Your boss is a dictator over your life, personal capitalism

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@ ruyven -

I believe you've misread me. At no point have I said the US constitution ordains a welfare state, nor the right to be fed. I was referring to the bill of rights and constitution in general and the right to free association in particular. allow me to quote your initial post -

"If one finds his boss or his job unappealing he should quit forthwith. Slavery is not legal in the U.S.. Unless one is serving a prison term, he cannot be forced to work at any particular job.

If you don't like it, then quit."

Which is to exercise ones right to free association - and brings me back to the first sentence of the post you quote - "one can avoid the position described by the OP, and exercise your freedom as enshrined by the bill of rights and constitution, by either becoming a beggar or going to jail?"

So your options in the US are - be or get rich, work in the conditions endamar describes, be a beggar or go to jail. The last is to lose your constitutional freedoms, the third can lead to death if you will not live by the work of others (also how many beggars vote? has any ever covered this? for some reason I'm under the impression you need proof of residence or a home address with you when going to vote in the US, which is to deny some US citizens their vote, the homeless) the second has been covered and the first is the only which allows one to fully exercise ones rights, and is by far a minority.

Therefore, if endamar's only real option is to engage in what you characterise as 'slavery' is their not a paradox in the freedom and rights enjoyed by americans, which when exercising their right to association and taking up employment must (using your characterisation) become a 'slave'.

Whats more a capitalist economy necessitates a certain level of unemployment, the maintenance of which requires welfare. Welfare may not be constitutionally ordained, but it is economically ordained.

What welfare or charity there is in the US appears to an outside observer such as myself absolutely necessary for the maintenance of political stability in the US (as it is in western europe especially the UK) and it is definitely not out of the "goodness of others" (though it may be in their interest). It has been won as a direct result of the influence and pressure of the organised, politically active working class on the political parties. Without welfare you would have a mass of people facing starvation. The starving aren't going to sit idly, bemoaning their luck while others gorge themselves, they are going to become increasingly militant, they are going to look for options. Thankfully endamar isn't in this position, but he is already looking for ways of changing the world around him. What conclusions do you think the aforementioned starving would draw? But....we've already had people in this position in the US, and they fought and struggled in many ways for better. Hence the provision of welfare.


And I'm pretty sure there are many tax payers who feel paying for unemployment, especially when many if not most of the unemployed are more than capable of work, is only in their interest (if at all) when faced with the possibility of one day becoming jobles themselves, if it is not against their will.

Well, ok. The point I was making about long term growth is still not entirely rebutted, unless one argues that we are doomed to failure, as I do not see much reason to believe that the efficacy of a political system will vary so spectacularly that capitalism's view is impossible.


I don't necessarily see where you get f****d, as after all, as usage of a resource increases, the price of a resource also increases, causing pressure to manage this scarce resource and also to find a way to avoid the usage of this particular resource by substituting other resources.


Sky rocketing prices is actually a reason why a competitor can be more likely to emerge. As oil becomes scarcer, the profitability of oil will increase, which induces more people to enter the industry of supplying the particular resource or substitutes. This is the neoclassical reasoning as to why in the long-run, firms are expected to make no profits(of course, neoclassicals only teach this as an oversimplified model for instructional purpose as models for why corporations usually make profits above zero have been recognized and accepted for a long-time and usually modify the zero-profit model). In addition, there are many sources for money, money just represents resources.


Well in their case, they are relatively impoverished, so they want more than amusement but more likely desire other forms of economic growth. The point I was making was that growth did not necessarily require more resources, but rather required better use of resources, and psychological improvements are a good example of this kind of change.

There is no constitutional right to be fed, clothed and sheltered at anyone's expense against their will. The Welfare State is not and has never been ordained by the U.S. Constitution. If one is unable to support himself, he ought to rely on the goodness of others and if that does not suffice, then tough titty.

