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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <28200164@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 23:39:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200164
Posted: Tue Oct  8 23:39:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 06:08:54 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Oct  8 23:39:00 1985


>/* Written  1:53 pm  Sep 28, 1985 by baba@spar in inmet:net.politics.t */
>/* ---------- "Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Soc" ---------- */
>> Whoa!  Let's have some historical examples please, of a government that
>> CREATED wealth. [Nat Howard]
>
>Well, today marks the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Hoover
>Dam, which provides flood control, electricity, and fresh water for much
>of the the arid American Southwest.  It was planned, paid for, and is still 
>managed by the U.S government.  The wages for the (otherwise unemployed)
>workers and payment for the materials may only have been a localized 
>redistribution of tax monies, but the fact of the matter is that they
>produced something that continues to materially benefit hundreds of
>thousands (if not millions) of people.   Why isn't that wealth?
>
>						Baba
>/* End of text from inmet:net.politics.t */
>
It's wealth, but it's wealth that could have been used by individuals
in free markets to build a dam, had they been able to convince folks
that the very best return possible would be from investing in their
"Hazlitt Dam".  That the individuals taxed would have spent their money
in less obvious ways doesn't affect the fact that they would have
spent it, and it is the DIFFERENCE between how they would have done
and how the money spent in Hoover Dam did that represents whether
any wealth was created.  Their spending on other things would 
have benefited other people, but it would have been just as much
wealth, and it would have been spent in ways that seemed worthwhile
to its owners.  It would not have simply been destroyed.

As in my example from the series from the article you quote, if I take
all of Larry Kolodney's money and spend it on projects I like, it doesn't
follow that money I make (and perhaps give back to him) is created wealth.
Even if I make money, he might have done better with his own money, and
certainly it is hard to judge after I have spent it for him.  

Sure, Hoover Dam is wealth, but it's wealth transferred from people
who were then NOT hired, but cannot identify themselves.  For example,
the people who WOULD have been hired had the folks who were taxed had
a little more money to (say) fix up their houses, buy an extra suit,
get their porches fixed, and so on.  Those carpenters and tailors 
remained unemployed (or less employed).  The concrete-pourers WERE employed
(by edict).  The difference is that the people who owned that money would
have preferred to hire carpenters and tailors but could not, after
taxation, do this, and the carpenters and tailors would have a hard
time identifying themselves, and so are unlikely to lobby in Congress.