Dubai is BUSTED

[Havet]

Shares plunged, weak currencies were battered and more than £14 billion was wiped from the value of British banks on fears that they would be left nursing new losses. Nervous traders transferred the focus of their anxieties from the risk of companies failing to the risk of nation states defaulting. Investors owed money by Mexico, Russia and Greece saw the price of insuring themselves against default rocket.

Although the scale of Dubai’s debts is comparatively modest at $80 billion (£48 billion), the uncertainty spooked the markets, with no one sure who its creditors are. Several banks rushed out statements to reassure investors that their exposure was small.
The FTSE 100 plunged by 171 points to 5,194 — its biggest one-day fall in eight months in one of the most jittery days in the financial markets since the depths of the banking crisis.

The Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority were monitoring events closely and are demanding figures from UK banks on their loan exposures to Dubai.

According to a senior government official, Dubai’s crisis is regarded as modest and manageable for Britain, but there were growing fears that Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich neighbouring emirate that has in the past given rescue loans, would leave Dubai to its fate.

Dubai World, the state-owned corporation that began the panic on Wednesday by demanding a standstill on its interest payments, worsened the mood when it postponed a teleconference for its bond holders, saying the phone lines were overwhelmed.

Dubai World has liabilities of £36 billion, about three quarters of Dubai’s total state debt. Its subsidiary Nakheel built The Palm Islands development, but the property bubble in the emirate burst a year ago, leaving buildings unfinished, debts unpaid and paper fortunes erased.


http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/dubai-debt-sends-panic-a-dangerous-new-phase-in-the-global-economic-crisis/


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/3510908/Dubai-reveals-debt-levels-to-dispel-fears-over-growth.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/6667851/Is-this-bye-bye-Dubai.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/28markets.html

Capitalism sinking in quicksand.

Seriously know, if Dubai does go down, all the rest of the world will follow, and people/workers better start organizing, 'cos it's gonna be one hell of a mess once it all comes crashing down.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

The real question is, will you be ready too? because if workers do start organising your going to be in a lot of trouble when you call on them "abolish the minimum wage" like proper "anti capitalist leftists." :rolleyes:

[Havet]

The real question is, will you be ready too? because if workers do start organising your going to be in a lot of trouble when you call on them "abolish the minimum wage" like proper "anti capitalist leftists." :rolleyes:

I have no problems with natural minimum wages, as we have seen through collective bargaining (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargain) in countries like Switzerland and Sweden. I do have a problem with State-enforced minimum wage laws though.

Then again, if it all came crashing down, there wouldn't be a State to enforce those laws, now would it?

[Jazzratt]

Seriously know, if Dubai does go down, all the rest of the world will follow, and people/workers better start organizing, 'cos it's gonna be one hell of a mess once it all comes crashing down.

I don't think people like you who think we should build it right back up again (albeit with soaring rhetoric about "freedom") will be very popular when we do organise, mate.

[Havet]

I don't think people like you who think we should build it right back up again (albeit with soaring rhetoric about "freedom") will be very popular when we do organise, mate.

Ah, very clever strawman.

Where have I supported the current system so as to make believe that if it came crashing down I would want to build it right back up again?

Just because you cannot argue my other points about free-market anti-capitalism doesn't mean you're automatically right.

If you're honestly interested in discussing, you can make a thread and I'll debate you, or you can continue past conversations in other threads, but don't just post here and there as if to annoy me, because it just makes you look like a troll :(

[Jazzratt]

Ah, very clever strawman.

Where have I supported the current system so as to make believe that if it came crashing down I would want to build it right back up again?

It's the logical conclusion of re-introducing markets and private ownership of the means of production. It's like you're claiming not to be supporting burning my house down while at the same time pouring petrol over it. There seems to be a complete disconnection between cause and effect in your mind that leads you to talk about inanities like "free-market anti-capitalism".


Just because you cannot argue my other points about free-market anti-capitalism doesn't mean you're automatically right.

