"Why not make it illegal" seems to be your answer to just about anything, isn't it?
Anything that harms society, YES.
And since your form of economics harms society, why should I put up with it? My system eliminates the need for salesmen entirely- you go to your local person for everything. Your system requires a bunch of liars (salesmen) to be in charge of everything.
Aside from the fact that you are describing a tinker putting himself out of business by not working as well, you keep ignoring the situation of forcing a lame old lady to traipse all over to get stuff which can be delivered to her door.
Why would sticking with a single set of customers put the tinkerer out of business? He's got his OWN town to look after.
The peddler stole nothing. The "right" you are referring to is a "right" to something the person did not even earn.
It's a God-given right, your rights end where the next human being's rights begin. Of course, if you're a stinkin' atheist then we have no use for you in such a society.
In fact, I think I'll end there, since it is obvious that you're an atheistic, greedy troll who wants to trample other people's human rights instead of having the responsibility of living in a society.
Try the 99% of Wal-Mart workers who do not fall into the abuve categories.
Well, none of them seem to work in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or California- all of the workers at Wal*Mart here fall into one of the above categories, to the point that the majority of them have sued Wal*Mart and won.
I see nothing in that link supporting being a con artist and a paper shuffler being "work". In fact, the simplest, #1 definition on that page is:
Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.
Since your paper shuffling CEOs don't actually accomplish anything or produce anything at all, they don't work. Same with investors. So, no- BZZZT- you're wrong.
You mean being produced by the "enemy" in Japan and Mexico?
I'm saying that Ford could have done an equal job, for a Fair Price and a Just Wage, without resorting to going external to the country.
A technicality. Let them convert it into diamonds and invest that if it makes you happy. Regardless, it is something they created.
Really? Do they control the government printing press? Do they control the stock market? No, they only control the MEANS of production- unless you want to claim they created the workers.
Good point. Replace it with real estate or another scarce valuable item.
Valuable items are only scarce because the Corporate Government limits their availability.
That is your decision. Most small businesspeople disagree with it.
Then they are fools- and they're losing control of what they built to the investors, who are getting a share without working for it.
So, a small software company with a "project manager" to help organize tasks is foolish?
A small software company that uses more than ONE person at all is foolish- adding programmers to a late project only makes it fail.
A lot of value is added to the product
Nope- that's the worker adding the value not the manager, who only takes away from value.
Spoken like a true fascist. According to this, all decisions that involve another person should be the government's business.
Or a true democrat- for whom there is no difference between the people and the government.
Want to break up with your girlfriend? All Uncle Sam before you call Sue: this is a decision that affect someone else.
Yep- it affects her family and friends- and their friends and their friends' friends'. Ripples in time- nobody is an island. EVERYTHING you do should reflect your responsibility and rights in society.
The sock story is simply changed to: "Do I give Sue one rose or two?". Then, according to you, it is the government's business. Or, as you said regarding the mediaval house example, Sue should get her own rose.
That works too....
A corporation is completely cooperative.
No it isn't- it's one person with control of the means of production insulating themselves from responsibility by using a second person to oppress a third.
The big question is, two people are interacting. Do we trust them?
Given the actions of those we've given that trust to in the past, why should we?
Or since it is not "personal" anymore, should the government control all interaction between them?
As I see it, it's the only way back to trust- but there are many forms of potential control here and there's no need whatsoever to go beyond brainwashing.
Another example where you know nothing about matters. I know from experience how tedious it is.
What kind of idiot do you have to be to call 10 minutes of work tedious?
The claim of "theft" is a lie. I have not used such a service, but I have considered it. Anything he earns is something he earns through his effort, it is not "theft". I have no problem at all with him doing so. He earns every penny by doing something I am too lazy to do.
And there is another mortal sin- being lazy. Greedy and lazy- man you're really headed for hell aren't you?
This system you want of stealing unearned profits and giving them to me would not be fair to me and the drop box guy, so it would really not be fair at all. No wonder the black market proliferates in situations like this.
Black marketeers and other profiteers should be killed- along with their children to remove the moral sin from the genome.
No, "we" never are. This is propaganda by those who want an all powerful oppressive State. It might work a few times once you vote with the majority, but once you disagree, you will find out that government is "them" and always is "them".
Sounds like somebody who doesn't want to be a part of the majority- and would be happier living in a dictatorship of one.
Why not let them decide for themselves?
Because salesmen are con artists- looking to cheat society rather than learn an honest trade. Parasites cannot be suffered to live.
WRONG. Capitalism exists just fine without corporations.
So why bother with corporations? Why not make them illegal?
Hint 2: If there is no theft, there is no stealing.
And since there was theft of one of the three basic economic rights (right to a Fair Price, or right to a Just Wage, depending on if you're the tinkerer or the customer), then it was stealing.
Your irrational opposition to the traveling salesman has now forced the poor anti-social tinker in this example to turn his shop into a factory outlet.
No such thing as an anti-social person in a society that supports human beings. Social and anti-social are the language of class warfare.
After realizing that he is poor at sales, but must be a store clerk in order to sell his tin cups, he gives up his lifelong passion to work with tin.
Why would he have to be a store clerk to sell his tin cups? What's wrong with simply sticking to his Just Wage, and letting whomever comes into the factory set their price? Why let a true outsider take advantage of him?
Now he is at the quarry smashing millstones for the quarryman (the same stones you have forbidden him to take to the miller).
I didn't forbid him to take them to the miller- he can sell them all he wants, he just can't RENT them.
What a nasty place where the craftsman is forbidden to have someone help him out with sales.
Why should he give up a part of his just wage to have somebody "help him out with sales"?
What is the matter with you? Did some Fuller Brush man beat you with a camel-hair comb when you were a child?
Middle men have been stealing from me all my life- I'm just saying we should go back to a time when we didn't have them.
What a nasty place this was, and you seem to like it. Poor ol Granny has to walk all the way to the next village and bother the tinker at his work, because someone has banned door-to-door peddlers.
Uh, no- because she's got her own tinkerer just down the street to go to- because the peddler wasn't allowed to put Granny's tinkerer out of business with foreign wares.
Nothing was stolen. Try to have some sort of connection between words and meaning, eh?
Then why was the next town's tinkerer denied the right to a Just Wage at a Fair Price, when the peddler stole his customer?
Why not both?
The right of a worker to own his own means of production is "Why not both". A right you casually toss asside.
If it makes you happy, the quarry guy has given in to your wishes. He smashed the rock because you have meddled.
At which point his guild kills him for gross incompetance and replaces him with a quarry guy who knows his rights and RESPONSIBILITIES to society.
The miller has no millstone, and everyone's teeth get worn down on really course bread.
Until the new quarry guy SELLS him a millstone, as the first one should have if he had remembered that he was not an individual, but part of a society.
The "means of production" term is meaningless in the real world. It is property like any other.
True- and the miller has a right to own the property neccessary to be a miller. No more- and NO LESS. NOBODY else has the right to own that property and "rent" to him. NOBODY else has the right to steal his Just Wage for the sake of "return on investment".
It is a pretty complex, totalitarian, and oppressive law.
Not at all- only three laws are required: The right to OWN one's property. The right to a Just Wage. The right to sell at a Fair Price and not be undercut by some meddling peddler. All else flows from those three very simple laws.
You seem to defend every aspect of it. The removal of such laws have made us much more free.
Denial of rights is not freedom, much as you would like it to be.
Always the one to defend the power and privilage of the ruling class?
More- the monarch "owns" the land on lease from God- and I'll defend God to you atheists any day.
Yesh, and the builder paid everyone good money for the materials.
Which he was allowed to do by having good money to begin with- which he wouldn't have had without the monarch protecting that money, which the monarch would not have been able to protect without the soldier...it goes on and on and on and NOTHING is ever private.
None except for the Monarch, and the bully-boys who crack the heads of peddlers who dare to help people. No one at all.
Neither of these are outsiders- these are neccessary members of society.
There is a name for such an advantageous system: capitalism.
Then why do we have 8 million people unemployed and 20 million illegal aliens if your "advantageous system" works so well at providing advantage to the LARGEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE?
People earning money or having it freely given to them is not ' class warfare '.
Not at all true- for money itself is a sign of class.
No, I am not one of them. It is just that I am not consumed by greed and jealousy of those who have more than I do.
Greed and jealousy are words used by the upper class to control the lower class- why do you use those words if you are not engaged in class warfare?
The profit earned by extra effort (as this is) is not "theft" in any legal, moral, or dictionary definition.
The laws and dictionaries are written by the corporations- and as such are a tool of the class warfare. As for morality- Guild economics was practiced in the middle ages- and had no profit for those who did not put in extra effort (I do not consider paper shuffling to be extra effort).
I guess so. Unless they are in government, non-working paper shufflers tend to be fired.
Not true- all of managment and the investor class are made up of non-working paper shufflers. In fact, these people are rewarded MORE than the workers.
Why not let the people decide? Must everything be a government decision?
Non-sequitor, in a democracy the people are the government. There is no difference between the people and the government deciding- they are one and the same.
Most work. the Ken Lay's get in trouble. Few oppress workers: if they did this, they would soon have no workers to oppress.
Have you SEEN the labor utilization rate (employed/totalpopulation)? Any worker who refuses to be oppressed, will be thrown out to starve- as the grand majority are.
A fabricated oppression in your mind. Consider this fact: it is not oppression of the "oppressed" vehemently disagree with you that it is oppression.
Totally irrelevant- it's completely possible to brainwash people to accept their own oppression. Happens all the time.
Retail? A great idea, one of added value.
There's no added value to retail- just subtracted value of lost jobs in the local community.
What sort of kook would rather traipse to 19 different factories just to get a grocery bag full?
The average 13th century peasant. A much pleasanter time.
The Wal-Mart workers disagree with you. I side with them
And which Wal-Mart workers would these be? The women suing over better wages paid to men? The men suing over unpaid overtime? The stockboys suing over having to lie on the floor for 9 hours with broken bones because they were locked in the store with the phones turned off? The clerks who are refused medical insurance because the manager has been told by corporate not to schedule them for more than 9 hours a week? The manager making less than poverty level wages, but he's happy because he has "benefits" that he's never looked at and only pay major hospitalization? Which set of workers was that again who were happy?
A commission that they did not earn since they did nothing?
They got that customer to pay the additional 40%- if anything it was management who did nothing.
I respect that opinion, and it is one that most business owners disagree with.
Of course, because most business OWNERS who use investments and management to gain undue profit don't actually WORK anymore.
I would leave this up to them.
Also a class warfare comment- how nice of you to allow owners to oppress workers.
That is just another lie.
No it isn't- that's how Enron got away with raiding the pension fund, because the workers were not allowed to decide how to invest their 401(k)s (and in fact, aren't by SEC and IRS rules).
It is still investing, even if you do not like it. At least it is not as bad as your insulting and demeaning lie in which you call working people "slaves".
In my three examples, there were NO victims. There were people agreeing to make amicable trades.
Then they were idiots.
Two of them did. The peddler traipses all over the countryside knocking on doors. The guarry guy quarried that stone.
The peddler is doing an illegal act. The quarry guy is legally entitled to SELL his wares, not RENT them.
He subverted nothing.
He sold in the next town, stealing business from that town's tinkerer, did he not?
He charge for the results of his labor.
He would have if he had SOLD the rock.
He stole nothing from the miller: the miller still owned his mill and the quarry guy owned his rock.
The mill is useless without the rock- unless the miller owns both he is not the owner of his means of production.
Should the blacksmith also have rented the chisel to the quarry guy?
All examples were fair,
No, not by the law of the day- and I say that law should never have been changed. We've been in slavery ever since.
even the last one with the son
Stealing land from the monarch?
Only the father and the son were involved.
Not by the law of the day which restricted inheritance to the Church or the Monarch.
How dare someone not in the family whine and cry about it.
Nothing is done in a vaccum- society provided the means.
In fact, the same problem with outsider busybodies applies to the other fair deals.
No outsiders are involved at all- Society allowed the tinkerer, the miller, and the builder to have a business to begin with, thus society has the right to pick an economic system that is advantageous to the largest number of people. Independance doesn't exist.
I sell baseball cards from my old collection on eBay. It is time consuming and tedious, Now there opens up in town one of these "drop box" stores that sell stuff on eBay for you, give you a cut, and make a profit. I go ahead and do this. I am quite happy with my cut, and the drop box guy is happy with the profit.
E-bay is neither time consuming nor tedious- he stole from you.
Are you going to let us be?
E-bay shouldn't exist to begin with.
Or will you swoop in, whining about the "means of production" and "profit theft" while you jail us for making a mutually satisfactory deal?
Jail isn't necessary- a fair system would correct this by taxing the drop box guy and giving the profit to you.
Human labor has been in surplus since we settled down and started working agriculture. There's only so much work to go around. A fair system allows the largest number of people possible to work.
Everyone involved in the trade has the moral right to set value.
Ah, but morally- only the worker and the end consumer has the moral right to be involved in the trade to begin with. NOT the salesman.
Capitalism is nothing more than letting the people work out these simple interpersonal matters themselves.
WRONG. Capitalism is a system of laws for the establishment of corporations that allow people to invest in the means of production.
This is much more simple, and much more just than the alternative of government control of everything.
But does NOT meet the basic requirement of an economic system- to provide a living to the largest number of people possible.
Capitalism is based in justice: people can act on what they think is just.
What people THINK is just, usually isn't- that's the whole purpose of morality to begin with.
Your alternative is based in greed: greedy people you justify trying to steal the results of work or investment they did not do.
Really? What did the tinkerer do to be able to sell his wares elsewhere?
There is also the elephant in the living room: the greedy ruling class that gets much more power when you take "our" decisions and make them "the government's" decisions.
Hint: In a democracy, WE are the government.
As for the tinker example, "the next town" spoiled it. What if the peddler sells in the same town, the same street?
Then he is directly stealing, not from the tinkerer, but from the customer- who could simply walk to the tinkerer and get a better price. The robbery is still happening when the peddler charges an unfair price. There is simply NO room for middle men in a guild economy at all.
None of the statements has supported class warfare. have yet to make decisions from a framework of "class warfare". Then why do you support the right of an upper class to BE upper class, if you do not support class warfare? Profit is usually only offered if earned. No it isn't. It's offered whenever the business has sufficient excess stolen from the workers. Yes. From the work/effort of the one earning it. And what WORK would that be? Shuffling paper? A worker should only get a dividend if he has risked the fruits of his labor by investing in stock in the company. Only workers should be allowed to invest in the company to begin with- no others EVER should. The CEO is one of the workers himself/herself. Good CEO's are much rarer than someone who rivets seats. No CEO ever works- he just shuffles paper and oppresses the workers. Paper shuffling is not work. This bargaining results in the pay being for the real value of the work. That's not bargaining, it's slavery based on a surplus of human labor. Bargaining happens between equals- this statment in and of itself is a decision based on a framework of class warfare. Do you know the value of this? It was all pretty small. It was enough to secure the means of retail- and the ability to oppress the workers. Read the book of how he got rich. You have no idea. I have read the book- and just how he came up with the idea that by lowering wages (controlling costs) he could increase profit for himself. That all of his workers had to be on food stamps was beside the point to him- lowering wages and controling costs were paramount. Actually? Not. The Wal-Mart workers are paid for the real value of their work. Then why did they have to go on food stamps? And why does Wal-Mart make a 40% profit? No, the real value of their work would have been their wages AND a 40% commission on whatever they sold. If someone were to invest in your small business I wouldn't let them. Investors not related to the business are EVIL and always bad for innovation. do you argue that this would add nothing to your operation? I in fact argue that it would subtract value from my operation- destroying my Just Wage. True, but you can sell the goods a lot easier with investment.
No I can't- I'd have to pay a dividend back to the investor, destroying value for me.
Value is added to the operation.
You mean subtracted from.
It meets the definition of investment
No it doesn't- employees who are given a 401k are not free to make decisions about what to invest in, and thus, are not really investing. In addition, fund managers usually steal all the profits anyway, leaving the worker with neither a pension plan OR a retirenment account. 401(k)s are just another scam.
You may not like his work, but he has done whatever he has done by sitting at his Mac (?) and doing a lot of things.
Stealing other people's work is not "doing a lot of things". Finding other people's work to steal is not work.
That's a bit of clever work.
It's not work at all. No energy in, no energy out. No actual movement needed at all. It does not fit the clasical physics definition of work.
No-one with the title of "manager" ?
Why would one need somebody with the title of manager when there is only one person in the company?
The companies with management also pay for the real value of the work.
If they did, there'd be nothing left to pay the manager.
Both add value.
Neither adds value- both subtract from the value of the work because there is a need to pay somebody who isn't working.
Do you think that every personal decision should be up to a vote????
Business decisions aren't personal. They are an act of morality in a larger society. EVERY business decision affects countless other people. Therefore they simply aren't personal decisions.
This one requires some elaboration. Are you saying that peddling was illegal in medieval Europe? That a tinker would be forced to traipse all over the place to sell his wares?
More along the lines that the guilds controled the area one was allowed to sell one's wares- selling in the next town over would have been subverting the tinkerer of the next town over- stealing work from him as surely as stealing food from his children's mouths. The central idea of distributism is that GOODS SHOULD BE PRODUCED AS CLOSE TO THE END CONSUMER AS POSSIBLE and that MIDDLE MEN (RETAILERS) ARE IMMORAL. Only the worker has the right to set Just Wages and a Fair Price- and if his work is pleasing to Man and God, it will sell to those who need and want it. It's a far simpler model than your capitalism- for it is based in justice, not in greed.
