Monday, 28 October 2013

Capitalism doesn't work

The problem with capitalism is that we rely on people being vulnerable to make a profit. If everyone has everything they want then the capitalist can make no money and they will starve. Communism doesn't work either and so we are left with Georgism which is the political philosophy where people are left to live for themselves on the land. Individually people try to become farmers so they are able to support themselves without relying on the labour market. They are free to trade their goods and services but this is not the source of their sustenance (they do not rely on this income to stay alive). Using the land they are perfectly self-sufficient.

Sunday, 27 October 2013

Land is like labour

There is an analogy to be made between tenant farming and employing people. With tenant farming the landowner is able to lease out the land to the tenant farmer who then exploits this (land) capital by creating a profitable crop. The tenant can make more from the land than it costs to lease the land so they are interested in 'employing' the land. In the same way we can think of someone (a company) who exploits and employs someone as being a tenant of their intrinsic labour. So the employee who provides the labour is like the landowner and the employer is like the tenant farmer.