Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Excess Luxuries

Communism isn't interested in your personal property, until it becomes capital, or capital-like.

My personal beliefs in this area are:

Capital in this limiting sense does not mean personal tools.  Capital means tools you can organize others to use, in a capitalist relationship (and not, for examples, a traditional marriage, or a workplace under anarcho-syndicalism).  Capital is ownership of the means of production.

Capital does not include personal possessions.  As an audiophile, I've read audiophile columnists joke about what the point of "excess luxury" that becomes capital-like might be.  $10,000 speakers?  $100,000 speakers?  Many above that are made, yet some people might think $250 speakers absurd and over the top.

I think it's unfair to view posessions as being within boxes, with a limit on each box.  The point is not to have more than means something personal.  And some people might focus on some things as opposed to others.  So to have specific limits prohibits greater personalization.  Then, there may need to be exemptions for unique items.

My current idea is $10M in total personal property, and separately $10M in fixed property assets (in not generally more than 3 addresses).

In some cases, people live in fancy overbuilt homes worth more than $10M, or also because of location, etc. When such homes are not more appropriately duplexes, hotels, resorts, etc., then the excess is also best overlooked.

And that may apply to personal property as well.  Suppose a musician has a $20M violin that they play.  Actually in that case, a complete exemption is given for that, as long as they are actually using the violin arguably as well as others, and not primarily hoarding or renting it.

At what point does an excess of one kind of thing represent hoarding?  That's making the boxes too small again.  But you only get one potential >$10M exemption each for personal property and for fixed.  Or whatever the minimum is to get the cart rolling.


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