HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hgm@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: distribution of wealth
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:18:18 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Apr11.100057.3089@rose.uucp>, david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp 
(david lloyd-jones) writes:
> Replying to: hgm@waikato.ac.nz

> 
> These themes are often asserted, but assertion is not proof: that the
> market promotes inequality

I can see nothing about the market itself that makes it promote inequality. I
have accepted what I have heard or read economists saying 'that the market
delivers to each in proportion to their assets'. That seems intuitively likely 
to me. No proof at the moment, do you dispute this or can you prove it?
My argument is not against the market but against the state which has allocated
rights to natural resources and their on-going services inperpetuity to someone
for at most a lifetimes work. No amount of work can be equivalent in value to
the services in perpetuity of a resource.

, and that the Enclosures robbed the poor of
> their pittance.
> 
I should have thought this was not only intuitive but incontrovertible fact.
The dispute might be over whether the poor were net gainers from the exercise.
Even if they were, and perhaps in the short term that may have been so. They
certainly did not expressly and knowingly enter into a contract to exchange
their share of resources for the supposed benefits so it was still robbery.

> Both are prettty counter-intuitive.
> 

The poor had only a pittance left to lose at the time of the enclosures because 
the mighty had already taken the best bits into ownership long ago.

> As for the enclosures, surely you've lived in a co-op where people argue
> about whose chocolate milk is taking up too much space in the fridge --
> and the meeker people eat out or leave.  That's the Commons for you.
> 

Common ownership does not have to mean free access but no I have never lived in
a co-op. Do they have private ownership of chocolate milk in your co-op?

I am not in favour of common ownership. I promote the equal right of all
INDIVIDUALS to a share of anything which exists in nature without human
activity. This is private ownership but each person can only benefit from a
limited amount and only for their lifetime. They retain rights to the value of
any improvements which they will have paid for with their labour either
directly or indirectly.

> The Enclosures have a deservedly horrible image in popular history
> because they did force poor people in the country to become poor people
> in the city.  But it seems to me an illusion to suggest that the people
> at the bottom were somehow propertied before and propertyless after the
> Enclosures.  They were at the bottom before and after.
> 

They had less than their share before and after but at least before they had
something and could choose between scratching a living on the commons or wage
slavery.

I don't see that the fact that the poor were little better off before the
enclosure is any argument for taking even more rights from them by this second
enclosure of pollution rights etc.

Helen Marsh
From: jackson@kaos.stsci.edu (Bob Jackson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarians, slaves and company towns
Date: 17 Apr 92 20:37:00 GMT
	<JACKSON.92Apr17090917@kaos.stsci.edu> <46727@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute

A small followup question:

What fraction of government assets were 
NOT acquired by violence or deceit?
From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 13 Apr 92 14:30:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: xuucp.9204131512.AA17940


>>  Nonetheless there are ample opportunities for a very wide range
>>  of perfectly legal experiments at the level of the town or state.
>>
>Nonsense. We live in a unified worldwide economic system. Those who chose
>to live outside ofthe monetary world will starve, those who chose to 
>pretend that the state does not exist will go to jail.

  Nevertheless there is nothing to stop, Amherst, say, from 
  selling all the roads to private interests.  Or from making
  fire protection a pay-as-you-go business.   Or from putting
  the schools under private management as Miami did ex-
  perimentally in a few of their schools.  Or similar liber-
  tarian experiments.  

  On the flip side, they could vote an over-ride to proposition
  2-1/2 and put in *serious* taxes on a wide variety of assets
  and democratically vote to redistribute this money to the 
  poor, or to perform a wide variety of other functions with
  it.   Amherst is a relatively affluent town, with a relatively
  small proportion of poor (nationally about 16% of the population
  is below the poverty line - it's probably less in Amherst).  So
  they could vote in some kind of government health insurance
  for their citizens.

  The point is that even local voters, and even in a state
  like Massachusetts, have a lot of options for types of 
  experiments that would prove quite enlightening to these
  generally too speculative debates on alternatives to the
  current approaches.


---peter
From: platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: R&D (was railroads)
Date: 13 Apr 92 14:20:34 GMT
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM

In article <1992Apr12.223444.20954@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
|> In article <1992Mar31.213910.6352@watson.ibm.com> platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt) writes:
|> >This wasn't my charge... at least, not so simply put.  What I said
|> >was that management was being discouraged in part because of the
|> >tendency for R & D to make a company look like a good takeover
|> >target.
|> >
|> 
|> Is the argument that too little R&D is being done by corporations because
|> investors are "too myopic"?  If so, one could make a fortune by being less
|> myopic than the market and buying stocks of firms that have high R&D, if
|> indeed the market systematically undervalues such firms.
|> 

It isn't even that companies are undervalued; those companies
become better targets for takeovers and takeover attempts. 
One example that comes to mind was Burlington; they weren't
particularly undervalued, but they were a takeover target.