I can't argue against you in the same way that I can't argue with any other nutter who is completely convinced of their delusions. All I can do is consitently contradict you in the hope that somewhere behind all your delusional beliefs there burns the faint fire of intelligence. The fact you even countenance the idea of the free market being anything other than a maleficient force in the world and yet claim to be anti-capitalist makes me doubt this though.


If you're honestly interested in discussing, you can make a thread and I'll debate you, or you can continue past conversations in other threads, but don't just post here and there as if to annoy me, because it just makes you look like a troll :(

To be honest you get on my nerves. I like the restricted members that are honest, not the ones (like you) who pretend that you're part of a legitimate anti-capitalist current. Anyway I don't give a flying fuck if you think I look like a troll because it is pretty bloody evident that people who actually matter a damn on this site do not.

[Havet]

It's the logical conclusion of re-introducing markets and private ownership of the means of production. It's like you're claiming not to be supporting burning my house down while at the same time pouring petrol over it. There seems to be a complete disconnection between cause and effect in your mind that leads you to talk about inanities like "free-market anti-capitalism".

Free-market anti-capitalism does not wish to reintroduce private ownership of the means of production. If you'd read even the slightest of theory you'd know that.

I think that there is a lot of stupid semantics over private property and that those who claim to oppose private property most often actually support some limited or particular form of it but they call it by some other name such as "personal property" or "possessions". I think that in particular situations there can be some kind of private commons or private property that has a policy that effectively makes it "public" in a meaningful sense (see Roderick Long for an exposition on this concept).

Property is theft "when it is related to a landowner or capitalist whose ownership is derived from conquest or exploitation and only maintained through the state, property laws, police, and an army". Property is freedom for "the peasant or artisan family [who have] a natural right to a home, land [they may] cultivate, [...] to tools of a trade", and the fruits of that cultivation — but not to ownership or control of the lands and lives of others. The former is considered illegitimate property, the latter legitimate property.

However, Proudhon warned that a society with private 'property' without equality would lead to statist-like relations between people.

[I]"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'"[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-25)
Unlike capitalist private-property supporters, Proudhon stressed equality. He thought all workers should own property and have access to capital. He stressed that in every cooperative "every worker employed in the association [must have] an undivided share in the property of the company"[27] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-26).

And this is why I always stress out the importance of equality of opportunity in a free market.

[Bankotsu]

Different societies have different concepts of property relations as well.


"The Dark Continent's Dilemma"


By CARROLL QUIGLEY


AFRICA'S SEARCH FOR IDENTITY.
By Victor C. Ferkiss. Brazillier. 346 pages. $6.50.

For a number of years I have been lecturing on Africa to a variety of audiences, chiefly at the Foreign Service Institute and the Brookings Institution. Invariably I have been asked to recommend a book on the subject which would provide a picture of Africa which was not either journalistic superficiality nor myopic specialization. There had been no such book. But now there is. This new volume by Victor Ferkiss, professor of political science at Georgetown University, is the best single volume now available on Africa.

Such high praise must be justified. In any such book as this, presenting Africa to the well-informed general reader, we should expect four qualities: It should be based on broad knowledge; it should display deep understanding of the relationships between facts; it should be written in a sufficiently attractive style to make its reading a pleasure rather than a chore; and it should have broad perspective, both in time and in social analysis, to give real meaning to the subject.

“Africa's Search for Identity" has all four of these qualities in a high degree. Anyone familiar with the subject will recognize that each of Ferkiss' lucid sentences is based on a thorough understanding of recent research and recent debates by experts on the subject. In each case Ferkiss explains the issues in a few words, unambiguously takes a stand, and defends it with a nice combination of erudition and commonsense. And in doing this, he shows a combination of historical understanding, of basic economic understanding, of sociological perspective, of the nature of power, and of the complexities of anthropological investigation to be found in no other book on Africa known to me. Best of all, his presentation is written in a very attractive style, which is clear, succinct, and rather wry.

