'You Didn't Build That'

[LastVoter]

The reason he is nevertheless the builder, even if he never touched a brick and mortar and hired workers to do it, is simply that had he not decided that should be built it wouldn't've been.

So, in exactly the same way that mad King Ludwig 'built' this:

He was an idiot for doing so, but yes, the chief person behind the building of the castle was Mad King Ludwig. The workers deserve some credit, of course, but he deserves more.

Lol.  The King didn't lay a single stone in building of the castle, so all the credit goes to the worker.

[LastVoter]

He was an idiot for doing so, but yes, the chief person behind the building of the castle was Mad King Ludwig. The workers deserve some credit, of course, but he deserves more.

'Credit'?  The only reason he could order them about so was because he had Power - he could kill them.  It is no different with the present controllers, Vosem.  I've no objection to your congratulating them for the blood on their hands, if that's your taste.

The reason he could order them about so was because they agreed to let him do it in exchange for money, an act that has been a key part of functioning societies for thousands of years. Ironically, nowadays Ludwig's legacy brings tourism to Bavaria, and tourism is one of the key reasons Bavaria is the richest part of Germany today. There's no blood on Ludwig's hands.

The reason he is nevertheless the builder, even if he never touched a brick and mortar and hired workers to do it, is simply that had he not decided that should be built it wouldn't've been.

So, in exactly the same way that mad King Ludwig 'built' this:

He was an idiot for doing so, but yes, the chief person behind the building of the castle was Mad King Ludwig. The workers deserve some credit, of course, but he deserves more.

Lol.  The King didn't lay a single stone in building of the castle, so all the credit goes to the worker.

The worker wouldn't've built it if the King hadn't payed for it to be designed and then built. More credit goes to the King than anyone else. Some credit goes to the worker, but certainly not all or even most. (Also, as I recall Ludwig personally laid the cornerstone on Neuschwanstein, so he did lay at least that one.)

The worker would have built it or an equally impressive structure if there was no King and all the capital(fruits of labor) were in the rightful hands of the worker. The designer is also most likely a worker(engineer & architect).

[LastVoter]

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.

[LastVoter]

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.

Everybody having the same amount isn't fair, though. At all. And, no, of course they wouldn't've for absolutely no short-term gain.

As opposed to one man having all the stuff and doing no work?

[LastVoter]

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.

[LastVoter]

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.

[LastVoter]

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.

Considering my parents and grandparents were actual urban citizens of the USSR, I have far more understanding of this topic than you do and would be offended if you disagreed. I can assure you people in the USSR strived to emigrate to places like the US where people can own automobile factories. Why? Because they work better. Because forests owned by people and not the government are used more economically. And so on. Of course individuals should be able to own pencils, forests, cars, and automobile factories.

All you have to do is think, Tweed, it isn't so very hard.

This is so absurd, most people(including me) were trying to escape the right-wing regime of the 90's not socialism.

[LastVoter]

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.

[LastVoter]

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?