In our ancestral environment, we rely on fat to ensure that we live through hard time. Nowsday, fat is often a liability because we eat too much of the wrong food. Our taste bud that would otherwise be useful in a world where resources are hard to acquire now work against us. We need our taste bud to tell us to eat the various nutrient that we're missing in our diet.

Now, if civilization collapse and we have taste buds adapted for civilization, it is conceivable that we would be doomed since we would all die because we did not have enough fat to sustain us through a dry period. It is scenario like this that make me want a human body that can use fat without ever becoming a liability, much like more gasoline is better.

That's a very strange definition of what a capitalist is.

Anyway, a smart capitalist would sell goods and services as the highest possible price as he possibly can. That how I would do it, either as employer or employee. To attribute high prices of something as evil or good is a very strange concept. It's just business.

Look into the Petri Dish when the resources start to get low. They sure do exert authority over each other. Those on the end get pushed out, while the stronger get to the center. Typically the stronger are in the center when they reach the end and die.

Yea, when resources are abundant they live the la-di-da life, but when resources get low, it is a whole other game. Put adaptive pressure on them by using antibacterial and its every man for themselves, until one becomes resistant, then they will split into groups. One group left to die, the other goes on eating the resources.

I think I get the idealism, I just don't get the realism. But hey, if we all agreed there wouldn't be capitalism.

How is it incorrect?

Any capitalist would do this, not just "smart" ones.

No. As I said, "Natural Law" is an irrelevant digression.

I don't blame you. The capitalist delusion is very strong. I experienced it very strongly.

Agreement doesn't preclude capitalism. Capitalists often exploit other capitalists, but they agree that it is a non-exploitative relationship.

No, it is just that you hate the way it works or what you think how it works.

To me, your position cannot be compatible with mine. We have different value system. That's all there is.

It's like I am the pyschopath, and that you're a normal regular human. A pyschopath don't have empathy and sympathy. They just fuck with you for no reason. Similarly, a capitalist don't understand the concept of exploitation and non-exploitation. He doesn't have any feeling for what's the proper price. There's good deal and there's bad deal. There is no good or evil.

For example, a paperclip maximizer AI loves paperclips. It ponders paperclips philosophically for thousand of years in human time. It wants to replace everything with paperclips. It believe that the creation of paperclips is the highest moral good. It doesn't hate you, or love you. You're just a bunch of atoms that can be turned into paperclips.

Because I don't believe in "controlling" others. A capitalist is just a rational profit-maxing agent or someone who try to act that way.

^==^--- That is funny ---^==^

And scary cause it is probably true.

Well, are you a human being capable of rational thought or a capitalistbot stuck in a profit loop?

Then why are you content with the idea of employing someone and being his boss?

Yes, a thief.

Are you capable of grasping the idea that some people's moral system just might be different from your?
Employees welcome to quit any time he doesn't like the arrangement. If that is called controlling, then so be it.

For the record, most of my bitcoin are earned through economic exchanges. I never stolen anything from anyone.

FatherMcGruder,

I am curious do you work for someone, or do you employ others?

Or do you act on your beliefs, an neither work for someone and do not employ others?

You obviously make use of money, but how is that money acquired?  Through Work? Do you sell your services to others? Effectively working for them.

Just trying to judge the hypocrisy.

Or is the argument, that it is the system in use and you are forced to use it to survive. Which would not be a correct argument because you could gather your belongings go to the woods and live free, of course without an internet connection.
Having grown up in the Appalachian Mountains it is very possible to live of the land, Apple trees, berry bushes, roots, without ever having to "Farm" or own anything. It wouldn't be easy but possible.

It is weird for a 19 years old like me who is not very world-wise to argue against an adult in defense of voluntary interactions and the right to work. It should be the other way around.

Kiba,

You seem wise for your age. I think the problems arise in defining rights. You have the right to "work", you don't have the right of employment. The results of what happens when people are granted the right for employment can be shown in the decline of the work product produced. The closest one comes to the right of employment in the U.S. in Tenured Teachers with Union Contracts. Their work product declines to a point of absurdity. When you can't be fire, why bother to produce an effective product. There are 7,000 teachers in New York City school system, that are so bad that New York won't let them teach anymore but can't be fired. So they go to what are called Rubber Rooms, and collect a paycheck as if they were still teaching. But the joke is on them, when the system changes, they will be hurt the most. Just imagine all the young teachers that would actually teach but can't because of them.

