Seriously, what is the point of me adressing these posts of yours when you refuse to actually engage? I post detailed descriptions of my position, and all that you do is respond with single line, hit-and-run posts that fail to adress any points raised.
When you show some willingness to respond with better then single line posts I will take the effort to adress your queries. Until then it’s just a distraction.
It was actually an earnest question, but no, you’re right, I should go.
Wow.
You couldn’t have chosen a poorer example to illustrate your point.
What’s missing from your assessment is the fact that the price of a resource may not rise along a curve that allows time for market reaction to ease off while a resource remains. When the last cod dies, the price of cod products will no doubt rise exponentially. The demand will, because after a time it must, subside. Even though people might still want cod, the equilibrium point will dictate a cod population of zero. What is the guarantee in capitalist thinking that the equilibrium will favor a non-zero population prior to the moment of the inability of the cod to recover? I say there is none.
The cod population in the North Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed in the 1990s. The demand is still quite high, as can be seen in the fact that much cod is being fished in a legally questionable manner after a 1994 moratorium on fishing the Grand Banks and other areas was instated. If there were reduced demand as you describe due to scarcity causing high prices, such action would not be attractive.
The purpose of the moratorium (first put in place by Canada on its portion of the Grand Banks) was to allow the cod stocks to replenish. Fifteen years later, the population has still not recovered, mostly due to people flouting the moratorium in order to obey market forces.
Blake, you are making no sense. Let’s try a little definition of terms.
Right: A just or legal claim or title.
There are other definitions, but this is the one relevant to economics.
Service: Employment in duties or work for another.
This inherently involves the exchange of rights. A contract for services is nothing but a promise to exchange a claim for money for a claim for performance of labour.
I hope you have no problems with the above, else we have nothing more to discuss.
Now, assuming you agree, let’s analyse the “right to freedom of speech” as a service. Summed up in one acronym, WTF. Exchanging a claim for money (in common terms, money) for… what? Performance? The right to freedom of speech is not a one time performance of labour, it is an legally enforceable claim that a person has in order that his or her speech not be restricted by the government. If he is sued for doing so, he can use this right as a defence.
Are you saying that it is possible to transfer this right away, such that a person cannot raise “freedom of speech” as a defence? News to me. Radical Muslims may want to look into this.
Again, by putting a false value on it by determining what the market WOULD HAVE paid for it (payment for armies, political parties and whatnot) had it been transferrable, is not the same as determining what the market says the value should be. It may well come up with a value, but that value can never be realised. If everyone has no money, then it matters not if the bread is $1 or $1000, or infinite. It can never be bought anyway. It may have a nominal value attributed through the price of the ingredients, and the price of labour, but that value is irrelevant. It may as well not exist in economics, because an exchange will never take place.
What then is a contract for hairdressing? A contract for services, no doubt. But what exactly is it? A promise to exchange the claim to money (“money”) for a claim to performance of labour. NOT the right to a person’s labour; that right is not transferrable. You cannot buy the right to decide how a person should labour; there will never be a day in court where the judge will say “You, defendant, must perform the labour as specified. You cannot choose to break the contract and pay damages”.
Why is this important? Because the “right to labour” refers to the claim that you have to decide on your labour, the right to produce or not to produce, or to produce what you want. Because once, in the history of the US and in some parts of the world today, the “right to labour” was transferrable.
It’s called slavery.
As I understand it, there are several reasons for the decline of the population. One is that no one owns the cod - it’s fished out of international waters. So there’s no incentive to conserve the cod population. If you don’t fish it, someone else will come allong and fish it. The same problem occured with Elephant ivory and Rhinocerous horns. So from that standpoint, you’re right that this isn’t a good example.
But the other issue is overfishing caused by the subsidization of fishermen in Atlantic Canada and elsewhere. Absent government meddling in the fishing industry, we would have far fewer fishermen today, and therefore the price of scarce fish would be higher, limiting demand.
I was using cod fishing as an example of how the scarcity of a resource drives up the price and limits demand. Even if the resource costs no more to produce. Taking the earlier example of exotic hardwoods - Even if the marginal cost of cutting down the last hardwood tree is no greater than cutting down the first one, the price of hardwood does not stay the same until the last tree is gone. In fact, exotic hardwoods have been skyrocketing in price, which limits its use to expensive products or find detailing. You don’t see a lot of Cocobolo wood flooring, for example. But you might find cocobolo inlays in a $500 pool cue.
