Confirmed! Rich People Live Off The Work Of Others!

[dblack]

Ownership means having the right and responsibility of deciding what happens with whatever it is that you own. If what you own is capital, you have the 'right and responsibility' to decide how it is used.

Well and good, but it doesn't follow from this that you should be entitled to own all of the fruits of your capital investment, instead of those who supply the labor. It could as easily be set up so that you are entitled to get back your investment and a reasonable percentage in return if the investment succeeds, but have the remaining proceeds go to those who do the work (both creative and grunt work) -- the exact inverse of the way it's set up now. Or something in between. What we treat as fixed, is fixed only if we choose to make it so.

That 'deciding' is work, believe or not. Very important work, actually. Granted, many will outsource this work to others - in which case they won't make as much since they'll have to share it with the people helping them decide what to do with it - but they still have to pick someone smart or they'll simply lose their money.

Nevertheless, here we see an illustration of why you have presented a fallacy. Yes, allocation of resources is work -- but that's not why a person owns the goods produced. The person who does that work owns the goods produced IF AND ONLY IF he is the same person who owns the capital. If the decisions are "outsourced," the person making them has no right of ownership.

There is a theory of property ownership that is, or at least used to be, common among libertarians involving improvement of resources. But how could it be clearer that the person who improves a resource is not the owner? Or if he is, he isn't the owner BECAUSE he improved the resource, but for a different reason altogether. The system of property ownership we actually have is radically different from the theoretical base for it that many libertarians (at least used to) believe.

It all comes down to what defines ownership. Sure, small business owners usually work damned hard, but that isn't the reason they own their businesses or the goods/services the businesses produce; they would own all that whether they worked hard or not. And that's as true of the "work" of allocating resources as it is of any other work.

I'm certainly not above fallacy, but not the one you're citing here. The decision of who will own the finished product is negotiated among all parties involved. The most common arrangement is that 'labor' works for set wages, in exchange for granting ownership of the finished product to the investors, or business owners. But it's certainly not the only possible arrangement. Workers can negotiate for a share of the finished product, and often do, but it's no rose garden. In my experience, it can be quite risky. I wouldn't agree to it (as a worker) unless I had tremendous faith in the leadership of the company.

It seems that you are fundamentally opposed to the practice of paying someone else a wage to create something, or provide a service, on your behalf. And I don't understand why you think that's anyone's business beyond those involved. If workers prefer a steady wage to the risk of speculating on the value of the finished product, why shouldn't they be allowed to make that call?

 

[Sunshine]

Ownership means having the right and responsibility of deciding what happens with whatever it is that you own. If what you own is capital, you have the 'right and responsibility' to decide how it is used.

Well and good, but it doesn't follow from this that you should be entitled to own all of the fruits of your capital investment, instead of those who supply the labor.

Those who supply the labor are paid for that labor. You seem to conveniently leave out that fact.

Sometimes the labor does own the fruits of the capital investment. When I worked for HCA, we got a certain amount of stock for every dollar we earned. It was really cool. I kept it for a while then sold it for a tidy little sum. Other companies give their employees 'stock options' such that they can buy stock in the company at reduced prices.

 

[dblack]

That ownership is a means of living off the work of others. In other words, having an income without working.

Nah, we went over that. Ownership means having the right and responsibility of deciding what happens with whatever it is that you own. If what you own is capital, you have the 'right and responsibility' to decide how it is used. That 'deciding' is work, believe or not. Very important work, actually. Granted, many will outsource this work to others - in which case they won't make as much since they'll have to share it with the people helping them decide what to do with it - but they still have to pick someone smart or they'll simply lose their money.

In any case it's not, as you keep insisting, 'living of the work of others'. Not when we're talking about people who derive their income via investment. You're trying to equate investors with invalids and dependents, as though capitalists are simply leeches on society. But I think that I, and others here, have shown repeatedly that that's nonsense.

On the other hand, when crazy people start to argue that the people who do the work are living off the non-workers, you have to say something, in order to point out that they're crazy.

Sure. Agreed. But saying something equally stupid in the other direction hardly rectifies things.

I just can't go with you on this, dblack. I have to go back to what - I think - I've already said.

