Bill

> No system of exploitation, including capitalism, has ever been
created
> by the action of a free market. Capitalism was founded on an act of
> robbery as massive as feudalism. It has been sustained to the
present
> by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege,
> without which its survival is unimaginable.
>
> The current structure of capital ownership and organization of
> production in our so-called "market" economy, reflects coercive
state
> intervention prior to and extraneous to the market. From the outset
of
> the industrial revolution, what is nostalgically called
> "laissez-faire" was in fact a system of continuing state
intervention
> to subsidize accumulation, guarantee privilege, and maintain work
> discipline.


As I said you cannot separate a market economy and the state so your
sepculations are utterly superfluous.  And it is simply not true that
exploitation is extraneous to a free market .  The sale of labour
power in exchange for a wage or salary in a so called free market
entails a process of exploitation - the value of  the product of
labour power exceeding the value of the wage or salary received.
This is an unavoidable aspect of market competition.  If a business
doesnt make a profit it goes under.  QED

Robin

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@...> wrote:
>
>
> As I said you cannot separate a market economy and the state so your
> sepculations are utterly superfluous.  And it is simply not true that
> exploitation is extraneous to a free market .  The sale of labour
> power in exchange for a wage or salary in a so called free market
> entails a process of exploitation - the value of  the product of
> labour power exceeding the value of the wage or salary received.
> This is an unavoidable aspect of market competition.  If a business
> doesnt make a profit it goes under.  QED

Robin,

capitalists use the state to protect profits via privilege granting,
direct subsidies and licensing requirements...all of which serve to
decrease competition.

without those protections market competition will drive price to cost.

what you described as "profits" are many times just a misunderstanding
of the nature and apportionment of economic rent (return on land)
wages (return on labor) and economic interest (return on capital).

I can show you a company with zero profits on paper where the owner's
"pay" is included in overhead on a balance sheet or as a worker-owners
as labor.

in the system I propose there would be no involuntary labor to sell
because everyone would receive a guaranteed basic income from the
private enclosure of the natural and social commons which we all have
an individual equal access opportunity right to use.

bg

Bill:

Because the state doesn't automatically support all of capitalism's
ventures--only those that directly control the state.

Byron
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: BGreen
   To: worldincommon@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 8:05 PM
   Subject: [worldincommon] Re: political, economic, and ideological
capitalism...


   --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "bddanel" <bddanel@...> wrote:
   >
   > Bill G:
   >
   > If you agree again surely you must know that the state and the
   > capitalist system cannot be separated in its control or function.

   Byron,

   if that were true then how do you explain the street corner drug dealer?

   bg





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bill

>
> capitalists use the state to protect profits via privilege granting,
> direct subsidies and licensing requirements...all of which serve to
> decrease competition.
>
> without those protections market competition will drive price to
cost.
>
> what you described as "profits" are many times just a
misunderstanding
> of the nature and apportionment of economic rent (return on land)
> wages (return on labor) and economic interest (return on capital).
>
> I can show you a company with zero profits on paper where the
owner's
> "pay" is included in overhead on a balance sheet or as a worker-
owners
> as labor.
>
> in the system I propose there would be no involuntary labor to sell
> because everyone would receive a guaranteed basic income from the
> private enclosure of the natural and social commons which we all
have
> an individual equal access opportunity right to use.



I disagree completely.  What you are proposing is just a way of
disguising profit - they did something similar in state capitalist
Russia disguising profit in the form of bloated salaries for a tiny
few.  Its a bureacratic sleight of hand

But never mind that for now.  I asked you this before but I dont
recall you giving an answer - how are you going to get rid of the
state which I contend is inseparable from a market economy?  And
equally importantly, how are you proposing to get from where we are
today to your idealistic vision of a free market  where "everyone
would receive a guaranteed basic income from the private enclosure of
the natural and social commons which we all have an individual equal
access opportunity right to use" (though not if it is privatised
surely).

In short , how are you going to bring about the equality which you
say a free market would ensure from a situation of massive inequality
such as pertains today?  Are you going to use the state to forcibly
redistribute capital or are you going to rely on the normal "market
mechanisms" to bring this about?  Because I can tell you in either
case you dont stand a snowflake's chance in hell of getting to where
your wishful thinking would want to take you.  So how are you going
to do it?  Thats my question.  If you can't answer that then it is
pointless dealing with any of the other claims you make becuase what
you are proposing is a complete non-starter

Robin

Hey BG and All;

   BG wrote:
"But genuine markets have a value for the libertarian left, and we
shouldn't concede the term to our enemies. In fact, capitalism--a
system of power in which ownership and control are divorced from
labor--could not survive in a free market. As a mutualist anarchist, I
believe that expropriation of surplus value--i.e., capitalism--cannot
occur without state coercion to maintain the privilege of usurer,
landlord, and capitalist. It was for this reason that the free market
anarchist Benjamin Tucker--from whom right-libertarians selectively
borrow--regarded himself as a libertarian socialist."

   Please define for me what you consider a 'genuine market' is and
also what do you mean by a 'free market'?

   Would there be exchange value or use value in these markets or
both?

   Would there be surplus value and how would this be determined
and/or calculated?

   I'm just trying to understand your position better and hope you
don't mind my asking these questions bg. I've sort'a jumped into
this thread prior to my reading every postings, so sorry if you've
already answered these before.

   Cheers, Rebecca

Hey BG and All;

   Sorry bg, but just one more question;

   Would labor be for sale on this market?