Everyone has the right to work, but not the right for employment. Of course, there is no guarantee that your work will benefit you.

IMO, I believe modern governments fear people returning to an agriculture based form of living. It is much harder to collect taxes, and harder to control a population. Just go talk to any farmer. They are by nature conservative and strong willed. They are independent individuals with a strong belief in family. They don't like being "controlled".  Many of the transactions they conduct are "off the grid" by use of bartering. I remember trading corn for milk, and vice versa. How can a government tax that? They would have to have an IRS agent present and take a percentage of milk or corn.

No, the powers that be will try everything they can to keep societies from returning to the basics. However, as any sports aficionado understands, when things start getting all messed up and performance is declining, it is time to go back to the basics.

Also IMO,

Kids of the 1950's actually liked learning and going to school, why?  Because if they didn't go to school they worked the a$$es off on the farm. That is why the U.S. has 3 months off in Summer, to go to work and help the family and community out. Now it is used playing Xbox.

Everything that was Old will be New again !!!

Yes, but I reserve every right to call out others' moral contradictions. If you believe in capitalism, own it. Love government.

As an employer, you'd assume that they could, or that you were doing them a favor, just to make yourself feel better about governing them.

So, you love government?

Assuming that that is true, and not a statement of capitalistic delusion, then you aspire, as a capitalist naturally does, to rule over others and thereby profit.

My personal life isn't relevant to the discussion. For all you know, I am a capitalist arguing the anarchist position just for fun.

Now, capitalistic entities control all the usable territory. Even if there was a region free of capitalist authority, I would have to abandon my home and endure a state of exile to live there. That I, or anyone, might endure the status of an employee on the threat of exile (best case) does not qualify as a free choice.

Your right to call out people's moral contradiction is tempered by your inability to explain why. Your explanation are unsatisfactory since I still don't know what you're talking about.


It's a voluntary interaction. I see nothing wrong with it.

I had explained to you very clearly that profit is economic surplus being acquired for any given action or work. I have no attachment to ruling or lording over others.

I can respect that, especially if it is used to come to a consensus through logical thinking. I have often found the solution to problems by taking the counter point to an argument. It is good science, I think that is why Evolutionists bother me so much in the science field. They won't even entertain a thought of a counter point. Which ends up with corrupt science being produced. They almost died over the Carbon Dating Debacle. OMG, our data is all wrong.

I was curious from a sense of hypocrisy. I tend to find the more extreme positions people take the more hypocrisy there is. Everyone exhibits a level of hypocrisy. It is that the further one gets from a "norm" the greater the hypocrisy is.

I call it the hypocrisy ratio, others call it the BS pile.

FatherMcGruder,

I think the exact opposite of what you propose will happen if there is not a correction to our system. People will give into authority for survival. Imagine millions of people that are now collecting Unemployment checks and food stamps. If that system is stopped, they would eventually become homeless and broke.

But then they realize that if they break the law in some fashion (it doesn't have to be violent), they can get shelter, food, health care, clothing, etc... They will just have to give up their freedom.  Any logical homeless guy living in a cardboard box in New York should go to the nearest Cop and steal something in front of him. Maybe be good for at least a Month of food and shelter. If he finds himself liking "prison", just create problem in prison to prevent your release.  Non-viloents get sent to a much easier system of prisons.

If you want to up your station to a High Class Prison, just adjust your crime. Commit a high value "white collar" crime that breaks Federal Law. You might get one of the Country Club Prisons. 

Need a major operation, you can't afford. Get arrested and have the State pay for it. Just exchange a year of your life for the operation. It would be cheaper than giving up 10 years of income for the operation. *Not in Mississippi - they just release a prisoner rather than pay for a kidney transplant.  Of course, that would create a market for a Terminally ill organized crime.  Need a transplant, Rob a bank. If you get away, you win. If you get caught, you win.

I have provided extensive explanation as to why capitalism needs government.

So long as people chose employment as a lesser evil, it cannot be voluntary.[/quote]

And what do you call it when your surplus is the product of the labor of someone else?

So you don't mind government. To fully assume the capitalist position though, you must recognize that capitalism doesn't work without government, authority, hierarchy, or whatever you want to call it. In it's absence, you cannot hope to collect a profit off of someone else.

