Here is an example of the breathtaking
ignorance of Marxists/Socialists, one which provides an excellent opportunity
to refute some of their essential claims. It appears on Twitter at https://bit.ly/2KOJYJf. Please take a moment to read it.
Wage earners don’t need “overlords,” but they
certainly do need businessmen and capitalists. Businessmen and capitalists
survey prospects for profit, and on the basis of what they expect to be
profitable, found, organize, and run business firms.
They decide what their firms will produce,
where, in what quantities, and by what methods, and provide the necessary
buildings, machinery, and materials. They also decide how many workers of
different types they will need for their plans and then hire and tell them what
to do.
The products their firms produce are THEIR
products. They supply the guiding, directing intelligence at the highest level
in their firms. The workers they employ are their HELPERS in fulfilling their
plans and producing their (the businessmen’s/capitalists’) products.
Thus, the products of the old Ford Motor
Company and the old Standard Oil Company were the products of Ford and
Rockefeller. Today, the products of Amazon are the products of Bezos.
The products of every firm are the products of
men such as these, though usually they are less prominent and not as easily
identified.
In all such cases, the role of the employees is
that of providing help. They are accurately described by the expression “The
Help.”
It is on the basis of this same principle of
attributing results to those who supply the necessary guiding, directing
intelligence at the highest level, that we attribute the discovery of America
to Columbus and not to the members of his crews, who were merely Columbus’s
helpers.
In the same way, we attribute Napoleon’s
victory at Austerlitz to Napoleon and not to the lesser officers and soldiers
who served under him. And in the same way, we attribute the foreign policy of
the United States to the President and not to the State Department employees.
Wage earners have their jobs by virtue of
businessmen and capitalists having provided them. The help the wage earners
provide in producing the businessmen’s/capitalists’ products is fully
remunerated by the wages they are paid.
Take away businessmen and capitalists and you
take away wage earners, who either die of starvation or must become primitive
producers and sellers of commodities on their own, in which case most of them
still die of starvation.
For introductory elaboration, read my essay
whose title appears immediately below. It’s available at https://amzn.to/2N44uTu in Kindle format for 99¢, and also in
paperback.
For full elaboration, read my Capitalism: A
Treatise on Economics, available in hardcopy and Kindle formats at https://amzn.to/2PM19ut. Also available at https://www.capitalism.net both in hard cover and as a free pdf replica capable of
download. (Read chapters 11 and 14 in particular).
