Adam Smith was a Marxist

[georgephillip]

I'm curious why it matters what Adam Smith was.

There are similarities between Smith and Marx like the Labor Theory of Value and, believe it or not, the importance of individual freedom (from exploitation)

 

[westwall]

Sweden has a per capita GDP of $43,407

The United states has a per capita GDP of $53,001 - or 17% greater than that of Sweden.

How many Swedes go bankrupt from medical expenses every year? How do levels of student debt in Sweden compare to Orange County, Adolph? Quality of Life is something capitalist tools like you have been waging war against for centuries, and your time is nearly up.

How many Swedes can afford to buy a house? Not too many at a base tax rate of around 48%, plus the 25% VAT and the average Swede has very little cash with which to buy a home.

List of countries by home ownership rate - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Sweden has a 70% home ownership rate, which is higher then the US by about 5%.

I hate to break it to you but wiki is not a credible source. Here's the reality......

Former tenants buying SHARES of the rental property that then is responsible for the taxes on the property. That's how you get 70% "home ownership".

The development of a multifamily owner occupancy marketplace is relatively new in Sweden. It started in the 1980s when the government provided subsidized loans for renovations to tenants. Many tenants then chose to buy their building from its owner and form a tenant association to own the building. These tenant associations are roughly equivalent to co-ops or cooperatives in the United States. Apartment dwellers own shares in the association that in turn owns the building and the apartments. In Sweden, the tenant association, or cooperative format, is much more popular than the condominium format because it offers tax advantages. It is the cooperative association, rather than the individual apartment dweller, that pays taxes on the property, and real estate taxes on apartments are much lower than on single family homes.



Profile of Sweden

That 70% number is no trick. Sweden's housing market is apparently so hot it's gotten worrying. Swedish Bubble Concern Grows With Soaring Home Prices - Bloomberg Business

A shortage of new buildings and low borrowing costs are fueling a level of demand for property that’s creating risks for Sweden’s economy.

Yes, amazingly enough major cities command high prices. She could have bought a nice place an a lake an hour and a half north of her for 40,000.

 

[georgephillip]

How many Swedes can afford to buy a house? Not too many at a base tax rate of around 48%, plus the 25% VAT and the average Swede has very little cash with which to buy a home.

If you could exchange a 48% federal tax rate for a lifetime of health care and education for you and your family at no additional cost, would you sacrifice home ownership?

 

[dblack]

How many Swedes can afford to buy a house? Not too many at a base tax rate of around 48%, plus the 25% VAT and the average Swede has very little cash with which to buy a home.

If you could exchange a 48% federal tax rate for a lifetime of health care and education for you and your family at no additional cost, would you sacrifice home ownership?

Unequivocally, no.

 

[georgephillip]

Unequivocally, no

Do you worry about losing your home to a medical bankruptcy?

 

[dblack]

I'm curious why it matters what Adam Smith was.

There are similarities between Smith and Marx like the Labor Theory of Value and, believe it or not, the importance of individual freedom (from exploitation)

I suppose there are. But why does that matter? The ideas of people like Smith and Jefferson are important to me to the extent that they reflect my values. I'm sure Adams and Jefferson had many values I don't share, or even find repugnant.

Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundation for much of modern science. Yet he spent his later years pre-occupied with alchemy and the occult. Does that mean we should follow in his footsteps?

I don't know whether Adam Smith actually held any "Marxist" views. I'm prone to assume it's just equivocation and bullshit, since that's pretty much all we ever get from PaintMyCeiling. But in the end, it doesn't matter one way or another. Those of us who value individual freedom over authoritarian security don't care who is making the argument. We care about the ends.

 

[dblack]

Unequivocally, no

Do you worry about losing your home to a medical bankruptcy?

No.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

I'm curious why it matters what Adam Smith was.

He was a moralist, and if you don't know Smith you don't know economics.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

I'm curious why it matters what Adam Smith was.

There are similarities between Smith and Marx like the Labor Theory of Value and, believe it or not, the importance of individual freedom (from exploitation)

I suppose there are. But why does that matter? The ideas of people like Smith and Jefferson are important to me to the extent that they reflect my values. I'm sure Adams and Jefferson had many values I don't share, or even find repugnant.

Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundation for much of modern science. Yet he spent his later years pre-occupied with alchemy and the occult. Does that mean we should follow in his footsteps?

I don't know whether Adam Smith actually held any "Marxist" views. I'm prone to assume it's just equivocation and bullshit, since that's pretty much all we ever get from PaintMyCeiling. But in the end, it doesn't matter one way or another. Those of us who value individual freedom over authoritarian security don't care who is making the argument. We care about the ends.

Smith was not who most believe him to be. Read post #1.

 

[westwall]

How many Swedes can afford to buy a house? Not too many at a base tax rate of around 48%, plus the 25% VAT and the average Swede has very little cash with which to buy a home.

If you could exchange a 48% federal tax rate for a lifetime of health care and education for you and your family at no additional cost, would you sacrifice home ownership?

Hell no. I value the peace that we enjoy by living away from idiots. We are in the wilderness and we like it. Every year we go to Paris and experience the cramped up city life for a couple of weeks and that is quite enough.

 

[westwall]

Unequivocally, no

Do you worry about losing your home to a medical bankruptcy?

No.

 

[Steinlight]

Smith was okay with the rich paying more than their share, since they got more out of society, wanted no taxes on necessities but was fine with taxes on luxuries, and wanted corporations to continue to be banned. That Marxist enough for you?

The labor theory of value has been utterly discredited, just because Adam Smith insinuated at it, and Marx in part built a disastrously flawed and malicious worldview on it, doesn't make it right. I mean, isn't it really common sense that the value of a good or service is not determined by the total amount of labor put into producing the good or service, but by the supply and demand for that good or service? You can but hours of labor into producing a good but if no one wants it it is worthless, and vice versa.