   Cheers, Rebecca

Hey Bg and All;

BG Wrote:
"in the system I propose there would be no involuntary labor to sell
because everyone would receive a guaranteed basic income from the
private enclosure of the natural and social commons which we all have
an individual equal access opportunity right to use."

   In your system there would then be those in society with the
ability to gain more than another? Would this produced within
society class divided interests? How would your system handle
those who are more than willing to work at a better paying level
than the standard handout but just are incapable of doing so?

   In other words, how would your system calculate the motivated
'willingness' of a person to contribute or voluntarily sell their
labor, if it were indeed possible for them to actually perform
such labor? Does your system answer with something like... Oh,
we're so sorry, but since you can't perform the labor, you'll
be stuck on the doles without the possibility of gaining anything
more ever." or ... "Sorry, but you'll never be able to afford
a BMW because you're a cripple and can't sell your labor at
that higher price on the market."

   I'm not being smart-ass here with you bg, even though it may
seem like I am. I'm sincerely asking, what I believe are, the
tough questions of the system you have in mind because in the
system I advocate for society has answers to such situations.
Answers which do not inflict a loss of self worth; doesn't deny
free access to any product being produced; won't affect the
quality of one's life, doesn't diminish a person's self esteem,
etc. due to some lucky draw of the genetic pool lottery.

   Maybe your system has a way of dealing with such things, and
that's what I'm trying to find out from you rather than simply
being just a smart-ass.. That is truly not my intention. I'd
like to know if your system addresses such issues?

   Thanks and Cheers, Rebecca

Byron: the state and the capitalist system cannot be separated in its
control or function.

Bill G.:

if that were true then how do you explain the street corner drug
dealer?

dave s. answers:

actually this provides a classic example of the interplay between the
state and capitalism.

Which drug would you like to discuss?  Opium has a rich history.

Cocaine?  Heroin?  Marijuana?

Each of these are merely the medium through which labor is exploited.

The corner drug deal is an indispensable link in the system, actually
systems, as indispensable as the corner convenient store is to sell
lottery tickets, cigarettes and beer.

Do you think that it is coincidence that state action in supposedly
trying to curb these drugs has the effect of raising the street
prices way way above the value required to produce them?

Of course the interests of competing capitalist and capitalist
sectors show up also in competing policies of the state, so for
example with marijuana, it often competes on the market with other
drugs, mainly manufactured cigarettes.  If the capitalist and the
state could figure out how to derive profits using this drug in such
a manner that they did not cut into the profits of manufactured
cigarettes, they would be on the shelves of every convenience store
in America.

Your opposition to the state comes from a capitalist perspective.
That the capitalists have to pay the states upkeep.  Not unlike
capitalists opposition to high wages for workers.  They moan about
it, and in some cases put forth fantastic schemes to cloak
capitalism's basic complicity with the state - "Oh we would do
without that damned state and those politicians always looking for a
hand out if we could" - but they would never do without the basic
function of the state which is to preserve ruling class ownership of
the means of wealth production, i.e. capitalist extraction of surplus
value from the workers.

Your supposed opposition to the state nevr goes that far, does it
Bill?  Curious, isn't it?

dave








--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "bddanel" <bddanel@> wrote:
> >
> > Bill G:
> >
> > If you agree again surely you must know that the state and the
> > capitalist system cannot be separated in its control or function.
>
> Byron,
>
> if that were true then how do you explain the street corner drug
dealer?
>
> bg
>

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "foolingu11" <foolingu11@...> wrote:
>
> Hey BG and All;
>
>   Sorry bg, but just one more question;
>
>   Would labor be for sale on this market?
>
>
Rebecca,

yes - but with a citizens dividend/basic income guarantee and all
privilege, direct subsidies, licensing ended by the state...

it would be:

1. voluntary
2. ad hoc
3. rare

bg

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "foolingu11" <foolingu11@>
wrote:
> >
> > Hey BG and All;
> >
> >   Sorry bg, but just one more question;
> >
> >   Would labor be for sale on this market?
> >
> >
> Rebecca,
>
> yes - but with a citizens dividend/basic income guarantee and all
> privilege, direct subsidies, licensing ended by the state...
>
> it would be:
>
> 1. voluntary
> 2. ad hoc
> 3. rare
>
> bg
>
Another question - who would provide the "citizens dividend/basic
income guarantee" if not a state?  Who would guarantee this income?

Robin

Rebecca,

This citizen's dividend is meant to be reparations for "excess"
capitalist profit because of monopoly practices enforced by state
control.

WHO is going to actually pay this??  Please.  Before this could be
collected, both the giver and the believers of such a bargain would
have to graduate drug detox.

This is all to hide the normal exploitation of capitalism of labor by
the extraction of surplus value that occurs by the natural process of
capitalism.

"Oh no no no, that wouldn't happen."

You see under Bill's most excellent dream, the paying of
this "citizen's dividend" would set the clocks back to a time when
there was only small capitalist shop owners and artisans - and then
once having gone through the monopoly nightmare, we would never go
there again.  Capital would not concentrate into fewer and fewer
owners,  value of labor power would not evaporate over the long term.
The the little dog would laugh to see such sport while the  dish ran
away with the spoon.

dave






--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "foolingu11" <foolingu11@>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hey BG and All;
> > >
> > >   Sorry bg, but just one more question;
> > >
> > >   Would labor be for sale on this market?
> > >
> > >
> > Rebecca,
> >
> > yes - but with a citizens dividend/basic income guarantee and all
> > privilege, direct subsidies, licensing ended by the state...
> >
> > it would be:
> >
> > 1. voluntary
> > 2. ad hoc
> > 3. rare
> >
> > bg
> >
> Another question - who would provide the "citizens dividend/basic
> income guarantee" if not a state?  Who would guarantee this income?
>
> Robin
>

Hello BG and All;

   Thank you bg for the answer to one of my questions.

