You can generate money with a car or a farm. The whole problem with capitalism is getting money without working because you let people work with your stuff. So owning a car and use ist as a taxi is fine with communism. Having a taxi company is not. But you can form a taxi company with others. The difference is no one has financial power over others. No one just profits because he/she is the owner. There are people in charge but they are in charge because they have the knowledge and ability not just because they own everything and can do what they want.
Listen, I’m a worker who saved money through my labour. Why should I not get to use my saved labour by deploying it into an investment?
People accuse leftists of idealist thinking but in what fantasy world are you thinking your personal savings from selling your labor is ever going to come close to what would be considered “capital” in the sense being discussed here?
It’s directly deployed in stocks and real estate, what do you mean?
Most capital is “collectively owned” through public corporations, pension funds, etc.
Where do you think the value for your return on investment comes from? It’s extracted from the labor of workers.
It’s not extracted it’s combined with labour to produce higher output than labour or capital on their own.
For example a worker with a shovel could only dig a small hole a day, but with the injection of capital (ie a backhoe) they can dig many more holes. The worker can increase their pay compared to what they would’ve made with just a shovel and the person that provided the backhoe can also generate a healthy return for their capital contribution.
Why should you get money for doing nothing? I think that is a good question. If your investments are earning money, for example because you invested in real estate, then you’ve driven up the price of rent for the rest of us.
But anyway, in reality almost all of the money in the stock market is held by people who are not like you, people who didn’t save their money by working a nine to five for 10 or 20 years.
Nobody is stopping you from leaving your money sitting in a bank account. Nobody is suggesting you shouldn’t save money.
You keep saying “doing nothing” but I earned that money and now I am risking it in investments with uncertain returns.
Like what else would i do with it? Wreck the environment by spending it on things i don’t need?
How dare you make fiscally responsible investments and expect some return in exchange for the risk you’re taking on by letting others use your stuff. How. Dare. You. /s
Risk is an idiot’s justification. Anyone who owns a business knows the whole point of a limited liability corporation is it removes any risk in case of failure.
If Walmart went tits up today the Walton’s would still be rich. It’s the workers who bear all the risk.
