If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise (as most Republicans put it), every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. Hell, everyone of us would be. Being a scumbag, a predator and a capital manipulator isn't work.

maybe you don't understand what i mean. yes, many contracts, especially those between two individuals, are fully mutual. however, employment contracts, for example, are written by the agencies that are employing the individuals and the individuals don't have the power to strike items from or propose new items to the contract and resubmit the contract to the agency. there should also be the option of third party involvement to ensure that the bargain itself is completely equal and that the person seeking employment doesn't get duped into signing a contract that isn't in his best interest because of tricky language the agency places in the contract.

the only difference between humans and other animals, beyond biochemical properties (even though it is a result of our biochemical properties), is that we are far more intelligent than the next most intelligent animal. this intelligence has allowed us to create technology which has made us more efficient. we are able to excavate natural resources we once could not, mass produce things that were once hard to come by, make synthetic substitutes for materials that are still scarce to this day, etc. that is why, even though we were (are arguably still are) in a recession that is almost comparable to the Great Depression, we didn't have anywhere near the number of people starving to death or dying from curable diseases because they couldn't afford the necessary medication to get rid of their illness. we have also seen a generally steady rate by which less and less people throughout the world are starving regardless of the poverty rate. however, all of this still happens far too often and it is because we still have huge wealth disparities that are unjustified. when i say that i mean that both the manual laborer and his bosses bosses boss who makes one hundred times the money he does work their asses off and are productive. the boss may work a bit harder and be a bit more productive in a sense, but there is no amount of hard work and productivity that justifies paying the boss that much more than the laborer especially considering that, in this economy, it is a struggle for people like that laborer to even put food on the table.

with regards to getting a date you are probably right. there is no physical requirement for an individual to procreate for their own survival. however, we have specific requirements for survival that include proper nourishment, medical care, etc., and so while it is understandable that there should be a competition between members of the same sex to find a mate to procreate with, if we have the ability to cooperate and ensure that as many people have basic necessities as possible, then it is in the best interest of our civilization and the people that it is made up of to ensure at least a somewhat even distribution of said resources. that is not to say that the people who work their asses off should make the same as lazy people who ride their coattails, even in terms of necessities when they are scarce. however, saying that if someone thinks positive thoughts and manifests a destiny of wealth that they will get that wealth is perpetuating a competition between individuals to achieve that wealth and that means there will be those that achieve it and those that don't. i am suggesting that instead we think positively for humanity and manifest a reality where everyone who works hard and is productive, regardless of their thoughts, is compensated for what they do. at the end of the day, while some people will still be richer than others, the gap between rich and poor will be far smaller than it is now and there will be a gigantic middle class that make relatively the same amount of money and live rather comfortably.

there is an infinite amount of money since our money is fiat money, however, there aren't an infinite amount of resources which that money is used to represent, so when our government makes more money, the value of that money decreases because it has to meet the value (usually in scarcity) of the products it is being used to purchase. therefore, when one person has more money, he has more access to the things he needs and wants than someone who has less money. the guy who is super rich is going to use most of his money to buy luxuries which puts a little money back into the pockets of less wealthy individuals, but it still mainly enriches someone else with a lot of money. for example, when the CEO of Walmart buys his Ferrari, the majority of that money goes into the company which is also set up to pay the CEO and other high ranking financial officials a lot more than they pay their workers and so the cycle continues. in the meantime, people doing the groundwork for these companies often can't afford groceries on a weekly basis. it's not that they don't work hard, aren't productive or can't balance a check book. it is the fact that there are finite resources and money, which gives people control over those resources, is unevenly distributed, regardless of whether or not there is an infinite amount of it.

that's not what i mean. i am not saying that money is taken out of their paycheck to fulfill someone else's bonus. however, when a company sees a surge in profits, after they cover business expenses, they begin profit sharing, and the first people that get that money, who see about 80-90% of it, are the employees at the top of the pyramid. that may not be actually taking money from the workers, but it is virtually the same thing.

and so can winning the lottery because a percentage of that lottery money goes into public school funding, but that doesn't change the fact that the individual who won the lottery, or in this case "won" at stocks, got lucky that he bought the right ticket/stock investment. in the mean time there are others who actually work for their keep who make a fraction of a fraction of what those people make.

the people hired by the owner to build his business and help him run it. the people who do all the leg work basically. i am not implying that an owner does nothing, but very rarely is the owner the only person that put in hard work to run their business, and when it is only them, it is only a very small business.