   I suppose my main concern with any social system that isn't
a free access, moneyless socially organized society is that
some people just can't help that they are born being less
productive than another. How do we cope with such incidents?

   For example, I don't think I'd like to promote a society
that would put physically or pyschologically handicapped or
challenged people on a welfare type system which carries a
limit as to how much they would receive. Is this a fair and
just solution? Why should they be hindered in the amount they
can partake of simply because they were born without the ability
to perform labor as well as another? Does your system view
humans as a means to an end, or does your system value human
life in and of itself?

   Cheers, Rebecca

Rebecca, I must challenge at leat one of your premises:

First: (and I do not think that you implied this, but I want to
answer it anyway) "physically or pyschologically handicapped or
challenged" does not mean less productive in most cases even in the
capitalist world.

Second:  Why should it be a compettion to see who can be the
most "productive" in the first place?  Think of an orchestra.  Is the
object to play as loud as one can, or as fast as one can??  Is that
the point?

Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. By in large handicap is a function
of failing to recognize or allowing to develop a person's actual
capabilities.

dave searles



--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "foolingu11" <foolingu11@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello BG and All;
>
>   Thank you bg for the answer to one of my questions.
>
>   I suppose my main concern with any social system that isn't
> a free access, moneyless socially organized society is that
> some people just can't help that they are born being less
> productive than another. How do we cope with such incidents?
>
>   For example, I don't think I'd like to promote a society
> that would put physically or pyschologically handicapped or
> challenged people on a welfare type system which carries a
> limit as to how much they would receive. Is this a fair and
> just solution? Why should they be hindered in the amount they
> can partake of simply because they were born without the ability
> to perform labor as well as another? Does your system view
> humans as a means to an end, or does your system value human
> life in and of itself?
>
>   Cheers, Rebecca
>

I think that I have come upon a flaw in  "Mutualst.com" economic
thought.  It is a mistake typical of people who don't take their time
in reading value, price and profit.

This is what I found at the Mutualist.org web site:

*************************
http://mutualist.org/id106.html

The Cost Principle. The cost principle is central to mutualist
economics. That means that all costs and benefits of an action should
be internalized in the actor responsible for it--or in other words,
that the person consuming goods and services should pay the full cost
of producing them……

Instead of investment being the decision of a worker to consume less
of his own product today in order to work less or consume more
tomorrow, it is the decision of a boss to invest some of the worker`s
product today so he can receive even less of his product tomorrow.
Instead of an improved standard of living for the worker-owner,
increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner and
unemployment for the worker.
************************

Here is what they miss:



Even if no part of what the worker produces goes toward "investing"
the worker is still robbed of the difference between the value of
what he or she produces and the value of what he or she is paid.
(surplus value)

Even if the full COST of labor power is paid the capitalist is able
to extract surplus value.

"increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner" is
only half of the crime.  ANY productivity by the worker above the
value of that which the wage can purchase results in UNEARNED WEALTH
for the owner.

dave searles



--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > As I said you cannot separate a market economy and the state so
your
> > sepculations are utterly superfluous.  And it is simply not true
that
> > exploitation is extraneous to a free market .  The sale of labour
> > power in exchange for a wage or salary in a so called free market
> > entails a process of exploitation - the value of  the product of
> > labour power exceeding the value of the wage or salary received.
> > This is an unavoidable aspect of market competition.  If a
business
> > doesnt make a profit it goes under.  QED
>
> Robin,
>
> capitalists use the state to protect profits via privilege granting,
> direct subsidies and licensing requirements...all of which serve to
> decrease competition.
>
> without those protections market competition will drive price to
cost.
>
> what you described as "profits" are many times just a
misunderstanding
> of the nature and apportionment of economic rent (return on land)
> wages (return on labor) and economic interest (return on capital).
>
> I can show you a company with zero profits on paper where the
owner's
> "pay" is included in overhead on a balance sheet or as a worker-
owners
> as labor.
>
> in the system I propose there would be no involuntary labor to sell
> because everyone would receive a guaranteed basic income from the
> private enclosure of the natural and social commons which we all
have
> an individual equal access opportunity right to use.
>
> bg
>

From "Too Much"  2 April 2007

____________________

"Income inequality," President George W. Bush acknowledged for the
first time this past January, "is real."

Last week, two indefatigable young economists — the 34-year-old
Emmanuel Saez from Berkeley and the 35-year-old Thomas Piketty from
the Paris School of Economics — revealed just how real.

The gap between the incomes of America's very richest and average
Americans, new data from Saez and Piketty document, now stretches
almost as wide as the widest gap on record.

Back in 1928, the last full year before the Great Depression began,
the families that made up America's most affluent top hundredth of 1
percent — the richest of the rich — pocketed incomes that averaged
$8.2 million, as measured in dollars inflation-adjusted to 2005
levels.

Having trouble contemplating the concept of top hundredth of 1
percent? Think about it this way. In a society of 10,000 families,
the top hundredth of 1 percent would consist of a single family.

In the United States of 1928, this top hundredth of 1 percent
amounted to nearly 5,000 families. These fortunate few at America's
economic summit averaged 891 times more income than families in the
bottom 90 percent averaged.

By 1955, after a tumultuous quarter century of depression and war,
families in the top hundredth of 1 percent took home only $3.8
million, in inflation-adjusted dollars. These mid 20th century
affluents made just 179 times the average bottom 90 percent income.

