Right, so who cares what nominal level of government? You've made this silly belief your personal bugaboo for no reason.

I already stated I'm fine with SOME spending on education.

I've worked for FREE many times.

The force is strong with this one .

It wasn't for free if later you claim for yourself some benefit from having done it.

Free means you didn't get paid.

I asked if you thought there was inherent value in labor.

If you don't believe there is then your statement that whatever wages are privately negotiated is reasonable.

I think there is obviously an inherent value in an employer hiring an employee as a business only hires when there is a business need. The employee doesn't know the details of course so the negotiation is one sided. But there is a number that can be calculated as to how much money the employee will make the business.

In my opinion, a workers's monetary value is what an employer is willing to pay for the worker's services.

In my opinion, excellent teachers are far more valuable to a society than good entertainers. But there is a reason that Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise and LeBron James make about 100x more money than the best teacher in America.

This is entirely too tight in terms of defining worker value

"...a workers's monetary value is what an employer is willing to pay for the worker's services..."


A 'workers value' is a combination of two equations. It is the meeting point of 'What an employer is willing to pay' AND 'what an employee is willing to accept'.

Just because an employer might say 'building that X is only worth $Y per hour' does not make it so if he cannot find any employees to accept that transaction and the work remains undone.

The fact that neither of you mention the value the employee adds to the organization as part of the equation is pretty ridiculous.

The notion that everyone should just accept whatever scraps our employers deem to hand down to us is a result of corporate brainwashing, not some principled value of fairness.

Yes. That's what I was driving at. There is objective value in labor.

Pretending that an employer is doing you a favor by hiring you is naive. You may need a job but he needs labor.

All education from preschool thru grad school should be free. For college onwards, you obviously need to pass certain merit criteria to join and if you do pass your state funded schools must accept you.

Being free may increase the number of college students by maybe 20%. Great, build more schools. We will have a more educated and productive population, and society as a whole will be better off.

In these capital owner and labor transactions, don't forget that ALL of the VALUE PRODUCED is done by LABOR. Capital then gets a CUT of the Profits.

Employer is more like exploiting your labor for profit is more like it. Every employee a capitalist hires is done SOLELY for profit.

Capital without LABOR can literally be worth ZERO value, and produce ZERO value. It just so happen to be worth x because humans chose to invent the capitalist system we have today and most of us happen to agree to follow that system.

Whereas LABOR is the only thing that objectively can PRODUCE VALUE. This is true regardless of what ever ownership and wealth distribution system we all can come up with or agree to.

I prefer that College and University education expense be 'forgivable' or 'written off' and not free.

Gov't provided student loan with no maintenance payments and deferred interest charges that can be 100% written off based on the following:

- degree or program is completed
- individual enters the US workforce within X years of graduating
- individual can then 'write off' 100 of the principle loan amount against any income tax that would be paid over the next X years with all interest 'forgiven'

If society perceives 'societal benefit' in the degree then the person 'asking for and getting free money' has to uphold their end of the bargain and complete the task (get the degree) or they should repay what was invested in them.

If society is paying for this 'societal benefit' the person should work at least a minimal number of years in the US to provide back some benefit and not just move away and take the degree, and benefit abroad. IF they do, that is fine but the money then needs to be repaid.

This is way too narrow a view.

Capital is more like the gasoline and people are more like the cars. Without the gas (Capital) the car goes nowhere and no appreciable value is gained (no profit) so both are required.

But it comes down to which has more mobility or flexibility, like in all things to really determine true value. Meaning if I can replace you easily (lots of supply) but you cannot replace me at all, then my value is way higher despite the fact the equation requires participation by both parts.

There is a reason Profit is not generated or produces simply where an abundance of labour is available.

China was not seen as a profit center when they had tons of people but no Capital was going there.

As Capital has shifted around the world (Mexico, to China, etc) you have seen large populaces suddenly gain value and profit be generated (for both Capital and Workers) that simply was not being generated pre Capital. in fact Pre capital, in most of these places and many other, you see a steady decline in the Profit area even as population numbers exploded upwards.

Analyze your idea in light of slavery.

It's not a narrow view, it is literally a fact.

