Democracy and capitalism can work, we've had thousands of years of capitalism without democracy to see that it never does.

Thousands of years of capitalism? It's at this point in these discussions that I realize that constructing an argument is too much work, because there's just too damn much demolition to do first.

This entire discussion boils down to:

1.) The rich are evil

2.) So it's morally okay to take their stuff.

Everything else written on this subject out there, including the indignant article that started this thread on how the rich are getting more than their "share" of the Great Wealth Pot, is just verbal fog designed to obscure this basic concept. The entire article on income asks the question, "so, what are we going to DO about this injustice?"

The application of this philosophy can be seen in the history of those nations that actually applied it consistently.

I've been self-employed, worked for large corporations, and worked for start-ups. I've never felt "exploited," and never felt like I had no choice but to work at one particular place my whole life. I've never felt like I was "too good" to do scut work at the beginning.

I've been laid off when companies went under, or quit when I wanted to go do something else. I've never been fired. Even the mindless scut-work jobs can be done better than average. My first drafting job at Lockheed as a temp was taking sheets of D and E sized pencil drawings, and manually darkening every line with a pencil so they could be photographed. Eight hours a day. For weeks. When the job was done, all the temps were laid off except two people. We were kept on for new work.

It's a world-view thing, and I doubt there's much any of us can do to convince the others. I know in some cases personal experience probably has a lot to do with it. As you point out, there are crappy businesses out there. It goes without saying. But I never got the idea into my head that putting a corrupted government bureaucracy in charge of a corrupted business bureaucracy was the solution. Nine times out of ten, they end up shaking hands and splitting the loot.