To say you have a Right to fed, means that someone has a Duty to feed you.

ruveyn[/quote]\\

Which brings this entire discussion full circle; if society was required to feed and cloth you, who is the slave? i would think society would be, as it would be required to feed, house and cloth you. therefore, by attempting to escape the oppression, you haven't solved the dilemma, rather, you transferred the oppression from you to society (us) who are now required to take care of you. congratulations, you have become the oppressor.

i think your philosophy is interesting, yet flawed. even if you were to own your own company, and "be your own boss" you are not free from obligation and responsibility. you still have to answer to tax laws, commerce laws, civil lawsuits for your company's liability, consumer rights groups etc eetc meaning, thechnically, your boss would then be the consumers who buy your goods and services, as well as the country's government bylaws you run your business in.

this really all comes down to personal responsibility. if you are a valued employee, and you work hard and prove your worth, and keep your nose to the grindstone and dont make waves, you will be a valuable asset. you do need to work hard and earn your worth though.

why do people feel so entitled to special attention and treatment? things used to be so much worse, and technically, people have more rights and protections then ever, nowadays.

you can dream of a utopian society, but good luck with that.

I suggest maybe you look into joining a commune. that might be your best bet.

Human ingenuity and societal growth is and almost always has been based on hard work and personal sacrifice. It's cool if you dont want to participate, but dont think you'll ever change the model. It's one of the reasons we are so advanced as we are today.

good luck!

Western countries are run according to the concept of the NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment) - unemployment must be at least around 3% to 5% otherwise it causes too much inflation, they claim. Thus, unemployment is a deliberate policy of governments.

Corporations also don't exist according to the United States constitution... certainly they do not qualify as "persons" according to that document.

It is a serious business when capital keeps taking an increasingly bigger piece of the pie than labour. It's the road to hell. That it isn't addressed in a document like a constitution does not change that fact.

It seems that in the name of dogma (what is an exact right charted in the constitution) people are willing to allow dystopia...

The real question is what kind of society is optimal. I give you this question; would you prefer to have $1 billion in assets and make a huge tax free income and live in a dystopia in a gated community with much of the country off-limits... or would you take half of all of that and be able to go anywhere and not have to hide behind gates?

If you choose number 1, go move to Haiti. You'd get along fine with their elite.

Well, unless you contest the validity of the NAIRU, then this isn't a matter of deliberate policy, but rather in the long-run, only a 3%-5% level of unemployment is sustainable, if we had a 2% unemployment level, we would only enjoy it in the short run and then be afflicted with a higher level of inflation in the long-run, inflation that could only be cured by increasing the unemployment level later on according to Okun's law(unless you wish to dispute that as well).


Well, a later interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court does allow for corporations to exist as persons, the supreme court somehow derived this from the 14th amendment. In addition, corporations have existed since the beginnings of America, and were used as public agents to fulfill social roles in society, and likely they would not have been in the Constitution due to their pre-existence in legal standards and as such would not have been brought up as an issue, and likely would have been seen as a state duty by the Constitution, given the 10th Amendment.

Your boss is a dictator......until you don't have one...

You always have one to some various degree.

The social structure of the for-profit corporation is in many ways an anachronism, a throwback to the days of kings, lords, and serfs. At the pinnacle is the president and CEO (often also owner or majority shareholder), followed by the "princes" of the corporate kingdom: the executive officers lik COOs, CFOs, and CTOs/CIOs. Then there are executive vice-presidents of various divisions, assistant vice-presidents, and layers of directors and management below them. Near the bottom of this hierarchy are everyday employees of various rank and stripe and the interns, who resemble lesser knights and serfs of the Middle Ages. The serfs' work lives are tightly controlled by management, who determines their work schedule and work flow; the uppers' lives are controlled by the very work they do in their eagerness to be promoted to the next level. The president/CEO's only controls are the owners/shareholders, the consumer market, and finally the government/law.

The main difference between this and the Middle Ages is that one can advance one's position in the hierarchy, ostensibly by merit, whereas in the Medieval system, rank was preordained by birth.

The assumption that we can avert the energy crisis is fatally flawed. We will probably not avert energy crisis. And if we assume energy crisis, then we also assume an end to this mystical and physically impossible infinite growth in productivity. Consider for a moment what you are actually arguing and how very absurd it is. On the basis of unproven ideological economic theories, you are arguing that the physically impossible (infinite productivity growth in the context of finite physical resources) will happen. That is not remotely realistic or plausible in this universe.