I don't know what you're doing, but don't even get me started on Intellegent Design. Srsly.

What's so hypocritical about a wage slave believing in anarchism?

Prisons are tools of authoritarians. Why would an anarchist society have them?

Alright, McGruder, riddle me this:

Jill is an excellent lollipop maker. Oh, and how wonderful they are, so flavorful and precious in their design. In fact, no two are the same. Since her product is completely handmade, she rather spend most of her time making them rather than selling them. So, she makes a deal with Bob. She sells her lollipops to Bob and he sells them retail with extensive marketing. For Bob's time and marketing he keeps the 30% profit or so from the sales.

What was so exploitative about this?

Does Bob happen to get 30% of a single batch for the work that he did relative to the work that Jill did, or does he create a few ads and collect 30% of all the lollipops that Jill will ever make in this operation?

Good ads can take a lot of effort. Anyways, can "relative work" be objectively measured?

I'm all confused again. So the rule is Bob can do it but only if his work effort is equal to hers. 

If he spends less time it is bad, how about if he spends more time? would that be Ok or does it have to be equal time.

Not only redistribution of wealth, but redistribution of work to equal amounts. How should we measure the work? Lets stick to physics and measure it in Newtons or Joules, etc...

So rather than a 40 Hour work week, we can have a 40 Joule work week. Everyone will use the same amount of energy during work.

In that case, I will take a hard labor job. Shorter work week and more free time. I assume we are all getting paid the same for our work.

Okay, tell just how the fuck you would grow a crop of potatoes (or anything) in this delusional non-capitalistic society you are dreaming of and I'll tear every little element of your grand plan to shreds with the practicalities of growing potatoes.

You want to starve? Now tell me how to grow potatoes.

Another question that popped in to my head earlier today.

Let's say you're sitting at home when an individual enters without permission. You ask them to leave, but they decline, explaining that they don't see that you have any special claim to this plot of land, on which sits this pile of wood and stone. So they rummage through your cupboards, eating your extra food, sleep in your spare bedroom, and deny you the ability to enjoy your home as you otherwise would. Do you at some point use force, or the threat thereof, to remove this person from your home?

So do you use force to remove them from your home, or do you allow them to continue to interfere with your use of it?

Yes, you use force to defend from the agression.

In a lot of cases no, but we don't need to.

People will just have to come to free agreements as to the relative value of each party's work if they want to work together. However, they cannot do so if one party has authority over the others.

You find some usable land and start farming the potatoes. Perhaps you will do so in cooperation with other farmers. Everyone will own the resulting potatoes in accordance with the work they've contributed to it. They will probably want to keep so many potatoes and trade the rest for things that they need and want.

As for the intricacies of potato farming, I can't help you. The best I can do with one is to add it to my corned beef hash.

You have the right to refuse to associate with someone as well as the right to defend yourself from thieves. You have no right to lord your surplus over anyone.

Isnt this contradictory?

I think a lot is being pondered about "Authority", how about "Reliance". Some people are ready and willing to be reliant on others and succumb to their authority in exchange for something.

Are Employers exerting "Authority", or are Employee's being "Reliant".  If someone chooses to be reliant on me for their well being, and I accept that responsibility, do I have any say in the matter?  If I don't, then I will never accept the responsibility of someone else being reliant on me.

For Example:

Employment: You came to me; I did not come to you. You want to work for me, so you can survive. So you are willing to accept my money but not my authority in telling you what, how, and when I want something done. Nah, I don't think I want to accept that responsibility, go look for someone else to be responsible for you. If you are willing and of your own free will want to accept my authority then come back and reapply for the job.

BTW: Sometimes and in certain positions, employers go out and seek employees. Then the Employee has the power. If you want me to work for you, this is what I want. I want a $5000 signing bonus, I want Stock Options, I want a contract, I want profit sharing, etc...  If you as an employer do not want to give me this, then go find someone else.

All employment is an agreement between parties. The need for the type of work, will determine who actually has authority.  Others are perfectly happy being reliant on others (employer, government, family, etc...)

No. When you sell a potato, you now own whatever you got in exchange for it and have no more ownership over that potato. When you lord a potato, you might take a portion of all the potatoes that anyone might ever grow from it, like how Monsanto operates. You might become that person's lord as long as they eat your potatoes.

