When you buy groceries you are a capitalist. When you cheat, steal or swindle you are a scumbag, not a capitalist.

Looting is forced socialism.

You implicitly reduce capitalism to a definition that is universally agreeable so it seems absurd to oppose it. Anyone with any brains would see that any economy depends on the free exchange of goods or services, that's inherent to literally any economy, even a gift economy. All economies depend on exchange. What distinguishes capitalism from other economies is that it is necessarily a private mode of production — that is, utility property is predominantly concentrated in the hands of property owners, and subsequently this class of property owners effectively administers production, and produces according to what is auspicious for capitalists and speculators, who have the most to gain.
The economy and system you propone inherently serves a minority economic class and maintains servitude of the rest of the working majority who, because they don't own property or control industry, must work all their lives to invariably produce profits for those that do control industry.

What's worse, you are probably a part of the working majority who have nothing to benefit from trying to convince other people to support a system which by its nature coerces your labor and conserves privilege for the few. I pity the reactionary mind.

I haven't reduced the definition of capitalism, I just threw out all the crap that is NOT capitalism that Marxists have tried to attribute to capitalism.

So what you are saying is taking private ownership away from one set of rich people and giving it to another set of rich people is going to be a better economic system???

Government are only good at 3 things, stealing, killing and enslaving. And you think giving the control over production to a government is superior?????

Marxists have a real problem with the concept of wealth and it's not that complicated.

Wealth is NOT finite. Let me repeat that. Wealth is NOT finite.

What that means is that rich people are not a problem. It doesn't matter if they have more money than you. It has absolutely no effect on your ability to produce wealth.

What does limit wealth is governments. And you want to give them absolute power!!!!!!

Yeah, I know. Marx promised you some utopian dream were the people controls everything but that's not reality nor is it practical. Central planner are needed to decide what the collective needs. And who are the central planners? Well in the past they were Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung.

Today we have Klaus Schwab trying his best to be the world's central planner. He also doesn't believe in private property rights.

Capitalism is defined by its inherent private ownership of production.

When did I say that even once?

I'm an anarchist, you can read that blatantly on my profile. No, government shouldn't assume administration of production.

Wealth is continuously being produced so no, it isn't finite. But the source of wealth is the same, and that's off the backs of poor working people.

Consider for a second that you're just regurgitating whatever talking points the Atlas Society or Mises Institute instilled into you. You're shamelessly defending the rich, when the rich spend their lives collaborating with politicians to restrict the rights (including organizing rights) of labor, keep wages low, and decide economic policy behind closed doors that gives the rich more and more impunity to exploit labor and land and assume more and more power and take that away from the working people. Rich people do everything in their power to suppress organizing attempts so labor doesn't even have a mere say against every institution in a company and in society that serves capitalists and their will. If you employ labor, you exploit labor because you keep people in economic bondage and have full discretion over what they do with their body and can boot them out onto the street if they don't make your profits or kiss your ass nicely.

I can tell you haven't read a lick of Marx, because Marx and Engels denounced utopian socialism and embraced materialist "scientific" socialism instead.

I can tell you've digested way too much pro-capitalist propaganda, literally funded by capitalists to tell you how great capitalism is. I hope you can be the free thinker you aspire to be and see through this. They've got you defending the people who exploit you and others, who historically have let workers and their children starve and die so they could profit from a crises, or steal land from self-sustaining villagers and/or indigenous to make it profitable. Is that really libertarian? It sounds incredibly authoritarian to me to defend a system like this where we have to depend on the good nature of capitalists when the system just reinforces their greed.

"When did I say that even once?"

Right here:
"What distinguishes capitalism from other economies is that it is necessarily a private mode of production — that is, utility property is predominantly concentrated in the hands of property owners, and subsequently this class of property owners effectively administers production, and produces according to what is auspicious for capitalists and speculators, who have the most to gain."

"I'm an anarchist, you can read that blatantly on my profile. No, government shouldn't assume administration of production."

What kind of anarchist? Are you an anarcho-communist, an anarcho-capitalist, or a voluntarist?

"Wealth is continuously being produced so no, it isn't finite. But the source of wealth is the same, and that's off the backs of poor working people."

Oh so you're an anarcho-communist. If you weren't then you would know that anarchy does nothing to change that. Nor should it be changed because the wealth of the rich and the poor is transient. The rich become poor and the poor become rich and everything else in between UNLESS Marxism sticks it's ugly head in. In fact the only way people would even care about a rich vs poor dichotomy is if they weren't influenced by Marx. Well.... unless they were just very envious or both envious and Marxist.