You might kid yourself into believing that because growth occurred in the past, that this is sustainable, but that ignores not only the impending and probably inevitable energy crisis, but also the fact that past growth has only been achievable by expanding a global market model to include more nations and economies. Well those things are also finite, and the global market is quickly approaching an end to growth from that source too.

Over the last decades, all growth has either derived directly from, or necessarily relied on cheap accessible energy never before seen in the history of humanity (and for which there is no likely replacement within our means of achieving), and co-opting more nations and economies into the global economy.

So we are running out of energy and it is beyond fanciful to believe the marvelous magical mystical market will miraculously produce a sufficient alternative for us. We are running out of places and economies to co-opt into the global market, and without these two things, no more growth.


There are no adequate and sufficient replacements. Keep in mind the growth you described (and which I challenged) relied not on just energy, but easily accessible energy. We will experience recession before the price is high enough to motivate replacement.

The fact is if oil is not sufficiently cheap, there goes this exponential growth, yet only if oil is not sufficiently cheap will there be any market compulsion to find and develop an alternative. The latter even if possible will take time and happen under extreme energy constraints, and by this time the economic growth that might sustain such efforts will already have evaporated.

Your notion that we will use less oil if it costs more is rather silly as an argument for continued growth. Using less energy and experiencing productivity growth are mutually incompatible outcomes. Either we will use more energy, or we will not experience growth.



Funny how these competitors failed to materialize during the last (artificial) oil crisis. We use ,more oil per capita now than we did then, despite the fertile ground for competitors to emerge during the 1970s oil crisis and the immediate years after. Perhaps you do not remember lining up at the gas pump for hours but for many this is easily within living memory.

Did we get a competing product to offset the effects of this “shortage”, or competitors with the same product competing with lower prices? No instead the international economy experienced dramatic shockwaves and nearly 10 years of constant inflation, with the costs of producing and transporting goods rising for a prolonged period of time. Unlike when we run out of oil, there was oil to be sold at lower prices, but the market seemed not to cause this to happen. Instead everyone on the supply side of oil reaped increased profits, for nearly a decade after the short-lived emergency that caused energy cost increases. In reality, we already know that when it comes to energy, the market does not necessarily behave as you describe.

How about a more recent example. Earlier this decade, what happened when California deregulated their utilities market? Price cuts and competing alternatives, or shortages, supply loss (to consumers) and profiteering price hikes that allowed suppliers to gouge the state of California for billions of dollars in the context of an artificial shortage they manufactured? If you guessed competition producing either lowered costs or competing alternatives, then you guessed wrong.

So much for the marvels of the magical,-mystical, mysterious, market.


And this in itself will ret*d growth will it not? How will computers be produced and sold in the same volume, when the materials and transport costs rise while the cost of producing everything else rises, leaving consumers with less to spend once necessities are taken care of? Now extrapolate this to every other good or service in the market.

You fail to account for the effect of the price rises (necessary to motivate alternatives) on growth. Necessarily if the prices are high enough to motivate competitors with alternatives, recession has inevitably already occurred while the prices were still climbing to that level. By that time, huge investment without any certainty of return, in the context of recession will be needed to produce this alternative.

Who is going to be able and willing to finance this alternative in a recession, when any payoff ever occurring is uncertain, there is less money to invest, and evidently there is huge scope for profit in oil, indeed more scope for profit in oil than ever before?

Also keep in mind that the scarcity of oil is not necessarily going to be immediately apparent until there is an absolute inability to meet demand, because OPEC nations are motivated to over estimate their reserves. Prices are based in part on predictions about scarcity and the ability to meet demand in the future, and it is plausible to suggest that prices might not accurately reflect actual scarcity until it is impossible to hide that scarcity. At that point, we are faced with inevitable cut backs in energy and inevitable cut backs in all productivity, and by then it is very unlikely that anything other than chaos will follow. We will not be able to house clothe and feed ourselves, much less generate some implausible energy alternative that will require extensive investment, organization and coordination. The market will not rescue us, It was never a life raft in the first place. It should come with a label clearly stating that it is not a floatation safety device and certainly not a free pass from the laws of physics.

