@Invictus: "You misspelled..."

I am from England. "Labour" is the correct spelling.

"Little" is also a dangling modifier. Are you talking about little firms..."

In that sentence the word 'little' forms part of "how little" meaning "what a small amount" not "little firms" referring to the size of the company.

"....hopeless nut..."

I am trying to have a polite discussion. I have not called you names. If you have to resort to insults it only shows up the weakness of your position.

You also seem to show you have no sense of humor...

My position is very strong, as it is backed up by reality. I have no idea what else to call you when you come to the table with the assumption that employment is exploitation and profit making is wrong.

@Invictus: "My position is very strong, as it is backed up by reality. "
I am sure this is what a lot of people said when first confronted with the ideas of democracy, free market, abolition of slavery... ;)

@DarioD - let's look at your baseball v. soccer example. Here in the US, baseball and footb all are THE sports of choice (with basketball close behind). The minor league players make less than a MLS soccer stars, but the MLB/NFL stars do make more. They contribute more to the economy by sheer virtue of their "fan power". In music, MJ contributed more to the economy with the concerts and the albums and the memoriabilia (the physical items had to be manufactured somewhere) than any doctor ever did, so he made more money. Now, I agree that the MLB/NFL stars and major music/TV/movie stars also owe a debt to society for supporting them and giving them their fortunes. Many of them, consequently, have major charities they support. Same with the real biggies in industry (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc). So not only do their direct efforts contribute more, but what they do after returns back some of the money doing even more good. If they made a fixed wage the same as a doctor (bad example considering how bloody rich they can get) or teacher (who works nine months out of the year), then these additional programs would not be funded.

I disagree Dario. America values its baseball players more than its soccer players. Baseball players contribute more to society because American society doesn't care about soccer. I am not following your logic.

@ Invictus: "I have no idea what else to call you when you come to the table with the assumption that employment is exploitation and profit making is wrong."

Employment is not always exploitative, but it often is. When greed is the main motivating factor, and delivering a profit to the shareholders is seen as more important than delivering benefit to society, some firms will always try to keep labour costs to a minimum and this means screwing the workforce.

Profit making is not wrong per se, but it is wrong to base the whole economy around greed and selfishness.

@ Draugnar: I see your point about the economic contribution of "stars" to the overall wealth of society; once again, you can argue that capitalism is the most efficient economic system, and even the disproportionate amount of wealth transferred to celebrities is functional to the maximisation of overall wealth production. Still, this does not prove that capitalism ensures "fairness".

Imagine you have two athletes: one is tall and agile, the other is short and very muscular, so the first starts playing basketball and the second starts playing rugby (I'm oversimplifying for the sake of the argument): they are both making the most rational choice based on their natural abilities. They both train incredibly hard, and they become the best in their respective sports. But, rugby is not popular in their country, while basketball is. So, the first one has a huge "fan base" and earns millions a year, while the second is paid like an average worker. In another country where rugby is more popular than basketball, their roles in society would be switched.
I think this contradicts your earlier arguments that "there is intrinsic value in skill and intellect" and that "rewarding a ditch digger equally with the same effective luxuries as an IT Manager is inherently unfair" by showing that there is a substantial amount of "luck" and other factors involved in the capitalistic system of wealth distribution, and that it does not ensure "fairness" in distribution of wealth anymore than communism and other systems do.

Also, I don't think support for charities is directly linked to capitalist values. In fact, one could argue that it is because they feel the injustice of having accumulated so much wealth that many millionaires start supporting charities…

@DJ: what I am trying to say is that the distribution of wealth under capitalism reflects society's demands and tastes (which can change in time). As such, it rewards people who have the right skills at the right time and place; it does not reflect any form of intrinsic value of someone's work, and it is not connected to "fairness", as Draugnar seemed to be arguing earlier on.

@Draugnar: "...Many of them, consequently, have major charities they support..."

That's nice of them, to an extent, but they are under no obligation, and therefore cannot be relied upon to do so.

An interesting statistic from here in the UK is that the poorest 50% of our population give more to charity than the wealthiest 50%, both as a proportion of their income, and gross.

@ DarioD: "what I am trying to say is that the distribution of wealth under capitalism reflects society's demands and tastes (which can change in time). As such, it rewards people who have the right skills at the right time and place; it does not reflect any form of intrinsic value of someone's work, and it is not connected to "fairness", as Draugnar seemed to be arguing earlier on."

Exactly. I mean look at all the people who lost their jobs in this recession. If Draugnar thinks in-demand workers deserve to be rewarded the most, I wonder if he also feels that workers losing their jobs are being justly "punished" for not being good enough to somehow single-handedly keep the corporation they work for from making a loss? How is that "fairness" Draugnar?

Whoever said life was fair?

@ Invictus: "Whoever said life was fair?"

1. So you admit capitalism is unfair?
2. If you actually read this thread you'll notice Draugnar WAS arguing that capitalism rewards workers in a fair manner.