There's no doubt but that making an investment strategy is work. If it wasn't, rich people wouldn't be paying others to do it for them.

But however much income you want to assign to the making of the strategy, rather than the ownership of the thing, the fact remains that some part of the income comes purely by right of ownership. I would argue it's rather the larger part. You - I gather - would argue that it's a small part.

It's completely variable. Sometimes it's large. Sometimes it's small. Sometimes investors lose their ass and it's negative - they lose money. The crime currently occurring far too often in the US is that powerful interests have learned how to socialize their losses. Which is why I'm not terribly sympathetic to their complaints when angry voters want to socialize their profits as well. But in the end, two wrongs don't make a right. We need to resist urge to indulge in revenge politics.

[qoute]However, there are plenty of rich people who don't make investment decisions at all - either because they've hired someone to do it for them, or because they've owned the same things forever - and they're still plenty rich. If they're not making any investment decisions at all, where does the income come from?[/quote]

If they do nothing at all with their money, it doesn't come. If they do the minimum, and put it in a bank for minimal interest, they earn minimal profit. In short, the more actively, and skillfully they use their money, the more they earn. There's an element of luck involved as well, but managing risk is a skill as well, and part of the equation.

I am equating owners with children and the disabled. I think that's a very good analogy. The nut squad keeps insisting I hate the rich - but I don't hate the rich, any more than I hate children or the sick. Saying that someone is dependent on the rest of us isn't the same as saying that I hate them, or they should be eliminated or destroyed. That's just a projection of the USMB nut squad's squalid defective perverse immorality on someone who doesn't share it.

And with that, you simply slide down the other side and become a mirror image of the nut squad you're opposing.

 

[Dragon]

The decision of who will own the finished product is negotiated among all parties involved.

Well, that's technically correct, but the default assumption is that the owner of capital owns the goods. If an arrangement different than that is made, it amounts to the owner giving the goods away.

It seems that you are fundamentally opposed to the practice of paying someone else a wage to create something, or provide a service, on your behalf.

I can see why you'd think that, but let me back up just a little. You probably know that, around the time of the Civil War, working for wages was rather rare in this country. Most people owned either small farms or small craft businesses -- factory manufacturing was just starting to get off the ground, and there was still a lot of work for blacksmiths, fine carpenters, chandlers, and so on. Although there was no "enclosure" legislation as such here the way there was in Britain, just the same pressure was brought to bear by both big business and government to drive independent business owners out of business, reducing (or in the case of freed slaves, lifting) people to the category of hired labor. After which, the struggle over how big a share of the wealth produced was going to that hired labor really began, heating up towards the end of the 19th century and into the 20th.

What I'm questioning is the entire system of capital ownership. And what I'm ESPECIALLY questioning is whether capital ownership entitles its holder to any particular recognition of an absolute right in his property that flows from owning capital.

 

[daveman]

It's funny how Republicans are for personal freedom - for themselves - and for forceably sterilizing people they believe are inferior to them.

Need help swinging that big brush?

It was a big brush. Most Republicans are not as selfishly stupid as the ones on here. Sterilizing disabled people is more of a NAZI policy than a plank of the GOP.

It was pretty popular among the left, yes. Margaret Sanger thought it was a swell idea.

 

[daveman]

Well and good, but it doesn't follow from this that you should be entitled to own all of the fruits of your capital investment, instead of those who supply the labor.

Those who supply the labor are paid for that labor. You seem to conveniently leave out that fact.

Sometimes the labor does own the fruits of the capital investment. When I worked for HCA, we got a certain amount of stock for every dollar we earned. It was really cool. I kept it for a while then sold it for a tidy little sum. Other companies give their employees 'stock options' such that they can buy stock in the company at reduced prices.

Indeed, and that's cool. The local Food Giant stores around here are employee-owned. And if you haven't had it, their deli fried chicken is better than KFC...and far cheaper.

 

[Sundial]

You are absolutely right that there are people that we should help, for logical and moral reasons. But why should "we" be equated with government violence?

