[sumitkumar]

Everything is extractive. Farmer plants seeds, partially sets the environment. The work is done by the seed/sun/soil/water. And so is every profession: labour or not. Most of the business are structured in such a way that someone can exploit them to make even more money. The whole vendors and b2b system is mutual extraction.

Looking through wages and trying to find a ceiling(by time/effort) on the value creation by a human is one dimensional at best.

[hnav]

It's funny that you bring up seeds, for some crops farmers' seed spend is 25% because of IP laws and consolidation in the sector.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

The point of farming is literally to "extract the value" that something else creates.

> The work is done by the seed/sun/soil/water.

and the farmer collects. It's not that the farmer does nothing or deserves nothing. But it is precisely the same as the capitalist model: the capitalist sets the stage for labor to do the work, and then collects.

As others have noted, the central question is who gets to benefit from what is created and why.

[Cyph0n]

> But it is precisely the same as the capitalist model

It’s only the same if you consider natural resources and human labor to be equivalent. To me, that sounds quite reductive.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

From the perspective of the farmer re: natural resources and the capitalist re: human labor, they are precisely the same: an existing capability in the world that can be used to produce value that can be sold for more than that production costs.

Obviously when viewed from other perspectives, they differ significantly.

[Cyph0n]

Understood, but you're removing the moral aspect of the capitalist's exploitation of labor from a discussion on why the capitalist gets to make a billion dollars and the farmer doesn't.

[ghosty141]

There is a difference between the work most do: working for an hourly wage, and effectively getting rich through capital gains.

This is what aoc is referring to essentially. It's practically impossible to become a billionaire through "regular" work alone that pays you a salary.

I'd argue that for all super wealthy people, their salary isn't the major factor in how they gained their net worth. Lets take Googles CEO, he makes 2 mict llion per year (the exanumber isn't that relevant here). With this salary it'd take him 500 years to earn his net worth. Again, completely different proportions to "normal" people earning their net worth through their job. And I'd argue you can do this for everybody with more than 100 mil. dollars.

[_DeadFred_]

Exactly. Just like the farmer, the billionaire harvests the labor of others, does not create the value themselves. That is AOCs entire point.