That share didn't change much over the next 25 years. In 1980, the
richest of the rich took home 175 times more than Americans in the
bottom 90 percent.

And today? The new Saez-Piketty figures for 2005, the most recent
year with IRS data available, show that our contemporary top
hundredth of 1 percent are averaging $25.7 million in income, 882
times more than the bottom 90 percent average — a gap that's almost
identical to the 891-to-1 divide in 1928.

The 2005 gap, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston
noted last week, may actually be wider than the Saez-Piketty data
suggest. We have more on just why.

Dave and BG:

As I keep preaching to BG:  Read "Value, Price and Profit."  Just how much time
does it take to read a speech?

Byron
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: David Searles
   To: worldincommon@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 5:36 PM
   Subject: [worldincommon] Re: political, economic, and ideological
capitalism...


   I think that I have come upon a flaw in "Mutualst.com" economic
   thought. It is a mistake typical of people who don't take their time
   in reading value, price and profit.

   This is what I found at the Mutualist.org web site:

   *************************
   http://mutualist.org/id106.html

   The Cost Principle. The cost principle is central to mutualist
   economics. That means that all costs and benefits of an action should
   be internalized in the actor responsible for it--or in other words,
   that the person consuming goods and services should pay the full cost
   of producing them..

   Instead of investment being the decision of a worker to consume less
   of his own product today in order to work less or consume more
   tomorrow, it is the decision of a boss to invest some of the worker`s
   product today so he can receive even less of his product tomorrow.
   Instead of an improved standard of living for the worker-owner,
   increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner and
   unemployment for the worker.
   ************************

   Here is what they miss:

   Even if no part of what the worker produces goes toward "investing"
   the worker is still robbed of the difference between the value of
   what he or she produces and the value of what he or she is paid.
   (surplus value)

   Even if the full COST of labor power is paid the capitalist is able
   to extract surplus value.

   "increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner" is
   only half of the crime. ANY productivity by the worker above the
   value of that which the wage can purchase results in UNEARNED WEALTH
   for the owner.

   dave searles

   --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
   >
   > --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@> wrote:
   > >
   > >
   > > As I said you cannot separate a market economy and the state so
   your
   > > sepculations are utterly superfluous. And it is simply not true
   that
   > > exploitation is extraneous to a free market . The sale of labour
   > > power in exchange for a wage or salary in a so called free market
   > > entails a process of exploitation - the value of the product of
   > > labour power exceeding the value of the wage or salary received.
   > > This is an unavoidable aspect of market competition. If a
   business
   > > doesnt make a profit it goes under. QED
   >
   > Robin,
   >
   > capitalists use the state to protect profits via privilege granting,
   > direct subsidies and licensing requirements...all of which serve to
   > decrease competition.
   >
   > without those protections market competition will drive price to
   cost.
   >
   > what you described as "profits" are many times just a
   misunderstanding
   > of the nature and apportionment of economic rent (return on land)
   > wages (return on labor) and economic interest (return on capital).
   >
   > I can show you a company with zero profits on paper where the
   owner's
   > "pay" is included in overhead on a balance sheet or as a worker-
   owners
   > as labor.
   >
   > in the system I propose there would be no involuntary labor to sell
   > because everyone would receive a guaranteed basic income from the
   > private enclosure of the natural and social commons which we all
   have
   > an individual equal access opportunity right to use.
   >
   > bg
   >





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi all

Just came across this on my yahoo homepage.  Thought it might be of
interest. The immediate thing that struck me was the possible
political consequences of a pandemic of some virus if the government
did take these kinds of measure to ensure "social distancing".  Any
observations?

Cheers

Robin
___________



Monday April 2, 10:59 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cities that quickly closed schools and
discouraged public gatherings had fewer deaths from the great flu
pandemic in 1918 than cities that did not, researchers reported on
Monday.

Decisive, immediate action can reduce the most acute effects of a
pandemic, while allowing the population to build some natural
immunity to the virus, the U.S. government study found.

Experts agree that a pandemic of some virus, most likely influenza,
is almost 100 percent certain. What is not certain is when it will
strike and which virus it will be.
The worst-case scenario is the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed tens
of millions of people globally. Researchers are going through records
to learn from the actions taken decades ago.

Dr. Richard Hatchett of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases and colleagues studied 17 U.S. cities.

"Cities in which multiple interventions were implemented at an early
phase of the epidemic had peak death rates about 50 percent lower
than those that did not," they wrote in their report, published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Kansas City, no more than 20 people could attend weddings or
funerals. New York mandated staggered shifts at factories. In
Seattle, the mayor told people to wear face masks.

No single action worked on its own, the researchers found, it was the
combination of measures that saved lives.

The World Health Organisation has been urging countries to get ready
for a pandemic. The H5N1 avian influenza is considered the most
likely candidate to cause one.

So far, it has spread mostly in birds, across Asia and into Africa
and Europe. But it sometimes infects people and has killed 170 people
out of 288 known to have been infected.

LESSONS FROM PAST

It is constantly evolving and if it mutates in just the right way, it
could spread easily from one person to another, causing widespread
death and sickness.

No good vaccine would be available for months, and drugs that treat
influenza are in very short supply.

So experts are looking at what they call non-pharmacologic
interventions -- ways to prevent infection without drugs. They hope
this can buy time while companies make and distribute vaccines and
drugs.

Because the virus is spread by small droplets passed within about
three feet (1 metre) from person to person, keeping people apart is
considered a possible strategy.

