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With fewer than 2% of people employed in agriculture, the US produces more food than needed for ten billion people. Capital distributions are the source of decl

With fewer than 2% of people employed in agriculture, the US produces more food than needed for ten billion people. Capital distributions are the source of declining wealth for most people. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA Of course the common course provided food insecurity. See the book why nations fail. -- making markets necessary, but excessive capital concentration (rent seeking) also reduces the productive capacity of an economy via, restricting capital flows through verticals.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Super interesting, thank you. Unfortunately, not relevant to someone who doesn’t have labour to sell.
- yellowapple 2y ago
  The notion that labor must be sold for basic survival is in and of itself the problem.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > notion that labor must be sold for basic survival is in and of itself the problem One, this isn't a thing in the developed world. Two, why not? Existence isn't free, and denying that reality is bound to lead to problems. Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging the reality that is the cost of existing. From that flows the value of existence, the value of others' existence to one's own, and thus, altruism.
    - yellowapple 2y ago
      > One, this isn't a thing in the developed world. I mean, if you're saying that the US doesn't count as "the developed world" then I'd agree with you, but otherwise I'd encourage you to take a field trip to your local river banks and highway underpasses if you want to see what happens if you fail to sell your labor. > Existence isn't free It'd be pretty darn close to it if the means of said existence weren't hoarded and price-gouged for the sake of profiteering and rentseeking. We have enough food in the US to end world hunger. Most cities have more vacant homes than they have homeless persons. Any supposed scarcity of basic essentials is artificial. > Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging the reality that is the cost of existing. Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging that their members deserve to have food to eat, clothes on their backs, and rooves over their heads, and are consequently willing to operate on a principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > take a field trip to your local river banks and highway underpasses if you want to see what happens if you fail to sell your labor Very few of those folks are there because they're ready and willing to work but just can't find a job. (Those who are, the transitional homeless, tend to find one.) > We have enough food in the US to end world hunger We have enough atoms in the universe for anything. Getting them to the right place is the challenge. Ending world hunger would require massively decreasing living standards in the rich world. Your aforementioned homeless under a bridge have better access to resources than much of the human population.
        yellowapple 2y ago
        > Very few of those folks are there because they're ready and willing to work but just can't find a job. (Those who are, the transitional homeless, tend to find one.) Most of the chronically homeless started off as transitionally homeless. The longer you're in that hole, the harder it is to climb out - and the greater the psychological toll, and the greater the temptation to turn to drugs/alcohol to numb the psychological and physical suffering resulting from being in that hole. > Ending world hunger would require massively decreasing living standards in the rich world. I very much doubt that. But fine, we can start by ending hunger in the "rich" world.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Most of the chronically homeless started off as transitionally homeless Sure. Doesn't change the fact that someone "tak[ing] a field trip to [their] local river banks and highway underpasses" is going to see about 5x more transitionally homeless than chronically homeless [1]. > we can start by ending hunger in the "rich" world It's a good goal. And we're making progress on it [2]. Starving to death in the rich world is largely a thing of the past; consider the meaning of our shifting our measure of food insecurity from starvation to hunger. [1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/who-experiences-homelessness/chronically-homeless/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/who-expe... [2] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2022/09/food-insecurity-and-food-assistance-programmes-across-oecd-countries_2e3fe549/42b4a7fa-en.pdf https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
    - stevenAthompson 2y ago
      > Existence isn't free From this we can logically conclude that some people do not have sufficient value to exist. Perhaps there should be special camps for them? Maybe we could deliver them to thise camps in some sort of trains? Alternatively let us consider that every person may have an intrinsic right to exist, even if they do not fit well within our society. After all, our society made a hunter gatherers lifestyle impossible by introducing land ownership. To those who cannot thrive within the new system don't we at least owe the modern equivalent of a hunter gatherers subsistence lifestyle? I suspect that debt is the price we pay for making the alternative impossible.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > From this we can logically conclude that some people do not have sufficient value to exist Why? > let us consider that every person may have an intrinsic right to exist This is compatible with the statement "existence isn't free." One side describes the obligation. The other describes the cost.
        stevenAthompson 2y ago
        > why? If we take it as granted that life has a "cost" (and therefore a value), it is also a given that someone must pay that cost for people to live. Given that some people are born more capable than others of paying the cost (their value) we find ourselves forced to take the monsterous position that some lives have intrinsicly more value than others, and worse that some lives have negative value as they cost more than than the value they provide. However, it is obviously not true that life itself has a fixed "cost", except within one of the specific systems of government that acknowledge property rights and the concept of cost in general. A lone man born into nature incurs no "cost" by existing, he is a part of the ecosystem that supports him and "costs" it no more than the beasts of the forest "cost" it. "Cost" as a concept is a fiction that we develop to trade with other humans, not some natural and unavoidable aspect of life granted to us from the gods. > This is compatible with the statement "existence isn't free." It is not. Existence is free, and the only cost it incurs is within our imaginations. The obligation to care for those who can't or won't function within the new systems of trade are the debt we owe for taking that freedom away by enforcing property rights through violence. The obligation is real, the cost is a social fiction dreamt up for accounting purposes.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

Super interesting, thank you. Unfortunately, not relevant to someone who doesn’t have labour to sell.

yellowapple 2y ago
The notion that labor must be sold for basic survival is in and of itself the problem.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > notion that labor must be sold for basic survival is in and of itself the problem One, this isn't a thing in the developed world. Two, why not? Existence isn't free, and denying that reality is bound to lead to problems. Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging the reality that is the cost of existing. From that flows the value of existence, the value of others' existence to one's own, and thus, altruism.
  - yellowapple 2y ago
    > One, this isn't a thing in the developed world. I mean, if you're saying that the US doesn't count as "the developed world" then I'd agree with you, but otherwise I'd encourage you to take a field trip to your local river banks and highway underpasses if you want to see what happens if you fail to sell your labor. > Existence isn't free It'd be pretty darn close to it if the means of said existence weren't hoarded and price-gouged for the sake of profiteering and rentseeking. We have enough food in the US to end world hunger. Most cities have more vacant homes than they have homeless persons. Any supposed scarcity of basic essentials is artificial. > Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging the reality that is the cost of existing. Strong communities tend to start with acknowledging that their members deserve to have food to eat, clothes on their backs, and rooves over their heads, and are consequently willing to operate on a principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > take a field trip to your local river banks and highway underpasses if you want to see what happens if you fail to sell your labor Very few of those folks are there because they're ready and willing to work but just can't find a job. (Those who are, the transitional homeless, tend to find one.) > We have enough food in the US to end world hunger We have enough atoms in the universe for anything. Getting them to the right place is the challenge. Ending world hunger would require massively decreasing living standards in the rich world. Your aforementioned homeless under a bridge have better access to resources than much of the human population.
      - yellowapple 2y ago
        > Very few of those folks are there because they're ready and willing to work but just can't find a job. (Those who are, the transitional homeless, tend to find one.) Most of the chronically homeless started off as transitionally homeless. The longer you're in that hole, the harder it is to climb out - and the greater the psychological toll, and the greater the temptation to turn to drugs/alcohol to numb the psychological and physical suffering resulting from being in that hole. > Ending world hunger would require massively decreasing living standards in the rich world. I very much doubt that. But fine, we can start by ending hunger in the "rich" world.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Most of the chronically homeless started off as transitionally homeless Sure. Doesn't change the fact that someone "tak[ing] a field trip to [their] local river banks and highway underpasses" is going to see about 5x more transitionally homeless than chronically homeless [1]. > we can start by ending hunger in the "rich" world It's a good goal. And we're making progress on it [2]. Starving to death in the rich world is largely a thing of the past; consider the meaning of our shifting our measure of food insecurity from starvation to hunger. [1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/who-experiences-homelessness/chronically-homeless/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/who-expe... [2] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2022/09/food-insecurity-and-food-assistance-programmes-across-oecd-countries_2e3fe549/42b4a7fa-en.pdf https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    > Existence isn't free From this we can logically conclude that some people do not have sufficient value to exist. Perhaps there should be special camps for them? Maybe we could deliver them to thise camps in some sort of trains? Alternatively let us consider that every person may have an intrinsic right to exist, even if they do not fit well within our society. After all, our society made a hunter gatherers lifestyle impossible by introducing land ownership. To those who cannot thrive within the new system don't we at least owe the modern equivalent of a hunter gatherers subsistence lifestyle? I suspect that debt is the price we pay for making the alternative impossible.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > From this we can logically conclude that some people do not have sufficient value to exist Why? > let us consider that every person may have an intrinsic right to exist This is compatible with the statement "existence isn't free." One side describes the obligation. The other describes the cost.
      - stevenAthompson 2y ago
        > why? If we take it as granted that life has a "cost" (and therefore a value), it is also a given that someone must pay that cost for people to live. Given that some people are born more capable than others of paying the cost (their value) we find ourselves forced to take the monsterous position that some lives have intrinsicly more value than others, and worse that some lives have negative value as they cost more than than the value they provide. However, it is obviously not true that life itself has a fixed "cost", except within one of the specific systems of government that acknowledge property rights and the concept of cost in general. A lone man born into nature incurs no "cost" by existing, he is a part of the ecosystem that supports him and "costs" it no more than the beasts of the forest "cost" it. "Cost" as a concept is a fiction that we develop to trade with other humans, not some natural and unavoidable aspect of life granted to us from the gods. > This is compatible with the statement "existence isn't free." It is not. Existence is free, and the only cost it incurs is within our imaginations. The obligation to care for those who can't or won't function within the new systems of trade are the debt we owe for taking that freedom away by enforcing property rights through violence. The obligation is real, the cost is a social fiction dreamt up for accounting purposes.