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Technically yes, the working class can become capitalists by just saving their money. Practically, I don’t think I need to explain why that’s a dishonest and ru

by bbor 4y ago

Technically yes, the working class can become capitalists by just saving their money. Practically, I don’t think I need to explain why that’s a dishonest and rude suggestion, at best. Just because anyone can become a shareholder in a company that squeezes its employees dry for profit doesn’t mean that that company isn’t a weapon in the class war. From Wikipedia: Federal Reserve data indicates that as of Q4 2021, the top 1% of households in the United States held 32.3% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50% held 2.6%.

WalterBright 4y ago
Bob creating wealth does not imply he took from someone else. Capitalism works by creating wealth, not by redistributing it to themselves.
welshwelsh 4y ago
Bezos increased his wealth by $100 billion over the last decade. If all that money was evenly distributed among Amazon's 1,500,000 employees instead, they would get like $6k more every year. That might be a nice bonus to the average Amazon employee making $30,000 a year, but it would hardly be revolutionary. I don't think 1% of people holding 32% of the wealth is that surprising or exceptional. A lot of people are in the bottom 50% because they don't save any money at all. I think these stats give people the idea that if you were to somehow take all the wealth from the top 1% and give it to the bottom 50% that this would vastly improve their situation, when in reality it wouldn't make much of a difference and would fuck up economic incentive structures.
willywanker 4y ago
Fixed pie fallacy of wealth strikes again. Amazing how common this view of x% people holding 'the wealth' is. Nothing similar existed before Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the 2 Steves built their offerings; they got massively rich thanks to people worldwide choosing to pay them for their products & services (or voluntarily shunning the open internet with multiple anonymous fora like this one for Facebook's walled privacy screwing garden).

by bbor 4y ago

WalterBright 4y ago

Bob creating wealth does not imply he took from someone else. Capitalism works by creating wealth, not by redistributing it to themselves.

welshwelsh 4y ago

Bezos increased his wealth by $100 billion over the last decade. If all that money was evenly distributed among Amazon's 1,500,000 employees instead, they would get like $6k more every year. That might be a nice bonus to the average Amazon employee making $30,000 a year, but it would hardly be revolutionary. I don't think 1% of people holding 32% of the wealth is that surprising or exceptional. A lot of people are in the bottom 50% because they don't save any money at all. I think these stats give people the idea that if you were to somehow take all the wealth from the top 1% and give it to the bottom 50% that this would vastly improve their situation, when in reality it wouldn't make much of a difference and would fuck up economic incentive structures.

willywanker 4y ago

Fixed pie fallacy of wealth strikes again. Amazing how common this view of x% people holding 'the wealth' is. Nothing similar existed before Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the 2 Steves built their offerings; they got massively rich thanks to people worldwide choosing to pay them for their products & services (or voluntarily shunning the open internet with multiple anonymous fora like this one for Facebook's walled privacy screwing garden).