# Interchangeable carbon blobs. Only 1% generate any wealth. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 15, 2011, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976 "2011-05-15T11:53:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/141 "2011-05-19T22:25:30Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > International corporate heads did not invent corporations. They got on top of an existing conglomerate. How did they get there? Luck, magic, royal blood, two tail feathers of a griffin? > [@gonzomax](#): > > Then they saw they could make even more money by outsourcing jobs and industries. So should they have run at a loss? Apple saw it could make more money releasing the iPad 2, should they have decided not to? > [@gonzomax](#): > > Do you believe they did not know it would harm America and its workers? Do you think they did not know it would undermine our tax base? Is that what they’re supposed to do? Increase your tax base? > [@gonzomax](#): > > Cutting wages for Americans was not serendipity. It was a deliberate plan. It decreases costs and increases profits. That’s right, it decreased costs and increased profits. Which is what the person in charge is supposed to do. Have you ever been asked to increase costs and decrease profits? > [@gonzomax](#): > > That means bigger bonuses and retirement packages for those on top. As it should, they decreased costs and increased profits, isn’t that their job? The bonus was probably tied to those to factors. > [@gonzomax](#): > > It is perfectly logical if you do not believe the impact on America and its workers should be a consideration. Why should it be? > [@gonzomax](#): > > Americanism is for fools. Those on top do not care about it at all. The poor can not afford it. Don’t kid yourself, those on the bottom don’t give a shit either until it actually affects them. Stealworkers love steal tariffs, no matter how many jobs it costs in other industries. Never underestimate the shortsightedness of the human race. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/142 "2011-05-20T04:21:55Z")
[You gotta serve somebody.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavBDpg91gA&feature=related) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/143 "2011-05-20T14:44:51Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > 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. Well maybe exploiting workers is their big idea. The problem with a lot of the ideas that people are supporting on the right is that they are largely zero sum game ideas… One state cutting taxes so you can poach an employer from a neighboring state is largely a zero sum game idea, that is not where growth comes from. One country offering lower corporate taxes and getting a bunch of companies to move from London to Dublin is a zero sum game idea. Lowering taxes on the rich so that they don’t move to the Carribean is just plain stupid. The percentage of people who would continue to have high income if they left the country is very small and these folks are earning mostly investment income which can largely be sourced offshore. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/144 "2011-05-20T15:05:18Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > 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. Do you know who the Koch brothers are? The are the sons of Fred Koch who co-founded Kosh Industries, currently the second largest privately held company in the US, if they went public they’d be ranked about 16th. Koch was the son of an immigrant, like so many of the richest Americans. As an engineer from MIT he developed a more efficient thermal cracking process for turning crude oil into gasoline. This process led to bigger yields and helped smaller, independent oil companies compete (from wiki). That’s a pretty big fucking idea if you ask me. Of the hundreds of people working in the oil industry at the time, Koch was the one who increased yields. That’s where wealth is created. The business was passed to two of his sons who continue to keep it successful. So to recap, Fred Koch is the 1 in 100 that generated significant wealth. The Koch brothers (his sons) are not. See how that works? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/145 "2011-05-20T15:05:27Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I occasionally wonder how much music or writing or other art that is awesome has been lost to the world because the creator didn’t get lucky enough to get it distributed to the world. Most people who write/make music/paint and so on are awful but I am willing to bet some real gems are in there and have been lost to us. Its clear there is some but I doubt it is very much. Case in point. American idol auditions literally tens of thousands of hopefuls every year and in all its years of looking for that unfound gem, we have a small handful of significant musicians that are almuni of American Idol (Carrie underwood being the best example). > [@](#): > > My GF used to work for a book publisher and would work the slush pile. Basically works that were sent to them in the hopes of being published. From her experience she said nearly no one made it out of the slush pile. She remembered one instance (out of thousands). > > Seriously…ask any writer their experience trying to get published. Without an agent your chances are pretty close to zero. Its more than just the agent’s connections and access, the agent acts as a filter and an editor. They look for talent and then help polish some of the rough gems they find. I think the result of these different points of view is that if you think the 1 in 100 generates all the wealth, you are perfectly happy to see virtually all the wealth concentrated in that 1 percent. If you think that the wealth generation process is significantly more diffuse, you would be disturbed by that sort of concentration. Jackalope’s point is that even if there are people with rare talents that come up with a lot of ideas, both from an equitable perspective and from an economic perspective, it makes sense to avoid concentrating all the wealth in those people with those rare talents, otherwise our entire economy will eventually become largely selling stuff to those people with rare talents because we will be rewarding little else. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/146 "2011-05-20T15:22:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think the result of these different points of view is that if you think the 1 in 100 generates \*\*all \*\*the wealth, No one except **Le Jac** and his strawmen thinks that. The point here is that 1 in 100 create an idea/process/invention that will make money. The other 99 will earn an income as part of that. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > you are perfectly happy to see virtually all the wealth concentrated in that 1 percent. If you think that the wealth generation process is significantly more diffuse, you would be disturbed by that sort of concentration. What concentration? The person that comes up with the idea gets paid for it, it’s out our system has worked for the past 100 or so years. Tell me something, picture Dilbert working at his company and he comes up with a great idea. They reward him the standard $500 for getting a patent, and then proceed to make billions off his idea while he continues to make his salary. Do you see that has fair? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Jackalope’s point is that even if there are people with rare talents that come up with a lot of ideas, both from an equitable perspective and from an economic perspective, it makes sense to avoid concentrating all the wealth in those people with those rare talents, otherwise our entire economy will eventually become largely selling stuff to those people with rare talents because we will be rewarding little else. Again, what is “concentrating?” Do you mean Stephen King shouldn’t get rich off his book, that instead the wealth should be spread equally through the chain? Should the guy working the concession stand make as much as the basketball players? Should all the basketball players earn the same? What is it you are actually trying to say? If I come up with a widget that sells for $100, am I obligated to pay you half to make it for me? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/147 "2011-05-20T15:28:13Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > It’s your mistake. You are the one who said only 1 in 100 people produce wealth. That implies expendability for the other 99%. If only 1 out of 100 people generate wealth and the other 99 people disappear, going by your rabidly insane logic, wealth is still being generated. Yes. If you are on an island with a hundred people and you are the only one building a hut, gathering coconuts and whatnot and the other 99 wander around not doing anything, will you really miss them if they disappear? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/148 "2011-05-20T16:04:24Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Yes. If you are on an island with a hundred people and you are the only one building a hut, gathering coconuts and whatnot and the other 99 wander around not doing anything, will you really miss them if they disappear? This would be a great analogy, if unemployment were running at 99% ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/149 "2011-05-20T16:09:33Z")
…and none of the other 99% were even interested in working ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/150 "2011-05-20T18:56:34Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Yes. If you are on an island with a hundred people and you are the only one building a hut, gathering coconuts and whatnot and the other 99 wander around not doing anything, will you really miss them if they disappear? Complete fantasy scenario. In reality that’s not what ever happens. In reality you can’t possibly both build the hut and collect the food. That’s not what you find in society, either. Your arguments are based on blind and completely unfounded arrogance. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/151 "2011-05-20T20:28:59Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > This would be a great analogy, if unemployment were running at 99% And if it were running at 99% the whole county would simply disintegrate. The other 1% wouldn’t survive long, what with the troops they need to protect them running away to guard their own families. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/152 "2011-05-21T22:30:03Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Your arguments are based on blind and completely unfounded arrogance. My arrogance is well founded. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/153 "2011-05-21T23:01:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But capitalism isn’t controlled by anyone. It is the recognition that if you leave people free to direct their own affairs, they will contract with each other for mutual benefit, and out of the sum total of those transactions order will emerge. A highly efficient order at that. One so complex that no government could hope to emulate it to anywhere near the same degree of efficiency. > > For that spontaneous order to work, there are certainly preconditions. You need a civil society. You need to ensure that people are free to choose without coercion (including fraud, monopoly power, etc). Government therefore has a role in setting up the playing field and making sure that everyone abides by the rules. You need a big government to do that, because there are big enemies. I think a guy who would’ve considered 99% of the world to be merely carbon blobs is [Cecil Rhodes](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/cecil-rhodes-a-bad-man-in-africa-654195.html): > [@](#): > > But it was Rhodes who originated the racist “land grabs” to which Zimbabwe’s current miseries can ultimately be traced. It was Rhodes, too, who in 1887 told the House of Assembly in Cape Town that “the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of South Africa”. In less oratorical moments, he put it even more bluntly: “I prefer land to niggers.” First, he comes up with an excuse to denigrate an entire population. From there, he set about taking everything away from them: > [@](#): > > Rhodes connived his way to wealth in a lawless frontier culture, then used that fortune to fund a private invasion of East Africa. He bought newspapers in order to shape and control public opinion. He brokered secret deals, issued bribes and used gangs of mercenaries to butcher his opponents, seizing close to a million square miles of territory from its inhabitants. The guy does at least have reason to claim to be that 1 out of 100, by the kinds of capitalist terms I’m seeing here: > [@](#): > > A sickly, asthmatic teenager, he was sent to the improving climate of his brother’s cotton plantation in Natal. The pair soon became involved in the rush to exploit South Africa’s diamond and gold deposits – and unlike many prospectors and speculators who wandered, dazed and luckless, around the continent, their claim proved fruitful. But without some over-arching agent of justice- a role only a just government can provide- what is to prevent the ascendancy of such characters again and again, and again. And again? It is good for business, I will certainly grant you that. Look what he did: > [@](#): > > When Rhodes began his studies at Oriel College, he returned to South Africa each vacation to attend to his mining interests – which, by his mid-thirties, had made him, in today’s terms, a billionaire. By 1891, he had amalgamated the De Beers mines under his control But let’s not conflate “good for business” with “good” > [@](#): > > After Rhodes came… BP The guy made a fortune, but at what cost? > [@](#): > > In 1896, Rhodes’s name was linked with the Jameson Raid – a disastrous (and illegal) attempt to annex Transvaal territory held by the Boers, and a principal cause of the South African War of 1899-1902. His action started a war. Not that he much cared. Shit, most of the people dying were merely blobs of carbon! ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/154 "2011-05-21T23:08:27Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think it’s fitting and ironic that one offhanded post by me has achieved a thread a hundred posts long. > > IOW 1%. > > 😃 Ok, I get it: **msmith** isn’t serious. What he’s pushing is the concept of [elitism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitism): to quote Ludwig von Mises’ letter to Ayn Rand: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you.” It has no basis in neoclassical economics, which posits that workers are paid their marginal product. It’s a silly idea besides: as **Sam Stone** has pointed out, if workers weren’t producing wealth, nobody would pay them anything. It’s empirically dubious: a great portion of innovation involves learning by doing: it’s not Archimedes jumping out of a bathtub, it’s lots of people struggling to design and master best practices. msmith: You’re being creamed here. Cutting edge manufacturing plants hire college graduates. Technological innovation in the US at least has tended to repress wages at the lower end: those whose main asset is a strong back haven’t done well since the 1960s. I trust there’s some way of pushing your POV on this, but so far it’s simply incoherent. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/155 "2011-05-23T14:48:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > My arrogance is well founded. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > msmith: You’re being creamed here. msmith537 is pretty much pulverizing himself. Yours was merely a diagnosis of his arguments’ cause of death. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/156 "2011-05-23T18:29:36Z")
Just one more thing, msmith… Can you explain the difference between your school of thought and that of the philosophy of “useless eaters”? What difference is there? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/157 "2011-05-23T18:47:53Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Just one more thing, msmith… > > Can you explain the difference between your school of thought and that of the philosophy of “useless eaters”? What difference is there? Took a while but eventually Goodwin will emerge. Well done Le Jac, well done. You know who else liked protectionist policies, Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/158 "2011-05-26T07:22:21Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Took a while but eventually Goodwin will emerge. Well done Le Jac, well done. > > You know who else liked protectionist policies, Hitler. Godwin’s Law Godwin’s Law states that as an online argument grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. > **[Urban Dictionary: Godwin's law](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Godwin%27s%20law)** > > Godwin's law: Usenet There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has \[automatically\] lost... ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/159 "2011-05-31T22:25:38Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Godwin’s Law > > Godwin’s Law states that as an online argument grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. > > [Urban Dictionary: Godwin's law](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Godwin%27s%20law) Huh? I never mentioned Hitler. The idea of “useless eaters” existed long before Hitler; it’s the whole cornerstone of social Darwinism. There’s no difference between Msmith’s comments and the idea of “useless eaters”. If only 1% of people generate wealth (according to his deluded arguments) the other 99% are useless. They generate no wealth. It’s the logical end to his argument. ---
**Author:** ![randomface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@randomface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randomface)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976/160 "2011-05-31T23:14:36Z")
Does the wall outlet in your house generate power? Do the wires leading to your house? If they don’t, they are worthless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interchangeable-carbon-blobs-only-1-generate-any-wealth/581976.md?page=9)