The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[Spider]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Comrade]

[The Dharma Bum]

[Spider]

That is also not an answer. Its a hypothetical question.

[The Dharma Bum]

No it isn't a question at all.

It's a statement of fact. You propose to start a business and pay people more than they could produce themselves.

But where is the surplus that you will pay them coming from? Clearly it won't be coming from your profits unless YOU PAY THEM LESS THAT WHAT THEY CAN PRODUCE THEMSELVES BECAUSE THAT IS THE SOURCE OF PROFIT.




.

[Spider]

Suppose there is something, call it X, that everyone decides is pretty great and wants. This commune over here controls it. They decide, because they are humans, that they want it for themselves. Demand for X is high. The commune is only willing to give it in exchange for someone to harvest their peanuts for them while they have orgies in the sun.

Under this HYPOTHETICAL, what prevents someone from spending their time harvesting peanuts for someone else in exchange for X?

(Just to nip it in the bud, "They don't want X" or "they'll magically conjure their own X from the ether" are not acceptable answers, because they violate the hypothetical.)

[Spider]

[The Dharma Bum]

They don't have to produce X from "the ether".

All they have to do is do the same thing you do to produce their own X.

[The Dharma Bum]

Your mistaken cultural assumption here is that people can't copy the "intellectual property" of others.