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HermitMaster
Social climber
my abode
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Jan 24, 2019 - 07:20pm PT
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If the top 28 people each had 100 billion dollars (which they don't) then that would add up to 2.8 trillion dollars.
The 2018 federal budget will be in the neighborhood of $4.407 trillion by the time it all shakes out.
How much of the US budget is spent on social security?
Social Security is by far the biggest expense at $1.046 trillion. Medicare is next at $625 billion, followed by Medicaid at $412 billion. All added together is 2,083 trillion.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jan 24, 2019 - 07:42pm PT
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Pendejo indeed.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jan 24, 2019 - 07:53pm PT
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Curious watching the wanna- be 26ers on supertopo raging against the less fortunate and cheer leading for the ultra rich elite who don't give a rats ass about the upper middle class topians...You could be part of the 26 if only you had made the right choices...Beat that chest a little harder...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2019 - 08:10pm PT
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Yet, you seem to be nursing a lingering butthurt.
not that I know of.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2019 - 08:24pm PT
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what is it about "self" that you own? you are not free to sell your self as you are your property.
you did not have any control in it's creation, and you have little control of its natural end... which is assured regardless of your actions.
much of your self is inherited. much of your self is learned from others, first off, your parents (or guardians).
it is clear that other living creatures have a sense of self, does that entitle them to ownership too? what are the ethics regarding their treatment?
I own a car, does that mean I have a right to the resources required to run the car? you would argue that since I own my self, I have a right to the resources required to sustain myself?
the connection is not clear. there seems no such "right" in the evolution of the species.
you cannot sell yourself, but you can sell your labor, so if there is a market for your labor you can be paid for its use, you might reach an agreement with others who pool their labor together, and negotiate as a group for the price of that collective labor.
if you generalize labor to your capabilities, it would seem a similar arrangement could be made with others to band together to negotiate the price of those collective capabilities.
it would seem that making such collective arrangements is legitimate, an expression of self.
I always viewed the Declaration of Independence as essentially a position paper questioning the authority of a monarch. The "endowment" argument is a pure conjecture (as is the divine right of monarchs).
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Aeriq
Sport climber
100-year Visitor
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Jan 24, 2019 - 09:13pm PT
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Interestingly Ed, you often speak in this detached way - do you see it reading back, or does it just make good sense?
Many of your good messages are lost through this particular way of presenting your knowledge.
You got good stuff, just soften it up a bit - find some humanity in the clinical... and get a humor consultant.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jan 24, 2019 - 09:22pm PT
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Jan 24, 2019 - 10:34am PT
Gary, oh Gary. In EVERY thread you post the same, sad, old saw. Apparently Debs is the only "thinker" you've been exposed to.
Not at all.
EVERY place what you advocate has been tried, that place economically implodes. Even China doesn't abide by Debs anymore.
The only place it was ever tried was in certain parts of Spain in the 1930s, and the fascists and Soviet "communists" could let them live.
And do you really believe China is socialist or communist? They are as capitalist as it gets.
Wake up and smell the reality.
Oh, and as I've asked EVERY time you've posted your old saw, I'll ask again: What do the two catch-phrases even mean?
It's very simple to understand. You are highly educated, you should be able to comprehend that sentence. Let me rephrase: a person gets to keep the wealth he produces, and a person gets no more wealth than that which he produces.
For some reason you just refuse to understand. So it goes.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jan 24, 2019 - 09:25pm PT
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Let me rephrase: a person gets to keep the wealth he produces, and a person gets no more wealth than that which he produces.
No doubt you're talking about wages--again. If you also mean to include profits and rents, well, welcome aboard!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2019 - 09:56pm PT
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Many of your good messages are lost through this particular way of presenting your knowledge.
I'm only human, and just a simple physicist...
...not looking to make a laugh or convert anyone to my view, just trying to understand the arguments of a field I am not expert in.
My expressions of humanity find outlets away from the STForum, apparently.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 24, 2019 - 09:57pm PT
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Historians will view fifty years of a post-WWII middle class as an oligarchic anomaly which spawned endless memes of delusional entitlement until slavery by other means was promptly reinstated.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 24, 2019 - 10:13pm PT
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Dunno if George Soros is on that list but
‘The billionaire philanthropist George Soros has used his annual speech at the World
Economic Forum, in Davos, to launch a scathing attack on China and its president Xi Jinping.