Dan
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: thant@horus.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman)
Subject: Re: re  Communitarians
Organization: sgi
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 21:31:31 GMT

In article <9204091707.AA10313@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:

[...]

>   The name 'Communitarian' sounds like some idea which places
>   the role of the "community" first (compared with a "liber-
>   tarian", for whom individual "liberty" is paramount).  So 
>   in my best I-don't-know-anything-about-this-but-that-won't-
>   shut-me-up Usenet style, I'll predict that it's a typical
>   bunch of European Social Democrats, ex Communists, and
>   other random leftists, trying to dress up their old ideas
>   in a new suit of clothes.   [...]

In the best I-don't-know-but-I-did-see-something-on-tv Usenet
style, I'll respond that from what I remember, you've gotten
it pretty much right.  Their major theme is that the benefits
of living in a community come with responsibilities to that
community.  And, indeed, the only thing new about it is the 
name.  (And guess who gets to decide what those responsibilites
are?)

thant "Any devout communitarians out there?"
From: nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Get Back on Welfare Where You Belong!
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:08:01 GMT


>>The cosmetology board has been hounding Cornrows & Co. because its
>>employees are not licensed cosmetologists. In 1989, it slapped owners
>> Taalib-Din Uqdah and Pamela Farrell with $1,000 in fines for operating
>> a beauty salon and training program without a license.
>
> It's absowutely twoo!  This is, unlike what it sounds like, yet
> another example of our beneficient and efficient liberal governments in
> action.

  Uh huh.   Care to document this?  

  The news I saw indicated that this was strictly a local matter
  of a licensing board being dominated by other small business
  owners who were afraid of the competition.  Most likely the 
  board members are all good little Chamber of Commerce Republicans
  who have never had a liberal thought in their life (unless maybe
  one of them knocked up his outside squeeze and suddenly became
  "pro-choice" before his wife found out. )


---peter
From: kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 15 Apr 92 00:40:02 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab.

In article <9204081405.AA01945@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
>
>From: kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin)
>>In article <9204052014.AA05137@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
>>>  BTW, it is worth noting that marxist societies have not failed to
>>>  materialize for lack of trying (unlike libertarian ones).
>>I suppose we can infer from this that Marxism has been far more successful
>>than libertarianism?  THAT's an amusing thought.
>   Perhaps some other helpful news reader can locate a reference in my
>   comment, above, to the "success" of such societies.  (hint: there is
>   no such reference to be found)

"Tis better to have loved and lost, than to not have loved at all" --
you know -- we usually attribute more success to those who have tried
and failed than to those who haven't tried at all.  In other terms,
marxists are on the boards with a maybe very poor score (some might say
0), while libertarians haven't even managed to play the game.  Another
simple measure of success is number of people involved.  You didn't
refer to success or failure -- I inferred it.  Maybe I invented it out
of whole cloth :-)

>   Just because many societies and "intentional communities" have 
>   organized themselves along lines which they deemed "marxist" 
>   does not mean that they were successful in doing so.  Indeed,
>   one may well wonder what motivated Mr. Crispin's comment.

Humor.  I find this idea of comparing the success of marxism and
libertarianism rather amusing.  In fact, I find many things amusing.
I am easily amused.  Are you? :-)

>---peter

Kent


--
Kent Crispin				"No need to get excited",
kent@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke....
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory	<Standard disclaimer>
From: studier@ninja.life.uiuc.edu (Jim Studier)
Subject: Those Wicked Japs
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 13:35:28 GMT

       The above author prints a transcript of the PBS special

 "HOW JAPANESE CARTEL DESTROYED US ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY (PBS-TV)"

 and comments:

>     Such corporate policies are, in the long term, bad both for
>  America and the ordinary Japanese people, to whom nothing is held
>  against by this article.

>  These kinds of actions on the part of gigantic Japanese
>  multinationals are as big a threat to our way of life in America as
>  the Soviets ever were. In fact, they are probably even a bigger
>  threat because the Soviet system was not sustainable over the long
>  term, but the Japanese industrial system is.
        ....
>  The consequences of economic warfare and military warfare are
>  strikingly similar. Driving American industry out of business (be it
>  cars, semiconductors or industrial equipment) through economic
>  warfare is tantamount to dropping bombs on it. In both cases the
>  factories are gone, the workers are unemployed and the technology is
>  lost. This is what America is currently up against.

   I disagree.
The comparison of economic competition with warfare is pernicious mischief.
Competition at most forces people to change jobs.  They are not shot to death.
Physical capital such as buildings can often be reallocated to new uses.
It is not destroyed as in a bombing. Those who purchase "dumped" products
achieve a higher standard of living because they obtain better goods
at lower prices.  If the "dumped" prices are financed by the Japanese
people thats their problem, not ours.

>  If what you read above disturbs you, tell your friends, and help
>  protect our own country's industries by looking for quality and buying
>  American whenever you can. A threat like this can be fought, one
>  American at a time. Hopefully, we will eventually elect politicians
>  who will stand up and take substantial actions to defend our country
>  from such economic attack. We are in essence, fighting a war, but
>  unfortunately, most of us don't even realize it yet.

   Such "substantial actions" would be like advocating a government 
program to save the buggy whip industry.  The only difference is
the presence of an international border.

   If an industry can't survive on its own what purpose is served by
raising everybody else's costs, through trade barriers or subsidies in order
to "save" it.
   Why not outlaw all imports and let the government use taxes and business
subsidies to make sure that no one ever loses a job?

>   (Please support PBS, they are there to serve you)

   I believe that every taxpayer already does this even if they don't
wish to be "served" by them.  At least the commercial broadcasters
don't use tax money to broadcast political propaganda.

    Jim Studier  (studier@ninja.life.uiuc.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: whynot@leland.Stanford.EDU (William Shepherd)
Subject: Re: Free Trade
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 92 02:35:12 GMT

I was wondering if the learned populace of this bulletin board could help
settle a discussion I'm currently having on the subject of the
economic consequences of free trade.

My understanding of the current economic view of free trade is that free
trade between two regions allows for a net increase in the economic
welfare of the two regions (net increase in the sum of the GNP of the
two regions), but does _not_ imply that each of the regions will benefit -
ie one of the regions may gain to the detriment of the other.

My counterpart argues that each region _always_ gains from an increase
in free trade.

This discussion started as a tangent on the merits of the North American
Free Trade Agreement.  Per my line of reasoning, I constructed the 
following example:

Japanese Factory in America.  Building the ubiquitous widget.  1000 widgets
per year.  Only cost is labor.  Labor is paid $10/hour.  500 of the
widgets are sold in the US, 500 are sold in Canada.  Widgets cost $10 each to
produce, and are sold for $12.  Profit($2) goes to Japanese stockholders.

NAFTA passes.  The Japanese (not being stupid), move the factory to Mexico
and pay workers $1/hour.  New cost of widgets is $1.  Widgets now sold for
$x.

Savings to US consumers		$500(12-x)
Cost to US workers		$10*1000=$10,000
Total Benefit(Cost) to US	-$4000-500x  < 0 ==> US is net loser?!

Savings to Can. consumers       $500(12-x)
Benefit to Mex. workers 	$1*1000=$1000
Benefit to Jap. stockholders	1000*$((x-1)-2)=$1000(x-3)
Total Benefit(Cost) ext. to US  $4000+500x

(I'm aware that this example is quite simplistic, but I have a hard time
finding gaping holes in it.  US workers will of course switch to another
product that they have a comparative advantage in, but is it true that
this will _necessarily_ make up for their losses?  (Especially considering
re-training costs, etc.?)

Any and all comments on this issue would be appreciated.


-Bill Shepherd
Senior, Stanford University, Economics and Civil Engineering
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Libertarianism and Government
Date: 11 Apr 92 02:34:52 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <DRG.92Apr10173204@bubba.ma30.bull.com> drg@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Daniel R Guilderson) writes:
>Well then, are the 50 generations of men who built the town
>responsible for its devaluation due to over-development and pollution?
>I would value a nice clean acre of property in Alaska more than an
>acre on a toxic waste dump in New York city.  The communists are happy
>until they find out how much it's going to cost to clean up the mess.
>It's then that they want to be capitalists.


Try to understand something before you dismiss it.

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Reply-To: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 00:26:30 GMT


But Marx did not create or propose IDEAL societies.
He studied and critiqued real societies i.e. capitalism in 
his 3 volume Capital.

In Civil War in France he studied what had happened with the 
Paris Commune and why it had been defeated.

During the time of feudalism, one couldn't use as an argument
that capitalist societies haven't yet succeeded so they are
impossible.

In fact the first bank failed.

In a previous article, nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM () says:

>
>From: kent@phoenix.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent J Crispin)
>>In article <9204052014.AA05137@xuucp.ch.apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
>>>  BTW, it is worth noting that marxist societies have not failed to
>>>  materialize for lack of trying (unlike libertarian ones).
>>
>>I suppose we can infer from this that Marxism has been far more successful
>>than libertarianism?  THAT's an amusing thought.
>
What Marxism is being talked about? The Soviet Union was not a Marxist
society - though it called itself one just as the U.S. calls itself
a democratic society - but it's run by 2 parties and everyone else is
excluded - hence the argument would be that a democratic society is 
forever impossible?
                                 Ronda


-- 
Ronda Hauben  Amateur Computerist Newsletter
P.O. Box 4344   other email addr:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Leasing resources
Date: 7 Apr 92 14:03:54 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <21148@hacgate.UUCP> tucker@shiva.UUCP (George Tucker) writes:
>In article <46031@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>>that there can be no liberty without strong property rights. It is
>>
>>One man's economic liberty is another one's actual despotism. The same
>>courts which have found that the consitution requires market price
>>recompense to those who find environmental regulations onerous have also 
>>held that corporations may change their health insurance obligations to
>>employees who have the temerity to get sick -- e.g. companies that find it
>
>There is a subtle difference if the environmental regulation voids a
>prior commitment by the government to allow a certain level of development.
>And if the employer never specifically guaranteed a certain type of health
>insurance.  

Nope. The ERISA cases have been in situations where, for example, the
company insurance clearly states that AIDS benefits are $1/2 million, and
the company reinsures after a claim is entered in order to make the max
payout $5000.  The coursts have held that even where state law says
otherwise, the federal law allows companies to shed their obligations in
these situations.  Of course, this is not the only such imbalance in current
"free market"  legalese. For example, pension health benefits have been
held, despite explicit protection in federal codes, to have less claim on
bankruptcy assets than bank loans. Ditto for pension funds. 




-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: hgm@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: distribution of wealth
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:18:36 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

To: yodaiken%chelm@cs.umass.edu

My attempt to answer your mail met an 'illegal address' message. I suppose the
powers that be are not allowing me the privilege of politley answering my mail.

> Like this idea. What are you going to do about "resources" which aren't
> really divisible. e.g., air, water and the environment in general?

The way I envisage it being done indivisibility is not a problem as long as you
can measure how much someone controls. We have fishing quotas. We don't divide
the fish up and say this fish is part of this quota. 

The right to pollute is one of the rights associated with the environment which
has economic value and therefore should be assigned equally to everyone. A
volume of any pollutant equal to the highest amount of pollution any sector of
the community believes can acceptably be released into the particular
environmental sink is defined. Everyone is given the right to a share of this,
equivalent to the amount divided by the total population. An agency, initially
probably the government, leases these shares to the highest bidder and pays the
proceeds, after deducting administration costs, equally to everyone. We all get
a dividend from the resources so will all have enough money to lease the right
to use our share if we so choose. If we believe the level of pollution is too
high we can lease our share and not use it or we can form, with others, an
organisation to which we contribute only part of the proceeds of our share and
this organisaton can lease rights to pollute to the value of our contributions.
In this way we can reduce the level of pollution without giving up our whole
share. If we lease our right to pollute to an industrial firm they will pass
the cost of this back in prices but if we buy less than others of their product
we will have a net gain. Those who use more of the products of polluting
industries will pay more and be net losers. 

The New Right are heavily into this kind of right to pollute but they are going
to sell the rights to the highest bidder and then allow them to sell them. This
will increase the tendency of the market to make the rich richer and the poor
poorer. The land enclosures in UK were the final alienation of the rights of
the masses to a meagre portion of the land resource. Property rights in other
resources will be the second enclosure if they are not distributed equally to
all.

Helen Marsh
Newsgroups: sci.econ
From: degroff@tricorder.IntelliCorp.COM (Les Degroff)
Subject: government employee wages?
Keywords: 
   Are there any readers with quick access to Federal wage
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 18:46:49 GMT

scales and distributions and amount of Federal budget allocated
directly to wages.    
   I have been dreaming about what would happen if ALL, (pres, congress,
judges) federal salaries were capped at either the US average for
teachers, firemen and police  (guesstimate ~~35K)  or even better
"twice the poverty line" (~~ 20 K) After all as a "education president
" and a public servant, Bush should be eager to push for equality :) :(
From: jackson@kaos.stsci.edu (Bob Jackson)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Capital 'R us
Date: 13 Apr 92 11:29:42 GMT
	<1992Apr9.192424.25722@clipper.ingr.com> <46426@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute

Alas, it is not clear to my why government regulation,
either national or local, will result in the investment
decisions you think are necessary.

Can you describe the process for selecting the people
who make the decisions and process they use to make the
decisions and why those two processes will inevitiably
result in your preferred decisions?

Otherwise, I see another case of

	Proof by blatant assertion
Newsgroups: sci.econ