The Green New Deal

[Ironsided]

Why not: what's the benefits of the change?

 

[Estebonrober]

Actually the bank owning your house as contrasted to you owning your house is a good example. Yes, socialists are opposed to the private ownership of property, but what they mean by this is the private ownership and mobilization of the means of production (things necessary for community benefit) for personal enrichment. Your home isn't private property because it isn't something necessary for the benefit of everyone. Your home is, rather, called personal property. It's something that is yours. The bank laying claim to land and then refusing to let anybody live there unless someone pays them money for that privilege is an example of private property, because it is exploiting something necessary for the common good (undeveloped land/an unoccupied house) for personal enrichment.

Here are some more examples to elaborate:

Owning your home that you live in everyday: personal property, fine
Owning a property which you rent out to others: private property, not fine

Owning your own toothbrush: personal property, fine
Owning the only machine that makes toothbrushes: private property, not fine

Owning your own sheep: personal property, fine
Building a fence around and claiming ownership of the only pastureland in the vicinity: private property, not fine

Owning your own vegetable garden: personal property, fine
Claiming ownership of the land on which all the community's food is grown: private property, not fine

Having a garden shed with tools for your backyard vegetable garden: personal property, fine
Claiming ownership of the plow/cultivator/harvester/etc. which are necessary for growing all the community's food: private property, not fine

So to return to your list of private property things: home/land/goods/services:

home is the definition of personal property. Everyone is entitled to their own space.

land: depends on how you're defining land. Your own land in the sense of a space for you to live, maybe have a few hobbies, is personal property. Your own land in the sense of hoarding a monopoly on resources, or claiming ownership beyond what you need and "renting out" to others would count as private property

services: not really something which applies under communism, or at least it depends on which kind of communist/anarchist model you're working under. Some have currency/a market/labor vouchers, others are more "dump all the things in the middle of town and everyone take as much as you need." Generally speaking, if the capitalist model is abolished, then there is no need for you to sell your body to stay alive, meaning that services are, by and large, less necessary, or at least less a thing that you are compelled to do for 2/3 of your waking hours or else face homelessness and starvation. It would, at least in theory, be more of a thing that you do because you want to be nice to your neighbor/family member/close friend/whatever. Also, again, without profit motive, there's no competitive redundancy, overproduction, planned obsolescence, etc., and so there's far fewer of the bullfeathers jobs that make up much of the service sector and white color today.

goods: again, it depends on what you mean by goods. If you're going all Ron Swanson and making your own chairs or whatever. Yeah, have at it, that's yours to keep. Again, the incentive built into socialism is such that there's never a reason to hoard. You aren't making the chair because you literally couldn't afford a chair otherwise, and you aren't making one because profit-motivation and the market compel firms to push out cheap, flimsy wooden chairs that fall apart after a year. Under socialism you are, presumably, making the chair because woodworking is a passion for you and you enjoy the satisfaction of producing something good, and, given that the satisfaction comes from the act and not the object, and, given that you probably wouldn't need another chair of your own after the first 4 or 8 or whatever, maybe that 5th or 9th one you give to a friend or a neighbor. And the 6th/10th you give to a neighbor, and so on. You don't have to. Nobody's making you give that chair away. You just don't have a need or reason to keep it. So in that sense, goods are fine: something which you produce on your own time, which isn't necessary for the survival of the community, and in the production of which you aren't exploiting labor (i.e. paying someone $4 to make a chair which you sell for $10). Goods do become private property when they are the opposite of those things. If it suddenly happened that everybody needed your chair or else they would die or suffer a severely impacted quality of life, it is clearly immoral for you to then withhold that chair unless everybody jumped through a certain number of multicolored hoops for your amusement first.



This is not that. Private property has a very specific meaning within the context of socialism, anti-capitalism, and Marxism, and which Marxism in fact coined. The "commonly used one" is actually a strawman which is deployed to dismiss and silence any actual discussion about socialism, anti-capitalism, and Marxism. This isn't a matter of a prescriptivist coming in and yelling at people because they're using ironic wrong or whatever. This is a matter of someone having a conversation with a linguist and lamenting the fact that English doesn't have umlauts. And when the linguist points out that English, does, in fact undergo umlaut, that person goes on a rant about how they don't care, English is a dumbed down, inelegant language, and that's not what umlaut means in common speech so actually the linguist is wrong.

