Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

But, curiously enough, not angry at the senior law firm partners who extract surplus value from their associates and their clients, or angry at the financiers, but angry at... Barack Obama, who dares to suggest that the U.S. government's funding gap should be closed partly by taxing him, and angry at the great hordes of the unwashed who will receive the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security payments that the government will make over the next several generations.

First, his jab at entrepreneurs who "extract surplus value" is an appeal to the core tenant of Marxism: that all profit is an exploitation and an unfair "extraction of value" from labor. I don't want to have a knee-jerk reaction to his argument just because of that, but it doesn't set a good tone for me.

Second, part of the problem I have with the tax increase is this: who knows what all that money will be used for? It could be used for taking care of the great unwashed masses (disdainful much?), or it could just as easily be used to invade more foreign countries in the name of "freedom", prop up outdated and failing industries, or bail out gamblers on Wall Street. The government of the last twenty years seems to have been shockingly bad at allocating the ridiculous amounts of money they collect from us; why should we give them more?

By way of being nitpicky: there is no jab at entrepreneurs here. The two named classes of undeserving rich people are financiers and law firm partners and I put it to you that a less value-creating lot relative to compensation could hardly be found in American society.

Law firm partners, really, are a paradigmatic example of surplus value extraction: law firms get paid by people who produce things to play negative-sum games on their behalf. And while I think it's very wrong to say that all profit is an extraction of value from labor, you could hardly find a purer example of value extraction than a law firm associate being paid <$100/hour and billed out at >$300/hour...

How is being an entrepreneur different from being a financier? Both are speculative. The financier invests dollars in risky schemes, the entrepreneur invests time and energy in them. If the scheme pans out, both get rich.

Astute, but I think they are very significantly different: An entrepreneur is risking his own time and energy. Financiers are putting millions of other people's money at risk.

Edit: Seriously, markdown doesn't work?

Well, I'd argue that the financier is an employee of people who are voluntarily risking their capital. Similarly, a startup CEO is the employee of people who are voluntarily risking their capital.

Where other realistic options do people have to invest their money but to put it in the hands of a financier? Put it in a bank/retirement account it goes to/through the financiers.

The point really is that "risking your capital" is not in and of itself a productive activity -- making stuff is. I work as an investment analyst myself which is good in both the "fun" and "profit" departments, but I'm not about to pretend that I'm creating value for the world in any but the most indirect of ways.

Well, by matching investors with investments you are helping the market supply capital where it's needed.

Who knows what the money will be used for? Take current budgets and extrapolate X years into the future -- this is federal income tax we're talking about so approximately 2/3 defense spending and 1/3 federal domestic discretionary spending. That's what it'll be used for.

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