: How would you respond then to this: Betty is the capitalist, her workers are not -- they have only their labor to sell; so now we have an inequitable social and economic system. But is not the saving grace of the capitalist system the fact that Betty's workers can save their money and use that (combined with the work experience they gathered under Betty) to start their own business, to move from worker to capitalist? They in turn will hire other workers, but the cycle can continue to repeat. In other words, how would you respond to the charge that capitalism creates the opportunity for all workers to improve their status with enough time and savings, i.e. allowing for role reversals that, while perpetuating an inequitable SYSTEM, allow for cycled equality for INDIVIDUALS.Feudalism's social division of labor rewarded a minority with the surplus labor of society. This minority was fixed.
Capitalism's social division of labor rewards a minority with the surplus labor of society, as well. However: some of this minority is chosen by lottery.
Capitalism---in MANY ways---is MUCH superior to feudalism.
Capitalism, while offering a lottery system of achievement (however slanted by hereditary property rights---which, as capial, grow increasingly powerful), is still predicated upon a minority having access to the surplus labor of society.
: They in turn will hire other workers, but the cycle can continue to repeat.
And it does, with the class of workers always being reproduced. Capital must have a certain ratio of owners to workers. No matter how ambitious the working class gets, there is only room for so many owners to exist. There must always be a disproportionate amount of workers in order to perpetuate capitalism itself.
The argument that there is 'equal' access to ownership will not withstand the observation that access, however equal in the sense that a lottery is 'equal,' will only be rewarded to a minority.
A minority that expropriates the surplus labor of the laboring MAJORITY.
None.
