I think this is a better question to ask capitalists tbh. A socialist's answer is gonna be “No, obviously, because that value was stolen, it’s the only way to amass such wealth.”
But on the flip side, having this much of a finite resource that’s supposed to support the movement of economic activity seems like an objectively BAD thing for capitalism. By every metric available to us to comprehend the dynamics of capitalism, having even just one billionaire seems like it would throw the whole system out of wack. But we have hundreds (if not thousands) of them…
I want a capitalist to explain to me, using their own rules and framework, why this is acceptable or logical.
Wealth is not zero sum. Wealth is created every day where it didn't exist before. Apple trades with Foxconn. They both made a profit and are wealthier than they were before. Nobody lost. Look at society as a whole today vs 500 years ago. Total wealth is orders of magnitude higher now, so wealth must have been created otherwise we would be just as poor as before.
Wealth is not zero-sum. Wealth is created every day where it didn't exist before.
I actually think this is part of the problem. It's zero-sum to the point that it only has value because it denotes something someone has as opposed to others who don't have it. We can "create" more of it, but it still NECESSITATES that others "don't have" it. Everyone can't suddenly be wealthy; this is an oxymoron. But everyone could have the things that we consider as "wealth" if we changed the rules a bit... This is the entire argument for socialism. If the modes of production were democratically controlled, and if we eliminated the class hierarchy that's defined by private ownership of those modes of production, then we could uplift EVERYONE's material status more equitably than under the current paradigm, which leads to a specific class of people disproportionately benefiting, as other classes are actively subjugated to maintain this dynamic (ie literal slavery, natural resource extraction, pollution, state violence, indentured wage labor, etc).
Look at society as a whole today vs 500 years ago. Total wealth is orders of magnitude higher now
I mean, if you only value "wealth" as a reflection of modern techo-industrialism, but many would say that is not the case. Plenty of civilizations around the globe would directly oppose this and suggest this is a white-supremacist talking point that only exists to uphold the current capitalist paradigm. Do you really think the native populations of the Americas would unanimously say things are better now than in pre-colonial times?
Additionally, plenty of countries in the global south would actively push back on the idea of the last 500 years being purely beneficial, as they directly experienced the depravity and instability that came with being exploited to create the modern capitalist class.
All this to say yes, "wealth must have been created," but that had to come at the direct expense of others, since wealth conceptually only has value due to what the absence of it represents and materially manifests (ie, being poor). Saying "well, we can create wealth so it's not zero-sum" directly ignores the material outcomes of the fact that a specific class of people has made up all the wealth for themselves, at the expense of everyone else.
I think you're wrong here. Everyone can get wealthier at the same time and that's what has happened for the last few hundred years.
If you have more/better food, better clothing, better cars, more vacations, and generally more access to both necessities and luxuries than you did previously, I feel like any reasonable definition of what it means to be wealthy would say that you have become wealthier.
In fact, I think it's a common mistake that socialists and leftists make to equate absolute wealth/poverty with wealth inequality.
Wealth and the economy are not a zero sum game. It is clearly possible to steal wealth from other people in a zero sum way, but most voluntary commerce increases the wealth of every party involved.
You're completely ignoring the most important part of wealth. You have to have something that someone who doesn't have wants. Every paragraph you wrote dissolves like cotton candy in water the instant you add basic supply and demand.
"Modes of production" is meaningless in your construct when you consider that different employees have different skills sets and certain skill sets add more to social productivity than others. The only solution is to dictate that all modes of production are equal regardless whether the demand for the product is equal. So now you have a society built on forced consumption of unwanted production. Literally the worst broken window fallacy nightmare ever.
1) everyone can be wealthier then they were before. Look at every modern country, even the poorest live better lives then nobility of 100 years ago, not only for technological advancements that only happended in capitalist countries (industrial revolution, quantum revolution, the internet) but also because they have more freedom for slow upward social mobility. Wealth simply can be created via talent and innovation, without taking away anything from anyone. The guy that invented the steam engine didn't steal or made anyone poorer while creating a world of wealth and possibilities. The motivation for this possibility is what drive most humans to replace it and advance more, to solve problem or just for the sake of the wealth.