what about those that will pick up a book to further their situation but are still in that situation?

exactly! hence my point that one aspect of investing is luck. true economics is not about gambling. it is about allocating resources in a controlled fashion. why should investors be rewarded extra (and we're talking about A LOT of extra reward) for getting lucky? i can understand if we were talking about a casino table here, but we're talking about peoples' lives.

actually, on the contrary, there has been new, recent research on this subject that has contradicted this. i was surprised to find a few articles on this subject the other day. these studies suggest that, in reality, about 50% of startup businesses survive at least their first 5 years:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html

and btw, depending on the community and size of the business, it may actually be the community that suffers the most from business failure, as has been the case with the shut down of multiple car manufacturing factories for companies like Ford and Chevrolet around the country in the past couple of years.

what demands are you referring to? i know plenty of people that make pennies working their asses off at a workplace where they fulfill a lot of demands. are you referring to the demands of customers or of their bosses? because it is their bosses demands that ultimately decide how much they make. if they are just a lowly member in the business, even if they work their ass off and are highly productive and able to meet the customers' demands, they are not going to make much. but if they have some specific desirable trait that their boss likes, they will move up in rank quickly and make a lot more money. usually this trait is based on personality (ie: that person can control a group of people, has innate communication skills, etc.) or something else that has nothing to do with productivity or meeting the customers' demands.

If one worker is willing to work for a lower amount of pay to fulfill the demands of their job then maybe that's just it's true value to the market.

i understand but if they were to write a contract from scratch what would be the difference if they could still find a worker that would agree to be employed for the same payment?

Sounds like the same situation that other animals have on Earth. I agree, humans are one of the most intelligents species here but I think we're getting too full of ourselves when we try controlling more than mother nature is going to allow.

Thinking posotive gives you focus on the things you can control to provide for yourself.

I only know the vision you have and thats it. Just like with any other philosophy similar to communism it may work in theory (we both agreed that was debatable), but the human elements are never added in that can cause randomness in an economy.

an employee is paid to contribute their peice of work. Behind that value is the time and labor put to learn that skill as well as the actual labor itself. Someone who coordinates a plan involving many departments for job openings providing resources would appear to be doing the groundwork to me.

You're only imagining a pyramid, there is no real pyramid. A worker is just getting paid for the piece of work he agrees to do.

Lol, I didn't know a percentage goes to public school funding. If thats the case then anything that sells is luck. Think about Waka Flocka and Lex Luther making "Hard in the Paint". That was the song that gave both of them their success they're having. We can all agree that the song is really simple, it didn't take that much creatively compared to the song writing of a classical artist. But if the people wanted to listen to it and were willing to pay for it then they do deserve everything they get from the song.

Regardless of the fact of whether something takes luck, work, or skill, the commodity has been provided that people want and were willing to pay for.

An owner sets up a business and then workers contract to do certain pieces of work for a pay that has been agreed upon. A worker is only responsible for a piece of work that he agreed he would be responsible for, not a whole company if it hadn't been part of their contract.

I don't hear about them

we're not talking about a casino table, or people's lives. We're talking about investing in a business.

It's all based off of a consumers' demand, there is just as much supply and demand involved in the job market as there is in any other. The work comes down to being valued by how much people are willing to value it.

If one worker is willing to work for a lower amount of pay to fulfill the demands of their job then maybe that's just it's true value to the market.

When I say market I make sure to distinguish it from the value of what the job is to the worker. You can highly value your work and love every minute of it or you can think your job is worthless, it plays a part to determine the market value of the labor too.

But a market value is an equilibrium of supply and demand. Of how both parties agree to value what it is.

i agree. now of course not every wealthy person is a scumbag and many of them actually did work hard, but even the nicest ones did some degree of manipulation of capital to some degree as Menace suggests. it's not possible to get wealthy as a capitalist (i'm not talking about actors and singer and such here, and by wealthy as a capitalist i mean they are a majority stock holder or large business owner of a company that employs several hundreds or even thousands of people) without exploiting someone. at some point, every capitalist has used cheap labor to advance their business for a much lower price than the work was worth or something of that nature. and when their businesses began employing people, they are paid wages decided by the owner which, most often, are far lower than that of the owners' salary himself.

but how many people are really in a position to bargain over the pay they would get? if there are some, they just wont get the job and somebody who is more in need of a job and money would come and "happily" do the work