Sorry, switched calculators partway through and got monthly contributions. Originally had it 100x and edited it to 1000x (blush). Capital returns more than lab

Sorry, switched calculators partway through and got monthly contributions. Originally had it 100x and edited it to 1000x (blush). Capital returns more than labor growth rate because of many factors. The most obvious is that capital is a productivity multiplier, so it adds value and should be compensated, and the growth rate is naturally a multiple of the labor growth rate. (Capital investment allowed Model T production to go from 12 man hours to 3 man hours - 4X productivity.) Time value of money/discount rate: Would you pay more for $1000 today, or for $1000 inflation-adjusted in 30 years? If capital doesn't grow at least as fast as inflation, may as well just spend it on consumption now, leaving no money for those capital investments and that 4X productivity gain. You'd expect labor growth rate to only match inflation (you make one Model T, you get one Model T). Wage growth has also been depressed for the last several decades by additional workers entering the market (e.g., rise of two-income households) and supply vs demand - 50% more people willing to make Model T's at wage X. Let's start the debate with real numbers at a lower bound: Assume 0 capital gains (I stick it in a mattress and only get out what I put in), saving 25% of my income for 40 years, I'd still end up w/ 10 years of my average income as wealth. Joe has 0. > how much you should give to the society that sustains both of you, or how much you should never have had at all. Should I give Joe or society any of that money? Is any of it money I should never have had at all? That money was already taxed, so society already took what it considered its fair piece of that pie (and the hidden tax of inflation took its share, too!) The fact of wealth disparity does not imply unfairness. How about if instead of sticking it in a mattress, I let Henry Ford use that money to build a factory, and it lets him build 4X the cars so that people who want cars can buy them, should I not get some of that added value as well? Now, maybe Henry should get a part of that money, for his great ideas (say, 33% of the increase). And maybe we should make sure that the workers get a bigger piece than they would have (if labor costs were 50% of the cost of the car, say they get a 50% wage increase?) and we should drop the price to the customer as well (25% discount?) and assume lots of other costs are fixed per car. 4X cars, 25% discount gives 3X revenue. Labor costs went to .75X. Henry gets 1X. Return on capital is 1.25X. Uncle Sam gets his piece in various ways - sales tax on the cars, income tax on the company, on the workers, on Henry, on the capital gains. And everybody in the picture is better off - customers, labor, company, capital investor, and unrelated parties that benefit from tax revenue, all because I chose not to "spend" that money. Now, society has taken its piece of the pie in all the ways above (and society chose to set the size of its piece in advance), and you're coming back and saying society needs another piece, just because I didn't spend my money like Joe?