The Myth of Unplanned Economic Development

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

One of the heroes of libertarian ideology is the railroad robber baron entrepreneur James J. Hill. He is contrasted with the other robber barons entrepreneurs who built the intercontinental railroad. The big difference is that Hill did not leverage public financing to construct his empire organization.

Hill derived his wealth from his serfs yeoman farmers who settled on his land to raise abundant harvests for transport to distant markets on Hills road. The settlers were forced encouraged to sell their produce to grain elevator shysters entrepreneurs at rock bottom market prices. These pilfering enterprising middlemen held on to the grain until a more favorable price was offered on the grain market and they obtained rate rebates by shipping in bulk. (They also bilked optimized grain prices from farmers by underrating the quality of the grain.)

When we look at the surface of Hill's story, it appears that no public planning went into this development. The libertarian historian has conveniently avoided looking at the planning that took place years before Hill obtained his fiefdom property. Racist Forward-looking politicians deliberately expropriated acquired the land from its native inhabitants for the purpose of economic development. Hill and his settlers maintained their holdings under the protective hand of federal and state thugs military personnel, lest it fall back into the hands of the original proprietors uncivilized people.

Although the Solyndra investment appears to be a piece of failed public planning, it has more of the earmarks of traditional robber baron private development. Back in the day, a thieving an enterprising operator would run his business into the ground and sell off the depleted stocks to a shifty trusted new partner, leaving the original investors with little or no return on their capital.

Were it not for public planning, this Internet space would not be available for us to use. In fact, I would not have the capacity to communicate as well as I do had it not been for public planning.

Is there really such a thing as unplanned economic development?

Comments

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

I summarize DiLorenzo so that you can ignore it and get back to your unlinked assertions. I'd encourage anyone to be intellectually curious and to actually read the book (it's online, at the link, and free) and dismiss the smug dismissal you're going to offer.

1. The problem with property is that people can use wealth to acquire power over others when accumulatons of power are collected and supported.



2. The problem with power is that people can use it to take wealth away from others by force.



3. Power is delegated. Without acceptance or active support it can be removed and dispersed. Power is a zero-sum game.



4. Property is inherent to human nature and pre-exists government. It cannot be done away with by fiat as people are material in nature and must manipulate material in order to survive. Property rights are how people recognize the need for exclusive control of various material.



5. Wealth is created out of property but trade can increase wealth through the division of labor and cooperation and is thus a positive-sum game.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the summary. ^.^

1) They can also use simple force to do the same without wealth, or as in the dirt-poor but egalitarian tribes of the third world actual charisma.

2) Anything can be used for anything, really. All things are neutral, it is the end to which they are put that matters.

3) Not necessarily, power is rather chancier than it seems. Often those who seem powerful are only so by not doing anything and the real power structure can seem simple without and be convoluted within.

4) Entirely false, there is not a scrap of evidence for property in the Old Stone Age, certainly not among present-day chimpanzees.

5) An argument that presupposes that there are cultures that value wealth, which not all of them do.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

4. You are wrong. There is clearly evidence of property. What isn't observed in present-day chimps is the concept of individual ownership. And the reason for that is simply that they have no scarcity.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This evidence consisting of what? Rocks hammered into the form of tools?

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You are confusing animal territoriality with property. The former only requires a penis. The latter requires social organization.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not. Property is more than just land.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

There is a reason for the real in real estate.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Of course. And?

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

What isn't observed in present-day chimps is the concept of individual ownership. And the reason for that is simply that they have no scarcity.

No. Chimps run into the problem of scarcity. Chimps solve their problems with scarcity and exclusive use through dominance hierarchies and force. The distinction between humans and chimps though is that the chimps are limited by the extent of their congnition: they are not sapient. There is a limit to their ability to exercise force. The human limit on the exercise of force is individual intellect, access to the capital base, and the division of labor network. It is, considering the necessities of human survival, effectively limitless. Our ability to use force encompasses the possibility of wiping out life on Earth. We cannot continue to settle issues of mutual exclusivity through force. Also, considering questions of survival, human civilization requires cooperation to rise above the level of subsistence. Human beings use their sapience to produce, unlike the chimps who actually "produce" little to nothing. Force is destructive of production and cooperation. It is detrimental to the requirements of human existence. As the capital base rises and the division of labor network grows and becomes more complex, the opportunity cost of force and destruction correspondingly rise. For human beings, the price of ignoring or denying the reality of human freedom becomes more and more expensive.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I find the interesting thing with the first note is so many are fearful of what individuals with loads of power may do that they seek to socialize it. Forgetting how any accumulation of power will inevitably still attract those who wish to abuse it to say nothing of how masses can still abuse power.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

So, you fear extraordinary power in a socialized form more than in a privatized form?

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Power of whom, for what? Don't drop context. When was the last time Microsoft or Walmart purchased a battleship or a nuclear weapon? It is states, not private individuals or voluntary corporations, which have a presumed monopoly on the "authority" to initiate force.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Taken to its ultimate conclusion, do not libertarians favor privatization of nuclear arsenals?

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Taken to its conclusion, no private entity has need of a nuclear arsenal. No private entity could justify mass warfare. At best, if mass warfare is conducted, it destroys one's potential customers (the enemy) while prolifigately expending one's own resources like time, material, and human talent, on senseless destruction of capital and rending the division of labor network. There is a reason that there are no real world supervillains. Those who can produce what people want to buy have no need of coercion to become wealthy. Those who cannot produce what people want to buy and are instead interested in power, find easiest access to it through politics.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I disagree with #4. You may be thinking of a base animal instinct for territory. This is not truly human. Once people cultivate their talents above a primitive animal level, the baser instincts become childlike. Personal cultivation seems to be missing from the libertarian value system.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You may be thinking of a base animal instinct for territory.

No, I am not talking about "territory;" I am talking about material existence in a scarce material world. Property is inherent to human existence. To survive one must breathe, eat, shelter, excrete, etc. All of these things require the exclusive use of scarce material resources. Human beings are themselves made of matter and constitute a specific exclusive use of scarce material resources.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The scarcity of the material world results from rat-race economics. We are back to the need to transcend beastliness.

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Your post-material existence involves "liberating" people from their material bodies. You first. Even IF the requirements of material existence were capable of being "transcended," even then human time is finite. You cannot escape the nature of material existence. It has nothing to do with "beastliness."

Re: The Myth of Strikethrough Innuendoes

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You miss the point. No surprise.