Interesting, you shoo away three examples of someone earning something due to their own effort as being illegal under an oppressive theocratic State.
Worse than that- in each of your three examples, the worker involved was not the *only* victim- other victims are other workers in the same guild/industry whose work was displaced by your nefarious activities.
Anyone else would recognize someone receiving a fair reward for their work.
NONE OF YOUR THREE EXAMPLES DID ANY WORK! The first subverted local production illegally. The second, charged rent and stole from the worker the right to own the means of production. The third example of leaving property to a good-for-nothing son who did nothing to earn that property speaks for itself. No actual work was done in any example, therefore there can be no FAIR reward.
It is pretty clear to see why Marxism is a perverse and unnatural pseudo-religion that only has extremely disastrous results when applied to the real world.
Too bad you're wrong about that too- my counter examples were all drawn from Catholicism, not Marxism, and stood as the standard for a thousand years until some atheists destroyed it.
This is a pretty laughable statement, as it completely ignores the concept of initial investment, or it otherwise claims that "initial upfront investment is never a factor in the success of an enterprise."
Depends on what you mean by "success". If you mean providing a Just Wage to workers and a Fair Price to consumers as a measurement of success- the only one that I count- then upfront investment is largely immaterial and should be handled by one's Guild dues. If by success you mean providing and undue income to people who do no actual LABOR, then upfront investment is always the single largest factor of success of an entriprise.
So you are claiming that Gates and Dell have been sipping drinks on the beach every day?
No, they're too greedy for that- they're always in search of new "opportunities" to oppress more people, which I suppose YOU consider to be a form of work- I personally consider it to be a mental illness.
If you think that, then you are very very ignorant.
And if you think paper shuffling is "work" then you are very, very ignorant.
Let's put "profit" into simple terms, to dispell the notion that it is theft.
Ok, you can try.
There's a tinker who makes and repairs tin cups, lanterns, and the like. He likes to make them, and has poor personal skills and would be bad at selling his own wares.... Along comes the peddler. He pays two crowns for each cup from the tinker, and walks to the next village and sells these cups for 3 crowns. Considering the small cost of shoe wear, he's making nearly a crowns profit on those tin cups. Do you argue that this profit is stolen from the tinker?.
Yes it is. The tinker could get the same rate merely by going to the next town himself- no value was added, thus it is undue profit. And in fact, would have been illegal under guild law in medival Europe- the tinker's guild would have hunted down the pedler and forced him to return the crown stolen.
Now, in the same village, we have a mill. It would not be much of a mill if not for the nice big millstone that is rented from the quarrier.
Rent, too, was illegal in midevial Europe.
The quarrier gets a rental payment for making the mill possible with this nice large mill-stone. Do you think that the quarrier's rental payment is stolen from the miller?.
Yes, because the miller's guild would have paid the quarrier for the millstone outright, not rented it, as rents were illegal.
Up the stream from the mill is a large house. The builder has scraped and scrivened and has built from nothing what many nobles would accept as a decent manor house. However, he is getting on in years. He has decided to give this house he built to his son. Do you think this gift is not fair?"
The son should build his own house- not live in the house of the father. A real man creates his own home. Plus, under mideval law, you could only will to the Church or the Government, not to your children.
All three of the above were illegal examples under guild economics. Only Adam Smith, who wished to replace the monarchy with an oligarchy, changed this in the 1700s.
Whatver the nature of the car companies, have you considered what has driven so many automotive changes?
Certainly NOT where the cars are produced- and all of the changes could have been done without hampering quality.
They risk their own money in the company, greatly enhancing it.
Ah, but it's not their own money, it's the government's money. Billy Gates' face is not on the $1 bill. Also- I would say that any company that needs investment has been badly run from the begining.
As a result, they get a return on their investment.
And since they did no actual work- that return is stolen from the workers.
No, it only comes from value added by the profit earner.
And since investment adds only negative value- by giving up control over the company and removing that control from the workers- there should be no profit.
Under the tax cut, they are taxed once. But not twice.
Read it again- they're not taxed AT ALL.
It's not the government's money.
If it was anybody else's money, their signature would be on it. But no- only the Treasury Secretary of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
However, if you insist on controlling "money" inheritance, and leave the rest alone, I would call it a deal. Then the giver could convert the cash to diamonds, give diamonds to givee, who them sells them for money.
At which point we release the laws restricting the diamond market, and the bottom falls out (the only reason diamonds are valueable AT ALL is because the market is restricted).
See my other message about how even the smallest businesses need management.
I did- and from my own experience, the only small businesses that need management are those being run by idiots.
See other messages (and do some basic research) about the obvious fact that when someone gives your company a huge amount of $$$ to work with (investing), they are adding a lot of value.
Ah, but NO value is added to the product- just to the company. Thus no dividends should be taken from the sales of the product, just from the sale of the assets of the company.
It is a difference between a government decision and a personal decision.
You cannot make a "personal decision" that affects other people- at that point it becomes a government decision.
Look at this example. Do I wear one sock or two this morning? Quite a decision. Is it left to each sock-wearer, or do we have "the people" vote on it as a whole, and force the single democratic decision of "the people" on everyone?
Non-sequitor; a business decision is never a personal decision because it affects other people.
They aren't. They are nothing more than cooperative organizations of inviduals.
No- that's a cooperative. A corporation is a governmental body made up of investors who control a means of production and wish to create an underclass. Totally different animal.
I have yet to make decisions from a framework of "class warfare".
And yet- every single statement you've made has been in support of the status quo of class warfare. Which means that you are so into the framework that you can't see that you are a part of the framework.
Not only is it possible, this is what happens most of the time. This is because no profit is taken from workers (unless it is Enron eating the pension plan!).
It doesn't matter who is taking the profit- if a single dividend is offered, it had to come from somewhere. Since the ONLY people creating value are the workers, that dividend came from their labor, and is rightly theirs.
I support the people involved in deals to work out what is fair among them.
Can't be done until Maslow needs are met- without the basic Maslow needs, you don't have equals negotiating to begin with.
Since some jobs are worth a lot more than others, this involves working out the value of the work. The different salary scale is a creation of the workers.
And what "worker" stated that a CEO managment parasite gets to earn 400 times everybody else?
Equal pay for equal work" is what happens most of the time, since pay is based on the value of the work.
But pay is not based on the value of the work- pay is based on what the employer wants it to be, and if the worker doesn't like it, he can go elsewhere, there are plenty more where he came from (this is the meaning of human labor in surplus).
I was referring to the huge numbers of millionaires in the country, not this small list.
Not a single worker among them- all management and investors.
However, back to your list. Consider Sam Walton. How did he got on this list when he was alive?
By inheriting money from a great aunt that died which enabled him to buy his first store. All other money was made off of such low pay that his workers were on welfare- his payroll was subsidized by tax money.
How about them Rockefellers?
Many of them are still there- as are the Carnegies, the Mellons, etc. What of them are still alive- I'll grant you that once names make the list, there is a tendency for the family to spend so much time managing their money that they fail to breed.
Did you read the message? A huge value is added when someone invests in a company. Ask anyone you know who is in small business, they will tell you.
I own a small business- and know for a fact that the value comes from WORK, not from INVESTMENT. Investment is just the means of production, not the actual production. I can't sell investment, I can only sell finished goods.
Most Americans are investors and workers.
401k is not investing- it's a cheat to make sure that you have a bad retirement.
As for your list, Gates, Dell etc definitely work.
Gates hasn't actually WORKED a day in his life- all of his products were bought or pirated from others. Michael Dell never actually made a single machine- he buys on 90 day terms, sells for cost, and makes money off of the interest in between.
Most millionaires (we would agree they are upper class) got that way due to their own hard work.
Well, I've yet to meet one- they all have some scam going based on the time value of money rather than actual work.
You are correct if you substitute "ability and value of work" for "class".
Yes- that's a given. A classless society does not have such bogus distinctions. If you're separating people based on some quality that cannot be known and is totally imaginary- that's class.
Then how come small companies with no stockholders find they need management?
I actually find that small companies with no stockholders don't need management at all- if they need managment then they're doing something wrong, like paying people less than the true economic value of their worth
Are you blaming a mythical cabal as to the reason 1950's Fords rusted into the ground?
No, I'm blaming a very real cabal for failing to continue to produce cars of that quality.
That is how capitalism works out: a fair price for a just wage.
Then how would the investors, the capitalists, ever actually get any profit? Sorry, profit must come from the difference between a real wage and an unfair price- because the difference between a fair price and a fair wage is zero.
Every one of these people is a member of "the ruled": paying a large proportion of taxes.
