Written by Walter Hecht   

There are three kinds of laws: natural laws, God's laws and man's laws. Natural laws include those imposed on us by nature, such as the boiling and freezing points of water, the ratio Pi, 3.14159265358969 etc., the speed of light and other laws of nature.

There are God's laws, such as do unto others as you would have them do unto you, thou shalt not kill, honor thy father and mother, love one another, and care for one another. We ignore those laws at the peril of our souls.

Then there are man's laws, a mixed bag that sometimes supports natural laws and God's laws, but more often are capricious and influenced more by political influence and campaign donations than logic and fairness. In this post I will address the rewards generated by industry and how those rewards (profits) are divided between labor and capital.

We call our economic system capitalism because it utilizes capital to increase the efficiency of labor. We could just as well call it laborism or capital/laborism. Labor can produce more goods and services more cheaply using capital. However, labor can produce goods and services without capital, but capital cannot produce goods and services without some labor, at least not yet. There is no law in nature or under God that dictates the current division of the rewards produced by capitalism. Those rewards are divided by man's laws, specifically our tax laws, and are subject to change.

The owners of capital, the 1%, are happy with the current division of profit. Some of them might threaten to pull off a John Galt and go on strike if change is implemented. Let them. I propose exile from the US for striking capitalists. They can take their ill-gotten gains, their McMansions, their fleets of cars and planes, their lackeys in Congress and on FOX and GO. We Americans are an energetic and industrious people. We can and will if necessary grow are economy with capital produced here at home or borrowed from abroad at lower cost than the 1% now receive.

If capital can increase profit in the short run by hiring cheaper labor, we can reverse the process and hire cheaper capital. That will produce a more equitable division of the profits produced by labor and capital working together for the betterment of all. The current division of profit is short-sighted in that it neglects the ability of consumers to purchase what industry can produce. It is also harmful to our democracy by creating great concentrations of wealth (capital).