wilicyote

Been there done that. Sadly I was not objective at the time. Carried around a lot of misplaced guilt till I got my values sorted out. I applaud you for for nailing the emotions as well as the ideas perfectly. Thank you for putting the correct words to a story I have struggled to tell for years.

Key in this discussion is what happens to the money that the corporation is allowed to keep. Why is it better, for the growth of the economy, that this money go to the corporation rather than to government? It seems that most people who begrudge the successful their rightfully earned profits, are willfully ignorant of how the successful individuals earned the money, and what they will do with it. The usual error is to assume that they stole the profit (however cleverly they may disguise it). The second error is that they then take the profit and stuff it under a mattress somewhere and sit around feeling smug that they have loads of cash hidden away. Niether of these assumptions are correct (barring the exception - the Orrin Boyles of the world, of which there seem to be more and more every day.) The successful earned their profit by creating wealth (read value) out of otherwise useless resources, by combining these resources with both intellectual and physical effort. When they are allowed to keep that which they have earned they spend it, either directly in the economy, or as an investment in the stock market. In a nutshell, the profit that remains in the hands of the corporation is either divided among the shareholders as dividends, or (and this is the case for most corporate profit) it is reinvested in the growth of the corporation. This growth is the engine of all economic progress. Without this reinvestment the economy as a whole stalls. Of the funds that are payed out to the shareholders, a significant portion of them are also reinvested in some growth opportunity, often in the stock market, or in a more indirect route, in a retirement fund (which is invested in the stock market). While some may argue that government can invest in growth too, almost no one thinks that they can do so with anything close to the effectiveness as a business can. When it comes to spurring economic growth in a nation the same rule of morality applies (or rather is applied by the force of reality, which is why it is a rule of objective morality), one must produce more than one consumes. This moral rule is simply an acknowledgement of the facts of reality. Anyone, whether it be an individual or a nation, must produce more than it consumes. If it does not, it dies. Sadly most governments consume massive amounts of wealth, and produce very little.