With the Bush tax cut of 2001, dividends can no longer be taxed at all. Sorry- these people pay NO taxes on their dividends. So this is a lie.
If they were rulers, they would not pay a thing.
And since with the Bush tax cuts they don't- then they are rulers aren't they? Not that they ever paid that much in taxes to begin with- their limited liability corporations shield them from taxes, and have since 1896.
Inherited is fair: someone decided that they were worthy of it and gave it to them
Somebody gave them money that the government printed specifically so that the masses could be fed- that is FAIR to you? I call it a gross misuse of government funds at best.
Stole from the workers? This is, in reality, earning money (and the workers got back the value of what they put in).
But as I showed in the other message- ONLY the workers put in any value at all. Investors and management are parasites on the system.
That is a form of fascism: the government controlling a private matter that should be left to the people.
How can a vote of the people not be leaving it to the people? Unless, of course, you agree that only corporations are citizens- and real human beings have no rights.
Let the VOTE affect government only.
And since corporations are a form of government- let the vote affect the corporations.
They try to foment "class" division. In this, it is similar to race warfare. However, the ones waging class warfare are not the ones who do nothing more wrong than earn a lot of money.
It is impossible under the current system to earn a lot of money without formenting "class" divisions by taking undue profit from one's workers. You admitted this below.
I'm writing in favor of all, regardless of "class" distinctions.
Then why do you support the right of the upper class to CREATE a lower class by paying a different salary scale? If you're against class distinctions, then everybody should earn equal pay for equal work.
It should also be remembered that most members of the "Upper Classes" are workers as well.
That's a lie- most members of the upper classes are INVESTORS, not workers.
How did they get to the upper classes? by working.
No- by inheritance as can be shown in the Forbes lists that NEVER have new surnames.
You are paying them the full amount of their labor.
Their labor is the only value added- if you were paying them the full amount, there'd be no profit left over.
The profit comes from something you added to it.
And since managment and stockholders add no value- because they do no labor, no work- there should be no profit.
Earning is not theft.
It is when you did not labor for it.
Why use the word theft when it does not apply?
Because it DOES apply.
The stockholder invests, allowing the company to purchase and improve their factories, and a lot more.
In other words- only control over the means of production. NO real value added at all- if the means of production were owned by the people, democratically, to begin with there would be no need for the investors at all.
A hell of a lot more. Seat installers are a dime a dozen.
But without the seat installer, there is no value added to the airplane, and the factory is utterly worthless.
Dilbert aside, if management was that much of a problem, few companies would have it.
Management is there for ONE reason only- they are the shock troops of the upper class for the creation of a lower class. Without managment, you would not be able to create a lower class, and there would be no profit.
In many cases, they are parasites, but in most cases managers are the ones who have the necessary organizational skills to greatly improve the company.
"Organizational skills" is a code word for separating human beings into jobs dependant upon class- how managment "improves" the company is by ensuring the stockholders that they will get good "return on their investment" by stealing the fruits of the labor of the workers.
Well, this applies if someone is giving the Brooklyn Bridge to their son, but what does that have to do with anything?
It also applies when someone gives a large amount of money- money being printed by the government and therefore owned by the government.
It is not anti-democratic;
It creates class- and above you claimed to be against anything that creates class. Such a process that creates class is anti-democratic.
it is just a personal matter that a government has no business meddling in.
Then why is a government official signing all of those little green pieces of paper that the person inherited?
You preceeded this with mention of a whacky conspiracy theory.
No theory at all- as you have proven by your lies.
According to US census reports from 2002, less than 20% lack health insurance. This is less than 1/3 of the 75% you named. What is the reason for this gross error?
3 reasons:
You're coparing apples to oranges- I said that "the lower 75% can't afford their own health insurance", not that the lower 75% didn't have health insurance.
The January 2005 Medicaid/Medicare reform act limited benefits to those making 45% of poverty level, which lost a lot of people their last hope for medical care of any sort. Since this just happened this month, your 2002 census report is out of date.
If you haven't noticed, the health insurance market is currently in a hyperinflationary state. What was a $300/month policy in 2002 is now a $600/month policy, which prices a larger percentage of people out of the market on the top end.
You ignored the question. How viable is this? How many 1950 Fords are out there? Are there enough so that just the Toyota owners could buy them instead of Toyotas?
Not anymore- but that's exactly my point. The oligarchy by limiting production to certain low-wage areas of the world forces us into buying inferior products at inflated prices- the situation where stockholders stand to make the most profit, not the situation where the best product is made at a Fair Price for a Just Wage.
Capitalism is nothing more than workers having the freedom to make their own econommic decisions.
That's not what Adam Smith said- Adam Smith said that Capitalism was the tyranny of the means of production- those who control the means of production control the market.
Capitalism can only be eliminated with the imposition of a super-strong fascist state.
Not at all- all it takes is a reasonable limit on the accumulation of wealth, OR a significant other nation manipulating it's currency price to undercut the working class of the targeted nation in economic warfare (like China is currently doing to Mexico, Canada, and the United States).
In such a state, there is only one capitalist: the dictator. Otherwise, if you leave people to their own devices, you will have capitalism.
There's another form- the people actually VOTE for what should be done and control the means of production. The difference here being instead of a single dictator, you have the tyranny of the masses- something class warriors like you are afraid of.
How many Americans are there now? 300,000,000? This is some oligarchy: it has 300,000,000 members.
Only 2000 of those actually own anything at all- the rest are debt slaves and not members of the oligarchy.
What about the rest of the list?
A representative sample shows that while the rest of the list may move up and down, only 500 surnames are represented, and only 2000 individuals. Sometimes individuals drop off the bottom or join the bottom- but there are many surnames not represented who will never be represented, because they are not a part of the inherited oligarchy and never will be. Mere debt slaves all.
None of these people are oligarchs. They are among the ruled, not the rulers.
Bullshit- they own the "rulers", those puppets they put up for the people to vote for, bribed with campaign finance. None of the so-called "rulers" can do anything without the oligarchy- because to do so would cost them campaign financing needed to "win" elections. Of course, the oligarchy gives to both "sides" of the two party system- effectively making sure that the limited liability corporations that they control, not human beings, will be the only entities with any true rights at all.
This statistic is meaningless when you realize that these 25% own wealth they created or earned themselves,
Except for of course that they didn't- they inherrited that wealth or stole it from the workers, they did no labor to create value themselves.
and the wealth is not a zero-sum game.
That's a lie as well- there are a finite number of atoms in the solar system, and therefore wealth is finite. In any given borders, wealth is therefore limited and thus wealth is indeed a zero sum game- regardless of the fakery of the financial sector that makes it look like it isn't.
Just because someone has wealth does not mean someone else does not.
Really? You can duplicate elements so that two people can have possession of the same item in two different locations? When did you achieve this supernatural power?
Such statistics are used to play on jealousy and greed.
Any more than hiring a worker for less than he is worth does just so that you can live in luxury?
Another fake crisis: health insurance != health care. Did you know that 100% of Americans lack food insurance? A crisis!
Class warfare is not mythical- and it's in fact the whole point of this online discussion. You wouldn't be writing in favor of the upper classes if it wasn't for your own involvement in the oppression of workers- therefore this very post is evidence that class warfare exists.
Profit results after someone is paid for the actual value of their economic input.
In that case profit should always be zero- if you're paying somebody the full amount of the actual value of their economic input, then there is nothing left over for stockholders AT ALL. Since this is not the case- you're obviously lying in support of your side of the class warfare.
Profit is earned from adding value to something. That is all it is.
And since stockholders do not add value to a company- they only subtract from a company's value- any profit that stockholders take must be stolen from the workers.
These people (none of whom were members in an oligarchy_ were living off of what they earned themselves.....
Really? What value does, say, a stockholder in Boeing add to an airplane? In comparison to say, the guy who installed the seats? Or rivited together the skin? Better yet- does managment add any actual value, or are they too just parasites on the system?
Whether or not we are for or against it, it is not our business at all what one family member chooses to give another family member.
It is when what is given is the natural resources and/or invented resources of the government paid for with our tax dollars. Heck- for that matter, since dollars are printed and managed by the government- any wealth paid for with dollars is subject to the democratic process. Since inherritance is anti-democratic, it should be banned (oddly enough, one of the richer members of the oligarchy, William Gates Sr., agrees with me on that and wrote a book against the accumulation of wealth intergenerationally. He succeeded in his own life by requiring Billy Jr. to pay back that $100,000 loan that started Microsoft- and hasn't given him a cent since). You seem to have bought into a large number of the lies of the current oligarchy- from the time value of money on up to the present day attempt to steal government away from the people and put it into the hands of the multinational corporations- and I believe that until you've rid yourself of these lies, you have no chance at all of understanding the different levels I'm discussing.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope- don't know MacHeath and this is the only account I have on slashdot.
