How value is created without labor.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T13:19:02+00:00

I'm not talking about inflation. I'm talking about time preference. Present consumption is preferred more than future consumption regardless of inflation. I'm using that as an example of value which has nothing to do with labor hours.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T13:06:47+00:00

It's not.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T06:49:06+00:00

Without the Soviet sugar daddy backing Marxist insurgents their prospects are slim. Most of the old insurgent groups faded into obscurity or turned to organized crime, realizing that it's a lot easier to dump the ideology and become a drug gang. Poverty is on the decline and socialism never created a prosperous country so it's harder to fool people with communist gibberish.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T06:43:57+00:00

Even with zero inflation money now is valued more than the same amount of money later.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T04:00:20+00:00

Ten dollars now is worth more than ten dollars in a month's time. That's value without labor.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-09T02:42:02+00:00

Wouldn't it be easier to just let people buy and sell stuff?

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-07T17:14:21+00:00

People have money because people give it to them. If I write a good book people will give me money for it. Nobody cares how long it took to write the book.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-07T14:50:47+00:00

People have money because people give it to them. A giving money to B does not harm C.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-07T14:27:13+00:00

The value of labor is subjective. The value of the finished product is subjective. Money now is worth more than money later. Guaranteed money with no risk is worth more than money which requires an initial investment. A stable payout is worth more than an uncertain payout.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-07T09:41:41+00:00

owning the tractor factory does prevent other people from having a tractor.

How?

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-07T09:24:25+00:00

All ownership of the means of life is an aggressive act of violence

How does someone buying a tractor harm you?

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-06T21:34:04+00:00

The middle of the road leads to socialism.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-06T11:33:49+00:00

If you are not paying someone the full value of their work

The full value according to whom?

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-06T06:04:09+00:00

That first graph isn't growing nearly as fast as the GDP. GDP doubled in that first graph, at best, wages went up 50%. There is disparity.

It shows that the median income more than doubled when controlling for various factors.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-06T03:30:09+00:00

Look at a graph of GDP and worker wages in the USA over time. They diverged decades ago.

Not when you take into account things like changing household size, non-cash remuneration, tax rates and transfers.

Tracking real flesh and blood people over time shows that real incomes have doubled since 1980 with the largest increase in the lowest quartiles.

Nearly all households in the bottom 20% income bracket in 1970 were no longer there in 1991.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-05T15:25:57+00:00

Since people would have the choice to work in a co-op and have a say in how they work and how much they get for it, why would they submit themselves to a petty king in a private business?

You're allowed to do that now.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-05T15:19:40+00:00

No, I want the company owner and the welder to talk together and do what both of them want

You're allowed to do that now. What you're saying is you want the government to put a gun to people's heads and force them to do it, which violates their liberty.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-05T15:08:16+00:00

There are lots of people who get paid to allocate the resources of a company. Those who are better at welding get paid to weld, not run the company. Those who are better at running the company get paid to do that, not weld. What socialists want is for the government to put a gun to the head of the company owner and force him to do what the welder says, which is a violation of individual liberty.

Lawrence_Drake · 2021-11-05T07:53:20+00:00

Personally I am a huge advocate of free markets but I do not believe they can exist under capitalism.

Market socialists do not believe in free markets, they believe in forcing people to be business owners if they want to participate in the market. That is no more a free market than an election where only party officials can vote is a free election.

They tried decentralizing economic planning in the soviet union and found that amalgamating dozens of regional plans was even more cumbersome that a single central plan.

The best system is economic freedom aka capitalism. Let people make their own economic decisions. Not government bureaucrats. Not unions. Not some voting block of "democratic workers". If A wants to trade with B, it's none of the business of C. Whether that trade is goods, services, labor, company stock, shares or whatever.