Your homemade brownie operation was never inspected, and you caused an epidemic of intestinal distress amount your customers (you used ingredients you picked up at a warehouse that dealt in products damaged during shipping). 3 people died of heart attacks because your admittedly delicious, succulent candies were loaded with heart-stopping fat. Your workers were all illegal aliens from Switzerland where automation has resulted in a lot of laid-off chocolate workers. Consequently, you didn't have to pay them much. Plus, one of your workers lost a foot when it was caught in a chocolate milling machine. (And just where did that foot end up?) The county hospital spent 800,000 on his care, unreimbursed. Now the American People have to decide what to do with all these Swiss Aliens. — Bitter Crank
I don't get it. If I start selling homemade brownies, and make enough money to hire a few people to help me, and then manage to sell half my company for £1,000,000, making me a millionaire, there's certainly something unjust about this because paramedics are only making £37,000 a year? — Michael
What don't you get about that? Are you suggesting that you and your hypothetical brownie business is worth more than the value of saving lives? — Sapientia
Just because your hypothetical business succeeded financially doesn't mean that you deserve to be hypothetically rich. Look, I don't want you to be poor at whatever you do in real life. — Bitter Crank
I don't really understand your question. You seem to be equivocating on "worth" and "value". The monetary value of my company, given its assets and expected profits, is £2,000,000. That's more than the paramedic gets paid. — Michael
I'm not equivocating, and do you think that I don't know that? I'm asking you whether you think that that's right. I'm asking you whether you think that that monetary evaluation is in sync with the value (in a broader sense) of your business, based on what it does, compared to the value (in a broader sense) of a parademic, based on what he or she does. — Sapientia
I still don't understand the issue. If you think that the paramedic isn't getting paid enough then you should speak to his employer. My brownie business has nothing to do with his wage. Or if you think that my business isn't worth £2,000,000, then you should speak to the investor and convince him to offer a smaller amount for the same share. But then he'd probably just be outbid by someone else. — Michael
The point Sapientia is making (and I agree with his view) is that jobs that involve saving lives, or enhancing minds (teachers, for instance) are worth more than making money, and that those worthwhile jobs should be paid more. — Bitter Crank
That would be great, but would he or she be willing to do so? My prediction is that many business owners would not be willing. Therefore, they the redistribution should be forced. — Sapientia
So the people who spend millions buying shares in a business will be forced to give them away? Then why would they buy them in the first place? — Michael
See, the rich don't get richer and the poor poorer! Everyone gets rich, just the richer get way way way fucking richer. — Wosret
How can the millions of paramedics and teachers ever be richer than the man who owns 10% of a business with annual profits of a £1 billion? — Michael
Yes, they'd be forced to give them away. That would be an example of forceful redistribution. — Sapientia
They won't be richer than your plutocrat, and after forced redistribution, your plutocrat won't be rich and will have to get a real job. He might want to be something useful like a sanitation worker. And because of the redistribution of wealth, he will be better paid than sanitation workers were before the redistribution.
He gets a real job doing something useful, and gets paid a decent wage. Win win. — Bitter Crank
However, an olive branch: — Thorongil
the redistribution should be forced — Sapientia
I don't know what you're trying to say. Are you rejecting the claim I advanced on which I thought we might find common ground? — Thorongil
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