The Problem With Prejudices That Target the Rich

[Balto1]

Nowadays I can amass wealth by working and investing.

What do you think investing is? It’s just amassing wealth produced by other people’s labor.

Companies make money by offering a good or service that the market demands, at a price point that the market will accept, while controlling the cost of production.

“Controlling the cost of production” = exploiting labor. It’s why worker productivity has skyrocketed since the early '70s but wages haven’t.

Walmart does so through operational excellence, making their distribution system very efficient.

Walmart does it by paying employees so little that billions in government assistance goes to Walmart employees every year.

Amazon did so by creating a business model that reduced the cost of operation by not operating in brick and mortar locations and leveraging the burgeoning internet age.

Amazon did it by grinding down human bodies in their warehouses.

People offer compensation based on the labor market conditions.

"The most barbarous fact in all christendom is the labor market. The mere term sufficiently expresses the animalism of commercial civilization.

They who buy and they who sell in the labor market are alike dehumanized by the inhuman traffic in the brains and blood and bones of human beings.

The labor market is the foundation of so-called civilized society. Without these shambles, without this commerce in human life, this sacrifice of manhood and womanhood, this barter of babes, this sales of souls, the capitalist civilizations of all lands and all climes would crumble to ruin and perish from the earth.

Twenty-five millions of wage-slaves are bought and sold daily at prevailing prices in the American Labor Market. This is the paramount issue in the present national campaign." - Eugene V. Debs

Pretty sure you when you go shopping for yourself, you don’t purchase the most expensive item on the shelf. Same thing with business.

Like Debs said, the capitalist sees human beings just like products on a shelf, to be used and discarded.

I do agree that the turn of the century monopolies and company towns were a terrible, terrible thing, and an inherent risk in unfettered Capitalism.

They were terrible because of the wealth inequality they produced. We are approaching those levels of wealth inequality again.

I spend years saving up and investing, building up a solid foundation that will continue to grow even if I don’t put anything else into it. Then, once that foundation is lain, I can take the money I’m earning from that and engage in generous charity.

Instead of exploiting labor to amass a fortune and then giving token donations back, that money should just go to the laborers in the first place.

 

[Balto1]

The existence of billionairres doesn’t bother me. They didn’t steal their billions from me.

If you’ve ever worked for wages in your life then yes, they stole some of their money from you.

I always find it odd that so many people will defend the rich with their lives. Are they paying them or something?

something something temporarily embarrassed millionaires something

Who would spend all the years necessary to learn medicine without a financial incentive?

People who want to help other people. It’s pretty telling that you think the only reason someone would become a doctor is for money.

Who would invent new technologies without financial rewards on the horizon? Do you honestly believe they’ll do it for the good of humanity?

Yes, but it sounds like I have more faith in humanity than you do.

 

[TULIPed]

“Controlling the cost of production” = exploiting labor. It’s why worker productivity has skyrocketed since the early '70s but wages haven’t.

Interesting. Wages have stayed entirely flat since 1970, and the only reason is that the rich are paying the workers the exact same wage for doing more work. Very rarely in economics do return problems revolve around single variables (in fact in all my years in business I’ve never seen one), but you’ve managed to discover this one. Fair enough.

Oh darn it, I can’t help myself. I wonder if workers are taking the same risks they did in 1970. Just spit-balling here - I wonder if say, workers are safer today than they were in 1970. Ok - lookie there - deaths in the workplace have decreased from around 18 per 100,000 in 1969 to 3.6 in 2009 according to the National Safety Council and the Bureau of Labor statistics.

That’s odd. I mean if the rich are going to “steal” from the worker and hold wages “flat” - why not just hold safety flat too and make even MORE money?! Maybe there’s more to the story than just the “rich are stealing from me” narrative? I mean, that took me all of about 3 minutes to find thanks to the inter-web.

Nah - way easier to blame somebody. Carry on.

 

[TULIPed]

Walmart does it by paying employees so little that billions in government assistance goes to Walmart employees every year.

Rather than ask you for a citation and who did the study, I’ll skip to the end game for everybody. From Investors Business Daily:

“ House Democrats based their findings on data from one state — Wisconsin. They found that 3,216 Wal-Mart workers were enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program. Based on this number, the report calculates that a Wal-Mart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.7 million a year.

To get that number, Democrats assumed that everyone enrolled in Medicaid is also enrolled in every other public program available for low-income families — including food stamps, subsidized housing, child care subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and more — which accounted for 72% of the supposed taxpayer costs.

Plus, the report admits that “extrapolating taxpayer costs for Wal-Mart stores in other states based on the Wisconsin data is difficult” in large part because the state had looser rules for who could enroll in Medicaid.

No matter. Americans for Tax Fairness simply took this already grossly inflated number and applied it to the rest of the nation. And voila, it came up with its $6.2 billion “Wal-Mart Tax.”

(By the way, Wal-Mart actually paid $6.2 billion in federal income taxes in 2014.)“

It would help everyone out if you’d cite your sources though.

 

[Athanasiy]

Monasteries and in churches need to pray for the conversion of the rich so that God enlightens their minds.
One should not be afraid of dialogue with synagogues and conducts possibly joint some noble events.
There is a need for more openness, mutual trust, there is a need for more philanthropic capitalism.
I remind the words of John Paul II about the idea of “freedom for excellence:” freedom as the moral habit of freely choosing the good.
Wealth requires an enlightened heart.
I think that the Biblical verse in the modern world also refers to the rich-
https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-14.htm

 

[Convert3]

Yes, but it sounds like I have more faith in humanity than you do.

