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Originally Posted by aceventura3
If you have created wealth then you had to have created wealth for others. Why not say that?
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That pretty much is what I'm saying. My part in creating wealth was helping create wealth for others. I myself am not (nor have I ever been) wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.
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If the issue has more to do with how much the most wealthy has compared to the most poor, to me that is a different issue than wealth creators benefiting others through their efforts of creating wealth.
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I'm not saying that there is something inherently wrong with rich people taking initiatives in businesses that create wealth. What I'm going on about is your oversight regarding how that business is able to generate it in the first place, including but not limited to the environment required as a precondition.
The wealthy could not exist if it weren't for the lower classes. Have you ever seen a society that consisted purely of wealthy citizens that wasn't some oil-rich anomaly?
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It does not. Poor people do not form the basis for anyone getting rich. There is no doubt that poor people can be exploited for their labor and they can be cheated or defrauded of wealth they do not know they have - but that as a given the question is how do we address exploration, fraud, unethical business practices not to condemn free market principles. I would argue that many of the problems are systemic as I have pointed out in many examples over the years I have been posting here. Many policies designed to help the poor actually harm them or make it harder for them to improve their lives.
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Again, you are missing the essential reality of economics. Labour, whether it is performed by the poor or the middle class, is one of the foundational elements of wealth creation. Without it, wealth would be very difficult if not impossible to generate in most aspects of an advanced and complex economy. You continue to overlook if not undermine this very basic idea of economics.
Labour is used by holders of capital as leverage to turn a profit. When this system operates in such a way where a majority of the wealth that is generated flows up to the top 1% of citizens, and especially to the detriment of the lower classes, then there is a problem with the system. If some—despite playing an integral role in the generation of wealth—lack any basic and essential needs such as food, shelter, health care, security, etc., based on their inability to afford it, something has gone wrong on a moral level: because way more than enough wealth for these things is there.
This is the danger of a free market. This is why we don't let a free market exist. A free market is amoral and we, as a society, are moral.
I think you don't know. Where does that leave us?