And if you are wondering how I understood that you don't have any idea about the subject, it is because none of these references say that you have to give all your money and property to charity or something similar! This is your idea. — Alkis Piskas

Admittedly, if he's such a miserable human being that the only way everyone is better off is for him to fully retreat from society then his idea would be accurate.

Whataboutism. The subject of the thread is clear, you can either contribute or waste everybody's time with comments like that.

I sincerely doubt it can work in several jurisdictions now that some corporations can claim human rights protections. I do think this can be incentived though. If a corporation is set up in such a way profits are more equitably distributed to stakeholders then wealth transfer tax mechanism can be waived, leading to lower taxes which should make the after tax profit much higher.

Limiting liability seems necessary to incentivise any type of investment in larger companies. Typically the amount of money any one person has is insignificant in relation to the amounts of money circulating in the books of any decent sized company. If you wouldn't limit liability, a company of any decent size failing, would typically mean the investors would be in debt for the rest of their lives. So even if there were only a small chance of failing, nobody would want to take that chance because very few things are worth the risk of being financially crippled for the rest of your life. — ChatteringMonkey

Limiting liability was indeed necessary to incentivize investment in undertakings that wouldn't yield profit. Adding the possibility to corporations to make profit could've been incentive enough (partnerships don't have limited liability either) but politics resulted in profit and limited liability. I think that was a mistake. Limited liability externalises the costs of damages caused by the corporation to wider society, which is a reasonable exchange if the corporate activity is performed for a goal benefiting wider society but not if it's only for private gain. In that case, if you have all the profits, you should also bear all the responsibility.

In my ideal world, we would see non-profit pharmaceutical companies developing the "riskiest" treatments with limited liability and for-profit pharmaceutical companies but with normal liability that would automatically go for simpler products.

An alternative effect could also be that much of the useless day trading resulting in value extraction from the real economy and rent seeking could be entirely avoided if limited liability would be repealed for every corporation. You can also get rid of IFRS and GAAP accounting principles at the same time as no investor is going to touch a stock without having the necessary information to ensure they're duly informed about the risks of their investments if they would be liable for losses.

Isn't the issue just ownership, property here? A share is a piece of ownership right? Suppose there were no shares, everything would stay with the founder/owner of the company and you'd have essentially the same problem of a person getting a return on his initial investment in perpetuity. — ChatteringMonkey

That's how it was defined. It could also have been structured as a piece of a loan and related interest, pretty much like a variable interest rate bond, possibly collateralised but not necessarily involving ownership in property of the corporation directly. I do think that now that it is considered "property" there's a lot more resistance to making changes to how corporations are set up.

You want to distribute added value to everybody that has contributed to it, and not only to the owners. I can get behind that goal certainly. And the idea of giving out shares which dilute over time seems like a clever way to do that. No sure how it would work out in practice, but at least it's a concrete idea to try to solve the issue, got to give you props for that! — ChatteringMonkey

Thanks. Glad it's not served off as evil communism from the get-go!

Family businesses have actually been quite persistent in history, even if sometimes there comes the generation that ruins the business (or spends the wealth away). — ssu

Family businesses worked in their businesses too.

With stocks that ownership can just be divided and easily bought and sold. I'm not so sure what is so wrong with that. — ssu

I'm not against stock. Additional stock is issued and given to employees but can still be traded.

I think an important way for societies to minimise the consequences is to move from shareholding to stakeholding. In my view that starts at reacquainting ourselves with the role of corporations and stock as it was understood originally. Original corporations received a charter and were gifted limited liability for activities that required a large upfront capital investment. This was considered fair in order to protect investors from liability since they did not receive a direct benefit from this investment (no interest could be calculated, no profit could be made). The goal of the corporation was limited in scope and upon reaching it the corporation would be dissolved. Why would people invest? Because the indirect benefits outweighed the capital investment. Roads, bridges, important buildings etc. were typically the subject of a corporation's charter.

The system of stock market has been about bringing borrowers and lenders together and easing the transfer of rights related to such loans.

Where the combination went off kilter is mostly the possibility for a corporation to exist in perpetuity.

A typical bond has a maturity (there are exceptions, perpetual bonds but these were still intended to be paid off put the moment of repayment wasn't enforceable). A loan has a maturity. A mortgage has a maturity. But stock doesn't. But it doesn't fulfill an essential different role than other loan instruments but it does give a right to profit in perpetuity. And this is weird, why should a shareholder who invested 100 guilders in 1910 in Shell stock still receive dividends for Shell's activities today?