The volume is organized in a roughly chronological order. An introduction on the basic facts of geography, race, and language, is followed by chapters on early history, the European penetration, the imperialist scramble; the movement toward independence, and the present period of growing problems and disillusionment. The whole process leads to the problem expressed in the book's title: Africa, with its old patterns of life now shattered and quite alien ones being thrust upon it, is confused and frustrated and seeks to discover its real identity, in a fashion even more frantic than we see in our own adolescence. The story, as told by Ferkiss, is a convincing and tragic one. He has the ability to see the real meaning behind the words, slogans, and propaganda devices which have so confused African studies, and has, as well, the unusual capacity to see many of the problems through African eyes. He shows clearly how the old Africa was held together, even in its most chaotic periods, by kinship, social reciprocity, and religious feelings. The destruction of these and the effort to create a "modern" Africa based on Europe's patterns of weapon-control, impersonal legal and constitutional behavior, on the mechanism of an atomistic economic market, all governed by abstract laws, scientific rules, and alien points of view has simply destroyed the old patterns without putting any satisfying new ones in their place.

Ferkiss is especially good at cutting through the misunderstandings which have hounded our relations with Africa from the beginning. He shows, for example, how the African tribal leader and African ideas of land-ownership were completely different from those of Europeans, resulting in utter confusion when the intruding Europeans insisted in acting as if they were the same. Tribal chiefs were not despots but were the spokesmen for a consensus reached by lengthy, informal discussion; land was not owned at all in our sense, and did not become a basis of economic and political power as it did in Europe, with the result that conquering African tribes, while enserfing men, usually left land-ownership to the conquered. Both chief and land had strong religious, or at least spiritual, aspects which were unrecognized by modern Europeans, and the individualistic assumptions of these latter were completely alien to the African inability to conceive of the individual apart from his kinship group.

On issue after issue of this kind Ferkiss shows how the European and Islamic intrusions, by breaking down the old ways and forcing upon the African completely new (and usually incomprehensible) alien ways have almost totally shattered African lives, have made it almost impossible for them to satisfy their less material needs, or even to retain their self-respect, and have set them off into a frantic search for identity.


http://www.carrollquigley.net/book-reviews/Dark-Continent-Dilemma.htm

[Jazzratt]

Free-market anti-capitalism does not wish to reintroduce private ownership of the means of production. If you'd read even the slightest of theory you'd know that.

I'm not going to go and read extra theory to keep up with your brand of lts-pretend anarchism. I was hoping I could go on what you yourself had posted rather than being referred to this or that DWM.


I think that there is a lot of stupid semantics over private property and that those who claim to oppose private property most often actually support some limited or particular form of it but they call it by some other name such as "personal property" or "possessions".

Ispecifically chose not to use the word propery but instead the term means of production so I wouldn't have to go through this banal discussion again. I'm not talking of property as is meant in all the various terms (personal property, possesions) but of productive property (factories and the machinery therein or things like the Bagger 288 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288) for example.).

Anyway, I've got to be off soon so I'm not going to engage with the rest of your post for a little bit. (I'll be too hungover until tomorrow evening at the very least. Maybe the day after). The Bagger 288 is awesome, however.

[Havet]

The Bagger 288 is awesome, however.

Yes, it is :)

[Jazzratt]

And this is why I always stress out the importance of equality of opportunity in a free market.

That's just so much guff. Trade and equality cannot coexist. If I have an equal share in production as you and equal claim to the fruits of society why then do we need a market? What in fuck's name could I possibly want from you? Unless of course all this bollocks about common ownership is just that.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

The consensus now is that the problem in Dubai is largely contained to that region and that fears about Dubai's woes spreading to other markets have been overstated. Dubai is fucked, largely because of its property bubble. But the rest of the world is not fucked yet.

[Havet]

That's just so much guff. Trade and equality cannot coexist. If I have an equal share in production as you and equal claim to the fruits of society why then do we need a market? What in fuck's name could I possibly want from you? Unless of course all this bollocks about common ownership is just that.

Because different people will have equal shares in different production activities, so for example "my" business (probably a cooperative one) would manufacture milk while yours would manufacture bread, and then by selling both on an open market you would be able to enjoy the benefits of both.

[Dimentio]

I have no problems with natural minimum wages, as we have seen through collective bargaining (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargain) in countries like Switzerland and Sweden. I do have a problem with State-enforced minimum wage laws though.

Then again, if it all came crashing down, there wouldn't be a State to enforce those laws, now would it?

You have a point there. State enforced minimum wage laws are often below the natural market price as the state is in the same bed as the capitalists. Bargains like in Sweden often create higher minimum wages and differentiating minimum wages for different sectors.

[Havet]

You have a point there. State enforced minimum wage laws are often below the natural market price as the state is in the same bed as the capitalists. Bargains like in Sweden often create higher minimum wages and differentiating minimum wages for different sectors.

Exactly

[Jazzratt]

Because different people will have equal shares in different production activities, so for example "my" business (probably a cooperative one) would manufacture milk while yours would manufacture bread, and then by selling both on an open market you would be able to enjoy the benefits of both.

What utter nonsense. Firstly how on earth do you calculate different shares of different things being equal? How many sacks of flour equals a cow in this example? Why should I use your system to share in the benefits of both when I could use a more sensible, non-price system such as technocracy and be garunteed it without relying on you wanting bread whenever I fancy a bit of milk in my tea*?

*I loathe milk in tea. I loathe milk generally but you get what I'm driving at?

[Havet]

What utter nonsense. Firstly how on earth do you calculate different shares of different things being equal? How many sacks of flour equals a cow in this example? Why should I use your system to share in the benefits of both when I could use a more sensible, non-price system such as technocracy and be garunteed it without relying on you wanting bread whenever I fancy a bit of milk in my tea*?

*I loathe milk in tea. I loathe milk generally but you get what I'm driving at?

No, I don't get where you're driving it. Though you would be free to create your own non-price technocratic community, but I suspect that when technology had expanded that far we would ALL be in a "post-scarcity" environment, and *your* system would naturally expand to other communities.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You have a point there. State enforced minimum wage laws are often below the natural market price as the state is in the same bed as the capitalists. Bargains like in Sweden often create higher minimum wages and differentiating minimum wages for different sectors.

That's funny. Quoting Randall Wray, economist Hyman Minsky argued that, "in the absence of tight full employment, the true minimum wage is zero; however, with an employer-of-last-resort program, the program wage becomes an effective minimum wage."

[MarxSchmarx]

That's funny. Quoting Randall Wray, economist Hyman Minsky argued that, "in the absence of tight full employment, the true minimum wage is zero; however, with an employer-of-last-resort program, the program wage becomes an effective minimum wage."

what is a program wage?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm not talking of property as is meant in all the various terms (personal property, possesions) but of productive property (factories and the machinery therein or things like the Bagger 288 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288) for example.).




The Bagger 288 is awesome, however.





Yes, it is :)


---





Because different people will have equal shares in different production activities, so for example "my" business (probably a cooperative one) would manufacture milk while yours would manufacture bread, and then by selling both on an open market you would be able to enjoy the benefits of both.





What utter nonsense. Firstly how on earth do you calculate different shares of different things being equal? How many sacks of flour equals a cow in this example? Why should I use your system to share in the benefits of both when I could use a more sensible, non-price system such as technocracy and be garunteed it without relying on you wanting bread whenever I fancy a bit of milk in my tea*?

*I loathe milk in tea. I loathe milk generally but you get what I'm driving at?





No, I don't get where you're driving it. Though you would be free to create your own non-price technocratic community, but I suspect that when technology had expanded that far we would ALL be in a "post-scarcity" environment, and *your* system would naturally expand to other communities.


hayenmill, I don't understand how you can personally reconcile the existence of massive means of mass production, like the Bagger 288, with merely the *likelihood* of a post-scarcity environment.

