Profit within Capitalism is a result of the exploitation of the workers

Instead of arguing individual points, I will now attempt to make a closing statement and hopefully this is proper netiquette in online debates. If I am misunderstanding or misusing the debating norms, please accept my apologies. My opponent has put forth three arguments in opposition to the Exploitation theory of Profit which he listed succinctly in his first paragraph of the previous round. All of these arguments do not actually counter the fact that the surplus value that the capitalist appropriates from production is created by the worker's labour. This, the con has implicitly accepted. Rather, the arguments are an attempt at justification of this in order to prove that workers are not exploited, that the capitalist is worth part of the surplus value (profit) regardless of how much he personally adds to production. I will now summarize why the arguments put forward by Con are inefficient. (1) RE: Money has time value: In all the justification provided for this argument, my opponent has not actually proven the existence of Time Preference but has rather based his argument on shaky correlation. His argument can be summed up as follows: 1. If Interest exists then it means that money has Time Value (ie people have Time Preference) 2. Interest exists. 3. Therefore money has Time Value. Even a cursory examination of this argument should be capable of pointing out its flaws. Particularly, the 1st premise is unargued for, and it is indeed this which I have been challenging Con to substantiate. True, my opponent has provided ample evidence to show that interest exists and has existed for the largest span of human civilization (ie all time after the replacement of communal property with private property) but mere observation is impossible to lead anyone to causation. This is the same reason why merely observing gravity is not enough to form a robust theory on its cause, and while *scientific research and rigor* might lead to good approximations, such as the Newtonian theory, events that falsify it are still grounds to rethink the theory. Con, I believe, has failed to go further than observation and the forming of a hypothesis in deciding on the Time Value of Money. As the burden of proof falls on my opponent to prove that money has Time Value (And merely saying "What else is it then? " is just an argument from incredulity, a fallacy), I find this to be a fatal flaw in the assertion of this hypothesis as a "Law of Nature", especially when I presented falsifications which at the least should cause any hypothesis which aspires to be called a theory, to be modified in order to take account for the exemption. (2) RE: Increased risk merits increased rewards The flaw here is that by "Increased Risks" the Con merely means "More money invested" as this is what really gets rewarded. The more money one invests, the more "risk" he is taking, regardless of how much other money he has available. Thus my example of the capitalist taking the "sacrifice" of not building a 6th mansion. Even through marginalism, which I'm certain Con espouses, one can see that 1000$ of investment for someone who has 10.000$ is more risky than a $1 mil investment by one who has $1 billion in other assets. And yet, the later will be rewarded far more, even on the same risk of failure. There is no direct relationship between interest received and the "sacrifice" involved. If anything, it is an inverse relationship. (Here I also want to point out the source of Con on Pension funds, taken to its logical conclusion would show that Pension funds are only 27% of total investment - And that is in the US only, which has a large middle-class. ) Then there's my argument on why Capitalist risk is worth so much more reward than anything else. This is still to be countered. The confused example of bringing up the average return of the stock market did not counter this in the least as we're talking about the return of a particular investment, not the return any particular stockholder might make in dividends. While a company might give low dividends or even not at all, this does not mean that profit is not collected. It simply means that it is reinvested or given out as management pay and bonuses. Unfortunately such examples are nothing more than misdirection. This means that the return for the investment itself still theoretically gives an infinite return to its cost. No matter how many times over the cost of the investment has been repaid by the surplus value created by the workers, they are never one step closer in owning it. The only difference is that instead of an individual capitalist, it's the Corporation as an entity that is actually the one exploiting the workers in this case (possible due to the Corporation's status as a legal human - "Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like actual people. " - Source: Wikipedia) The Con has thus still failed to explain why Capitalist risk deserves preferential treatment over any other kind of risk, such as the risk of building a commodity or the risk of looking and taking a new job. Both of which subjectively are far riskier than a capitalist (or corporation) investing a small percentage of their assets. Just to note that there are other counters to the Risk theory of Profit as well but I lack the space to put them forth. Perhaps I will open a debate on this particular subject. (3) RE: Creative genius adds value that should be rewarded The Con is still yet to argue for this with anything other than circular reasoning. His example of the programmer is unconvincing to say the least as it's especially tailored to his point and I even displayed how with a slight modification in the variables (such as changing the cost of duplication and distribution) the current system rewards someone other than the "Creative Genius". Contrary to what Con believes, the burden of proof falls on him to prove the validity of "Creative Genius" in all cases, not on me to prove the negative. To clarify: I do not actually dispute that Creative Genius might occasionally be the basis behind a successful enterprise but there are many other things that can be the cause as well, such as greed, crass disregard for other humans or the environment and raw cunning. Do those deserve reward in the form of profit? Most would disagree. Not only that but common experience tells us that it's more often *not* creative genius that succeeds in the Capitalist market but a number of other things. As such, basing the justification of exploitation on something that may or may not be something we want to reward is a weak argument. --- I hope I have shown how Con's arguments do not counter the theory of exploitation as they are either based on unargued premises or circular reasoning. The fact of the matter is that workers are the ones doing the actual productive, hard and dangerous work, but it's the capitalist - who may or may not work at all (such as in the case of hiring someone to manage his funds) - that gets the lion's share of the reward. The classic apology in various forms, is that the capitalist is necessary to keep the capitalist system working. Well. .. obviously. But this is not a convincing argument unless one accepts a false dilemma. I await eagerly Con's final statement and I hope that he will avoid mentioning subjects outside of the topic of this debate (which I'm glad to say he honoured in his last post). There are logical extensions if one accepts the theory of exploitation but they do not invalidate it and I believe it's unfair to jump to conclusions on what I would suggest. Thank you all for reading this debate and I hope to challenge you in the future.