Curt Doolittle

Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • How Does A Country Get A Good Balance Between Socialism And Capitalism?

    I’ll back up TJ Claridge’s post and say that you’re misusing the terms.

    I think you mean to say, how much interference in the economy by the government produces a Pareto Optimum? 

    We call this a mixed economy.  That is, a capitalist economy (which is the only economy possible long term), with social democratic redistribution via taxation.   Under social democracy, property is owned by individuals, but proceeds are forcibly taken from those people for redistributive purposes. Social democracy is not socialism, since property is not owned by the state, and production is not organized by the state. (It cannot be, that’s why it isn’t). 

    In practice nearly all governments today practice social democracy.  The difference is only in the level of corruption involved. Even very good people in the world (Hindus) have a tragically corrupt country.

    Greece for example has both high corruption (bureaucratic) and high avoidance (personal).  America has very sophisticated corruption (systemic), very little interpersonal bureaucratic corruption other than systemic corruption, and very little personal avoidance.

    https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-country-get-a-good-balance-between-socialism-and-capitalism

  • “… thinks land tax will reduce urban sprawl. This is not the case. You will si

    —“… thinks land tax will reduce urban sprawl. This is not the case.

    You will simply give your surplus back to a centralised state apparatus that can only dump goods of little to no utility onto you.. The credit system is centralized in the modern state.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-18 02:10:00 UTC

  • MORE SOPHISTICATED VERSION OF CREDIT SLAVERY —“The modern State is an unlimite

    MORE SOPHISTICATED VERSION OF CREDIT SLAVERY

    —“The modern State is an unlimited liability corporation, of which the citizens are the workers and guarantors, and the financial system the beneficiary”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-18 02:09:00 UTC

  • ARTICLE (AND A KEEPER)

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=30215ANTI-GEORGIST ARTICLE (AND A KEEPER)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-18 02:07:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3RgruLhup

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-15 08:19:00 UTC

  • RIFFING ON MICHAEL PHILIP – ON THE PRICE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMONS –“In the

    RIFFING ON MICHAEL PHILIP – ON THE PRICE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMONS

    –“In the socialist calculation debate, Mises says socialism fails because we can’t impute prices to capital goods without prices for consumer goods and consequently we can’t rationally allocate capital across sectors. In the environmentalist calculation debate, we can’t rationally allocate an environmental price to a consumer good without having environmental prices on capital goods. In the fully Pigovean world, prices fully convey information about costs including environmental costs. Outside of that world, we probably still do best by looking only to prices as the best potential aggregation of knowable cost”– Michael Phillip

    To create a market price you have to privatize a good.

    To partly privatize a good one can limit Usus, Fructus, Mancipio and Abusus. Meaning that we can privatize the Use, Fruition and in some cases transfer (sale) of a good, without the right of Abusus (destruction or harm).

    It is not necessary to grant Abusus, or even Mancipio to create a tradable good (we don’t grant Mancipio and Abusus to ourselves when selling our labor). Privatization requires only the rights of Usus and Fructus in order for us to create prices from those trades.

    So it is a fallacy that we cannot have the best of both worlds: commons. Commons in which we privatize Usus, Fructus, and Mancipio, while retaining Abusus.

    We do not grant Mancipio and Abusus to Man, nor do we grant it to our commons. Most of our commons we grant Usus (parks). Occasionally we grant fructus (grazing on park land). But the only way to know the price of a commons is to at least grant Usus and Mancipio. And we probably, in all circumstances, should prevent Abusus.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    `

    TERMS:

    Rights of use:Usus, the fruits of:Fructus, to transfer: Mancipio, to abuse:Abusus.

    http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/11/02/usufructs-under-propertarianism/

    H/T Ayelam Valentine Agaliba for getting me to use the right terminology.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-15 02:55:00 UTC

  • ARE DEAD. YOU NOW? IT”S A 175B ECONOMY. AND WE’RE DEAD. Russia Killed Us

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/11/ukraines-economyWE ARE DEAD. YOU NOW? IT”S A 175B ECONOMY. AND WE’RE DEAD.

    Russia Killed Us.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-09 03:18:00 UTC

  • MALINVESTMENT Whenever Investment is Provided by Those Without Occupational Depe

    MALINVESTMENT

    Whenever Investment is Provided by Those Without Occupational Dependence Upon Income From Practice Of Craft.

    It is tragically simple to detect malinvestment.

    Some malinvestment often produces extraordinary ends at the top, where experimentation is being performed.

    The remaining malinvestment is simply malinvestment – the seeking of rewards by those without the knowledge and ability to construct them.

    Flocking and schooling create malinvestment.

    Central bankers create flocking and schooling in consumption industries which obscure ‘growth’ in productivity (waste)

    Investors create flocking and schooling to speculative innovations (gambling).

    Entrerpreneurs create flocking and schooling to PRODUCTIVE innovations.

    Now, you can get into all sorts of niche arguments over this, but once we come to terms on terms, my arguments will stand. You might argue that in the short term, our moral obligation is to keep money moving and consumption moving. And I agree with that. I just disagree with that being a measure of ‘good economics’ or good policy, and instead, a necessary tragedy given insufficient innovation, and excessive human reproduction.

    On the other hand, a declining population producing increasing productivity is the only logical and rational goal that we can pursue over the medium and long term.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-07 03:44:00 UTC

  • (worth repeating) (from elsewhere) (archived) Subjective Value is descriptive, i

    (worth repeating) (from elsewhere) (archived)

    https://mises.org/…/economics-and-its-ethical-assumptions

    Subjective Value is descriptive, in that the decision of the personal utility of acting on a want or fear (value) is limited to the judgement (intuition) of the individual (subjective). The individual’s willingness to act to obtain, or act to avoid something is determined by his his intuitions, desires, preferences, wants, and fears alone. Value: willingness to bear cost in exchange.

    This concept is obvious. However, the implications for economics are not: that the individual’s perception of his willingness to bear a cost, and his judgement of the cost that he put into something, are not something he perceives rationally when interacting with others. Instead, he anticipates that his desires for consumption are objective, and that his desires for exchange are objective, but that his opponent’s interests are subjective. In other words, he cognitively biases both incoming and outgoing assets in his favor. (This is probably a form of error correction on nature’s part, to make sure that the marginal difference between goods obtained via cooperation is actually in our benefit.)

    Satisfaction and Frustration quotients vary between individuals (and families, and classes and tribes). So not only are we more or less willing to act (bear a cost) to have or avoid one thing or another, but our desire to fulfill another want, or avoid another stress is subjective as well. (Frustration ‘budgets’ being common.) And our desire to consume a satisfaction quickly or slowly is equally subjective.

    Economics may or may not tell you what to desire, but it may help you with the means. But this “nonsense argument” puts us into conflict between our personal values, our moral intuitions and our institutional requirements for achieving both.

    Mises’ “…So far as Economics is concerned…” (imaginary needs) thinks this is incorrect. But that is only if one assumes that trade is the starting point for cooperation, rather than the need to cooperate in the first place as necessary for rationally forgoing violence.

    (More another time…..)

    I think propertarianism (operationalism with property) is much clearer than classical arguments.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-06 12:21:00 UTC

  • CEO: “5.5% UNEMPLOYMENET IS A BIG LIE”

    http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspxGALLUP CEO: “5.5% UNEMPLOYMENET IS A BIG LIE”

    Source date (UTC): 2015-02-03 15:03:00 UTC