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Farmers and foresters usually own their land, fields and forests. Saying that there is no labour or entrepeneurship involved is... quite an extraordinary pronouncement.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 09:43:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In France, much of the best farming land actually belongs to Credit Agricole you know...
The richest crop farmers in Beauce are renters or even plain salarymen of a bank subsidiary. These are the very same agri-biznesses that reap most of the EU subsidies.

Pierre
by Pierre on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 09:48:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's a bit different here I guess. While big companies and the state own maybe half of all the forests in the country, I don't know any farmers who don't own their own land. The only place where that'd be the I'd say would be just around where I live, because the University got lots of land in a donation from the King 300+ years ago... But even those who farm university lands usually buy it eventually. As a farner you want to own your own house and land, right? Anything else would be seen as... I don't know... communism?

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 12:05:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As a farner you want to own your own house and land, right? Anything else would be seen as... I don't know... communism?

Of course, everybody should own their own house and land. But should people also own other people's houses and lands? And tax their labour and invested capital? That is what rents, according to theory, do..

by kjr63 on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 12:37:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not talking about everyone, I'm talking about farmers. Kolchoz/hacienda-culture seems completely alien to me.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 01:01:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Starvid:
As a farner you want to own your own house and land, right? Anything else would be seen as... I don't know... communism?
Ever heard of indentured farmers, journeymen, tenant farmers, and all that good stuff you get in more Southernly latitudes and Westernly longitudes? It is, in fact, the attempt to get land out of the hands of absentee landowners and into the hands of those that work the land that is usually decried as Communism.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 12:53:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There's no labour involved in bare ownership. A landlord is entirely unproductive.

But there's often an immense amount of labour involved in use.

It's the different rights and obligations that together comprise the property relationship (property is not an object) that we are talking about here.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 10:48:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Saying that there is no labour or entrepeneurship involved is... quite an extraordinary pronouncement.

... and it's exactly what I did not say!

I said that the value of that labor and entrepreneurship is largely captured by the owner of the underlying land, who can extract rent. If the farmer and forester does own the land, then (s)he can keep that value - otherwise (s)he'll have to pay out most of the value to the landowner.

I don't even understand what you're arguing about. Capturing value has very little to do with generating value (well, it needs it to happen, but nowhere does it say that it's the same people that do both...)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Aug 17th, 2009 at 04:51:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't even understand what you're arguing about.
My point was that the people who farm the land are often the same as those who own it. kj63 implied, or rather said straightforwardly, that these people are freeloaders. I don't agree with that at all.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 03:48:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Starvid:
the people who farm the land are often the same as those who own it
Maybe in Sweden.

The issue is complex, though. Sharecropping

is still used in many rural poor areas today, notably in Pakistan and in India.

Although there is a perception that sharecropping was exploitative, "Evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is often a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit, overcoming credit restraints and helping to manage risk." [6]

It can have more than a passing similarity to serfdom or indenture, and it has therefore been seen as an issue of land reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. However, Nyambara states that Eurocentric historiographical devices like `feudalism' or `slavery' often qualified by weak prefixes like `semi-' or `quasi-' are not helpful in understanding the antecedents and functions of sharecropping in Africa. [7]

Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, paid in arrears.



En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 03:55:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Migeru:
Although there is a perception that sharecropping was exploitative, "Evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is often a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit,

that's what help-x is like. people want to travel further, cheaper, and are willing to trade half a day's work for board and lodging in different countries, enabling them to stretch their money, and see new situations, meet new people, and learn by doing.

i have checked myself out to feel whether i feel like i'm exploiting them, because it's MY place, and i don't feel i am, because they are happy, and because i did similar things at their age, 30 years younger than i am.

seems like a win-win, the only better one being to give them a part-ownership in trade for their commitment beyond the simple relationship of manual worker.

unless we do away with ownership completely (could conceivably happen, but not much positive track record of success with this form of society, so far), then this is the next fairest solution.

it's fun too...

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 05:40:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
My point was that the people who farm the land are often the same as those who own it. kj63 implied, or rather said straightforwardly, that these people are freeloaders.

I did not. I was talking about rents.

by kjr63 on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 05:11:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I agree that swedish farmers mostly legally own their land, Sweden has a long and rather uncommon tradition of a large share of the land being owned by the farmers. Sweden has never been feudal in the continental sense but went from a more or less tribal structure to a centralised state. There are some discussion as to why, my favourite explanation is that the rugged terrain made sure that farmers were also hunters (thus good with bow or crossbow) and that cavalry was much less effective. Making large armies of peasants the dominant force on swedish battlefields.

Returning to present day, if the farmers have loans on the property, then they do pay rent (in the form of interest) on the land. A (smaller or bigger) portion of the land value is thus captured by someone else.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 01:19:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Indeed, but are you arguing for the abolishment of loans for investments, one of those financial services that actually make good sense?

And additionally if we talk about loans, we are talking about something else than extracting rent from natural resources, we are talking about extracting rent from financial capital.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 01:42:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I am not arguing against loans in general, I am hardly arguing at all in this sub-thread. I am trying to bridge a difference in communication styles (and hopefully learn something from it).

And additionally if we talk about loans, we are talking about something else than extracting rent from natural resources, we are talking about extracting rent from financial capital.

But financial capital - as opposed to capital in the forms of machines and other means of production - is simply a relationship. As is leasing. And in both cases the person who puts in labor and real capital pays part of the produce of the land to the rentiers that allows said person to use the land.

Those rentiers would be the freeloaders in question.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Aug 18th, 2009 at 02:27:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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