4T? What 4T?

[Kinser79]

(06-01-2016, 09:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Capital can also result from gross exploitation -- sweating the workers while they get only the barest of sustenance necessary to keep them from dying. Savings are obviously impossible among people so grossly exploited.

First that is not accurate. Capital only comes from savings--the deferral of consumption. Let us suppose we have a class which sweats workers whilst providing them only compensation enough to maintain the reproduction of their labor power (IE subsistence plus enough to reproduce). Are you going to argue that saving is impossible with a situation where the buying power of currency rises 2% a year rather than falls 2% per year? If you do then you have failed mathmatics because at a rate of appreication of 2%/year it takes only 50 years for the value of the currency double. In short if we say that we're using a commodity based currency (we'll call it the dollar which is based on X amount of silver [or gold if you prefer]) If a loaf of bread costs $1 today in 50 years it should cost 50 cents.

Quote:It's work that creates capital, and money is only a means of measurement. Also -- it is well worth knowing whether the people who really do the work get fair rewards, which is often a matter of who gets the rewards.

Sounds like an argument for having a fair measurement then, because the current measurement allows for massive inflation in the paper currency which wipes out the savings and capital of the lower classes but ultimately does not effect the billionaire classes or the state.

As I pointed out above, if we were still using a commodity based currency like when quarters still had silver in them in 1963, and the minimum wage was set at 1.25 per hour, then the value in today's terms would be right around 15 current dollars. Inflation has eroded the value of not only capital but also work--which you claim is the ultimate source of capital to start with.