>>24
Let me clarify, the function I presented represents the wealth generated by an individual, not the net sum of a collective. As for work and time, I didn't put it in because under my function that factor is static/solidified (assuming the individual is healthy and work for the same amount of period). The purpose of this is to illustrate the reason why some people can produce more and become richer than others when everyone is healthy and worked for about the same amount of time. This is also essentially the very purpose of this entire function. And the purpose of me presenting it is to show that the childish misguided notion that people become successful somehow does so by "stealing" from others, is incorrect. There is nothing wrong with helping people, but those who became successful surely as hell doesn't OWN anybody anything if they brought and paid every step of the way to their fortune.
Now, if an individual happens to have people working under him, it changes nothing. All that happens is a trade, the individual exchange his own wealth that he saved up as wage and trade it with the worker for his work. There is no "sharing" anywhere. Both side produces values and voluntarily trade with each other. An inventor owns the whole of his invention (assuming he didn't sell it) even when he had employed workers. Whatever the workers contributed to his invention he traded for it with wage, and that contribution becomes the inventor's through the trade.
As for how much do they [workers] deserve? What wage is fair? That's up to the law of supply and demand and it's their (employee and employer) own business to barter it out. The employee is free to seek other businesses who can offer a better wage, and the employer is free to seek out other workers who have better qualifications. No one is forced to hire or work, it's all voluntary, that's what a free country is all about and basic econ101.
>Personally, I’d have to say that the “function” for wealth is: (commodities necessary for survival)–(commodities on hand). You might argue “that’s not wealth, that’s profit, or a simple surplus” and you would be right to,
That erroneous function of yours is not anything. For it to be even considered some sort of surplus you will have to switch it backwards.
And yes, you are damn right in saying I would point out that your function has nothing to do with wealth. Wealth is the commodity themselves, and your function says absolutely nothing about how they are produced, and more importantly, why can some individuals produce more than others in the same amount of time under the same conditions.
>because your society’s definition of wealth includes influence and power over other peoples’ lives, but there are a few little problems with this.
I'm not right in saying that your obviously bad function is wrong because of some nonsense you wrote here. I am right in saying that because your function IS wrong and have absolutely nothing to do with the production of wealth nor explain why some man can become more wealthy than others.
>As humans we know that power and responsibility are at least joined, if not one and the same. Assuming the wealthy and powerful are responsible for that which they have built around them, they must accept responsibility for the poor, for poverty is a byproduct of their creation, and, once again, a drain on resources.
So, let me spell it out here, you are saying the rich has a responsibility to take care of the poor because poverty is the byproduct of people becoming..wealthy? You are essentially saying wealth production produces poverty as a byproduct, and your argument for that is...
-Where there is wealth, there are scavengers. It is the way of nature. If there is a river, all will try to drink. The wealthy and powerful might have the right to exile it’s scavengers, but that’s become impossible since the wealthy and powerful have claimed that they require all of the worlds habitable lands for their purposes, and expend great resources in defending their claim. So they’re stuck with them.
Responsible for them.
So if we cut all the chitchats, essentially what you are saying is that the rich became rich because they hogged all the raw materials and the poor became poor because all the raw materials were hogged by the rich. And, by your argument, if that's the case, then the rich have a moral responsibility to take care of the poor because it is the rich that caused the poverty. Am I getting it right?
To believe that rich became rich on a free market because they hogged all of a certain resource, and thus somehow creating a monopoly and chocking supply so they can sell it at unprecedented high price, is just plainly mistaking. People can try to "hog" raw materials, but this feat of buying resource rich lands cannot create a monopoly that allow him to set the price of his resoruce to whatever he wants. In economics and in business, there is always substitute for any given product/resource, and new substitute are free to be made though invention/innovation. If a person tries to hog resources and actually succeeds in the expensive and risky venture of buying the majority of the land containing that resource, he still cannot set the selling price of his resource above what is dictated by the law of supply and demand, or else people will start to buy or create cheaper substitute instead and leave him out of business. This is basic econ101. Monopoly cannot exist on a free market, and certainly not how fortunes are created in a free market.
Like I said before, for an individual to produce more wealth than before thus to get rich, he has to think up new and better ways of doing things. Fortunes are not made through cornering existing market. Fortunes are made when someone creates a new market that never existed before though invention/innovation. That is the source of wealth.
On to the point that this act of wealth creation somehow drive people into poverty, that is just plain nonsense.
>>>>>>Your second paragraph<<<<<<<<<
Whatever invention/innovation is made, it belong solely to the inventor/inventor. Since it's his, it's also his right to give/share to whomever he likes. If what you are trying to get at here is that the people he shared it with happens to be incompetent and only got wealthy because of the luck this incompetent "manager" had by acquainting himself with the inventor, then I say that could happen, but if the "manager" person is truly incompetent, then this gift is just a drop down the drain and whatever wealth he achieved though the inventor's mistaken generosity will be short lived.
>That they [the manager] have no actual physical skills is darkly amusing. The true source of wealth is cut off, entropy takes over, and slowly, eventually, they again begin the vicious circle that is the foundation of your system.
Like I said, if this "manager" person is truly incompetent, his wealth will be short lived. As for the second part about some vicious circle, you better clarify what the hell you are talking about, so far it looks like nonsense babbling.
On your last statement:
>The suffering poor are motivated to improve their circumstances, create in order to relieve it and round and round we go. And there’s the truth of it; you have been trained to both fear and love suffering. You believe that it’s the primary source of human motivation. It is you who relegate us to the status of ants and bees.
Really now? I believe that the relief of suffering is the primary human motivation? Aren't you mixing your own belief with mine?
What I believe, and what the facts about men show, is that human are organisms with free will. Unlike animals, we are not born with a purpose, we choose our purpose in life. The relief from suffering can be a primary motivation for a person if that individual choose that goal as his purpose. But this choice of goal is certainly not necessitated by human nature. And the avoidance of suffering is certainly not what brings people out of poverty or allow them to achieve greatness.
>>>>>>Your last paragraph<<<<<<<<<
>But we are human beings. Our greatest suffering is not physical. It’s emotional, philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual anguish that leaves the greatest mark on us. And it’s this suffering that motivates our greatest advancements, and these usually in opposition to “natural” progression.
Fucking wrong. You are telling me that individuals who made great fortunes or/and in advancement of technology, people who made the car, the plane, the rocket, the telephone, the computer, the google..etc. are motivated by suffering? And you say I AM the one who view human as animals?
Those people's goal is the pursuit of happiness, not the avoidance of suffering. What motivated them is AMBITION. It's the thought "this is not good enough, I can do better". And they did.