I understand that you're all hung up on "personal opportunity", which I take to be a fetish with a stochastic, multi-scale sort of "natural emergence" of bottom-up economic-system vectors, but how, in all realistic thinking, can you continue to think of a post-scarcity environment as being something "down the road" -- ??? Don't you think that we *currently* live in a post-scarcity world, and that the outstanding problem is one of equitable *distribution*???

(On the anarchic, state-less "natural emergence" part, the reason the rest of us (Marxists) don't even *bother* to address a post-capitalist system at such a low level is *entirely because* a post-capitalist system would *necessarily be* *post-scarcity*, thanks to *currently* existing levels of technological prowess. You continue to want to split hairs over how milk products might be valued against bread products, when such concerns could either be swamped by collectivized, automated mass production altogether, or else handled at the face-to-face level, by local producers, if they so happened to choose such old-fashioned lifestyles. In both cases the objective need for a market mechanism would be precluded.)

[graffic]

I for one am glad to see "cityboys" and the super riche's assets dissolve into sand. They have been throwing money around like water whilst high on drugs, a casino stock market, irresponsible fucks, provoking a global recession and in the UK they had the cheek to still request bonuses. The tax payer bailed out the banks in the UK for, I think it was £904 billion, roughly 15,000 for every citizen, and all the government could do was look slightly angry whilst signing a check, and they still said "anything but don't take our bonuses". People are starting to realise that this neo-liberal nonsense is all bullshit. Dubai was apparently built on slave labour funded by tax haven money of the worlds wealthiest. The wealthiest five hundred people in the world have more wealth than half the worlds population - the poorest 3 billion, and the government still sides overwhelmingly in favour of the rich. It's astounding how quickly people want to get the system running again when it collapses

[Havet]

I understand that you're all hung up on "personal opportunity", which I take to be a fetish with a stochastic, multi-scale sort of "natural emergence" of bottom-up economic-system vectors, but how, in all realistic thinking, can you continue to think of a post-scarcity environment as being something "down the road" -- ??? Don't you think that we *currently* live in a post-scarcity world, and that the outstanding problem is one of equitable *distribution*???

(On the anarchic, state-less "natural emergence" part, the reason the rest of us (Marxists) don't even *bother* to address a post-capitalist system at such a low level is *entirely because* a post-capitalist system would *necessarily be* *post-scarcity*, thanks to *currently* existing levels of technological prowess. You continue to want to split hairs over how milk products might be valued against bread products, when such concerns could either be swamped by collectivized, automated mass production altogether, or else handled at the face-to-face level, by local producers, if they so happened to choose such old-fashioned lifestyles. In both cases the objective need for a market mechanism would be precluded.)

Let me play ckaihatsu for a moment:

"Oh my oh my, why are you *personalizing* this? Why do you think I have a *fetish*? What does it matter?"

Anyway,

Even if no one is hungry, food is still "scarce", since for me to have more or better food, some cost must be incurred. Either someone has to give up food or someone must pay the cost of producing more. The opposite of a "scarce" good is not a "plentiful" good but a "free" good, something available in sufficient supply for everyone at no cost.

[ckaihatsu]

Even if no one is hungry, food is still "scarce", since for me to have more or better food, some cost must be incurred. Either someone has to give up food or someone must pay the cost of producing more. The opposite of a "scarce" good is not a "plentiful" good but a "free" good, something available in sufficient supply for everyone at no cost.


Believe it or not, the amount of food that can fit into 7 billion human bodies daily is a *finite* quantity, and it is *not* a question of some mysterious supply. Even allowing for some moderate degree of choice over what kinds of food to eat would *still* not stretch the available food supply into the realms of scarcity.

It's obvious that your concern here is *not* with the *political* issue of how we can make sure that everyone is fed by a readily abundant supply of food, but rather that your concern is with the *business*-type valuation of more-specialized, possibly luxury, types of food.

You're also ignoring the possibility that *all demand* for *all possible, actually requested types of food* could at some point be fulfilled, thus throwing *all* food-goods into the 'free' category, with no outstanding scarcity anywhere.

