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> Some people think that there’s a wide class of people, ‘the rich’, who are getting paid way more than their labor is worth, for doing trivial tasks that anyon

> Some people think that there’s a wide class of people, ‘the rich’, who are getting paid way more than their labor is worth, for doing trivial tasks that anyone could do. Think how bizarre it would be if the world worked like that. Why would other people be pointlessly giving them that money? Because they own the means of production. Nobody should listen to this crap take from someone who clearly hasn’t even read the wikipedia article on Marx. You don’t have to be a full blown communist to understand that the capital/labour lens is incredibly useful when trying to understand economies.

chii 4y ago
> Because they own the means of production. so how did they get to own that means of production?
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Well, in the vast majority of the cases, because they are related to someone who historically owned some means of production. Often originally obtained through imperialism or colonialism. In some rare cases, they were a smart person in the right place at the right time - or even more rarely, created some valuable invention or innovation (i.e. they created a new means of production from scratch)
  - chii 4y ago
    > In some rare cases ... contributed some valuable invention or innovation. i would say this is way less rare, and is in fact, the majority of the reason why means of production is owned by those who do.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      I would strongly disagree. Even in cases where the vast majority of the wealth was “created” by an individual not inherited (gates, musk) - even in those cases, their ability to invent or innovate was largely a result of their parents wealth helping them be in the right place at the right time.
      - chii 4y ago
        But the parent's wealth helping the children is irrelevant, if you consider the family's line to be a single entity. At some point, the parents also worked hard to gather their wealth, and so did their grand parents, etc. the idea that it's somehow bad that parent's help makes for the child's success is wrong. It's fair to receive such help.
        kennywinker 4y ago
        Except, as I said, The initial wealth of a family was usually obtained via some imperialist or colonialist process. See elon musks’ family diamond mines, or the entire united states and it’s resources being take by force from the millions of people who were living here prior to colonization. I’m not saying it’s wrong to pass wealth to your kids in general - but I am saying it’s wrong to pass wealth obtained by violence and exploitation to your kids. And it’s wrong to received wealth from your parents and then attribute your successes to your hard work or invention instead of attributing it to your situation + your hard work or invention. Or rather: situation * hard work * invention * luck. These are all clearly multipliers on each-other. You can frame the terms of the equation differently, but it always has a large portion that is outside the person’s control.
        candiodari 4y ago
        Only the biggest of companies ... Most 10-50 person companies I know are 1) mostly the result of long-term-sustained hard work, not (any significant amount of) innovation or inheritance. Inheritance money helps with getting started, but in my observation, learning how to run a real business from your mom/dad helps a lot more than money you get from them. 2) up for grabs: the kids don't want them. The owners are either actively looking for someone to take it over, or open to offers to some degree, ranging from "someone PLEASE take over my company" to "if you pay off the capital, the business is yours". Of course, this is local builder companies, real estate companies, a hotel, shops, "Industrial" companies of limited scale producing beer, ice cream, ... Not Microsoft.
chrisseaton 4y ago
If someone is paying you, then you don't own the means of production - they do.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Too literal a reading of “pay”. Read it as “buying what the means you own produce”. Very hard - maybe impossible - to be truly “rich” with pure labour
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

chii 4y ago

> Because they own the means of production. so how did they get to own that means of production?

kennywinker 4y ago
Well, in the vast majority of the cases, because they are related to someone who historically owned some means of production. Often originally obtained through imperialism or colonialism. In some rare cases, they were a smart person in the right place at the right time - or even more rarely, created some valuable invention or innovation (i.e. they created a new means of production from scratch)
- chii 4y ago
  > In some rare cases ... contributed some valuable invention or innovation. i would say this is way less rare, and is in fact, the majority of the reason why means of production is owned by those who do.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    I would strongly disagree. Even in cases where the vast majority of the wealth was “created” by an individual not inherited (gates, musk) - even in those cases, their ability to invent or innovate was largely a result of their parents wealth helping them be in the right place at the right time.
    - chii 4y ago
      But the parent's wealth helping the children is irrelevant, if you consider the family's line to be a single entity. At some point, the parents also worked hard to gather their wealth, and so did their grand parents, etc. the idea that it's somehow bad that parent's help makes for the child's success is wrong. It's fair to receive such help.
      - kennywinker 4y ago
        Except, as I said, The initial wealth of a family was usually obtained via some imperialist or colonialist process. See elon musks’ family diamond mines, or the entire united states and it’s resources being take by force from the millions of people who were living here prior to colonization. I’m not saying it’s wrong to pass wealth to your kids in general - but I am saying it’s wrong to pass wealth obtained by violence and exploitation to your kids. And it’s wrong to received wealth from your parents and then attribute your successes to your hard work or invention instead of attributing it to your situation + your hard work or invention. Or rather: situation * hard work * invention * luck. These are all clearly multipliers on each-other. You can frame the terms of the equation differently, but it always has a large portion that is outside the person’s control.
        candiodari 4y ago
        Only the biggest of companies ... Most 10-50 person companies I know are 1) mostly the result of long-term-sustained hard work, not (any significant amount of) innovation or inheritance. Inheritance money helps with getting started, but in my observation, learning how to run a real business from your mom/dad helps a lot more than money you get from them. 2) up for grabs: the kids don't want them. The owners are either actively looking for someone to take it over, or open to offers to some degree, ranging from "someone PLEASE take over my company" to "if you pay off the capital, the business is yours". Of course, this is local builder companies, real estate companies, a hotel, shops, "Industrial" companies of limited scale producing beer, ice cream, ... Not Microsoft.

chrisseaton 4y ago

If someone is paying you, then you don't own the means of production - they do.

kennywinker 4y ago
Too literal a reading of “pay”. Read it as “buying what the means you own produce”. Very hard - maybe impossible - to be truly “rich” with pure labour
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]