 

[dblack]

Smith was okay with the rich paying more than their share, since they got more out of society, wanted no taxes on necessities but was fine with taxes on luxuries, and wanted corporations to continue to be banned. That Marxist enough for you?

The labor theory of value has been utterly discredited, just because Adam Smith insinuated at it, and Marx in part built a disastrously flawed and malicious worldview on it, doesn't make it right. I mean, isn't it really common sense that the value of a good or service is not determined by the total amount of labor put into producing the good or service, but by the supply and demand for that good or service? You can but hours of labor into producing a good but if no one wants it it is worthless, and vice versa.

I don't know whether it's been 'discredited', or whether that even matters, but the idea doesn't seem that useful to me. One can claim that the "real value" of a product or service can be determined by some objective calculation, but the value that matters is how much people want it. And that's always temporary and subjective.

 

[georgephillip]

don't know whether Adam Smith actually held any "Marxist" views..." "But in the end, it doesn't matter one way or another. Those of us who value individual freedom over authoritarian security don't care who is making the argument. We care about the ends.

Smith and Marx were both products of the early Enlightenment committed to science and individual freedom. Both recognized the unequal legal ground on which the class struggle is waged:
"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties (workers and capitalists), whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.

"It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.

"The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.

"We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.

"A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired.

"Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment.

"In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate."

Adam Smith made the above observation long before the advent of the biggest threat to individual freedom, the modern multinational corporation, came to dominate most governments of this world.

Smith is claimed as "the father of capitalism" by those seeking to expand the reach of authoritarian security, and those who prefer individual freedom need to study both classical economists if we're to have any realistic expectation of influencing public debate.

http://cadtm.org/Adam-Smith-is-closer-to-Karl-Marx

 

[Paperman299]

How many Swedes go bankrupt from medical expenses every year? How do levels of student debt in Sweden compare to Orange County, Adolph? Quality of Life is something capitalist tools like you have been waging war against for centuries, and your time is nearly up.

How many Swedes can afford to buy a house? Not too many at a base tax rate of around 48%, plus the 25% VAT and the average Swede has very little cash with which to buy a home.

List of countries by home ownership rate - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Sweden has a 70% home ownership rate, which is higher then the US by about 5%.

I hate to break it to you but wiki is not a credible source. Here's the reality......

Former tenants buying SHARES of the rental property that then is responsible for the taxes on the property. That's how you get 70% "home ownership".

The development of a multifamily owner occupancy marketplace is relatively new in Sweden. It started in the 1980s when the government provided subsidized loans for renovations to tenants. Many tenants then chose to buy their building from its owner and form a tenant association to own the building. These tenant associations are roughly equivalent to co-ops or cooperatives in the United States. Apartment dwellers own shares in the association that in turn owns the building and the apartments. In Sweden, the tenant association, or cooperative format, is much more popular than the condominium format because it offers tax advantages. It is the cooperative association, rather than the individual apartment dweller, that pays taxes on the property, and real estate taxes on apartments are much lower than on single family homes.



Profile of Sweden

That 70% number is no trick. Sweden's housing market is apparently so hot it's gotten worrying. Swedish Bubble Concern Grows With Soaring Home Prices - Bloomberg Business

A shortage of new buildings and low borrowing costs are fueling a level of demand for property that’s creating risks for Sweden’s economy.

Yes, amazingly enough major cities command high prices. She could have bought a nice place an a lake an hour and a half north of her for 40,000.

Don't you just say Swedes can't afford to buy homes? The point is, Swedes really are buying property. It's not primarily money stopping them when they don't, as you suggested, but supply.

 

[bripat9643]

don't know whether Adam Smith actually held any "Marxist" views..." "But in the end, it doesn't matter one way or another. Those of us who value individual freedom over authoritarian security don't care who is making the argument. We care about the ends.

Smith and Marx were both products of the early Enlightenment committed to science and individual freedom. Both recognized the unequal legal ground on which the class struggle is waged:
"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties (workers and capitalists), whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.

"It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.

"The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.

"We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.

"A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired.

"Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment.

"In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate."

Adam Smith made the above observation long before the advent of the biggest threat to individual freedom, the modern multinational corporation, came to dominate most governments of this world.

Smith is claimed as "the father of capitalism" by those seeking to expand the reach of authoritarian security, and those who prefer individual freedom need to study both classical economists if we're to have any realistic expectation of influencing public debate.

http://cadtm.org/Adam-Smith-is-closer-to-Karl-Marx

Government is the biggest threat to individual freedom. It always has been, and it always will be.

 

[georgephillip]

Government is the biggest threat to individual freedom. It always has been, and it always will be.

Governments controlled by private fortunes are the greatest threat to individual freedom, and capitalism is the most effective engine for producing private fortunes ever devised. Connect those dots.

 

[bripat9643]

Government is the biggest threat to individual freedom. It always has been, and it always will be.

Governments controlled by private fortunes are the greatest threat to individual freedom, and capitalism is the most effective engine for producing private fortunes ever devised. Connect those dots.

There is no such thing as government controlled by private fortunes. It normally works the other way around. Government controls private fortunes.

 

[Uncensored2008]

List of countries by home ownership rate - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Sweden has a 70% home ownership rate, which is higher then the US by about 5%.

What is it with you clowns and your incessant lies?

Housing is Sweden is marked by high density urban structures. Averaging about 600 Sq Ft., most families "own" the apartment they live is.

Housing in sweden - Google Search

But this is hardly "home ownership" in the American sense.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Do you worry about losing your home to a medical bankruptcy?

You can't lose your home to a medical bankruptcy. The primary residence is judgement proof.

Why do you Communists keep telling the same debunked lies, over and over?