"Why not make it illegal" seems to be your answer to just about anything, isn't it?
Anything that harms society, YES.
And since your form of economics harms society, why should I put up with it? My system eliminates the need for salesmen entirely- you go to your local person for everything. Your system requires a bunch of liars (salesmen) to be in charge of everything.
Aside from the fact that you are describing a tinker putting himself out of business by not working as well, you keep ignoring the situation of forcing a lame old lady to traipse all over to get stuff which can be delivered to her door.
Why would sticking with a single set of customers put the tinkerer out of business? He's got his OWN town to look after.
The peddler stole nothing. The "right" you are referring to is a "right" to something the person did not even earn.
It's a God-given right, your rights end where the next human being's rights begin. Of course, if you're a stinkin' atheist then we have no use for you in such a society.
In fact, I think I'll end there, since it is obvious that you're an atheistic, greedy troll who wants to trample other people's human rights instead of having the responsibility of living in a society.
Try the 99% of Wal-Mart workers who do not fall into the abuve categories.
Well, none of them seem to work in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or California- all of the workers at Wal*Mart here fall into one of the above categories, to the point that the majority of them have sued Wal*Mart and won.
Since your paper shuffling CEOs don't actually accomplish anything or produce anything at all, they don't work. Same with investors. So, no- BZZZT- you're wrong.
You mean being produced by the "enemy" in Japan and Mexico?
I'm saying that Ford could have done an equal job, for a Fair Price and a Just Wage, without resorting to going external to the country.
A technicality. Let them convert it into diamonds and invest that if it makes you happy. Regardless, it is something they created.
Really? Do they control the government printing press? Do they control the stock market? No, they only control the MEANS of production- unless you want to claim they created the workers.
Good point. Replace it with real estate or another scarce valuable item.
Valuable items are only scarce because the Corporate Government limits their availability.
That is your decision. Most small businesspeople disagree with it.
Then they are fools- and they're losing control of what they built to the investors, who are getting a share without working for it.
So, a small software company with a "project manager" to help organize tasks is foolish?
A small software company that uses more than ONE person at all is foolish- adding programmers to a late project only makes it fail.
A lot of value is added to the product
Nope- that's the worker adding the value not the manager, who only takes away from value.
Spoken like a true fascist. According to this, all decisions that involve another person should be the government's business.
Or a true democrat- for whom there is no difference between the people and the government.
Want to break up with your girlfriend? All Uncle Sam before you call Sue: this is a decision that affect someone else.
Yep- it affects her family and friends- and their friends and their friends' friends'. Ripples in time- nobody is an island. EVERYTHING you do should reflect your responsibility and rights in society.
The sock story is simply changed to: "Do I give Sue one rose or two?". Then, according to you, it is the government's business. Or, as you said regarding the mediaval house example, Sue should get her own rose.
That works too....
A corporation is completely cooperative.
No it isn't- it's one person with control of the means of production insulating themselves from responsibility by using a second person to oppress a third.
The big question is, two people are interacting. Do we trust them?
Given the actions of those we've given that trust to in the past, why should we?
Or since it is not "personal" anymore, should the government control all interaction between them?
As I see it, it's the only way back to trust- but there are many forms of potential control here and there's no need whatsoever to go beyond brainwashing.
Another example where you know nothing about matters. I know from experience how tedious it is.
What kind of idiot do you have to be to call 10 minutes of work tedious?
The claim of "theft" is a lie. I have not used such a service, but I have considered it. Anything he earns is something he earns through his effort, it is not "theft". I have no problem at all with him doing so. He earns every penny by doing something I am too lazy to do.
And there is another mortal sin- being lazy. Greedy and lazy- man you're really headed for hell aren't you?
This system you want of stealing unearned profits and giving them to me would not be fair to me and the drop box guy, so it would really not be fair at all. No wonder the black market proliferates in situations like this.
Black marketeers and other profiteers should be killed- along with their children to remove the moral sin from the genome.
No, "we" never are. This is propaganda by those who want an all powerful oppressive State. It might work a few times once you vote with the majority, but once you disagree, you will find out that government is "them" and always is "them".
Sounds like somebody who doesn't want to be a part of the majority- and would be happier living in a dictatorship of one.
Why not let them decide for themselves?
Because salesmen are con artists- looking to cheat society rather than learn an honest trade. Parasites cannot be suffered to live.
WRONG. Capitalism exists just fine without corporations.
So why bother with corporations? Why not make them illegal?
Hint 2: If there is no theft, there is no stealing.
And since there was theft of one of the three basic economic rights (right to a Fair Price, or right to a Just Wage, depending on if you're the tinkerer or the customer), then it was stealing.
Your irrational opposition to the traveling salesman has now forced the poor anti-social tinker in this example to turn his shop into a factory outlet.
No such thing as an anti-social person in a society that supports human beings. Social and anti-social are the language of class warfare.
After realizing that he is poor at sales, but must be a store clerk in order to sell his tin cups, he gives up his lifelong passion to work with tin.
Why would he have to be a store clerk to sell his tin cups? What's wrong with simply sticking to his Just Wage, and letting whomever comes into the factory set their price? Why let a true outsider take advantage of him?
Now he is at the quarry smashing millstones for the quarryman (the same stones you have forbidden him to take to the miller).
I didn't forbid him to take them to the miller- he can sell them all he wants, he just can't RENT them.
What a nasty place where the craftsman is forbidden to have someone help him out with sales.
Why should he give up a part of his just wage to have somebody "help him out with sales"?
What is the matter with you? Did some Fuller Brush man beat you with a camel-hair comb when you were a child?
Middle men have been stealing from me all my life- I'm just saying we should go back to a time when we didn't have them.
What a nasty place this was, and you seem to like it. Poor ol Granny has to walk all the way to the next village and bother the tinker at his work, because someone has banned door-to-door peddlers.
Uh, no- because she's got her own tinkerer just down the street to go to- because the peddler wasn't allowed to put Granny's tinkerer out of business with foreign wares.
Nothing was stolen. Try to have some sort of connection between words and meaning, eh?
Then why was the next town's tinkerer denied the right to a Just Wage at a Fair Price, when the peddler stole his customer?
Why not both?
The right of a worker to own his own means of production is "Why not both". A right you casually toss asside.
If it makes you happy, the quarry guy has given in to your wishes. He smashed the rock because you have meddled.
At which point his guild kills him for gross incompetance and replaces him with a quarry guy who knows his rights and RESPONSIBILITIES to society.
The miller has no millstone, and everyone's teeth get worn down on really course bread.
Until the new quarry guy SELLS him a millstone, as the first one should have if he had remembered that he was not an individual, but part of a society.
The "means of production" term is meaningless in the real world. It is property like any other.
True- and the miller has a right to own the property neccessary to be a miller. No more- and NO LESS. NOBODY else has the right to own that property and "rent" to him. NOBODY else has the right to steal his Just Wage for the sake of "return on investment".
It is a pretty complex, totalitarian, and oppressive law.
Not at all- only three laws are required: The right to OWN one's property. The right to a Just Wage. The right to sell at a Fair Price and not be undercut by some meddling peddler. All else flows from those three very simple laws.
You seem to defend every aspect of it. The removal of such laws have made us much more free.
Denial of rights is not freedom, much as you would like it to be.
Always the one to defend the power and privilage of the ruling class?
More- the monarch "owns" the land on lease from God- and I'll defend God to you atheists any day.
Yesh, and the builder paid everyone good money for the materials.
Which he was allowed to do by having good money to begin with- which he wouldn't have had without the monarch protecting that money, which the monarch would not have been able to protect without the soldier...it goes on and on and on and NOTHING is ever private.
None except for the Monarch, and the bully-boys who crack the heads of peddlers who dare to help people. No one at all.
Neither of these are outsiders- these are neccessary members of society.
There is a name for such an advantageous system: capitalism.
Then why do we have 8 million people unemployed and 20 million illegal aliens if your "advantageous system" works so well at providing advantage to the LARGEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE?
People earning money or having it freely given to them is not ' class warfare '.
Not at all true- for money itself is a sign of class.
No, I am not one of them. It is just that I am not consumed by greed and jealousy of those who have more than I do.
Greed and jealousy are words used by the upper class to control the lower class- why do you use those words if you are not engaged in class warfare?
The profit earned by extra effort (as this is) is not "theft" in any legal, moral, or dictionary definition.
The laws and dictionaries are written by the corporations- and as such are a tool of the class warfare. As for morality- Guild economics was practiced in the middle ages- and had no profit for those who did not put in extra effort (I do not consider paper shuffling to be extra effort).
I guess so. Unless they are in government, non-working paper shufflers tend to be fired.
Not true- all of managment and the investor class are made up of non-working paper shufflers. In fact, these people are rewarded MORE than the workers.
