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It seems kind of wrong to me to see nations around the world with the most resources being the poorest.  I love capitalism but ... should national resources really be exploitable? To me it means it will lead to two things: environmentally destructive practices possibly. But also the siphoning of wealth from one country to another country.

I don't get your reasoning.       How exactly do you think this siphoning happens and why do you think nationalizing resources would change anything to it?

There is no sense in this sentences. Because phrase "I hate socialism but I like capitalism" sounds as "I hate  dollar but I like martini". This things has no actual conflicts and there is a huge possibility to coexistance in the same economy.

You should look into Georgism.

If a nations resources are nationalised, what is the difference? 
Who gains?
It seems to me all that happens is you create a closed shop for only the government's friends.

Much depend on how resources and richdom are distributed among people. If a land has a corrupted government, than nationalization will only lead to more wealth for the “elite” leaving the rest of the people in poverty.



Regards, Inge

all this discussion of markets vs socialism is often based on false dichotomies.

A nation is an economic player just like any other. They have to household with their resources, and in this day and age, they also have to compete and be "profitable". Sure, they have special privileges due to historical reasons, but nevertheless, countries like Venezuela are less powerful than most international cartels.

Still they own their territory after all, and can decide what to do with it. They can decide whether to sell resources out to these international cartels, or whether to administer them themselves. Just like a business that has to choose where to expand its domain and where to withdraw.

Isn't SOP that the raw resources are the property of the state but they lease the rights to exploit (often for next to nothing admittedly).

I completely agree with that. One of our local politician leader is trying to promote the nationalization of our resources since, like he said: "What nobody has made should be owned by everybody."

EVEN LAND? :D

And controlled by a privileged few.

Well yeah, where do you think the resources are? I don't know for other countries, but in Canada, even when you "own" a part of land, you only own the surface. If there's a gold mine under your house, any mining corporation can buy a mining claim for the gold mine under your house and own the underground of your land. If they need to dig, you need to get the fuck out, their private rights goes over yours.

If I have to choose, I prefer a lot having my land owned by a state corporation instead of a private corporation. At least, I can vote for the government controlling the state corporation.


Yeah sure, the administration will be made by a couple of persons. Like I said before, at least, I can vote for the government, but I can't for the private firms. Also, the profit made from the raw resources come back in our collective pockets, instead of going into the pockets of a few shareholders.

I don't like it.  It still gives favor to the guy with the most money.  I hate that guy.  His name is probably Steve.

I'll let myself remove from your question emotional and illusory stuff. The concepts of "nation" and "country" are illusory and are in complete contradiction with basic human rights. Your love / hate are emotional and not related to your question. What's left is this:


Now, I have a few questions.

What's "resources"? Like, I am not allowed to burn wood, coal, oil, uranium, build hydroelectric powerplants, dig for stone, copper, iron, eat animals or plants? Just because this might cause some damage to the environment? Ok. But I will die from starvation. And you won't have too much time to be happy for the environment, because you will die too.

Let's suppose you meant something else. Say, some resources, like oil, should belong to everybody, and everyone should have a vote on how to use them. Fine. Suppose you have that vote - you are a shareholder of Worldwide Oil, Inc. Where do you find oil? Where would your company get money to build an oil well? Are you willing to participate in shareholders' meetings? Who's going to pay employees? Are you really interested in working on this? If not, wouldn't it be better for you to sell your share to a person who knows what to do with it, and has the resources necessary to start the business, so that you could buy a share in a well-established company instead? Can shareholders of Worldwide Oil, Inc. decide for a split-up into American Oil, Inc., Asian Oil, Inc., and so on, to make it more manageable? You see where I am getting it. We might end up with something that is almost like what we have now.

I think the main problem is companies benefitting from resources and failing to pay the true cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)

For example producing plastic bottles to sell water the cost of the product doesnt reflect the damage it does to the environment.

Thanks so much for pointing this out.  I really wish socialist-minded people could understand that:  ownership is not a static process, it's dynamic.  If you give something to someone, he might very well not know what to do with it and then he will sell it to someone else.  In the end, stuff end up belonging to people who are the most willing to own them:  those who are willing to pay, notably.  This is true for resources and means of production.   Giving them to people on an equal basis would only lead to a unstable economic situation which would rapidly end up back to the current situation again, at the cost of having confiscated stuff initially just to eventually fail to change anything.

I'm a socialist minded person and I agree with what you say. But it's more like Monster Tent said


I have no problems with a company cutting some wood, transforming it and making awesome products. But I have certain problems with the same company clearing whole forest just because it's more efficient and "I paid for it". Or going into a country, pumping resources and getting out.

