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Randroid

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Posts posted by Randroid

  1. Now, let us assume for a moment that scarcity rents indeed cannot be determined though a free market. My question to you is: so what? Is that enough for us to discard the concept?

    Translation: "I know I'm wrong and I don't care."

    Free market does not exist in defence and judiciary, but these are still thought a proper functions of a govt.

    Translation: "There is already plenty of legalized injustice around and I'm fine with it."

    So, even if we agree to your claim, it is not very clear how it implies that we should not collect these rents.

    Translation: "I know that what I propose is evil and cannot be justified, but I want to do it anyway."

    If that is inaccurate, then please, tell me what you really mean.

  2. My question to you is: so what?

    Is that enough for us to discard the concept? Free market does not exist in defence and judiciary, but these are still thought a proper functions of a govt.

    So, even if we agree to your claim, it is not very clear how it implies that we should not collect these rents.

    So, your argument, as I understand it, is this: You are perfectly aware that economic rent is an invalid and, more importantly, unjust and evil concept, but there is already some evil and injustice in the world, so we might as well go full hog and forget all this useless crap about human rights completely.

    Is that about right?

  3. However, I thought your response was in context of my first statement: that scarcity rents are a fact of life. I used the reference to Economists in this context - not for the full argument. Any reactions?

    Until you can prove that scarcity rents are a valid concept, they are certainly not a fact of life.

    Now, if land is scarce and can only be given to one person, what should be appropriate action for the second person?

    Whatever is in that person's rational self-interest. They can try to find unclaimed land somewhere else. Or they can buy land. Or they can work for the farmer. Or they can choose a different vocation. They may not, however, initiate force.

    I was only trying (in the para selected by you in your post) to show how scarcity rents arise - and I belive you were debating that scarcity rents do not arise by demand exceeding suppy.

    No, my position is that scarcity rents are an invalid concept, i.e. not real. An insane fantasy made up by people who know as little about reality as they know about economics.

  4. Just becuase I am appealing to authority does not imply that my argument is necessarily wrong. Show me where it is wrong.

    The burden of proof is still on you. You make the claim that someone using a resource has to pay the people who don't use it a fee for that privilege. You must show why, I don't have to show why not. Saying that a bunch of other people also say so proves nothing, even if they have degrees or are famous or really pretty.

    Can you put this statement on first objection in the context of the debate? I could not connect it to our argument.

    Okay, when I turn my head to the left and look out of my window, I can see some fertile land. The problem is, I don't know how to cultivate land. I don't know where to get crop seed, when to plant it, when to water and fertilize it, when to harvest it, I don't know how to operate a harvester, etc. So, even if that land was mine, I wouldn't know what to do with it. It's useless and of no value to me.

    If someone who does know (or can figure out) all these things and claims the land as his property, I don't lose anything. It imposes zero cost on me. In fact, my life improves significantly: The farmer grows food that I can buy from him and eat. Why should he pay me for that?

    "But what about the other farmer, who also knows how to cultivate land and now doesn't get to?", you say. Why the hell didn't he, then? You snooze, you lose. He was sitting on his ass, doing diddly-squat, playing with his toes, and now he says, "Aw, shucks, I coulda/woulda/shoulda thought of that!" and demands some of the money the productive farmer makes by growing and selling food. He demands money for doing nothing - literally.

    No wonder I can't get the Dire Straits out of my head. B)

    On the second, do you know who those heirs are? I think the discovery of land's basic fertile properties has become so old now that it would be appropriate to assume that now there is no claimant for the reward of that discovery.

    You're getting my arguments mixed up again. This has nothing to do with discovering fertile qualities, I was referring to the land itself.

    I can't understand your objection clearly. Also, your first statement is incorrect - price rise and economic rent are not mutually exclusive. Please elicit your point of disagreement again and elaborate.

    I didn't say they are mutually exclusive, I said that you have only shown that demand exceeding supply can increase the price of a commodity. I agree. You have not shown, however, how or why demand exceeding supply causes inalienable human rights to evaporate.

  5. On 1)

    That scarcity creates scarcity rents has been documented enough by Economists.

    Logical fallacy: Appeal to authority. Try again.

    On 1) Randriod's point does not apply to my debate becuase it is common knowledge that land is useful (has fertile properties), and the Pioneer who discovered these properties thousands years back is no more.

    Those are actually two different objections. Regarding the former: Fertile farmland is utterly useless and therefore worthless to anyone who is not a farmer. Regarding the latter: The pioneers may be dead, their heirs aren't. My argument still stands.

    By the way, it's Randroid, not Randriod. B)

    On 2)

    Let me replace the term inherent value by the term scarcity rent (let me know if anyone has objections).

