This is probably not the right place to indulge in such a discussion, but yours is a very common fallacy, so I'll bite anyway.
If company X announces a net rate profit of 20 per cent and the cost of all the machinery, factories and so on that it owns is $100 million, then it's left with $20 million profit after paying the wages, raw material costs, and the cost of replacing the machinery that wears out in a year. In other words, after five years the company will have made a total profit of $100 million, i.e., the full cost of the original investment.
It can't be denied that:
1) the capitalists have been paid back completely for the money they have put in in the first place;
2) the capitalists are twice as wealthy as before: they still owns his original investment plus the accumulated profits!
As a matter of fact, all this taking about "reaping rewards for risk-taking" assumes that money has the property to grow like a plant or an animal, but the capacity of money to grow really lies in the buying and selling of labour.
Now, I may or may not be "another crazy left winger on slashdot", but it seems to me that the balance is not quite right here.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the actual link to Meridian 59".
This is probably not the right place to indulge in such a discussion, but yours is a very common fallacy, so I'll bite anyway.
;-)
If company X announces a net rate profit of 20 per cent and the cost of all the machinery, factories and so on that it owns is $100 million, then it's left with $20 million profit after paying the wages, raw material costs, and the cost of replacing the machinery that wears out in a year. In other words, after five years the company will have made a total profit of $100 million, i.e., the full cost of the original investment.
It can't be denied that:
1) the capitalists have been paid back completely for the money they have put in in the first place;
2) the capitalists are twice as wealthy as before: they still owns his original investment plus the accumulated profits!
As a matter of fact, all this taking about "reaping rewards for risk-taking" assumes that money has the property to grow like a plant or an animal, but the capacity of money to grow really lies in the buying and selling of labour.
Now, I may or may not be "another crazy left winger on slashdot", but it seems to me that the balance is not quite right here.