Another example of this would be the rise in manufactured lumber as decent stocks of large trees became more scarce. So now we use more younger, tree-farm trees, and press them into manufactured lumber. My house has manufactured lumber in the trusses, the floors, the siding, and pretty much everywhere else except for the 2 x 4 framing, because 2 x 4’s are still small enough that we can use tree-farm logs to make them. Fifty years ago, most structural beams in a house were made from solid wood. Today, they are generally laminated beams or composite I beams.
There is a general problem of management of common goods, especially when commercial interests are given the right to exploit them for profit. The answer isn’t to turn away from capitalism, but to find ways to leverage capitalism. You’ll note that even though we kill billions of cows a year, there are still lots of cows. But when Buffalo roamed free, we hunted them almost to extinction. The difference is that no one owned the Buffalo. Buffalo herds regrew when people began owning them. That allowed the market to operate.
Sam, your solution to “patch” capitalism by assigning rights (in your example, I assume you mean to “commoditise” buffalo somehow, perhaps by giving ownership rights to people who caught and branded them) itself is flawed, because the commoditisation itself is artificial. There will always be questions like “who gets the rights” and “what are the extent of those rights”. Even before these questions, you must consider the fact that the buffalo owned is not the same as the buffalo free.
Even after all those questions, you have the problem of economic “value”. Capitialism assumes the “value” of something is what a person is willing and able to pay for it. Efficiency is determined when value so measured when aggregated across society is maximised, i.e. the market has resulted in all the exchanges being made such that the person who values the good the most owns it.
But this does not take into account the relative wealth of each person. Say I am a museum. I have a painting, and I am willing to sell it at $10,000. A multibillionaire decides that he fancies the painting, and buys it, to be placed in his attic and never seen again. Economic efficiency, and thus capitalism, would say that that was the most efficient transaction possible. But this does not take into account the number of people that would have enjoyed said painting. It does not take into account the social wealth, as opposed to economic wealth.
Take then the example of a polluting factory. The factory does not bear the costs of its pollution, these are bourne by the surrounding homesteads. They do not have the money to prevent the factory from polluting, and so they suffer stained laundry, bad health, and a lousy view. You solution would be to assign “clean air” rights to the citizens. Ah! Now the factory has to either stop polluting, or to purchase the rights from the citizens, and capitalism can work it’s magic, either by compensating the citizens or by forcing the factory to move.
But wait. What if one citizen decides to act irrationally, perhaps because he values his nice view more than whatever the factory can pay him? He resists with all his might, and does not assign his right to clean air, and the factory has no choice but spend the money to clean up their emissions, or to move. This imposes costs on the factory, and prevents the other citizens from their efficient transfer of rights, because they don’t quite like the view that much. The market then fails again, because one person is unwilling to take the rational decision, or rather, you can say that he does not internalise all the costs that his decision incurs. To the extent that it does, he does not care, because he has quite enough money thankyouverymuch. He is not acting in a wealth maximising way, because he doesn’t want to.
You say then, aha, but then, that was a wrong choice of law, that is all. If we can fully internalise his costs, then he would have made the efficient choice! To which I say, even if the costs were fully internalised, he could still make the irrational decision, and not give up his right. After all, he is holding that right, so he gets to set the price. And if he doesn’t get the price he sets, he is very willing to sit on the status quo, as he cannot possibly lose anything. In addition, this ignores all the transaction costs involved in ensuring that all the costs are internalised.
You then say, aha! We are giving the rights to the wrong person, then. Perhaps we should give the right to the factory to pollute instead, and the citizens can choose to purchase that right, and thus ensure that wealth is maximised, by creating a market situation where the value of clean air and a good view is accurately determined. Surely the factory will not be irrational. Then, again, you have the issue of transaction costs. In order for the citizens to come to an agreement, they will have to meet. In meeting, they will incur costs, certainly at least that of time spent. This is aggregated accross the entire affected population. If the costs are too great, then they may not even meet at all, and so they never are able to purchase this right to pollute. How can we assign a value, in this case? Where the transaction costs are too high, we cannot be economically efficient.
You say then, aha! But then you are speaking only of rights! We can simply implement regulations, and that will be the end of things.
Indeed. But then, that is not capitalism any more, is it?
[QUOTE=mazinger_z]
This much more a product of culture and upbringing that it is of learned behavior when ascertaining how to efficiently allocate resources.
What does it matter what it’s a product of? Under the capitalist system, a nation that takes full advantage of ALL its citizens’ abilities will do better than one that doesn’t, all other things being equal.
Yeah, but it we were organized to take full advantage of the skill of immigrants with education, maybe we’d be a wealthier society. Except in that vital grass-mowing area.
