For those who believe that workers are by and large expendable and that only 1 out of 100 people ever generate wealth, there seems to be no answer to some basic questions about this:
How can you manufacture much of anything without workers to help you? Namely, any operating system, cars or iPods?
Get rid of all the interchangeable carbon blobs - namely, that other 99% - and who will buy your stuff?
How can you generate any wealth without anyone to buy your stuff?
Basically: what wealth can you generate if you provide all the supply and there’s no demand?
And of course, only the wealth concentrators are significant. Well no, their immediate assistants, the next 10-20% or so are sort of significant.
The rest of the blobs are sheep to be fleeced.
Your blob value is determined by your ability to accrue wealth by whatever means and successfully maintain it. Non-accruing blobs are not significant. There is a hybrid blob that is useful to keep the bulk of the blobs in order.
Stephen Kind had a character in The Dead Zone who believed along these lines. One percent of people are saints, one percent are assholes, three percent are people who get things done, the the other 95 are mostly inert.
Who believes that most people believe only 1 out of 100 people generate wealth except you? You don’t even have to take economics 101 to know that is nonsense.
Also I thought you moved into a commune or something.
Who, specifically, are you asking these questions of? I’m pretty sure this board is not the regular hangout of Scrooge McDuck, who, I remind you, is apparently a fictional character.
The answer to this is really very simply. The phrase 1 in 100 create wealth doesn’t mean that only 1 in 100 work, it means that 1 person is coming up with ideas, and the other 99 are putting it in action.
For example, Stephan King writes a story that people are willing to pay to read, that means Stephan King generated wealth. But it requires 50 of people working a printing press to mass produce the book, and 20 people to deliver the book to various stores, and 29 people to work the cash register selling the book.
One person generated wealth, and 99 people get paid as a result. Not one of those 99 are capable of coming up with a story that millions of people want to read. Each are important in the processes, without them ol’ Stephan will have to print the book himself, and deliver it himself, and at most produce a few hundred copies. But you’ll notice that he could probably generate enough income for himself on his own, not huge amounts, but on his own he is the one generating the stories. Without him, the printers and drivers and cashiers have nothing to do.
Unfortunately, what this means is that the other 99 are pretty interchangeable to the process. People buy the book because it says Stephan King on the cover, not because it says, “Joe Bob working 3rd string press operated on Tuesday.” That makes Joe Bob interchangeable to the process.
*Wealth generation *is an actual term with an actual meaning. And within the example I gave, there are others creating wealth. Setting up a printing press creates wealth. It is an extremely capital intensive process that provides a service people are willing to pay for.
Owning a book store is a very capital intensive process that provides a service and generates wealth. And it also employes a bunch of people. 1 owner and 99 staff. We can’t have 100 people own books stores, there would be too many and no staff to work them. But it’s the 1 owner that is generating wealth, and in exchange the owner pays his staff for their time.
Thinking about it a bit more, is this supposed to be some sort of diatribe against workplace automation? If so, could the OP in future just state clearly something like “I’m against workplace automation, and here’s why”? Also, would the OP care to state what he thinks the solution to this problem is? Thanks in advance.
Not exactly. It depends. Sometimes some of those 99 need to have special skills. For example, say the one with the idea is an architect with a brilliant design. Some of the 99 might need to be metalworkers with special skills in a certain welding technique.
What about a technology company? Say Intel? There is not “one guy” coming up with the big ideas that everyone else works to implement. Intel pays a lot of engineers and scientists to come up with big ideas. Even if one person at Intel has a big breakthrough that guy collects a paycheck and maybe a bonus. Generally it takes teams of people to work on these things.
So many processes are so complex these days it is rare, outside of the arts, for one person to be solely responsible for the creation of a new thing. Even in art if you do not have an agent that gets you a book publishing deal and a company that will print millions of books and make bookstores carry them and provide advertising and promotion then Stephen King probably would not make a living writing his books. He’d be lucky to sell them to a few neighbors.
Imagine it was you who invented the iPod. You did it in your garage. How far do you think you will get on your own with no capital, no factory, no ad agency, no nothing? Just you putting together iPods on your own. Not very far.
Further, people involved in the process absolutely can provide help in more efficient production. Even if you invented an iPod someone needs to know how to mass produce them. People who mine raw materials may come up with ways to mine more efficiently and so on.
The people in the system are not necessarily interchangeable cogs who produce nothing and only the one guy with the big idea should be deemed the wealth creator. Without all the other pieces little if anything happens at all.
Which is why Ayn Rand’s notion of the big idea people going on strike is laughable on the face of it. The Koch brothers have no big ideas except how to exploit their workers. Without their workers the Koch brothers have nothing. I seriously doubt they will roll up their sleeves and start digging.
Produce a printing press (from raw materials like metal to engineering and building the press)
Produce ink (starting from raw materials)
Produce advertisements/promotion
Build bookstores
Build a transportation network (which means building roads and trucks…again start from raw materials to finished product)
They are not interchangeable cogs and only Stephen King has produced something of value. Mr. King could not begin to write anything without others doing work unless he wants to manufacture his own paper, pens and ink at a minimum.
So, really it is those people who make King’s job possible who should get the credit for his book right? I mean writers are a dime-a-dozen but none of them could produce anything without pen makers. :rolleyes:
There is also another fundamental fact here that gets totally left out in the statements which I am shining a light on by posting this thread:
Stephen King creates absolutely no wealth unless he creates a product that others demand. That’s why the concept of “supply and demand” is so integral in economics. Supply with no demand is not wealth. Demand comes from the other 99% “interchangeable carbon blobs”.
I pointed this basic fact out before and no one even dared say it was wrong: to create wealth you must have both supply and demand. Perhaps because it’s basic economics 101 and it totally destroys both the “only 1% create wealth” and “interchangeable carbon blobs” bullshit.
But you’re also on her ignore list, so it doesn’t matter what you think or say. Remember back when you used to be the focus of her scorn? Now msmith537 is the only one left.
Intel has 82,500 employees. So applying this 1 in 100 means there can be 825 people coming up with new ideas and revenue streams, instrumental to the company. Not to say the rest aren’t integral to the process, simply that they aren’t the ones we’d consider unique. There are lots and lots of talented computer engineers, and they are compensated for their work. And 1 in 100 of them will have the ability to strike out on their won to form a rival computer chip developer.
Seriously, how many companies can do what Intel does? If it’s so easy, why aren’t you (the general you) doing it and eating into their profits? Why doesn’t Intel have more competitors?
That’s fine, but it’s also not what we’re talking about here. No one is saying that the other 99 aren’t important or needed. Intel doesn’t pay unskilled idiots to sit in a cube all day. Stephan King could just as easily higher a lot of creative individuals to generate scary stories.
But the point remains, the name on the cover is “Stephan King.” People pay more for that product. No one else’s name gets associated with the story. And you’ll also notice that the other name on the book is the publisher. Why? Because the act of publishing generates wealth.
Not true, and that is a gross over simplification.
Which is fine, an agent is important and only 1 in 100 are capable of generating wealth. but without the author, what exactly would the agent be doing? If Stephan King stops writing books, does the agent still get paid?
That’s the point, go back to the source, the 1 in 100. King is a talented author that people will pay for his stories. He could just as easily stand on a soap box and collect tips. If he did that everyone else is out of a job. His talent, his 1 in 100 ability, allows publishing houses to make money.
Nope, not far, but a hell of a lot further than someone who is waiting for me to design it so they can be the one to put it in a box for $10 an hour. See how that works?
I’m still the one that came up with the devise, I’m that 1 in 100. Likewise, it takes that 1 in 100 to make a factory, hiring 99 people to work for him. It takes the 1 in 100 to design the touch screen, another 1 in 100 to design the hard drive.
What you’ll notice here is that now we’re up to about 4 in 400. Which is why it’s a good thing the US has over 300million people. Now we can have very complex items because we have more than 100 people.
Yes, that is correct, those people are also 1 in 100. See how this works?
Not true in any meaningful way. What you’re attempting to do is use an example of a system with a million people involved, without acknowledging that it can still be 1 in 100.
Again the point needs to be made, the cogs are important, but interchangeable. And there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to be a cog in the machine, you have the freedom. But don’t think that just because you’re important that you’re the one driving the machine.
No, what’s laughable if your insistence on bringing Ayn Rand into all of these discussions. Where would you be if she hadn’t written that book? What would you have to contribute?
The “big ideas” you’re referring to can only exist in our current population of 300million. When it was just 100 people in a village, it was 1 guy that came up with idea to tie a rock to the end of a stick. He tough the rest of the 99 how to do it.
When you’ve got 100 kids playing hockey, only 1 will excel to the point of excellence. So if you’ve got a program with thousands of kids, you can generate enough to form the NHL. Everyone playing for the NHL today represents the 1 in 100. Do you see how if you want 12 guys to have enough for an NHL game, you need at least 1200 in the juniors to draw from.
Lastly, I just have to say this whole discussion is fucking retarded. “1 in 100” isn’t a hard and fast rule. It’s not moving to goal posts to say it could be “2 in 100” or “1 in 1000.”
Right now there are millions of people generating horror stories, how many of them will be good enough to make the best seller list? And how many of them have the ability to continue generating compelling reads?
Seriously? I need to know if you actually believe what you wrote. I have no problem taking that all apart. Just say the word and we’ll start with “the guy that invented the pen” and work from there. Just tell me you believe what you wrote and see nothing wrong with it.
You could turn it around and say that Stephen King does not generate wealth, and nor do most people in the service or entertainment industries.
If we had lots more amazing writers in the world, would there be less poverty?
America might be better off for having stephen king, but in the world as a whole, people in such industries could be considered parasitic to the real wealth of production and manufacturing.
(not saying that this is the right way of looking at it, just saying there are different ways of looking at it)