The other point is that goodwill and market value increases due to the added value of labour and nothing else (ignoring financial industry for a moment which can passively generate profit). If I put 1 million into a company it's not going to magically increase in worth, if I buy capital goods (buildings, machinery, tools) it's not going to increase in worth. If I hire people to utilise capital goods for a specific purpose, there's a likelihood something will happen with the market value of the company.

And it's clear that companies like Shell, Google, Amazon etc. are worth a multitude of the paid up capital but we insist only those that originally provided capital and any persons subsequently buying the rights related to that initial capital investment (e.g. stock) are owners of the total worth of the company and the only ones with a right to profit. Whereas if I had funded this with a loan, after say, 5 years the loan was paid off, the interest received, everything else would be owned by other people.

My point is, that at some point capital investment is not responsible for the value of a company and the relationship between profit and initial capital investment is negligible. If this is the case, I don't see an ethical reason why a shareholder should continue to receive benefits from that initial investment.

My proposed solution would involve a dynamic equity system where the initial capital investor starts out with a 100% right to the profit but as the company grows in value and this added value is the result of labour activity, additional shares are issued diluting the share value of the company. These shares will go to employees and as long as they continue to work there, they receive more shares. If they move to another company, they too will see their shares dilute over time but will build up capital in another company.

What would have to be worked out is at what rate initial capital investments should dilute. We do have a lot of bond pricing that we can use as a benchmark.

I'd also get rid of all intellectual property rights except the obligation of attribution. But different story.

I actually raised this issue when I was working at the Ministry of Finance. How to get to a circular, zero-growth, fair and just society.

No real answer but my gut feeling: I think mostly it will be about doing more with less and technologies that will support that will continue to be implemented. I see a high risk that capital distributions will be locked in for a very long time with very little change as a result of less economic activity and mobility, which will likely lead to inescapable socio-economic classes.

I haven't bullied you either. I'm calling out your feigned victimhood. You started out disrespectful, I ignored it, you stayed disrespectful by misrepresenting my criticism as communist despite repeated clarification and plenty of indication you're ignorant of what capitalism and communism are. You don't get to play the victim card when you act like an asshole.

I've actually not once insulted you, while your first post to me you called me an idiot. See And after repeated corrections insist on misrepresenting my position.

So, fuck you snowflake.

but for the US, — tim wood

Ahaha, you forgot about the British empire? But for the Brits, you'd be speaking comanche or something.

What might we learn from such experiments? — jorndoe

People suck?

...you always assume some sort of deficit on my part rather than assume I have reasons to say what I'm saying! — counterpunch

The deficit is apparent when you keep imputing "communism" on the criticisms I leveled at the current way capitalism is pursued but my comments are still entirely within keeping with capitalism as understood by Smith.

it very much is, then I'm outa here for while! — counterpunch

One can hope.

I see what the problem is. You don't know what communism is.

The PA is obviously shitty, but Hamas is even worse on human rights. But yes, everyone oppresses the Palestinian people. — BitconnectCarlos

You keep saying that but Israel is worst on human rights from the three entities now named. Both in numbers and types of abuses. So you keep defending Israel despite it being worse than Hamas, the latter which you apparently find horrendously evil and bad since it's your go-to scapegoat.

And the framing by Israel is telling as usual: “a surrender to ongoing and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israel groups”

Being against oppression is an extreme position and anti-Israeli. So being pro-Israeli means being for oppression then? Ok. Glad we cleared that up.

I didn't raise economics to discuss whether my economic position is correct, merely to point out your representation of my position was false. One point though : It's funny to see how you consider aspects, such as shareholders and capital rates of return, as inherent to capitalism. They're not. They're fictions introduced by law. Earliest corporations only got limited liability for capital providers because they invested in something worthwhile to the public that they would benefit from themselves (for instance merchants building a bridge increasing commerce). Profit was expressly forbidden and when the goal was completed the corporation was dissolved. Laws allowing corporations to be for-profit and exist in perpetuity are distortions to market structures and not inherent to a capitalist system. So, one again too many assumptions about what I mean, what capitalism is and in general another demonstration of a lack of knowledge and context. It makes me wonder what you do for a living if you have such little historic and economic knowledge.

Aldo zero point energy is real just as real as geothermal. NASA had been working on a quantum vacuum fluctuation engine and published their results. It works. Breaks some fundamental physical laws but quantum effects have been known to screw with that before.

