[ironmagma]

If you are doing something that has inherent value — extracting gold from a mine, performing music, working a factory line — you are the top of funnel for value creation. Unfortunately for you, the only way for society to run is to have your would-be profits extracted to the maximum extent by other parties. Therefore the rich are the ones who actually don’t tend to produce as much and those who do are taken advantage of. The father away you are from value production, generally the better off you are.

[chii]

> The father away you are from value production, generally the better off you are.

you are only counting the human labour involved in the creation of value.

what about the capital?

Would you, as a hired gold miner, be able to accept zero pay for your work, until the gold is sold (then you got the full price of the sold gold)? What if you starved between the time you mined it, and the time it takes to sell? And how would you have gotten the equipment to do the mining in the first place, let alone the ownership of the mine.

[digdugdirk]

I'm not sure what you're arguing for/against with this line of reasoning.

The previous statement was in regards to the extraction of value - modern markets are such that the best(/fastest/easiest/etc) way to make money is to be at the top of the value chain and let your capital do the work. This is a self-reinforcing feedback loop, enabling you to use your increasing gains to find other forms of leverage (in your example - buying the mine and the equipment, setting up commodity trading positions, etc) and keep on ratcheting up the leverage. One inevitable outcome is for you to have the opportunity to use this leverage against the people doing the actual digging up of the gold.

[ironmagma]

No, but also that wouldn’t be possible because you can’t give 100% of the value to the miner or else the mining operation will cease due to the lack of overhead (supervisors, salesmen, equipment). The starvation argument is pointless, a lot of people get paid with commission and they survive. Also I’m not even saying there’s an alternative to the current system so what are you on about?

[NullifyNAN]

The equipment was constructed by workers. The mine was constructed by workers. The food to feed the workers was produced by workers. The gold was sold by workers.

If value was derived from capital itself, then a pile of tools or machines would spontaneously generate wealth without the application of human labor, and idle money in a bank would somehow enrich society.

[guerrilla]

Capital is also produced by labor... so the aane thing applies to those workers except to a more extreme degree.

[svnt]

This is thinking about it inside out — from the teleology of society needing to run.

If no one promoted musicians, organized tours, etc, then buskers would be the extent of what’s possible.

If one person had to mine, refine, transport, and sell gold that person would do each of those things more poorly than a group of people who specialized.

You are getting at something, but it’s still unarticulated at least from my perspective: large systems of specialized workers produce the opportunity for people to construct and/or capture and maintain chokepoints. With undue control of these chokepoints a person can profit inordinately.

This is part of why anti-trust regulations exist: when the entirety of a class of production is under one coordinated control, that is the ultimate chokepoint. But what you are talking about is a smaller version of that.

[JustBreath]

> If you are doing something that has inherent value — extracting gold from a mine, performing music, working a factory line — you are the top of funnel for value creation.

The standard "how come patrons at a bar pay $10 for a drink but I only make $15 / hour when I serve twenty drinks an hour" argument.

The answer of course is because you didn't create the bar, you didn't secure all the necessary supplies and amenities to run it and ultimately you're not liable for what happens to it. In essence if the bar loses money each month you're still owed a paycheck.

And ultimately that's why raw materials and content DON'T have inherent value (e.g. dug up gold sitting in a mine shaft, the best song ever buried in your notebook).

What they have is POTENTIAL value if the infrastructure exists to get them processed and to the locations where people want them and if people are willing to put skin in the game to bet it will pay off.

And that need for infrastructure is the reason that argument always falls apart.

Co-opts are about the best feasible answer we have now, but it always seems to be the case that suddenly people have far more capitalistic notions about running a business when THEY become the majority risk holder for a new venture.

[ironmagma]

> if the bar loses money each month you're still owed a paycheck

Only until the bar stops existing. You're on the hook for business continuity whether you're the employer or the employee. Lex Fridman and Richard Wolff discussed this: https://youtu.be/o0Bi-q89j5Y?t=2984

Co-ops are indeed the closest thing we have to escaping capitalism in America. However they don't grow very quickly if at all, for the very reason that they aren't efficient at extracting value to fuel growth.

[JustBreath]

> Only until the bar stops existing.

At which point you are STILL not responsible for any liability. For example if the bar gets sued, you don't lose your home, car, etc...

And in most countries, would receive unemployment that was at least partially paid for by the business in advance.

Notice again though - just like the gold mine - without the infrastructure you can't extract any value at all from your ability to pour drinks.

Wolff is about as bad faith as actors get.

[ironmagma]

> you are STILL not responsible for any liability [...] you don't lose your home, car, etc

Uh, you lose your car and home when you can't pay for it due to the bar stopping existing. So you are liable in the sense that your entire income disappears due to this event. It takes a certain kind of boneheadedness to not see this.

> without the infrastructure you can't extract any value at all

I'm not sure what your point here is, all you've done is point out the obvious reason this system can even exist in the first place. Congratulations? If it weren't the case, people would just work and get the money directly and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I'll just ignore your baseless/citationless assertion at the end there.

[JustBreath]

You may be unable to pay bills - except as I mentioned, you'll have unemployment - but that's not NEARLY the same thing as being sued and having to sell your home because your business failed on top of not having any income.

It's always painfully obvious when someone has never had to run even the microist of businesses.

They literally can't perceive the idea that most business owners are taking a huge risk and putting in far more hours and effort than their employees who are free to just walk away any time a better offer comes along.

[ironmagma]

> It's always kinda obvious who has and hasn't actually had to put personal risk in a business

If you're doing it right, you don't do that. That's why corporations exist, to separate personal and business assets. If your corporate veil gets pierced, that's because you don't know what you're doing.

> far more hours

I mean, if you've ever been at a startup it should be patently obvious that the owners (the board) are not working anywhere nearly as much as people in the office who stay late and many times sleep there.

> free to just walk away any time a better offer comes along

You're absolutely able to do this as a business owner. Businesses get sold and liquidated all the time.