Mr Soros warned that artificial intelligence and machine learning could be used to entrench
totalitarian control in the country. He said this scenario presented an "unprecedented danger".
But he said the Chinese people were his "main source of hope".
"China is not the only authoritarian regime in the world but it is the wealthiest, strongest and technologically most advanced," he said, noting concerns too about Vladimir Putin's Russia.
This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of open societies," he said.
Mr Soros, a prominent donor to the Democratic Party in the US, also criticised the Trump
administration's stance towards China.
"Instead of waging a trade war with practically the whole world, the US should focus on China," he said. “
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46996116
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 24, 2019 - 11:04pm PT
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what is it about "self" that you own? you are not free to sell your self as you are your property.
I actually explained these very things. Sorry you missed it.
You ARE free to sell yourself. People do it all the time. My little thought experiment even talked about selling off bits of yourself in exchange for time; we do similar things as this quite commonly. And we obviously sell off our more precious commodity, time, in exchange for all sorts of perceived goods.
If you're asking for a definition of "self," well, as I said, that is for another tome. There is a HUGE literature surrounding personal identity. No way to even scratch the surface of that here! But nobody on this thread is denying that they ARE a "self," which is all that matters for our purposes.
Bottom line is that if you don't believe in self-ownership, then I challenge you to give an account of why slavery is wrong. And if you head down the "we don't like it" trail, then please know in advance that I'll be laughing heartily at that.
you did not have any control in it's creation, and you have little control of its natural end... which is assured regardless of your actions.
All irrelevant. At one point, I become aware of myself, and that awareness comes with agency and self-ownership.
As I said, there are book-length manuscripts on all of these topics, and I said in advance that all I could do on this thread was a "Cliff's Notes" account. Then, precisely as predicted, you start picking at the VERY pieces that I stated require substantial development on their own, such as: personal identity, agency, freedom, etc., all beyond the scope of this thread.
But you won't bother to follow up on those points on your own. We've had these sorts of conversations many times in the past. You want "succinct," AND then you require in-depth comprehensiveness.
Actually, you just want to cavil rather than to really grapple with all the pieces that make up a comprehensive viewpoint.
much of your self is inherited. much of your self is learned from others, first off, your parents (or guardians).
Irrelevant. And your "self" is not learned.
it is clear that other living creatures have a sense of self, does that entitle them to ownership too? what are the ethics regarding their treatment?
Perhaps. I don't know. Red herring.
I own a car, does that mean I have a right to the resources required to run the car? you would argue that since I own my self, I have a right to the resources required to sustain myself?
Do you have a RIGHT to run your car? Does ownership of it imply the right to run it? I don't see how; perhaps you'll explain it. Your car can CERTAINLY just sit there, not running, and thus not requiring any resources for you to effectively own it. Please explain how a person can just sit there without expending ongoing resources that need continual replenishment just to exist as a self. Bad analogy!
And, as I said, if you deny the sorts of rights I've described, you occupy a very odd position indeed and one that certainly would not be shared by those arguing that the "poor" have this whole pack of "rights" to the property of others.
Since you do seem to occupy this odd position, perhaps you'll provide an error theory regarding the intuitions that most of humanity shares regarding, say, the right to life.
the connection is not clear. there seems no such "right" in the evolution of the species.
As I said, perhaps you'll provide an error theory for us. I gave a nutshell biological account. You apparently don't like it. But virtually everybody has the same intuitions about the right to life, so your odd rejection of that needs an error theory.
And, given your rejection of the moral foundation shared by effectively all ethicists, I look forward to YOUR account of morality that satisfies your criterion of deriving from evolution.
you cannot sell yourself
I deny this. There are countless and obvious counterexamples. We do it ALL the time.
but you can sell your labor
And exactly HOW is this not just a selling of oneself?
so if there is a market for your labor you can be paid for its use, you might reach an agreement with others who pool their labor together, and negotiate as a group for the price of that collective labor.
Agreed! But how is this even POSSIBLE on your view?
You are in fact smuggling in the VERY ownership of self that you deny, when you talk about "your" labor. How could it POSSIBLY be "your" labor without a robust ownership of self?
if you generalize labor to your capabilities, it would seem a similar arrangement could be made with others to band together to negotiate the price of those collective capabilities.