I was laughing when I read that and I dont even know what it means. You can not keep introducing new terms, you are complicating the debate, not making things more understandable. You know what they say: if someone is using complicated words and mudding the debate it can be because of two reasons: 1) He/she has no idea what he/she is talking about, or 2) deception.

Try to explain things clearly. "Lording a potato" is not a clear or self-explanatory concept.

It's like lording land (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/landlord). But with a potato. :D

If one can only choose to work for an employer, of course that person will have to rely and depend on one, whether or not either party believes it. As long as the necessity remains for workers to submit to employers, that will always be the case. Even when the job market appears to turn in the worker's favor, capitalists will never pay a higher wage unless they expect to continue to profit.

I did explain my use of the term. Although I should have more properly said "when you lord over someone with a potato...", I did convey the correct meaning of the word lord as a verb. I don't understand why you wouldn't trust me over my vocabulary. We have plenty of time to consult free dictionaries while debating on a web forum.

I did use the dictionary. It says to lord is to treat with arrogance. But I still dont understand what it means to "lord over someone with a potato"... You keep using subjective terms as if they were objective. How can I know if someone is "lording the potatos"? I could ask you what your feeling are about something, but that is not way to create a system. I dont understand your distinctions, they are not clear, they always use subjective terms, that basically express how you feel about something. It seems to me that the same fact could be moral and inmoral to you depending on the rethoric used.

Can you please explain to me in clear terms this:


Why someone selling a potato and obtaining a surplus is just trading and its moral, but someone else selling a potato and obtaining a surplus is "lording the potatos" and its inmoral?

I think what is trying to be expressed is:  To each his needs according to his wants.

Which makes absolutely no sense.


Nice potato, I want it, I must have it, I need it, How dare you want me to pay for it. Give it to me, you don't need it.

This whole argument gets summed up as: Charity with arrogance.

I don't like giving to arrogant people that expect things, I like giving to people that try and fail and try again without asking for anything.

So any surplus that I choose to give away will go to those people.

First big problem, the best fertile land for growing potatoes is halfway up the hill on the sunny side, frost-free, gentle slopes and everybody wants to use it, but you seem to be saying nobody owns this land, as that would represent capital ... how do you decide in your commie paradise who gets to grow potatoes on the best land and those that get the crap low-production, high-risk land?

A fruitless debate with a commie does not yield capital and profit, nor truth and reason.

This is what I concluded at the end.

I didn't see that one. Merriam-Webster defines lording as acting like a lord, Cambridge defines it as behaving "as if you are better than someone and have the right to tell them what to do", and yourdictionary.com defines it as domineering.

There is a difference. If you don't like the word lord, then think of rent, or loan with interest.

Yeah, probably not gonna live that one down.

All I'm suggesting is that if you own some land, in the capitalist sense, you have have no inherent right to that which people might produce on it with their labor. You only have a right to that which you produce with your labor. Capitalism requires the use or threat of force to take the product of people's labor without exchanging something of equal value. I should also add that after that exchange, you do not have any right to that which someone produces using that which you produced.

If you want to farm potatoes, you go to the best fertile land, halfway up a gently sloped hill on the sunny side, make sure there's no frost, and start farming. If that bit of land already has plenty of people working it, and the contribution of your labor will not help to increase the harvest, you find another spot or produce something else that you can trade for the potatoes.

*Edits in bold. I forgot to finish a thought.

If people don't like my terms of exchange when it comes to working on my potato farm (USD only for labor), they can work somewhere else or start their own potato farm. I am not forcing anybody to do anything. They can either utilize my services of employment or not.

So you give them a USD wage as long as they produce for you as much as you see fit. If the market should value that which your laborers produced as greater than what you paid them for for the time they spend producing it, they will experience a net loss and you a net gain. How do you have the power to enjoy such an arrangement?

I have power over the potato farm. I am not controlling my workers, they are choosing to use my facilities to convert their work into currency. They can leave at any time. There is no coercion. If they don't like my rate, they can leave. Yes, my agreement states they cannot take the potatoes off the farm and sell them to somebody else but they consented to it. Besides, I spend a good amount of effort maintaining my land. I should be paid in exchange for the use of it. I only can determine that rate. It's my land.

How?

And then get the same deal from another land owner. They have no real choice as a result of the coercion of you and the other land owners.

If they disagree with your rate why can they not maintain the land that you claim themselves?

Through whatever means I have to enforce my right to my property.

They can always buy their own land.


Because it's my land and other workers will probably take their place.

More accurately, you employ coercion by whatever means you find most useful, to take from someone that which he worked to produce.

With what capital, that which they get at the pleasure of the strongmen? How coercive!

If you don't work the land, it's not really yours. If you do, it's only yours to the extent that you work it relative to others.

You mean that you expect workers to take their place under coercive pressures.

Managing workers requires time and effort. I am indirectly working the land.

I think I see a point at which compromise can be attained.

Correct me if I am wrong:

A "rich guy" owns 200,000 acres of land, and a "poor guy" owns nothing, but sneaks onto the rich guys land and grows potatoes. You say the potatoes belong to the poor guy because he "labored" for them. If the rich guy "lords" over the poor guy he is wrong. I think you might have a point here somewhere but an acceptable compromise must be attained. The "rich guy" labored to acquire land, instead of "potatoes", so he should also bare the "fruits" of his labor and not let the "poor guy" steal it from him. Just like the rich guy shouldn't steal the "poor guys" potatoes.

How can someone compromise this? Well the poor guy should give "something" to the rich guy where both can benefit from each of their "laboring".  Technically this is "squatting".  

Which in the United States is taken into account:

In time, squatters can actually earn ownership of the dwelling. There's a legal precedent in most of the United States called adverse possession. This doctrine says that if a squatter lives "openly, continuously and hostilely" in a home for a prescribed number of years, he or she can become the owner. This applies to property that's vacant and where property taxes aren't being paid. The three criteria that must be met are making no attempts to hide the inhabitation (open), living in the dwelling continuously and without permission (hostile). If the squatter pays property taxes on the home, when the time limit is reached, he or she is considered the owner.

So if the "Rich Guy", never notices or doesn't do anything, the "poor guy" can become the owner. This will let the land that "isn't really being used to be re-proportioned."

But if the "Rich Guy" takes notice because he is in some fashion "using it". There must be a solution. The sympathetic solution, would be to let the "poor guy" continue but pay the rich guy a portion of proceeds for his labors. A win/win solution.

But if the "Rich Guy" wants to stop the "poor guy" and make him leave. You say he shouldn't be able to do it. But that will allow the poor guy to become the rich guy and the rich guy to become the poor guy. All because one put his labors into potatoes instead of land.

I say the rich guy should be able to make the poor guy leave BUT the rich guy shouldn't get the potatoes or any profit from them. That seems fair.

Please consider this as pointed out below by a poster: If there is not "Land Ownership" being paid for by the fruits of ones labors, there will be great fighting over use of the land. All the Potato growers will fight for the best place to grow potatoes, mine, drill, etc...

If you own to much land to properly oversee then "Squatters" will occur and ownership transferred.  The U.S. and Australia have law sympathetic to squatters, because of extreme land grabs where people claimed hundreds of thousands of acres for themselves. So our two countries have as a foundation and rarely used principle of "Use it or loose it".  People still do this and cases come up almost every year, but as soon as you are declared the new owner, you must pay the taxes.  Death and Taxes, you know.

I hate the terms Rich and Poor. Material amount has little significance if the individual sufficiently sustains themselves.

I agree with you, but one must use a means of communicating that others can easily quantify. Personally, I think Mother Terresa was one of the "Richest" people on earth.

There is a difference. If you don't like the word lord, then think of rent, or loan with interest.[/quote]

You have not answered. Stop hiding behind rethoric and answer clearly.

In the example above, the original, how can I know if someone is just obtaining surplus in a moral way (according to you) or someone is obtaining a surplus inomorally (according to you)?

If the workers want management, they will democratically choose a manager and give him a share of the harvest equal to the work he contributes relative to everyone else.

Of course disputes will occur, but the person with the greatest might shouldn't unilaterally devise the solution. If the disputing parties cannot reach a solution without one using power over the other, perhaps they’ll take the issue to some kind of court in which individuals of equal relation to both parties investigate and come up with a solution. Of course the court will have no power except to publish its findings. This way, others will have information by which they can voluntarily modify their behavior towards the disputing parties so as to affect justice. If the stronger claimant doesn’t follow the court’s findings, he’ll have a lot of people to answer too.

