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.

Yet we still receive far less a portion of the wealth than we would if we lived in an economy based on social ownership of the industries in which everyone received the full fruit of their labor. More crumbs than our ancestors received is not the same as sharing the entire pie.

And we only work less hours due to government legislation fought for by workers. Automation has knocked workers out of jobs without increasing the value accrued by workers.

Longer hours and harder work is not what creates value.

Hard work most certainly does, because labor is applied to the resources that creates wealth. It isn't summoned out of thin air by the capitalists.

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.

Yet the millions of hard-working laborers do not seem to be owning what they create or build on, because the resources needed to enable them to afford the price tag connected to mass producing or patenting their resourcefulness is owned by just a few.

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.

Yes, it does, because mass distribution and research often requires large numbers of people. We, the workers, build the economy and all the wealth that is created, not a small number of miracle people whom you believe do almost everything and deserve almost everything in return. They are not worthy of your worship, Baldur.

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

And for what reason? Because they were "too expensive" to produce? Or unable to prove the claimed merits that would justify the expenditure? In the first case, it's once again due to the synthetic price tag limitations. In the second case, it may or may not be due to an educated guess based on an investigation of the proposed project's merits (depending on who is doing the investigations). The point is, the public invests a lot in the creation and development of new technology and innovation, and the wealthy few do not foot the bill by themselves, and this public subsidy enables them to fund their projects risk free. Yet they, and sometimes the state, are the only beneficiaries of the fiscal end of the deal, not the workers whose collective money went into it. The cappies don't do it alone, and that is the "what" of the "so what".

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

It's pretty substantial that the workers can only enjoy the new capabilities if they can afford something incorporating those new capabilities, or are instead convinced by the advertising industry to purchase junk they do not actually need for purely aesthetic reasons (remember the swatches?).

And the greater productivity often amounts to mechanization or technological innovation that displaces workers from jobs. Have you seen those automatic cashiers starting to appear in many supermarkets? Convenient for the shopper no doubt, but not for those who may need jobs there, and which ultimately amount to less disposable income to purchase the products due to less workers being hired. Take away the social programs provided by the state, this amounts to even less disposable income among workers, whose number the capitalists need to hire less and less of. What happens once the government is no longer there to bail these capitalists out with the taxpayer funds paid by workers, especially when there is no longer a viable "middle class" to tax?

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.

Assuming these distribution outlets need to hire more workers. Automation is a factor there too, as the automated cashiers I mentioned above provide just one example of.

They pay them more than what they were getting before, and they make it possible for their customers to improve their lives also,

You make the very bold assumption that customers can afford all of these new products, at least those that have the truly innovative upgrades. You're also assuming all of these upgrades are truly more than superficial "dressing up" that has actual functionality besides simply "looking pretty." You're also making the big assumption that workers who are buying these items aren't forced to put themselves into a huge amount of debt in order to afford them, which means the benefits are offset by the conflicts created between making the monthly debt payments vs. purchasing of food, rent/mortgage, communications, etc.

and they invest the profits they make into upgrading their ability to improve the lives of others

This imaginary largess and altruism of motivation you place on your wealthy heroes runs against the greed and selfishness that the Randian mindset reveres above all else. Profits are invested to make more money for the wealthy, not to benefit the lives of the workers. Workers are cannon fodder and meal tickets for them, not individuals whom they feel they "owe" anything to. Noblesse oblige is an ideology that has long been dispensed by the gilded ones.

- either within their own operations, or in other operations run by other entrepreneurs - and you say that this is a bad thing?

I say the real end results of this that clearly flow to only a privileged few, as opposed to this imagined beneficence that is part of the reverence factor for anyone with wealth and power, is a bad thing.

You want to punish them for improving the lives of others?

