Profits By Any Other Name

Whether it's big pharmaceutical, big oil, big insurance, or a small plumbing company, the idea that there are billions of dollars in profits being made in this big government political age is unacceptable. This hearkens back to the Marxist roots of socialism where profit was seen as the unfair taking from the laborer the fruit of his labor that was rightfully his.

For all the caterwauling about this "problem" of profits from the most compassionate amongst us-(whisper)and fabulously well to do too-there seems to be a huge blind spot by those singing the loudest.

Keeping with St. Marx's idea of profit-the difference between the value that the worker has created and the wage that the worker receives from his employer-there is an entity, the same entity in fact that Marx saw as the savior for the oppressed proletariat, that seems to be getting away with a little profit action in their own right. That entity would be the state. And as Shakespeare once alluded, you can change the name of your irk, but that doesn't change the fact that your a hypocrite.

So how is this so? Well consider Marx's definition-that I got here by the way. The next time you look at your pay stub look at the difference in the wealth that you have created by the sweat of your brow, minus of coarse what your employer has taken for himself. That would be your gross. Then look at the amount that you received from your employer. Or the next time you purchase an item that "costs" ten dollars, pay attention to how much of the tender representing your labor you must hand over at the cash register. Upon a little reflection you will begin to realize that your employer is not the only one feeding at the trough of your labor.

Now go home and turn on the TV and watch your president, the most flagrant example of such, living like a king, vacationing, flying to and fro making important speeches, and batting spheres around. His ability to do this comes from non other than the taking of the sweat of your, and millions of other's, brow. While some prefer to call this taxing, according to Marx, it is profits.