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OrphanWilde comments on Why capitalism? - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Algon 03 May 2015 06:16PM

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Comment author: OrphanWilde 08 May 2015 02:17:18PM 0 points [-]

I believe that VoiceOfRa is referring to the vote that (presumably) put the government in power that nationalised the fisheries, and is selling what it calls "shares" in them. If these are non-voting shares, as you imply, then the management and ownership of the fisheries remains in the government's hands. What you have described is a nationalised industry. The "shareholders" do not have a share in ownership, only a licence to fish, whatever is written on the piece of paper they received.

  • The share is not in the fishing -industry-, but in the stock of fish.

I'm not clear about the details (what is meant by "conversion of these resources"? -- the phrase sounds like specialised jargon) but this looks like nationalisation of the means of production, a standard socialist policy. This is not to say that it cannot work (although the record of nationalised industries mostly does say that) but it does not resemble anything normally called "capitalism".

  • Conversion is a specialized term referring to the process of changing goods from one form to another, usually from an unprocessed natural state to a processed or final consumption-ready state; in this case, it could mean taking coal from the ground and burning it to produce electricity.

And no, I wouldn't advocate nationalizing the means of production. Actually, what I proposed was, in its entirety, taxing people on land (not buildings or improvements, but land only) and intellectual property.