Is it more useful to think of the contemporary US as a `rentalist'
economy rather than as a `captialist' economy?
Here I use the word `rent' in the economists' sense:
A return from a differential advantage for production,
as in case of earnings due to natural resources, fertility, etc.;
-- as distinct from profit and wages.
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1958
In more detail, as Stirling Newberry said,
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/001255.html
... Rent does not reflect capital - a factory in the US is the same
as a factory in China. The difference in costs is the rent paid
for having stable laws, transparent mechanisms of government and
the rest.
Capital consistently misprices rent ...
Why does rent exist? Because if you have something that others
must rent, you can charge them almost anything for it. Rent is
either very cheap, or very expensive. ...
In an economy like ours, there are three ways to gain income:
* from your own labor, as wages or salary;
* from investments; or,
* from benefits to you from government protection of your location,
for example, from renting a factory that does not get stolen from
you, or from renting a cheaply reproducable entity, such as a
song, that a government is able successfully to forbid others to
sell.
It is easy to see what happened in Russia:
Russia went from being `state capitalist' under Stalin to becoming
`state rentalist' under Putin.
* In the 1930s, Stalin pushed state capitalist development by
reducing wages through induced famine in the Ukraine and the like,
by forcing high levels of savings, and by using the results to
build many factories.
* In the 2000s Putin increased state ownership of non-replaceable
resources, such as natural gas, whose value depends on geographic and
political location, and sold those resources to Europeans and Chinese.
It is harder to consider the contemporary US a `rentalist' economy,
but consider:
* In the first half of the 20th century, corporations and
governments invested in education, roads, and factories.
* In the latter part of the 20th century, corporations and
governments invested in extending copyright restrictions, in
denying choice to cable television subscribers, and in restrictive
and proprietary computer application standards.
Rather than see the 21st century as one in which conflicts will be
among those who promote different paths towards equal opportunity, as
Philip Bobbitt argues in `The Shield of Achilles', will conflicts
occur between `rentalists' and `capitalists'?
After all, capitalists need a certain amount of stability to survive.
They need the basics of a rentalist economy.
Even the mainland Chinese government pulled out of Bolivia recently,
saying it was not going to invest over $1 billion in fossil fuels.
And mainland Chinese managers know really well how to operate in
corrupt and unstable environments.
One reason for the US to continue its huge balance of payments deficit
is that it appears to offer a better `precautionary' destination for
money than Europe, which depends on the Russia government being able
to guard its pipelines well.
What if the US comes to look as bad a `precautionary' destination as
other countries? Would it be enough for a dozen or so suicide
soldiers, terrorists, to steal loaded gasoline or chlorine tankers and
drive them into various Halburton offices?
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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