Why not let the people decide? Must everything be a government decision?
Non-sequitor, in a democracy the people are the government. There is no difference between the people and the government deciding- they are one and the same.
Most work. the Ken Lay's get in trouble. Few oppress workers: if they did this, they would soon have no workers to oppress.
Have you SEEN the labor utilization rate (employed/totalpopulation)? Any worker who refuses to be oppressed, will be thrown out to starve- as the grand majority are.
A fabricated oppression in your mind. Consider this fact: it is not oppression of the "oppressed" vehemently disagree with you that it is oppression.
Totally irrelevant- it's completely possible to brainwash people to accept their own oppression. Happens all the time.
Retail? A great idea, one of added value.
There's no added value to retail- just subtracted value of lost jobs in the local community.
What sort of kook would rather traipse to 19 different factories just to get a grocery bag full?
The average 13th century peasant. A much pleasanter time.
The Wal-Mart workers disagree with you. I side with them
And which Wal-Mart workers would these be? The women suing over better wages paid to men? The men suing over unpaid overtime? The stockboys suing over having to lie on the floor for 9 hours with broken bones because they were locked in the store with the phones turned off? The clerks who are refused medical insurance because the manager has been told by corporate not to schedule them for more than 9 hours a week? The manager making less than poverty level wages, but he's happy because he has "benefits" that he's never looked at and only pay major hospitalization? Which set of workers was that again who were happy?
A commission that they did not earn since they did nothing?
They got that customer to pay the additional 40%- if anything it was management who did nothing.
I respect that opinion, and it is one that most business owners disagree with.
Of course, because most business OWNERS who use investments and management to gain undue profit don't actually WORK anymore.
I would leave this up to them.
Also a class warfare comment- how nice of you to allow owners to oppress workers.
That is just another lie.
No it isn't- that's how Enron got away with raiding the pension fund, because the workers were not allowed to decide how to invest their 401(k)s (and in fact, aren't by SEC and IRS rules).
It is still investing, even if you do not like it. At least it is not as bad as your insulting and demeaning lie in which you call working people "slaves".
http://www.distributis
In my three examples, there were NO victims. There were people agreeing to make amicable trades.
Then they were idiots.
Two of them did. The peddler traipses all over the countryside knocking on doors. The guarry guy quarried that stone.
The peddler is doing an illegal act. The quarry guy is legally entitled to SELL his wares, not RENT them.
He subverted nothing.
He sold in the next town, stealing business from that town's tinkerer, did he not?
He charge for the results of his labor.
He would have if he had SOLD the rock.
He stole nothing from the miller: the miller still owned his mill and the quarry guy owned his rock.
The mill is useless without the rock- unless the miller owns both he is not the owner of his means of production.
Should the blacksmith also have rented the chisel to the quarry guy?
All examples were fair,
No, not by the law of the day- and I say that law should never have been changed. We've been in slavery ever since.
even the last one with the son
Stealing land from the monarch?
Only the father and the son were involved.
Not by the law of the day which restricted inheritance to the Church or the Monarch.
How dare someone not in the family whine and cry about it.
Nothing is done in a vaccum- society provided the means.
In fact, the same problem with outsider busybodies applies to the other fair deals.
No outsiders are involved at all- Society allowed the tinkerer, the miller, and the builder to have a business to begin with, thus society has the right to pick an economic system that is advantageous to the largest number of people. Independance doesn't exist.
I sell baseball cards from my old collection on eBay. It is time consuming and tedious, Now there opens up in town one of these "drop box" stores that sell stuff on eBay for you, give you a cut, and make a profit. I go ahead and do this. I am quite happy with my cut, and the drop box guy is happy with the profit.
E-bay is neither time consuming nor tedious- he stole from you.
Are you going to let us be?
E-bay shouldn't exist to begin with.
Or will you swoop in, whining about the "means of production" and "profit theft" while you jail us for making a mutually satisfactory deal?
Jail isn't necessary- a fair system would correct this by taxing the drop box guy and giving the profit to you.
How can this be conceived as theft?
Human labor has been in surplus since we settled down and started working agriculture. There's only so much work to go around. A fair system allows the largest number of people possible to work.
Everyone involved in the trade has the moral right to set value.
Ah, but morally- only the worker and the end consumer has the moral right to be involved in the trade to begin with. NOT the salesman.
Capitalism is nothing more than letting the people work out these simple interpersonal matters themselves.
WRONG. Capitalism is a system of laws for the establishment of corporations that allow people to invest in the means of production.
This is much more simple, and much more just than the alternative of government control of everything.
But does NOT meet the basic requirement of an economic system- to provide a living to the largest number of people possible.
Capitalism is based in justice: people can act on what they think is just.
What people THINK is just, usually isn't- that's the whole purpose of morality to begin with.
Your alternative is based in greed: greedy people you justify trying to steal the results of work or investment they did not do.
Really? What did the tinkerer do to be able to sell his wares elsewhere?
There is also the elephant in the living room: the greedy ruling class that gets much more power when you take "our" decisions and make them "the government's" decisions.
Hint: In a democracy, WE are the government.
As for the tinker example, "the next town" spoiled it. What if the peddler sells in the same town, the same street?
Then he is directly stealing, not from the tinkerer, but from the customer- who could simply walk to the tinkerer and get a better price. The robbery is still happening when the peddler charges an unfair price. There is simply NO room for middle men in a guild economy at all.
None of the statements has supported class warfare. have yet to make decisions from a framework of "class warfare".
Then why do you support the right of an upper class to BE upper class, if you do not support class warfare?
Profit is usually only offered if earned.
No it isn't. It's offered whenever the business has sufficient excess stolen from the workers.
Yes. From the work/effort of the one earning it.
And what WORK would that be? Shuffling paper?
A worker should only get a dividend if he has risked the fruits of his labor by investing in stock in the company.
Only workers should be allowed to invest in the company to begin with- no others EVER should.
The CEO is one of the workers himself/herself. Good CEO's are much rarer than someone who rivets seats.
No CEO ever works- he just shuffles paper and oppresses the workers. Paper shuffling is not work.
This bargaining results in the pay being for the real value of the work.
That's not bargaining, it's slavery based on a surplus of human labor. Bargaining happens between equals- this statment in and of itself is a decision based on a framework of class warfare.
Do you know the value of this? It was all pretty small.
It was enough to secure the means of retail- and the ability to oppress the workers.
Read the book of how he got rich. You have no idea.
I have read the book- and just how he came up with the idea that by lowering wages (controlling costs) he could increase profit for himself. That all of his workers had to be on food stamps was beside the point to him- lowering wages and controling costs were paramount.
Actually? Not. The Wal-Mart workers are paid for the real value of their work.
Then why did they have to go on food stamps? And why does Wal-Mart make a 40% profit? No, the real value of their work would have been their wages AND a 40% commission on whatever they sold.
If someone were to invest in your small business
I wouldn't let them. Investors not related to the business are EVIL and always bad for innovation.
do you argue that this would add nothing to your operation?
I in fact argue that it would subtract value from my operation- destroying my Just Wage.
True, but you can sell the goods a lot easier with investment.
No I can't- I'd have to pay a dividend back to the investor, destroying value for me.
Value is added to the operation.
You mean subtracted from.
It meets the definition of investment
No it doesn't- employees who are given a 401k are not free to make decisions about what to invest in, and thus, are not really investing. In addition, fund managers usually steal all the profits anyway, leaving the worker with neither a pension plan OR a retirenment account. 401(k)s are just another scam.
You may not like his work, but he has done whatever he has done by sitting at his Mac (?) and doing a lot of things.
Stealing other people's work is not "doing a lot of things". Finding other people's work to steal is not work.
That's a bit of clever work.
It's not work at all. No energy in, no energy out. No actual movement needed at all. It does not fit the clasical physics definition of work.
No-one with the title of "manager" ?
Why would one need somebody with the title of manager when there is only one person in the company?
The companies with management also pay for the real value of the work.
If they did, there'd be nothing left to pay the manager.
Both add value.
Neither adds value- both subtract from the value of the work because there is a need to pay somebody who isn't working.
Do you think that every personal decision should be up to a vote????
Business decisions aren't personal. They are an act of morality in a larger society. EVERY business decision affects countless other people. Therefore they simply aren't personal decisions.
This one requires some elaboration. Are you saying that peddling was illegal in medieval Europe? That a tinker would be forced to traipse all over the place to sell his wares?
More along the lines that the guilds controled the area one was allowed to sell one's wares- selling in the next town over would have been subverting the tinkerer of the next town over- stealing work from him as surely as stealing food from his children's mouths. The central idea of distributism is that GOODS SHOULD BE PRODUCED AS CLOSE TO THE END CONSUMER AS POSSIBLE and that MIDDLE MEN (RETAILERS) ARE IMMORAL. Only the worker has the right to set Just Wages and a Fair Price- and if his work is pleasing to Man and God, it will sell to those who need and want it. It's a far simpler model than your capitalism- for it is based in justice, not in greed.
