Why are people poor?

[Guest]

That's right.

People are poor because they control their own economic destinies. People are poor because they are not under the thumb of state-supported capitalist monopolies. People are poor because nobody steals the fruits of their labor.

[Dimitri]

Why are the people poor?
Same question as "why are the rich rich?".
Someone poor has the possibility to take himself out of the gutter. If the person has potential he/she can jump from gutter to middle-class and to high-society. The only tools you need are intelligence and guts.

Education might be of importance, but you can educate yourself during your proces to the top. Achieving goals means sacrificing things, and that part is something which most don't like. It's possible to be born as a hobo but reach middle-class in your life-time. If only you know which strings to pull, which tools to use and how to exploit certain sources. Things are hard but possible.

[leadhead]

When I read some comments written by some "anarcho-syndicalists", I see the traditional anti-capitalism bias that doesn't make sense. It goes like this: a small minority control the world's wealth and the majority is exploited by the evil capitalists. (Anarcho-syndicalists say they're not communists, but besides their little flag, they don't really differ from them.) It is important to note that wealth isn't a fixed amount. Wealth can be created and in a pure capitalist system, people stay wealthy as long as they serve their fellow men. Also, we often hear people asking why some people are so poor when others are very rich. The question is not why people are poor, but how people came to be as prosperous. Stop blaming poverty on the rich! There is no link between the two.

Dude?!

Stimulus, Bailouts, the federal reserve...any of this ringin a bell? Do you not feel exploited enough yet?

[coup-detat]

People are poor because of how capitalism is inherently. Capitalism, almost by definition, creates "winners" and "losers". It requires a working class that become wage slaves. In communism, every niche is filled without creating these distinctions of class. I could keep going, but I'd rather not.

[leadhead]

Why are the people poor?
Same question as "why are the rich rich?".
Someone poor has the possibility to take himself out of the gutter. If the person has potential he/she can jump from gutter to middle-class and to high-society. The only tools you need are intelligence and guts.

Education might be of importance, but you can educate yourself during your proces to the top. Achieving goals means sacrificing things, and that part is something which most don't like. It's possible to be born as a hobo but reach middle-class in your life-time. If only you know which strings to pull, which tools to use and how to exploit certain sources. Things are hard but possible.

Nothing truer than that right there. I would also subtract intelligence from that formula.

[Huston]

People are poor because the ability to accumulate wealth is non-existant outside the gambling process involved with capitalism, which has for the most part bean monopolized. You cannot blame there lack of production, when they cannot acquire the resources, you cannot blame it on their lack of education, because the education system is a gamble as well. Lets spend, or well borrow 10 of thousands of dollars only to find out there is no market for those disciplines. Oh, well may as well take out another loan.. lets see if that bet works out.

[Guest]

Wow. you tell us to go read. Please learn some economics.

A) the current system is exploitative
B) the current system is not capitalism

Therefore, you can't say that capitalism "has always taken advantage of people" because capitalism is an unknown ideal (ha, not an objectivist, but couldn't help myself (: )

Now, could people be taken advantage of in a capitalist system...? No, because a purely capitalistic sytem would have to anarchist. If government coercively takes resources from you, then capitalism does not exist; if government uses the threat of force to regulate commerce, then capitalism does not exist. Capitalism=Anarchy.

In the absence of a monopoly on force, markets are free to operate. Yeah, you claim they are evil, but that's not true.
Year 1700: Consider a completely unskilled man who knows nothing about any job. He finds someone who will hire him after some training. He puts in 80 hour weeks and is just able to feed himself.
Year 2010: Consider the same situation, except he puts in only 40 hours. Now he could potentially feed himself and raise a family, all while having considerably greater material comfort.

NOTICE: none of the improved living standards are due to himself. He is in fact benefiting from the accumulation of capital, the accumulation of wealth. His productivity was made higher because of someone else accumulating wealth! The two men considered could be blood relatives, and no one in the family could ever have contributed anything to capital accumulation, but the family still benefits from it.

other random comment: If I want a resource that someone possesses, and that person wants his lawn cut, and I agree to cut the lawn for that resource, that is me working for a wage. It is not unethical, and the fact that you commies think this is absurd. What else could I have done to get the resources I need to live? Get them myself, or do what's a lot easier. I chose to cut the lawn. The fact that I made that choice means I was better off cooperating with my fellow man.

You oppose voluntary cooperation between human beings. You are absolutely crazy.

[Guest]

Dude?!

Stimulus, Bailouts, the federal reserve...any of this ringin a bell? Do you not feel exploited enough yet?

Hmmm....maybe if you learn what capitalism is, then you'd know that none of these things are capitalist. They are all government. Government is the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism is freedom of markets from coercion. "All voluntary cooperation is unethical." really? How do you figure? Capitalism is voluntary human interaction. What of the accumulation of wealth, since none of you get this either, and instead just whine about how you have none. Wealth is savings. If you knew anything about economics, then you'd love accumulation of wealth. This is the process by which human productivity increases. It is the reason that we have leisure time today and luxuries that billions of people over the centuries never could have imagined. Yes, this is the result of wealth. The computer that you are using is wealth. It was created because someone had saved wealth, and allowed someone else to borrow it and make an investment in something else. Wealth is good. The reason more wealth goes to the top now than would in a free society is because government is used as a tool to stifle productive endeavors of bright new entrepreneurs, for the sake of protecting big established business. But this isn't capitalism. NONE OF YOU COMMIES GET THIS. Do you not understand how markets would work in absence of government? There can't be exploitation!!!! You don't HAVE to do anything! Capitalism is a world of freedom and human harmony.

Now what of "hierarchy" that you moan about...In a free society, no one has institutionalized authority over anyone else. A wage earner works with someone voluntarily because they choose to. Then you all moan, "oh but if he didn't work he'd starve." Your point? I'm not sure what this is saying, because in the absence of the capital machinery that the wage earner uses, he would have to farm to support himself, which is much more work. People choose to cooperate in this way because everyone's productivity is higher. We have a better division of labor, and more wealth can be created in less time, hence the shorter work week.

If anyone can come up with any serious objection to capitalism I want to hear it now.

[Guest]

Guest above, go back and re-read what you have just written.

First you tell us that the status quo (bankster bailouts etc) is not capitalism.

Then you go on to tell us that the status quo, which you contend is capitalist, creates less of a burden for the individual worker and a shorter work week. (A teensy bit offensive since anarchists actually gave their lives in the fight for a shorter work week.)

You are making the same mistake that many people in the authoritarian left make; the same mistake I see "ancaps" making all the time. The mistake is this: empowered ideologies are related to their unempowered cousins. That's simply not true.

I remember seeing a recent article on Rand Paul, a "libertarian" republican (lol) candidate for the Senate. He was urging the president to let BP handle the oil spill on its own; that the private sector was best suited to clean up the mess; that in general the "private sector" was better than the government. All standard "libertarian" lines.

Meanwhile an empowered authoritarian leftist might say "the government is best suited to do the cleanup, because it represents the people. Standard auth-left lines.

So the lefties advocate for the state, despite the fact that the state isnt left at all.
And the righties advocate for the corporation, despite the fact that it is indistinguishable from the state.

There is no capitalism (you, kinda, acknowledge this) and, honestly, there is no leftism. There is only power. When the power wants slaves who think they are workers, you get authoritarian socialism. When the power wants slaves who think they are free innovators, you get what-THEY-call "capitalism."

There is much to criticize in the capitalist model that you propose. The thing is, just as there's never been an anarchist society, there has never been a capitalist society. All you (and us to a certain extent we) are doing is arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Unless the true nature of power is addressed, pitiful little ideologies mean very little.

[Guest]

Guest above, go back and re-read what you have just written.

Done.

