Transkribering
Is capital becoming irrelevant?
[Speaker 1]
Start with a couple of random comments here, but like giving, re-equalizing and giving back property ostensibly to the previous owner, that was tried in Zimbabwe with disastrous results, no matter how tenuous the claim may have been. But anyways, the point here is... Isn't this a whole thing, a rearguard battle? I mean, Marxism, sharing resources, et cetera, or for that matter, opposing it.
I mean, here we have in this small country alone, millions of people with sizable pension funds. We have large companies, especially in the United States, like Microsoft, Apple, Google, whatever, where the capital is between the ears of the various employees, and they go home every day, and they're the capitalists.
[Speaker 2]
[Speaker 1]
Yes, comment on that latter. Isn't this sort of becoming irrelevant, slowly but steadily? The whole business of capital, I mean, this time.
[Speaker 3]
[Speaker 1]
Well, primarily Dr. Feynman. Thank you Nils. If the chair wants to say something, that's fine.
[Speaker 2]
Is capital becoming irrelevant? I don't think so, if that's the question. I didn't hear a real reason why that I could actually understand. If there's time that could be elaborated, I'd be happy to try to answer.
[Speaker 3]
Could I say something, too? Sure. I think there's this great myth within Marxism, and I think, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think that Professor Kleiman is upholding that myth, and that is that if you have capital, it will sort of mythically grow and become bigger. Whereas if you don't have capital, you will get smaller and smaller, comparatively speaking. And Piketty had that same argument, and I think it's a fundamentally flawed argument because the only way you can actually grow your capital is to serve others and to produce for consumers what consumers actually want.
And that's the only way you can get things back. If you don't do that, you're actually falling. I'm falling behind and losing because you own capital that is not productive enough. So I think there's this great myth that just because I own a machine, I'm going to be filthy rich and even richer and richer every day that passes by.