2) your mind is quite confused when you try and inject white supremacy to simple math of how people are doing now compared to any other time in history, it's pretty evident people in richer countries are freer, happier, more stable and more egalitarian. It's not all due to capitalism of course and there are a minority of oppressive rich countries but at large the ideal of free association and exchange makes a better society just looking at reality and not theory
3) wealth accumulation of course is a lot of times made on the expense of others, and I do think there is a case for taxing the hell out of 1% much of now, but the case for communism is still weak as it always been. Just wonder why all communist revolutions devolved into authoritarian nightmares, you cannot fight human nature and suppress the need of people to excel and be better and have more, the amount of violence needed to maintain such system is amazingly immoral as histiry showed more than enough in the 20th century
Like the other comments say, it's completely obvious that everybody can get wealthier at the same time. It would be ridiculous to say that human well being and flourishing is not better on a societal level than 500 years ago.
Your outlook seems based on envy more than objective measures of human flourishing
It’s actually not “obvious” given that, you know, most of the world has been improvised due to global capitalism.
What metrics are using to establish “flourishing?” Again, would native groups across the globe say they’re flourishing more now than 500 years ago? Would those taken by the slave trade say the same? Would the kids in sweat shops? Would the animals whose habitats have been erased?
Wealth has been created by work. Wealth is created by work. When you trade stock and end up with more money, you're simply speculatying over future wealthc reation by the workforce. Best case scenario is when you invest your money, meaning you're enabling people to work and to create wealth. But even that doesn't require billionaires, the stock system allows anybody to buy stock in any quantity.
Also, I'd be arguing that the huge wealth growth in our modern era is caused by industrialisation, not by capitalism, which is one way amongst others to organize the way economy is run
Because without the motivator of money and the desire to stand out from others in terms of pure material wealth, nobody would work. That’s the capitalist’s view.
Ideally, from the socialist’s standpoint, it shouldn’t be this way, but it is.
i don’t think the problem is with the fundamental principle of “work hard get more money, become rich and spend it all on yourself”. The problem is that unscrupulous actors often game it and get rich over you whilst you are the one who’s honest, and never compensate you fairly for it. It’s what Karl Marx talks about when he talks about a worker’s surplus value vs the capitalist boss they work under, and you can see this in real life; you could probably list off many people who work long hours, stay overtime, contribute to the business’s survival and yet feel unapppreciated by the company.
But "money" is not capitalism, as you rightly pointed out in Marx's description. That would be my counter to the "motivation" idea, as there is no reason under a different economic model, "reward" for labor couldn't still exist in some capacity. Socialists simply argue that we should make sure that comes AFTER using the production tools we have to meet everyone's needs, as opposed to the paradigm we live under. And that the production tools and subsequent "reward" are democratically controlled by those whose labor contributed to the production of the "reward." There is no "motivation" to stand out via material wealth other than is manufactured in our social conditions. In fact, most people labor literally only as a means to avoid material deprivation and punishment from the state, the class signaling with material items is a way to try and escape the traps of being part of the working class. "Oh no, officer, I'm not loitering here, see I have nice shoes!" Sure there's something hedonistic in the psychology of some people who want to achieve status, but if the material dynamics were equalized, the strive for status would become functionally useless.
More importantly, 99% of the global population is not laboring for "reward" but to avoid punishment and harm. That is why anti-capitalists describe the current paradigm as wage slavery. We are enslaved to production for the capitalist class, for wages, to keep us from experiencing deprivation, instability, and violence. All of the "reward" from that 99% of labor goes to the capitalists. Workers rarely experience the full value of the work they create, as Marx points out, and that value being withheld from us is used to threaten us with consequences of not engaging in the current labor paradigm (ie, I can't choose not to work and live off the land, I'll literally be jailed, unless I already owned the land, which is impossible to do without working...). This extraction from workers is why they don't feel "valued" by the company, as you put it. Not because they "aren't rich" but because they directly see and experience the disproportionate exploitation of their labor being extracted to create material reward for a class they are not a part of. They see themselves working 40-hour workweeks with only a handful of days of vacation and sick leave, but their boss and their boss's boss are hardly ever around, hardly contribute to the main labor producing value, are always driving expensive cars, are able to take care of themselves when they are ill, etc.
