an imaginary conversation

[Two Americas]

A modern fellow of genus Homo protests his innocence. "I don't work now, because I worked so much harder before", says he. "I labored for ten years at a crap job earning $30,000 per year and that earned me the right to live in miserable conditions in which the loss of my job would have made me destitute in weeks. But, I was not content to labor as my fellows. I got a second job at $20,000 per year and I was so thrifty that I spent not a penny of it but banked it all so that at the end of my time I had $300,000, a princely sum. I invested it wisely at 10% and now I can live for the rest of my life, if modestly, off the proceeds of only my own sweat, my own thriftiness, and my own discipline. And, if there was any luck to it - in my not facing misfortune or ill health or any other calamity - that was the product of my own luck too. I owe nothing to anyone. What I have is due to myself alone, and those who have much more than I, it seems to me that they must have arrived at it the same as I, perhaps over generations. What is this social power you speak of when it is only individual labor and individual property that stems from it? It seems to me that you merely envy that which you are too lazy to earn for yourself."

"My dear independent fellow" says we, "let us understand the simple arithmetic of your claims. If your story is as you say and we ignore all else that you report, still at the end of ten years, we see only $200,000. And, if you continue to live at this admittedly low level, nevertheless, you will have run through your entire accumulated proceeds in only 6 years and eight months. More than this, by your accounting, it would take one and a third lifetimes to create a single lifetime without labor, and this at the exceedingly low standards and exceptionally favorable circumstances that you assume. How then are we to explain those who live without labor for generations, and this at a thousand or ten thousand times times the level that you report? How many generations of 'thrift' and 'hard work' would this require? What you claim is impossible for you and beyond impossibility for those who live above you. Where is this magic of 'individual labor and individual property' that you speak of?"

"But you forget interest", protests our friend. "My money makes money, and simply by the act of having some which is not consumed in day to day living, that which I save is augmented. It is this which grants me my independence."

"We forget as much as your money 'makes'," answers we, "which is nothing at all. Set your money on the table and leave it there for as long as you like. Nothing happens to it. It remains the same. It is only by setting it in motion as capital that anything whatever is 'made' and that 'making' is the product of labor, the same as your own. Your interest comes from the command of the labor of others, just as your own was once commanded and after 6 years and eight months not a speck of 'hard work', 'thrift', 'good luck' or 'wisdom' is left. Neither is there any trace of 'independence' or 'personal property' You now live by the labor of others... by the transformation of your pitiful 'savings' into Capital, no matter how small the sum. It is your ability to command the labor of others as a social power that gives you your ability and that you have a poor man's caricature of that process changes nothing other than to lay fraudulent your claims to the right. You might as well claim innate superiority or the right of the sword as did the slave master or the god-given hierarchy of obligations of the lord or even the phases of the moon, if you like. You eat without working because you have maneuvered yourself into a position in which others work to feed you. You are the opposite of what you claim."

"You're just trying to make me feel bad," says our friend.

"We don't give a shit how you feel", says we. "It is modest enough what you do... just as you claim. It is your willingness to ignore what is closer to your face than your nose that we tire of. "

Our friend orders another beer and pretends to watch the hockey game though he would be hard pressed to name two players on either team.



thanks to anaxarchos for permission to distribute this

[amyrose2712]

1. Nicely done n/t