Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Overlooked contributions of the rich Message-ID: <356@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 14:36:29 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.356 Posted: Wed Mar 6 14:36:29 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 05:51:45 EST Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 42 Dave Hudson writes: >> [From Vassos Hadzilacos:] >>The auto manufacturer pays wages and gets cars. The cars he gets are >>worth more than the wages he pays (otherwise he would have long >>ceased to be an auto manufacturer). Therefore, not only does he not >>"redistribute wealth" but in fact appropriates the wealth created by >>the labor power he hires. > [Hudson:] > 1) I could have sworn someone claimed that socialism had progressed > beyond this stupidity (even overlooking who really owns the auto > manufacturers). Didn't you? Which stupidity? The one that claims that capitalists redistribute wealth from rich to poor? Yes, we progressed beyond that long ago. Words fail me when I try to think of a sufficiently sarcastic response to the claim that capitalists are great benefactors because they redistribute wealth, provide jobs, etc. But Marx was a master of the art, so I'll just refer you to *Capital*, Vol. 1. An obvious question is why, if capitalists are busily redistributing their wealth, the distribution remains so grossly unequal in the US and so intractable to change. Surely we would expect things to have roughly evened out after all this time. In any case, all that this "thank-God-for-rich-capitalists" argument amounts to is that the capitalist system requires the existence of capitalists. Well, some of us had already figured this out. If I'm not mistaken, libertarians on the net have stated that wealth is created by the labor of men and women. Correct, and since only people produce wealth, not capital or money, what gives the capitalist the right, merely by virtue of ownership, to appropriate any of this wealth created by other people? In their efforts to justify an exploitative system, apologists for capitalism have come up with this answer: The capitalist is risking his wealth when he invests it in production or some other instrument. But no one has ever explained why anyone deserves or "earns" a return merely by having taken a risk. No one in his right mind thinks that someone who comes out of a casino richer than when he went in has "earned" or "deserved" his increased wealth because he risked his money, any more than the losers deserved to lose their money. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes