3 ms·

> Evidently people are so angry at successful people at this point Because "successful" people are laughably just capitalists whose only success is extracting

> Evidently people are so angry at successful people at this point Because "successful" people are laughably just capitalists whose only success is extracting wealth from people who actually work for a living. Capitalism isn't a system that benefits the vast majority of people and being a "successful" capitalist is bad for our planet and society.

WalterBright 8y ago
> extracting wealth from people who actually work for a living This is the Labor Theory of Value, which is regularly debunked. Capitalists create value, they don't take it from others. (You can see this on the balance sheet - the business is worth more than its "book value".) > Capitalism isn't a system that benefits the vast majority of people The vast majority of immigrants arrived in the US with little more than a suitcase, yet capitalism made them wealthy. > bad for our planet and society Non-capitalist societies are far more destructive to the planet.
- ChristianBundy 8y ago
  1. You're conflating owners and managers. Private ownership of the means of production doesn't add anything of value, but of course organizing people and resources is valuable. My point is that you don't need to have a monoply (or oligopoly) of power concentrated in private shareholders. 2. I'm not interested in myths. Look up statistics on immigrant poverty under capitalism and let me know whether you'd like to continue this line of reasoning. 3. Some, yes. All? Of course not.
  - ghufran_syed 8y ago
    About point 2: Almost all wealth in this country is owned by people who do not identify as Native American. The US is the most successful society economically over a long period of time. The US has a capitalist system, probably more so than most other countries. Doesn’t that imply that the wealth in this country was generated by immigrants (and their descendants) under a capitalist system?
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Where do you think the vast wealth in the American middle class came from? It wasn't picked off the ground, it wasn't here in 1800, and the immigrants did not arrive with it.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    > All? Of course not. I can't think of any. Do you have any examples?
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    > Private ownership of the means of production doesn't add anything of value It absolutely does, because it decides where to allocate scarce resources.

WalterBright 8y ago

> extracting wealth from people who actually work for a living This is the Labor Theory of Value, which is regularly debunked. Capitalists create value, they don't take it from others. (You can see this on the balance sheet - the business is worth more than its "book value".) > Capitalism isn't a system that benefits the vast majority of people The vast majority of immigrants arrived in the US with little more than a suitcase, yet capitalism made them wealthy. > bad for our planet and society Non-capitalist societies are far more destructive to the planet.

ChristianBundy 8y ago
1. You're conflating owners and managers. Private ownership of the means of production doesn't add anything of value, but of course organizing people and resources is valuable. My point is that you don't need to have a monoply (or oligopoly) of power concentrated in private shareholders. 2. I'm not interested in myths. Look up statistics on immigrant poverty under capitalism and let me know whether you'd like to continue this line of reasoning. 3. Some, yes. All? Of course not.
- ghufran_syed 8y ago
  About point 2: Almost all wealth in this country is owned by people who do not identify as Native American. The US is the most successful society economically over a long period of time. The US has a capitalist system, probably more so than most other countries. Doesn’t that imply that the wealth in this country was generated by immigrants (and their descendants) under a capitalist system?
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Where do you think the vast wealth in the American middle class came from? It wasn't picked off the ground, it wasn't here in 1800, and the immigrants did not arrive with it.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > All? Of course not. I can't think of any. Do you have any examples?
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > Private ownership of the means of production doesn't add anything of value It absolutely does, because it decides where to allocate scarce resources.