    Scarcity rent are a fact of life for land. This is becuase, the demand is growing by population, and supply in inelastic. Please see attached ppt slide that shows how scarcity rents arise.

    Demand exceeding supply only causes a rise in price, which, as I understand it, is different from "economic rent". You still have not adequately explained how or why landowners (who are on the supply side) are the ones who have to pay the people on the demand side. That's kinda the opposite of how reality works. If you have something that I want, I pay you for it, not the other way 'round.

  6. I would say that is sharing - not looting.

    And if I don't feel like sharing what I have earned with people who did not earn it and therefore have no right to any of my stuff, what are you going to do then? Oh, yeah, that's right: Use force to take it anyway. Looting.

    This specific value that I am talking about is created due to scarcity (due to population growth). Hence, we need to share this value - since no one has earned it.

    Scarcity does not create value. No matter how rare something is, if it's useless to you, it's worthless to you.

    However, he should not be allowed to own the entire continent cause someone else may discover it later on. Feel free to challenge me here.

    First, I never said he should get to own the entire continent, only the land that he can actually use. Second, I already did challenge you on that one. An explorer (and everybody else) does not owe anything to future generations, or existing generations for that matter. You earn it, you own it. You don't earn it, you don't own it. It's not exactly quantum physics.

  7. In fact I am also saying the same - the right of usage belongs to he who can bid the highest for the use.

    Bid to whom? Why should people who didn't lift a finger to create a specific value receive a share of that value?

    When someone like Columbus discovers a new continent, why should the people in the Old World, who didn't even know the land existed, get paid for graciously allowing the discoverers to use the land that they alone found, through their knowledge and effort?

    You want something for nothing - literally. That is looting.

  8. Voluntary agreement is not possible in all cases. Landlord commands a scarce resource and can ask for any rent. Realize that there in no fundamental perfect competition (economics term) for a limited resource like land.

    Landlords can certainly ask for any rent. If, however, their expectations exceed what their potential tenants are willing to pay, they will lose. They still have to keep the land in good condition without any revenue or they can simply abandon it, thereby losing all previous investments. Supply & demand.

    I agree with you. But you are focusing on a side-issue. The main takeaway from my example is that there will be a scarcity rent. Do you have any objections here?

    Yes. You cannot charge rent for something you do not own. Scarcity is irrelevant.

    But, in my example, if you award the land to C, you preclude unborn D from using that limited resource.

    Just as A does not owe any money to B in our previous example, C does not owe any land to unborn generation D.

    Realize that C's identifying a productive land does not 'create' any value. Edison's bulb does.

    It certainly does create value: You don't have to look for suitable land yourself and you don't have to be the early bird (first to claim it), either.

  9. Now the question in what part of remaining $60 should fairly belong to the Landlord?

    That's easy: The exact amount the landlord and the tenant voluntarily agreed upon.

    Let us say landlord has maintained his land overtime through proper irrigation, etc. Hence, he created and earned some value. Let us say that value is $20.

    Let's not say that, because value is subjective. To you, the irrigation may be worth $20, to me maybe only $10, because I think I could have done a better job, and to someone else $30, for whatever reasons.

    Now, I recognize that I have used arbitrary numbers here. But, the essence of the example is that scarcity rents are a fact of life, and should be distributed equally.

    Scarcity is indeed a fact of life, but that does not mean that this fact warrants or justifies any sort of distribution by means of force. And certainly not distribution of imaginary "costs", the idea of which I have already refuted and will refute again:

    Now, I come back to your point on rewarding C for his intelligence in identifying the land. I feel like agreeing wiht you, but the conflict is that if I reward C by giving him $20 forever, then am I not being unfair with unborn people, who could have also identified this land like C did.

    So Thomas Edison was being unfair when he invented the light bulb, thereby depriving other people of the chance to invent it?

  10. So, your statement is: Land has no value prior to human action

    Exactly. If you have no use for the land, it is of no value to you. Value always presupposes an answer to the questions "to whom?" and "what for?".

    My assertion: Land may have no VALUE prior to human action. But, there is always some COST (rent) that needs to be paid for its use (in today's world where land is scarce). The payment for this cost (rent) needs to go to the society, not to an individual.

    Wrong. First, of course the use of property is associated with a cost, at the very least opportunity cost; but that cost is incurred only to the owner himself (see below). Second, if you wouldn't know what to do with the land if you owned it, you can't claim ownership of the land. The above principle applies. Remember, private property is basically the right to exclusive use of the land. If you have no use for the land at all, how can you claim exclusive use?

    So, A must pay some rent to use the scarce resource. Since the rent arose due to scarcity, no one can claim more right on this part than others. Hence, everyone has equal right on this rent.