Maybe some intensive training in spoken and written English, and a referesher course or two in how pharma is done in the US is the solution here, instead of 12 years of mopping floors. Just a thought.
We can’t read minds, that’s why we have schools and tests and so forth. But they aren’t particularly great metrics. A lot of talent gets wasted. Look at all the people who study X and then go on to do Y in their lives. Any society that finds a less wasteful way of using its people beat us. It’s as simple as that.
That’s what I’m getting at. The Mexican pharmacist I knew didn’t even have that much of a language barrier. She had a strong accent but spoke English better than a lot of native speakers I’ve encountered. And yet, we’ve decided that here in the US, her skills and knowledge of pharmacy are worth exactly as much as that of a high school graduate - which is to say, nothing. I don’t expect her to be allowed to jump right into pharmacy without some amount of retraining to US standards, but it makes no sense to force her to retrain completely from scratch, as if she were fresh out of high school.
That said, I knew her nearly a decade ago, so it’s possible that she has since gone through the hoops.
I’m hard pressed to think of HOW a rival society is going to figure this out…and I’m guessing by your reply that you have no idea either. You can continue to deny it, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it again, but short of the ability to read minds (or do some wizbang high tech magic that will be able to read a person and sort them into what they would be both best at, make them happy and be what society needs) The Market IS the best way of utilizing peoples talent. Its not optimally efficient and its the worst possible system out there…except for all the others ever tried.
I think where you are misunderstanding Blake is that you don’t seem to realize that a right has an inate cost to society. To put it another way…what does having Freedom of Speech cost society to maintain it? This can be in either monetary or non-monetary terms of course…but there is always a cost. And its not a cost that all societies are prepared to pay…not even all ‘capitalist’ nations. Even we have curtailed it (think Civil War) to a certain degree in the past when the cost was too high…or when we THOUGHT it MIGHT be too high.
If you look at all the rights in this way I think you will get where he’s going with his arguements.
(hopefully I haven’t misrepresented Blake…if so I apologize).
-XT
A right has an innate cost to society - fine. But that is neither here nor there in capitalism. Capitalism is the use of markets to determine the most efficient distribution of resources, and to quantify these resources, we use the artificial construct of rights, enforced by the government.
By definition, where there is no market, there is no capitalism. By definition, where there are no transferrable rights, there can be no market.
To illustrate, can you imagine a market of, say, the rights in the Bill of Rights. It would be the most efficient, yes, in that the rights would end up in the hands of those who could most make use of it, assuming perfect market conditions. But clearly, we cannot assign away our right to live, or to enslave ourselves. There is no possibility of a market in those rights. How can you then apply capitalistic principles to these assets, these resources that we have?
I would argue that the reason why we do not use capitalistic principles for these rights is because for these things, capitalistic principles are seen to be inherently immoral. It is immoral to enslave, for the government to deprive without compensation (debatable), and whatnot.
You might suggest that these rights are made untransferrable because they are given to the people who will already make the best use of them, either because
Whatever. It doesn’t matter - you are assuming that this is the most economically efficient (if that is indeed your aim), WITHOUT resorting to the use of the market. That is, simply put, not capitalism. If indeed was the aim of making these rights unalienable in the first place (I highly doubt so)
Admittedly, I’ve lost focus on whatever it is you are arguing about. That’s my fault. However, I think the above quoted this is the crux of your argument. My apologies if I misinterpreted you.
Are you saying that there really is no capitalism w/out government rights artificially created and enforced by the government? I’ll leave out political science from this discussion b/c that would be a huge discourse that would probably take up my already limited weekend. However, I will argue that black markets do exist and they operate completely without government backing. Black markets operate way more efficiently than any command economy especially as the scale of the operation increases. Government rights, free democracy, and strong property rights are what cause optimizes captialism. Short of any black box technology/magic that can ascertain people’s individual rational, valuation expectations, and utility (among other things), there will be no better system.
My point is that the existence of adults doing burger doodle/sales counter jobs which require some tiny fraction of their mental and physical powers (say, 10 percent) is that we are wasting the other 90 percent, and that therefore there is so much excess capacity that we are wasting, sooner or later someone’s gonna figure out how to use it. Just because you and I can’t figure out how to do it while bullshitting on a message board doesn’t mean that the problem is insoluble or that it requires super science from the future to solve. I mean, I think we’re both smarter than the average bear, but we’re not putting a whole lot into it compared to, say, a team of scientists with t hat as their mission.
Actually, there is a market (more or less) in things like free speech.
