🚀 go-pugleaf

I am going back a couple of weeks to answer a previous message from
Fabrizio.

On 12 Oct 2004 05:48:17 -0700, fbonsignore@beethoven.com (Fabrizio J.
Bonsignore) wrote:

>royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<416b7826.4909901@news.telus.net>...
>> On 11 Oct 2004 16:48:24 -0700, fbonsignore@beethoven.com (Fabrizio J.
>> Bonsignore) wrote:
>> 
>> >royls@telus.net wrote in message news:<4169a3b7.20177640@news.telus.net>...
>> >> On 9 Oct 2004 19:20:20 -0700, fbonsignore@beethoven.com (Fabrizio J.
>> >> Bonsignore) wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> >It looks like America was from the
>> >> >beginning a rich country (population against available land)
>> >> 
>> >> Population per land area is almost irrelevant to development or
>> >> prosperity, as the contrasting situations in Singapore, HK, etc.
>> >> compared to Brazil, Mozambique, Sudan, etc. prove.  What matters is
>> >> freedom to produce, and to keep the value one's productive efforts
>> >> yield.
>> >> 
>> >There was plenty of fertile land available and then gold.
>> 
>> The fact that you think the amount of gold was even relevant proves
>> you understand nothing of the matter.
>> 
>The fact that you understood Imeant the amount of gold proves you
>understand nothing of what I meant. The gold rush meant a *LOT* of
>development, from settling down to the services and producrs that
>generated.

All it meant was that the development was sudden and unbalanced.

>> >Singapore,
>> >HK, etc are industrial economies.
>> 
>> <sigh>  They weren't always.  That's kinda the point.
>> 
>They become, and not because of land taxes, but because they
>assimilated a mode of production, the industrialization and commerce,
>and had the necessary social support.

Land taxes made it _profitable_ to assimilate the basis for greater
productivity, and much more importantly, made it _un_profitable _not_
to.

>> >I don`t think countries like
>> >Brazil or Sudan have much adequate land available;
>> 
>> I know you don't.  But you are wrong.
>>
>Why?

Compare their areas and populations with those of Singapore and HK.
Have you ever flown over sudan or Brazil?  They're empty.

>> >Brazil has to fight
>> >the jungle and Sudan the desert.
>> 
>> But mostly, they have to fight their own corrupt and incompetent
>> governments.
>>
>Besides the point.

No, it is not.  If you cling to that idiotic belief, you will never
understand the matter.
 
>> >> >and so
>> >> >its initial conditions were such that even under the existence of
>> >> >predatory competition the momentum of development promoted either pure
>> >> >self-interested behavior or cooperative competition, reinforcing
>> >> >development, even without taxing away Ricardian rent.
>> >> 
>> >> Wrong.  Until WW I, most government revenue in the USA was from land.
>> >> 
>> >Now that you say so it must have been so, there was not yet all the
>> >infrastructure to control income tax revenues.
>> 
>> It was a matter of policy, not infrastructure.  Other countries --
>> countries that stayed poor, like Mexico -- taxed production instead of
>> land.
>>
>Mexico is an atavic country where people is predatory (jealous), from
>the cacique to the gossiping comadres.

Like other poor countries, Mexico has always taxed production despite
the lack of income tax infrastructure.

>> >Yet there were other
>> >conditions that helped development, like the new rairoad
>> >infrastructure,
>> 
>> ???  Do you think it fell from the sky?
>> 
>If it did, Mexico was spared the rain. It was a result of the gold
>rush...

That was just the trigger.  India had no gold rush, yet has more
railroad track than any other country.

>> >income derramas after slaves were liberated,
>> 
>> The war that liberated them was one of the costliest in history up to
>> that time.
>> 
>And sealed the future of America as a country based on industry rather
>than agriculture with cheap labor.

Nope.  Other countries that freed slaves stayed poor, because they did
not tax land rents.

>> >increasing industrialization,
>> 
>> You confuse cause and effect.
>> 
>Effects turn into causes. It is a cycle.

But it doesn't go backwards.

>> >oil fever, etc. Too many factors to
>> >distinguish the effect of the tax scheme,
>> 
>> Not if you understand some economics.
>>
>Do we have comprehensive models and data?

Of course not.  Even less than for say, climatology.  But the lack of
comprehensive models and data doesn't mean we can't say what makes
rain fall.
 
>> >> >So either the
>> >> >tax schemes used were adequate for development or there was o
>> >> >relationship between tax scheme and developmet. And if the tax schemes
>> >> >used were not ricardian, ten the argument to discuss is whether
>> >> >ricardian taxes would bring (much) more development.
>> >> 
>> >> They always have.
>> >> 
>> >A model?
>> 
>> When the unamimous verdict of historical fact won't convince you, what
>> use would a model be?
>> 
>History is pliable.