Now compare to the capitalist system of the USA that you depicted. It clearly benefits those with the power to regularly patrol their property claims and pay taxes. It pays no regard to how the claimants use the property, if at all.

And she had the audacity recognized the existence of poor and unfortunate people, unlike Atlas apparently.

Okay, here's the simple English version: When someone sells you something, you pay for it and you own it. When someone rents something to you, you pay for it but the he keeps owning it while you get nothing. Renting is bad because the person you rent from gains at your expense.

Hmm... a system of Judges, but to be fair it would have to have an equal amount of Land Owners and Potato Growers. Something tells me there will be a lot of unresolved cases.

Just because the Land Owner put the "Fruits" of his labors in owning Land instead of Growing Potatoes. Who should Lord over him and tell him how to use and what to do with his land.
You have turn the land owner into the Potato Grower, Whoever gets to tell the Potato Grower what to do with his potatoes should be able to tell the Land Owner what to do with his Land. If no one gets to tell the Potato Grower what to do with his Potatoes, then no one should tell the Land Owner how to use his land.



Nor should it, the Land owner if he chooses to not use it has as much right as the Potato Grower that chooses to throw the Potatoes away. They both Labored for their work, they both received something for their work, Who should tell them to what to do with what they earned.

It seems like you are against surplus. Am I committing a crime when I only eat half of my sandwich. Or should I throw it to the ground and let others (ants, etc...) eat it?

While I agree there is to much surplus that leads to waste, it is their surplus. A law that says only make what you need will have drastic consequences on a multitude of people. Especially since needs change day to day. And who gets to determine needs? Me or the Government?

Oh, BTW: In the U.S. what the Land Owner does with the Land determines the tax rate. If the Land Owner chooses to turn it into farm land, he is rewarded with the lowest tax rate. If he just wants to look at it, he pays the highest rate. *Exception: Churches don't pay tax on their land, but they still must buy it.

I think you misunderstood. Such disputes would come as a result of workers trying to use the same resource. Only a minority of people would ever respect a land claim wherein the claimant doesn't work the land himself.

Well, a land owner doesn't really earn anything by owning land. He directs his workers to earn it for him. And I think hungry people have every right to take food from someone who intends to let it rot.

I am not against surplus. I am against the abuse of surplus. Overeating, while others starve, is wrong because in doing so, you make food scarcer and thus more difficult to obtain. I don't think anyone would ever get in trouble for procuring too large of a sandwich. Whoever does find himself with excess sandwich should not mindlessly waste it by interring it in a landfill. If he can't fine anyone who wants a half eaten sandwich, perhaps someone might need it for compost to grow more food, or to feed pigs.

Putting someone in charge will not solve the problem of waste. He will pleasantly wallow in as much as he can while his subjects endure scarcity. As a better alternative, every individual should take it upon himself to not tolerate waste.

I know, but they give those breaks to the land owners and not to the people who actually work the land. Of course, I don't expect the state to do so. Even if they did, it would be to pacify the workers so as to prevent mutiny.

I am simply disappointed that the author of the original post has not been engaged in this discussion whatsoever.  :(

So basically you want to ban lending but not stricly ownership. Now that you have stated what you think is moral, I would like to understand why (and please, for the sake of understanding, keep the clear and understandable language going on).

This discussion is sooo far from the original post I am at a loss for anything to say.  :)

And vendors can easily adapt to having different e-currencies, because a website can automatically adjust prices and even automatically exchange from one e-currency to the one preferred by the vendor. I mean that the vendor could deal only in currency C, but accept currencies A, B, C and D. When someone goes to his/her website and pays in currency B, the system can automatically send that money to an exchange and receive payment in currency C. That way the vendor only deals with his preferred currency while still accepting a lot of them. In an unregulated economy the cost of the exchange would probably be minimal, there could even be vendor associations that exchange the currencies among themselves, a sort of vendor cooperative exchange.

PS: There goes my part to get the post back on track.

No, I want the majority of folks to not tolerate usury. Usurers might still exist, but they'd have trouble finding borrowers. It is immoral for the same reason that theft is immoral.

Others have rightfully complained about this tangent. Let's consolidate and continue at the "Do you like profit?" thread that Kiba started.

ok...



I’ve only known about bitcoin for a few weeks. It’s been fun learning so much as I read the forums.

