[lbo-talk] Profits and Productivity, was Doug on Salon

[Wojtek S]

Jim: "It accrues to the capitalist regardless of whether s/he participates
in the production process. It belongs to him/her because and only because
s/he is an owner of capital."

[WS:] This is what I do not like about economics, Marxist or classical - or
for that matter theology.  It tends to answer empirical questions with
definitional tautologies i.e. make things true or false by definition and
deduction rather than empirical investigation.

As I see it, how much compensation owners of capital receive is an
empirical question, and the answers vary by different social settings.  In
the US, for example, employees who manage capital owned by others
(e.g.stock  brokers, corporate executives, etc) receive much higher
compensation than the actual owners of that capital (e.g. retirees or
savers).  Your theory does not seem to be able to explain those empirical
variations.

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."