The Triviality of Capital Ownership

[William S. Lear]

On Thu, December 17, 1998 at 18:30:40 (EST) boddhisatva writes:
>		C. Bill,
>
>
>	Sorry for being so strident, I was in a mood.  First, owning
>shares is indeed immoral in my opinion.  Buy bonds.  If you want something
>a little sexier, play the options market.  At least there you know that if
>you win the swine who wrote you the option lost.  There's no rising tide
>that lifts all capitalist boats in the options market.  I haven't really
>analyzed the morality of the futures market, but I'll give it a
>provisional okay ;-)
>
>	Seriously, I think owning shares is a poisonous idea.  It's one
>thing when people own shares in the business they work at (as you do,
>although one would like to see everyone in the company own equally) but
>the idea that people can be innocent capitalists because the stock market
>seems so divorced from reality is wrong.  It's like being a landlord. I've
>never met a landlord who could retain his humanity after a couple years in
>the business. It inevitably corrupts people to profit that way.  

Thanks for the softening of tone.  I'll try to do likewise.

I don't claim to be innocent from the standpoint of benefitting from
the labor of others.  I know that the money that my stock
earns will be part the effort I put into it, and part the effort of
others.  I do claim to be innocent from the control standpoint: I have
genuinely fought to keep the workers as free from it as I can, even to
the point of posing a threat to my stock value.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment; though, again, accepting
the fact that my return on my stock is unearned, and the product of an
immoral system.

The money I invested in the company in 1995 was about 1/2 money I had
saved (every last dime, literally), and about 1/2 money I had borrowed
from a bank, putting myself deeply into hock.  I took a significant
risk doing this, and returned to Austin to work directly for my
company as a programmer.  Now, if I wanted to value my risk against
the labor of the other workers, who very likely would not have had the
opportunity to work for this company had I not risked my security, how
am I to do this?  That is, am I entitled to only my principle back?
What is the risk I took worth?  I really would prefer social
ownership, but since we cannot (now) have that, how is our society to
pay back the risk that is necessary (I am fully aware that often the
risk taken is that taken by those who are very wealthy, so all they
have to lose is a lot of money, not "security" per se; they do not
risk being thrown into the street --- nor did I).  In a sense though,
I did risk security. I risked a (perhaps) small amount of freedom from
want (I could have saved it and invested in bonds and been even more
wealthy than I am today).

I guess I am asking, Where do we draw the line?  I certainly feel that
I am no Bill Gates, but at what point is my return fair and where does
it turn into exploitation?  Should not exploitation be tempered
against risk, given the system under which investment must be done in
our society?  (Don't forget, this is the devil's advocate speaking).

If you're worried about me losing my humanity, I wouldn't worry.  I am
more disgusted with the free market system today than I have ever
been.

Bill