Every resource either is energy or necessarily requires energy to produce it or access it. If money is resources and resources can only be effectively produced or accessed at an energy cost, then money indirectly represents energy. We can safely conclude from this that as energy available to us declines, the resources you claim money represents also decline, and so we can conclude less money for investment in these legendary but non evidenced alternatives. We can also argue that in all probability most of this money will be wrapped up in trying to outbid each other for oil.

In reality, there is one necessary commodity needed to produce and access resources and that is energy. We discovered a treasure trove of it, and have now nearly squandered the lot without any realistic prospect of replacement. The only counter argument to this is that the magical market will provide and this is believed because with the treasure trove, the market did provide. None of this actually suggests the market will function the same way when the energy subsidy is all used up. None of this suggests that there will be an alternative. The assumption is that with vast reserves of cheap energy the market produces alternatives when there are shortages of other things and therefore the market will do the same for cheap energy itself. None of this indicates that in the absence of that cheap energy the market actually will magically produce more cheap energy.

The market did not produce oil, but it did encourage us to squander it away-and there is no realistic reason to actually believe that the market will magically produce an alternative to the real cause of economic growth this last century…aka abundant and easily accessible cheap energy.

The claim that regardless of what resources exist, add the market and infinite productive growth is possible, is extraordinary at best. It is mysterious to me that people believe this outstandingly extraordinary claim in the absence of even ordinary evidence.

Last edited by pandd on 26 Jul 2009, 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Since governments can print money and banks and financial institutions can fabricate financial riches by selling worthless derivatives there is something evidently not quite on target in believing money represents anything but assumed value and it is obvious that assumptions can be violently wrong.

@ pandd - good post, well argued

That looks like a tautology AG. xenon posits it as a policy of government, you posit it as a result of the market - the first aims at optimising the functioning of the market through policy, the second is the way the market functions to achieve something near optimal functioning



Don't want to repeat pandd in length but less energy available = increasingly less energy for industry. Without an electricity supply how can even the most simple of factories be run? This is essentially the main thrust of my post, so long as the power infrastructure is based on fossil fuels (which are finite resources) when these become harder to get hold of + the massive growth potential of China = huge increase in the profitability of oil, coal and gas, making them a much better investment opportunity in and of itself never mind the immense costs of new technology and low prospect of profitability, as well as restricting economic activity. Also this "I do not see much reason to believe that the efficacy of a political system will vary so spectacularly that capitalism's view is impossible. " borders on incomprehensible to me, perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but....nothing, no idea what that means.



screwed as in astronomical increase in energy use, putting aside questions of global warming, fueled by massive demand for resources, making the profitability of these resources equally massive. Where is the market or profit incentive for investing huge sums of money in new technology when you can make far more and faster by putting it into oil?



money is a representation of labour, resources stay in the ground and have only potential value without the exertion of labour.



no, in their case 5.4 million people have been killed and rape is used as a weapon in a civil war that has been raging for about a decade, the participants in which are backed in a variety of ways by US and French oil companies (Elf and Oxy - occidental oil I think its called) and companies buying metals for use in mobile phones. And yes better use of resources is a critical issue, though I'm not sure how entertaining myself can reduce the amount of oil used given the majority of use is in shipping, aviation, vehicles, industry and various forms of lighting.

Last edited by TitusLucretiusCarus on 26 Jul 2009, 4:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, it is deliberate governmental policy. When unemployment is too low, the government steps in and adjusts inflation to produce higher unemployment.

Now according to a theory you are quite familiar with, this would be unnecessary. You see labour is a resource. If unemployment becomes too low, then according to this theory, there will be scarcity, prices will rise, and the market will generate competitors and alternatives. So why the need for the government intervention if the market can take care of these things?

Some might suggest that perhaps since some resources, like energy and its means of production can be owned by-corporations-and-other-economically-powerful-entities, while technically human labour cannot-be, but can be compelled by control over the things the-owners-of-this-resource-do need, that this is why unlike the owners of other resources, owners of the resource human labour are not allowed free reign on the market. It’s not a free market for labour if the government keeps acting to prevent market driven scarcity that would increase the value of this one resource that corporations cannot legitimately own directly.