Hatchett's study suggests this worked nearly a century ago.

"The first cases of disease among civilians in Philadelphia were
reported on September 17, 1918, but authorities downplayed their
significance and allowed large public gatherings, notably a citywide
parade on September 28, 1918, to continue," they wrote.

"School closure, bans on public gatherings, and other social
distancing interventions were not implemented until October 3, when
disease spread had already begun to overwhelm local medical and
public health resources," they added.

St. Louis authorities introduced "a broad series of measures designed
to promote social distancing" as soon as flu showed up.

Philadelphia ended up with a peak death rate of 257 people per
100,000 population per week. St. Louis had just 31 per 100,000 at the
peak.

When the cities relaxed their policies, death rates rose.

The U.S. government flu plan calls for similar measures, including
allowing employees to stay home for weeks or even months,
telecommuting and closing schools and perhaps large office buildings.

Hi all

There is a good article on this in this months Socialist
Standard...see below

Cheers

Robin

_______________


Increases in atmospheric carbon don't cause
global warming, global warming causes increases in atmospheric carbon.
So what is heating up the Earth? The sun.
So why are the vast majority of climate
scientists claiming it's carbon, not the sun?
Because they're on a $4bn gravy train of
funding and they aim to ride that sucker
until the end of the line, even though
their phoney Carbon Crusade is killing the poor little children in
the Third World who are not allowed to have electricity like the rest
of us.

  This, in case you missed it, was the argument behind `The Great
Global Warming Swindle' broadcast on UK's Channel 4 on March 8. An
impressive array of paleoclimatologists, oceanographers and other
assorted professors was wheeled on to assure us that everything we
thought we knew about
global warming was upside down and back to front, and that the
present warming phenomenon was entirely natural, and no different
from previous warm spells in Earth's history. What was really going
on was a gigantic conspiracy to pervert science, distort the facts
and condemn developing countries to perpetual misery by creating an
entirely bogus panic about atmospheric carbon. They gave us the
figures, they showed us the charts,
they answered the questions, and it was all utterly convincing .

  And nonsense, unfortunately, as a stroll through various online
blogs and articles soon revealed. The experts on the programme, with
one exception, turn out not to be quite the scions of honesty they
appear to be, but rather well-known Denial Monkeys who have agendas
of their own and whose
theories have already been falsified repeatedly. The exception,
oceanographer Carl Wunsch, after seeing the show, sent an apoplectic
letter to C4 saying he'd been conned into appearing, thinking he was
taking part in a balanced and critical analysis.

  This is almost certainly true, and he wouldn't be the only one. The
producer, Martin Durkin, has a history of making contentious
programmes accusing environmentalists of being `proto-nazis', and
from which his researchers have walked out in disgust and his
interviewees have wailed afterwards that they've been had. In
Durkin's experience, when the BBC reject his
programme synopses as junk science, he can always rely on Channel 4
to produce them instead.

  Just why Channel 4 thinks bad science makes good TV is a total
mystery. Pathfinders does not often stoop to sending whingeing
letters, but the memory of C4's disgraceful championing of the
charlatan Graham Hancock is still raw and rancid, so a quick blister
to the C4 complaints department
seemed appropriate for once, to whit: "I appreciate that C4's brief
is in part to be `controversial' but to extend this brief to making
programmes that are based on deliberate and easily verifiable lies is
not only immoral and indecent,

  I'm surprised it's not illegal as well. I just don't see how you can
justify the
dissemination of nonsense in any programme but especially one in
which the issues at stake - the future of the planet - could hardly
be more important.

  Judging from the resulting blog discussions there are any number of
gullible people who are now completely convinced by your programme
that global
warming is not a problem, and who will never see any rebuttal unless
another channel takes responsibility. There are people out there who
claim (with lots of evidence, naturally) that Jews cause AIDS, that
blacks are racially inferior, that rape and violence are genetically-
based, and that the CIA is putting
nanoscale monitoring devices in our drinking water. No doubt these
people would do anything for the oxygen of a Channel 4 publicity
hype, so I'm bound to wonder just how far your lust for controversy
takes you and where you draw the line."

  A pre-transmission statement from Channel 4 gives you some idea of
their probable response to this: "It is essentially a polemic and we
are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial
programming that Channel 4 is renowned for." (http://www.lse.
co.uk/UKNews.asp, March 4)

  They will doubtless not be worried, even though in the past they
have had to broadcast an unreserved apology for one of Durkin's other
documentaries.
And what of the programme-makers themselves? Several of the
interviewees are known to have right-wing free-market sympathies with
links to the anti-environmentalist Foresight Institute, and their
attack on human-derived global warming is seen by many to be a
response to their fear that political
action to prevent climate change will entail greater government
intervention in the capitalist marketplace. So, a free-marketeer plot
to loosen the grip of state governments and let the corporations take
control? But wait, the plot thickens. The producer, Durkin, and some
of his colleagues, are associated
with the Revolutionary Communist Party, aka Living Marxism, aka the
Institute of Ideas, aka Spiked Online, aka Sense About Science. So, a
left-wing plot by a sect of multiple identity, mediacuddly
Bolsheviks? Are the right and left-wings of capitalism now climbing
into bed together to breed Son of Denial Monkey?

  What for? According to SwindleWatch.org, the RCP's master plan could
be to foment total environmental complacency in an effort to bring
capitalism to early disaster, thus inciting a revolt by the
proletariat, if any of us are still left alive to revolt, that is.
Either that, or they are just plain bonkers. Nobody knows.