Take an example immediately to hand - the SDMB. The benefits of joining the SDMB are, among other things, the ability to post, use the search engine, see your username, and so on. The costs of joining are $14.95, and the agreement to abide by the rules. One rule is that you may not call another Doper a “troll”*.
Therefore, to a limited extent, there is a market in this particular free speech right. It is used as partial payment for the privilege of posting on the SDMB.
Rights, in other words, can be considered in setting the opportunity cost of a given transaction.
I would deny that slavery and whatnot are capitalistic principles.
I think I see your point that certain rights are unassignable. You cannot sell your organs, you cannot prostitute yourself in most jurisidictions, etc. But that is not necessarily part of capitalism, and the decision to put some rights out of bounds for use as currency does not mean that capitalistic principles do not apply.
Consider, for instance, laws against organ trafficking. I have a right to my bodily integrity that is so important that my society has decided that I cannot sell that right on the open market.
I could do so nevertheless. If there were a genuine market (some dying millionaire needs my kidney, he flies me to China and they do the operation there), I could agree to sell my kidney even if it contravenes the laws in the US. But that can be considered part of the opportunity cost of selling my kidney. Maybe I take the risk of going to prison if I get caught, or I have to spend the rest of my life in the Bahamas spending the million I got for my kidney. But that just means that the value of my kidney, under capitalism, is a million dollars and the risk of prison. The law against selling my organs has changed the price, it has not shown that capitalism cannot be used to determine the price of my right to my kidney.
Regards,
Shodan
*I am not calling you or anyone else a troll.
With regards to the black market situation, without enforcable “rights”, you can have no capitalism. The reason for this is due to the fact that without “rights”, I have as much claim over any resource as much as you do. You cannot give me “your” book for “my” apple, because it is not “your” book, and it is not “my” apple. It is simply what I am holding at the moment, and what you are holding at the moment.
If you should hit me over the head and steal the apple, then overall economic wealth may or may not be maximised. Consider.
Apple: Worth $2 to me, $5 to you.
Book: Worth $5 to me, $2 to you.
I have the apple, you have the book. Your wealth is $2, mine is $2. Total wealth $4
Under capitalism, wealth maximisation is reached because we agree to exchange the apple for the book. As it stands, each of us will then have something worth $5. Therefore, the total wealth is now $10. Therefore, capitalism has resulted in a wealth maximisation.
But if there were no rights, I don’t actually “have” $2. And neither do you. You may choose to relieve me of my apple at any time, and if I am too weak to resist, then you will have $2 + $5 (nominal value, because there can not really be any exchange), and total wealth is $7. This, obviously, is not maximal wealth, as we have established, is $10.
This is why property rights are generally considered to be a basis for rational society, and not simple the “gunman situation writ large”.
Now, to consider the effectiveness of capitalism in society.
I am not arguing that capitalism cannot be used. Clearly, it has resulted in the advance and great creation of wealth. However, we need to consider the assumptions that capitalism makes, to determine what KIND of markets it will cause to maximise economic wealth.
Example:
High transaction costs. I have an apple, you have a book. As in the example above, the optimal solution is for us to exchange our goods, and total wealth will be $10, an increase of $6.
However, if transaction costs are say $7 (say I have to call you, take a taxi to your place, whatever), then I will not seek you out, and we will remain at $4. However, we have already shown that this is not maximised economic wealth.
Example:
Consumer rights. There is imperfect knowledge, and an imbalance in bargaining position, therefore consumers will not be able to get a good a “deal” as the would have gotten if they had bargained for the good. If such bargaining were to take place, the transaction costs would be overwhelming, and result in less than maximal economic wealth. The law therefore steps in, and assumes that if the consumers could bargain, this would be what they would bargain for.
Let’s then assume you are a smart consumer. If you could deal with McDonalds, and tell them that they could heat their coffee as hot as they wanted, and you would be careful and not sue them, then perhaps they would save $1 per cup (for ease of numbers sake). This savings would presumably be split between the two of you, and wealth is maximised by cutting unecessary costs.
However, you are not allowed to transfer your rights. This is the crux of my argument - maximal economic wealth is NOT always the aim! Sometimes, the aim is simply to protect the consumer. To do the “right” thing. The law in this case steps in and MANDATES a suboptimal solution, because either the
Again, I’m not saying that capitalism is wrong, or bunk, or whatever. It is effective in the sense that if its assumptions are true, or close to true, then it forms a very effective way of maximising economic wealth (if that is your goal). It cannot, however, be applied to everything. Certainly, if it were applied to everything, then I would not want to live there. Clearly, it is not “the only game in town”.
