United Kingdom National Accounts: The Blue Book 2017
Article
United Kingdom National Accounts: The Blue Book 2017 is a recurring publication in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 16, 2021 and December 09, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Based on data from the United Kingdom National Accounts: The Blue Book 2017”. It most often appears alongside California, China, Citizen’s Dividend.
Metadata
- Category: Publications
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: April 16, 2021
- Last seen: December 09, 2021
Appears In
Related Pages
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- California (2 shared issues)
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- China (2 shared issues)
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- Citizen’s Dividend (2 shared issues)
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- George (2 shared issues)
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- Georgism (2 shared issues)
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- Georgist (2 shared issues)
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- Henry George (2 shared issues)
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- Henry George Theorem (2 shared issues)
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- Joseph Stiglitz (2 shared issues)
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- Land Value Tax (2 shared issues)
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- Milton Friedman (2 shared issues)
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- Nate Blair (2 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Based on data from the United Kingdom National Accounts: The Blue Book 2017. Published Oct 31, 2017. Revision Period: Beginning of each time series. Date of next release: July 2018. The "privileges" in "Land and privileges" are things like taxi medallions and patents, that were worth "almost zero" according to Nate. No matter how hard you try, "there is no occupation in which labor and capital can engage which does not require the use of land." Whenever anyone does labor, the owner of some piece of land – whether it's the farm in the middle of Kansas that grows your food, the lot upon which the server farm sending you these bytes sits, or the ground that right now sits beneath your feet – is sticking their finger in the pie. George reminds us that labor and capital will have to share whatever landowners take off the top of production in rent: As Produce = Rent + Wages + Interest, Therefore, Produce - Rent = Wages + Interest So... what happens when the productivity of land goes up? Let's go back to Lot A and Lot B, both 100-util fields. Let's say they belong to different landlords, and I'm a tenant on Lot B. I improve the soil of the field I'm working on so now it's worth 110 utils. What happens? My landlord raises the rent, of course! The only way wages (the return to labor) and interest (the return to capital) can go up as productivity increases, is if land values fail to rise at the same rate. The Law of Interest George wants to find the fundamental reason capital is able to produce wealth and justly claim a fair share of production. Remember that capital is wealth devoted to getting more wealth. So if capital is wealth that begets wealth, it makes sense that if I lend it out to you, I miss out on the potential for it to grow while it's out of my hands. George says I am justly entitled to ask for more back than I originally gave you. Let's say I loan you some corn seeds for a season. Had I not leant them to you, in a season's time I could have grown my own crop of corn and been left with more seed than I started with. So in a perfectly square deal, you need to give me back what I started with and what I could have expected to gain from natural increase (less the value of the labor required to get things started). Likewise with any other article of capital – say bricks or lumber. In the time I've spent without it while it was in your possession, I could have found someone else who had a better use for it than I did and exchanged it for something of theirs that I had a better use for, leaving me with capital of greater value. George says the act of progressively exchanging things in a way that increases subjective value for all involved is analogous to the natural forces of nature that make living capital (like corn and cows) grow over time. Remember, "subjective value" is real value. In a game of Settlers of Catan, if I have two bricks and you have two lumber, neither of us can build anything. The simple act of trading one brick for one lumber means both of us are better off because each of us can now build a road. The amount of bricks and lumber in the world didn't increase, but the amount of roads (or potential roads) did, and that represents a real increase in wealth. Interest thus springs from the "reproductive" powers of capital, whether that's biological reproduction, or the more abstract reproductive force of exchanging things so that you have a more valuable distribution of capital than you started with. As for how it relates to the other two returns to production – the more powerful the "power of increase" the capital has, the greater return interest can claim compared to wages. If you're ploughing a field and I lend you a tractor which makes you ten times as productive, I can justly claim more compensation for that than if I lend you a mule that only makes you twice as productive. However, rent still holds the whip hand, so the margin of cultivation determines how much return is left over to divvy up between interest and wages. This is because the net "reproductive" value of capital goes down given rent is a general tax on overall productivity. The amount I would have gained by using the thing productively over the period of time it was out on loan (the amount I can justly charge in interest) is reduced by how much I have to pay in rent. The Law of Wages Wages, like interest, are limited by the margin of production. Within that limit there's not much to understand about how wages work except that people seek to satisfy their desires "with the least exertion," which is a fancy way of saying people don't like to get ripped off. If two bosses offer the same exact job, but one offers higher pay, I'm taking that gig. If two bosses pay the same, but one is asking for twice as much work, I'll tell that boss where he can stick it. Wages depend upon the margin of production, or upon the produce which labor can obtain at the highest point of natural productiveness open to it without the payment of rent. So with all three laws established George sums it up like so: Where land is free and labor is unassisted by capital, the whole produce will go to labor as wages. Where land is free and labor is assisted by capital, wages will consist of the whole produce, less that part necessary to induce the storing up of labor as capital. Where land is subject to ownership and rent arises, wages will be fixed by what labor could secure from the highest natural opportunities open to it without the payment of rent. Where natural opportunities are all monopolized, wages may be forced by the competition among laborers to the minimum at which laborers will consent to reproduce. This is the reason George says that wages are so high in "new countries" where there's more land available than in countries where it's been locked up for centuries. Here's how it all fits together: Though neither wages nor interest anywhere increase as material progress goes on, yet the invariable accompaniment and mark of material progress is the increase of rent – the rise of land values. And: where the value of land is highest, civilization exhibits the greatest luxury side by side with the most piteous destitution IV. Effect of Material Progress upon the Distribution of Wealth As a society undergoes material progress, the rent goes up. Why? Let's break it down. Three things contribute to material progress: Increasing population
Based on data from the United Kingdom National Accounts: The Blue Book 2017. Published Oct 31, 2017. Revision Period: Beginning of each time series. Date of next release: July 2018. The "privileges" in "Land and privileges" are things like taxi medallions and patents, that were worth "almost zero" according to Nate Blair, who prepared the chart. Here are two graphs from Thomas Piketty breaking down "national capital" for Britain and France by sector: