Wealth Distribution

Clever comic, but it leads to more questions than answers.

First, it doesn't answer my original question: How much money does [the worker] get?

Capital doesn't stimulate production. It is the result of production. The real problem is that the result of production (capital) is stolen from those who produce it.

Money cannot produce money, Assets cannot produce more assets. The only thing that can produce is labour.

It is tempting, and understandably so, for those people who have worked their rings off and look at the rewards for their own labour, to say to themselve "this is capital - the reward for my labour" and this is, of course, true. No socialist worth his salt is going to deny anyone the fruits of their own labour. The rewards justly belong to the producer of the wealth - which is precisely why these rewards can never justly belong to those whose only "input" into a process is capital.

This is the source of a lot of muddled thinking. It's the muddled idea that workers who do well for themselves, by their own effort are "middle class". They are not. They are simply successful and relatively well off workers. The middle class are those who seek to earn an income from investing capital, instead of working for a living. In a nutshell, they are bludgers who seek to tax production. Furthermore, unlike elected governments who at least have a mandate to tax (by free consent of the governed), the capitalists have never been given the free consent of the true creators of capital (the workers) to tax their labour.

The proof of this is self evident. If I add my pile of money to your pile of money, If I add my iron ore deposit to the stash of gold you have hidden in your chimney, without adding labour to the equation, the result is obvious - Diddly Squat.

Even if the workers did freely consent to this theft of the fruits of their labour, it would not solve the central economic problem of capitalism - it doesn't work. This is why we have repeated boom-bust cycles, people lose their investments and the whole cycle repeats itself with a whole new bunch of suckers to invest their money and an inexplicably willing next generation of workers who acquiesce to this absurdity as a result of relentless propaganda exhorting them to be patriotic, not to be "unamerican", not to be goddammed "pinkos", "commies" and any other totally meaningless epithets that the right wing can come up with. " John Locke's tacit consent" ?? I don't think so. This is onerous persuasion. It's intellectual repression. It's the implicit threat of some undefined disenfranchisement of those who dare to refuse to conform - those who are "unamerican", god will curse you, you don't belong here, you are not part of the herd...................

I haven't had time, frankly, to read the whole thread, but I'd be willing to bet that it (in places, and from the usual suspects) follows the usual hackneyed formula of comparative morality, eg. because Joe Stalin was a monster, then it "logically follows" that socialism is fundamentally at fault. (This makes about as much sense as the Wright Brothers saying to themselves "Because powered flight hasn't been made to work successfully to date, we shouldn't try to build on the experience of others and see if we can't get an aeroplane to fly".

Today's Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped over yesterday's record high. It's a "golden age" for corporate profits, which are the largest share of the economy since 1950. But the portion that goes to employees is close to the lowest since 1966. Both liberal and conservative economists are worried because the gap between the rich and the poor is growing so fast. The gap is also alarming Democrats — and some Republicans.

...Your point of veiw on wealth distribution reminds me of the time when Dan Quayle , on the campaign trail , jumped out of his limo at a fast food restaurant that had a help wanted sign posted...Dan wanted to prove that there were jobs and used this as a sound bite opportunity...In my world i see the cost of living sky-rocketing and my wages buying less and less..I'm sure many of the posters here are in the same boat..? Sincerely...RJ

.I occasionally work weekends in addition to the 50 hrs. i work during the week while finding time to ski.

And Ken, I most certianly do not know, much less believe, that the most wealthy achieved their wealth by bending the rules. That, too, is an article of faith by the Enviers, with rather scant evidence to back it up.