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The article is about something that should be obvious, capitalism: money goes to the capital owner. Of course this has a lot of problems, but it's the best we
by edpichler 9y ago
The article is about something that should be obvious, capitalism: money goes to the capital owner.
Of course this has a lot of problems, but it's the best we have today. On this system, the rules of the game are: we need to work and spend less than we earn, and use the money to accumulate more capital, an not buying more things.
- harryh 9y agoIn the US, the vast majority of gross national income goes to labor not capital. FWIW.
- kasey_junk 9y agoI believe you and my instincts agree with you, but how are you quantifying that?
- harryh 9y agoScott Sumner has a great blog post that gets into this (and some other semi related topics): http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30566 http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30566
- int_19h 9y agoOf course, there's also a lot more laborers than capitalists. By orders of magnitude. How about per capita for each group?
- harryh 9y agoBLS says about 153 million Americans are currently working(1). Gallup says 52% of American Adults are invested in the stock market(2). There are about 235 million adult Americans. 52% of that is 122 million. 153 million laborers vs 122 million stockholders Pretty close! And that's just stockholders. There are, of course, many other forms of capital. 1. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000 2. http://www.gallup.com/poll/190883/half-americans-own-stocks-matching-record-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/190883/half-americans-own-stocks-...
- int_19h 9y agoIf someone is deriving 90% of their income from labor, and 10% of it from stocks, then I don't think it's meaningful to call them "capitalists". It's technically true, yes, but in a way that doesn't make sense in the context of this discussion.
- dragonwriter 9y agoIn class terms, a capitalist derives the vast majority of their income from capital, a laborer from labor, and the middle class has both as significant sources of income. A worker owning a handful of shares of stock isn't a capitalist, or even petit bourgeoisie.