'You Didn't Build That'

[Gustaf]

The point is obviously how replaceable someone is. Someone who is replaceable can't really take that much credit.

[Gustaf]

The workers then are individually replaceable but collectively obviously not. I don't know that that's necessarily any less relevant than Ludwig being (ostensibly) individually irreplaceable.

I'm sorry, but the whole Ludwig thing is a really stupid distraction from the actual point here.

Of course, there needs to be some workers but that's still stupid. Must Federer share his credit for winning Wimbledon with the tennis balls because he couldn't have done it without some tennis balls? If I cook a great meal must I share the credit with the salt and my stove?

A common line in a thank you speech is "I could not have done this without you." The reason is that that's how we acknowledge credit. If I could have replaced you with someone else your share of the credit is at least rather small.

[Gustaf]

The reason he could order them about so was because they agreed to let him do it in exchange for money

No, they do it because if they don't they will die.  Money is just a method for coercion, Vosem.

They could refuse to work for Ludwig and attempt to get a job somewhere else. In the long run, of course, unless you inherit a substantial sum, if you don't work you will die. (And even if you do, if you are careless with it you can waste it quite quickly -- as I recall some music singer spent $55 million in six months? Can't remember who, though).

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?

[Gustaf]

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.

[Gustaf]

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.

Dude, it is an expression of preference - you like for the workers to be slaves, we don't like it.  It isn't a disputation of 'fact'.

It's not about preference. The statement clearly conveys a lack of understanding of what capital is and how it impacts the productive process.

[Gustaf]

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.

Well, I prefer my societies to be without mass-slaughtering or mass-starvation. I guess that makes me non-brilliant to some of you.

Nathan, I'm not sure you understand the way markets work and why they work. It's not really something you can construct based on whatever arbitrary principle you personally like. Which is what jmfcst was saying - I got his analogy just fine.

[Gustaf]

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.

Well, I prefer my societies to be without mass-slaughtering or mass-starvation. I guess that makes me non-brilliant to some of you.

Nathan, I'm not sure you understand the way markets work and why they work. It's not really something you can construct based on whatever arbitrary principle you personally like. Which is what jmfcst was saying - I got his analogy just fine.

Nice generalization.

Without markets and democracy, that's what you get. There's no point in beating around the bush there.

[Gustaf]

Nathan, I'm not sure you understand the way markets work and why they work. It's not really something you can construct based on whatever arbitrary principle you personally like. Which is what jmfcst was saying - I got his analogy just fine.

The point I was trying to make was germane to regulation and to how we socially conceptualize markets, not to what a market's necessarily actually 'doing' at its core. I think we probably had different ideas of what jmfcst's point was supposed to be.

You seemed to be saying that we can decide what motives drive actors in the market, but that's pretty dubious. But it's possible that I misunderstood you.

[Gustaf]

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.

Private property is pretty much a necessity for a functioning economy. But I don't expect  left winger to understand that though.

[Gustaf]

Nathan, I'm not sure you understand the way markets work and why they work. It's not really something you can construct based on whatever arbitrary principle you personally like. Which is what jmfcst was saying - I got his analogy just fine.

The point I was trying to make was germane to regulation and to how we socially conceptualize markets, not to what a market's necessarily actually 'doing' at its core. I think we probably had different ideas of what jmfcst's point was supposed to be.

You seemed to be saying that we can decide what motives drive actors in the market, but that's pretty dubious. But it's possible that I misunderstood you.

He'll correct me if I'm putting the wrong words in his mouth, but I think what Nathan was getting at with that comment was that we should have some regulation to muzzle the market and try - to the extent that it's possible  - to harness the maximum positive and reduce the negative effects of a free market system.

I mean, let's say taxes may reduce the incentive to earn, but that still doesn't make it okay for a modern country not to have tax-funded public healthcare, and so on.

Oh, then I just misread him. That part sort of goes without saying, in my opinion. I got the impression that he views markets as a social construct that could be anything and I disagree with that assessment.

[Gustaf]

I would simply have to say your last two sentences are lies outright; a) in the modern Western world, workers aren't killed; b) society is disorganized, difficult to predict, and totally unlike a big machine; c) those at the top have to know how to stay at the top, which is difficult. It will be impossible for us to debate if we can't agree on what the facts are, opebo.

In fact they are killed, Vosem, but in ways that may not be so obvious to you.  Certainly their lives are taken forcibly from them.  Society is in fact organized and predictable (and after all a machine is far from completely predictable).  And those at the top are not there by virtue of knowing anything, they're there by virtue of position-in-the-system - capital or in other words power.  Any toils related to keeping those at the top at the top are done by those they control, not by the controllers.

Nobody's life is taken from them forcibly. They have to work, but consider that society would collapse if nobody did any work -- somebody's got to, and those that don't have money have something clear to gain from doing work (money). You don't actually explain how they are killed, so I will simply continue to maintain that they are not. Those at the top are there by virtue of how much money they have, that's true, and I honestly can't think of a better system. There are no toils related to keeping them there -- they stay there by virtue of inertia if they are smart and know how to use their money. If they are not smart, eventually they fall (go bankrupt) no matter how many workers are on their payroll.

Vosem, It's pretty easy to explain how the workers are killed, I will do that since opebo doesn't like to burden himself with specifics.  For example take Walmart, which has an annual profit of $14 billion for year of 2011 and employs 2 million workers, you can check these figures on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. That means that $7700 is the amount of money it unfairly withholds from each worker's salary. Now, we will go to the most obvious example of how Walmart kills it's workers, we know that most Wal-mart workers don't have health insurance. I am going to assume all of them don't have health insurance, since that's not very far from truth.  We know there are about 50 million uninsured workers in US, and that means 1/25 of those work in walmart. We associate about 45,000 deaths to uninsured in United states. That means walmart kills almost 2000 of its workers annually by illness. If we take other things into account, that number is a lot higher. Considering that 2000/2 million is about 1/1000, that means wal-mart will kill about 4% of it's workforce over it's life time(or maybe even higher, since many walmart workers will never be able to retire). And keep in mind Vosem, these are very low estimates.

Lol, are you for real? Don't you understand the role of capital in production?

[Gustaf]

I would simply have to say your last two sentences are lies outright; a) in the modern Western world, workers aren't killed; b) society is disorganized, difficult to predict, and totally unlike a big machine; c) those at the top have to know how to stay at the top, which is difficult. It will be impossible for us to debate if we can't agree on what the facts are, opebo.

In fact they are killed, Vosem, but in ways that may not be so obvious to you.  Certainly their lives are taken forcibly from them.  Society is in fact organized and predictable (and after all a machine is far from completely predictable).  And those at the top are not there by virtue of knowing anything, they're there by virtue of position-in-the-system - capital or in other words power.  Any toils related to keeping those at the top at the top are done by those they control, not by the controllers.

Nobody's life is taken from them forcibly. They have to work, but consider that society would collapse if nobody did any work -- somebody's got to, and those that don't have money have something clear to gain from doing work (money). You don't actually explain how they are killed, so I will simply continue to maintain that they are not. Those at the top are there by virtue of how much money they have, that's true, and I honestly can't think of a better system. There are no toils related to keeping them there -- they stay there by virtue of inertia if they are smart and know how to use their money. If they are not smart, eventually they fall (go bankrupt) no matter how many workers are on their payroll.

Vosem, It's pretty easy to explain how the workers are killed, I will do that since opebo doesn't like to burden himself with specifics.  For example take Walmart, which has an annual profit of $14 billion for year of 2011 and employs 2 million workers, you can check these figures on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. That means that $7700 is the amount of money it unfairly withholds from each worker's salary. Now, we will go to the most obvious example of how Walmart kills it's workers, we know that most Wal-mart workers don't have health insurance. I am going to assume all of them don't have health insurance, since that's not very far from truth.  We know there are about 50 million uninsured workers in US, and that means 1/25 of those work in walmart. We associate about 45,000 deaths to uninsured in United states. That means walmart kills almost 2000 of its workers annually by illness. If we take other things into account, that number is a lot higher. Considering that 2000/2 million is about 1/1000, that means wal-mart will kill about 4% of it's workforce over it's life time(or maybe even higher, since many walmart workers will never be able to retire). And keep in mind Vosem, these are very low estimates.

Lol, are you for real? Don't you understand the role of capital in production?

Wal-mart workers now posses the capital, what's the problem?

You seem to think that capital owners getting a share of the revenue is stealing from the employees, which indicates that you don't understand the role played by capital in producing things.

Your sentence is not really comprehensible to me either. There is plenty of research about how investment works which you could look at.