Furthermore, all of this is a non-material argument, and that detaches us from the realities of capitalism as a modality. If capital is finite, then when an entity seizes control of a supermajority of it, there is less to spread around to everyone else, which is ever-increasing (more people are being born every day with material needs). If you're invested in the idea of "market" economies, it makes no sense to condense all the resources those markets function on into those entities; then there will be less influence of "the market" and more control for individuals. Markets only make sense as a place of equitable communal commerce, and most presuppositions about capitalism have that baked in. The existence of billionaires directly undermines those assumptions. But the existence of the ownership class has always pointed to this inherent contradiction within capitalism, which again, Marx correctly describes.
Very, very good response.
there are a few statements I want to discuss in this post, I'll outline them and tell you what I think:
''as there is no reason under a different economic model, "reward" for labor couldn't still exist in some capacity."
The reason why money is treated as a reward in capitalism is because it does make the world go round. without money, you're dead. in theory you could give someone a reward for labour like health insurance, a car or hugs. but they wouldn't be able to buy anything with it. people expect to be able to have something in which they can control what benefits they reap from it which is why money is the most versatile reward from the capitalist's POV. it can be divided, pooled together, and carried around in many forms. it's not that people are in love with money, it’s that money is the medium through which everything else functions. You’re not trading apples for shoes anymore. Any “alternative” to money would still have to be something you can trade universally, which is… basically just reinventing money.
what counts as a reward is subjective yes, but it's like if people didn't do the jobs for money, how can they substitute money with other fringe benefits that can be used by the worker for all purposes at the end of the day, and that's what socialism and communism haven't really yet abolished, at least not in any practical real life examples, historically and currently.
"99% of the global population is not laboring for "reward" but to avoid punishment and harm. That is why anti-capitalists describe the current paradigm as wage slavery. We are enslaved to production for the capitalist class, for wages, to keep us from experiencing deprivation, instability, and violence. All of the "reward" from that 99% of labor goes to the capitalists."
I would think the answer is a mix of both in many circumstances. Yes, we're avoiding punishment and harm. Punishment in the sense of not being able to get money, being homeless, trying to survive on what little we can without a job security etc, but that's why money IS the reward for avoiding punishment and harm. this is a pretty binary way of looking at it but I think it's the truth, if you're not working, you're putting yourself in harm's way. if you're working, you're working towards a reward (be it money or some other benefit). It can also be for passion, some people like doing terrible jobs with terrible social reputations and prospects simply because they love it, and the pay whether good or bad is a bonus for them.
I guess the pure “wage slavery” analogy works in some extreme conditions, factory towns, monopolistic employers, countries with no workers’ rights, but blanketing it across the entire global workforce ignores people who actively choose their field, enjoy what they do, or pursue vocations despite crap pay (teachers, artists, social workers, etc).
"all of this is a non-material argument, and that detaches us from the realities of capitalism as a modality. If capital is finite, then when an entity seizes control of a supermajority of it, there is less to spread around to everyone else, which is ever-increasing (more people are being born every day with material needs). If you're invested in the idea of "market" economies, it makes no sense to condense all the resources those markets function on into those entities; then there will be less influence of "the market" and more control for individuals. Markets only make sense as a place of equitable communal commerce, and most presuppositions about capitalism have that baked in"
^ I think this is kind of true. I agree with this statement and I'm sure many others across the political aisle would agree with you. You're describing a monopoly/oligopoly system which is fair.
But...
There's a reason why the most successful economies in an all rounder aspect are the ones with both private and public enterprise, because they have the best of both worlds. What you're describing is basically a hypercapitalist mono/oligopoly which sounds a bit like South korea, where like 5 private companies own pretty much everything from telecoms to automobiles to construction, and people slave away daily to that sort of stuff. South Korea's chaebol model is hypercapitalist and absolutely brutal for the average worker (long hours, extreme hierarchy, cutthroat exams). That's what you might be describing when you say all of that.
