Debunking "Hard Work"

[AK]

It's an "argument" I face whenever I debate capitalism. These capitalists supposedly put in years of "hard work" to build their business and then are given this magic right to not have to work since they "worked their asses off" up until now. Need. Halp.

[mykittyhasaboner]

The opportunities of individuals is largely determined by forces one cannot even see as a whole; these forces being the motion of the world economy and the relative geographical distribution of wealth.

These capitalists were only able to "work their asses off" (beginning of as a worker or unemployed person and eventually start their own business) because they were born into a country that has extracted wealth from less fortunate people's labor, mostly from other parts of the world. If these capitalists were born in a poor country, to a poor family, and not in the imperialist imperialist heart land of the US, Western Europe, or the British Commonwealth, then their hard work would most likely not have been involving their own business or exceptional personal wealth. Their hard work would probably be a menial manufacturing job done in some foreign owned plant.

Essentially yes, capitalism and the wealth of individuals is based on "hard work". There is no questioning this, because labor is what creates value. However the "hard work" of accumulating enough money to invest in a business, getting fairly lucky and experiencing success, and hiring others to work for them is not the basis of capitalism as a whole, it's the basis of their class the petit-bourgeoisie, or even the bourgeoisie.

Technically if they hire others to labor for them, exploiting (to any kind of degree) laborers to do the work for them, after all their years of hard work, is kind of a magic right not to have to work, only it's not magic. They don't have to work because to them it is not their labor that creates value, but their investment and management strategy.

Basically their whole argument and mentality is locked in place, ingrained in their class interest. This is the kind of approach I think you should take.

[Ravachol]

It's an "argument" I face whenever I debate capitalism. These capitalists supposedly put in years of "hard work" to build their business and then are given this magic right to not have to work since they "worked their asses off" up until now. Need. Halp.

It isn't even an argument, but I suppose that if this argument holds to them, this could be applied to just about every mineworker, agricultural laborer, construction worker,etc.

[x371322]

Well I guess if waiting their whole life for mommy and daddy to die is hard work, then okay.

[mikelepore]

It's an "argument" I face whenever I debate capitalism. These capitalists supposedly put in years of "hard work" to build their business and then are given this magic right to not have to work since they "worked their asses off" up until now. Need. Halp.

Even if it were true, that still wouldn't justify creating a permanent group within the population whose descendents down through all eternity will inherit wealth and never have to work. For example, we're now about six generations removed from the original Henry Ford who started the car company, and apparently the line of descendents will be entitled to receive luxury without having to work forever and ever. We have workers working overtime to financially support a wealthy class, and the workers have to do this because of who their ancestors were, and the wealthy receive this benefit because of who their ancestors were. That sort of family inheritance of power and privilege is precisely what people got rid of when society stopped having emperors and kings, but unfortunately we are still subjected to it in the form of the capitalists.

About once every couple years here I post the following data that I copied out of the December 1997 issue of Forbes magazine, describing the sources of the wealth of some of the wealthiest people in the U.S. as of that year. These may not be the latest available numbers, but anyone with half a brain can still get the point:

G. P. Getty, $1.9 billion inheritance
J. P. Getty, Jr. $1 billion inheritance
C. M. Getty, $670 million inheritance
A. C. Getty Earhart, $670 million inheritance
C. E. Getty Perry, $670 million inheritance
W. C. Ford, $1.4 billion inheritance
J. Ford, $800 million inheritance
R. A. Hearst, $1.4 billion inheritance
W. R. Hearst III, $800 million inheritance
D. W. Hearst, Jr., $700 million inheritance
G. R. Hearst, Jr., $700 million inheritance
A. Hearst, $700 million inheritance
P. Hearst Cooke, $700 million inheritance
O. M. Dupont Bredin, $500 million inheritance
C. S. Du Pont Darden, $500 million inheritance
I. Du Pont, Jr., $500 million inheritance
I. S. Du Pont May, $500 million inheritance
A. F. Du Pont Mills, $515 million inheritance
J. C. Walton, $6.5 billion inheritance
H. R. Walton, $6.4 billion inheritance
A. L. Walton, $6.3 billion inheritance
S. R. Walton, $6.3 billion inheritance
J. T. Walton, $6.3 billion inheritance
A. K. Walton, $660 million inheritance
L. M. Walton, $660 million inheritance

[mikelepore]

It's an "argument" I face whenever I debate capitalism. These capitalists supposedly put in years of "hard work" to build their business and then are given this magic right to not have to work since they "worked their asses off" up until now. Need. Halp.

We have to expose the magical thinking that the supporters of capitalism resort to when they claim that the system has these automatic features that reward people who deserve it.

Your critics may not be informed enough to realize it, or honest enough to admit it, but such a claim isn't even part of the capitalists' own economic theory of how capitalism operates. The capitalists' own theory just says -- if you can find some way to get a widget built for six dollars each, and if you can find some way to sell them for ten dollars each, then there's nothing stopping you from keeping the other four dollars for yourself. That's all it is. There's nothing in that picture about an invisible miracle power that sees to it that certain deserving people shall get rewarded.

People who wish to reach for any available excuses for class division merely made all that superstitious gibberish about the economic outcome having some intelligent plan to reward people.

[NecroCommie]

Debunking the power and meaning of individual's actions is relatively easy. If individuals had even nearly enough power to affect their income then organizations and states would never have formed, as their power could never compete with that of single individuals.

[Red Commissar]

We have many Americans who work hard for most of their lives yet don't amount to much of anything. Not everyone who works hard will end up like a Carnegie.

Then again, so as long as they get these rags to riches stories, this illusion will continue to persist.

We just had an example of one of these types, Joe Stack, who failed miserably in his ambitions and decided to do his deed.

[blackwave]

What about the proletarian who works 3 jobs just to feed his family? I'd say that's pretty fucking hard work. Why isn't he a multi-millionaire?