My Wealth Redistribution Solution

That is an indisputable fact of economics … but you will no doubt dispute that fact because you are completely ignorant of economics.

But it is a resource that can only be put to use with the permission of a landowner … what will that permission cost?

You are trying to pretend that land is not scarce … if so, then why the high prices/rents? If land is as worthless as you suggest … then why are you being so protective of state-issued land privileges? On one hand you claim that land isn't important … but the second I propose to shift taxation onto land values, you will change your tune entirely.

As a side note, the problem with lying is that it is really hard to stay consistent in your arguments.

So if all of the poor people were great artists then they could all be rich? Or more likely, wouldn't the value attached to fine art just collapse into nothing, do to the abundance?

When we talk about the “poor” we are not talking about an individual, we are talking about a group. If one poor individual is successful, he can rise above. The landlord can't charge everyone more rent because of one individuals success. But if all of the poor were successful, they all had more money, then the landlord would indisputably raise their rents. That way he, the landlord, may take their successfulness for himself. What could possibly stop him?

So, by your math land prices should have fallen in half … isn't that right? Wrong. I own agricultural land and the prices have nearly quadrupled in the last fifteen years. I wonder, is the market wrong, or are you wrong? I'm betting that the market is right, and it is you who are completely wrong in your assessment that land is worthless.

While land prices tell a completely different story.

 

They are under the impression machines will do everything for them.....

Wait, isnt it always the Socialists who get accused of having "Utopian fairytales"? Lol, well I suppose this here is the Capitalist Utopia Fairy Tale

 

How would you establish an intrinsic dollar value for work?





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It is very difficult for working poor folks to go to college for two reasons. One, they obviously have a job which must be kept to pay the bills for life's basis necessities. And two, having that income disqualifies or reduces the financial aid you need to get just to afford college in the first place.

 

I agree that market value can be objectively determined, and therefore is not necessarily the same as what someone believes is the dollar value intrinsic to an act or item. I'm less confident that utility value is different. It might help to start with clear definitions for these terms.




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I liken 'intrinsic value' to a can opener. If you have a can that needs opening, it has intrinsic value. If you don't, it has no value. Virtually, nothing has 'intrinsic value' beyond what is necessary to sustain life. air, water, food etc.

 

Yes.





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I will do this as my cunning plan.

Give workers in a company half the Board of Directors seats therefore a say in all business decisions and place a requirement on par with profits to stock holders that the community (local to Federal) be given standing as a required interest for any company publicly traded or not. So if ACME INC making widgets wants to close a plant it must be for a good reason other than profits, and if they leave they must make it up somehow. If they can make a profit while taking care of workers and making them in the local community in this case then fine everyone wins.

 

It has everything to with social welfare programs. The effects of social welfare programs on low/medium income earners has been a financial topic for decades, and has been studied numerous times, including by the Congressional Budget Office (quarterly, if not annually). Living conditions have improved because our standard of living has improved. It has nothing to do with social welfare, and mostly everything to do with our economic progress. If anything, the poverty rate is more or less the same as it was 50+ years ago. Most studies have found that income recipients of social programs are financially worse off in the long run, hence, the disincentive to work, increase their overall income or human capital.

 

https://www.epionline.org/studies/shaviro_02-1999.pdf

 

Y'know, I've always figured that this was at the foundation of a lot of conservative beliefs, but I've never seen anybody crazy enough to actually type that sentence.

 

You're statement is making implicit assumption that the value of one's work is based solely upon market demand for his services, and not the value of wealth the worker creates.

The worker's agreement to pay is not based on what he can create, but on the supply of competing labor. If there are few jobs, the worker may be forced to subsistance level wages, far below the value of what he creates, allowing the owner to take almost all the value of what worker creates.

The point is, the value paid to the worker, which determines the share of the value of the worker's creation the worker gets, is *not* based on the value the worker creates, but on the market value of the worker's labor, determined by the supply (and demand) for workers.

In this way, particularly if there is an oversupply of labor, the owner can take much of what worker has created for himself.