Too many people assume that those who advocate reducing government aid to the poor advocate reducing any aid to the poor. In fact, we simply advocate people aiding the poor through voluntary means rather than coercive ones. The market is better at helping the poor than the government, for those who help the poor in the market do so out of altruism, whereas those who help the poor in government do so to buy votes and political power.

"Voluntary means"? Isn't that just another way of saying, "We hope some other dummy does it, so we don't have to"?

No, it is another way of saying taking on the responsibility to help others yourself and encouraging others to willingly help others rather than demanding the government do so under the threat of imprisonment.

What do you think is better: Give to the poor because it is the right thing to do, or give to the poor because if you don't you will go to jail?

Its called private charity, it exists, and unlike government money it is not wasted paying bureaucrats. Most money spent on welfare and all these social programs get lost in the bureaucracy and don't actually help the problem at all. Today, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

The truth is that government is simply bad at helping poor people because individuals in government are motivated by politics and power far more than altruism. No wonder so many in government demand more welfare spending. They get 70% of it!

Not sure what Cato defines as welfare, but the biggest welfare programs we have are SS, Medicare and Medicaid. You're not talking about cutting those programs, right? And hoping charity picks up the slack?

You're talking about TANF - aid that goes to poor families - families with small children. And that costs maybe 1%, as opposed to 40%.

TANF is the result of welfare reform that started in the 90s. And it worked:

Observational research conducted by Irene Lurie and her colleagues at the State University of New York shows that welfare case workers now consistently implement state policies designed to discourage families from relying on welfare by mandating employment-related activities and then by ensuring that clients participate in these activities. These changes constitute a revolution in social policy.

What has been the effect of these major changes? Welfare caseloads began declining in the spring of 1994 and picked up steam after the federal legislation was enacted in 1996. Between 1994 and 2004, the caseload declined about 60 percent, a decline that is without precedent. The percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970.

Welfare Reform, Success or Failure? It Worked - Brookings Institution

I'm sure the numbers have gone up since then - what with the recession. But the point is that welfare costs less, and there are fewer people, for shorter amounts of time.

But anyway, to answer your question: yes, people who don't pay their taxes should go to jail, and TANF, and Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are all appropriate uses of our tax money.

 

[Sundial]

Ownership means having the right and responsibility of deciding what happens with whatever it is that you own. If what you own is capital, you have the 'right and responsibility' to decide how it is used.

Well and good, but it doesn't follow from this that you should be entitled to own all of the fruits of your capital investment, instead of those who supply the labor. It could as easily be set up so that you are entitled to get back your investment and a reasonable percentage in return if the investment succeeds, but have the remaining proceeds go to those who do the work (both creative and grunt work) -- the exact inverse of the way it's set up now. Or something in between. What we treat as fixed, is fixed only if we choose to make it so.

That 'deciding' is work, believe or not. Very important work, actually. Granted, many will outsource this work to others - in which case they won't make as much since they'll have to share it with the people helping them decide what to do with it - but they still have to pick someone smart or they'll simply lose their money.

Nevertheless, here we see an illustration of why you have presented a fallacy. Yes, allocation of resources is work -- but that's not why a person owns the goods produced. The person who does that work owns the goods produced IF AND ONLY IF he is the same person who owns the capital. If the decisions are "outsourced," the person making them has no right of ownership.

There is a theory of property ownership that is, or at least used to be, common among libertarians involving improvement of resources. But how could it be clearer that the person who improves a resource is not the owner? Or if he is, he isn't the owner BECAUSE he improved the resource, but for a different reason altogether. The system of property ownership we actually have is radically different from the theoretical base for it that many libertarians (at least used to) believe.

It all comes down to what defines ownership. Sure, small business owners usually work damned hard, but that isn't the reason they own their businesses or the goods/services the businesses produce; they would own all that whether they worked hard or not. And that's as true of the "work" of allocating resources as it is of any other work.

I'm certainly not above fallacy, but not the one you're citing here. The decision of who will own the finished product is negotiated among all parties involved. The most common arrangement is that 'labor' works for set wages, in exchange for granting ownership of the finished product to the investors, or business owners. But it's certainly not the only possible arrangement. Workers can negotiate for a share of the finished product, and often do, but it's no rose garden. In my experience, it can be quite risky. I wouldn't agree to it (as a worker) unless I had tremendous faith in the leadership of the company.

