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by mamon 3132 days ago
Sam Walton's employees would not be able to generate that fortune on their own. You seem to underestimate the role of leadership, vision and other business skills in creating a company. Not to mention that many of those employees probably also made their own small fortunes along the way.

Also, you make it sound like Sam Walton somehow has a debt of gratitude to a society for it allowing him to get rich. I think that no such debt ever exists: in exchange for those billions of dollars Walton made society has already gotten something equally valuable in return, i.e. Wal-Mart mall in every city, providing cheap and easy access to all kinds of consumer goods. That's how business works: making money by providing services that society finds valuable.
1 comments
dcre 3132 days ago
The fact that leadership is necessary (which I do not deny) does not imply that some particular share of the resulting surplus value should go to said leadership. The share of surplus value captured by capital is something we get to decide as a society, and the idea that "as much as capital can manage to capture" is a natural and just share is a pervasive and pernicious lie.
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mamon 3132 days ago
But of course it implies exactly that. People should be rewarded for their skills and their contribution to the success of the company, which means that lion's share of profits goes to those on top. And no, we as a society don't get to decide that, because companies are privately owned by individuals, not by society as whole. Why should society decide how should I spend my money?
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chrisbennet 3131 days ago
Yes, reward them for their skills and work - not what they can capture of someone else’s hard work. It is an article of faith in some quarters that someone who manages to put themselves in a position where they can skim the labor from employees or renters somehow means they are a wealth creator. Usually though, these “wealth creators” are just capturing wealth generated by someone else.
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dcre 3131 days ago
Whether it’s really yours is what we’re arguing about.

You’ve just made the interesting argument that because it’s yours, it’s yours. Not sure I’m convinced by that.

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