Keith Woods Capitalism = Slavery

[bells of shandon]

An interesting post with good points, but no one is buying rights to access the earth's core. In fact f you unearth certain things in your garden you are supposed to hand them over to the state. If you attempted to start mining or drilling bre holes on your land you would soon find out how little right you have to anything beneath the surface.

Only in the USA ,where you own your land to the core of the Earth and all minerals in-between
This is how dirt poor Farmers became millionaires.TV series Beverly Hilly Billies is actually a demonstration of this.

 

[ShumanTheHuman]

I agree with you here, had a family member spend a couple of years attempting to get planning for a small ultra-modern pre-fab which worked out at about 50k for materials and construction. It was basically impossible even though it complied with regulations and standards in most countries.
Try and get planning for a 350k pre-fab (from the same manufacturers) and you'll have no problems.

But this is the "Not real Capitalism" angle. The point of the OP is the tyranny of usury and the Banking System. How many of these middle men are required to take their cut to service their own debts?
So saying "Capitalism is not the problem" is missing the point that the Banking/debt system, fundamental to Capitalism, requires inflation, at all levels, in order for debts being paid, at all levels, to be serviced in any transaction chain
At least that's my understanding

 

[Eriugena]

Libertarians always use the No True Scotsman fallacy when confronted with the reality of capitalism. Communists do it as well when you mention the NKVD and the Gulag.
I'm not saying anyone is doing that here.

 

[The Field Marshal]

working all day everyday during day light to pay for 4 walls you hardly get to spend any time in is the true nature of capitalism. And later contuning to re mortgage in order to fund your stupid childs down payment on his house too so he can enslave himself for the rest of his miserable life

That’s a caricature.
Were it not for the mortgage system nobody would ever own a house.
Is that what you want?

 

[roc_]

But this is the "Not real Capitalism" angle. The point of the OP is the tyranny of usury and the Banking System.

There's no real problem with interest, the problem is what they lend against.

Basically today's banks lend too much against the artificially created "rights" I talked about above.

Now if they lended to create real wealth, to meet real costs, like robots and automatic machinery, real productive resources, then the new productivity created with the borrowed money can pay back the loan with interest, there is no problem there.

However banking has allied themselves with businesses that exploit artificial "rights" created by government. They feel that there is much more safety for their investments in the State's enforcement of "rights" to charge people for access, and extract revenue, from such as land, natural resources, monopolies, toll-booths, patents, the "right" to award certificates, the broadcast spectrum, airspaces, and so on. There are no actual costs associated with creating these things, these rights, these patents, this air, this land etc. But they still loan vast sums against them.

 

[ShumanTheHuman]

That’s a caricature.
Were it not for the mortgage system nobody would ever own a house.
Is that what you want?

Thats right. No one owned a house before the mortgage system was invented. No one

 

[Eriugena]

Basically today's banks lend too much against the artificially created "rights" I talked about above.

Now if they lended to create real wealth, to meet real costs, like robots and automatic machinery, real productive resources, then the new productivity created with the borrowed money can pay back the loan with interest, there is no problem there.

However banking has allied themselves with businesses that exploit artificial "rights" created by government. They feel that there is much more safety for their investments in the State's enforcement of "rights" to charge people for access, and extract revenue, from such as land, natural resources, monopolies, patents, the "right" to award certificates, the broadcast spectrum, airspaces, and so on. There are no actual costs associated with creating these things, these rights, these patents, this air, this land etc. But they still loan vast sums against them.

Just to clarify what are the "created rights" you refer to?
Do you only mean the rent-generating devices mentioned above or are there more?

 

[The Field Marshal]

Thats right. No one owned a house before the mortgage system was invented. No one

Correct.

 

[roc_]

Just to clarify what are the "created rights" you refer to?
Do you only mean the rent-generating devices mentioned above or are there more?

All of them. Property rights and the right to charge rent. Patent rights. The right to dictate "standards" in a marketplace (monopoly). The right to charge for broadcast spectrum. The right to mine and sell earth minerals and other natural resources. The right to charge tolls on a toll-bridge. The right to charge for solicitor services. And so on.

