Michael Golden writes:
>I would like to disagree with what someone said aabout what capitalism is.
>They said that capitalism just means that people can keep what they produce. On
>the contrary, workers 'produce' products in industry, yet it
>is the capitalists (stock-holders, etc.) who keep the profits. One of the
>main intents of socialism is to keep the profits of productivity in the
>hands of those whoe actually produced those profits through their labor;
>the workers themselves.
This classic Marxist definition of production overlooks the simple fact that
without the input of capital, most labor would be very unproductive. If my
employer provides me with a computer that allows me to produce ten times as
much work in the same amount of time, why should I own all the product, when
the employer contributed substantially to our communal productivity? If
Michael's socialist definition were correct, then all workers might as well be
self-employed. Then they could keep all the product of their labor, however
meager it would be.
