It’s Kinda Feudal

While it may be the middle of the week, there’s no law against Jonah recording ...

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While it may be the middle of the week, there’s no law against Jonah recording Ruminant-style (i.e. alone) – at least not yet. He discusses the RNC – and invents the fun tongue-twister, “Ceaușescu-esque,” while doing so – the “Biden is a vessel for radicals” theory, and the economically confused obsession with Jeff Bezos.

Show Notes:

–Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech is pretty meme-y

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  1. Christina

    Just thought I'd highlight an insightful Teddy Roosevelt quote on the value of allowing people to pass along property to their children:

    "We should exercise foresight now, as the ordinarily prudent man exercises foresight in conserving and wisely using the property which contains the assurance of well-being for himself and his children. We want to see a man own his farm rather than rent it, because we want to see it an object to him to transfer it in better order to his children. We want to see him exercise forethought for the next generation. We need to exercise it in some fashion ourselves as a nation for the next generation."

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    Angie

    Thanks, Jonah...I really enjoyed the part about Bezos and capitalism, learned a lot

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  3. Richard Fulmer

    Marx thought that value was objectively determined by labor content. However, even though the labor content of a mud pie might be the same as that in an apple pie, mud pies are of no use to anyone. Marx would reply that labor expended to create useless goods was not “socially necessary,” but he was never able to devise a way to quantify the amount of socially necessary labor incorporated into a given product or service.

    A decade before Marx died, economists William Stanley Jevons from England, Carl Menger from Austria, and Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras from Switzerland independently proposed the marginal theory of value to which most economists subscribe today.

    They argued that value is subjective and can only be judged by the consumer. In addition, the more of a good consumers have, the less they value additional units of that good.

    In general, values change as conditions change. By contrast, Marx’s definition of value, based on labor content, is fixed. That means that the value of, say, a blanket is the same whether we’re experiencing the hottest summer on record or the coldest winter. Efficiently allocating scarce resources in a changing world with fixed values based on some arbitrarily defined “socially necessary labor content” is impossible.

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    The Bell Tower

    While you may laugh at the poor fools stuck in Soviet widget factories, never forget what one worker said to the other on the assembly line: “At least we’re not growing grain, comrade!”

    Speaking of widgets, here’s an even better rebuttal of the labor theory of value:

    https://youtu.be/uSLscJ2cY04

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  5. ROBERT

    Am I being exploited as an employee? Let's list the things my employer provides:
    A guarantee paycheck every two weeks
    A nice office with all of the equipment I need
    All bills paid for me by someone else- I never see them
    Excellent management
    Nice colleagues with a wealth of technical knowledge I can turn to for help
    Critical strategic decisions made for me
    An outstanding firm name and reputation
    No stress about making payroll
    Great benefits
    I get all of that and a competitive salary!
    Big fat NO! I don't feel exploited. I'm sincerely grateful to have my job!

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  6. Joe Curtis

    Two things:
    1 – On labor theory, wasn’t Marx a drunken, drug addicted deadbeat who never did an honest day’s work for wages?
    2 - I chuckled when you talked about explaining stuff to your daughter. You ignored one of the oldest natural laws – “youth is wasted on the young.”

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    Curt M

    I loved the labor theory presentation. Might be a bit long, but many don't get it so attention is needed!

    My concern with Biden-riots issue is that I see a growing trend towards tyranny by political correctness and white privilege believers, an increasing support of groups that won't tolerate discussion, and movement away from sanctity of the individual and what it means to our culture. (Some of the latter views are driving forces for some of the rioters.) If Biden has difficulty standing up to the riots, will he be able to take on forces behind these other trends? I don't see push back on these trends from Harris, and I think a Dem Senate would make matters even worse if Biden wins.

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  8. Jon L

    Dearest Jonah Goldberg, Even if you were to become a greater store of value than Jeff Bezos your daughter's greatest inheritance is not and would not be monetary. Please have her read Kurt Vonnegut's short story “Harrison Bergeron” to see how all inherited advantages could be leveled out in the interest of achieving equality of outcome.
    I had a similar conversation with my son, then a barista at a global coffee purveyor. I asked him to imagine what his labor would be worth to his employer without the facilities and equipment his employer purchased in advance of his employ.
    Best of luck from one father of a beloved daughter to another.

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  9. Turtledove

    The rioters are far leftists. There is a large part of the Democrat Party who are far leftists. Joe Biden is an old man who can't speak without slurring his words. He's never been very sharp. And you expect me to believe there is a snowflake's chance in hell that Biden will be able to control the extremists in his party? I don't like Trump. I am embarrassed by our politics too. But I also don't want authoritarian Democrats telling me I can't buy seeds and mandating that I wear a mask when I am alone outside and at the same time saying it is fine to go out and protest. I also don't want to support Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) calling those protests "mostly peaceful"! Joe Biden's tepid statements where he described the shooting of Jacob Blake omitting any evidence in support of the police action just threw gasoline on the fire. He then bleated something about "needless violence" but did not call on Democrat governors to do anything to quell the violence or protect the livelihoods of people living in Kenosha and other places. Biden is dog whistling to the rioters that he's down with the struggle. Anyone voting for Biden is voting for abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy, a return to the ridiculous and dangerous pro Iranian foreign policy, the "squad", gun confiscation, ridiculous climate control BS, etc., etc., because that is who is in control of the DNC and that is what the rioters want. Black lives only matter to them when they can be used to justify anarchy. I have been Never Trump for years but I like most of what he has done. The Israel/UAE agreement finally convinced me that I have to vote for Trump. We would have no chance of things like that with Biden bringing back Susan Rice and the Obama team. I like so many of the speakers at the Convention like Scott, Haley and the citizens brought in to explain why they are voting for Trump. I heard that you don't have to like Trump to get good policy but you do have to vote for him.

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  10. Luke Thompson

    The problem with the "a vote for Trump is a vote for riots" point is that the rioters hate Trump. I don't think there's any dispute on that point. If someone voted for Trump because they disliked the left, it is simply ludicrous to claim that they were simultaneously voting for the left's riots. Perhaps if Trump had actually done something to cause the riots, there might be an argument. But on the contrary, just about every action he's taken to try to stop them has been massively criticized from the left, with mostly baseless claims.

    Saying a vote for Biden is a vote for riots isn't open to the same kind of critique, especially because it was the Obama/Biden administration that really laid the groundwork forthis. From Obama's pretending that the Gates controversy was anyone's fault but Gates' to Biden's "they're gonna put y'all back in chains" and so on, they stoked the fires that we're seeing now for political ends. Ferguson, after all, happened under Obama's watch, with the Democrats broadly supporting the protesters and repeating the underlying lies that were causing the unrest.

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