First you tell us that the status quo (bankster bailouts etc) is not capitalism.

I'll say it again if you'd like.

Then you go on to tell us that the status quo, which you contend is capitalist,

Upon rereading, I couldn't find where I said the status quo was capitalist. However, I did mention that even under the status quo, not all ability to accumulate wealth is completely snuffed, despite the presence of a state.

creates less of a burden for the individual worker and a shorter work week. (A teensy bit offensive since anarchists actually gave their lives in the fight for a shorter work week.)

Hahahahah. Okay, step away from the labor union propaganda and consider the words that you are typing. Think about what work is. I don't want to have to explain this again but I will. In the beginning....there is no capital machinery. We have to hunt/farm by hand (yes you have to work or you will starve, even in a preindustrial society, contrary to the fact that you think you are entitled to whatever you want). Now, I decide that for farming, it would be better if I had a tool, so I build a shovel, because it allows me to be more productive. The actual number of crops I can raise is higher. Let's say that instead of growing more food, I opt to grow the same amount of food in less time. Okay, well even if we stopped here, this is good. The increase in capital accumulation has improved my lifestyle. No legislation or labor union can do this. But the modern economy can do so much more than this. We have been accumulating machinery and other capital goods that reduce the amount of time we have to work since the real wages are increased. CAPITAL increases productivity, and consumption, so you have higher real wages.In the presence of a real wage increase, you can earn the same in real terms by working less. This is how the work week shrinks. You can't "fight" for a shorter work week. If you think this, then you have a serious deficiency of your understanding of economics.

You are making the same mistake that many people in the authoritarian left make; the same mistake I see "ancaps" making all the time. The mistake is this: empowered ideologies are related to their unempowered cousins. That's simply not true.

Regardless of whatever it is you are saying here, I can tell from context that it's nothing more than an assertion, and not an argument, so I won't bother with replying to this (unless your argument was below that, in which case you should see below)

I remember seeing a recent article on Rand Paul, a "libertarian" republican (lol) candidate for the Senate. He was urging the president to let BP handle the oil spill on its own; that the private sector was best suited to clean up the mess; that in general the "private sector" was better than the government. All standard "libertarian" lines.

Meanwhile an empowered authoritarian leftist might say "the government is best suited to do the cleanup, because it represents the people. Standard auth-left lines.

So the lefties advocate for the state, despite the fact that the state isnt left at all.
And the righties advocate for the corporation, despite the fact that it is indistinguishable from the state.

Okay, I'm not even sure what you are saying here until the end, and that's what I'll argue against. A corporation is very different from a state. A corporation provides goods/services that people can choose whether they want to buy. I cannot opt out of "protection" that the FDA, DEA, FBI, CIA, State Dept, Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard etc "provides" for me. The state perpetuates its existence by having me pay for it, with the threat of a gun behind it. The evil corporations that you speak of, exist because people voluntarily choose to use the goods and services that it provides (like your computer, which could not exist in a communist society because no one will be able to accumulate capital wealth to invest into such a productive endeavor, but this has already been covered).

There is no capitalism (you, kinda, acknowledge this) and, honestly, there is no leftism. There is only power. When the power wants slaves who think they are workers, you get authoritarian socialism. When the power wants slaves who think they are free innovators, you get what-THEY-call "capitalism."

There is capitalism, just not truly achieved on earth as of yet. I don't care to argue with you whether leftism exists, I'm apolitical. There are lots of things in the world besides power, but okay. Agree with your definition of socialism. And I .....?? ?? ?WTH?? ?? Under capitalism people can't be slaves. If you want, you can never trade or join in on the market economy. This goes back to the earlier part of my post (please reread, you are behind in the area of economics) where I explained the primitive economy. But guess what? Despite the fact that you have this option, you choose not to. Do you know why? You should, because it's the 100th time I've said it. You choose to work for a wage because you value the wage more than you value what you could do on your own. You are better off. You are better off. You are better off. Starting to understand the pattern? You can produce and thus consume more in the economy (or alternatively choose to spend less time laboring) if you use machinery/technology in your work. That is the basis of human advancement.