[Havet]

Believe it or not, the amount of food that can fit into 7 billion human bodies daily is a *finite* quantity, and it is *not* a question of some mysterious supply. Even allowing for some moderate degree of choice over what kinds of food to eat would *still* not stretch the available food supply into the realms of scarcity.

It's obvious that your concern here is *not* with the *political* issue of how we can make sure that everyone is fed by a readily abundant supply of food, but rather that your concern is with the *business*-type valuation of more-specialized, possibly luxury, types of food.

You're also ignoring the possibility that *all demand* for *all possible, actually requested types of food* could at some point be fulfilled, thus throwing *all* food-goods into the 'free' category, with no outstanding scarcity anywhere.

You have not questioned my point whether food is scarce or not, so i'll take it you agree with my argument.

If you don't, can you explain to me how can food be achieved without any cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost)?

[ckaihatsu]

You have not questioned my point whether food is scarce or not, so i'll take it you agree with my argument.


Instead of *assuming* *anything* about my position why not just ask and find out my answer -- ?

Food *availability* certainly *is* scarce, because of capitalism's wealth-based distribution system.





Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty (source: FAO, 2003). Six million children die of hunger every year - 17,000 every day.[5]





If you don't, can you explain to me how can food be achieved without any cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost)?





In the US, there are approximately 2,000,000 farmers, less than 1% of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_supply


In terms of labor we could certainly provide enough farm workers out of the total population to overcome any food scarcity -- this would have to be outside of any *private* interests over productivity, profit-making, or ownership, of course....

[Havet]

Instead of *assuming* *anything* about my position why not just ask and find out my answer -- ?

Food *availability* certainly *is* scarce, because of capitalism's wealth-based distribution system.

In terms of labor we could certainly provide enough farm workers out of the total population to overcome any food scarcity -- this would have to be outside of any *private* interests over productivity, profit-making, or ownership, of course....

You are still confusing the technical economic meaning of "scarce resources" with the conventional meaning of "scarce".

Conventional meaning: availability
Economic meaning: cost

[RedStarOverChina]

Dubai is busted because none of the wealthy created by the oil industry belongs to the people of Dubai. It goes straight back into the pockets of Western capitalists and financiers. Almost every brick from every building ever built in Dubai were brought from Western construction companies who have a hand in every single development.

That's the phenomenon we know as National Bourgeoisie being subservient to the Western Bourgeoisie.

[Drace]

Dubai is busted because none of the wealthy created by the oil industry belongs to the people of Dubai. It goes straight back into the pockets of Western capitalists and financiers. Almost every brick from every building ever built in Dubai were brought from Western construction companies who have a hand in every single development.

That's the phenomenon we know as National Bourgeoisie being subservient to the Western Bourgeoisie.

Interesting, can you explain further please?

[ckaihatsu]

You are still confusing the technical economic meaning of "scarce resources" with the conventional meaning of "scarce".

Conventional meaning: availability
Economic meaning: cost


No, I'm not, and you can't simply separate the two since they are interrelated under capitalist economics.

[Havet]

No, I'm not, and you can't simply separate the two since they are interrelated under capitalist economics.

We weren't talking about capitalist economics, we were talking about an hypothetical post-scarcity society.

Please explain to me how you could produce food (example) without any cost.

[ckaihatsu]

---





We weren't talking about capitalist economics, we were talking about an hypothetical post-scarcity society.

Please explain to me how you could produce food (example) without any cost.





In terms of labor we could certainly provide enough farm workers out of the total population to overcome any food scarcity -- this would have to be outside of any *private* interests over productivity, profit-making, or ownership, of course....





In my attached document, 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors', at post #101, you'll see that I advocate a system of rolling valuations of recently active workers, through a system of labor credits that apply to *work hours* only, and not to tangible material properties of any sort. This acknowledges that a fully collectivized, or gift, economy, would have *no need or function fulfilled* by assigning quantitative valuations to material products, since everything *could be* coordinated through a *political* economy of collective intention by the society and workers themselves.