I think that's called "the old bait and switch!" — counterpunch

I see you like to read extra things into what I say. Let me clarify. I'm against the current type of capitalism, I think it's implementation, especially when the corporation was introduced, has and will lead to untold misery. I'm not against "free" markets as we understand them in mixed economies but against the idiotic laissez-faire nonsense. I am against societies that are diminishing people, resources and everything else into their monetary value. I'm against the concentration of power that comes along with it, I'm against the asymmetry that arises from all these effects resulting in a split between "capitalists" and "labourers" and rich vs. poor.

The "goodwill" of a company is generated by its labourers so I believe one solution could be (if we must have corporations) is to introduce a dynamic equity system where labourers, over time, become majority shareholders as opposed to those providing capital. And that's logical because if labourers wouldn't add more value than capital, shareholders would be losing money.

But hey, yeah, I totally played into your unnecessary juxtaposition!

The aim isn't sustaining capitalism per se. The aim is to secure a sustainable future with minimal disruption; and that's because, disruption causes people to suffer. — counterpunch

So the French revolution was a bad thing? Your posts involve way too many absolutes, too many assumptions and too little examination.

Capitalism is the prevailing economic system the world over, and if you cared about people and sustainability - more than you do about promoting communism, you'd accept that - and seek minimally disruptive solutions to climate change. — counterpunch

That capitalism is the prevailing economic system is no argument for it to remain so. Where have I promoted communism? I have always maintained Marx' Kapital is one of the better critiques of capitalism. Thanks to Piketty, we have an additional one.

It's a matter of fact that the earth is a big ball of molten rock, containing a truly massive amount of energy - more than adequate to meet and exceed current global energy demand, into the indefinite future. — counterpunch

So would zero-point energy. This doesn't mean it's a viable option. For someone banging on about science, you sure like to spend very little time on the actual science of the problem. Those questions you need to answer are still unanswered. Until then we'll go with the science that actually is clear, proven to work and feasible, such as wind, water and photo-voltaic renewable energy.

Well to continue along this tangent.

I think pride in the task itself and in each other, if it was a team effort, is great and normal in moderation. By moderation I mean it should be done graciously without expressing pride at the expense of others, for instance, the enemy or, in sports, the other team. I think there's a tendency to warp pride into it just being about being a member of a group ("USA the greatest", "if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much!"). There's nothing prideful about that. It's not the membership, it's what has been accomplished. And if you had a meaningful role in that, you deserve :wink: to feel proud.

I have more problems with feeling proud about characteristics and have more problem placing them. Is it ok to be proud because you're brave? Seems a bit narcissistic.

Taking pride in someone else work is clearly wrong, it's not your accomplishment.

Admiring someone else's work is fine too, please pay them a compliment. And we should show more admiration for those who naturally had a harder time reaching a goal than others. A rich person getting richer is a statistical likelihood and deserves a yawn, someone bootstrapping himself is an entirely different story.

Showing gratitude for the accomplishments of our forebears is appropriate.

So you can be grateful being American, admire some of your fellow Marines past and present and take pride in your accomplishments - hopefully something that didn't involve killing people.

Here's Blumenbach, a contemporary of Kant, who came up with the five races but was decidedly anti-racist at the same time :

Moreover, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities',[17] and wrote the following:

Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro.[18]

He did not consider his "degenerative hypothesis" as racist and sharply criticized Christoph Meiners, an early practitioner of scientific racialism, as well as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, who concluded from autopsies that Africans were an inferior race.[19] Blumenbach wrote three other essays stating non-white peoples were capable of excelling in arts and sciences in reaction against racialists of his time.[20] — Wiki

I don't see it. A left wing approach to sustainability, based on Malthusian pessimism and limits to resources, dates back to an era when communism was still a thing. Communism is no longer a thing; yet a left wing approach to sustainability remains violently anti-capitalist.

Ostensibly concerned with sustainability, the left haven't even considered whether capitalism might be sustained, because of their political interest in promoting communism. In the 1960's and 70's maybe, that was a justifiable political position, but it's not anymore.

Perhaps I'm being slightly bullish in drawing a direct parallel between communism and slavery, but communism does not allow for the kind of personal and political freedom capitalism allows for. And it would clearly be less disruptive to sustain capitalism, than force a failed economic ideology on capitalist societies under the guise of sustainability.

Scientifically and technologically, I believe it's possible to sustain capitalism. There's limitless amounts of clean energy available in the molten interior of the earth, we could use to meet all our energy needs plus capture carbon, desalinate and irrigate, produce hydrogen fuel, and recycle. This would internalise the externalities of capitalism without internalising them to the economy. — counterpunch

It's not either capitalism or communism and there's a lot of different "types" of capitalism too. One of the worse developments was that of limited liability, for profit corporations and that has exactly zero to do with capitalism. So corporate capitalism is something you can be opposed to, without being a communist for instance.

