Warren Buffet nails it on inequality

[Jayjay]

I was messing around a bit earlier, but your use of "taking" and "replacing" seems odd.

Do workers in an auto manufacturing plant own the cars (the fruits of their labor)?

Or are they paid a market wage? In the case of some auto manufacturers a better negotiated market wage.

Are the fruits taken and replaced with a market wage?

They fruits are not "taken", they are bought at a rate freely accepted by the employee.

 

[untermensche]

Do workers in an auto manufacturing plant own the cars (the fruits of their labor)?

Or are they paid a market wage? In the case of some auto manufacturers a better negotiated market wage.

Are the fruits taken and replaced with a market wage?

They fruits are not "taken", they are bought at a rate freely accepted by the employee.

That is not the arrangement. The arrangement is renting labor at a market wage. What many have called wage slavery.

The fruits are taken.

And it is clearly understood that workers have no right to their fruits.

 

[fast]

We steal from workers? Actually, workers steal from their employers. It's why there's a thing called loss prevention.

Are workers paid in relation to the fruits of their labor?

If so show me the formula that looks at the overall money taken in by a company and the pay of employees.

The facts are, most people are paid what is called a market wage.

This phrase is, as I said, just a slimy way of trying to put lipstick on a pig.

A market wage in actuality means, most of the time, the lowest possible wage.

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage is theft?

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage somehow magically has a relation to overall money taken in by a company?

The system flows from slavery and in the North, indentured servitude. It is a master/slave system.

And we really see what the system is in the late 1800's before the labor movements forced the capitalists to behave somewhat decently towards workers.

You make it sound like an employee is entitled to what an entrepreneur is entitled to. The fruit of an employees labor is their paycheck, not the products they produce.

My vision. My dream. My putting systems in place. My putting up the dough. My butt on the line. It's all I can do to keep people that can come in on time ... and you think they're entitled to make enough money to eat? If I have to pay them enough so that they can eat and pay their light bill, then I will, but if I don't have to and do anyway, then I'm the generous caring person, but don't think for a moment that I somehow owe people a decent wage. Obligations self-inflicted, I'm very much inclined to be the responsible party, but I do have a tendency to growl when faced with those thrown at me like feces.

 

[fast]

I was messing around a bit earlier, but your use of "taking" and "replacing" seems odd.

Do workers in an auto manufacturing plant own the cars (the fruits of their labor)?

Or are they paid a market wage? In the case of some auto manufacturers a better negotiated market wage.

Are the fruits taken and replaced with a market wage?

They didn't own the parts, and they were paid for their service. Of course they don't own them.

 

[untermensche]

You make it sound like an employee is entitled to what an entrepreneur is entitled to. The fruit of an employees labor is their paycheck, not the products they produce.

Those carefully indoctrinated always fail to ask the crucial questions.

The first is always, Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where the fruits are taken?

Or is it possible to construct a system where workers control the fruits of their labor?

 

[untermensche]

Do workers in an auto manufacturing plant own the cars (the fruits of their labor)?

Or are they paid a market wage? In the case of some auto manufacturers a better negotiated market wage.

Are the fruits taken and replaced with a market wage?

They didn't own the parts, and they were paid for their service. Of course they don't own them.

You merely claim they don't own them because that is how the system is devised. It is carefully devised to prevent the workers from controlling the fruits of their labor.

Again, the carefully indoctrinated fail to ask the crucial question.

Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where workers do not control the fruits of their labor?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem is you are describing a utopia.

What am I describing?

You are like the ignorant supporter of monarchy that squealed that the sky was falling because some wanted to replace monarchy with a form of democracy.

You are a dinosaur that will be swept under the tide of history.

I note no rebuttal to your world being a utopia.

What you continue to miss is that your objective is an unstable equilibrium. It works only so long as nobody tries to exploit it.

 

[untermensche]

What am I describing?

You are like the ignorant supporter of monarchy that squealed that the sky was falling because some wanted to replace monarchy with a form of democracy.

You are a dinosaur that will be swept under the tide of history.

I note no rebuttal to your world being a utopia.

What you continue to miss is that your objective is an unstable equilibrium. It works only so long as nobody tries to exploit it.

My world?

What are you talking about?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If the fruits belong to the laborer, I guess the losses do to. So when a business goes under the workers should expect a big bill?