The labor credits would serve to take the place of private collections of capital, which today function as the means of coordinating workers in a workforce, through the labor markets. The replacement for today's professionalized managerial staff would be the locality's daily prioritized political demands, aggregated and sorted for the consideration of all liberated workers who would seek to gain labor credits (and to be close to the point of production).

[Havet]

---

Worker's still have to labor, and that is the cost they endure, so there is still scarcity. Just because there is more availability or a different distribution scheme doesn't mean the cost just "goes away".

What part of this do you not understand?

[ckaihatsu]

Worker's still have to labor, and that is the cost they endure, so there is still scarcity. Just because there is more availability or a different distribution scheme doesn't mean the cost just "goes away".

What part of this do you not understand?


Please don't accuse me of saying that there are no costs involved -- I addressed the material costs in my previous post.

And (material) cost -- labor -- is an entirely separate matter from scarcity. Scarcity has to do with *demand*, while labor has to do with *supply*. Given enough automation the labor *supply* could conceivably fulfill and exceed all basic human needs.

[Havet]

Please don't accuse me of saying that there are no costs involved -- I addressed the material costs in my previous post.

And (material) cost -- labor -- is an entirely separate matter from scarcity. Scarcity has to do with *demand*, while labor has to do with *supply*. Given enough automation the labor *supply* could conceivably fulfill and exceed all basic human needs.

Even by going through your definition, it would be impossible.

Even if productivity does increase enormously, you assume that total demand is limited; otherwise, increases in productivity will be met by increases in demand, as in the past, and the conflict between different people who want the same resources will still exist.

There is a limit to the amount of food I can eat or the number of cars I can conveniently use. There is no obvious limit to the resources that can be usefully employed in producing a better car or better food. For $10,000 a car can be made better than for $5,000; for $20,000, better than $10,000.

[ckaihatsu]

And (material) cost -- labor -- is an entirely separate matter from scarcity. Scarcity has to do with *demand*, while labor has to do with *supply*. Given enough automation the labor *supply* could conceivably fulfill and exceed all basic human needs.





Even by going through your definition, it would be impossible.


No, it wouldn't -- note where your emphasis / focus is: *not* with the political goal of providing everyone on the planet with the *basics* of humane living.





There is a limit to the amount of food I can eat or the number of cars I can conveniently use. There is no obvious limit to the resources that can be usefully employed in producing a better car or better food. For $10,000 a car can be made better than for $5,000; for $20,000, better than $10,000.


You're more concerned with the *technicalities* of market-based pricing for more-specialized (luxury) goods.





Even if productivity does increase enormously, you assume that total demand is limited; otherwise, increases in productivity will be met by increases in demand, as in the past, and the conflict between different people who want the same resources will still exist.


*You're* assuming that conflicts break out in some kind of tribal-warfare way over cutting-edge consumer lifestyles, whereas the reality is that nation-centric *imperialism* is the 800-pound gorilla that just plops down on any continent it wants and imposes colonialism over local markets.

And, total demand *is* limited -- ever see markets (virtually) bottom-out, due to over-supply (overproduction), as with food, trifling consumer items, or digital content?

[Havet]

No, it wouldn't -- note where your emphasis / focus is: *not* with the political goal of providing everyone on the planet with the *basics* of humane living.

strawman

I agree it will be possible to provide everyone on the planet with the basics of human living, but not in the way you think you will achieve it.


You're more concerned with the *technicalities* of market-based pricing for more-specialized (luxury) goods.

strawman


*You're* assuming that conflicts break out in some kind of tribal-warfare way over cutting-edge consumer lifestyles, whereas the reality is that nation-centric *imperialism* is the 800-pound gorilla that just plops down on any continent it wants and imposes colonialism over local markets.

Clever way to divert the topic


And, total demand *is* limited -- ever see markets (virtually) bottom-out, due to over-supply (overproduction), as with food, trifling consumer items, or digital content?

No, it's not limited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say%27s_law).

[ckaihatsu]

And, total demand *is* limited -- ever see markets (virtually) bottom-out, due to over-supply (overproduction), as with food, trifling consumer items, or digital content?





