Hi, I'm Adam Smith.  In my The Wealth of Nations (1776), I say there should be little government interference in the economy—hands off! Laissez faire! This liberal freedom [liberal” means the opposite of what it means today] will produce a universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.  If the bottom 40% get a mere .02% of the total wealth, that’s still more than they would get if there were not factories, a division of labor, and etc.  Capital is needed to expand industry and develop technology. Hey there, I’m Karl Marx, over on the right (but I'm supposed to be on the far left!) and am disturbed by the “accumulated labor” (what the top 1% have via profit) and believe the workers’ labor efforts have been exploited.  I want that “accumulated labor” to benefit workers directly, whether in shared ownership of factories or in health care, a shorter work week, etc.  But all you guys on the left (the right!)  so firmly cling to the notion of property (have you been reading John Locke?) and the ideology of property (American is where you get to keep what is yours) that I can’t even argue with you; in fact I don’t even blame you, you, just as much as the worker that resists unionizing, are duped by ideology (“upwardly mobility… land of opportunity…”), and so the ONLY solution is violent revolution. (Yikes… had I known that violent revolution would produce the guy below, the President of North Korea… maybe I would have had second thoughts.)	Dialectical materialism: the bourgeoisie produces the proletariat which in turn overthrows the bourgeoisie… but what Marx didn’t see was that the proletariat would, in all European/Western nations, rise in wealth/health/life-goods, and feel itself part of the vast MIDDLE CLASS… that loves Macys!!!
Hi, I’m Donald Trump.  I believe in America, I believe in free enterprise, and I believe I deserve my $100 million dollar home.  If you don’t like being in the bottom 40% ... tough, or work hard and you won’t be.  What is mine is mine: my property is sacrosanct! … (Don’t you love my house; look down, to the right!!!).  I’m sure I’m an inspiration for all the hotel maids that make $6.00 an hour at my Trump hotels.	The above graph comes from the Survey of Consumer Finances, sponsored by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board In the Bob Shoe Factory scenario, the discounted wage for labor becomes profit, or accumulated labor, or capital, which might be rerouted into the means of production, i.e., factories, OR into superfluous luxuries (yachts, etc.).  The big question is how much, short of advocating the violent overthrow of the whole capitalistic system, we want to tinker with the system through wealth re-distribution, universal health care, shorter work week, and so on.  The U.S. is already “socialist” (more or less) in respect to primary education, Medicare, social security upon retirement, etc., so why, or why not, not a bit more? You can’t really understand the debates of today in respect to health care/taxation reform, etc., without understanding the larger historical/philosophical context of such divisive issues. Herbert Spencer’s thinking (hardcore fundamentalist capitalism) and the the North Korea’s president’s thinking (collectivization for the “good” of the people) are two extremes… where do you stand?	Here’s what a recent issue of The Economist magazine (Oct. 2009) says about North Korea: “Around Wonsan city, more than 70% of residents survive on a corn porridge mixed with grass….Much of the trouble lies with a campaign, called the ‘150-day battle’,  just ended, to boost socialist production and turn  North Korea into a ‘powerful nation’ by 2012.  It took farmers away from their plots….The chief coping mechanisms are the informal markets and trading networks that sprang up to cope with the famine and the breakdown of the state food-distribution system….The black markets are a response to state failure….[But there are] now many more labour camps for lower-level offences, including black-market activity….”
I’m Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world. I believe in capitalism and an ownership society, but I’ve put most of my profit or “accumulated labor” into capital to open up new factories and new industries; and I’m modest in terms of personal luxury (my house cost $35,000 in the 60s).  Also, I’m giving the vast bulk of my wealth to charity when I die because I have some moral issues with endless acquisition.  (P.S. I drive a Chevy, not a convertible Lexus.)	Donald Trump Palm Beach, Fla. Net Worth: $3 billion The Mar-A-Lago estate, which Trump bought in 1985, may not have 475 feet of ocean frontage like Trump’s $125 million Maison de l’Amitié. Still, it isn’t too shabby. The 62,000-square-foot main house boasts 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms. South Florida weather is usually pretty warm, but in case it gets cold, the property has 12 fireplaces.	My name is Herbert Spencer and in 1850 I’m the most famous sociologist/popular philosopher in Britain.  Here’s what I think:  “The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many [in misery], are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.  It seems hard that an unskillfulness, which with all his efforts he cannot overcome, should entail hunger upon the artisan.  It seems hard that a laborer incapacitated by sickness from competing with his stronger fellows, should have to bear the resulting privations.  It seems hard that widows and orphans should be left to struggle for life or death.  Nevertheless, when regarded not separately, but in connection with the interests of universal humanity, these harsh fatalities are seen to be full of the highest beneficence--the same beneficence which brings to early graves the children of diseased parents, and singles out the low-spirited, the intemperate, and the debilitated as the victims of an epidemic.  There are many very amiable people . . . who have not the nerve to look this matter fairly in the face. . . . [They are] blind to the fact that, under the natural order of things, society is constantly excreting its unhealthy, imbecile, slow, vacillating, faithless members. . . .”