This represents the master mentality well.

We steal from workers for years but that is not a problem because sometimes in our scheme to steal from workers we suffer losses too.

What you are missing is that it's simply two sides of the same coin.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We steal from workers? Actually, workers steal from their employers. It's why there's a thing called loss prevention.

Are workers paid in relation to the fruits of their labor?

If so show me the formula that looks at the overall money taken in by a company and the pay of employees.

The facts are, most people are paid what is called a market wage.

This phrase is, as I said, just a slimy way of trying to put lipstick on a pig.

A market wage in actuality means, most of the time, the lowest possible wage.

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage is theft?

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage somehow magically has a relation to overall money taken in by a company?

The system flows from slavery and in the North, indentured servitude. It is a master/slave system.

And we really see what the system is in the late 1800's before the labor movements forced the capitalists to behave somewhat decently towards workers.

You are continuing to make the basic Marxist mistake of assuming a stable world.

If there were no progress you would see a slow decline like you think will happen.

However, in practice there is another force--innovation. The worker who was underpaid in the static world instead does something new. The more wages are pushed down the more attractive this becomes.

 

[untermensche]

This represents the master mentality well.

We steal from workers for years but that is not a problem because sometimes in our scheme to steal from workers we suffer losses too.

What you are missing is that it's simply two sides of the same coin.

I see, we need slaves.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You make it sound like an employee is entitled to what an entrepreneur is entitled to. The fruit of an employees labor is their paycheck, not the products they produce.

Those carefully indoctrinated always fail to ask the crucial questions.

The first is always, Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where the fruits are taken?

Or is it possible to construct a system where workers control the fruits of their labor?

In your system nobody provides the tools to let those workers produce those fruits.

 

[untermensche]

Are workers paid in relation to the fruits of their labor?

If so show me the formula that looks at the overall money taken in by a company and the pay of employees.

The facts are, most people are paid what is called a market wage.

This phrase is, as I said, just a slimy way of trying to put lipstick on a pig.

A market wage in actuality means, most of the time, the lowest possible wage.

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage is theft?

Are you claiming the lowest possible wage somehow magically has a relation to overall money taken in by a company?

The system flows from slavery and in the North, indentured servitude. It is a master/slave system.

And we really see what the system is in the late 1800's before the labor movements forced the capitalists to behave somewhat decently towards workers.

You are continuing to make the basic Marxist mistake of assuming a stable world.

If there were no progress you would see a slow decline like you think will happen.

However, in practice there is another force--innovation. The worker who was underpaid in the static world instead does something new. The more wages are pushed down the more attractive this becomes.

This is gibberish.

Marx never talked about a "stable world".

He did talk about the artificial and man made rises and falls in speculative systems like capitalism and the nature of capitalism towards continual crashes.

- - - Updated - - -

Those carefully indoctrinated always fail to ask the crucial questions.

The first is always, Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where the fruits are taken?

Or is it possible to construct a system where workers control the fruits of their labor?

In your system nobody provides the tools to let those workers produce those fruits.

What system are you talking about?

 

[fast]

They didn't own the parts, and they were paid for their service. Of course they don't own them.

You merely claim they don't own them because that is how the system is devised. It is carefully devised to prevent the workers from controlling the fruits of their labor.

Again, the carefully indoctrinated fail to ask the crucial question.

Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where workers do not control the fruits of their labor?

If workers (and by workers I mean those employees who work for employers) do in fact own what they ultimately contribute in making, and if we're not using some strange sense of the word, "own," then I suppose I can see why you would invoke the idea of theft.

I guess things don't have to be the way they are, and I suppose things could be changed for the better.

I've heard it said before that we don't really own things, but such a usage goes against common usage, and when I say we own things, I mean it as it's commonly meant.

It may very well be the case that we don't own the things we would otherwise own if not for how we're compensated for work performed, but either we own what we do or we don't, and if the reason we don't own what we otherwise would is because of the system in place, then it's still the case we don't own what we would own if such a system was in place allowing for such ownership. Because you have invoked the idea of theft, presumably based on the idea that we do in fact own (at least to some extent, as in joint ownership) what we make, then how do you reconcile the fact that because the system is devised as it is that we nevertheless own what we make?