Sure, but nobody is denying this point. You're off on some tangent. If anything, you are inadvertently expressing why communitarianism is wrong-headed. Individuals do logically precede communities/collectives, not, as communitarianism claims, the reverse logical relation.
it would seem that making such collective arrangements is legitimate, an expression of self.
Again, sure, but so what?
I always viewed the Declaration of Independence as essentially a position paper questioning the authority of a monarch.
A few people share your perspective. It's an odd one, to be sure. The problem that people like you face is that you don't seem to have an account of the legitimacy of this or that particular form of government.
* The entire raft of documents surrounding the formation of this nation discusses the legitimacy of government in principle. The discussion of "rights" is not tangential to the arguments of our founders. It is central! If not monarchy, then what? And why would the answer to that "what" question be a legitimate answer? If you don't like the answer the founders gave, then, again, you need to produce an error theory and a better alternative.
* Your alternative theory had better not reference anything related to mob-rule (which is all that a pure democracy or raw contract-theory amounts to). If you really want to go there, please give your account, and I'll be happy to systematically demolish it point by point, as you present it, because that perspective finds itself in dead-ends everywhere it turns.
The "endowment" argument is a pure conjecture (as is the divine right of monarchs).
So what? Nothing about what I presented depends upon "endowment," and I was explicit about that point.
In short, all I see in your response is caviling and rambling. Produce an error-theory and better alternative, and we can continue.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2019 - 11:48pm PT
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And we obviously sell off our more precious commodity, time, in exchange for all sorts of perceived goods.
what is it we are selling, our "time" is not the same as "self," you're deriving an equivalence, it seems, but I don't think your derivation makes much sense.
for the very basic needs, we do expend time to find the resources required for us to survive. Bumblebees do this too, from a metabolic point of view, time translates into required energy, and foraging for energy is required to survive, but the Bumblebee does not "sell" its time to acquire the energy. and certainly not in the sense of selling a commodity.
so too humans, in pre-history, the time required to forage for food was more like the Bumblebee, and not at all like your "selling time"
by what process is "time" transformed to a commodity? It is a relatively recent idea.
the ecology of the Bumblebee is not so different from the ecology of humans, and economy is a subfield of human ecology, economic theory would probably be better understood from this approach.
I did not think your "thought experiment" was very compelling.
What part of "self" do you loose with the loss of a finger? Is your ownership diminished?
What sense does it make that after a person is dead, that their "self" is still a commodity, which they no longer have any control over? This is certainly the case with trademark law, who owns Marilyn Monroe?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 25, 2019 - 12:27am PT
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a person gets to keep the wealth he produces, and a person gets no more wealth than that which he produces.
Well, actually, that rephrasing is quantum leaps better than the babbling version that Debs states. So, congrats on that point. I've been trying all along to prompt you to recognize that the version Debs shares NEEDS an explanation.
Now, to your version. It's ridiculous on the face of it.
"A person gets no more wealth than that which he produces."
First, what you really mean is "A person SHOULD get no more wealth than that which he produces." That must be what you mean, because by YOUR lights, at present the filthy capitalists take MORE wealth than that which they produce. Right? So, the descriptive version you provide is not even minimally accurate by your own lights. You need the normative version.
So, by your account, we need to clearly define both "produces" and "wealth," so that the exact and morally proper equation between them can be understood, and any disconnect can be deemed morally wrong.
I start by asking what "produces" means. I think you have more trouble here than you realize! See, you're going to have to define "produces" in terms of "wealth" or (Heaven help us) "capital."
If ALL you are saying is something like, "Production just is labor," then you have not accounted for WHAT it IS labor PRODUCES! And if you want to say that the PRODUCT of LABOR is, well, something other than WEALTH or CAPITAL, then I wait with bated breath to hear what that might be.
So, from what I can see of your account, you MUST be defining "produces" in terms of "wealth". But if that's the case, then your statement fails to explicate.
See, I WANT to understand from your account HOW I can know (for moral purposes) exactly how much WEALTH a person is entitled to. And I'm told, "Well, exactly, and no more, than what he PRODUCES." So, I ask, "Okay, so how can I tell how much he produces?" And your response would be something like, "Just look at the wealth that is produced."
Round and round we go. You are defining "wealth" in terms of "production," but you are then defining "production" in terms of "wealth."
This is the typical Communist circle, and it helps Communists obfuscate the MANY missing pieces to their convoluted puzzle.
