Re: Capital: Its Presence, Use and Control

["Per Gunnar Berglund" <pgb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,
	Your message below is truly interesting, because I guess it reveals a
difference between the ways you and I look at the very concept of capital.
Metaphorically speaking, you seem to think of the production process in an
"additive" fashion; that output is obtained by capital + labour. Instead of
this view, I would take, again metaphorically speaking, a "multiplicative"
view on production; that output is obtained by capital x labour.
	When taking the "additive" view, real and human capital become separate,
or mutually independent, identities. On the other hand, when the
"multiplicative" approach of mine is being used, the concepts of real and
human capital are intertwined and never mutually independent.
	This might seem like an esoteric issue, but I think the philosophical
difference between the "additive" and the "multiplicative" approach is
crucial. The neoclassical attempts at erecting a theory of capital have
indeed proven to be failures, and I venture to claim that this is because
it has all been directed at preserving the "additive" principle of mutual
independence. Once this is abandoned for a "multiplicative", interdependent
concept, approach, the whole task of constructing a logically coherent
theory of capital proves to be a straightforward one.


Best,
Per


Per Gunnar Berglund
Lilla Sallskapets vag 60
127 61  SKARHOLMEN
SWEDEN

Voice/fax +46-(0)8-883065

----------
John Gelles wrote:
> 	"RENTIERS" -- "Owners of Capital who derive most
> 	of their income from it, chosing to exercise no
> 	operational control over its use."
>
> 	PKT entertains ideas on the end of rentiers --
> 	implying not the end of capital or its use, but
> 	the end of persons who own it for income alone.
>
> 	Technically, in a socialist or democratic state,
> 	that would say good bye to everybody as soon as
> 	capital was represented by fully automatic
> 	factories and income was yours just for being
> 	alive. The destination of all of us here on
> 	earth.
>
> 	What is it about excusing oneself from control
> 	over the use of capital that makes one a parasite
> 	worse than all others connected to capital?
>
> 	It cannot be mere absence of control -- hardly
> 	anyone has any control.  It must be the income.
> 	Virtually all on this list favor augmentation
> 	of demand so as to keep as little slack in the
> 	labor market as possible -- so it must not be
> 	rentier income, per se, that some hate. It must
> 	be excessive income relative to labor's share.
>
> 	Yet rentiers income after taxes is a function
> 	of tax and minimum wage policy.  So it must
> 	not be the rentiers themselves that cause the
> 	problem, it must be the share they keep as
> 	a result of public policy.
>
> 	Many people who speak ill of rentiers, (their
> 	own relatives in most cases), are really
> 	imagining a world without private capital.
> 	Because if we have private capital, we will
> 	have saving. If we have saving we will have
> 	investment. If we have investment we will
> 	have rentiers.
>
> 	A world without private capital must invent
> 	public capital that works better than the
> 	private stuff.  The thing we have today that
> 	is virtually all public and not private, is
> 	law.  How well does it work?  Private capital
> 	is its child.
>
> 	Get real. Stop the baloney. Let us reform
> 	campaign financing, end taxation below the
> 	median wealth and earnings levels, the
> 	insufficiency of public financing, the
> 	careless absence of economic protection for
> 	whole segments of society, drug laws that
> 	account for nearly one million (out of more
> 	than one and a half million) people in
> 	prison, forced unemployment, and similar
> 	sores staring us in the face.  Rentiers?
> 	Don't worry. You'll be one soon enough.
>
> 	John Gelles
>                    http://myturn.org
>                    http://rain.org/~jjgelles/
>
>                    Common Economic Sense
>
>         1. Saving, not unemployment, to fight inflation.
>         2. Inflation protection  for  savings and loans.
>         3. Keynesian  financing  of  public  priorities.
>         4. Strong unions, low taxes/interest for growth.
>         5. Microloans for  the right to self-employment.
>         6. Automation for a high minimum std. of living.
> 	
>