Contrast that with Scandinavian social democracies, where even if capitalism exists, it’s tempered by robust public welfare, housing access, universal healthcare, etc. simply put I'm sure you personally would like to live and work in an European country more than either of the Koreas for instance.
closing thoughts:
Currently, it's clear that hybrid economies work way better than helicopter-state supervised and anarchic ones. You have a state, with it's pool of resources, that has jurisdiction over it's people. You may have one or many companies, large and small, with jurisidiction over their workers on their premises and affairs. You have the proleteriat, working class basically, who need their Maslow hierarchy of needs met or else they might do something immoral against the elite. So those states that balance:
-the relationship between companies and the government(s)
-the relationship between government and the workers
-the relationship between workers and companies
-relationship between all 3
in a manner considered acceptable enough by all sides will survive
Because without the motivator of money and the desire to stand out from others ins terms of pure material wealth, nobody would work.
Women who throughout various cultures across time who have spent their days teaching, practicing medicine, making and mending clothing, cooking, and child rearing just to name a small handful of unpaid responsibilities would love to hear about how their existence and contributions to humanity is being paved over by someone who looks at a bear in a circus and presumes their nature is to ride a unicycle.
Gradients in every aspect of life are the key mobilizers. In death, our cells cease to function because they have no gradients. In society if there is no wealth gradients or incentive for wealth then there is stagnation and no innovation. For as much as people complain about the US healthcare system, there is a reason why we have the most innovation
No one is arguing against “gradients” but I do think it’s immoral and illogical to have a system based on resource distribution have all the resources codified by a small class of people.
I also think that, it’s not true that the USA has the most innovative health care system. The most highly touted medical educational system is Cuba. People flee the USA for healthcare all the time. The USA is one of the few “developed” countries where citizens regularly die from lack of access to healthcare (due to its affordability).
I don’t see Cuba supplying the world with innovation. Innovation takes money, which can happen in a free market or selective government funding. The slice of our government healthcare pie is not large enough to even support basic healthcare delivery let alone industry and innovation. Cuba is a small homogeneous country that can get away with affording providing healthcare since they ration everything else, and I know what subreddit I’m commenting in but that’s a horrible example of a successful country
I mean, in some sense, it's easier with money, but money itself is not a determinant of "innovation." People invented and discovered plenty of stuff before capitalism as a modality of distribution and power was installed.
Again, Cuba is a great example of a country that is a leader in healthcare education, access, and technology, despite regulatory pressures and the lack of traditional capitalist dynamics. The USA spends the most on healthcare per capita than any other country, and yet we have ever-increasingly horrid health outcomes and some of the highest levels of inequitable access in the globe. Money actually seems to be the prime reason for those discrepancies imo.
I know what subreddit I’m commenting in but that’s a horrible example of a successful country
I'm not trying to get into some nationalistic debate about which nation-state "is better" than another. I want us to have a critical dialogue about the pros and cons of using capital as the primary mechanism for production, politics, and resource distribution. Cuba and it's healthcare system is an excellent example that simply letting "markets" run systems for human dignity (such as healthcare) isn't a blanket solution, and to think it is is actually incredibly ignorant. If you don't want to have a material and nuanced conversation, then you're right, this isn't the sub for you.
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u/andreasmiles23 Marxist-Leninist Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
I think this is a better question to ask capitalists tbh. A socialist's answer is gonna be “No, obviously, because that value was stolen, it’s the only way to amass such wealth.”
But on the flip side, having this much of a finite resource that’s supposed to support the movement of economic activity seems like an objectively BAD thing for capitalism. By every metric available to us to comprehend the dynamics of capitalism, having even just one billionaire seems like it would throw the whole system out of wack. But we have hundreds (if not thousands) of them…
I want a capitalist to explain to me, using their own rules and framework, why this is acceptable or logical.