Well, I only assumed it because it is an issue that would fail just about any economic system and likely cause any economy to die, so in order to test the idea, I do think I have to assume that


Here's how I argued it: "a statement that man's capacity to improve his situation does not have an apparent end in sight" is not problematic. This is different than saying that our growth can literally be infinite, however, it still assumes most of the same ideas. And I did defend that idea by pointing out that growth isn't just a matter of making more big things, but rather is often a matter of improving the usage of things and even making better psychologically pleasing things. And to be honest, given that the economy is a matter of creating goods AND services that people find pleasing, I would think that the real limit is to how pleased people can be, rather than any notion of physical limitations, as intensive growth, that which uses resources better shouldn't be ignored.

In any case, the economic theories are matters of logic, not of ideology, and to some extent logically hold, the problem is that you are assuming too much. If you notice my statements on the matter, I identify growth with improvement, and there is no reason to say that there is any end to possible improvement unless one starts introducing additional premises on how improvement MUST work, and these additional premises can ultimately be questioned.


Umm.... I didn't ignore it, rather I handwaved it way because I think that if we fail at the energy crisis, it may be the death of all economies, and as such I see no reason to defend one economy against a threat that none can survive. And assuming we can get past that, then I see no reason why technological growth is unsustainable, as so long as people increase their knowledge, they can experience technological growth, and through that economic growth.

In any case, no, you are wrong. Past growth has been achievable because technology has improved. We don't trade with the 3rd world much, and so to say that we are dependent upon them for growth seems like a ridiculous assumption given that much of our improvement is due to a technological gain of some sort.


I am not denying that our economy currently relies upon cheap, accessible energy. The issue is that unless we lose all energy, we can still potentially have growth. Growth is just improvements in the workings of society, so assuming that we don't start having a static order, then I see no reason why we shouldn't grow unless you can argue that there is a limit to how much people can improve the world to make things better.


Only the first one is one that I will accept and I only handwaved it because if we do not assume that a sufficient alternative exists, then we have to assume that any technologically advanced economy will die.


TitusLucretusCarus implied that there WAS an adequate and sufficient replacement. Umm... I didn't describe a growth that was dependent upon easily accessible energy, you made the assumption, I have been arguing that growth depends on man's ability to improve his environment, which honestly only depends upon the freedom to improve his environment and thus only wouldn't exist in a tradition based society or one that is suffering from damaging external factors.

In any case, even if we assume the experience of recession(a quantitative assumption that you haven't supported and one that I can deny if I claim that average gas prices will rise over time) the argument that resources still wouldn't be shifted to replace seems difficult to accept.


The assumption that the time at which replacement will start coming on the horizon is the same as the time when the economy will start breaking down due to the lack of a resource ultimately seems questionable. After all, the compulsion to change fuels is one of rising prices, not one of impossibility to function only on that fuel, and there is a difference between the two propositions and frankly, the traditional answer to this is actually that the market compulsion to find a new fuel will increase as prices for fuel increase, not so much a stance where a breaking point exists.

Growth and the use of more energy are not the same thing. Energy efficient devices count as growth, as they would allow more devices to be powered using the same amount of energy. You are making the assumption that all growth is extensive, using more external resources, when I have basically been trying to deny that and say that intensive growth exists through the use of technology and likening growth to improvement. That assumption doesn't have logical foundations.


Well, the last oil crisis was artificial and lasted a relatively short period of time, and it was partially cut down by the fact that people were lining up at the gas pump for hours. If you don't recall, lining up at the gas pump was a result of price controls put in place by Richard Nixon, and these price controls certainly prevent the notion of "skyrocketing prices" and because of that, the market signal to improve wouldn't have existed.


Inflation isn't something to entirely blame upon the oil shortage, as the idea of stagflation is usually associated with the long-run phillips curve, which is an idea that wasn't believed at the time and as such monetary inflation was more accepted by monetary controllers.

From what I've heard, people started buying smaller cars. That does describe the kind of phenomenon I am talking about, and as it stands, there is pushing to have hybrid vehicles and other such things today as well as discussions of technologies to deal with energy issues, which basically does illustrate my point. I somehow doubt that the environment then was utterly unlike the environment today, except I would imagine that technology was different. However, I was not there during the 70s fuel crisis.


Actually, from what I've heard, this is partially a result of the poor job of the deregulation.