The Communist sees only two pieces to the puzzle: Labor and Capital ("wealth"). What you call "produces" is just labor. I remind you that if I ask what "produces" means, you will revert to saying something like, "Labor produces wealth." And what you MEAN must be something like "ONLY labor produces wealth, and that is why labor should GET the wealth that it (and only it) produces."
And THAT fails to explicate precisely because it is NOT an adequate account of "wealth." For example:
* Risk produces wealth.
* Investment produces wealth.
* Invention/innovation produces wealth.
* Luck produces wealth.
And the litany of wealth-producing relations goes on.
Moreover, WHAT "wealth" IS cannot be neatly captured by your narrow-minded equation between LABOR and wealth. There are literally countless examples. Here is just one.
A woman writes a book. The publisher markets it and makes $10 million. The publisher pays the author $1 million. Many millions read the book and are edified and inspired. Many of those people go on to accomplish great things in their lives or just "feel really, really good" directly due to having read the book. Their own individual satisfaction in life is greatly increased, even though no "tangible assets" are "produced" as a result of reading the book. Yet, each of these people is HAPPY to trade money (wealth) in exchange for the edification they receive. So, these sorry saps exchanged "real wealth" for NOT wealth (on your model).
Now, explain where the "wealth" is in this scenario! If you're looking for "production" in the lives of the readers, good luck finding it, particularly if ALL the book "accomplished" was a good feeling. Yet this "good feeling" is one that the readers were willing to trade a small bit of their actual lives to enjoy! From a "wealth" qua labor or qua "production" point of view, paying for the book was a net loss to each reader who paid for the book.
The book generated $10 million, which is real money. But it's not "wealth" that can fit into your production=wealth model. You cannot even imagine to say that the AUTHOR'S "production" coupled with the publisher's marketing PRODUCED that wealth! That "wealth" emerged precisely because the readers were HAPPY to "take a loss" of "real wealth" in exchange for their "good feeling".
Worse for your model, BOTH the author and the publisher did very little in the way of "labor" or "production" for which they were "rewarded" handsomely with massive wealth! They didn't "earn" that wealth in anything like the model you espouse!
Now, perhaps you would say, "Well, the author AND the publisher were wildly overpaid! That should not be how it works!"
But why SHOULDN'T it work that way??? EVERYBODY is happy with the way the whole transaction worked out. Not one person complains that they were "abused" or "violated" in the transaction! With ALL of the cards on the table, EVERY person engaged in the transaction would play their exact same hand all over again.
So, you've got a VERY hard row to hoe to assert that some "wrong" was done here. But if it was RIGHT for such a transaction to take place, then your entire model evaporates! The entire relation you state that SHOULD exist in ALL transactions simply does not in this example.
And such examples are by far and away the RULE rather than the exception (as I'll further explain). And it is RIGHT for an author to work for, say, a year on some book (risking her time and energy for perhaps zero return!), and then, IF she was good AND lucky, she gets a massive reward for relatively little "production." Moreover, she gets ONGOING reward for that one-time effort! HOW can that work on your model??? And each person buying the book feels that THEY got ongoing reward for the time they invested in reading and the money they paid for the experience.
So in this scenario, please define "production" and "wealth." Was the "wealth" of the readers increased??? THAT is the critical question on your model! See, on your model, IF the readers didn't get a wealth-increase for what they paid, then they were ripped off, and the rip-off was EXACTLY the disparity between what "production" the author and publisher engaged in and the total amount paid by the readers.
But that's ridiculous!
The problem is that your model imagines some magical zero-sum game in which "production" must precisely equal "wealth" and in which ONLY the producer gets the wealth. But that is LITERALLY NEVER how it actually works in the world. Never.
Because Communists can ONLY think in terms of LABOR and the direct products of labor (which they define as "wealth"), the view literally cannot map onto actual reality. Your model seemingly "fits" (even then only badly) ONLY onto the paradigm cases of selling your time/labor for a specified amount of money, and where that trade "produces" a net increase in MONEY (which is all you can mean by "wealth"). Then, you assert that if any "extra" money is "produced" by that labor, ALL of the "net extra" belongs to the VERY person who "produced" the "extra."
But NONE of that makes any actual sense, and for literally countless reasons, all of which stem from the simple-minded notion of what each of the terms means.