[Guest]

CAPITAL increases productivity, and consumption, so you have higher real wages.In the presence of a real wage increase, you can earn the same in real terms by working less. This is how the work week shrinks.

A nice idea, but not rooted in the reality on the ground. Assuming this "capitalism" you speak of actually exists in real life, we can see clearly that anywhere it has taken root, workers are exploited in many ways - including being overworked in terms of the length of the work day. Can you show me a "capitalist" society that reduced working hours by virtue of being capitalist? What was it that the workers at Haymarket were upset about? What was the need for a campaign for the eight hour workday if "capitalism" had been making people's lives better and easier as you say?

This is pretty much the same as the authoritarian leftists who tell us that they create "workers paradises." All the theories are very nice and seem to make sense to people who went to college in Austria or Chicago or Berkeley or Madison, but in reality "capitalist" societies and "leftist" societies don't really fulfill any of their promises. Both systems simply ensure that a tiny elite shall rule over all others, just like any other authoritarian system.

Regarding empowered vs. unempowered ideologies, it's quite simple. You can sit around in a cafe and work up all kinds of "capitalist" or "communist" theories, but when you are actually in the structure of power, little of that makes any difference. At that point, the rules of power take over, as it is an ideology unto itself.

Okay, I'm not even sure what you are saying here until the end, and that's what I'll argue against. A corporation is very different from a state.

I'm sorry that I have not made the argument clear enough for you to understand. Though, I am quite sure you understand the idea of a politician saying he's a "capitalist" while not actually being a "capitalist" - right? Same thing goes for every other brand of ideology. The state is not a representative of any ideology other than statism - surely this makes some sense to you?

As for corporations and their relationship to the state, I'm surprised that I have to mention to you that corporations are a creation of the state; to create one you pay a fee to the state who then turns around and creates an entity for you. (My understanding is that some "ancaps"/libertarians have adopted an anti-corporate stance because of this and other problems with the corporate structure; you apparently are not among them.)

You say that the state coerces you to pay for the FDA, the Coast Guard, and so on. And of course, I agree. Let's flash back to the fall of 2008 during the financial crisis. The representatives of the banking sector (private corporations) went to the Congress and told them flat-out that if they didn't cough up $700billion immediately then they would force the conditions that would lead to martial law in the USA. (Don't take my word for it, several Congressmen went on the record about it.) Despite massive public opposition to the plan, it passed overwhelmingly. Since then the package has grown to over $20trillion (with a 't'). Guess who pays for that? ... Yup. Plus your children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren too.

So as we can clearly see, corporations that are powerful enough can certainly engage in coercion simply by tapping their buddies in the government. (You see, corporations don't have any reason to be pure about "capitalism" the way a cafe "capitalist" does.) Going a little further, we can see clearly that the situation in the USA is most akin to what Mussolini called estato corporativo - the corporate state - later renamed "fascism." That's why the "health care" bill (which, in the popular mind, was a stab at health insurance companies) was written by the health insurance companies. Banking bill? Written by the bankers. estato corpoativo.

And of course, sometimes corporations don't need state cover at all. Take a look at Dyncorp, which had no problem both fucking and trafficking in little girls across international boundaries, suffered no reprecussions, and is still in business today.

And, by the way, yes indeed my computer was made by a corporation. Furthermore, I am communicating with you over the Internet, which was created by socialism. That's right, people were forced - at the barrel of a gun - to pay taxes which went to DARPA which created the Internet. So if you are saying I am not supposed to use a computer out of some sort of "purity" then clearly you shouldn't be using the Internet either. A very silly argument.

Under capitalism people can't be slaves.

