The notion that the labor of a privileged few is responsible for the output
of society is an arcane, little-understood concept in the Marxist
literature, usually called "exploitation".

In the apocrypha of that same Marxist literature there are references to
some Marxists (now little heard of, and largely thought to be extinct, if
they ever existed) who based their activity, known as "class struggle", on a
theory extracted from this formulation.

Those Marxists also argued that Marx wrote his book "Das Capital" for these
aims, but this view has largely been discredited in favor of the modern
understanding that Marx was actually attempting merely to describe the
dynamics of capitalist economies.

All best
Richard

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 1:06 PM, c b <[email protected]> wrote:

>  I am at a loss to understand at how Leftists/Marxists can look at the
> history of Apple and then deny that wealth creation is ultimately the
> product of the vision, drive and willpower of individual entrepeneurs and
> instead attribute wealth creation to the labor of the other 99%, or deny
> that wealth creation is dependent on social structures that enable the Jobs
> of the world to pursue their vision as opposed to hindering them.
> >
> > David Shemano
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: That's a really fundamental question, yep.  When it's an idea it's
> not wealth. Ideas are not material. Only through the labor of the 99%
> can the idea become millions of cell phones and all that.  So ,
> "ultimately": it is the work of the 99% that creates the wealth, not
> the thought of the genius.  Also, you are kidding yourself if you
> don't think that if Steve Jobs had never been born, somebody else
> would have come up with some idea that sold as many widgets as Apple
> did.  There are probably thousands of other "visions" that would have
> taken the place of his. Same with Henry Ford.
> _______________________________________________
> pen-l mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
>
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l

Reply via email to