It seems that you are fundamentally opposed to the practice of paying someone else a wage to create something, or provide a service, on your behalf. And I don't understand why you think that's anyone's business beyond those involved. If workers prefer a steady wage to the risk of speculating on the value of the finished product, why shouldn't they be allowed to make that call?

What you're painting is an image that doesn't bear much resemblance to reality. Ever try to get a job at McDonalds on the basis of getting a cut of the corporate profits rather than a salary?

You're ignoring differences in negotiating power. People take what they can get sometimes because they don't have other alternatives. An example: a man falls in a pit. A libertarian comes by and offers to throw a rope, in exchange for "everything he's got, and everything he's ever gonna have."

A fair exchange?

Shouldn't the circumstances under which people make choices matter?

 

[dblack]

What you're painting is an image that doesn't bear much resemblance to reality. Ever try to get a job at McDonalds on the basis of getting a cut of the corporate profits rather than a salary?

Yup. Worked there for about a month. One night the manager decided we were taking too long to close so he clocked us all out and then insisted we finished working on our own time. I told him to get fucked and quit.

You're ignoring differences in negotiating power. People take what they can get sometimes because they don't have other alternatives.

This is utter bullshit. Outside of straight up slavery, every single person has alternatives. Some have more alternatives than others, which is what you're really complaining about - but that's the nature of freedom.

An example: a man falls in a pit. A libertarian comes by and offers to throw a rope, in exchange for "everything he's got, and everything he's ever gonna have."

Actually, that would be a Democrat "offering" help, and he'd want a lifetime commitment to buying corporate insurance instead.

 

[Sundial]

If they do nothing at all with their money, it doesn't come. If they do the minimum, and put it in a bank for minimal interest, they earn minimal profit. In short, the more actively, and skillfully they use their money, the more they earn. There's an element of luck involved as well, but managing risk is a skill as well, and part of the equation.

I don't know that I disagree with all that. You're emphasizing the risk involved with being an owner, the responsibility for losses, and the importance of managing assets, or of finding a responsible person to manage them for you.

I'm pointing out that while owners may manage their assets personally,they don't have to, and that many assets require little or no mangement; that merely owning something doesn't increase its value; and that receiving income isn't the same as creating value.

You disagree?

 

[Sundial]

Those who supply the labor are paid for that labor. You seem to conveniently leave out that fact.

Sometimes the labor does own the fruits of the capital investment. When I worked for HCA, we got a certain amount of stock for every dollar we earned. It was really cool. I kept it for a while then sold it for a tidy little sum. Other companies give their employees 'stock options' such that they can buy stock in the company at reduced prices.

Indeed, and that's cool. The local Food Giant stores around here are employee-owned. And if you haven't had it, their deli fried chicken is better than KFC...and far cheaper.

I'm glad to hear you support leftist cooperatives.

 

[Sundial]

What you're painting is an image that doesn't bear much resemblance to reality. Ever try to get a job at McDonalds on the basis of getting a cut of the corporate profits rather than a salary?

Yup. Worked there for about a month. One night the manager decided we were taking too long to close so he clocked us all out and then insisted we finished working on our own time. I told him to get fucked and quit.

I've worked at McDonalds too. It sucked. I'm glad you had other alternatives. I did too. Not everybody does.

 

[dblack]

I've worked at McDonalds too. It sucked. I'm glad you had other alternatives. I did too. Not everybody does.

No, pretty much everyone does. I don't think McDonalds is allowed to own slaves yet. They don't have as much lobbying power as the insurance companies.

 

[daveman]

Sometimes the labor does own the fruits of the capital investment. When I worked for HCA, we got a certain amount of stock for every dollar we earned. It was really cool. I kept it for a while then sold it for a tidy little sum. Other companies give their employees 'stock options' such that they can buy stock in the company at reduced prices.

Indeed, and that's cool. The local Food Giant stores around here are employee-owned. And if you haven't had it, their deli fried chicken is better than KFC...and far cheaper.

I'm glad to hear you support leftist cooperatives.

Why did you think I wouldn't?