So, the antebellum South (USA) was not "capitalist" or was "capitalist?" What I believe you are trying to say is "Under my conception of capitalism, people can't be slaves." Again, this is exactly what I am talking about when I say a mistake is made in crossing the bridge from cafe ideology to the ideology of power. Just because von Mises says there's no slaves in a capitalist system does not mean there are no slaves in a "capitalist" country. Furthermore, I hope you realize that a great deal of the fighters from the North during the civil war were fighting under the banner of being anti-slavery not out of a great concern for the plight of Africans who had been coerced into slavery, but rather for themselves. That's because they saw wage slavery as being akin to chattel slavery. Now, before you get all butt hurt over my use of the term "wage slavery" keep in mind that what they wanted was not jobs but land and the ability (freedom) to engage in commerce in order to live, thrive, and grow. I don't see how an "ancap" could be upset by that. The point is, those soldiers saw themselves returning to a life of slavery if the situation wasn't rectified. Fast forward to today and almost no one remembers that this was mainstream thought in the late 1800s.

you are behind in the area of economics

There's a difference between not agreeing with von Mises and being "behind" in economics. I always hear the exact same rhetoric from Marxists, as if disagreeing with Marx puts you "behind" in something.

You choose to work for a wage because you value the wage more than you value what you could do on your own.

uhm, no I don't. It's quite ironic actually. I don't know a single "ancap"/libertarian who owns a business, but I know several anarchists who do. Wage slavery isn't my idea of a good time, and I would think that anarchists would be naturally disinclined to follow orders from a boss. Given that supporting oneself is a necessity, having a business is the clear choice if a job is the other choice. I honestly wonder why more "ancaps" don't follow that path. Perhaps they think they are being a part of "human advancement" by accepting a wage? -shrug-

[Guest]

Workers are exploited? Let's see, again this comes back to the primitive economy example. If you don't want to take part, then don't. The fact, that no one refutes, and simply ignores, is that these workers are better off doing what they are doing. They choose to do it instead of work for themselves as a farmer.

Businesses that incorporate do need special recognition from the state. So do dentists, doctors, lawyers, and all other professions that have legally mandated cartelized licensing organizations. I oppose the state. Publicly owned businesses could still exist without a state, they just wouldn't be able to pressure it. We don't live in a free society, so stop saying, "look at the government-(fill in the blank here) complex" and how powerful it is. Capitalism is evil." You are forgetting that government exists, and is the source of any exploitative power. None of it is rooted in economic exchange. So go ahead, make comparisons about how we become more of a "state-capitalist" country more and more. I see it too. That's part of what led me to hate the state. If it was just the voluntary exchange side of it, we'd be fine.

Wow, so now the fact that criminal organizations exist is evidence that we can't allow people to engage in exchange? Your dyncorp example is what people use to justify the existence of a state. You really aren't making sense here.

I love the internet example. Classic example of what Hazlitt pointed out as people's inability to see the unseen. Consider roads in fascist Italy. They were better than roads in many other countries. Does this mean that Italy was better off under central planning. No. Because these resources were not allocated in a socially efficient manner. They didn't need roads way out in the middle of nowhere. But only the market knows what people want at the time. Under a capitalist system, people eventually would have gotten the roads they needed, when they wanted them. Under a capitalist system, people get the communication advances they need, when they want them. Just because government can force a premature birth of some technology doesn't mean it's a good thing.

One country's national government waged war against another national government. You aren't really attacking me by telling this story.

You definitely don't have to be all the way at the point of the Misesian ideal in your understanding of economics to know what wealth creation is. Even some Keynesians understand how that happens, they just think it's okay to step on it when the state feels like it. But yes, you do have a fundamental lack of understanding.

Really? You don't think you're better off working for a wage? Okay, separate yourself from the economy and go do subsistence farming. Then you'll see what wealth is. You'll start to see how capital accumulation increases your productivity. You wouldn't last a second sustaining yourself independently. Not many people would. The wealth that we've accumulated, despite the plunderings of the state, have still made our lives a lot easier.

[raylene86]

Wow. you tell us to go read. Please learn some economics.

A) the current system is exploitative
B) the current system is not capitalism

I had this talk with one of my more right wing friends already and your point number 1 is a pretty sketchy assumption. When people want to say exchanges are voluntary and such under "real" capitalism, I have to ask two questions:

1. Is it possible for one person to willfully withhold information from another person to impede his or her ability to make informed consent for the "voluntary" exchange?
2. If so, is it safe to call it "voluntary", and even if you DID call it voluntary, would you expect people to work with one another happily seeing as they'd have to work under the assumption that everyone else is seeking to "get theirs" even if it means telling half-truths to wrest "consent" from you?

You know what my answers are to all of these questions if you take my answers to be the reasons why I'm anti-capitalist.

Oh, and I guess since you're on the topic, if you this working for someone else is "voluntary", I ask this: would people work under someone else if they didn't have to have money to get what they want (i.e. money being a necessity since people won't trade goods or share without the expectation of monetary compensation)? Similarly, if people are expected to do what they will with that which they accumulate, why do you expect those same people to actually SHARE what they have if they have acquired so much that they can stop anyone from compelling them to share (despite the fact that they are compelling others to work beneath them just because money is the only way to get what they want)?

[Guest]

Notice first that no one can actually refute my points. Just backtrack and dance around them.

1. Is it possible for one person to willfully withhold information from another person to impede his or her ability to make informed consent for the "voluntary" exchange?
2. If so, is it safe to call it "voluntary", and even if you DID call it voluntary, would you expect people to work with one another happily seeing as they'd have to work under the assumption that everyone else is seeking to "get theirs" even if it means telling half-truths to wrest "consent" from you?

Not surprisingly, the other conversation I am having on this forum went to the same place. I'll just copy and paste.

The problem is that you are going to have a hard time convincing people that you can truly remove coercive, non-consensual interactions simply by removing government.

We plan on removing the institutionalization of coercion. But no, no one can ever establish a world that is 100% free from coercion. No utopia here. Just as close as possible.

People coerce those who lack some kind of information on the regular. What makes you think people wouldn't still go coercing each other by deception? Is deception acceptable for personal gain in capitalism?

Deception isn't a very good place to make a stand. Every voluntary exchange could be seen as having some element of "deception." I don't know the complete physical past of every object that I trade for. But incomplete information cannot make voluntary exchange illegitimate, because if that was true then no exchange would be legitimate. Incomplete information is just a fact of the universe, not something to be judged as good or bad. It's like gravity. Engaging in an exchange where you have severe lack of information is a risk that you can tell whether it was necessary to make by whether or not someone chose to do so (revealed preference).

I think it must be seeing as involuntary exchange cannot be completely eliminated.

As previously pointed out, incomplete information does not make exchange involuntary. I stand firm on this. But even if I were to entertain the idea that it was involuntary, then the conclusion would be that it's unavoidable, since it's a fact of the universe, and hence you wouldn't have any business passing normative judgment anyhow.
[/quote]

would people work under someone else if they didn't have to have money to get what they want

This also goes back to something that I've already posted here. And my answer is obviously no.I already wrote the following: "Workers are exploited? Let's see, again this comes back to the primitive economy example. If you don't want to take part, then don't. The fact, that no one refutes, and simply ignores, is that these workers are better off doing what they are doing. They choose to do it instead of work for themselves as a farmer." Ha, even when I wrote it here it wasn't the first time I had said it (my use of the word "again")

Similarly, if people are expected to do what they will with that which they accumulate, why do you expect those same people to actually SHARE what they have if they have acquired so much that they can stop anyone from compelling them to share (despite the fact that they are compelling others to work beneath them just because money is the only way to get what they want)?

