The focus on ��social justice�� ignores the collective wealth that unequal abilities create.


By Thomas Sowell


One of the problems with so many discussions of income and wealth is that the intelligentsia are so obsessed with the money that people receive that they give little or no attention to what causes money to be paid to them in the first place.

Money itself is not wealth. Otherwise the government could make us all rich just by printing more of it. From the standpoint of a society as a whole, money is just an artificial device to give us incentives to produce real things goods and services. Those goods and services are the real ��wealth of nations,�� as Adam Smith titled his treatise on economics in the 18th century.

Yet when the intelligentsia discuss such things as the historic fortunes of people like John D. Rockefeller, they usually pay little if any attention to what it was that caused so many millions of people to voluntarily turn their individually modest sums of money over to Rockefeller, adding up to his vast fortune.

What Rockefeller did first to earn their money was find ways to bring down the cost of producing and distributing kerosene to a fraction of what it had been before his innovations. This profoundly changed the lives of millions of working people.

Before Rockefeller came along in the 19th century, the ancient saying ��the night cometh, when no man can work�� still applied. There were not yet electric lights, and burning kerosene for hours every night was not something that ordinary working people could afford. For many millions of people, there was little to do after dark except go to bed.

Too many discussions of large fortunes attribute them to ��greed�� as if wanting a lot of money is enough to cause other people to hand it over to you. It is a childish idea when you stop and think about it�� but who stops and thinks these days?

The transfer of money was a zero-sum process. What increased the wealth of society was Rockefeller��s cheap kerosene that added hundreds of hours of light to people��s lives annually.

Edison, Ford, the Wright brothers, and innumerable others also created unprecedented expansions of the lives of ordinary people. The individual fortunes represented a fraction of the wealth created.

Even those of us who create goods and services in more mundane ways receive income that may be very important to us, but it is what we create for others with our widely varying capabilities that is the real wealth of nations.

Intellectuals�� obsession with income statistics�� calling envy ��social justice���� ignores vast differences in productivity that are far more fundamental to everyone��s well-being. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg has ruined many economies.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369586/inequality-bogeyman-thomas-sowell

My daddy did payroll for in one area for John Rockefeller.

Low pay to the workers, not giving them a due share of the sales, certainly helped Mr. Rockefeller. . . . . You know, kind of like slavery.

Too bad.
You want higher pay?
Earn it.
No one's holding a gun to your head telling you to work in one specific job.
You're free to find work elsewhere if you don't like the work you have.
It's that simple.

Tired of all these lazy/incompetent soabs.
That's the real issue here.

Slavery?

Seriously?


I believe those workers could have left the job whenever they wanted without the threat of being hunted down and killed..

lol....

ty:


yes 'too many' discussions equate 'wealth' with greed
and 'too many' discussions equate 'poverty' with laziness


the 'wealth' of a nation doesn't just happen through innovative ideas but through the labor that makes them into realities,,,,

well, the threat of being hunted and killed was yesterdays concern

now the threat of being left to die without adequate food or safehaven is,,,

Oh goody,lets chain seven Billion Human Beings together by their Sphincter!

It's a thing called life.
Learn it.
Get used to it.
Life is merely a struggle to fight death.

oh, well, there we have it

we can shut mingle down

any issue that is part of 'life' (which by definition every issue that exists is) we should just 'get used to'

no need for discussions or opinions on ANYTHING anymore
no need to promote progress or change or ideas to achieve it,,

that's just THE WAY IT IS

Conrad said Sphincter!
Don't wanna get us busted!

Gee. The banter was fun. Hate to see ya go.
But, just don't slam the door on yer way out, please.

there would be no labor without innovation..

we would still be living in caves or mudhuts..

WTF?

You won't solve world hunger.
No one can.
You won't make everyone financially equal.
It's unattainable.
Embrace reality rather than clinging on to impossible foolish fantasies.

and your point is?

it works 'together', so how we value one over the other and in turn value one persons contribution to the results over anothers,, plays a part in how some acquire income that amounts to survival scraps and others acquire WEALTH That amounts to power and resources,,,

some that acquire the power and resource, can never get enough, and will continue to step up the ladder off of others efforts while looking down on those others and holding from them any portion of that accumulated wealth that they can legally get away with,, those are the ones I call 'greedy'


some that merely acquire income dont want to put forth any effort AT ALL for it and I call those 'lazy'

too many discussions assume 'poverty' comes from laziness, and wealth comes from 'greed'

instead, realistically, wealth can attract the type of superior egotism that makes people feel they are more 'deserving' so much that they have no problem with other people suffering to help produce the wealth they feel so 'deserving of'

and poverty can attract the type of inferiority complex that makes people feel resentful and rebellious so much that they refuse to contribute to anyone elses wealth through their efforts and choose instead to just have 'money' for the basics,,,

there are no absolutes,, noone here is claiming there is

but not being able to 'solve' world hunger , is vastly different from not being able to feed MORE of the starving

not being able to make everyone 'financially equal' is also vastly different from not being able to contribute to a society where more people have financial STABILITY,,,,

Back when mammy ran the house, we didn't depend on gubament feeding or sheltering us. If she had extra, she'd share to hungry folks.

How much of your own, not what taxpayers have given, but what you make working, have you personally given to feed the starving or house a homeless person?

You can try to feed the beast.
However it will only get hungry again as food is only temporary.
Instead of feeding the beasts, teach them how to hunt for their own food.
Everyone will not have financial stability.
As financial stability comes from financial responsibility.
This is the reality of life.

smh

Yep. Them stupid taxpayers are a real joke.

They give us free money, food and healthcare and expect that one day we'll give all that up for a job. As if that'll ever happen, right?

taxpayers aren't the joke,,,

many of those 'taxpayers' end up being the same ones needing 'free money'

and many of the ones who need 'free money' are working at jobs that help fill the pockets of those who are 'taxpayers'