The banks love lending against rights like the above that can be monetised. "Rights" that give ownership over the necessities of life inherent in the human and natural substance. And they do lend, with abandon.

Recall the original idea for banking was for them to lend towards the cost of machinery and plant to produce things. But then they get their money back only if the manufacturer or producer successfully makes something that people need, so it is a much riskier investment proposition.

They preferred the safety of these government created artificial "rights". That is what our problems stem from.

 

[Eriugena]

All of them. Property rights. Patent rights. The right to dictate "standards" in a marketplace (monopoly). The right to charge for broadcast spectrum. The right to mine natural resources. The right to charge tolls on a toll-bridge. The right to charge for solicitor services.

Ok, hat's quite radical. Let's see where this goes.
The claim that all rights are created (rather than discovered) is an argument sometimes associated with legal positivism, but not widely held.

If all rights are invented by the state, where did the state come from? The usual argument is that sovereign authority is rationally discovered and there are different various theories that account for this, e.g. the so-called natural condition of man entails it, social contract, divine origin, etc, etc.
In order for the state to create rights, it would have to have the right to do that, but if rights are created how can the state even come into existence?

 

[bells of shandon]

All of them. Property rights and the right to charge rent. Patent rights. The right to dictate "standards" in a marketplace (monopoly). The right to charge for broadcast spectrum. The right to mine and sell earth minerals and other natural resources. The right to charge tolls on a toll-bridge. The right to charge for solicitor services. And so on.

The banks love lending against rights like the above that can be monetised. "Rights" that give ownership over the necessities of life inherent in the human and natural substance. And they do lend, with abandon.

Recall the original idea for banking was for them to lend towards the cost of machinery and plant to produce things. But then they get their money back only if the manufacturer or producer successfully makes something that people need, so it is a much riskier investment proposition.

They preferred the safety of these government created artificial "rights". That is what our problems stem from.

Marx call this the parasitic Rentier burden on both the Worker and the Factory owner.
The business owner having to pay Rent on his premises. The worker paying rent for his slum hovel.
Rent viewed as unearned income and earned while the parasite Rentier slept without contributing to the Productive Economy

 

[ShumanTheHuman]

There's no real problem with interest, the problem is what they lend against.

Basically today's banks lend too much against the artificially created "rights" I talked about above.

Now if they lended to create real wealth, to meet real costs, like robots and automatic machinery, real productive resources, then the new productivity created with the borrowed money can pay back the loan with interest, there is no problem there.

However banking has allied themselves with businesses that exploit artificial "rights" created by government. They feel that there is much more safety for their investments in the State's enforcement of "rights" to charge people for access, and extract revenue, from such as land, natural resources, monopolies, patents, the "right" to award certificates, the broadcast spectrum, airspaces, and so on. There are no actual costs associated with creating these things, these rights, these patents, this air, this land etc. But they still loan vast sums against them.

But again this is dancing around the real argument I believe. These artificial rights you have thrown into the mix are a key aspect of Capitalism and its tendency to commodify anything and everything in order to generate interest on the debts required to exploit whatever the "right" realises which fuels the growth without which Capitalism is in "crises". The state, as explained in the discussion in the OP, is just the enforcer for the Banks. The state is the junior partner to the senior Banks.
This started from the get go. The Enclosure Acts turned land held in common for Generations into property to be bought and sold. Suddenly this land could be transacted and could generate interest on the debts used to purchase it. Once everything tangible had been commodified it was inevitable intangible or made up rights became commodified. The State simply serves a purpose in the commodfication process and make it appear natural.
So, as you say in another post, that they are lending against the wrong stuff - this is wrong, again, I believe. They can't lend against the same stuff all the time. A strip of land that was one the Commons will only be transacted so many times a century. They need to have new stuff to lend money against to maintain growth. Its necessary that they lend against the "Wrong" stuff