Lots of problems here. If I have accumulated any amount of wealth and stop wanting to share, then why can't I do that? I earned it all from voluntary exchange. But this is probably secondary to the fact that no one ever gets here. Human desires are unlimited. If I have enough wealth to last me until I die, I'd still want more stuff. If I have an awesome machine that makes 100 widgets an hour, when you can make only 20/hour, then if I offer you 50 widgets/hour (in real wage) to work for me, we both benefit. What point are you trying to make? No one has to "share" what's theirs. They created it. Or they created something else and traded. Dont be jealous.

[raylene86]

Notice first that no one can actually refute my points. Just backtrack and dance around them.


...Lots of problems here. If I have accumulated any amount of wealth and stop wanting to share, then why can't I do that? I earned it all from voluntary exchange. But this is probably secondary to the fact that no one ever gets here. Human desires are unlimited. If I have enough wealth to last me until I die, I'd still want more stuff. If I have an awesome machine that makes 100 widgets an hour, when you can make only 20/hour, then if I offer you 50 widgets/hour (in real wage) to work for me, we both benefit. What point are you trying to make? No one has to "share" what's theirs. They created it. Or they created something else and traded. Dont be jealous.

You start by saying no one refuted you for a reason: (judging by what your response was, and it was exactly what I expected to hear since I'm usually having this talk with my finance grad student b/f who is obviously in love with capitalism) because you and I both know that there a whole lot of issues capitalism fails to address and the problem is more about what anti-capitalists, like myself, and capitalists, like yourself, value.

As you can probably infer from my last post, I prefer to err on the side of caution, protecting people from exploitation in supposed voluntary trades, because I don't believe it's ethical to call a trade off voluntary when you could easily get the person to make a DIFFERENT choice merely by presenting an unknown piece of information. I also believe that people in power typically make concerted efforts to prevent others from making informed decisions. Your voluntary trade position regarding benefits, for me, only is tenable under the assumptions that 1)everyone can in fairness be held responsible for failing to make choices that actually get them what they want and 2)that everyone actually KNOWS what's best for them and doesn't need any kind of informative intervention to prevent them from shooting themselves in the foot. Based on what you said, I suspect that you instead believe that humans DO make the best decisions for themselves without anyone butting in and probably also that humans are "rational" in the layperson's sense of the term: not only do humans infer things (think with some kind of logic), they also successfully make self-serving rationalizations, hence no one has a right to interfere in their "consensual" transactions. I think that's really only possible in a world (utopian) that no one has power over others and all are 100% on equal footing and can avoid exploitation. Anyway, my point is this: I'm not jealous; unlike what most theories of economics and such argue, I believe that there are PLENTY of people who are MORE motivated by things that aren't material possessions and I think there are endless scenarios in which you can demonstrate that. You say you have a right to what you "worked for", I say that you can't separate out most of the involuntary or uninformed interactions and therefore you can never say it's fully yours. You say my decision to work for X units of material compensation is voluntary and it makes us both happy in the end; I say it was never voluntary because, due to your wealth, you were able to beat me to being the entrepreneur who is reaping most of the benefits of having the "idea", even though I may have had the same exact idea two weeks before you. Hell, you may have even snooped over my should as I was drawing a diagram of how to implement my idea. For me, wealth is always a problem because you can't filter out the coercion even if you tried REALLY hard without enacting ANOTHER form of coercion (jail or vigilante justice), which I think is a lot worse than asking people to not hoard things (which I'm sure you also view as a form of coercion, albeit that I think it's less bad than your form).

Don't get me wrong; I'm not necessarily assuming you're just a greedy jackass lol, but realistically, your view of the perfect world isn't perfect to me, probably because I've been on the shitty side of the coin enough times to be very wary of both hierarchy and practices which quite likely will lead to one person's deprivation. Oh, that, and the fact that even if you wiped out some large segment of the population just to make deprivation damn near impossible I still think you'd wind up with an unfavorable situation since it would be encouraging people to commodify anything and everything in the name of enterprise...which goes RIGHT back to my issue of capitalism in a context where ethnic, gender, and whatever other differences exist. See cultural appropriation if you're curious as to why I bring this up.