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Sort of like how the medieval world relied on a small class of aristocratic landowners who loved riding fast horses and killing each other, the postmodern world

Sort of like how the medieval world relied on a small class of aristocratic landowners who loved riding fast horses and killing each other, the postmodern world relies on a small class of people from all walks of life who will work much harder than usual to make more money than they need, operating large enterprises to solve various material problems of other people that they don't really need to be solving, paying tax on those enterprises that they could otherwise avoid if the were not working so much.

awakeasleep 27d ago
Thats a real big difference in how socialists vs ryandian people view the world. The Ayn Rand philosophy holds that the people at the top are working hundreds or thousands of times harder than the rest of us. The modern socialist view is completely contradictory, where most of the people at the top are supposed to be doing even less than a construction worker, but they're rich because of the return on capital or the right to extract some sort of rent.
- fwipsy 27d ago
  This is an empirical question. 10 seconds of googling suggests CEOs work about 60 hours/week average: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/harvard-study-what-ceos-do-all-day.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/harvard-study-what-ceos-do-a... so harder than the average employee, but I'm not sure by what measure anyone believes they work 100x harder. Perhaps the difference between a good CEO and a bad CEO is 100-1000000x the average worker's productivity, or even more. I suspect the real disagreement is: does that justify paying a CEO 10-100000x more than the average worker, even if they only work 1.5x as hard? From the perspective of a company it may be worthwhile, but I can see how some people might feel that's a little unfair.
- grebc 26d ago
  The problem with both views is it ignores lived experience. Everyone knows people at the top get paid more, even in socialist/communist societies this is the case. Now whether this is because of birth privilege, good social connections, politicking, actual hard work. It's pretty well a constant that's held across time & differently structured societies. I guess what I'm trying to say here: there's always people jockeying for position. Pretending we're in some sort of utopia won't give the average person a good experience. Second. While the hard work is most definitely over exaggerated, it's not uncommon that hard working people usually end up better off then not hard working people. There's also the saying/belief that people make their own luck. And I am firmly in the camp that luck, whether it's made on their own accord or blindly stumbled into, is a probably the biggest unspoken factor because it takes away from narratives of self-made etc.
grebc 27d ago
Your reply is postmodern.

awakeasleep 27d ago

Thats a real big difference in how socialists vs ryandian people view the world. The Ayn Rand philosophy holds that the people at the top are working hundreds or thousands of times harder than the rest of us. The modern socialist view is completely contradictory, where most of the people at the top are supposed to be doing even less than a construction worker, but they're rich because of the return on capital or the right to extract some sort of rent.

fwipsy 27d ago
This is an empirical question. 10 seconds of googling suggests CEOs work about 60 hours/week average: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/harvard-study-what-ceos-do-all-day.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/harvard-study-what-ceos-do-a... so harder than the average employee, but I'm not sure by what measure anyone believes they work 100x harder. Perhaps the difference between a good CEO and a bad CEO is 100-1000000x the average worker's productivity, or even more. I suspect the real disagreement is: does that justify paying a CEO 10-100000x more than the average worker, even if they only work 1.5x as hard? From the perspective of a company it may be worthwhile, but I can see how some people might feel that's a little unfair.
grebc 26d ago
The problem with both views is it ignores lived experience. Everyone knows people at the top get paid more, even in socialist/communist societies this is the case. Now whether this is because of birth privilege, good social connections, politicking, actual hard work. It's pretty well a constant that's held across time & differently structured societies. I guess what I'm trying to say here: there's always people jockeying for position. Pretending we're in some sort of utopia won't give the average person a good experience. Second. While the hard work is most definitely over exaggerated, it's not uncommon that hard working people usually end up better off then not hard working people. There's also the saying/belief that people make their own luck. And I am firmly in the camp that luck, whether it's made on their own accord or blindly stumbled into, is a probably the biggest unspoken factor because it takes away from narratives of self-made etc.

grebc 27d ago

Your reply is postmodern.