““Taxing the rich isn't fair considering they worked hard to get to where thy are.””
The rich quite literally did not work for their money; they got their money via property ownership and by taking the profits of other people's labor.
@Patriot-#1776Constitution4mos4MO
That can only be the case if you subscribe to the low-IQ Marxian economic principle of the labor theory of value, which has been proven to be false...
@NameIGuessLolSocialist 3mos3MO
Mr. @Patriot-#1776 ... there is no way Jeff Bezos did $211 billion worth of cold, hard labor.
If a businessperson profits off another worker's labor, that worker did not get the whole fruit of said labor. It would essentially be the same thing if the worker actually did get the fruit of their labor, but then the businessperson stole a portion.
@UnhappyLynxCapitalism3mos3MO
What most socialists don't understand about financial outcomes, is that your potential return will always be based on what you are personally willing to risk and the amount of personal stress and uncertainty you take on, not just cold hard labor. You will either pay the price, or reap the benefits of how much risk you took on. Intelligent, cold hard labor will increase your chances of maximizing the potential return.
Read a biography about Jeff Bezos through the lens of how much uncertainty and personal risk he took on, then you will definitely see why he is worth that much money.
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@Renaldo-MoonGreen 1mo1MO
Boy he gambled and has more money than he can ever spend. Really deserving.
@Patriot-#1776Constitution3mos3MO
But labor does not produce value. Value is subjectively evaluated by individuals – that's why trade even happens. That's why, for example, buying a box of apples from a farmer is possible. The farmer values the money more than the apples, and you value the apples more than the money. If labor was the determinate of value, then value would be objective, making all economic transactions senseless and disincentivizing anyone from participating in trade. The same works for employees and their employers. The employee values his pay check more than the time he spends to attain it, while the employer regards the worker performing a certain task/tasks as more valuable than the money with which he compensates the employee. "Surplus value theft" is a myth. The very fact that people work at all debunks it.
@NameIGuessLolSocialist 3mos3MO
You fail to understand this in a dialectical materialist perspective. The contradiction between the interests of the employee and the employer leads to the employer lowering wages as much as possible, forcing the employee to work harder for the same amount of money, meanwhile the employer profits off the increased labor-power.
@Patriot-#1776Constitution3mos3MO
I understand the dialectical materialist perspective better than you, for I have realised the most fundamental thing about it: it's crap.
Also, you're just engaging in circular reasoning here. You're re-stating your beliefs, but you're not adding anything new to the discussion or addressing my points.
You're thinking of labor done to get rich, but I think of it as the education done. Yes, Jeff Bezos isn't personally delivering his packages to make the money, but he did go to Princeton. He did put in the work of his education. And then... he did it again when he wanted to start a business. You don't have to go to college or probably even graduate high school to work for Amazon. And whether that's the person's choice or if something happened to prevent them from going, that's the reality of how it works.
@9S8MS8CRepublican 4mos4MO
They did work for their stuff; they started the companies and did a lot of work when they first began. Yes, they deserve the money because they take all the risk. If the company goes bankrupt, the owner is the one who will lose all their money, not the employees, who can just get another job and not face bankruptcy. For the owner, they lose everything, while the employees only have the tools they use to work because the owner bought all the supplies. For example, in a pencil shop, employees do make the pencils, but they wouldn’t have the graphite, wood, or machines if it weren’t for the owner buying the supplies. That’s why the owner takes all the risk, and if the company goes under, so does the owner, not the employees.
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