The job in which the laborer works didn't magically appear, anymore than a book magically appears! Somebody that is NOT the "laborer" (on your model), somebody that is that filthy capitalist, took some of HIS money (that, I can tell you from personal experience, MOST of us EARNED "at a loss" on your very model), and he INVESTED it in an idea.
Now, what is that "idea" worth? HOW do you assign the "correct" value to that idea? To that investment? To that risk?
That is a CRITICAL question! I cannot overemphasize this point, because it is the death-blow to your (and the entire Communist) model.
Whether it's writing a book, producing a movie, getting really good at basketball, earning an advanced degree, or the COUNTLESS other ways that people invest in the future and take risks to do so, ALL of these investments THEMSELVES PRODUCE WEALTH!
Eventually, with more hard work, and often a quantity of luck, that IDEA "takes off," which just means that it starts becoming desirable to other people. They are willing to trade some of THEIR wealth to partake in that idea in some way. Thus, the IDEA ITSELF starts "producing wealth" for the originator/investor/filthy-capitalist.
Now that filthy-capitalist needs some help to "make more" of that idea. The filthy-capitalist has MORE wealthy than when he started, and that is precisely because OTHER bought into that idea with THEIR wealth. Already in the scenario, the filthy-capitalist's "production" is generating more "wealth" than he is "entitled" to, BECAUSE there is a net increase in "wealth" over and above the "labor" he engaged in. There is NECESSARILY something "extra" in the equation beyond just the "labor," and it is THIS that the Communist model pretends does not and cannot exist.
Yet, amazingly, at this point, by YOUR model, the filthy-capitalist is LITERALLY righteous! He is not taking from ANY "other laborer" MORE out of THEIR labor than what they "produced," because HE is the only "laborer" in the mix at this stage.
Now, on your model, he should stop right there! He should PRODUCE NO JOB, because the second he does so, that is precisely an admission that there is "excess" to be risked and invested on creating the job. ANY entrepreneur can tell you that creating a job is EXPENSIVE and RISKY! You need increased "production" to AT LEAST fill the hole left by creating the job!
But, by your lights, the filthy-capitalist now, apparently, has some "more" to FURTHER invest in the idea. But what is THIS? This "extra" that the filthy-capitalist even CAN invest in growth? That, my friend, by any measure is PROFIT. But "profit" can't even exist in your model! "Profit" just literally means "excess" that the filthy-capitalist "skimmed" or "took" from the proletariat, uhh "workers," or from SOMEBODY. By definition, "profit" means "more than expenses," so already the filthy-capitalist HAS more "wealth" than he "produced."
But, wait. The filthy-capitalist at this stage HAS no "workers" other than himself. He has no "company." He's just writing from home or producing salsa in his own kitchen or some other such thing. But he's got an idea/investment that is WORKING. IT is working. IT is producing wealth, and the filthy-capitalist realizes that more people out there could benefit from the IDEA! And more people want the IDEA than the filthy-capitalist by himself can "produce." There is more "wealth" for the filthy-capitalist than he himself can effectively extract from the market.
So, the filthy-capitalist takes risks at another level. Not satisfied with the "wealth" that the idea has already "produced," that bastard forms a company. That greedy, grasping prick actually fires up a JOB, and he finds some poor, abused sap to DO the job! Now, how DARE he? The abuse of the poor laborer has begun.
And so it goes. Be it a book, a movie script, a professional basketball game, an idea that takes off in the marketplace, or whatever... the bottom line is that "wealth" is FAR more intangible than the Communist model allows for, and MOST "products" and "production" are FAR more ethereal than the Communist model allows for!
Because the concepts you espouse are self-referential, amazingly naive and narrow-minded, and do NOT map onto any actual labor/capital/production relations in the real world, the whole idea is patently ridiculous.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 25, 2019 - 12:36am PT
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Ed, your entire post revolves around an amazingly narrow-minded and uncharitable notion of "selling."
If you're stuck on that term, try "exchanging," and see if that helps you get over the hump.
Same with "self." You are trying to thread some metaphysical needle here, and I've explicitly stated that it would take book-length tomes to argue those points. I'm not going to do it. Not because I can't, but because I've learned that it's impossible to do effectively in this venue.
You know that. As I said, your perpetual game is to request a "succinct" account than then subject it to the "death of a thousand cuts" on the VERY points that NO "succinct" account can bandage as fast as you can deliver the cuts, even on the VERY points that I've explicitly said would take book-length explanations.