Ok yea I remember this usage, its just been a long while since I've been around it. Thanks for the reminder. I'm somewhere in between on this, while I believe in the ability to personally profit from ones goods and services I find the extent to which that is an productive and practical benefit to overall population is limited. So is immoral to be a billionaire? Maybe. A millionaire. No. I've been dragged leftward on this because the reactionary right has lost their minds. It wasn't very long ago that they believed in a carbon tax, immigration reform that included making illegal immigrants citizens over time, and budgets that produced a healthy government not one intentionally starved.

 

[Estebonrober]

Is "the green new deal" something that actually warrants serious discussion? If so, let's start with the obvious: what's the estimated cost for this plan?

back of envelope number crunches I've seen put a low estimate at 6 trillion per year if you did everything. Of course it would functionally replace every program but defense, so total federal budget at 7 trillion which is about 1/3 of the US economy temporarily (ten years or so) mobilized.

 

[Estebonrober]

Coming from the argument that government fiat of private assets is somehow okay, calling others out for weakness in an argument rings hollow.

If you want to live in Venezuela you can move there. I'd prefer the USA not go down that path too.



There's no slavery happening on wide scales in the USA and hasn't been for well over 100 years. If authoritarians are clamping down on people and get a hostile response, I wonder how history would see that.

I suppose it does depend on who wins. I'd prefer to just leave the country if it comes to that though.

Whatever @TheMeInTeam, conscription of private property by the government is done all the time without you complaining about it so this carries no weight for me, your argument rings hollow and hypocritical.

Second, that is not how this works. The USA has a constitution and is generally ruled by the law. If we use those to form a socialist republic then that is what is and frankly we already are a socialist republic (medicare/caid, social security).

11 million people here right now are essentially indentured servants, are they tied by chain to their position? No. Do they have recourse to the law or the possibility of status before the state? No. So while you care not for their plight they are being systematically mistreated by a nation who is doing it in what essentially is a racist way.

 

[Hygro]

Is "the green new deal" something that actually warrants serious discussion? If so, let's start with the obvious: what's the estimated cost for this plan?

Aaaand we've already left serious discussion.

 

[Hehehe]

Of course it would functionally replace every program but defense

Really? I thought the whole point was that it adds a lot of stuff that isn't in the budget already

Aaaand we've already left serious discussion.

Yeah, who cares about "numbers" and "reality" when you have the power of dreams?

 

[Hygro]

Really? I thought the whole point was that it adds a lot of stuff that isn't in the budget already


Yeah, who cares about "numbers" and "reality" when you have the power of dreams?

Yeah who cares about economy and reality when you have imagined budget constraints. (Rather than labor/capital constraints.)

 

[Hehehe]

Yeah who cares about economy and reality when you have imagined budget constraints. (Rather than labor/capital constraints.)

Oh yes, labor and capital are infinite so who cares about silly things like "money", it's not like it's used to allocate resources or anything

 

[Hygro]

Oh yes, labor and capital are infinite so who cares about silly things like "money", it's not like it's used to allocate resources or anything

The moment you talk of cost like it's a question of available money you have lost the plot. Especially on a scale this big. You have to look at who we have, what we have, what technology we have, what will becomes of these inputs as they are repurposed to purpose.

No one says labor and capital are infinite. How could you even imagine that's my assertion?

 

[Estebonrober]

Yea it's a large scale restructuring of the American economy for about 10 years. It would be a mammoth undertaking. That does not mean that the idea is without merit or completely delusional. Scientists are telling us we need drastic changes in the energy sector of our economy and this is a beginning point on what that looks like.

 

[Hygro]

Let me change tact, @Hehehe

There are obviously huge costs to this undertaking. You are right it is important to the discussion, if we are smart about the question. How would you suggest we measure these costs, particularly over time as financially government spending pays for itself, and as labor (the skillsets of people) and capital (what people make to make things) would change with the tasking of this undertaking?

 

[Hehehe]

The moment you talk of cost like it's a question of available money you have lost the plot. Especially on a scale this big. You have to look at who we have, what we have, what technology we have, what will becomes of these inputs as they are repurposed to purpose.

No one says labor and capital are infinite. How could you even imagine that's my assertion?

I'm not sure you understand basic economics. Money is a tool that is used to allocate resources, such as labor or raw materials. It's a tool that is useful in assessing the costs of a project such as this. This is why I brought up the cost as a starting point. Whereas your reply seems to be something along the lines of "it's not about money!!!!". To me, it comes off as if you have zero understanding of how the real world works. It's like you don't even understand the very basics of what it would take to undergo a project like this. It's like you're escaping specifics by hiding behind abstract concepts of "look at the labor cost even though I'm providing no tools here to assess those labor costs". Are you even trying to have a serious discussion about this?

If this is a serious project, then in my opinion, the first step should be to assess the costs. The most obvious way to do that is by assessing the monetary cost. Then you come up with a funding plan (raise taxes? borrow money? print money?). Assess the benefits this would bring, and weight them against the downsides. That sort of thing. Right now, all of this just strikes me as wishful thinking bordering on childlike naivete ("if I were the president, I would buy everyone a free pony!").

And just to clarify, I'm not against the idea of a green new deal in principle. Maybe it would have some great benefits. Maybe there is a viable funding plan. All I'm saying is, I don't feel like you've presented any of those yet

 

[Hehehe]

How would you suggest we measure these costs

I suggest using money to assess the costs.

particularly over time as financially government spending pays for itself

This is a bit more complicated. Technically, sort of. If you siphon resources from one sector of the economy to another, then in theory the financial impact is nothing (reality is a bit more complicated). But in practice, production shifts from what would have been otherwise produced into whatever government decided to produce. So if this green new deal were a completely useless project, you'd be siphoning off huge parts of the US economy to produce something useless. And this is true no matter how you evaluate the costs. In my example, I assumed you pay for labor and materials with money, but even if you had a command economy where you can order businesses to do this, the above point would still be true.

and as labor (the skillsets of people) and capital (what people make to make things) would change with the tasking of this undertaking?

I'm not sure what this relates to. Are you saying that the project would teach people important and necessary skills, thus offsetting some of the costs?

 

[Hygro]

I'm not sure you understand basic economics.

Here's the second greatest compliment I have received on CFC after @Phrossack calling me someone who looks like they put "Californian" on their ethnicity in the member photos thread.

Reading a Hygro post is like walking into a graduate level economics seminar. Since I am not actively employed in the field and haven't been to school in a long time it usually leaves me somewhat stunned.

Admittedly I'm a lot lazier about it now than in 2014 but my understanding has grown.

Here's a fairly easy article by the Fed chairman during WW2, so the guy who had to make the money good for a war that "cost" 300 billion dollars of the trillion dollars of GDP produced by America during that war. Sorry it's a PDF http://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/Papers/501/functional finance.pdf

I'm not going to question your understanding of economics, just take potshots about what you say. I invite more of the same from you

 

[Hehehe]

You should come around here more often.

Here's the second greatest compliment I have received on CFC after @Phrossack calling me someone who looks like they put "Californian" on their ethnicity in the member photos thread.

Perhaps the tone of my post was more negative than it needs to be. Nevertheless, I will now allow you to dazzle me with your expertise. What is your funding plan, if it doesn't involve money? You're going to implement a command economy, and order a bunch of people/companies to implement this new deal?

 

[Hygro]

Perhaps the tone of my post was more negative than it needs to be. Nevertheless, I will now allow you to dazzle me with your expertise. What is your funding plan, if it doesn't involve money? You're going to implement a command economy, and order a bunch of people/companies to implement this new deal?

Remember, I started this off saying your post wasn't serious discussion. No need to apologize my Finnish friend. We're all in this together.

You offer firms and people money and they take it because they are rational economy maximizing agents. The fed raises interest rates to hold inflation, once it creeps in.

You only go as fast as the growing skills of the people on the job, and materials available, come to existence.

 

[Hygro]

Whoops I posted the wrong pdf, here's the right one. http://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/Papers/501/functional finance.pdf

 

[Hrothbern]

Exodus 16:3

" And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger"

The flesh pots and bread
That's where we are now
Do we move through the desert ? to something better ?

With books and sharing thoughts, we are already post-scarcity
If I think back to the appartment at the second floor my parents moved in (1960) when I was five... that level of material goods is also already post-scarcity and within reach for most countries (not some Asian and most African countries)
I missed nothing. On the streets my friends, in the wilderness nearby adventure, the school there, the library 10 minutes further walking.