Interesting, you shoo away three examples of someone earning something due to their own effort as being illegal under an oppressive theocratic State.
Worse than that- in each of your three examples, the worker involved was not the *only* victim- other victims are other workers in the same guild/industry whose work was displaced by your nefarious activities.
Anyone else would recognize someone receiving a fair reward for their work.
NONE OF YOUR THREE EXAMPLES DID ANY WORK! The first subverted local production illegally. The second, charged rent and stole from the worker the right to own the means of production. The third example of leaving property to a good-for-nothing son who did nothing to earn that property speaks for itself. No actual work was done in any example, therefore there can be no FAIR reward.
It is pretty clear to see why Marxism is a perverse and unnatural pseudo-religion that only has extremely disastrous results when applied to the real world.
Too bad you're wrong about that too- my counter examples were all drawn from Catholicism, not Marxism, and stood as the standard for a thousand years until some atheists destroyed it.
That is how disconnected it is.
Morality is the only thing that yeilds truth.
This is a pretty laughable statement, as it completely ignores the concept of initial investment, or it otherwise claims that "initial upfront investment is never a factor in the success of an enterprise."
Depends on what you mean by "success". If you mean providing a Just Wage to workers and a Fair Price to consumers as a measurement of success- the only one that I count- then upfront investment is largely immaterial and should be handled by one's Guild dues. If by success you mean providing and undue income to people who do no actual LABOR, then upfront investment is always the single largest factor of success of an entriprise.
So you are claiming that Gates and Dell have been sipping drinks on the beach every day?
No, they're too greedy for that- they're always in search of new "opportunities" to oppress more people, which I suppose YOU consider to be a form of work- I personally consider it to be a mental illness.
If you think that, then you are very very ignorant.
And if you think paper shuffling is "work" then you are very, very ignorant.
Let's put "profit" into simple terms, to dispell the notion that it is theft.
Ok, you can try.
There's a tinker who makes and repairs tin cups, lanterns, and the like. He likes to make them, and has poor personal skills and would be bad at selling his own wares.... Along comes the peddler. He pays two crowns for each cup from the tinker, and walks to the next village and sells these cups for 3 crowns. Considering the small cost of shoe wear, he's making nearly a crowns profit on those tin cups. Do you argue that this profit is stolen from the tinker?.
Yes it is. The tinker could get the same rate merely by going to the next town himself- no value was added, thus it is undue profit. And in fact, would have been illegal under guild law in medival Europe- the tinker's guild would have hunted down the pedler and forced him to return the crown stolen.
Now, in the same village, we have a mill. It would not be much of a mill if not for the nice big millstone that is rented from the quarrier.
Rent, too, was illegal in midevial Europe.
The quarrier gets a rental payment for making the mill possible with this nice large mill-stone. Do you think that the quarrier's rental payment is stolen from the miller?.
Yes, because the miller's guild would have paid the quarrier for the millstone outright, not rented it, as rents were illegal.
Up the stream from the mill is a large house. The builder has scraped and scrivened and has built from nothing what many nobles would accept as a decent manor house. However, he is getting on in years. He has decided to give this house he built to his son. Do you think this gift is not fair?"
The son should build his own house- not live in the house of the father. A real man creates his own home. Plus, under mideval law, you could only will to the Church or the Government, not to your children.
All three of the above were illegal examples under guild economics. Only Adam Smith, who wished to replace the monarchy with an oligarchy, changed this in the 1700s.
Whatver the nature of the car companies, have you considered what has driven so many automotive changes?
Certainly NOT where the cars are produced- and all of the changes could have been done without hampering quality.
They risk their own money in the company, greatly enhancing it.
Ah, but it's not their own money, it's the government's money. Billy Gates' face is not on the $1 bill. Also- I would say that any company that needs investment has been badly run from the begining.
As a result, they get a return on their investment.
And since they did no actual work- that return is stolen from the workers.
No, it only comes from value added by the profit earner.
And since investment adds only negative value- by giving up control over the company and removing that control from the workers- there should be no profit.
Under the tax cut, they are taxed once. But not twice.
Read it again- they're not taxed AT ALL.
It's not the government's money.
If it was anybody else's money, their signature would be on it. But no- only the Treasury Secretary of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
However, if you insist on controlling "money" inheritance, and leave the rest alone, I would call it a deal. Then the giver could convert the cash to diamonds, give diamonds to givee, who them sells them for money.
At which point we release the laws restricting the diamond market, and the bottom falls out (the only reason diamonds are valueable AT ALL is because the market is restricted).
See my other message about how even the smallest businesses need management.
I did- and from my own experience, the only small businesses that need management are those being run by idiots.
See other messages (and do some basic research) about the obvious fact that when someone gives your company a huge amount of $$$ to work with (investing), they are adding a lot of value.
Ah, but NO value is added to the product- just to the company. Thus no dividends should be taken from the sales of the product, just from the sale of the assets of the company.
It is a difference between a government decision and a personal decision.
You cannot make a "personal decision" that affects other people- at that point it becomes a government decision.
Look at this example. Do I wear one sock or two this morning? Quite a decision. Is it left to each sock-wearer, or do we have "the people" vote on it as a whole, and force the single democratic decision of "the people" on everyone?
Non-sequitor; a business decision is never a personal decision because it affects other people.
They aren't. They are nothing more than cooperative organizations of inviduals.
No- that's a cooperative. A corporation is a governmental body made up of investors who control a means of production and wish to create an underclass. Totally different animal.
I have yet to make decisions from a framework of "class warfare".
And yet- every single statement you've made has been in support of the status quo of class warfare. Which means that you are so into the framework that you can't see that you are a part of the framework.
Not only is it possible, this is what happens most of the time. This is because no profit is taken from workers (unless it is Enron eating the pension plan!).
It doesn't matter who is taking the profit- if a single dividend is offered, it had to come from somewhere. Since the ONLY people creating value are the workers, that dividend came from their labor, and is rightly theirs.
I support the people involved in deals to work out what is fair among them.
Can't be done until Maslow needs are met- without the basic Maslow needs, you don't have equals negotiating to begin with.
Since some jobs are worth a lot more than others, this involves working out the value of the work. The different salary scale is a creation of the workers.
And what "worker" stated that a CEO managment parasite gets to earn 400 times everybody else?
Equal pay for equal work" is what happens most of the time, since pay is based on the value of the work.
But pay is not based on the value of the work- pay is based on what the employer wants it to be, and if the worker doesn't like it, he can go elsewhere, there are plenty more where he came from (this is the meaning of human labor in surplus).
I was referring to the huge numbers of millionaires in the country, not this small list.
Not a single worker among them- all management and investors.
However, back to your list. Consider Sam Walton. How did he got on this list when he was alive?
By inheriting money from a great aunt that died which enabled him to buy his first store. All other money was made off of such low pay that his workers were on welfare- his payroll was subsidized by tax money.
How about them Rockefellers?
Many of them are still there- as are the Carnegies, the Mellons, etc. What of them are still alive- I'll grant you that once names make the list, there is a tendency for the family to spend so much time managing their money that they fail to breed.
Did you read the message? A huge value is added when someone invests in a company. Ask anyone you know who is in small business, they will tell you.
I own a small business- and know for a fact that the value comes from WORK, not from INVESTMENT. Investment is just the means of production, not the actual production. I can't sell investment, I can only sell finished goods.
Most Americans are investors and workers.
401k is not investing- it's a cheat to make sure that you have a bad retirement.
As for your list, Gates, Dell etc definitely work.
Gates hasn't actually WORKED a day in his life- all of his products were bought or pirated from others. Michael Dell never actually made a single machine- he buys on 90 day terms, sells for cost, and makes money off of the interest in between.
Most millionaires (we would agree they are upper class) got that way due to their own hard work.
Well, I've yet to meet one- they all have some scam going based on the time value of money rather than actual work.
You are correct if you substitute "ability and value of work" for "class".
Yes- that's a given. A classless society does not have such bogus distinctions. If you're separating people based on some quality that cannot be known and is totally imaginary- that's class.
Then how come small companies with no stockholders find they need management?
I actually find that small companies with no stockholders don't need management at all- if they need managment then they're doing something wrong, like paying people less than the true economic value of their worth
Are you blaming a mythical cabal as to the reason 1950's Fords rusted into the ground?
No, I'm blaming a very real cabal for failing to continue to produce cars of that quality.
That is how capitalism works out: a fair price for a just wage.
Then how would the investors, the capitalists, ever actually get any profit? Sorry, profit must come from the difference between a real wage and an unfair price- because the difference between a fair price and a fair wage is zero.
