I was speaking purely from a class perspective. Meaning that employers siphon the surplus value from their workers, and use it to enrich their lives, as opposed to the lives of the workers who actually produced it.

There's no way Romney has produced $200,000,000 worth of useful products or services. I'm sure he has employed a number of people who might have, but he himself have not done 1000 times more work than the average American; or for that matter, person on Earth.

****EDIT****
In this sense, I also extremely dislike Obama. So neither of them will get my hilarious vote this year.

 

I might be just misunderstanding you so... see if I can clearify, and try to understand you correctly...

are you saying business owners, or people who are in an upper management position don't have a right to profit? Are you saying everyone in a business should be paid equally regardless of their position / title?

 

Well the basis of what I'm saying is that all people deserve the same access to the good things in life.

 

all people have the same access- the road to success is open to all. No one can "take" the access away from anyone else- in every situation, there are opportunities- how you play your hand determines your success.

people only "deserve" what they contribute to "life", and nothing more.

nothing will get you fired more quickly then telling your boss you "deserve" a raise.

I'd like to say merit & dedication is all you need to get ahead in the short life you're living- but that's a lie. Sometimes it takes more. People who adapt, move ahead- people who can't adapt are free to lay in self pitty and wish for tomorrows lottery numbers.

I don't fault romney because he's wealthy or successful- he has simply made the right choice when certain opportunities arise. He hasn't taken any wealth from me, or prevented me from being a success.

I work hard and earn a decent living, and I enjoy a lot of comforts many other's cant- it's not that they don't deserve my success, they just have not made the right decisions- and likewise, when I see others who are more successful than I am, it makes me want to work harder to achieve that success.

the only thing I (or anybody) deserves, is the freedom to breath, and make their own decisions.

 

So you don't see a value in human life, beyond what they do for an employer? That is basically what you just said. Does that mean that, although you have a freedom to breath, you do not have a freedom to eat? Why not just kill the unemployed then? Air does a man with no food, no good.

By access, I don't mean opportunity. I mean access, meaning it is at their fingertips whenever they please. That is not the case right now, though only a difference in semantics.

I don't worry about being fired. I don't like the fact that a person is in control of my well being; that I have to subject myself to their will in order to feed myself. It takes me out of control of my life. I certainly don't feel economically free, when I am subjected to dictatorship every day at work. I don't see how anyone can.

 

hehe-

well- if you don't like having someone in control of your "well being" then by all means, feel free to start your own business, put your life savings on the line, dedicate your every waking hour to the success of your business that you started and control.... and then you can hire employees like yourself who feel you have no right to "dictate" how you want your business to be run.

you don't deserve to eat, loumad.
You simply deserve the right to chose whether or not you eat.
why should someone give you food for nothing in return?
you have the freedom to chose to grow & hunt your food instead of buying it.

it's not semantics- it's critical thinking.

understand the difference?

you can either sit there and starve...
or you can get up and hunt for your food- no one is going to feed you or force you to eat.

if you chose to hunt for your food-
"hunt" can be used as a metaphor for "work"
so in other words- you are working for your food.

therefor- you deserve exactly what you put into your actions.
sit there & starve, or go work for your food- if you favor the convienance of buying it at the supermarket.

breathing on the other hand, is effortless. it requires energy to not breath.
if you can not breath, it's because you have put yourself in a position where you cant breath- no body else put you there.

lolumad- no one is in control of your well being except for you.
no one cares more about your well being, then you.

 

Can't say it much better than that.

My point was, Romney used his capital to make businesses work. He profited from this and businesses survived.

Obama has never employed anyone in a private enterprise setting. He lacks understanding of capitalism and what helps, and what hurts businesses. But, he can just keep raising taxes, strapping business with new regulations, or spending us deeper into debt. He hasn't MADE any money. He has taken ours every time we have taxes taken out. If we were to do what our government does we'd end up penniless, homeless, and probably in jail as our debtors sell our assets to try to recoup some of what they loaned us. The answer isn't spending more or taxing more, it's learning to live within it's means. Something modern government is not good at...

 

Unlike some communist regimes that put it's people in jobs they tell them to do, the fact of the matter is that you don't have to stay there if you don't want to. If it's that bad, move on or create your own business. Take that step so many have before and be your own boss. That's the only way you can be truly free by your definition. Just remember if you are self employed you get to pay an extra 7.6% into social security.

 

We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't guarantee that we will have these things as an entitlement or something given simply. If you're still breathing no one has taken your life away. If you can get up in the morning and decide what you're going to do, where you're going to go, etc. you have liberty. Happiness also is not guaranteed. You have the right to pursue it, but you may not catch it. That's how it is for us here in the US. Far better than places that decide where you work, or if you even get to live at all.

 

Beergut, that's all very nice an idealistic, unfortunately it doesn't work that way for most people. Most people get stuck in a dead end job, making a subsistence, from which there is no real way they could "employ themselves".

You're telling me that if someone is unemployed they don't deserve to eat? That is draconian, at best.

Breathing is most certainly not effortless, you can draw breath right until the day you starve to death, then all the air in the world does nothing for you.

It's critical thinking, really.

If we deserve exactly what we put into our lives, then wouldn't the Mexican factory worker putting in 16 hour days deserve quite a healthy lifestyle? Is it easy for them to do what they do? Be realistic, the world doesn't work the way you're describing it, it never has.

Beyond that, you've done nothing to demonstrate that employers do not siphon surplus value from their workers, because this is fact. It is robbery, plain and simple.

Moose, we absolutely are told where we will work. It is called a market. If we haven't the funds to gain a college education, we will work our asses off for minimum wage, or just above it. There is little someone can do in that situation that isn't absolutely overwhelming for the average person.