When I was 28 I squatted a big building with friends. Each (couple) a piece to live, 12 in total. A lot of things shared.
Sharing tools etc a crime when not properly handled and cared for. A lot of "communicating" and "educating" continuously needed. But so much more natural (and better) than whining on far away politics.

What happens in Mexico is a big step away/back from our current fleshpots.
Our current society needs much less social maintenance, purpose bound social interaction, than living in green rural/proto industrial like communities with sharing a lot. Sharing is high-maintenance social interacting.
Can be pretty tiring as well. Especially for older people who are less socially hungry.

Yea it's a large scale restructuring of the American economy for about 10 years. It would be a mammoth undertaking. That does not mean that the idea is without merit or completely delusional. Scientists are telling us we need drastic changes in the energy sector of our economy and this is a beginning point on what that looks like.

Yes
We can do it
but we are addicted to our current fleshpots
so much that even a 2% of GDP every year to get Climate under control, perhaps another 1-2% GDP to get green sustainable economy a kick-start, is too much for our inertia in consumerism and spectatorism.

Cold turkey ?
hm
Doing what is needed to be done now on Climate and Green at just enough quick fix level... and encourage our children towards a (little bit too utopian) green society... and to that degree, that when they get teenagers, they start to pressure us to live up to that ourselves, to help us with our addiction ?
Could work

 

[Hehehe]

Here's a fairly easy article by the Fed chairman during WW2, so the guy who had to make the money good for a war that "cost" 300 billion dollars of the trillion dollars of GDP produced by America during that war. Sorry it's a PDF http://k.web.umkc.edu/keltons/Papers/501/functional finance.pdf

It's about money but it's not about money. The United States could easily print one third of its GDP in order to pay WW2, or the Green New Deal. Money is simply a tool used to assign resources. The problem is, that as you do that, a bunch of industries that were producing other (most likely useful) things stop producing those things, and start producing whatever you coaxed them into producing. For example, if I were Trumpstalin, leader of the USASSR, I could command a police officer to abandon his duties as a policeman, and order him to build a giant heap of sand in a desert. As long as he gets paid what he used to, technically the fiscal impact is the same. It's just that now, useful work (policing) isn't being produced, while useless work (sand heap) is. It works in a bit of similar way with entire industries. If I order one sector of the economy to produce something else, whatever they used to produce suffers for it. WW2 is a great example, as a bunch of manpower and resources were directed into a war. Did that translate into prosperity for the average American? No, not at all. In fact it was more like the opposite (just to clarify, I'm talking about the economy during the war, not the post-war growth). With this green new deal, you might be imposing WW2-levels of economic deprivation on the civilian population, for a gain that is debatable at best. A sense of patriotism carried the US through WW2, I'm not sure it would carry US through this new deal.

If it's paid with money, the negatives would be felt evenly throughout the economy. The US economy would be producing less traditionally useful resources (cars, electronics, services etc.) in favor of producing whatever the new deal requires. The inflation-adjusted cost of those things would go up, as there is less supply. Perhaps this need not be the case if there were huge chunks of people unemployed, but even then there are costs associated with such a project. With financial policy, you could further try to manage the costs (or more like who pays for it). You could levy much larger taxes on the rich, for example, to try and ensure that they end up paying the costs, rather than costs being evenly distributed among everyone. But even that comes with downsides (it wouldn't be enough to cover the project, and it might have negative externalities). If the taxes are set too high, the rich might end up fleeing the United States for example.

You offer firms and people money and they take it because they are rational economy maximizing agents. The fed raises interest rates to hold inflation, once it creeps in.

Raising interest rates can be highly problematic, given the state of the economy right now. I fear that we could be on the brink of another great depression, and suddenly raising interest rates might just trigger that. Getting into why is a complicated topic, but essentially the economy requires constant growth, and low interest rates provide that (at least for now).

 

[Hygro]

If you don't have a debt-instability based model (aka you use the standard IS-LM model which I usually would), lowering interest rates and fiscal spending are the same thing, as are raising rates and taxation. With that in mind, and with your fear in mind and your idea of the causes of such a fear, shouldn't you be in favor of this level of spending?

I'll get to the rest later I really should start my day.