"Consider for a second that you're just regurgitating whatever talking points the Atlas Society or Mises Institute instilled into you."

Consider for a second that you are wrong. You should not make assumptions. I did read Atlas Shrugged several years ago and I like what little I have read about Von Mises but I had already come to my own conclusions before reading Atlas Shrugged and anything by Von Mises.

"You're shamelessly defending the rich"

No. I shamelessly defend the truth. Rich or poor, people are still just people. Some are good people and some are really awful. The amount of money in their bank account has absolutely nothing to do with that.

What I don't do is envy the rich. If a rich person got rich through criminal activity then they should be punished under the law. But if a rich person became rich by providing a product and/or service that benefits people then I think that is awesome. I like being able to purchase things like food, clothing, computers, etc. Without some rich guy earning a profit off of making those products then I would not be able to buy those things. I hold no grudges because they have more money than I do.

This your hero?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPC7lCSI5Cg

Ayn Rand is not my hero. I like a lot of things she says but I am a Christian. She thinks Christians are part of the problem and not the solution. I don't think she understands Christianity. She didn't realize, like sooooooo many people today, that this nation was founded by devout Christians. The idea of individual liberty comes from the Bible. This nation was founded on the Bible. When you read the history of Israel in the Bible it is a series of prosperous times and times of enslavement. The prosperous times are when the Israelites are the most free. Then the people begin to demand being ruled by a king because they think the government should do more of the people. Then they turn wicked and Assyria or Babylon takes over. Then they begin to turn back to God and God frees them from their bondage and they return to being free for another generation or two and then back into wickedness and back into enslavement.

The New Testament is all about how Jesus asked, not demanded, that people follow Him. The one event that started a chain of events that lead to Jesus being crucified was when Jesus entered Jerusalem on what Catholics call Palm Sunday. The people believed that Jesus' mission was to overthrow the government and they fully expected that this was the day it was going to happen. Jesus was on the road that lead to the government building but then He turned and went towards the temple. It was after that the many of His followers turned on Him.

His mission was never about taking over the government, it was about teaching the Gospel. Jesus knew that it needed to end with His atoning for the sins of the world.

Jesus was all about freedom. He said the truth will set you free. He told his followers that he stood at the door and knocked. Meaning He wasn't kicking your door in, you had to open the door if you wanted to follow Him. Basically Jesus will not force anyone into Heaven.

Those concepts were unknown to Rand. She saw the medieval Catholic church (like all atheists today) and thinks that is what Christianity is all about. It wasn't. The Catholic church was taken over power hungry narcissists who refused to let the people read the Bible. Once the Bible got out from under control of the Catholic church and was printed in the languages of the common man that caused a massive power shift to occur in the Catholic church. It didn't happen overnight but did happen. BTW I am not a Catholic.

Jesus told his followers to follow the Law.

Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. The Israelites were dispersed by them and disappeared after that. There is not one single one of them in existence today - for nearly 3000 years. They picked the wrong name for New Judea in 1948.

Jesus was arrested, tortured, tried, sentenced, and crucified for sedition against Rome.

And just what does any of what you said have anything to do with my comment to TriggerConservatives.

Jesus did tell His followers to follow the law. His followers. Those who chose to follow Him. He ASKED everyone else to follow Him. He made no demands that people follow him. And actually He made no demands that his follower follow the law. He instructed them that this is what is required to enter heaven. After that His followers were on their own.

The apostle Paul told the early Christians to "work out their own salvation". Meaning it is all up to you if you want to be saved or not.

The Assyrians caused 10 of the 12 tribes to be "lost". The tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained in Israel. Look it up. I got time. I'll wait.

"Jesus was arrested, tortured, tried, sentenced, and crucified for sedition against Rome."

And what seditious act did Jesus commit against Rome. The Roman Pontius Pilate really didn't want anything to do with Jesus' crucifixion. He found no crime but he just went along with what the people wanted, specifically the Jewish Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin accused Jesus of blasphemy and that is why they wanted Him put to death.

Look that up also. I got time for that also. Well.... I'm waiting. Get on with it!

Hello? Hi Modda. Did you read this far down? Just checking.

Read your comment.
Then read mine.
There! You got it!

Nope. It didn't get it. You see, unlike some people, I read your entire comment and meme the 1st time.

I still don't see where I advocated production be administered by a concentration of rich people, or handed over to another group of rich people. I want free interlocked associations of working people to administer production.

I'm an anarcho-communist/anarcho-syndicalist.

Hardly the case. Most people submit themselves to wage slavery because they can't compete against other capitalists, hence why capitalism culminated to begin with after the bourgeoisie chased self-sustaining villagers off their land and burned down their homes to make way for industry. There are a handful of rags to riches stories, the norm is wealth being handed down generationally and most families and individuals remaining working class for generations.
Indeed, people don't know the ugly history of the violent development of how capitalism came to be, or why they sell themselves into servitude and reproduce labor for a company every day of their lives and Marx and his contemporaries provided an analysis of capitalist economy and brought attention to inherent economic disparity in that system. You say this like it's a bad thing. Should we restore the economic relationships of the Gilded Age and have nobody complain?

I say this because I notice what you say contains little substance, which is typical from people on the political/economic right. Their propaganda usually only affords them soundbites and talking points and doesn't affirm them with more, in my opinion because right-wing and reactionary ideologies are inherently dogmatic.

You are so ill informed you're even interjecting the wrong talking points. My problem with capitalism is not that I am envious of those with wealth, I am citing issue with the fact that capitalists reached the status they have today through conquer and rapine. Historically not everything was private property, and the commons were afforded to working people and there folks had equal access to the land. Now that is no more, because you need to sell your labor and make someone's profits in order to afford any basic existence for yourself. It does not need to be this way either, we haven't always lived under statism and capitalism. We could literally have a system where workers effectively own the various industries, the inputs and outputs of production and distribute according to need without anyone aggrandizing anywhere in the process. That sounds way more libertarian and anti-authoritarian than the system you keep endorsing.

"I'm an anarcho-communist/anarcho-syndicalist."

That's one of the funniest scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7qT-C-0ajI

"Most people submit themselves to wage slavery because they can't compete against other capitalists,"

Can't or don't want to. The ONLY thing blocking people from competition is the government. Granted the reason for the government getting in the way came from back room deals with large corporations. BUT none of that is capitalism. That is corporatism and the way things are going it soon will be fascism.

Capitalism is a word that was invented by Marx. It is just easier than saying free market economics. What Marx described as Capitalism cannot happen in a free market.

In a free market the government has absolutely no involvement. Anarcho-Capitalists argue that a truly free market cannot exist when a government exists. And I agree with that except I don't agree that anarchy is a valid option. Governments can do some good but they must be small, limited and under the tight control of the people. That is what our Constitution created but the people didn't keep tight control. Soon other ideas crept in where people thought that the government should do more. Then the Progressive era happened and We The People just let the government grow far beyond reason. And now we have Joe Biden literally threatening anyone who believes in the Declaration of Independence and our right to reject a tyrannical government. He threatened them by saying that their AR-15 are no match for the government F-16 fighter jets.

"I say this because I notice what you say contains little substance"

Seriously? Just because you disagree with me does not mean that what I said has no substance.

"My problem with capitalism is not that I am envious of those with wealth, I am citing issue with the fact that capitalists reached the status they have today through conquer and rapine."

Like I said above, what you are describing is corporatism not the free market. What we have now was caused by Marxists who claimed to be fighting capitalism. And like I said, we are on our way to be fascists.

This Klaus Schwab's goal is global fascism and Biden has committed the US to be a part of that goal. Most of the western world's leaders have committed themselves to the Great Reset. This is Schwab's and the World Economic Forum's goal to collapse the world's economy and destroy the free market and freedom along with that.

I don’t think you can just call capitalism corporatism when it does things you don’t like. Capitalism wouldn’t exist without the concentration of violence the state monopolizes to suppress resistance and dissent, and the retention of their system. Capital and the state are intrinsically tied.

Anarcho-capitalists are decidedly unserious people. Murray Rothbard, when asked where the homeless would reside in his society, responded, “who cares?”. Anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron anyway, as anarchism stands against hierarchical organization, the negation of direct democracy and the institution of private property — at least in the hands of the capitalists.

Consider the U.S. government and its founding. It was founded by liberals who wanted government to be limited to only providing protection of the people and defending their inalienable rights, anything more was regarded as tyranny. They even tried to retain the right of the people to alter or abolish their government. Now we live in the largest imperialist state in history, with militarized police and surveillance everywhere domestic and abroad. We have the largest prison population per capita of any country. This government is never going to be abolished unless there is revolution. Liberal democracy is a fallacy, and there is no retention of limited government in practice. Only anarchism can abolish the relation of exploiter and exploited.

The centralization of power has happened gradually and I don’t think can be attributed solely to the “Progressive Era”. You’re probably bitter that Roosevelt signed the NLRA and cry that’s too much overstep. I think our modern authoritarian government is the product of shifting from dual federalism, and seizing the opportunity to build a greater surveillance apparatus after 9/11. Plus, cooperation with cronies in the neoliberal era (late 70s to present).

You are flat out wrong. What we have now is not caused by Marxists. There are no Marxists in our government at all. Each president since Carter has advanced a neoliberal agenda, that which is more in line with your desired “free” market, cutting corporate tax rates, crippling public unions, expanding global trade, austerity measures (especially state governments), cutting corporate regulations and allowing for greater corporate impunity on the world stage (look at the MTA that was proposed under Clinton).

Now you’re just entertaining deluded conspiracy theories. Seek help.

"I don’t think you can just call capitalism corporatism when it does things you don’t like."

Yes I can. Free market economics is not very complicated. It is revolves entirely around the transaction. It does not matter what kind of transaction, it could be using currency or a barter. Anything outside of the free exchange of goods and/or services is not free market economics.

It doesn't matter about liking it or not, it is a matter of definition. You cannot add stuff that you don't like to it's definition. That is exactly what Marx did when he called capitalism.

Just like a politician he had to disparage what was working in order to promote his broken system.

Free market economics is not flawless but compared to anything else devised by man it is lightyears better. Corrupt people can cheat in a free market system. But then corrupt people can cheat in a Marxist system.

"Anarcho-capitalists are decidedly unserious people. Murray Rothbard, when asked where the homeless would reside in his society, responded, 'who cares?'"

And anarcho-communists are any better? How would you take care of people who do not pull their own weight in the commune? Would you beat them into submission?

The problem isn't the capitalism part, the problem is anarchy. There is no concern whatsoever for the homeless in an anarchy of any kind. And if you add communism to anarchy it is even worse. The homeless are a drag to the collective. It forces the collective to work harder and that's unsustainable.

"Consider the U.S. government and its founding. It was founded by liberals who wanted government to be limited to only providing protection of the people and defending their inalienable rights, anything more was regarded as tyranny. They even tried to retain the right of the people to alter or abolish their government."

One clarification. It was classical liberals not modern liberals. The two types of liberals have nothing in common and are the polar opposites. Modern liberals fail to understand that because they never read the words of the founding fathers.

"Now we live in the largest imperialist state in history, with militarized police and surveillance everywhere domestic and abroad."

The United States is not an imperialist nation. The Soviet Union was. We have had presidents who tried to make us imperialistic. This nation was not founded on the purpose of taking over the world. Monarchies, socialist, fascist, communist and Nazi dictators are imperialists.

All the right-wing libertarian talking points you’re throwing at me are nauseating and I don’t have the patience to dive into them, so I’ll just address your criticisms of anarcho-communism.

Work is voluntary under anarcho-communism. It is based on voluntary contracts. Some people may choose not to work, but understand full productivity does not equal full employment. We don’t need an entire working population to fulfill our needs. Not every commune needs to serve those who can work but refuse to. It’s a matter of voluntary association. We encourage work by providing more than wage labor can, we fulfill the needs of all members of society. When we work for ourselves and not for a minority of bosses, we can induce meaningful labor that isn’t exploitative.

Flat out wrong, and it’s obvious you’ve read nothing on anarcho-communism. Peter Kropotkin says there would be a committee responsible for allocating housing to all, distributing according to need. We have a surplus of millions of homes that sit vacant because they’re owned by banks, and yet half a million homeless exist in the US simultaneously. That makes no sense, and that is an injustice. There wouldn’t be homeless in a commune. We have general assemblies and labor organizations that look after everybody. Your system lets people starve in the midst of abundance.

We also need not work people harder. We would end the capitalist division of labor which produces “bullshit jobs”, render them obsolete and direct labor to where it is most useful.

"All the right-wing libertarian talking points"

So now I'm a libertarian. Make up your mind. I am not a Republican and I am not a Libertarian. And I am definitely not a Democrat nor socialist, nor communist.

But you just have to find some way to mitigate me, don't you? You have this real need to pigeonhole me so that you can categorize and discard me.

Fine, discard me. I don't need this conversation. BTW I am registered with the Constitution Party, just barely. If they turn out to be as corrupt as the Republican party then I bail.

"Work is voluntary under anarcho-communism."

I don't doubt that until it isn't. I understand that there are communes that have survived for decades. The Israeli Kibbitz system seems to have worked out very well.

But there are communes that fall apart rapidly.

I am not slighting those kinds of communes as long as they can maintain the freedom of each participant. When they start restricting freedom that is when that commune is going to fall apart.

And if you extrapolate it to a national or international system it most definitely will not work without force. It has to remove every right and freedom that God grants to mankind in order for it to even had a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Because of that the worst of the worst are attacked to leadership positions in national socialism (Nazis) or international socialism (USSR).

But if you want to form or join a commune then I will be the last person to stop you. Go right ahead. Live as happy as you can in a commune. Just do not ever plan on forcing that commune to be national or international. Do NOT vote for candidates who support national or international socialism, communism, Nazism or fascism.

The absolute best chance you have having an unfettered commune is by voting for the Libertarian, they very people whom you want to categorize and throw away. Libertarians still believe in a very small and powerless government. But it is only in a limited or powerless government that you can set up a commune that will not be bothered by the federal government. I suppose you can find an island that no other nation claims, or if they do claim it they care nothing about the island. I've heard of some libertarians talking about building a floating nation on a ship. It would be a small country but you could easily make something like that into a commune. As long as you're in international waters no nation can bother you. That is until the UN claims the sea.

"Now we live in the largest imperialist state in history, with militarized police and surveillance everywhere domestic and abroad."

Aside from your "imperialist" statement, yes the United States is turning into a surveillance state. This coming from the extreme left. It has been in the works for a century but now the World Economic Forum is making it happen. They have control over several of the industrialized nations including Great Britain, Canada and the United States. Biden has sworn fealty to the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum.

This used to be a conspiracy theory but now it is happening and it has already began. This is why the world is seeing inflation at an accelerated rate.

"The centralization of power has happened gradually and I don’t think can be attributed solely to the 'Progressive Era'. You’re probably bitter that Roosevelt signed the NLRA and cry that’s too much overstep."

It is not attributed solely to the "Progressive Era". It has been happening since the founding. The 14th amendment ended slavery but shifted a huge amount of power from the states to the federal. The worst power grab came because of the Progressives starting in the Progressive Era. Woodrow Wilson forced the Federal Reserve and the income tax on the people to control the economy and the people.

FDR did not start unions. They had been around for about 30 years prior to the NRLA. What FDR is to try to expand their power.

But the Labor Theory of Price has been discredited long before Marx. A free market is centered on the consumer not labor. If it centered on labor then the consumer suffers. And, yes, the consumer and labor are the same people but how they effect the economy is not the same. Labor USED to be treated poorly in this country. It was left over from the European model. Unions have made minor impacts on that but the biggest influence is the free market. People simply no longer put up with bad treatment. They went to work elsewhere. Businesses who treat their employee poorly complain how they cannot get and keep good labor. The smart ones can see the handwriting on the wall and make huge changes. The dumb ones go out of business.

FDR did a whole lot of really stupid stuff. The NRA (National Recovery Act) was one of the worst. Because of his stupid left wing policies he prolonged the Great Depression pretty much until the day he died (in office).

Marx didn’t come up with the labor theory of price, it’s the labor theory of value. In Marxian economics price and value are not even the same. You are clueless, just face it. Besides, Marx inherited the theory from David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Marx said exchange value of a commodity is equivalent to value plus use-value. He said labor materialized in a commodity is worthless unless it has utility, if it is useful to someone.

I never said FDR created unions. Do you think I’m an idiot? People were organizing unions in the United States and risked a lot in doing so because it was not a legally-protected right. And guess what? It’s still not. People try to organize unions today and their bosses fire organizers, or threaten to or do close their shops, they spend billions of dollars on union-busting firms to ensure workers don’t have a democratic organ in the workplace for themselves, and so that capital has the ultimate say of how enterprises run. Your system extinguishes freedom and self-governance in every way.
McDonald’s spied on its workers who partook in fight for $15 strikes. Amazon delivery drivers pee in water bottles to meet quotas. Work kills more people than drugs or alcohol combined annually. People who work for corporations make more than 200 times less than CEOs, despite literally being the ones who effectively run the company. The U.S. has a gini coefficient of 8.1. Wages haven’t kept up with productivity since the 1970s.
How dare you say labor isn’t exploited anymore.
Also, thanks to your neoliberal capitalism, domestic manufacturers are now multinational companies and close up shops here to go exploit cheap labor where there are less rights for workers in other countries in the global south. Capital seeks the cheapest labor, and helps turn back the clock on labor rights because capitalism is inherently exploitative.

"Also, thanks to your neoliberal capitalism, domestic manufacturers are now multinational companies and close up shops here to go exploit cheap labor where there are less rights for workers in other countries in the global south. Capital seeks the cheapest labor, and helps turn back the clock on labor rights because capitalism is inherently exploitative."

And what would make them leave the United State? Hmm... what oh what would make them leave? Hmm...

Oh! I know!!! DEMOCRATS!!! Democrats HATE businesses. They impose all sorts of impossible regulations, restrictions and taxes on businesses. They are driving them out of the United States just as fast as Gavin Newsom is driving people (and businesses) out of California.

They would not need to seek cheaper labor if the overhead costs of production were not so incredibly high in America. They never would have left if the business environment was not so awful and it is getting worse.

You want to know why the economy had such a great improvement when Trump was elected in 2016? It had very little to do with Trump and a whole lot more to do with Hillary. Hillary lost. The business world breathed one of the biggest sighs of relieve in this nation's history. It wasn't just because it a Democrat didn't win but it was because Hillary didn't win. Hillary is about as anti-capitalism as you can get. She is as bad as Obama was.

Trump, on the other hand, was a Republican who came straight out of the business world. Trump didn't have to lift a finger. Oh sure, he and the Republicans took credit for the economy improving. And they point to Trump's meager tax decrease for citizens. But he did lower business taxes from being the highest in the world to being about average.

I doubt if some of these businesses will ever return to America. Even if we fixed our dollar and reattached it to gold. Even if we shut down 95% of the Federal Government permanently. Even if we reversed a century or more of horrifying legislation from morons who have never ever had to worry about meeting a payroll. Even if we abolished the IRS and ended the income tax along with about a billion of other taxes that the Federal Government imposes. Even if we outlawed the Democrat party and all Marxists working for the government.

Even if we did all of that, we still probably would many of those businesses. But most of them would come back in a heartbeat.

That isn't capitalism's fault. That is the Federal Government's fault.

"Marx didn’t come up with the labor theory of price"

If it sounded like I meant that then I apologize but I don't think I would have said that because I know that. It predates Marx. Marx just incorporated that into his economic mess.

"I never said FDR created unions"

I never accused you of saying that. You talked about the NLRA and said I hated FDR for that. And the NLRA is about unions. That's all I meant.

"McDonald’s spied on its workers who partook in fight for $15 strikes. Amazon delivery drivers pee in water bottles to meet quotas."

Are people forced to work for McDonalds or Amazon? If you don't like the working conditions then leave. BTW what did it accomplish for McDonalds to spy on their employees? Was it just certain franchises or was it the corporation? Where they more looking into the feasibility of kiosks? Because that is where they are going, and they are starting in cities and states that force a mandatory $15 per hour minimum wage. The minimum wage came out of the Progressive era and it has done nothing but kill jobs. Because there will always be someone who will work for 50 cents per hour. I did when I was 14. By the end of that summer I was able to buy myself a bicycle.

"Work kills more people than drugs or alcohol combined annually"

Is that on the drive into work? Is that work related accidents? Is that caused from stress? How are these people being killed off at such a high rate?

I can understand the drive into work and home. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do. Some jobs are dangerous. They even did a TV series on dangerous jobs. I used to work at a Chevron refinery. Chevron takes safety very serious. They spend billions on maintaining safety. They operate above and beyond the OHSA requirements. Chevron's motto is they want you to leave work in the same condition you arrived at work.

However, other refineries just barely meet the OSHA requirements. No one is being forced to work at any refinery but if that is what you wanted to do with your life then Chevron would be the safest refinery to work for.

So you would just need to either find a job that is safe or find a job that puts safety first..

"People who work for corporations make more than 200 times less than CEOs"

Well then, start your own business and work your butt off to become as high paid as some of those CEO's. Problem solved. Oh and by the way, there are many CEO's who do not take a salary. Don't envy them, be them.