The initial discussion was focused on the fixed number of bitcoins that will be issued. My initial post described three uses for money; Store of Value, Medium of Exchange, and Unit of Account. I’ve come to realize that governments manipulate money for a fourth use, Stabilizing Demand.

Money is so integral to the real economy that it becomes the major symptom/cause of downturns. During downturns overall economic activity is reduced and this is reflected/measured as lower money transactions. Central banks try to boost economic activity by boosting the supply of money in the hope of increasing money transactions.

In bitcoin the comparable measure is the total value of the transactions captured in the blocks. In a sense this is independent of the fixed supply of bitcoin. The 21 milloin bitcoins can roll over once per year causing β21M/year of economic activity or they can roll over 10 times per year causing β210M/year of economic activity. A level of transaction activity consistant with the level of the economy is healthy and is what stabilizing demand tries to do.

With a fixed supply of bitcoin we are saying that no one will try to stabilize demand by debasing the curency. For all I know this may be a good thing. As we’ve discussed, debasing the currency does not necessarily lead to inflation if the economy is growing, but on the other hand it may. This is because human management of the currency is never perfect and temptation will always be there to “prime the pump” a little too much.

I agree bitcoin may never be the exclusive currency in a modern economy. So maybe it doesn’t have to be a tool to stabilize economic activity and that’s ok.

I agree. One of the best features of bitcoins is the ability to transfer wealth in an easy convenient way. Setting up markets for buying and selling bitcoins in local currencies in every country will give us the biggest bang for the buck in terms of getting bitcoin established.

You could even automate a buy in one currency associated with a sell in another currency so the customer never owns bitcoins for more than a few minutes. Only local market agents would need to hold enough bitcoins to facilitate the trade for a fee and they would be strictly local actors in each country, not international players with contacts across the world.

The value here is in the ease of transfer and the ease of entry into the business in each country. No need to wire money in an international currency. No need to trust an agent in another country. No central clearing house, etc..

People tend to focus too much in the inflation is theft problem and leave asside the biggest problem of inflation: the discoordination that creates in the market that leads to inefficiencies, lower standard of living and boom and bust cycles.

You can have no increase in prices even if there is (monetary) inflation because of productivity increase. But that does not mean everything is fine and dandy. During the roaring 20's Fisher congratulated the Federal Reserve for how well they managed the money supply. There was no price increases in the CPI index. Keynes said in 1927 that they had now control over the economy and crsis were a thing of the past. On the opposed side, Mises and Hayek warned of a coming crisis. Mises even rejected a well payed job at a major bank and stayed in his low paying job as academic (his wife wasnt happy about it) because he said the banks were going bankrupt and he didnt want his name associated with it.

Then the 1929 crash arrived and developed into the Great Depression because of the interventionist policies of Hoover and FDR. And btw the bank Mises rejected did go bankrupt. What did Mises and Hayek saw or knew that Keynes and Fisher didnt? Why those two that are still today considered valid economists got it so wrong? Both Keynes and Fisher went bankrupt themselves in the Great Depression. Keynes came from a wealthy family so his parents came from England and rescued his mess. Fisher lost all of his family savings but was given a job at a elitist university so he could earn some money.

So again, the price index were flat under the Federal Reserve management during the roaring 20's. What did Mises and Hayek saw or knew that Fisher and Keynes didnt? Its simple. It does not matter if the price index is flat, (monetary) inflation can still cause changes in the relative price levels of the different goods in the market creating disbalances that produce inefficient outcomes and if continued for some time bring about a crisis as the only way to correct those inbalances. Fisher and Keynes focused so much in aggregates, analizing all the goods as if they were the same goods, that did not take into account the distortions inflation causes even when price index are flat.

As conclussion, inflation does finance the government and the banking sector at the expense of the rest, but so do taxes and people tend to accept them beter. The real problem with inflation is that distorsts the capital structure making the system less efficient, more wasteful and makes everybody poorer.

This, in my opinion is the very near future killer app. for bitcoin. A network of small to medium local exchange agents competing for a share of the international money transfer business.

Very Good Post, I learned something. Thanks.

While being Anti-Keynesian, I tend to try to find the fundamentals that drive a market, the resources. Sometimes I think people look at the Effect as the Cause, instead of finding the true Cause.