Summations Only

Good. Now prove it. Why put both roles into the same person? It's easier to understand when there is one person who owns the capital (the means of production) and another who possesses the power to purchase those production means (the investor). Not the words I would use. In fact, you might notice that I've made no claim one way or the other regarding the ethics or morality of the system, other than to say it is unjust from the perspective of the laborerwho is responsible for all of the wealth creation yet only receives a fraction of it. They try it everywhere. Anywhere a fisherman has free access to water for fishing, or an energy company free access to wind or sunlight for generating electricity, or a villager free access to forest wood for building boats, or a hunter free access to wildlife for harvesting meat, or...None of these producers need to take out loans to purchase the resources mentioned; and if their competitors had to take out a loan, they wouldn't be able to charge more for the productthey'd just have less wealth in their pocket at the end of the day. Ownership generates precisely zero wealth. No it's not. Holding the capital hostage until laborers capable of wealth creation pay your demanded ransom is the way Capitalism works. It's even the first thing Wikipedia will tell you (which means it must be pretty essential, since Wikipedia articles usually don't start getting bogus until the third or fourth sentence in):

quote:

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Wikipedia on Capitalism:

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Capitalism is generally considered to be an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production

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It's owning capital. Holding it close. Keeping it for yourself. It's not making it availableit's the exact opposite of what you describe it to be!Capital is present in every economic system. Not every economic system is Capitalism. Because I can describe the situation as it is? C'mon!Shouting accusations of being an 'anti-capitalist' (as if that were even a bad thing) is just you grasping at straws.Don't go down that road. Please.Jon

Apparently it is just a fantasy. That's what you and Percy keep claiming. Despite economic systems all around the world functioning in such a way...It's just a fantasy. Oh brother! And it's me that's 'nave' Analogy for what? Ahh yes. All them poor people. If only they had been more capable!Get real. You're ridiculous. There's no point talking to you.A black man has more chance of talking sense into a Klan leader than anyone has of talking sense into you.Jon

People with money are under no obligation to loan it out. If they didnt, what would be used to start businesses? As a grocery laborer, I allow the wealth to be created by moving the line along and getting people to pay up and go home.

Read the rest of the thread.

And yet you say that a laborer such as I that organizes so as to receive a bigger fraction is "entitled" and "greedy" at best, unimportant for wealth creation at worst. The evil capitalists pay pittance wages precisely for this reason. You are attacking the wrong economic class, in my opinion. You need to form an alliance with the middle class against the rich, not attack the middle class itself.

Did you even read what you were responding to? Did the word 'entitled' or 'greedy' appear anywhere? Did I call a laborer "unimportant for wealth creation" or did I say the "laborer ... is responsible for all of the wealth creation"?What class am I attacking? Where have I formed alliances? When did I attack the middle class?And lastly: are you even literate?Jon

LOL!!!

And yet aside from telling everyone that they dont understand, you yourself offer no concrete plan or solution to the status quo.

Really? Here for everyone's edification and enjoyment, Jon's thoughts on capitalism that make no moral judgments: I could go on, but why bother.You liken capitalists to hijackers, thieves, hostage takers and layabouts, but you're not making any moral judgments. Jon, face it, you're a communist.--Percy

It's an honest description that accurately describes the roles of the characters involved. It is not meant to be judgemental or accusatory.For the most part, I have no problem with the capitalist system. It shouldn't be used for things like health care, education, and so on. But it's actually an alright system for a lot of things.Owners of capital are still hijackers though. And the capital they own is their hostage.I own capital. I'm a hijacker. I have hostages. I can admit it without hating myself. Can you? Very strange. I've actually made nary a reference to anything even remotely communistic at all. All of my statements have been observations about Capitalism, from my description of the characters to my explanation of their roles.It's all been about Capitalism.But since you've nothing left to offer to the argument other than silly accusations of me being a communist or anti-capitalist (as if that's even relevant or a bad thing), I suppose there's little point in us continuing.Jon

Listen, Phat. If you want to reply to my posts, then at least have the decency to bother reading them.If you cannot even accurately portray the part of my posts that you quote, don't expect me to waste time responding to any of the rubbish you have to say.I don't have time to discuss with someone who is arguing against me about something I never even said.

My gosh, such sincerity.Since we're done with capitalism why don't we move on to irony. Here's the first sentence of the entire thread: And here's you after arguing for who knows how many posts: Priceless!--Percy

Of course what you said in message 1 is not the same thing as what I said in message 264.Read closely: value determines willingness to pay.It does not say: value equals willingness to pay.And if I ever made any comment similar to that second one, it was most certainly in error.To better understand how I view the relationship between value and WTP, just read my posts.

Hi Jon,I appreciate that you're trying to put a fine point on your position, but in Message 1 I wasn't trying to put a fine point on mine. I wasn't trying to distill the several ideas about how best to think about value from within neoclassical economics. Your perspective on value fits right in with neoclassical ideas and I have no problem with it, but none of these ideas are without their problems. That's why there are debates about value even within mainstream economic circles.The opening post was intended primarily as a counterpoint to the ideas from a predecessor thread that a book containing an idea that earns $100,000 is worth a $100,000, or that value means what someone would pay were you to threaten to take it away. These views are clearly outside the neoclassical perspective that is the dominant paradigm within mainstream economics today.Let me address one of the problems with your position that price doesn't influence value. Someone who doesn't shop much might not know the value of a bag of peas, but it wouldn't be very hard to find out. He would go to several supermarkets and check prices, and that's how his impression of value would be established.If you need to know the value of something rare like a flintlock from the early 1800s then you need someone who knows the prices at which such rare items change hands (an expert for lack of a better name), and it is those prices that determine value. But it is still people's willingness to pay various amounts that is used to determine value.Technical definitions involving marginal utility and so forth have analytical value because they can be plugged into equations and used in economic models, but people aren't usually very analytical about purchasing decisions until the prices get interesting. In most day-to-day life very little thinking goes into purchasing decisions. I need gas to get to work, so whatever the price of gas is today, that's what I pay.Analytical economists can claim that the price I paid exceeded the value I assigned, but nothing like that was going on in my head, and when they do studies of actual purchasing behavior they find that such simplistic models, convenient as they are, only capture part of what is really going on.For instance, one of the interesting effects of price is that it can be seen as an indicator of quality. For some goods increasing price can actually increase sales. Go to the pain reliever aisle of any pharmacy and watch for an hour. Some people will choose the name brand, some the store brand, of the various pain relievers. The pain killer is the same, but marketing has influenced perceptions of quality and maybe safety, too, and have affected perceptions of value and consequent purchasing decisions.I think the biggest problem we've had in this thread is an insistence that one's position is correct to the exclusion of any other position, no matter how minor the differences might be. The fact of the matter is that within mainstream economics price and value are closely related, but once you get into the details there is a great deal to discuss. I wish we could have had a more enlightening discussion.--Percy