I hardly think social responsibility and a system that benefits everyone rather than allowing a few to grow obscenely wealthy off the backs of the majority--especially when billions of these people are homeless or living in abject poverty--is "punishing" someone for disallowing them to maintain bloated privilege at the expense of this majority. Especially since the majority who do all the useful work cannot actually afford all of this opulence and productivity that you claim is so easy for everyone to afford. I know this because I live in the same system you do, sans the worship of those in positions of corporate power and privilege.

You want to take away their capital so that they will no longer be able to help others?

Let me be specific for those who can get past the Randian reverence of the wealthy and powerful and read me clearly: I want to take away the concept of capital so that everyone is benefiting from the abundance that modern production facilities can create, as opposed to just a tiny few who enjoy obscene wealth and privilege due to owning the industries that we all depend on for our survival, and which we today all collectively operate in the first place.

I do not see the multitude of people living under a system that creates and tolerates homelessness, inability to purchase an adequate amount of necessities, the imposition of crushing debt on millions, the consignment of millions living paycheck to paycheck while having to choose between keeping one benefit at the expense of giving up another, being in any way "helped" by the wealthy few who own and control the industries that are operated by everyone, and required by everyone for survival.

I just do not understand socialist thinking.

And I likewise just do not understand capitalist thinking that tolerates all of the above and interprets it as a "good" thing. Of course, one of the main reasons you fail to understand socialist thinking is because you keep willfully attributing it to another type of thinking that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what I'm talking about here.

This is at odds with how human nature works,

Translation: at odds with how human behavior adapts to and functions under a system that you approve of and favor.

which has been demonstrated by the abject failure of every attempt to make things work that way.

More intellectual dishonesty, by attempting to imply that what I support is something that has been tried before, when in actuality I have never supported a Leninist/Stalinist state-controlled system and its various variations.

I truly do not understand magical thinking.

You mean like the thinking that a system that encourages and thrives on selfishness and greed somehow results in largess for the masses? Like what trickle down economics is based on: the belief that the more money you allow to accrue in the hands of the wealthy few, the more they will gratefully use it to create jobs that they do not have to create, rather than more automation to displace jobs? Talk about magickal thinking!

Don't confuse media portrayals of entrepreneurs with the real thing.

Meaning, the real thing are actually benevolent individuals who create jobs just because it's the nice thing to do, and actually insist they receive punishment for causing the economy to collapse, and who would never use their government bail-out money to give themselves bonuses rather than paying back the workers they bilked out of their money? Thank you for that advice, I'll keep it in mind!

Most of the entrepreneurs I have known personally, and especially the more successful ones, have been interested in creating value for their community.

No doubt they have said as much, just as Hellary says these things are her intentions if she gets elected.

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

Mmm-hmmm. Meaning, "wasteful" to actually help others rather than just build their own wealth further and simply talk the talk and tell their worshipers what they want to hear.

- and they also know how quickly concentrations of wealth attract hangers-on who have no value to add but wish only to consume.

In other words, people who need jobs but whom the capitalists do not consider useful at the time.

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.

Meaning, use it to get richer than they already were.

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.

Those who are truly in power do not sit in the White House or the local City Hall... they sit in the corporate executive boards. The fact that they are the ones throwing millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of politicians running for one of the two mainstream political parties makes this clear. Denying this, and attributing compassionate motives to those who thrive on a system based on greed and selfishness, and which tolerates so much power accruing into the hands of the few while simultaneously tolerating so many members of the class who supports their wealth as both labor and consumers being forced into homelessness, poverty, crushing debt, and overwork, is not helping the latter people who do not have to live this way.

I truly do not understand socialist thinking.

I truly do not understand pro-capitalist thinking that sees magnanimity and altruism in the parasites who suck the rest of us dry,a and continue to foster a faith-based support for them.

I'll continue this back-and-forth battling over economics with you as long as you want, Baldur, not because I think I'll convince you otherwise, but because I truly and passionately believe the pro-capitalist mindset needs to be opposed. Good luck convincing me otherwise after all I've seen and experienced in the very same world you live in. I eagerly await the next round.