Re: justice, justice... Was: Anti-Semitism in the Neo-Confederate movement.

In <1ot7s1lrhah05c7m82k689vaoq0gtjv2qt@xxxxxxx> ey.markov@xxxxxxxxx (Yisroel Markov) writes:

>>I actually find the question "what is wealth?" to be fascinating, and very
>>difficult. But what I mean here is that wealth isn't just "some thing that
>>can be traded," but it's also the mechanism by which the trade occurs.

>I don't quite see how. What's wrong with the dictionary definition of
>wealth?

> 1.
> 1. An abundance of valuable material possessions or
>resources; riches.
> 2. The state of being rich; affluence.
> 2. All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or
>use.
> 3. A great amount; a profusion: a wealth of advice.
>
>Perhaps, as in 2, you mean that the term only has full meaning when
>the owner has someone to trade with? That still doesn't make it "a
>system, a process, not just an object."

It's the old "give a man fish" versus "teach a man to fish" thing. As
shown in definition 3, "wealth" can just mean "a lot," and not refer to
value. But we're talking about value. As I said before, if you had a ton
of gold, would you be wealthy? The answer is only if you had a market in
which to trade the gold, because you can't eat it.

The question that interests me is "how do you increase wealth?" for
example, if you're playing poker, and someone dumps more chips into the
pot, have they increased the wealth? Not if a chip represents a share of a
fixed total. But isn't it always a fixed pot? It must not be - but how
does that work, exactly?

>>Which is why it can't be redistributed by fiat.

>Well, that is a basic question of fairness. Is there anything that can
>be redistributed by fiat?

I'm not talking about fairness, I mean it literally. You can redistribute
any substance by fiat - fair or unfair - but my point is transferring
stuff doesn't transfer "wealth." You're giving people fish, not teaching
them how.

>>I agree that it's a very cool idea, but it reduces down to barter.

>I partially disagree. One of my definitions of money is "a proxy for,
>or a claim on, resources (i.e., offered goods and services)." That's
>what allows it to be a store of value. A loan is not barter - what is
>being exchanged?

A future claim on resources. If I give you six bananas today for six
apples today, that's barter. If I give you 8 bananas one month from today
for six apples today, that's a loan, and it's still barter.

>In light of the previous definition, borrowing money is a proxy for
>borrowing material things. Being able to borrow $10,000 for a
>renovation saves you a lot of trouble borrowing $2,000 worth of lumber
>from

>Note that the Tora prohibits interest in kind as well as money
>interest; it doesn't make a distinction between the two. For these
>purposes, at least, money does reduce to barter :-) (not really, but
>close enough).

>IMHO the difference between that and a lease is that in the latter
>case you're paying for the wear and tear, plus a profit. In the case
>of a money or seed loan, you're supposed to return an exact
>equivalent, unaffected by use, plus a profit.

No, a lease is just a secured loan in which title to the secured object
remains with the lender. In both cases, you're buying the use of something
- with a lease you're buying the use of an object, and with a money loan
you're buying the use of the money. Same as buying the use of an apple,
except with the apple you're buying its use in perpetuity, with the loans
it's for a fixed term. In all cases, when you buy something, you're
expected to pay the seller more than he paid. There's no difference
between paying for the use of a loan and paying for the use of an object.
if one is prohibited they both should be, and conversely.


>But if you grok that, how can you say that money reduces to barter?
>Rafael has quoted Bernard Lietaer (an economist, to boot) about how
>the volume of currency trade is 30 times the world GDP. Contrary to
>him, this doesn't mean that "official monetary system has almost
>nothing to do with the real economy" (IMHO), but it does show that
>money is more of an idea than a "real thing." Here's another of my
>definitions: "a unit of economic information." That's why I said that
>money finds its purest expression in electronic form - it needs to
>have no physical reality at all.

Is next year's wheat crop "more of an idea than real thing?" Perhaps, in a
way, but that's why the currency trade exceeds the GDP - it's referring to
the future.


>This idea finds an expression in "Cryptonomicon," BTW.

Great book. Trying to get my hands on the first in the Baroque Cycle, but
it's always out at the library.

--s
--

.

Relevant Pages

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