If you’ve seen the show, you’d know that this artists’ work was deeply instrumental to the creation of the wealth. It would be one thing if the author was an associate grabbing coffees and scheduling meetings.
In this case, not getting a royalty for their contribution is shameful.
Are you sure you read the parent post? It was not about wealth being immanent at all as I read it, it was about capital ownership granting full access to work-created value.
> It was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the British Broadcasting Corporation, with BBC Studios holding global distribution and merchandising rights.
The government part is a good point, this is not the best example of a capitalist endeavor.
> What capital is there to own?
The rights you mentioned is part of the ‘capital’ - these days capital and ‘means of production’ certainly involve intellectual property. I think it always did - capital was always referring to ownership - but the mix is starting to lean heavily on intangibles now, with software running so much of the world. The ABC & BBC capital used to include tons of high power broadcasting equipment, but maybe that mostly going or gone now?
I didn’t mean capital in the accounting sense, I meant receiving capital as remuneration as opposed to a salary. The more accurate word would have been equity, but I was using the term polotics used:
>it was about capital ownership granting full access to work-created value.
What do you mean? @plotics wasn’t talking about remuneration for products or services, nor equity. “Capital ownership” in the sentence you quoted is referring to the company, the ol’ ownership of the means of production. “Granting full access to work-created value” means the owners (investors, CEO, etc.) would split profits among workers rather than keep the profits for themselves.
> Granting full access to work-created value” means the owners (investors, CEO, etc.) would split profits among workers rather than keep the profits for themselves.
This is remuneration, the reward in exchange for your effort/wares/risk.
In this case, the artist would have had to ask taxpayers (or the taxpayers’ representatives) to sell them a piece of the taxpayer’s equity. Or some type of royalty/revenue sharing agreement.
Obviously, that was not going to happen for a small time artist (that kind of stuff is reserved for well connected people when it comes to government assets).
But the second best option the world has come up with is public equity markets, where the common people can invest and gain access to equity, which is also very liquid.
After the number of times I’ve seen people invoke the HN guidelines to trample good spirited discussions there should be a guideline against quoting the guidelines.
How do you think wealth works? Regardless of your political stance or economic beliefs, that doesn’t seem like a very informed or thoughtful summary of Marx, who I assume is who the parent comment was referring to, and was one of the more influential economists of all time. Have you read Marx? He might have thought and written about wealth more than both you and me. FWIW he didn’t argue that wealth somehow exists, he argued that for business owners, wealth stems from the discrepancy between what laborers are paid and what their employers collect. He went much further than that, but that much is technically true, right?
In this case, not getting a royalty for their contribution is shameful.