Everything else you say is fine, albeit obvious, no one disagree with that.

But unless you understood what I said, no point in me furthering the discussion...

Maybe this would help... Think more fundamentally, think from first principles, outside of the current ownership and money system you are in today...

Wake up neo moment...

What kind of system would you build and why?
What goals should that system achieve?

If you want a discussion then fine. If you feel you are 'above' discussing it, fine too.

But what you say is not literal fact nor do I have to accept it as such simply because you state it.

The counter to your argument is for me to simply say everything I said was 'literal fact' with neither of us discussing or defending our positions.

I have no idea what you are trying to get at with your 'Neo moment'.

When I say first principles, consider this:

1. An island with 100 people
2. No one owns anything
3. Money is not invented
4. Laws not yet passed

Conclusions based on initial state:

1. Money was not invented and there are no laws thus money literally has 0 value and does not produce any value. (Later on if we invent money and make some laws regarding it then you can consider it as making some process more efficient)


2. Some natural resources such as coconuts, fish etc can be valuable to humans if there is some labor.

3. LABOR is the only thing that PRODUCES value

.....

Question:

1. What issues do the inhabitants of this island face as it scales?

2. What are some solutions to these issues? Be creative.

3. The pros and cons of these solutions?


(Side note, everyone including me, everyday think about those sweet sweet points, work to increase the points, get food using the points, etc. It all seems so natural almost human nature at this point. But it wasn't always like that before, and it's likely won't be that in the (far) future)

I will add to my point.

Take CHina pre their own industrial revolution where they became valued for cheap labour and Capital flocked in.

Pre that, China had exploding population growth and that did not generate profit for the people or the State.

Once Capital came in to the society, even if China's population shrunk each and every year for decades (due to one child law) the profit generated would have only increased.

So while labour is a key component of profit and required due to Capital being far more mobile, it is higher in the stack in terms of which is more critical to generating profit.

Dude you are so deep in the system. Wake up neo!

Think outside of the system that you are in so that you may see it more objectively.

You're point 2 is too simplistic and where you problem lies.

Water has value to humans regardless of labor.

You seem to be conflating whether we 'monetize something' (trade it) with its inherent value.

See my example prior and how Profit is generated in CHina even under the assumption that Labor would shrink as long as Capital is present and how value would be lost without Capital even as the population grows.


(Edit and your last reply is another non-answer. Just gibberish. Debate or don't. That is fine. But do not assume you hold the 'Only Truth' and everyone else just needs to wake up)

"Water has value to humans regardless of labor"
you're right.

But labor is what produces add more value. Not capital , I feel absurd even saying that, like capital is was not even invented. It's a set of rules that was invented. There are so many different set of rules we could be discussing. Also no one disagree with what you're saying regarding capital increase efficiency. Like duh. But so what, there are many other systems that we can invent to increase efficiency. Also efficiency is not even necessarily the main goals. Again go back to first principles.

1. What issues are the island inhabitants running into as they scale?

2. What are all the viable solutions?

3. What are pros and cons?

4. What goals are we trying to achieve with these solutions?

Btw I have never heard anyone discuss this topic from first principles and it's super annoying to never get a satisfactory discussion so I can further my understanding...

But in an office business setting, this is what I do for business processes....

I guess economists do this for their job and probably in the halls of economic building, one can have these discussions from first principles.

If what you are saying is true then in my example where Chinese Labor increases, even with an absence of Capital, then profit would flow and the value would increase. An abundance of Labor that is just increasing and increasing.

The opposite is true. The society would just get poorer and poorer.

So you are hinging 'profit' or 'value' to labor incorrectly as if one is inherent to the other.

As i pointed out, even with a shrinking labor pool the value and profit can grow immensely as long as Capital is present.

In your view that could not be possible. The thing of value that generates the profit, Labor, cannot be shrinking and yet value and profit continues to grow, in your upside down world and yet that is the case.

What about removing the interest part of the equation?

Still cheaper for the taxpayer than outright forgiveness and future "free" education.

You do realize that there was already capital in your example right? The capital system was already invented and now we are discussing if tuning that invented system with a variable will optimize it or not. Again not interested in this discussion. More interested in first principles.