"Actually, value is created by workers working longer and harder, and combining their labor power cooperatively to create new things."

No.

We work shorter hours and do easier labor than was common in the late 1800s, and yet we are far wealthier than our ancestors. Longer hours and harder work is not what creates value.

"It's not the work of one person alone, as there is no one person who is millions of times "smarter" than the thousands of people working for him/her, just as they are not working millions of times "harder."

It doesn't require being a million times as smart to come up with an innovation which produces a million-fold increase in productivity - it may only require a little extra intelligence, a good amount of creativity, and the courage of one's convictions. In the past, when things were simpler, sometimes a single person could do this - at present, it often requires a small team. It usually does not require large numbers of workers acting cooperatively.

"a lot of new inventions we enjoy every day are heavily subsidized by the same government which many capitalists profess to hate"

And some of the most important innovations have been opposed every step of the way by government or other institutions. So what?

"which means it's financed by the public, who never get so much as a dime off of it, either for their labor or collectively subsidy."

They get to enjoy the new capabilities and/or greater productivity. That's pretty substantial.

"No one does it alone, and no one person--or handful--is entitled to a vast amount of the societal wealth produced while the vast majority are left with but a tiny fraction combined."

So the core developers, in order to get their new product out to as many people as possible, hire a few of the workers that their innovation has displaced to ramp up production. They pay them more than what they were getting before, and they make it possible for their customers to improve their lives also, and they invest the profits they make into upgrading their ability to improve the lives of others - either within their own operations, or in other operations run by other entrepreneurs - and you say that this is a bad thing? You want to punish them for improving the lives of others? You want to take away their capital so that they will no longer be able to help others? I just do not understand socialist thinking.

"That is a parasitic system where a few live off the great majority."

It is still a parasitic system, it is still slavery, when the many live off the productivity of the few - if they do so by force rather than by voluntary exchange.

"Looking past this fact to a comfortable narrative doesn't change the impoverished status of vast swaths of workers across the world in an era when an abundance can be produced by all."

Yet you wish to destroy the means by which we can create an abundance for all. I truly do not understand magical thinking.

"And you [reward innovators] by giving them the opportunity to better the lives of everyone"

You just said you wanted to prevent innovators from having the opportunity to better the lives of everyone. I truly do not understand socialist thinking.

"Take money and profit out of the equation, and the motivation for innovations shifts to benefit the collective welfare"

This is at odds with how human nature works, which has been demonstrated by the abject failure of every attempt to make things work that way. I truly do not understand magical thinking.

'Working with each other to create a better world for all creates a far more ethical and compassionate world order than a system requiring us to work against each other in a ruthless race to be "top dog."'

Don't confuse media portrayals of entrepreneurs with the real thing. Most of the entrepreneurs I have known personally, and especially the more successful ones, have been interested in creating value for their community. If they sometimes seem tight-fisted, it is because they understand how difficult this can be and that they do not wish to be wasteful - and they also know how quickly concentrations of wealth attract hangers-on who have no value to add but wish only to consume. Most of the "wealth" you decry is invested in the means of production, and it tends to do the most good in the hands of those who have demonstrated their ability to use it wisely.

In any case, a quick glimpse at even recent history shows again and again that freer markets lead to more ethical and compassionate results than economies where those in power restrict choices. I truly do not understand socialist thinking.




Baldur