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This page seems to have a bizarrely narrow focus, and I'm sure it's covered in other articles. Any objection to deleting it?--
CJGB (Chris)20:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)reply
How about a link to the other articles first? If it's only a tiny part of one larger article, I'll turn it into a REDIRECT. Fair enough? --
Uncle Ed20:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)reply
According to Marx, capitalism will inevitably lead to ruin in accordance with certain laws of economic movement. These laws are "the Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall," "the Law of Increasing Poverty," and "the Law of Centralization of Capital."
Also, it's such an article of faith among socialists (and socialist sympathizers) that the notion is often considered
common knowledge. It's probably the single most widely-held economic belief in the world. I think it deserves an article of its own (especially if there's significant dispute among economists as to whether it's true!). --
Uncle Ed14:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)reply
Another common interpretation is that those who are blessed by God and use these blessings to serve him, will get additional blessings; those who misuse them will have them withdrawn.
a set of prophecies about what would happen if the Israelites accepted the Messiah (good things: "Of the increase of his government of peace there will be no end")
a set of prophecies about what would happen if they rejected him (Isaiah 53: "He was a man of sorrows, rejected of men")
I might be confounding the specific (narrow?) interpretation proposed by
Father Moon with generally accepted theology. Someone with more expertise on this matter, please help me out. --
Uncle Ed13:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Actually, I've since noticed that there is more than one passage in the New Testament with similar wording. For the purposes of the article I'd say that the article is not primarily about "To him that hath shall be given," it's about "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," and it seems to me that the essentials of what need to be said are:
a) there are one (or more) Bible passage(s) which have become proverbial, are often quoted vaguely or approximately as "to him that hath shall be given." It's often jocular, and without much reference to whatever the Scriptural meaning might be. You know, there's still some beverage left in your glass and the person with the pitcher says "Have some more, to him that hath shall be given."
b) The passage(s) should be identified and quoted correctly in some reasonable translation (I'd say KJV)
c) Whatever they mean, none of them mean "the economically rich get richer and the economically poor get poorer."
d) That it don't mean that should be shown by giving a succinct explanation of what the passage does mean, without going into nuances or disputes
e) A footnote pointing to further information for those who are primarily interested in "To him that hath shall be given" rather than in "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
Consider what I put in to be a placeholder... I don't know whether the "right" passage to mention would be Matthew 13:12, Matthew 25:29, or Mark 4:25, or all three, and the explanation I put in of what I think Matthew 13:12 means is not based on any deep understanding. But again, we want some kind of short summary. This article isn't the place for an in-depth discussion of the three passages and their meaning.
Dpbsmith(talk)15:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I just removed all mention of Marx from this article because it was based on an unreliable source: a
Unification Church pamphlet,
[1]. The author has apparently made up the following "Law of Increasing Poverty":
Since capitalists intend to increase profit, they always intend to reduce wages. Because machinery is constant capital, and labor power alone produces profit, they try to increase profit by keeping wages down and strengthening labor power. At the same time, because of the introduction of new machinery, many laborers are dismissed and become the unemployed.
In this manner, the increase of profit and the increase of wages are mutually contradictory. Therefore, in the capitalist society the increasing of poverty is inevitable.
The first sentence may be true (as in, truly an assumption in Capital), but the rest of it is an attack on a straw man. The author doesn't cite any particular part of Marx's work, but it seems that he has the following in mind:
the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or
industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital. (Capital, vol. I ch. 25,
[2], emphasis added)
In other words, workers' material conditions may actually improve, but their say in working conditions is lost, they get deskilled by mechanization and they lose their freedom. That was Marx's objection to capitalism, not any prediction regarding poverty.
FNAS (
talk)
12:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)reply
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
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the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
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This page seems to have a bizarrely narrow focus, and I'm sure it's covered in other articles. Any objection to deleting it?--
CJGB (Chris)20:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)reply
How about a link to the other articles first? If it's only a tiny part of one larger article, I'll turn it into a REDIRECT. Fair enough? --
Uncle Ed20:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)reply
According to Marx, capitalism will inevitably lead to ruin in accordance with certain laws of economic movement. These laws are "the Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall," "the Law of Increasing Poverty," and "the Law of Centralization of Capital."
Also, it's such an article of faith among socialists (and socialist sympathizers) that the notion is often considered
common knowledge. It's probably the single most widely-held economic belief in the world. I think it deserves an article of its own (especially if there's significant dispute among economists as to whether it's true!). --
Uncle Ed14:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)reply
Another common interpretation is that those who are blessed by God and use these blessings to serve him, will get additional blessings; those who misuse them will have them withdrawn.
a set of prophecies about what would happen if the Israelites accepted the Messiah (good things: "Of the increase of his government of peace there will be no end")
a set of prophecies about what would happen if they rejected him (Isaiah 53: "He was a man of sorrows, rejected of men")
I might be confounding the specific (narrow?) interpretation proposed by
Father Moon with generally accepted theology. Someone with more expertise on this matter, please help me out. --
Uncle Ed13:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)reply
Actually, I've since noticed that there is more than one passage in the New Testament with similar wording. For the purposes of the article I'd say that the article is not primarily about "To him that hath shall be given," it's about "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," and it seems to me that the essentials of what need to be said are:
a) there are one (or more) Bible passage(s) which have become proverbial, are often quoted vaguely or approximately as "to him that hath shall be given." It's often jocular, and without much reference to whatever the Scriptural meaning might be. You know, there's still some beverage left in your glass and the person with the pitcher says "Have some more, to him that hath shall be given."
b) The passage(s) should be identified and quoted correctly in some reasonable translation (I'd say KJV)
c) Whatever they mean, none of them mean "the economically rich get richer and the economically poor get poorer."
d) That it don't mean that should be shown by giving a succinct explanation of what the passage does mean, without going into nuances or disputes
e) A footnote pointing to further information for those who are primarily interested in "To him that hath shall be given" rather than in "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
Consider what I put in to be a placeholder... I don't know whether the "right" passage to mention would be Matthew 13:12, Matthew 25:29, or Mark 4:25, or all three, and the explanation I put in of what I think Matthew 13:12 means is not based on any deep understanding. But again, we want some kind of short summary. This article isn't the place for an in-depth discussion of the three passages and their meaning.
Dpbsmith(talk)15:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)reply
I just removed all mention of Marx from this article because it was based on an unreliable source: a
Unification Church pamphlet,
[1]. The author has apparently made up the following "Law of Increasing Poverty":
Since capitalists intend to increase profit, they always intend to reduce wages. Because machinery is constant capital, and labor power alone produces profit, they try to increase profit by keeping wages down and strengthening labor power. At the same time, because of the introduction of new machinery, many laborers are dismissed and become the unemployed.
In this manner, the increase of profit and the increase of wages are mutually contradictory. Therefore, in the capitalist society the increasing of poverty is inevitable.
The first sentence may be true (as in, truly an assumption in Capital), but the rest of it is an attack on a straw man. The author doesn't cite any particular part of Marx's work, but it seems that he has the following in mind:
the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or
industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital. (Capital, vol. I ch. 25,
[2], emphasis added)
In other words, workers' material conditions may actually improve, but their say in working conditions is lost, they get deskilled by mechanization and they lose their freedom. That was Marx's objection to capitalism, not any prediction regarding poverty.
FNAS (
talk)
12:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)reply