Thus, as we have seen, the share of the income the owner gets relative to his workers is not based on what the owner creates, not based on what the worker creates, but on the market conditions for the supply of workers.

So again, the question you dodged: Is it "fair" or right or desirable that the share of the wealth that the Worker creates that Worker gets be based solely on the current market conditions of the supply or workers -- irregardless of the wealth that the Worker creates?

If we have a big recession and suddenly there is an excess supply of workers, is it fair or right that Owner now gets a much larger share of the wealth that Worker creates simply because of the change in market conditions when Worker is creating the same wealth?

I've pointed out some of the negative consequences of such a system.

 

Typical baseless 1% apologist fantasy -- the richest have taken more and more of the nation's income and wealth because workers have "brought less" to the table.

If that were the case, we'd have seen a stagnate economy over the past 30 years. But we haven't. We've seen good economy growth and soaring profits. The amount workers have produced also grown.

It's just that all the benefits have gone to the owners.

Technological innovations reduced the demand for workers, whose income (without government or union intervention) is not based on what they create but on what the labor market demand is.

Keeping labor costs cut to the bone is one way the 1% has been able to double their take of the nation's income and wealth to 20% and 40%, respectively, while workers have been getting less and less of the share of the wealth they help create.

Increasing profit by technological innovation that uses less raw material is a good thing. Doing it be suppressing worker's income, however, is less of a a good thing.​

 

After Worker is hired, the Widgets he creates creates the wealth and income that pays for raw materials for future widgets Worker creates.

I acknowledged that the Owner provides a benefit and takes risk with the initial startup and have certainly never meant to suggest that those aren't factors. I've never argued that owners shouldn't get rewards for their risk and creativity, nor do I suggest that owners and workers should get paid the same.

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Dodge.




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No, the amount the overall processes have produced has grown. The contribution of labor to those processes has decreased -- in some cases to zero. When your contribution decreases, you are bringing less to the table.

That those processes are more productive despite your reduced contribution means the other components of that process are doing more.





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The only decision making problem here is the refusal of society to ensure that everyone who works hard at a necessary job is compensated appropriately and that no person can live off the value of any labor except their own.

Claiming that everyone is poor due to their own mistakes is incorrect, and even if it were correct it is no justification for exploitation by paying mistake-makers less than their labor is worth so that someone who didn't make any mistakes can live without working at all. That is not the appropriate way to reward and punish decisions made in childhood and early adulthood.

I also seem to recall that the son of a certain wealthy and powerful American family made many serious mistakes in his youth. He was a goof off in school and spent his twenties drinking, drugging, failing at business. But instead of spending his life working at McDonald's as punishment for his misspent youth he spent 8 years in the White House. And it's not as though this fortunate son's family made their money by benefiting their fellow human beings. Slave trading featured prominently in the early wealth accumulation of the Bush family.

Our society is such that the wealthy and to a lesser extent the middle class can rescue their offspring from bad choices while the poor cannot. This means that those born into poverty who make mistakes face a lifetime of being used as a profit generating labor source and then get blamed when no matter how hard and long they work, they're still poor because someone else is in a position to take some or most of the value of their labor.

In addition, if every person, from birth to death, was possessed of the ability and desire to make perfect decisions and did make perfect decisions, there still will not be enough good paying, skilled jobs here in America for everyone because my society allows the wealthy and powerful to accumulate even more wealth and power by outsourcing jobs to countries with even less protected workers than we have in countries such as America.

And even if there were enough high paying skilled jobs, and even if everyone had access to higher education to train them in those skilled, high paying jobs we still have a problem because society still needs people to do jobs that don't require an advanced degree and will continue to need these people until technology advances significantly more. Therefore society benefits from these workers and should compensate them appropriately, not permit them to be exploited, to live in poverty, and to then be looked down upon for the necessary work they do.

 

Sounds like you're saying: (1) some properties of an item don't change based on how much of that item you have and (2) a value derived solely from those properties therefore doesn't change based on rarity of the item.






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