  In the wake of the Stern report, Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, and
the recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, it's
easy to see that the small minority who deny human responsibility for
global warming are feeling somewhat ganged up on. It's just not like
the good old days, when natural scientific caution by researchers
allowed gainsayers all sorts of loopholes
to exploit. Even with the reservations among scientists about the
IPCC pulling its punches (New Scientist, March 0), their report is
damning enough to be conclusive as far as most policy-makers are
concerned.

  Whether this programme has damaged the climate debate or merely
Channel 4's already shaky reputation on factual reporting remains to
be seen. What is worrying is that there is an extraordinary
enthusiasm on the part of many people to believe that the world of
science is as corrupt and dishonest as
the world of politics, and that the `brave' heroes who stand up
against it are to be admired and believed implicitly. It's not just
those who inhabit the twilight world of paranoia who believe this.

  Even realists can succumb to cynicism. This is a world, after all,
where money doesn't just talk, it smooth-talks, and nobody can really
trust anything anybody says when there's a dollar behind every
answer. Are people wrong to distrust the scientific community, and
therefore believe every nut-job with a theory
that same community has loudly disowned? Generally yes, but when it
is well known that science chases the money whereas the money never
chases the science it doesn't like, it is not hard to see how these
conspiracy theories get started.

  Interestingly, the only real attack on the global warming lobby
which has had any real merit is the report (BBC Online, Feb 7), that
the Oscar-winning Al Gore has a 20-room house and swimming pool which
uses twenty times the national energy average. Gore's spokesperson
shamefacedly admitted this, and responded rather lamely that the
family were looking at low-wattage light-bulbs and solar panels to
reduce their consumption. Hooray for the press. Nobody likes a smart-
alec.

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@...> wrote:

> Another question - who would provide the "citizens dividend/basic
> income guarantee" if not a state?  Who would guarantee this income?
>

those doing the excluding pay the excluded.

the obligation is required in exchange for exclusive use enforced by
local governance as legitimate authority.

the state is by definition illegitimate authority because it grants
privilege without any obligation to those excluded from the natural
and social commons which we all have an individual equal access
opportunity right to.

bg

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "foolingu11" <foolingu11@...> wrote:
>
> Hello BG and All;
>
>   Thank you bg for the answer to one of my questions.
>
>   I suppose my main concern with any social system that isn't
> a free access, moneyless socially organized society is that
> some people just can't help that they are born being less
> productive than another. How do we cope with such incidents?
>
>   For example, I don't think I'd like to promote a society
> that would put physically or pyschologically handicapped or
> challenged people on a welfare type system which carries a
> limit as to how much they would receive. Is this a fair and
> just solution? Why should they be hindered in the amount they
> can partake of simply because they were born without the ability
> to perform labor as well as another? Does your system view
> humans as a means to an end, or does your system value human
> life in and of itself?
>
Rebecca,

you are somehow under the false impression that what I am suggesting
is a type of welfare system.

I can assure you I am not...

the reason that the economic rent that results from the private
enclosure of the natural commons has to remain owned in common as an
individual equal access opportunity right (not a collective or joint
right) is because it upholds the absolute right the excluded have to
self-ownership.

requiring the excluders to share the economic rent does not infringe
on their absolute right to self-ownership (to the fruits of their
labor) is because:

1. they don't labor to produce land
2. they don't labor to create the unimproved land value (economic
rent) by definition.
3. in the system I advocate their would be no purchase price to land.

hope this helps!

bg

from mutualist Benjamin Tucker's "Should Labor Be Paid or Not?" April
14, 1888

"If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor
- were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see
that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is
bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for
their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men
are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to
sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege,
would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things I
am as much opposed as any one.

But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it will
be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing
but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-payers
and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a laborer
exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make
every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages
is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism.

What Anarchistic Socialism aims to abolish is usury. It does not want
to deprive labor of its reward; it wants to deprive capital of its
reward. It does not hold that labor should not be sold; it holds that
capital should not be hired at usury."

The state grants privledge-

it has not granted privledge as much as it protects the property
which has been stolen from the rest of us by the capitalist class by
the expropriate of surplus value.

We won't need to be paid anything becuase they won't have anything to
pay.  We shall reclaim, we shall take what is ours or we shall be the
sorriest people that ever lived.

dave searles








--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@> wrote:
>
> > Another question - who would provide the "citizens dividend/basic
> > income guarantee" if not a state?  Who would guarantee this
income?
> >
>
> those doing the excluding pay the excluded.
>
> the obligation is required in exchange for exclusive use enforced by
> local governance as legitimate authority.
>
> the state is by definition illegitimate authority because it grants
> privilege without any obligation to those excluded from the natural
> and social commons which we all have an individual equal access
> opportunity right to.
>
> bg
>

Bill Green quotes from Tucker:

If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor
- were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see
that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is
bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for
their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men
are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to
sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege,
would be enjoyed by all gratuitously.

dave answers:

No Bill, we are aggrieved because that which we produced was taken
from us at the point of production.  It is not that which we produced
is sold by the criminal class, but that it was taken from us for a
pittance so that we may keep a roof over our heards and food on the
table.  That is why we oppose the wages system.

dave



--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> from mutualist Benjamin Tucker's "Should Labor Be Paid or Not?"
April
> 14, 1888
>
> "If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of
labor
> - were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would
see
> that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is
> bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent
for
> their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of
men
> are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged
to
> sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege,
> would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things
I
> am as much opposed as any one.
>
> But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it
will
> be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing
> but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-
payers
> and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a
laborer
> exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make
> every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole
wages
> is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism.
>
> What Anarchistic Socialism aims to abolish is usury. It does not
want
> to deprive labor of its reward; it wants to deprive capital of its
> reward. It does not hold that labor should not be sold; it holds
that
> capital should not be hired at usury."
>