It's a disingenuous game, and you know that it is. We've danced this dance before, and as soon as I see that you're still dancing, well, I won't be your dance partner.
So, let's cut to the chase. You apparently reject a rights-based morality, and you think that the founders of this nation were just babbling some vague opinions.
So, from a physicist's point of view, YOU should have a ROCK-SOLID, scientifically-rigorous explanation of the moral facts and the legitimacy of government.
DO tell!
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jan 25, 2019 - 06:48am PT
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First, what you really mean is "A person SHOULD get no more wealth than that which he produces." That must be what you mean, because by YOUR lights, at present the filthy capitalists take MORE wealth than that which they produce. Right?
Taking more than that which they produce. There's a word for that: theft.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jan 25, 2019 - 07:02am PT
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NEW YORK (AP) — A billionaire hedge fund founder has purchased a penthouse in New York for roughly $238 million.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the deal sets a record for the highest-priced home ever sold in the U.S.
Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin purchased the Manhattan penthouse at an under-construction high-rise, 220 Central Park South.
Griffin is no stranger to multi-million dollar homes. He bought several floors of a Chicago condominium this year for $58.75 million, setting a record for the most expensive home ever bought in Chicago. In 2015, he bought a Miami penthouse for $60 million, setting the record for a Miami condo. And earlier this month, he acquired a London home for $122 million.
The Journal reports that Griffin began investing at 19 in his Harvard dorm.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jan 25, 2019 - 08:45am PT
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OK, so Griffin is a good example of a tilted playing field. He's clearly very smart, a good manager, and a good salesperson. But, not like he did this all without any external help. From Wikipedia:
"Kenneth Cordele Griffin[12] was born in 1968 in Daytona Beach, Florida.[13][14] In high school, he excelled academically while also being the president of his math club. In 1986, Griffin started to invest during his freshman year at Harvard University after reading a Forbes magazine article.[15][16] During his second year at Harvard, he started a hedge fund focused on convertible bond arbitrage. The fund was capitalized with $265,000 from friends and family, including money from his grandmother.[13] He installed a satellite link to his dorm to acquire real-time market data. The investment strategy helped preserve capital during the stock market crash of 1987. Griffin's early success enabled him to launch a second fund, and between the two funds he was managing just over $1 million.[13][14] Griffin graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a degree in economics.[2]
Investment career
After graduating from Harvard, Frank C. Meyer, an investor and founder of Glenwood Capital LLC, provided Griffin with $1 million to invest.[17] Griffin exceeded Meyer's expectations and, according to The New York Times, Meyer made 70 percent return on the investment.[18]"
So he got friends and family to pony up $265K while he was still in college with no proven track record. I don't know too many poor and middle class folks that have access to that kind of disposable income.
Then, presumably based on the success of that, another connection lent him a further $1M.
Again, he had a lot of work to do, and kudos to him for doing it. But the idea that he crawled up from the dirt without any help from others is false.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 25, 2019 - 08:47am PT
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Taking more than that which they produce. There's a word for that: theft.
You obviously couldn't be bothered to read my post. Sad.
See, there's another word for that: "profit". And, as I've proved, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with it. It's a NECESSARY aspect of that "labor" you so fondly refer to.
Yes, we can go round and round about how much is too much, and I'm not arguing against the fact that SOME (a subset) of companies DO rape their employees. But we have laws and processes for that already. This is not problem with "capitalism" in principle. EVERY economic system rapes some small subset of its employees. At least our particular system has means of redress.
But your overarching ideas about "produce" and "wealth" are deeply confused.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 25, 2019 - 09:05am PT
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OK, so Griffin is a good example of a tilted playing field
You guys love to trot out your tired old saws, no matter that the teeth are completely worn
down to the nubs. OK, so some people do have a leg up. I’ve posted stories of my Indian,
Chinese-Mexican, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Filipino, Polish, Black sharecropper, and dirt poor
white farmer friends who have realized the American dream yet you whine on about how
unfair life is. Damn right it is when all you do is whine and look for excuses.
One more time: my wife’s Chinese office mate’s mum sold tofu from a cart on the mean streets of Mexicali to survive. She and her kids worked their asses off and the kids got educated in
Mexico and here. No whining was involved. Dunno what the family is worth now but it is
many millions - from a tofu cart!
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