I’m just more realistic than you are. I understand human nature more than you do. Sure, there are always a few that will use their gifts to help humanity. But it’s capitalism that allows those inventions and skills to be spread to the rest of the world to help everyone.

 

[signit]

What do you think investing is? It’s just amassing wealth produced by other people’s labor.

But, the investing may also create an opportunity for someone else that might not otherwise exist.

Yes, the owner of the factory where I used to work was worth many millions.

Yes, he invested in a second plant in my town and another plant in another part of the country. Yes, that made him richer.

But, he also provided a choice to take a good-paying factory job in my town for a lot of people.

 

[TheBomb.Com]

People who inherit their wealth and don’t use it for the common good of society are just as criminal. Successful businessmen have to exploit others at some point. No rich person earns all of their wealth honestly.

 

[JimG]

If you’ve ever worked for wages in your life then yes, they stole some of their money from you.

I’ve worked for wages quite a lot f my life. When I was young I mowed the neighbors’ yards, picked cherries and strawberries from their gardens all for a wage which we both agreed on. Later I worked in a mail room and in a hospital for a wage. I did babysitting for a wage. I cleaned beakers in a lab for a wage. I worked as a dishwasher for a wage. I did loan underwriting for a wage. Are you saying those people who paid me should NOT have paid me a wage?

 

[Zaccheus]

Who would spend all the years necessary to learn medicine without a financial incentive?

People who want to help other people. It’s pretty telling that you think the only reason someone would become a doctor is for money.

How can they afford Medical School if nobody will pay them to be doctors? How do they support themselves if not paid to be doctors?
And I don’t think Convert3 was claiming that money should be their only motivation. Just that somebody has to pay their expenses.

 

[AlNg]

So was Jesus unjust towards the rich when he said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven?

It does seem so. I don’t see how a camel could pass through the eye of a needle? Is that even possible? If not, then doesn’t this passage say that it is just about impossible for a rich man to get to heaven? IOW, the overwhelming majority of rich people will go to hell according to this passage?
Suppose now that you compare the wealth of the average American with that of many others? Aren’t Americans, or at least 80%, of Americans rich in contrast with the standard of living of many others around the world?

 

[AlNg]

I’ve worked for wages quite a lot f my life. When I was young I mowed the neighbors’ yards, picked cherries and strawberries from their gardens all for a wage which we both agreed on.

I did similar. I shoveled snow in the winter and caddied golf in the summer and swept floors as a janitor.

 

[Convert3]

Successful businessmen have to exploit others at some point. No rich person earns all of their wealth honestly.

Why do they have to have exploited someone? There are many rich people who earn an honest living. Your assumptions of people being criminals just because others are willing to pay to see them act, play a sport, use a product they sell or just are good at investments is without basis.

 

[Athanasiy]

We will participate in the sins of the business elite(or ollegarchs) if we exchange our lives for a trifle. Namely, - carnal pleasures, profligacy…,. This means that in their place we would be the same, and that we are no better than them.
A significant part of the subconscious Marxians is the very people who simply envy the money of the rich, because they themselves do not have access to that money.
If you are righteous and faithful in poverty, perhaps the Lord God will give you big money in the future to examine you in great abundance.
There is a proverb which says that there is nothing worst so than a envious slave who suddenly becomes a master.
And Jesus says that the one who is doing sin, he is all the same a SLAVE, a slave to sin.

 

[TULIPed]

Why do they have to have exploited someone? There are many rich people who earn an honest living. Your assumptions of people being criminals just because others are willing to pay to see them act, play a sport, use a product they sell or just are good at investments is without basis.

#don’tfeedthetroll!

 

[27lw]

What about investing and share-holders? I think everyone is familiar with the idea that businesses have to keep the shareholders happy, they “have to” care more about making money for their shareholders than for treating their workers well. How about these CEOs that are paid hugely inflated salaries?
What about the “universal destination of goods” espoused by our Church? How does that fit in with investing, etc?
What about outsourcing jobs to the cheapest labor market? Is that in keeping with Catholic principles?

 

[Regular_Atheist]

The rich (and especially entrepreneurs) are terrible, but not because it is unfair that they have lots of wealth and riches or anything. Rather it’s because they represent that alien social power that essentially enslaves humanity, which is capital, and the drive for expansion and profit that it necessitates. The best thing that could possibly happen is for capital (and therefore entrepreneurs) to stop existing.

 

[StudentMI]

The rich (and especially entrepreneurs) are terrible, but not because it is unfair that they have lots of wealth and riches or anything. Rather it’s because they represent that alien social power that essentially enslaves humanity, which is capital, and the drive for expansion and profit that it necessitates. The best thing that could possibly happen is for capital (and therefore entrepreneurs) to stop existing.

That is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve read on here. You do know that without capital economic calculation is difficult if not impossible, right?

 

[Balto1]

Are you saying those people who paid me should NOT have paid me a wage?

No, I’m saying your wages should have reflected the value your labor produced. If any of that wage work was in the last 50 years it almost certainly didn’t.

How can they afford Medical School if nobody will pay them to be doctors?

State-funded medical education.

 

[JimG]

The value that my labor produces is established by the market. If my labor produces increasing value, I expect to get a raise, or I will market my labor to someone who will pay more.