    No. B's shortcomings are not a valid claim on A's life or property. It's not A's fault that B doesn't know what to do with a patch of land or figures it out too slowly. A does not owe any money to B because B is slow or inept. As Francisco D'Anconia said in his "money speech", money isn't made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools or by the able at the expense of the incompetent or by the ambitious at the expense of the lazy.

  11. Ideally, law enforcement would be voluntarily paid for by you and others who also want their rights protected and are willing to voluntarily pay for that service. That means that law enforcement itself is not a right. If, however, there is law enforcement, you have the right to have law enforcement protect your rights, because that's what they are there for.

  12. Just to clarify, it was not my intention to chastise the OP. I was merely pointing him in a direction where lots more information on the topic is available, if he is interested.

    Please don't take my response as "STFU, n00b!", Rudmer. Just trying to be helpful.

  13. Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your "conversion".

    But what separates a newborn baby from one who is still inside his mother late in the third trimester?

    Birth.

    Ultimately, it does not matter whether a late-term fetus has a right to life. Rights cannot contradict each other. If the fetus' hypothetical right to life apparently contradicts the woman's right to life (in the Objectivist sense), then one of those rights doesn't exist - and it's obviously not the latter.

    There is already a very long thread on the topic. Just search the forum for "Abortion" and you will find what you're looking for.

  14. Oh, you're HowTheWorldWorks? Cool, welcome to OO.net!

    I'm already subscribed to your channel, great debunking video. Two small points: 1) I haven't checked, but are you sure that a government-run fire dept is constitutional? Not that it really matters, Collectivists won't call you on that, of course. Although it would be hilarious if they did. 2) You could have been a little more detailed on why a non-government-run fire dept would not work the way the original video claimed. That's quite a bit of uninterrupted and uncommented original footage, which makes the entire section appear to be mostly unaddressed.

    Thanks for making these videos. They are well done and enjoyable. I favorited this one, BTW.

  15. Sorry for replying to this so late, I've been reading the thread but hadn't had the time to respond properly.

    She chose to create the fetus, so she volunteered automatically. The creation of the fetus and allowing it to reach the point where it has a human brain and can survive outside the body (at 30 weeks this isn't a problem) is an acceptance of the responsibility for that life.

    There is no such thing as automatic volunteering. This is something that Collectivists made up. You will encounter the same sort of argument when Collectivists prattle about their imaginary social contract. "You accepted this or that, because I say so."

    Actually, you can. If you choose to perform surgery on someone, then you must complete it, you can't just change your mind in the middle and leave him bleeding on the operating table.

    Actually, there is a contract between a patient and the surgeon, that's why he can't just quit in the middle of it.

    And so how does parenthood begin? Who is the contract with? You automatically discount society as an option, or yourself. It can't be the infant, small child, or even a teenager because by legal standards they are not capable of entering into a contract. What is you basis for how a parent takes on the responsibilities I outlined in my previous post? If not by the simple decision to have a child, then by what possible standard could there be?

    I've already explained when and how parenthood begins. The purpose of the state is to protect the rights of actual, individual (this is important) people. As long as the fetus is still inside of the mother, it is not an individual. To attribute any rights to it would directly contradict the rights of the mother. That is why the fetus cannot have rights until birth and why the state (and everyone else) has no business meddling in any way with the pregnancy or termination thereof.

    Then by that definition before the baby has taken its first breath and as long as the umbilical cord is intact I can bash it with a rock and it is nothing more than destroying a tumor or growth. It is not "separate" from all other beings as yet. If you say "no no, the umbilical cord doesn't count", well then in utero doesn't count either since the infant gets all its nutrients through the umbilical cord. By the time the fetus has developed a brain of its own it can safely be removed from the mother without time in the ICU. At that point, the only thing that must be done is to induce a birth or remove it surgically. In fact, in order to do an abortion at that point you have to do a partial-birth abortion, which involves killing the fetus and then removing all of it intact. Why not simply remove it without killing it?

    If the fetus is already out, with only the umbilical cord intact, a "post-natal abortion" is by definition no longer possible. Abortion means termination of a pregnancy. By the time the fetus is out, the pregancy is already completed. There is simply nothing to abort anymore, therefore we're moving into the realm of infanticide.

    I have already refuted your other point. If it were indeed possible to preserve the life of the fetus without legally, emotionally, physically (both in terms of risk and surgical trauma) or financially imposing on anyone, you might have a case. I don't want to raise the squick factor unnecessarily, but I doubt that induced birth or a C-section are exactly the same as a late-term abortion in every way.

    A separate human life does exist at that point. It has a human brain, has short-term memory, is fully capable of surviving outside the womb. The only difference between it and an infant at that point is location.

    Location is an objective fact of reality and, as such, matters and can make a lot of difference.

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