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "David Searles"
<davidasearles@...> wrote:
>
> Even if no part of what the worker produces goes toward "investing"
> the worker is still robbed of the difference between the value of
> what he or she produces and the value of what he or she is paid.
> (surplus value)
>
> Even if the full COST of labor power is paid the capitalist is able
> to extract surplus value.
>
> "increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner" is
> only half of the crime.  ANY productivity by the worker above the
> value of that which the wage can purchase results in UNEARNED WEALTH
> for the owner.
>
dave,

you missed posting the rest...

excerpt:

Every single evil of capitalism we examined in Part Two of this book
can be traced, in a sense, to a violation of the cost principle. In
every case, the benefits of the action were divorced from the cost, so
that the person benefiting from a particular form of action did not
bear the costs associated with it.

Government, in its essence, is a mechanism for externalizing costs. By
externalizing costs, government enables the privileged to live at the
expense of the non-privileged. But every such intervention leads to
irrationality and social cost. For example:

Because labor does not keep its own product, and the disutility and
the output of labor are not internalized by the same individual, there
is a crisis of overproduction and under-consumption and a need for
further state intervention to dispose of the surplus product.

Because labor does not own its means of production, the process of
capital accumulation works against labor instead of for it. Instead of
investment being the decision of a worker to consume less of his own
product today in order to work less or consume more tomorrow, it is
the decision of a boss to invest some of the worker`s product today so
he can receive even less of his product tomorrow. Instead of an
improved standard of living for the worker-owner, increased
productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner and unemployment
for the worker.

Because large corporations do not pay the full cost of the factors
they consume, they consume irrationally and inefficiently; because the
inefficiency costs of large size are externalized on the taxpayer,
they are able to grow beyond the point of maximum efficiency. At the
same time that American goods are produced at many times the energy
and transportation costs actually needed, the country faces chronic
energy shortages and transportation bottlenecks.

It is only through the free market, organized on the basis of
voluntary exchange, that the cost principle can be realized. The law
of cost operates through the competitive mechanism, by which producers
enter the market when price is less than cost and leave it in the
opposite case. In a free market, the price of a good or service is a
signal of the cost entailed in providing it. Because costs are on the
table, reflected in price rather than hidden, people (including
business firms) will only consume goods and services that they are
willing to pay for.

---------------------

Most anarcho-capitalists (with some honorable exceptions)
automatically imagine a market society based on non-aggression as
having the capitalist business firm as the dominant form of
organization. But as we will see later in this chapter, this is no
necessary reason for this. Mutualists prefer the workers' and
consumers' cooperative, the mutual, the commons, and the voluntary
collective to the capitalist corporation as a market actor. And except
to the kind of vulgar libertarian who instinctively sees big business
as the "good guy," there is no reason not to accept these as valid
ways of associating freely.

bg

There is no VIOLATION of any cost principle.  It is becuase labor
value is paid for at its cost as opposed to labor keeping what it
produces, the difference is surplus value.  Capitlaism extacts
surplus value in the normal operation of things.  It doesn't need any
special privildges to do this, simply ownership of the means of
production.

dave



--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "David Searles"
> <davidasearles@> wrote:
> >
> > Even if no part of what the worker produces goes
toward "investing"
> > the worker is still robbed of the difference between the value of
> > what he or she produces and the value of what he or she is paid.
> > (surplus value)
> >
> > Even if the full COST of labor power is paid the capitalist is
able
> > to extract surplus value.
> >
> > "increased productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner"
is
> > only half of the crime.  ANY productivity by the worker above the
> > value of that which the wage can purchase results in UNEARNED
WEALTH
> > for the owner.
> >
> dave,
>
> you missed posting the rest...
>
> excerpt:
>
> Every single evil of capitalism we examined in Part Two of this book
> can be traced, in a sense, to a violation of the cost principle. In
> every case, the benefits of the action were divorced from the cost,
so
> that the person benefiting from a particular form of action did not
> bear the costs associated with it.
>
> Government, in its essence, is a mechanism for externalizing costs.
By
> externalizing costs, government enables the privileged to live at
the
> expense of the non-privileged. But every such intervention leads to
> irrationality and social cost. For example:
>
> Because labor does not keep its own product, and the disutility and
> the output of labor are not internalized by the same individual,
there
> is a crisis of overproduction and under-consumption and a need for
> further state intervention to dispose of the surplus product.
>
> Because labor does not own its means of production, the process of
> capital accumulation works against labor instead of for it. Instead
of
> investment being the decision of a worker to consume less of his own
> product today in order to work less or consume more tomorrow, it is
> the decision of a boss to invest some of the worker`s product today
so
> he can receive even less of his product tomorrow. Instead of an
> improved standard of living for the worker-owner, increased
> productivity results in unearned wealth for the owner and
unemployment
> for the worker.
>
> Because large corporations do not pay the full cost of the factors
> they consume, they consume irrationally and inefficiently; because
the
> inefficiency costs of large size are externalized on the taxpayer,
> they are able to grow beyond the point of maximum efficiency. At the
> same time that American goods are produced at many times the energy
> and transportation costs actually needed, the country faces chronic
> energy shortages and transportation bottlenecks.
>
> It is only through the free market, organized on the basis of
> voluntary exchange, that the cost principle can be realized. The law
> of cost operates through the competitive mechanism, by which
producers
> enter the market when price is less than cost and leave it in the
> opposite case. In a free market, the price of a good or service is a
> signal of the cost entailed in providing it. Because costs are on
the
> table, reflected in price rather than hidden, people (including
> business firms) will only consume goods and services that they are
> willing to pay for.
>
> ---------------------
>
> Most anarcho-capitalists (with some honorable exceptions)
> automatically imagine a market society based on non-aggression as
> having the capitalist business firm as the dominant form of
> organization. But as we will see later in this chapter, this is no
> necessary reason for this. Mutualists prefer the workers' and
> consumers' cooperative, the mutual, the commons, and the voluntary
> collective to the capitalist corporation as a market actor. And
except
> to the kind of vulgar libertarian who instinctively sees big
business
> as the "good guy," there is no reason not to accept these as valid
> ways of associating freely.
>
> bg
>