Last century, Americans company were coming in Canada, pumping iron and buying mining companies for cheap. With the same iron, they shipped it back into the US, made steel with it and sold it back to us at like 5x times the original price. I know "capitalist/freedom/etc", but this type of business doesn't create any plus-value. You just suck blood from a society and quit when there's nothing left. We were lucky, our government got stronger and somewhat stop that type of business, but other countries like a ton of them in Africa were not so lucky.

The whole pump-and-run that Americans are so good at can make money short-term. But in the long-term, it's only a take-all relationship where there's only one winner. Nationalization of resources doesn't prevent business from getting resources, its mostly to help the local society get a nice part of the profit and help control environmental damage.

Under true capitalism, in order to clear the whole forest, you have to buy the whole forest first. Then, in order to make further profit, you would have to either restore the whole forest, or buy another one. Kinda expensive, isn't it?

When a forest is owned by "the people", you just have to bribe "the people" (aka government), in order to chop it down. Much less expensive.

Politicians are cheap, compared to actually buying massive amounts of resources.

Often astoundingly so. In a recent scandal here, it turned out politicians were redirecting millions of taxpayer dollars for what amounted to chump change.

Ding ding ding!

The government has to create a corporation to nationalize the resources. It's a business like every other and is managed like any real business out there. It exist to make profit for its shareholders (in this case, the state) and will try to get the best deal possible for the resources instead of simply playing the politic game.

You can't simply lobby a politician anymore to get the resources, you need to close a deal with another business and buy massive amounts of resources for the right price. I don't care if the buyer has to pay more, I'm completely against social security for private businesses. Make money or die. Big corporations are always out there crying out to get bailed out, be subsidized or having laws changed. They are the biggest welfare leechers, always looking for taxpayer money to stay profitable. At least, by paying the right price for natural resources, they can't leech taxpayers anymore.

No.

What I find a lot of people who support these kind of socialistic or communist ideologies is that what they are supporting is thievery, either through stealth inflation or direct taxation, I'm all for spreading the wealth around, I'd even be for building roads etc. in inhospitable places so it would make peoples lives easier. What I can't stand though is people who use emotional blackmail and extortion to get their way.

All the time we hear about how it would be a disaster if we got rid of taxes but of course these arrogant people don't realise there is such a thing as charity which shows you how little they trust their fellow humans, if governments really do end up collapsing because of Bitcoin the first thing I'm going to do is donate to some hospitals :)

Charity doesn't work when there's discrimination from a stronger group toward a weaker group. It often transform into a collective mental masturbation between members of the strong group. Like how those native americans are so "lucky" that rich white english people build schools for them to brainwash them to the "good" culture. Or how the rich white english people are so generous by trying to make the french-canadians "evolve" by trying to assimilate them in every way possible.

It was the same thing with the black people back in the states. You're black? Oh, you're sooooo lucky young man, with my true american charitable spirit, I'll let you eat 2 times a day.

It's not that charity is bad, it's more that it's easily contaminated by discrimination. Charity is the act of choosing who gets the privilege and who is left behind. In my own society, we have another mentality, more of the type "no one left behind", that's may be why I don't like charity that much.

Think of it more like mutual aid associations. Get enough French-Canadians together, without Ottowa shoving it's nose in, and they can help each other out, assimilation be damned.

You know how you don't discriminate don't you? Mathematics and a brain OOOOOOO! :P It's like how I don't give to major charities because I know just how much they get tax free and how a lot of it goes to 'administration' costs, I got pretty pissed recently with people from charities who claimed on the radio that the 1 billion they were getting ( seriously 1 fucking billion and I think it was either in pound or euros ) was not enough to help the people in Syria long term.

Charity may have it's problems but they're far better and more single minded than a government who is far more likely to extort you for money and use a large percentage of that money to pay for their armies and equipment than anything genuinely useful to their people.

Edit: I just re-read my post and realised it's a bit daft since I wrote it while I was sleepy, while it's true you can choose not to discriminate by mathematics and brain, humans are discriminating by nature, sorry about that >_<

nah, my resources are mine. nation schmation.

Consider this. Japan was poorest country decades ago but they changed their internal politics and changed their way of transfer of technology. What they did is implemented science and made progress with that. Japan doesnt have resources but it has amazing techological progress and GDP of japan is amazing and its growing ( getting higher ). https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan%20gdp (https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan%20gdp)

But i agree with you. Globalization is bad. Rich countries get richer while poor get well.. Also globalization is a way to keep other countries occupied without the use of military power, just take a look at Germany now and some 70 years ago. Same thing only without mass murders, war and such....

Poorer countries get richer too. Working long hours in a factory may not be fun but slaving away in a field is no picnic either. It's something the first world went through a couple of hundred years ago and look where we are now.

Industrial revolution and progress after that when World wasnt owned by a company or multile companies that share interest only to gain more profit are 2 different things. Now you have companies that generate more money then entire countrie. Poor countries work for rich, thats the fact and that will never change. Thats why USA still has so many satellite states, draining reasurces from them ( oil, copper, gold... )

Corporatism is a different thing than globalization. Corporations are better placed to take advantage of globalization, it's true but that doesn't make globalization itself a bad thing.