So yes, false dichotomies all over the place I'm afraid. And capitalism creates its own oppression, which has been so often in the news you must've been living under a rock if you think you can maintain "capitalism = freedom". Sooner the inverse.

I also don't share your optimism where it concerns science. There have been plenty of technologies that were superior to others and failed due to political or sociological circumstances or because of a bad advertisement campaign. Lots of ideas don't see the light of day because they don't attract investors, or fail because poor, unconnected people have to pay a premium to get a loan in the first place because of worse credit ratings. The system doesn't favour smart solutions, it favours the status quo, which is why unexpected circumstances cause market shocks, recessions and depressions.

Finally, "sustaining capitalism" is an utter shit goal. It is and always has been about people, not some system or ideology. People first, system second. Whatever system creates the best world for people is the one we should implement. It isn't capitalism despite the many good things it has brought when the excesses it's been causing since the 90s wasn't a problem yet.

. It is a minimally disruptive approach to do this in support of capitalism; as capitalism is the prevailing economic paradigm, and so much nicer than slavery - to have some degree of personal and political freedom. — counterpunch

False dichotomy.

A solution overlooked by the thousands of actually qualified people working on this important issue. — Xtrix

This happens. I've been in this situation and it ended up stranding on investment negotiations and it being a very complex market where most players were banking on lobbying for another solution.

It could be a solution but he doesn't have one yet and appears to be not interested in actually doing the leg work to prove it. In the time he's been talking about it here and the years he claims he's spend on it I had attracted two partners, wrote a patent, and spoken with five different potential investors and 7 potential clients in three different countries. I think he actually knows what he has is a shit idea, good ideas generate money.

Scientifically and technologically speaking, that's not only untrue, but fatal. — counterpunch

Wild, unfounded assumption that's just necessary to prop up your capitalist ideology. I don't share it nor the idea capitalism is a good system.

Anyhoo, back to your idea. If you're convinced, stop trying to convince people here and do the leg work to answer those questions and start a company or something. I did once and even though it failed, it was a fun ride and I learned a lot.

It's not a vague solution; technical detail is lacking, but it's a specific idea, likely adequate to the problem, and if so, the least disruptive solution, with maximum benefit at least cost. — counterpunch

It's vague idea. You have no clue about its technical or economic viability. You don't even have a proof of concept at this point.

The problem is that at this stage you have an idea but no plan. So if you're serious about it, you need to take it much further than these vague ideas. There's plenty of energy in currents and waves of the sea as well. Harnessing is another matter.

Point is, you can't expect others to take this seriously until you manage to conclusively answer at least some of my previous questions in detail.

Every market is constrained by laws and regulation. Contract law, environmental laws, labour laws, health and safety standards, taxation, levies, tariffs, sanctions, etc. etc.

There has never been a free market, it's a theoretical construct.

I'm just saying I don't see a necessary juxtaposition between conservative values and anti-racism. There are plenty of principled conservatives in favour of equality and anti-racist. So it's more typically GOP I guess.

And let's not forget all the micro aggressions we (accidentally) perpetuate having grown up white in a Western, white society. Tends to not matter much what your political inclination is in that case.

Never stop burning. Liberals = #1; conservatives = #2. — James Riley

At the risk of arguing for a "true Scotsman", equality is a conservative value.

That's pretty much the climate debate since decades. — boethius

Sad but true. 36 years ago, when I was 7, my father worked for Shell. When he was again working late and my mom complained I said "he's inventing things for a better environment". There was awareness then and even a kid understood it.

Is this really a puzzle? In my view the following is happening, where p is "republican wins" and q "if it's not Reagan who wins, it will be Anderson." Then you find that Reagan doesn't win:

If p then q,
not q, (because neither Reagan nor Anderson won)
therefore not p

That's modus tollens though.

If you want to stay in the MP, it should be:

If p then q,
not p, (because no Republican won)
therefore not q.

The MP is perfectly valid.

It seems more like slight of hand to play with the implied meaning of Reagan being a Republican and leaving out part of q because that's "either Reagan or Anderson wins" and not only "Reagan wins".