Hey BG;

   Thanks, that does help.

   Cheers, Rebecca

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@> wrote:
>
> > Another question - who would provide the "citizens dividend/basic
> > income guarantee" if not a state?  Who would guarantee this
income?
> >
>
> those doing the excluding pay the excluded.
>
> the obligation is required in exchange for exclusive use enforced by
> local governance as legitimate authority.
>
> the state is by definition illegitimate authority because it grants
> privilege without any obligation to those excluded from the natural
> and social commons which we all have an individual equal access
> opportunity right to.


A small problem though surely. We dont all have an "individual equal
access opportunity right to use the natural and social ocommons".
The world is a highly unequal place.  So again I ask - how are you
are going to get to your idealised free market utopia except by
confronting and dispossessing the capitalist class of their monopoly
of the means of living if not via the state - the very mechanism you
say creates inequality

Robin

>
> bg
>

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "robbo203" <RRobincox@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> A small problem though surely. We dont all have an "individual equal
> access opportunity right to use the natural and social ocommons".
> The world is a highly unequal place.  So again I ask - how are you
> are going to get to your idealised free market utopia except by
> confronting and dispossessing the capitalist class of their monopoly
> of the means of living if not via the state - the very mechanism you
> say creates inequality
>
Robin,

the first point to clarify - I am a Nockian anarchist when it comes to
the difference between the state which hands out privilege at the
expense of the labor-based wealth of those being excluded from the
natural and social commons and local governance as legitimate
authority which is narrowly constituted to protect individual rights
to one's life, equal liberty, and labor-based property.

privilege (which means private legislation) without any obligation to
those being economically disadvantaged is by definition unjust.

bg

--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "David Searles"
<davidasearles@...> wrote:
>
> There is no VIOLATION of any cost principle.  It is becuase labor
> value is paid for at its cost as opposed to labor keeping what it
> produces, the difference is surplus value.  Capitlaism extacts
> surplus value in the normal operation of things.  It doesn't need any
> special privildges to do this, simply ownership of the means of
> production.

dave,

under perfect competition - price would be driven to cost, hence no
surplus value.

if everyone had free and clear access to fertile land and could
produce at a basic subsistence level without too much labor burden
then why would they sell their labor at below subsistence levels?

think of the citizens dividend for all as free and clear access to
what we all have an individual equal birthright to produce a
subsistence level of sustenance from the land which is monetized by
the private enclosure of land.

bg

Bill Green wrote:

under perfect competition - price would be driven to cost, hence no
surplus value.

dave searles writes:

Thus is expressed the complete and utter ignorance of one Bill Green
on the exploitation of labor.

Ignoring market fluctuations, all commodities sell at cost. Labor
power is a commodity like all others.  Where labor power is sold AT
COST - that means that laborers are paid just enough to pay for the
goods required to allow them to labor.

If the goods and services required to produce labor can be produced
with 20 hours labor per week, the wage is equivelent to the amount of
money that can purchase 20 hours worth of goods and services.
Therefore if a worker works 48 hours per week - the difference
between 48 hours and 20 hours is surplus value.

As I stated: Capitalism extracts
> > surplus value in the normal operation of things.  It doesn't need
any
> > special privileges to do this, simply ownership of the means of
> > production.

dave continues:

That's the part the Bill assiduously avoids, becuase he advocates a
continuation of the private ownership of the means of production.

In other words capitalism.

"Oh no no no.  I don't advocate the nasty capitalism where
capitalists, individually and collectively try to get additional
privileges from the state; I advocate the good kind of capitalism,
you know where there are FREE MARKETS."

so bill is against every privilege except THE privilege which
alienates the workers from the entire product of their labor,
including the industries themselves.

dave searles




--- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "BGreen" <erm4you@...> wrote:
>
> --- In worldincommon@yahoogroups.com, "David Searles"
> <davidasearles@> wrote:
> >
> > There is no VIOLATION of any cost principle.  It is becuase labor
> > value is paid for at its cost as opposed to labor keeping what it
> > produces, the difference is surplus value.  Capitlaism extacts
> > surplus value in the normal operation of things.  It doesn't need
any
> > special privildges to do this, simply ownership of the means of
> > production.
>
> dave,
>
> under perfect competition - price would be driven to cost, hence no
> surplus value.
>
> if everyone had free and clear access to fertile land and could
> produce at a basic subsistence level without too much labor burden
> then why would they sell their labor at below subsistence levels?
>
> think of the citizens dividend for all as free and clear access to
> what we all have an individual equal birthright to produce a
> subsistence level of sustenance from the land which is monetized by
> the private enclosure of land.
>
> bg
>