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Your (3) contradicts (1). Rewards do not necessarily go to capital. (1) says rewards are assigned based on supply and demand. If labor is scarce and investment

Your (3) contradicts (1). Rewards do not necessarily go to capital. (1) says rewards are assigned based on supply and demand. If labor is scarce and investment is plentiful, rewards will go to labor. If investment is scarce, and labor is plentiful, rewards will go to capital (with the obvious caveat that there are many other factors that affect returns, and their distribution within the pools of labor and capital). Unfortunately for western labor, there has been an exploding world population and lower barriers to trade & investment flows (globalization) for the last 40 years - hence a huge glut in labor. Rewards have gone to mobile capital, tech businesses and workers in the developing-world, not so much to blue-collar work in the west. But that is mostly supply & demand, not a built-in rule of capitalism.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
I don't agree. If the rewards of a human venture (involving some amount of capital, labor and IP, but almost certainly all 3) do not go to capitalism, then it's not a capitalist venture. There are certainly other ways of distributing the rewards, no question about that. So the question arises: why do the rewards go preferentially to capital in so many of the ventures that exist in our system? Your argument claims that it reflects the (relatively) low supply of capital (compared to the (relatively) plentiful supply of labor; we'll ignore IP for now). By contrast, I claim that it doesn't reflect that primarily, but is instead deliberate economic/political/legal choice made under significant influence by capital, and that's why we call it "capitalism". If we lived in a world, for whatever reason, the rewards of a human venture went primarily to labor, we can still recognize that there's a "system" distributing the rewards, but we would not call that "capitalism". So I'd partially agree with your argument but then invert it: an important reason why the rewards go to capital - i.e. we live in a capitalist society - is that there's sufficiently little countervailing pressure on this arrangement. How much this comes from population numbers, lack of political will, schemeing by the rich etc. is always going to be hard to say. However, a system that didn't work the way ours does would not be capitalism.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  So you don't think there is a market for labor? You don't think that wages, benefits and workplace conditions (heath & safety), have any effect on where people work? Do you think there are fixed wages for certain categories of jobs, like some soviet economy? Do you think that most jobs are long-term-fixed contracts at some low penalty rate, like indentured servitude? Do you think there are still company towns where people have to work for a monopsonist employer at their terms? Do you think that people can move location? Wage-based employment in the western world is certainly an economy. It is affected by laws, taxes, regulations, wage transparency, negotiating power, unionization, social welfare benefits, etc. But it is approximately a market, and wages are affected by the supply of labor (with skills/without; with education/without; with an artisan skill/or not; prepared to do dull, repetitive, smelly, disgusting job/or not). How is labor not a market? And do you know workers with profit sharing, or performance-related bonuses, or share options? Well they are essentially capitalists in their own employer, with some (small, perhaps insignificant) share of the returns to the business. Do you know anyone who is self-employed? They are solo capitalists, self-started, owners of their shop or tools, and a capitalist of one. Do you have a pension that owns equities? You are also a capitalist. You may hate your manager, or envy them, because they earn more than you, and get to boss people around. They are not capitalists. Managers are not capitalists. Don't confuse your hatreds. They are only capitalists to the extent that they also get share ownership and options. Choose your targets carefully, and be explicit in your class-warfare hatreds.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    As I outlined, markets != capitalism. It seems you've wandered far away from my whole point. Free markets, entrepeneurialism are a part of contemporary US capitalism, but they can also exist in systems that are not capitalist. For a system to be capitalist, it requires additional features, and the most significant of these is the way the rewards of human ventures are distributed (i.e. primarily towards those who invest capital rather than labor or IP in the venture).
    - mikhailfranco 3y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

I don't agree. If the rewards of a human venture (involving some amount of capital, labor and IP, but almost certainly all 3) do not go to capitalism, then it's not a capitalist venture. There are certainly other ways of distributing the rewards, no question about that. So the question arises: why do the rewards go preferentially to capital in so many of the ventures that exist in our system? Your argument claims that it reflects the (relatively) low supply of capital (compared to the (relatively) plentiful supply of labor; we'll ignore IP for now). By contrast, I claim that it doesn't reflect that primarily, but is instead deliberate economic/political/legal choice made under significant influence by capital, and that's why we call it "capitalism". If we lived in a world, for whatever reason, the rewards of a human venture went primarily to labor, we can still recognize that there's a "system" distributing the rewards, but we would not call that "capitalism". So I'd partially agree with your argument but then invert it: an important reason why the rewards go to capital - i.e. we live in a capitalist society - is that there's sufficiently little countervailing pressure on this arrangement. How much this comes from population numbers, lack of political will, schemeing by the rich etc. is always going to be hard to say. However, a system that didn't work the way ours does would not be capitalism.

mikhailfranco 3y ago
So you don't think there is a market for labor? You don't think that wages, benefits and workplace conditions (heath & safety), have any effect on where people work? Do you think there are fixed wages for certain categories of jobs, like some soviet economy? Do you think that most jobs are long-term-fixed contracts at some low penalty rate, like indentured servitude? Do you think there are still company towns where people have to work for a monopsonist employer at their terms? Do you think that people can move location? Wage-based employment in the western world is certainly an economy. It is affected by laws, taxes, regulations, wage transparency, negotiating power, unionization, social welfare benefits, etc. But it is approximately a market, and wages are affected by the supply of labor (with skills/without; with education/without; with an artisan skill/or not; prepared to do dull, repetitive, smelly, disgusting job/or not). How is labor not a market? And do you know workers with profit sharing, or performance-related bonuses, or share options? Well they are essentially capitalists in their own employer, with some (small, perhaps insignificant) share of the returns to the business. Do you know anyone who is self-employed? They are solo capitalists, self-started, owners of their shop or tools, and a capitalist of one. Do you have a pension that owns equities? You are also a capitalist. You may hate your manager, or envy them, because they earn more than you, and get to boss people around. They are not capitalists. Managers are not capitalists. Don't confuse your hatreds. They are only capitalists to the extent that they also get share ownership and options. Choose your targets carefully, and be explicit in your class-warfare hatreds.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  As I outlined, markets != capitalism. It seems you've wandered far away from my whole point. Free markets, entrepeneurialism are a part of contemporary US capitalism, but they can also exist in systems that are not capitalist. For a system to be capitalist, it requires additional features, and the most significant of these is the way the rewards of human ventures are distributed (i.e. primarily towards those who invest capital rather than labor or IP in the venture).
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago