[protocolture]

>Someone who lays bricks, "earns" their income; someone who's wealth increases as a bricklaying company's value increases, does not.

How does this follow? Is the management effort in organising a brick laying company not count as work? Does the RND effort of a bricklaying company not count as work?

I would have used housing speculation as my example tbh.

[bandofthehawk]

The parent post is not talking about managers, they receive a salary and are taxed at regular income rates. It's taking about shareholders. Someone who makes money by owning a stock should be taxed more aggressively that someone earning a salary, IMO.

[protocolture]

But a company director is usually both? And often forgoes salary for ownership.

The parent post is not saying that some forms of shareholding do not earn, but they are excluding any form of owning a bricklaying firm is definitively not earning. So any arrangement that involves owning a bricklaying firm is within scope. Sole Trader or Partnership for instance.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

also, the bricks ARE capital.

[ewfs]

Wrong.

The house is the capital. Bricks are an intermediate good.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

Yes, in a house, they form only part of the house. But before that, someone has to own the land and equipment that gets those bricks out of the ground, and the kiln that fires them, etc. And the materials for the kiln have to be sourced and built.

The point is, the bricks do not materialize out of thin air. The act of laying the bricks is not the only labor or capital involved in laying bricks.