You make it sound as though workers can't not own what they work to produce: either a) what we own is stolen or b) what we own isn't stolen.

 

[laughing dog]

It's all I can do to keep people that can come in on time..

Why do you think that is?

 

[fast]

Nm

 

[Axulus]

I was messing around a bit earlier, but your use of "taking" and "replacing" seems odd.

Do workers in an auto manufacturing plant own the cars (the fruits of their labor)?

Or are they paid a market wage? In the case of some auto manufacturers a better negotiated market wage.

Are the fruits taken and replaced with a market wage?

The fruits that are contributed by all the expensive machinery, technology, and general business process know-how, and the ones who risk taking a loss and losing money, rightly belong to those who contributed that and took on that financial risk - the business owners.

 

[Axulus]

They didn't own the parts, and they were paid for their service. Of course they don't own them.

You merely claim they don't own them because that is how the system is devised. It is carefully devised to prevent the workers from controlling the fruits of their labor.

Again, the carefully indoctrinated fail to ask the crucial question.

Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where workers do not control the fruits of their labor?

The wage is the fruit of their labor that they earn, and they control what happens with that money in pretty much every respect.

 

[Jayjay]

They didn't own the parts, and they were paid for their service. Of course they don't own them.

You merely claim they don't own them because that is how the system is devised. It is carefully devised to prevent the workers from controlling the fruits of their labor.

Again, the carefully indoctrinated fail to ask the crucial question.

Does it have to be like this?

Do we have to have a system where workers do not control the fruits of their labor?

Yes. In a fair system, workers should be able to control their labor. But it makes absolutely no sense for them to have some after-the-fact control over the "fruits" of the labor. Nothing is stopping workers from negotiating contracts that would grant them profit sharing, except that it seems like such a bad deal that nobody would go for it. The problem isn't that workers are somehow deprived of something that rightfully belongs to them, it's that their labor isn't worth enough to begin with.

 

[Bomb#20]

This is amusing, and a bunch of lies.

You quoted more than claims that taking the fruits of labor and replacing it with a market wage (the lowest possible wage) is theft, and I don't know how it is possible to look at it any differently.

You also compared trying to introduce morality into economics as equivalent to a religious delusion.

It is such an ignorantly pathetic analysis I don't know why I even bother to reply to it.

On the one hand, you're flinging mindless abuse at me with reckless disregard for the truth, for no reason but your own hate. I told no lies; moreover, economics has always been part morality. You are not "introducing morality"; you are introducing a religiously motivated delusional opinion of what's moral into a field that already had far more and far better morality in it. No doubt Starman thinks he's "introducing morality" into sex when he makes his various empty-headed homophobic remarks; but surely you know perfectly well that there was already morality in sex and that his not knowing how it is possible to look at gays differently is not evidence that attacking them actually qualifies as "introducing morality".

On the other hand, for the first time you have produced an actual argument. Bravo, sir!

The other hand is far more important than the one. So all is forgiven. Now we can have a substantive debate. Keep up the good work.

... taking the fruits of labor and replacing it with a market wage (the lowest possible wage) is theft ...

So, the premise underlying your conviction that it's stealing to pay market rate for labor is your conviction that the goods and services employers sell are "the fruits of labor".

Why do you believe they're the fruits of labor? To be precise, why do you believe they're the fruits of only labor?

"Fruits" is a curious analogy. If the goods are olives, and the labor is a worker watering, weeding, pruning, picking, and so forth, would you call the olives the fruits of his labor? They're the fruits of the olive tree. If you want to metaphorically call them the fruits of the olive tree and the labor, that's a fair metaphor. But we shouldn't forget that it's a metaphor -- the olives are first and foremost the fruits of the tree. The metaphor that lets us extend the "fruits of" concept to the labor doesn't play favorites. By the same token, those olives are also the fruits of the soil, the fruits of the weather, the fruits of whoever decided that was a good place for an orchard, the fruits of the merchants who told him they'd buy olives, the fruits of the soldiers who deterred the Spartans from invading and cutting down the olive orchards, and any number of other contributors. Without any of those factors there wouldn't be any olives to pick. So the olives are the fruits of all those things. What justifies your picking out just one of those many factors, rhetorically dismissing the contribution of the rest of the factors, and calling the olives "the fruits of labor"?