This article actually talks about the Calfornia energy crisis, and it blames the poor design of the system for causing California energy to start messing with that system.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Elec ... ation.html


Depends on the extent, as I do not see why it would. Some things will get more expensive but industries will change to attempt to adapt. Perhaps they make computers smaller so that they can transport more. And with other services, they might start avoiding transportation and start providing the services electronically.


Umm.... people are already looking at finding the next best new energy source. I once heard a professor talk about using microwave powerplants to provide most of our ground energy, and then moving based upon that and claiming that there was initiative to do this. I also know that some companies have been trying to create hydrogen vehicles. Now, I will admit that I am not exactly the most trusting of hydrogen as a fuel due to storage and transportation issues, however, even the effort is a step in the right direction of trying to find ideas.


Possible, however, the additional issue is that there are marginal oil fields, as not all oil is found in locations that are equally good, and unless they've surveyed everything, then the full extent of the oil that they have could very well be unknown, so I still do support the idea that some gradualism will take hold. In any case, as I already noted, people are already looking into new power sources.

In addition, your point about oil has nothing to do with the laws of physics, it has more to do with oil.


Depends on how we define energy. Frankly, a highly skilled physicist uses energy, but the energy he uses is not that strongly related to his output.

No, your logic does not follow, the reason being that there is no representation of energy if the energy that a given amount of money can represent varies, and the amount of energy that a given amount of money represents does vary and can vary significantly. This is best seen with human costs, which are really related more to an individual's skill and the rarity of the skill set vs the demand than it is to the actual energy required for the process.

Finally, there are other sources of energy besides oil, such as those derived from solar power and nuclear energy, the former is actually only limited by our ability to gather it and as such, I somehow doubt that we will just outbid each other for oil when efforts to convert to these other energies and use them more cleverly are already seen to some extent.


Well, yes, but only in a certain sense based upon the fact that all things require energy to function. Well, also the additional issue is that this isn't the first energy crisis so to speak, as we used to be highly reliant on wood energy but when our stores of wood went down, we moved onto coal energy.

Now, once again, you can argue that the market will fail due to a lack of energy, and this is possible, however, when wood died down, the push to find new sources was what drove us to start using coal, and a similar mechanism may be involved again. Possibly not, but frankly, I doubt we would be motivated to find new sources of energy unless an old store was declining anyway, as that isn't a matter of markets, but rather a matter of human nature.

The market did not produce oil, but it did encourage us to squander it away-and there is no realistic reason to actually believe that the market will magically produce an alternative to the real cause of economic growth this last century…aka abundant and easily accessible cheap energy.

Umm.... the claim isn't extraordinary. If you actually read my last response, my reformulation of the exact same statement ends up being rather simple. The matter of the extraordinariness of it is really just a matter of your phrasing of it. The issue of phrasing is partially illustrated by this comic here:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0546.html

Now, the way I phrased the matter is really not absurd at all.

Umm.... the point I was getting at is that in order to blame someone for something, usually the criterion is the rational ability to do otherwise. If the NAIRU is actually valid, then the government does not have a rational ability other than to allow for 3%-5% unemployment, as the only way to do this is to destroy the economy in the long-run through hyper-inflation, which is something that most people would include in their set of acceptable things to be chosen.

So, no, no tautology at all, just a bit of reasoning applied to Xenon's statement as unless he wants hyper-inflation recognized as a possible governmental policy, he has to accept the NAIRU unemployment rate as a given so long as he recognizes it as a statement of positive economics.


Oil isn't the only energy that factories use, you know that there is solar, hydroelectric, thermal, wind, and nuclear power plants, so to claim that factories would then have no source of energy is just wrong by what we already know to exist.

The point about political systems is really because you seemed to indicate that you believe a solution to the energy crisis may exist, so I was putting that forward to rebut the idea that there is another system that would be able to support this, while the current framework would not, by claiming that there is little reason why other political systems would work better. Perhaps I basically sort of mumbled that through rather than stating it clearly.


Because you wont' make more faster by putting it into oil. If profitability increases in the long-run, then the stock price will increase dramatically as well to make the cost of investing in oil equal to the benefits gotten by doing so, and in addition if oil is scarce, you are unlikely to be able to found your own company. You'll make more faster if you can find a way to undercut oil's high prices and get in on the ground floor of a new energy source as the only way to make money is to know something that nobody else knows, because if they knew it, they would be doing it. That statement is a statement of the market efficiency hypothesis, which is an idea that is supported by a significant amount of data.


Umm.... no. If you literally just stumbled upon something with enormous value, then that would have money, but that would not necessarily involve much labor. Based upon that alone, the pure philosophical point fails. As a practical point though, such a relationship only makes sense in the long-run, and only if we define labor in such a manner where we account for variations in skill/ability, and odiousness of labor, both of which cause variations in the exchange of money for a particular amount of labor. Then again, you also then have to ignore variations in prices that are related to something being a collectible or some such, as some paintings are immensely valued, but the actual painter may not have worked much harder than a painter who did significantly less, and the difference between the values of the paintings cannot be reasonably denied. So yeah.... nobody would even hold to your position unless they were already committed to the labor theory of value, as the subjective theory of value really makes more sense, and resources can be seen through a subjective lens, as coal isn't a resource until society starts using coal, regardless of the amount of labor a random person may involve themselves in to find coal.


Ok.

There are different forms of entertainment, and some don't intrinsically involve much energy. As well, some are more energy efficient than others. Frankly, my statement was not in regards to oil, but more in regards to holding an amount of energy constant, which is an assumption I defend on the basis of a lack of energy completely undercutting all possible forms of modern-type societies.

pandd, the theory in question is the NAIRU in relationship to the Phillips curve, and I don't know what theory you are actually talking about. As Milton Friedman, one of the economists who is behind the NAIRU actually believed that if we just held to a constant rate of money inflation, then everything would be ok, and thus he would tie the increase in inflation to monetary phenomena, as he is noted for making the statement that all inflation is based upon the money supply.(whether or not he is correct is another question, but his perspective is certainly valuable in a situation like this) The basic idea in his framework is that distortions to the unemployment rate would not be endogenous, but rather would be a result of the money supply, which means that under his view the government really shouldn't have to step in, and so when they do so, they are just correcting a previous problem.

In addition, I never said that the NAIRU was correct, and certainly one could argue that there are issues with the idea "the market will guide the matter" given that the government controls the money supply. As it is an Austrian contention, that if the government didn't control the money supply, then we would not have to worry about unemployment or inflation, as the government's influence on the money supply is distorting to the economy.

Given that by both market oriented theories of the matter, situations where unemployment increases inflation are not considered to be live options, I don't see the problem that you pointed to.

Finally, I only really tried to say is "if we assume that NAIRU is true, then they don't have a real choice". Why? Because the real choice is between hyper-inflation and the NAIRU, and hyper-inflation isn't something most people consider a real possibility, and as such, calling the NAIRU a policy choice thus becomes questionable. One could then consider eating a personal choice under such a view, but most people don't usually push that far and I doubt that xenon was pushing something so counter-intuitive. And as such, even if the government is making unemployment rise in good times, they still really are just doing what one can regard as necessary rather than making a policy choice.

this is only half of what I was saying, the other half being my asking in what way is the capitalist economy capable of developing this technology when even the long term profitability of such an endeavour is eclipsed by the short term profitability of oil alone. And why would any oil investors put their money in a technology which would render their oil investment near worthless? When the price of oil reaches the levels you describe when alternatives will be developed who is going to put there money into such a project as a profit making venture if they are better prospects elsewhere?

In short oil will have to be replaced as an energy source, the market cannot develop this kind of technology. The ITER project itself is a state funded project - not a market enterprise.

The fighting over oil resources has already been going on for some time, the bill for which is met by the taxpayer (without even bringing up the question of deaths and casualties), increase the profitability of arms makers and defence contractors for obvious reasons and those of oil companies when, as in Iraq, contracts for drilling and refining are simply handed out to a select handful of companies with enough influence (large enough bribes I suspect) to get there names on the guest list (such wars are also why I refer to the Congolese civil war).

Furthermore, why invest in a long term low (even zero) return project when you can simply watch while the oil you sell is used to create the conditions which push the ice caps into retreat, in the expectation that it exposes further oil deposits under the arctic/antarctic (hence the odd flag planting etc.)?