I haven't read this thread in awhile, but I read the last few posts, so I'm just going to say this:

In any exchange of goods in a free market, both sides benefit. If I buy a pair of shoes, I gain equal or greater utility from that pair of shoes than I could get from the next best alternative to those shoes given the money I spent on them. Conversely, the company selling me those shoes gains more utility from the money that they received from me than the pair of shoes, or they would not sell me those shoes. The same applies to any transaction in a free market - labour, (I'm American and I prefer that spelling Invictus. In fact I prefer all the British spellings) goods, services, it makes no difference. Since no one is forcing you to make the transaction, the only reason you would make that transaction is an increase in utility. This is the fundamental concept of the creation of wealth. The more you work, the more you sell, the more you have created - you've given someone something they valued more than what they gave, and you have received something that you valued more than what you gave. Thus both sides are happier, and you have created wealth.

Therefore one's wealth a measure of what they have already done for society, and not how much they have yet to do for society. I contest that it is your social obligation, if indeed you do have one, (a point I disagree with) to become as wealthy as humanly possible.

My question is this then: How is it possible to exploit someone in a free market economy? If all parties are acting in their own rational self interest, it is impossible to exploit someone, because they are gaining something of greater value than what they gave.

@ rlumley:

"Therefore one's wealth a measure of what they have already done for society"

What if they inherited it without doing anything for society?

"How is it possible to exploit someone in a free market economy?"

If someone has a choice between starving to death, or working for an unfairly low wage, when there are no other decent jobs available, he is being exploited - for example. No one is 'forcing' him to accept the low wage, but he has no real choice as the alternative of not working is not viable.

"it does not reflect any form of intrinsic value of someone's work"

What do you mean by 'intrinsic' value? I'm not sure what you are getting at here. A ditch digger produces ditches. An IT Manager produces widgets or computers or websites or whatever his firm happens to do. Some times we don't need more ditches, some times we don't need more widgets.

The people being laid off from IT (of which I was one last year), I'm not being punished. But I wasn't critical enough to my company, so I was laid off. So be it.

@ Jamiet:

I don't believe in inheritance. :-) I believe in a 100% inheritance tax. Not on the grounds that I want the government to have it, but that I don't want the inheritors to have it.

This is idealistic, I know, and it's more in theory than anything, so don't argue the practicality of it.

Whoops. I forgot to respond to your second point:

He isn't being exploited. Who is exploiting him? His situation just sucks. And I contest that the vast majority of situations, especially in developed countries, don't suck nearly that bad. Sure, people can get the short end of the stick, but if you work hard, you can usually overcome that.

>There is no impetus to work hard and earn even more in a communist society.

That's one of the best features of a communist society!
The Abolition of Work, by Bob Black: http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html

>This is idealistic, I know, and it's more in theory than anything, so don't argue the practicality of it.

This should sum of the entire thread! (^_^)

Grrr … sum *up*

>If I buy a pair of shoes [in a free market], I gain equal or greater utility from that pair of shoes than I could get from the next best alternative to those shoes given the money I spent on them.

But this is not true! You might simply not be aware of what alternatives were avaiable.

OK, this isn't exactly relevant to what you were saying, but it's important feature of free markets that a lot of libertarian theory misses out on (but which the Austrians do study): the problem of information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry

Actually, on second thought, it *is* relevant, isn't it? It's one of the main features of those sociopathic persons, the corporations: like the good Diplomacy players in the empathy thread, they understand how to manipulate real people by feigning empathy, but they don't really feel anything. That's the point of Madison Avenue advertising, as well as the BS that they give you about how the workers and customers comprise a corporate ‘family’.

That's not the point... It may be relevant, but the overall point is that in every transaction, wealth is created...

If by ‘wealth is created’, you mean that both people are better off than they were before, that is not necessarily true. Really, both people *think* that they're better of than they were before.

I don't think that there's any simple fix for this. I am of the firm opinion that each person is the best judge of what is right for themself; any other judge has even greater foibles. But it's something to keep in mind in economic analyses. (And it the reason so much effort is put into making people think that various things are good and bad, of course.)

@ rlumley:

"I don't believe in inheritance. :-) I believe in a 100% inheritance tax."

On that subject we can agree. Inherited wealth is a clear source of injustice as even the defenders of capitalism can't argue that the person inheriting has worked hard for that wealth. I think if we do have to stick with capitalsm for the time being, getting rid of inheritance would make a significant improvement to the system.

@ Toby: No it's not really. Because even if they aren't better off, they think they are. And isn't that what matters? They're happy because they made the purchase...

@ Toby: Regarding Bob Black's essay:

1. You are wrong to cite Black's writings as a defence of communism. He is clearly anti-communism just as much as he is anti-capitalism. I suppose the best way to define him would be as a kind of anarchist.
2. His essay is very entertaining, and he is right on a few points, but he makes absolutely no concrete suggestions as to how his wondrous plan would be put into effect, and who would organise and plan things in this restful new world.

I did enjoy reading it though so thanks for posting the link.

How is pro-anarchy any different than pro-capitalism? Anarchy is the purest form of capitalism...

There's a huge debate regarding the place of property in an anarchic society, but I think most of the first anarchists were clearly against the private property of the means of production, specially the land.