Dear Job Creators,

I recently heard a fairly well-off man, in a discussion with an Occupy Wallstreet protestor, say ‘exactly how much of my wealth do you think you are entitled to?’

I would like to answer that with a question of my own ‘as an employer, exactly how much of his wealth do you think you are entitled to?’ I am not a wealthy man, I am not one of the precious Job Creators. I am a member of the working class, a blue collar worker. Like you, I am a Capitalist. I believe in opportunity, I believe in bettering yourself through hard work and ingenuity. Capitalism, at it’s core, is about extracting wealth from the labor of others. And that’s fine.

You, as a Job Creator, have employees. They labor. They create something, they provide a service. That product or service is sold, and you you both share in the profits.

But what do you do to earn your share?

Let us simplify this a little with a hypothetical situation. Let us say you own a factory. Your factory makes Widgets. Let us also say you pay your workers twenty five dollars a day to make those widgets, which you then turn around and sell for a hundred dollars. The numbers don’t have to be accurate for the sake of this discussion. Now, I understand that  not every one of those seventy five extra dollars make their way into your pocket. You have other expenses, you have overhead such as materials to make those widgets, the machinery to make them, power to run the machines, land to locate the factory, shipping costs, etc. Let us say those costs add up to another twenty five dollars. And there are other people who need to be paid as well, salesmen, managers, human resource reps. Take out another twenty five. That leaves you with a profit of twenty five dollars out of every widget. For doing nothing.

Someone else made it, someone else shipped it, someone else sold it, someone else made certain the entire operation went smoothly.

So I ask you again, what have you done to earn that profit? You own the factory. You may own the patent. You may have set up the entire operation, found the investors, whatever. What you provided is entirely ephemeral.

You provide the opportunity.

You provide the environment in which those workers are able to work to earn their wages. And for that, you absolutely deserve some of that profit. Like I said, I am a Capitalist.

But I am also a Socialist. Society has provided you with an opportunity. More accurately, our government has. The government regulates the currency you use, and the markets you sell in. Government has provided you with the roads to ship your products, and a safe environment in which to operate. Your workers are educated, and are healthy enough to work for you. You have a country full of people well-off enough to buy your product; and that does not happen by magic, no more than your factory magically appeared with machinery ready to produce widgets. America has provided you an environment in which you are able to earn wealth. And for that our government deserves some of your profit.

Our society is kind of like your employer. America is your job creator. Your workers benefit from the labor environment you provide, and you benefit from the economical environment the government provides.

If you are entitled to a share of my wealth, and we agree that you are, then society is entitled to a share of yours.