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  1. Why does it even matter? It is taking the focus off the greater context. Either you own it, which means have disposal rights, or you don't, which means someone else gets to decide that for you. The first is the definition of a free society and the second is not. Why do you see the need to draw the distinction? What is the point this is leading to?
    1 point
  2. The real issue is whether my keeping what I earned is justified or not regardless of any effect on the growth of the economy. The answer is yes, regardless of whether it does or does not slow down the growth of the economy by some metric. Don't fight them on their terms. You will lose if you play their game. The cause of equality or whether inequality has any effect on the economy is not the issue.
    1 point
  3. VECT

    Owning Land?

    Labour (physical/mental) + Land (natural resources) = Capital But nope, apparently the schools he went to taught him those three concepts are somehow mutually exclusive by some arbitrary division, and the hilarity we are witnessing here ensues. If someone gathers wood, he gets to use that wood for his own purposes, just as a person would with land. But here is where it gets interesting: if he is going to rent that wood out (or even sell it for that matter), that's when all hell breaks lose. Jon's logic here would only allow this man to charge a fee approximately equivalent to the labour cost of him collecting the wood. Any portion of a fee outside of labour cost is Jon's economic rent, aka fee charged for permission to use natural resources, aka immoral because natural resources (e.g. wood molecules) are not made by men and cannot be owned. This logic is not noticeable for capitals with low raw materials cost. But just imagine when this logic is been applied to gold: Since you can't own the gold atoms, you can only charge your labour cost of digging the gold out when you rent bullions out as financial instruments. Now, THAT, would be hilarious.
    1 point
  4. I think I get where I was having trouble now. I was under the impression that definition produces the concept. Under that view therefore it was hard for me the imagine a concept coming directly from precept. After reading: http://www.proctors.com.au/mrhomepage.nsf/985f14ab922be306482577d5003a2040/4864f5fe3809763a4825789c000dc50a/$FILE/The%20Analytic%20Synthetic%20Dichotomy.pdf the idea seems to be that definition is just the unique universal characteristic chosen from all of the known characteristics of the concept to best distinguish it from other known concepts. If more new facts are observed that makes the said characteristic no longer universal to all the existent of the concept, or new concept created that makes the said characteristic no longer unique, then new characteristic would have to be chosen as the definition to better serve the identity tag job. If table is defined as a surface with legs, newly designed table without legs (characteristic no longer universal) or newly created items that have surface with legs but are not table (characteristic no longer unique), would necessitate a change to the table's current definition. So it's the concept that produces the definition, not the other way around. Now I can see how concepts such as table can come directly from percepts. And as for logical truth then, it isn't so much as whether or not the definition of a concept adheres to the dictionary, but whether or the definition does its job well as the identity tag for the concept in a given context of knowledge.
    1 point
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