Well there isnt much difference. many countries are runned by big corporations thus goal of that corporation is same as goal of entire countrie. thats the reason why some countries are occupied with or witout military presence. Globalization is bad, very bad since the only goal of globalization is to drain one country and fill pockets of rich countrie. Think like this. You have a big land, thousands oh acres rich with oil, mines...  but you dont have cash to start production. My country has cash so i go to you and tell you, Ok sir will you sell me, lease me or anything similar your land for 1billion $. You rub your hands thinking how good deal that was but in fact real value of your land is lets say 100billion $.

Globalization helps rich countries keep poor countries as subjects and its a nice way to leach their ppl giving them flase hope and left overs by filling own pocket. I gave you example of Germany in Europe.

Free & fair trade leaves both parties the richer.

The value of a good is what the market settles on. If you sell your land for 1 billion, that's what it's worth to you.

Such are the naive views of those who worship the free market.

Let me correct you: the value of a good is not what the market settles on. The market settles on what the knowledge between two parties have about a good and it's supply and renewability, their perceived individual projection of their need for the good in the future and the unique economic and often peculiar situations both parties find themselves in. Their knowledge is also almost certainly devoid or significantly lacking in the ramifications of the consumption of that good, both in terms of depletion and effects on the world, and furthermore, even if not lacking, often indifferent. Anyone who can think clearly can see that.

Since you clearly cannot see that, I categorize you as someone who can't think clearly on the subject, given your general worship of the free market.

That's a rather ignorant statement on your part.  No added value?  Try building something out of iron ore.  As it comes out of the ground, it's rather useless. Refining ore into steel is an energy-intensive process.  Try telling me with a straight face that there's no value in that.

Again worng. there is no fair trade when one side is getting richer and one losing money.

Well again no, value of something has always been how someone is prepaird to pay. You can value your car to 50k $$$ but its worth how much is someone willing to pay. Also no, i'm richer on paper but in fact i lost 99billion and my country lost even also, while company and that country is getting richer. Also when you are occupied you cant say no, even if that occupation is not military. Thus you have Giffen goods such as Oil where price is rising and demand is rising also. And who has oil, well satellite states owned by USA.

Well you are ignoring the fact that phase products arent calcualted into GDP. You cant calculate iron ore 2x 3x 4x or even more. You can opnly calcualte it 1 time and you will chose when. So a company that buying iron ore and making ingots is contributing to GDP more then a miner mining that iron ore. You cant add value of iron ore and iron ingots. When you use that iron to make cars, bridges, building then its a new process thus it is calculated gain, Its not cumulative number...

Fortunately, I categorize you as someone who's categorizations have no significance so, meh...

I wouldn't expect you to be able to effectively categorize me given your starry eyed views of markets.

You're clearly lacking some information in your analysis, as are market participants.

If you consider that every time you sell something and someone is able to sell it for more that you lost something, you are calculating things wrong and in for a disappointing life. Why would anyone wish to purchase your labor if they were not able to profit off of it somehow?

Why do people buy at market tops?

We are not talking about selling something. If you have a problem to understand then well... Im talking about exploiting country rich in reasurces and without cash to start production by the country with large pockets. Who is talking about use of labor and making money that way. Large companies are only interested in making cash/money and thats the reason why are they moving entire facotries to a country that has low wages, we are talking about a company that wants to earn 10$ for every 1$ invested.  Profit is Ok, but profit made by exploting other countries is not. Thats the reason why globalization is bad. EU market is a prof of that. Small countries cant compete with big countries

I think you'd like what Herman Daly says: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941

Will read it whn i get back home. Need to take GF to dinner :(

Does someone who owns property have a right to the air over their property? Can they charge people to breathe it? could they somehow harvest it and create a permanent oxygen vacuum so nothing alive could reside in it? do they have a right to airspace over their property? If they don't own the oxygen over their property why do they own the precious metals or oil below it? do they own the magma really really below it? At what point does that stop? 100 feet? The radius of the earth?



 

"Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad caelum et ad inferos"

Maybe I was not clear.

If you take the whole process (mining iron, processing it, selling it), you create value, I agree with that. But to get this value, you have a part of cost and a part of profit. The problem in the situation I exposed is that the biggest part of the cost was on our shoulders and the biggest part of the profit was in the pockets of the Americans. By cost, I'm talking about health cost like injuries or illnesses due to the mining part that need to be assumed by the society. I'm also talking about environmental damage and the fact that these resources are non-renewable.

Miners were treated like shit back in the days. It wasn't until they started to fight back and unionized themselves that the situation changed for the best. Today, we have knowledge, expertise and technology to do the same job a lot more efficiently.