No, it's not limited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say%27s_law).


Just one post prior you admitted that the amount of food that a person can eat is limited:





There is a limit to the amount of food I can eat or the number of cars I can conveniently use.


Likewise, there are only 24 hours in a day -- this means that the amount of *time* that a person has with which to experience leisure / pleasure is also *finite*, like food consumption. Time spent driving one car is time that *cannot* be spent driving a *second* car, or doing other things.

It's for this fact of simple physical reality that we can say that consumer demand will *always* be limited to a certain bounded material universe of consumer possibilities. Certainly I agree that a society could always find new *work projects* to undertake in order to produce *more* consumer items or experiences -- the making of new movies would be one example of the "boundless scarcity" of new movies to be made, if you'd like to look at it this way, but these concerns should be on the *periphery* of *political* concerns.





You're more concerned with the *technicalities* of market-based pricing for more-specialized (luxury) goods.





strawman





*You're* assuming that conflicts break out in some kind of tribal-warfare way over cutting-edge consumer lifestyles, whereas the reality is that nation-centric *imperialism* is the 800-pound gorilla that just plops down on any continent it wants and imposes colonialism over local markets.





Clever way to divert the topic





And (material) cost -- labor -- is an entirely separate matter from scarcity. Scarcity has to do with *demand*, while labor has to do with *supply*. Given enough automation the labor *supply* could conceivably fulfill and exceed all basic human needs.





Even by going through your definition, it would be impossible.





No, it wouldn't -- note where your emphasis / focus is: *not* with the political goal of providing everyone on the planet with the *basics* of humane living.





strawman

I agree it will be possible to provide everyone on the planet with the basics of human living, but not in the way you think you will achieve it.


So here you've agreed that the capacity to supply the world's basic human needs is possible.

[Havet]

Likewise, there are only 24 hours in a day -- this means that the amount of *time* that a person has with which to experience leisure / pleasure is also *finite*, like food consumption. Time spent driving one car is time that *cannot* be spent driving a *second* car, or doing other things.

It's for this fact of simple physical reality that we can say that consumer demand will *always* be limited to a certain bounded material universe of consumer possibilities. Certainly I agree that a society could always find new *work projects* to undertake in order to produce *more* consumer items or experiences -- the making of new movies would be one example of the "boundless scarcity" of new movies to be made, if you'd like to look at it this way, but these concerns should be on the *periphery* of *political* concerns.

Just because one is physically limited to consume something doesn't mean one is limited to demand something. This current consumerist society should be crystal-clear about this.

As I said before: "There is no obvious limit to the resources that can be usefully employed in producing a better car or better food. For $10,000 a car can be made better than for $5,000; for $20,000, better than $10,000. If the median income rises to $1000,000 a year, we shall have no difficulty spending it."


So here you've agreed that the capacity to supply the world's basic human needs is possible.

Yes, the most basic human needs. Not all demand.

[ckaihatsu]

It's for this fact of simple physical reality that we can say that consumer demand will *always* be limited to a certain bounded material universe of consumer possibilities. Certainly I agree that a society could always find new *work projects* to undertake in order to produce *more* consumer items or experiences -- the making of new movies would be one example of the "boundless scarcity" of new movies to be made, if you'd like to look at it this way, but these concerns should be on the *periphery* of *political* concerns.





Just because one is physically limited to consume something doesn't mean one is limited to demand something. This current consumerist society should be crystal-clear about this.


Okay, I'm actually in agreement with this mode of thinking, as long as we also keep in mind that the requisite *labor* to *fulfill* these demands has to come from somewhere / someone.... (So then we're back to political issues of the exploitation of labor, surplus labor value, etc.)

[Havet]

Okay, I'm actually in agreement with this mode of thinking, as long as we also keep in mind that the requisite *labor* to *fulfill* these demands has to come from somewhere / someone.... (So then we're back to political issues of the exploitation of labor, surplus labor value, etc.)

Good then, i'll wait for your reply in "role of the gold standard during the great depression" thread ^^