Labor on land creates wealth, which means material that can be of use to
humans. Some wealth is consumed to meet immediate human needs. Other wealth
becomes capital - which means wealth used to create more wealth.
Land and labor are the fundamental factors. Neoliberal economics undermined
Georgist economics, which had grasped the way to solve the maldistribution
of wealth problem via fair free markets, by making land a subset of capital,
giving a two-factor approach - capital and labor.
Land - all the earths surface and natural resources - became a subset of
capital! The intellectual crime of the century.
In Georgist economics (geonomics), land is considered a common heritage, to
be secured/held via user fees while privately created wealth - wages and
productive capital- is to be untaxed.
If interested. go to www.earthrights.net
Otherwise, you will not hear from me again, as I sign off the list now.
Best wishes.
> From: "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 23:49:56 +0100
> To: "crl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [CrashList] Re: Warning Signs?
>
>> Most value is actually created by chemical processes such as nature
>> produces,
>
> The argument about whether all wealth is produced by human labour or
> whether nature 'contributes' to wealth-creation is based on wrong
> premises. Of course, nature produces material wealth. In his 1875
> critique of the German social-democrat party's programme, which opened
> with the statement, 'Labour is the source of all wealth,' Marx
> commented, 'Labour is *not* the source of all wealth. Nature is just
> as much the source of...material wealth.' He insisted that 'Labour
> depends on nature', and said the 'natural conditions of labour [was]
> the earth as the original instrument of labour, both laboratory and
> repository of its raw materials'.
>
> BUT altho labour is not the source of all material WEALTH it IS the
> source of all economic VALUE. Monetary value accrues to commodities
> only because they incorporate some quantity of human labour-time.
> Completely pointless and idiotic arguments about this matter are the
> staple diet of economists everywhere. On Pen-L recently (in fact, on
> Pen-L forever) they debated whether or not 'forces of nature' can add
> 'value' (eg whether windmills add 'value' to flour, which then accrues
> to the owner as 'rent'). Ecological economists and fans of 'natural
> capitalism' like the fanatical gung-ho optimists of the Rocky Mountain
> Institute waste endless hours debating this non-existent issue. There
> have even been attempts to resurrect it here on the CrashList (Tony's
> last post is only the most recent attempt to do so). It is a waste of
> time. What matters from the point of view of the crisis of capitalism
> and the dynamics of the Crash, is the interplay of market recessions,
> booms and slumps, with the availability at any given time of finite
> resources, eg fossil fuels.
>
> For example, if the economy crashes next year, in part because of high
> oil prices this year, then oil prices might also collapse again;
> economists will say this proves there is no energy crisis, no shrtage
> of oil!
>
> In fact, this ricocheting of cause and effect like squash balls in a
> squash court makes the business of prediction difficult, but not
> impossible, and prediction is what we are here to do.
>
> Energy is material wealth. But it only acquires economic value when it
> is produced, ie when human-labour time is applied to make it available
> (marketable). Oil is material wealth but only acquires a value when it
> is pumped out of the ground which, as Shaikh Yamani recently said,
> does not happen by magic. It requires huge efforts, immense
> investments of social capital (=stored labour-time) and the live
> labour of hundreds of thousands of men and women, from geologists to
> pipeline fabricators to accountants to gas station attendants. It is
> the cumulative value of all their combined labour-times which gives
> oil its econonmic value and every time you buy a litre of gas you pay
> a pro rata fraction of that value. Market prices fluctuate around real
> values, and are determined by the vagaries of supply and demand. In
> fact, in constant dollars the real price of oil has been stable at
> around $15/bbl (1991 dollars) since 1870, when Rockefeller's Standard
> Oil first imposed 'order' on what was still then a chaotic market.
> Spikes or slumps do no mroe than register the impact of the chaotic
> disturbance-patterns which result from the effect on demand of the
> interaction of many different variables, from the weather, to war, to
> new technologies etc.
>
> As oil becomes more difficult to extract and scarcer, its value
> increases *because the necessary labour-time required to pump it
> increases*. Productivity improvements and technological advances can
> offset this trend by reducing the amount of labour-time required, but
> the effect of this is only to hasten depletion and thus to bring
> forward the day when real shortages bite. Even then, shortages may not
> soon or at all be reflected in higher market prices, because of hidden
> subsidies (for example, the US 5th and 7th Fleets which control the
> vital sealanes are paid for out of general taxation, but their purpose
> is to control the Persian Gulf and keep the oil flowing; this is only
> one of the ways in which oil is subsidised; equally, the externalities
> of the oil industry are hidden or not paid at all; pollution has many
> costs including damage to buildings, health ect, but the costs are not
> borne by the oil industry). Equally, prices may not rise because of
> economic slump. It is entirely possible that most of the oil now in
> the ground will NEVER be pumped at ANY price, because society lacks
> the social capital to extract it; meanwhile, the market-clearing price
> may still be around $15/bbl, because the market will have disappeared
> due to economic collapse. Falling production and falling consumption
> can indeed go together with falling prices. Shortages do NOT
> necessarily lead to increased prices. Note that TECHNOLOGY
> IMPROVEMENTS ONLY HASTEN THE CRASH. THEY DO NOT AVERT IT.
>
> Since economists do not factor in any of these considerations (or only
> rarely) almost everything they say and write about energy is worthless
> rubbish. To substitute for their abysmal ignorance of the real issues,
> they engage instead in religious hairsplitting debates about 'value'
> and 'wealth' and the 'contribution' of 'nature'. It is an utter waste
> of time and I want none of it here.
>
> BTW, what is true of energy is also true of all other staples,
> including food, raw materials of all kinds, textiles etc. It is not
> just energy economics which is worse than useless, it is ALL
> economics.
>
> Mark
>
>
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