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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

By enslaving others. Fooling them into working for you, for wages that are grossly inferior to the intrinsic value of their work. Let me explain:

VALUE is created by work. The difference between a tree and furniture is WORK. Of course the furniture can be worth A LOT MORE than the tree, mostly depending on the QUALITY of the work.

Capitalism is a wonderful thing: a capitalist will invest in machinery and other installations and have workers perform their work on his machines inside his installations. As a result of this investment, MORE WORK can be done by the craftsman. Instead of making one table a week, he makes two a DAY.

But wait, now we have a problem: the worker makes 14 times more stuff thanks to the machines. Does that mean that the worker should keep only the value created by making ONE table, and the installation owner keeps the other 13? Doesn't seem fair, does it? Because without the worker, the installation and tools will make precisely ZERO pieces of furniture.

So if you want to be balanced, you would say maybe the worker should keep 7 or 8 tables' value and the owner should keep 6 or 7.

But... You guessed it, that's not what happens. The rich get rich by keeping 12, 13, 13¼, 13½, 13¾ tables' value out of the 14 being produced. Of course by that time the worker has found a way to eke out a 15th table during his week, trying to produce "enough" to pay the bills. Now the tables are probably of lower quality.

That's unchecked capitalism for you. That's how you get really rich. By stealing honest workers' creation of value.

Or you could play the stock market or create a work of art or of science to wow the people into paying you massive sums.

[–]therium 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Slaves cannot exist without the slaves' consent. Is this capitalism's fault?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

OH. MY.