Blog PostsMoney Made is Not Money Earned
By Tara van Dijk at Apr 07, 2011 |
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If one takes a reflexive pause it becomes quite impossible to say that Bill Gates, Ratan Tata, or David Beckham earned their wealth entirely on their own. It is more likely that a lot of the wealth they amass has to do with their structural position in our capitalist social and cultural structure rather than from the fruits of their labor (physical or mental). Consider all the time, effort and resources (public, private and individual) that have gone into Microsoft's or Tata Group’s success. Tax breaks and incentives and R & D funds, investors' $, and the time and labor of numerous employees all go into creating the profits available at the end of the business year. Additionally, consider the time and labor spent on designing, implementing and regulating all the state, national and international rules and regulations plus the infrastructure necessary for people, supplies and products to come together when they need to. Lastly, employees do not come from the sky well trained and productive--family, community and the state all participate in raising and caring for employees. All of these inputs are necessary to create profits. Corporations and those highly placed within them and large scale investors are positioned structurally to attract the most gains and to externalize most of the costs... This is why it is fair and necessary that they pay a higher percentage of taxes than those of us working for wages or small to medium level salaries.
An individual example of how ownership or usership mystifies relational aspects of wealth and assets is my Master’s Degree. It expresses personal status and brings me positive recognition; however this degree is a form of accumulated human effort (see Bourdieu 1984)--mine and (importantly) all those who contributed to it directly and indirectly. However I, as the holder/owner of the degree, enjoy all the use and exchange value it brings. This could be a justification for why I as a professional pay more taxes then those who don't have access or ownership of this type of 'accumulated human effort.'
Value, ownership, responsibility and remuneration are socially and politically decided phenomena. When income inequality gets too high it becomes socially, politically and economically unsustainable. Consider, the squeezed middle-class, struggling working-class, deficits, and budget battles--income inequality and a tax system biased in favor of the rich contribute to all these issues.
Money made, is not the same thing as money directly earned.
grabbing money by wielding power
By Karman, Leen at Apr 10, 2011 06:20 AM
Tara,
No one pays for the accumulated human effort, which we call the available infrastructure. All those who contributed to your Master's Degree enjoyed the same infrastructure.
We all pay for the maintenance of this infrastructure, by paying tax and by adding our effort to that heap.
There is not such a thing as equitable distribution of income, equitable in the sense of rightful. To use that term when you are striving for a "balanced" income distribution is emotionalizing your goal.
Speaking of progressive taxing I always use the argument of a poor man who doesn't need a cop in the street. Perhaps he's better off if he never will see a cop in his life. Cops are for the rich. So let the rich pay them. You should be surprised how often I find acceptance, or even endorsement, by those who normally speak of picking the pockets of the rich one.
If you only think one second of Arianna Huffington you know who really is to blame for the fact that grabbing money makes greedy and that the greedy keep grabbing: those who cede themselves and their labor to the grabbing.
For the most stupid of all: look at Boehner. For a fistful of dollars and some temporary glory he sells "his" country and its labor force to those who bid low in order to make high gains. (A few centuries ago some economist, an obedient servant, calculated for his king the minimum wage you could pay for the labor of an Irishman in order to make the most for the English Crown. He must have got a nice pat on the back.)
By the way: who voted that man into office?
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Money is Power
By Keller, Keith at Apr 07, 2011 22:44 PM
“Allow me to issue and control a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.” (Mayer Rothschild, 1791)
“The study of money, above all other fields . . .is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it . . .The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.” (John Kenneth Galbraith)
“Money is power, economic power in fluid form, the primary instrument of social control.” (Keith Keller)
The problem is that most folks don’t truly comprehend what money is, how it is created, and how the financial system works. Directing the flow of concentrated wealth effectively directs the behavior of the political economy. The concentration of economic power in a relatively small number of private individuals is known as oligarchy. Oligarchy is an anti-democratic form of social control, the oligarchs, in essence, being the capitalist nobility. The only way to have anything even remotely approaching a democracy is to have graduated taxation on income and accumulated wealth for both individuals and organizations. Money isn’t a “thing,” it is the means of social organizational control in a modern, complex society.
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Re: Money is Power
By van Dijk, Tara at Apr 08, 2011 11:52 AM
Definitely most people have no idea of how monetary and financial systems work and who at the end of the day they work for...
It seems to me that this would be a perfect center of consciousness raising that could effectively organize across socio-cultural differences. Money is something that everyone can relate to and have personal interest in knowing more about. Those who are in the know and of progressive disposition need to start organizing teach-ins and community workshops on these topics... There are plenty of documentaries available for free that could be screened at these grassroot events...
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