4 ms·

"Taken" is a misleading and false. They aren't taking wealth. Others are giving them money in return for something they value. If I am selling a product, or my

"Taken" is a misleading and false. They aren't taking wealth. Others are giving them money in return for something they value. If I am selling a product, or my services, or a share of stock, I'm not "taking" anything from anyone. It's incredible to me that these casual editorialized titles are acceptable so broadly in the journalism industry, and yet labels like "fake news" are reserved for only right-leaning news media.

AlexandrB 6y ago
If you want to get into the nitty gritty, the 1% rich generally don't sell products or services. They own companies who employ workers who do these tasks. Some surplus portion of the value generated by those workers is then captured by the organization (and its owners) as profit. Whether you want to call that "taking" or not is a question of ideology, not of fact. Arguably, omitting the word "taken" from the headline would be editorializing as well.
- LanceH 6y ago
  The use of "taken" panders to the view of wealth being a zero sum game, which is decidedly false.
  - Der_Einzige 6y ago
    Not decidedly false at all. This is the one part of the LVT that I actually agree with. Wealth is a zero sum game. The only ultimate source of real value in the world is from labor applied to material of the world. Time spent laboring towards one thing trades off with time spent laboring for another. Seems zero-sum to me given that financial capital does nothing to increase real value or real wealth.
    - chii 6y ago
      capital allows the labour specialization to exist. After all, capital is 'saved up labour', available for expenditure for future purposes. Imagine if you wanted to manufacture a car, which takes a long time to make. If you didn't have capital, you'd have to find/forage for food, and have very little spare resources left to actually do the car manufacturing. If another person, with a large storage of food, gave you said food, but ask in return, for the car, it would work (it's just a matter of negotiating an exchange rate between the food and the car).
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  If you want to get into the nitty gritty, consider that the 1% generally don't "own companies". That is a vague trope from the Occupy Wall Street types. A significant portion of the 1% are skilled professionals (programmers, doctors, lawyers, etc.) or rare talents (actors, musicians, athletes). Many are small business owners who are taking significant risks and typically work incredibly hard to be successful (and most fail). Many may be "owners" of companies in the sense that they are shareholders, but that fractional ownership is also available to you or I. Very few are in a position of outright ownership or even majority ownership of a company that is bigger than a small business. If your intention was to claim that the 1% get income passively, I think you may be drawing your percentiles at the wrong threshold. But I still disagree with your framing of the definition of "taking" as an ideological question and not a factual one. People have choice on where they live, what work they do, what they spend their money on, how they manage their free time, and so forth. If one person saves up, takes a risk, starts a small business, and offers employment at a certain exchange of money for time, that's not "taking" because "taking" implies an involuntary action or theft. The employer is offering a trade, and the employee is accepting it voluntarily, giving their time and labor in exchange for pay. That simply doesn't fit the definition of "taking".

AlexandrB 6y ago

If you want to get into the nitty gritty, the 1% rich generally don't sell products or services. They own companies who employ workers who do these tasks. Some surplus portion of the value generated by those workers is then captured by the organization (and its owners) as profit. Whether you want to call that "taking" or not is a question of ideology, not of fact. Arguably, omitting the word "taken" from the headline would be editorializing as well.

LanceH 6y ago
The use of "taken" panders to the view of wealth being a zero sum game, which is decidedly false.
- Der_Einzige 6y ago
  Not decidedly false at all. This is the one part of the LVT that I actually agree with. Wealth is a zero sum game. The only ultimate source of real value in the world is from labor applied to material of the world. Time spent laboring towards one thing trades off with time spent laboring for another. Seems zero-sum to me given that financial capital does nothing to increase real value or real wealth.
  - chii 6y ago
    capital allows the labour specialization to exist. After all, capital is 'saved up labour', available for expenditure for future purposes. Imagine if you wanted to manufacture a car, which takes a long time to make. If you didn't have capital, you'd have to find/forage for food, and have very little spare resources left to actually do the car manufacturing. If another person, with a large storage of food, gave you said food, but ask in return, for the car, it would work (it's just a matter of negotiating an exchange rate between the food and the car).
throwawaysea 6y ago
If you want to get into the nitty gritty, consider that the 1% generally don't "own companies". That is a vague trope from the Occupy Wall Street types. A significant portion of the 1% are skilled professionals (programmers, doctors, lawyers, etc.) or rare talents (actors, musicians, athletes). Many are small business owners who are taking significant risks and typically work incredibly hard to be successful (and most fail). Many may be "owners" of companies in the sense that they are shareholders, but that fractional ownership is also available to you or I. Very few are in a position of outright ownership or even majority ownership of a company that is bigger than a small business. If your intention was to claim that the 1% get income passively, I think you may be drawing your percentiles at the wrong threshold. But I still disagree with your framing of the definition of "taking" as an ideological question and not a factual one. People have choice on where they live, what work they do, what they spend their money on, how they manage their free time, and so forth. If one person saves up, takes a risk, starts a small business, and offers employment at a certain exchange of money for time, that's not "taking" because "taking" implies an involuntary action or theft. The employer is offering a trade, and the employee is accepting it voluntarily, giving their time and labor in exchange for pay. That simply doesn't fit the definition of "taking".