Nope.  It is set in the stone of the immutable past.  Only your
understanding of it is pliable.

>> >> >In any case
>> >> >America`s development was independent of the applicatio of ricardian
>> >> >taxes.
>> >> 
>> >> That claim is false, as proved above.
>> >> 
>> >Was not proved, was stated, though the tax scheme might have helped.
>> 
>> No, actually I proved that you were wrong.  You will never learn
>> anything as long as you insist that you are never wrong, because then
>> the facts that prove you wrong cannot get into your brain.
>> 
>If A then B?

Right.

>What where your arguments?

See above.

>You proved nothing. I gave
>evodence to the contrary.

No, you did not.

>> >> >It is known that it had much more to do with basic moral
>> >> >aspects as exhibited by groups like the mormons and quakers or the
>> >> >protestant ethic of the particularly American brand of christianity.
>> >> 
>> >> Then how do you explain the prosperity of non-Christian societies like
>> >> Singapore, HK, Taiwan, and Japan?  How explain the poverty of
>> >> Christian Poland under socialism?
>> >> 
>> >The tigers have different ideologies that seem to favor cooperation
>> >and joint effort.
>> 
>> <sigh>  So did the PRC, and it stayed poor until it began allowing
>> markets to function, and private interests to own capital.
>>
>PRC? No idea.

People's Republic of China.

>> <heavier sigh>  Japan was poor and backward in 1870, despite its
>> long-standing ideology of cooperation and joint effort.  Then its
>> _tax_ system was changed to obtain almost all government revenue from
>> _land_rents_, and in _one_generation_ it caught up to Europe
>> economically and militarily.
>> 
>> _One_generation_.
>> 
>If it were that easy, most countries would have had noticed and
>developed explosively.

Nope.  A few people have figured this out, but most people are like
you: they just refuse to know the facts.  And many of the people who
have figured it out are busy profiting from land ownership themselves,
and oppose the changes that would make their countries rich, but
themselves not quite so rich.

>The fact there are inefficient policies IS
>another aspect of jealous behaviour, as I commented in the original
>post.

I think "greedy" is a more explanatory description than "jealous."

>> Taiwan had its "ideology of cooperation and joint effort" for
>> centuries, but it only became rich when it started taxing land after
>> WW II.
>> 
>> Why do you refuse to know the facts?
>> 
>State them. All.

Silliness.  I have already stated enough of them to prove my case.
You have just ignored them.

>> >Wasn`t that the Z theory or something similar? And
>> >of course ideology is not production, but Poland was already a
>> >populated state when the US was being born;
>> 
>> So was Japan.  But once it started taxing land, it became rich.
>> 
>Which it Japan or Poland?

Japan.  It was poor.  Then it started taxing land, and quickly grew
richer.  Now it has stopped taxing land, and is consequently no longer
growing richer.

>> >plenty of constraints
>> >already in place,
>> 
>> ???  ROTFL!!  You think the "constraints" in Poland could even _begin_
>> to compare to the constraints in Singapore and HK??
>> 
>Who cares about the comparison?

Not you, obviously.

>> >and socialism is known to generate local and nt
>> >global maxima.
>> 
>> More garbage.  Socialism is not "known" to "generate" any "maxima" at
>> all.
>> 
>Really? No welfare teory here?

No welfare _fact_.

>> >> >As for Europe`s development it was a _steady_ affair since the
>> >> >breaking down of the Roman Empire,
>> >> 
>> >> False.
>> >>
>> >Nothing changed much for 1000 years,
>> 
>> Wrong.  The end of Roman power in the West created the anarchist
>> utopia otherwise known as feudalism.  This system gradually evolved
>> over the centuries into the monarchical nation-states of the early
>> modern era.
>>
>Gradually. What I said.

No, you said it was steady.
 
>> >> >Apparently whatever benefits people other than the rich is called
>> >> >socialism.
>> >> 
>> >> It is important to identify such lies, and the liars who tell them.
>> >> 
>> >You mean socialism as a lie?
>> 
>> The claim that whatever benefits people other than the rich is
>> socialism is a lie, in two ways.  Socialism doesn't benefit anyone but
>> a handful of the politically powerful, and arrangements other than
>> socialism can benefit people other than the rich.
>
>Jealousy is a basic human attitude that pervades everything and
>manifests in many destructive ways.

You need to think more about the effects of greed: trying to obtain
more than one deserves.

>You want to explain lots of things
>with a tax scheme!

No, I am explaining why the facts that imply the desirability of a
certain tax scheme also explain lots of things.

-- Roy L