Correct, but only to the sense that you are dealing with different rights from the “Right to Freedom of Speech”. What you are dealing with is contractual rights, and what you are giving up is not your freedom of speech. You cannot give up your freedom of speech. It is impossible to sell this right.
An example. You contract with me to sell me your freedom of speech, for say, $1m. The very next day, you turn around and picket the White House. I demand that you stop. You do not comply. We go to court.
What will happen? The court will simply say that the contract was void, because the right to freedom of speech is unalienable. Of course, my payment of $1m to you would then return to me in restitution, but that is another matter.
Now we look at the example of the SDMB. What the SDMB is contracting with you for is not your right to freedom of speech, but rather to your “service”, that being forbearing from calling anyone a troll. Should you break this service, they can enforce the contract against you, probably in the form of damages. But what they cannot do is to force you, through an injunction, to say or not say anything! By saying or not saying anything, you may breach a contract, but you always have the right to break a contract - simply pay damages.
Contrast this with a case where I buy a newspaper. Once I give the newspaperman my money, and take the newspaper, I now own the right (title) to the newspaper. The newspaper is now “mine”. If the newspaperman should then take back the newspaper from me, I should say “Give me back MY newspaper”, and he must acquiesce. If he should not, then I would seek an injunction for my newspaper.
I hope it is clearer why a right to the performance of a service is different from owning the right in labour itself, and why it is different from having title to goods. You can never say “I own this service”, but rather “I am owed this service”.
[/quote]
I would deny that slavery and whatnot are capitalistic principles.
[quote]
The are not capitalistic principles per se, but they will be the result if you can assign your right to labour. Essentially, selling yourself. Clearly, this may result in greater economic wealth.
Example.
I am a great writer. Say, my name is Pratchett. The market will buy as many books as I will write. The (magically known) value of my life’s work will be $1m.
Pratchett, however, would much rather prefer to be a burger flipper. If he does so, his life’s work is valued at $1000.
Now, clearly, total economic wealth would be maximised if we could somehow force Pratchett to write. How can we do this? We simply assign the right to his labour to someone else. Now, he will be either forced to work as a writer, to earn enough money to purchase his freedom.
Another simpler example. If your life’s work was worth $1000 to you, and I offer you $2000 for your right to labour, then clearly, it would be economically maximising for you to sell your right to labour to me, and economic wealth would be maximised.
I don’t see the problem here. When you can transfer a right, a market will arise, and this will result in the right being transferred. The transfer of the right to your labour is called slavery. Ergo, if you cound transfer the right to your labour, there would be slavery.
On the contrary, I do not argue that capitalism cannot be used to determine the price of anything, PROVIDED that that thing can be transferred. If it can be transferred (in your case, your kidney), then of course a market will develop, and a economic price be found.
I am saying, however, that some rights are made untransferrable because
Therefore, capitalism works when it’s assumptions are fulfilled. In the real world, this is not so, and the most obvious result is simply to deny a market from forming. This REQUIRES that capitalism not be the “only game in town”.
In addition to everything I’ve said, I also do not think that the maximisation of economic wealth is the same as a “good society”, or is even desireable in some circumstances. But I am assuming you think so.
1st-world countries will continue with capitalism; after all, we’re the ones who benefit from it. 3rd world countries will continue to attempt to socialize various industries to free them from foreign influence and exploitation.
I don’t think your example is correct. It is perfectly possible to sell your right of free speech (I don’t see your distinction between freedom of speech as a contractual right and as a right in general).
And I don’t think the court would reject a contract simply because it includes clauses limiting the right of contractees to exercise free speech. My SDMB example seems to be pretty much the same sort of contract as your picketing one. And I bet the contract under which I could be banned for calling someone a troll - even if such speech were perfectly legal under other circumstances - would be entirely enforceable. As the mods mention often, free speech does not apply on a private messageboard. My freedom of speech is only inalienable under the Constitution as regards the government. And even there, certain people can be deprived of their free speech rights - convicts, lobbyists, government employees, and so on.
What do you think are the relevant distinctions between my SDMB example and your protest one? Why do you think that free speech can be “sold” in the one case, but not the other?
Regards,
Shodan
The SDMB is a means of access to facilitate the distribution of speech in certain ways. They are not selling the right to limited speech, they are selling access to a resource. The mechanism of this delivery is acknoweldged to be under control of the Chicago Reader. Denial of full rights of speech in this venue does not preclude the expression of ideas by other means. It is not dissimilar to how the FCC governs the airwaves, except that the control the FCC has in entirely through social contract rather than any real modicum physical control.
The protest example purports to show a situation in which someone restricts ALL means of expression by paying for that control. I would call that person a sucker.