Every one of these people is a member of "the ruled": paying a large proportion of taxes.
With the Bush tax cut of 2001, dividends can no longer be taxed at all. Sorry- these people pay NO taxes on their dividends. So this is a lie.
If they were rulers, they would not pay a thing.
And since with the Bush tax cuts they don't- then they are rulers aren't they? Not that they ever paid that much in taxes to begin with- their limited liability corporations shield them from taxes, and have since 1896.
Inherited is fair: someone decided that they were worthy of it and gave it to them
Somebody gave them money that the government printed specifically so that the masses could be fed- that is FAIR to you? I call it a gross misuse of government funds at best.
Stole from the workers? This is, in reality, earning money (and the workers got back the value of what they put in).
But as I showed in the other message- ONLY the workers put in any value at all. Investors and management are parasites on the system.
That is a form of fascism: the government controlling a private matter that should be left to the people.
How can a vote of the people not be leaving it to the people? Unless, of course, you agree that only corporations are citizens- and real human beings have no rights.
Let the VOTE affect government only.
And since corporations are a form of government- let the vote affect the corporations.
Well, some people do wage it.
Yep, like you.
They try to foment "class" division. In this, it is similar to race warfare. However, the ones waging class warfare are not the ones who do nothing more wrong than earn a lot of money.
It is impossible under the current system to earn a lot of money without formenting "class" divisions by taking undue profit from one's workers. You admitted this below.
I'm writing in favor of all, regardless of "class" distinctions.
Then why do you support the right of the upper class to CREATE a lower class by paying a different salary scale? If you're against class distinctions, then everybody should earn equal pay for equal work.
It should also be remembered that most members of the "Upper Classes" are workers as well.
That's a lie- most members of the upper classes are INVESTORS, not workers.
How did they get to the upper classes? by working.
No- by inheritance as can be shown in the Forbes lists that NEVER have new surnames.
You are paying them the full amount of their labor.
Their labor is the only value added- if you were paying them the full amount, there'd be no profit left over.
The profit comes from something you added to it.
And since managment and stockholders add no value- because they do no labor, no work- there should be no profit.
Earning is not theft.
It is when you did not labor for it.
Why use the word theft when it does not apply?
Because it DOES apply.
The stockholder invests, allowing the company to purchase and improve their factories, and a lot more.
In other words- only control over the means of production. NO real value added at all- if the means of production were owned by the people, democratically, to begin with there would be no need for the investors at all.
A hell of a lot more. Seat installers are a dime a dozen.
But without the seat installer, there is no value added to the airplane, and the factory is utterly worthless.
Dilbert aside, if management was that much of a problem, few companies would have it.
Management is there for ONE reason only- they are the shock troops of the upper class for the creation of a lower class. Without managment, you would not be able to create a lower class, and there would be no profit.
In many cases, they are parasites, but in most cases managers are the ones who have the necessary organizational skills to greatly improve the company.
"Organizational skills" is a code word for separating human beings into jobs dependant upon class- how managment "improves" the company is by ensuring the stockholders that they will get good "return on their investment" by stealing the fruits of the labor of the workers.
Well, this applies if someone is giving the Brooklyn Bridge to their son, but what does that have to do with anything?
It also applies when someone gives a large amount of money- money being printed by the government and therefore owned by the government.
It is not anti-democratic;
It creates class- and above you claimed to be against anything that creates class. Such a process that creates class is anti-democratic.
it is just a personal matter that a government has no business meddling in.
Then why is a government official signing all of those little green pieces of paper that the person inherited?
You preceeded this with mention of a whacky conspiracy theory.
No theory at all- as you have proven by your lies.
3 reasons:
You're coparing apples to oranges- I said that "the lower 75% can't afford their own health insurance", not that the lower 75% didn't have health insurance.
The January 2005 Medicaid/Medicare reform act limited benefits to those making 45% of poverty level, which lost a lot of people their last hope for medical care of any sort. Since this just happened this month, your 2002 census report is out of date.
If you haven't noticed, the health insurance market is currently in a hyperinflationary state. What was a $300/month policy in 2002 is now a $600/month policy, which prices a larger percentage of people out of the market on the top end.
You ignored the question. How viable is this? How many 1950 Fords are out there? Are there enough so that just the Toyota owners could buy them instead of Toyotas?
Not anymore- but that's exactly my point. The oligarchy by limiting production to certain low-wage areas of the world forces us into buying inferior products at inflated prices- the situation where stockholders stand to make the most profit, not the situation where the best product is made at a Fair Price for a Just Wage.
Capitalism is nothing more than workers having the freedom to make their own econommic decisions.
That's not what Adam Smith said- Adam Smith said that Capitalism was the tyranny of the means of production- those who control the means of production control the market.
Capitalism can only be eliminated with the imposition of a super-strong fascist state.
Not at all- all it takes is a reasonable limit on the accumulation of wealth, OR a significant other nation manipulating it's currency price to undercut the working class of the targeted nation in economic warfare (like China is currently doing to Mexico, Canada, and the United States).
In such a state, there is only one capitalist: the dictator. Otherwise, if you leave people to their own devices, you will have capitalism.
There's another form- the people actually VOTE for what should be done and control the means of production. The difference here being instead of a single dictator, you have the tyranny of the masses- something class warriors like you are afraid of.
How many Americans are there now? 300,000,000? This is some oligarchy: it has 300,000,000 members.
Only 2000 of those actually own anything at all- the rest are debt slaves and not members of the oligarchy.
What about the rest of the list?
A representative sample shows that while the rest of the list may move up and down, only 500 surnames are represented, and only 2000 individuals. Sometimes individuals drop off the bottom or join the bottom- but there are many surnames not represented who will never be represented, because they are not a part of the inherited oligarchy and never will be. Mere debt slaves all.
None of these people are oligarchs. They are among the ruled, not the rulers.
Bullshit- they own the "rulers", those puppets they put up for the people to vote for, bribed with campaign finance. None of the so-called "rulers" can do anything without the oligarchy- because to do so would cost them campaign financing needed to "win" elections. Of course, the oligarchy gives to both "sides" of the two party system- effectively making sure that the limited liability corporations that they control, not human beings, will be the only entities with any true rights at all.
This statistic is meaningless when you realize that these 25% own wealth they created or earned themselves,
Except for of course that they didn't- they inherrited that wealth or stole it from the workers, they did no labor to create value themselves.
and the wealth is not a zero-sum game.
That's a lie as well- there are a finite number of atoms in the solar system, and therefore wealth is finite. In any given borders, wealth is therefore limited and thus wealth is indeed a zero sum game- regardless of the fakery of the financial sector that makes it look like it isn't.
Just because someone has wealth does not mean someone else does not.
Really? You can duplicate elements so that two people can have possession of the same item in two different locations? When did you achieve this supernatural power?
Such statistics are used to play on jealousy and greed.
Any more than hiring a worker for less than he is worth does just so that you can live in luxury?
Another fake crisis: health insurance != health care. Did you know that 100% of Americans lack food insurance? A crisis!
Mythical "class warfare" is not involved here.
Class warfare is not mythical- and it's in fact the whole point of this online discussion. You wouldn't be writing in favor of the upper classes if it wasn't for your own involvement in the oppression of workers- therefore this very post is evidence that class warfare exists.
Profit results after someone is paid for the actual value of their economic input.
In that case profit should always be zero- if you're paying somebody the full amount of the actual value of their economic input, then there is nothing left over for stockholders AT ALL. Since this is not the case- you're obviously lying in support of your side of the class warfare.
Profit is earned from adding value to something. That is all it is.
And since stockholders do not add value to a company- they only subtract from a company's value- any profit that stockholders take must be stolen from the workers.
These people (none of whom were members in an oligarchy_ were living off of what they earned themselves.....
Really? What value does, say, a stockholder in Boeing add to an airplane? In comparison to say, the guy who installed the seats? Or rivited together the skin? Better yet- does managment add any actual value, or are they too just parasites on the system?
Whether or not we are for or against it, it is not our business at all what one family member chooses to give another family member.
It is when what is given is the natural resources and/or invented resources of the government paid for with our tax dollars. Heck- for that matter, since dollars are printed and managed by the government- any wealth paid for with dollars is subject to the democratic process. Since inherritance is anti-democratic, it should be banned (oddly enough, one of the richer members of the oligarchy, William Gates Sr., agrees with me on that and wrote a book against the accumulation of wealth intergenerationally. He succeeded in his own life by requiring Billy Jr. to pay back that $100,000 loan that started Microsoft- and hasn't given him a cent since). You seem to have bought into a large number of the lies of the current oligarchy- from the time value of money on up to the present day attempt to steal government away from the people and put it into the hands of the multinational corporations- and I believe that until you've rid yourself of these lies, you have no chance at all of understanding the different levels I'm discussing.