Here's some info on the economics:

Geothermal power requires no fuel; it is therefore immune to fuel cost fluctuations. However, capital costs tend to be high. Drilling accounts for over half the costs, and exploration of deep resources entails significant risks. A typical well doublet in Nevada can support 4.5 megawatts (MW) of electricity generation and costs about $10 million to drill, with a 20% failure rate.[23] In total, electrical station construction and well drilling costs about 2–5 million € per MW of electrical capacity, while the levelised energy cost is 0.04–0.10 € per kW·h.[10] Enhanced geothermal systems tend to be on the high side of these ranges, with capital costs above $4 million per MW and levelized costs above $0.054 per kW·h in 2007.[52]

Geothermal power is highly scalable: a small power station can supply a rural village, though initial capital costs can be high.[53]

The most developed geothermal field is the Geysers in California. In 2008, this field supported 15 stations, all owned by Calpine, with a total generating capacity of 725 MW.[38] — wiki

You're always so gracious. I love that about you.

Thermal conductivity depends on the composition of rocks.

Thermal conductivity of rocks falls usually in the range of 0.40–7.00 W m−1 K−1 [8]. Low values are characteristic for dry, not consolidated sedimentary rocks, as gravels and sands. Higher thermal conductivity values are for most sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, while very high are typical for felsic igneous rocks. Rocks with high quartz content (e.g. quartzite, sandstone), as well as water-saturated rocks, are the best heat conductors [9]. Balckwell and Steele [10] provide thermal conductivity values for sandstones in the range of 2.50–4.20 W m−1 K−1, for shale: 1.05–1.45 W m−1 K−1, and for claystone and siltstone: 0.80–1.25 W m−1 K−1. — Labus

Near volcanoes it will therefore be high because that's igneous rock. Let's assume there's no temperature drop, how much rock do you need to power a city like New York? How many holes?

How about the engineering part? What existing machines come close and how are you going to make them suitable for those environments? How much is it going to cost? Is it economically viable? How does it compare to other renewable energy sources?

And finally, are there any long term risks? Let's say we only use geothermal energy, how much faster will the core cool? Are we sure that's neglible? If people think "unlimited energy" how will energy usage develop differently?

Cool, I wasn't aware as I'm only familiar with the oil and gas industry. That's pretty interesting.

You should work out the numbers boethius has asked for. How much square meters of rock do you need and what will be the recharge rate. Then you also need to prove it's an economical viable option aside from some obvious engineering challenges of operating equipment under high pressure and high temperatures with moving parts. Generally, engineers aren't happy with both high pressure and high temperature.

Good, maybe it will be an end to racism someday then.

It is kind of frustrating though, after repeatedly talking about drilling "close to magma chambers and subduction zones" to have you say I propose drilling into a magma chamber under pressure. Also, the melting point of carbon steel drilling equipment is around 1500 degrees centigrade; so drilling rock at 700'C is not going to melt the drill. — counterpunch

As I've pointed out it's silly to call it magma energy for obvious reasons. It's geothermal energy. But it's nice to see how you've not done any research on how drilling works. It's not about the melting point of carbon steel but making sure your equipment doesn't break. Here's 157 degrees celsius, our current record for drilling at high temperatures: https://www.hartenergy.com/ep/exclusives/high-temperature-drilling-pushes-limits-176820

Drills need lubricants. Oops.

And yeah, great fucking idea to drill close to areas proven to be under pressure (there are volcanoes) and fuck around with the structural integrity of the rock above it. And while we're at it, let's add water! That will definitely go well.

Glad you realise you're an idiot then.

The geothermal claims were vague. References to magma are confusing with respect to geothermal energy. I'll remind everyone of the operating temperatures of drilling equipment and what happens when you open up a hole to something under tremendous pressure.

So you of course know China hasn't felt any sting from your embargo.

I see your tact as reverse charity, where instead of giving to the victims of society you withhold from the perpetrators upon society. That's moral behavior in theory, but I'm troubled with an ethic that is of good intent but no good consequence unless you accept a view that good thoughts and peaceful acts actually change the world in some indirect mystical way. I don't think that's where you're at though, but maybe, although I'm likely projecting.

With charity, I don't live under the illusion my small token will cure hunger, but I do need to know it will alleviate some amount of hunger somewhere for me to give.

I ask this because what you're doing is meaningless goodness, and you know it at a rational level, but you do it anyway. I suspect you feel good for doing it and feel some obligation to do it. Is this how atheists pray? — Hanover

It's called leading by example, raising awareness and having consistent morals. Spending money on Chinese goods is inconsistent with taking human rights to heart. This thread raises awareness and my actions may convince others to do likewise. I do more outside of this site.

I personally think the feature is worthless. It had no noticeable positive effect in the past and it doesn't now. Twitter and Facebook have like options too and we can all see how much that has done for quality.

I have to admit, I've stopped caring about stars for ages. I'm happy if I manage to solve the question. Currently stuck at 8.6