'You Didn't Build That'

[© tweed]

he is of course correct; the wage-slaves employed by a business 'build' the business, and the socialized costs re: building roads, bridges, and communication networks provide the necessary atmosphere for profit-making, free of charge.  if only Mr President would go further, and if only he had moved left along with his rhetoric post-Occupy.

[© tweed]

How many times do we need to explain this, if capital was fairly distributed, the workers would have built some public housing or some other useful project like a road or an aqueduct or whatever was popular at the time.
tl; dr: capital is an artificial concept that is made up to rob workers from fruits of their labor.

Hahaha, what? Are you trolling or do you actually think like this?

Everybody not on the deluded right-wing thinks like this Gustaf.  Its the obvious reality.

I know plenty of left-wing people who understand economics. None of them would ever make a statement that ridiculous.

yeah cause to you Paul Krugman is the end-point of the 'respectable' left-wing.  there is another left out there, one you should pay attention to, one the most brilliant minds that have been have paid attention to -- at stake, is your soul.

[© tweed]

I don't think any of us are denying the necessity of some semblance of a market.

why offer this?  in the New World, there will be football games, and people will bet on them, and others still will book the bets.  markets always and ever take the place of where the human mind cannot reach.  when time runs out, turn to markets; otherwise, compassion and intelligence and empathy Save the Day.

[© tweed]

Well, since Obama only chose to lecture the rich, is he not saying, in effect, "You business owners, in particular, you are not making effective use of your capital; therefore, the government is going to take it from you and put it to more effective use."

It is insane to single out and lecture business people and basically accuse them of not making effective use of their capital when they are the ones who accepted the risks to go into business and actually become effective enough to hire people to help them run his/her business.  For not only were they effective enough to generate income for others, not just themselves, but they were effective enough to generate tax revenue for the government.

No, the whole point is that the idea that the capital should be 'theirs' is the problem.  Private property = slavery.

There can't be freedom without private property, opebo. Why is it so difficult for you to understand this?

Private property prevents freedom, personal does not. I don't expect a right winger to understand this though.

How am I free if somebody can just come and take things I need?

to have some starting point for understanding the difference between possessions and private property for discussions like these, you could review some texts re: the everyday life of an average urban citizen in the Soviet Union.  you could 'own' pencils but not forests, cars but not automobile factories.