In places like the West, the poor have air conditioning, refrigerators, plumbing, and large high-def screen TVs. While the people on the top have a lot of money, they can't spend it. The people on the bottom are living better then the richest African (who is the richest man in absolute dollars) ever. When we toss in promiscuity of both sexes, better than the king.

People down vote, but where am I wrong? The West's biggest problem right now is having TOO MUCH FOOD! Think about that. We are so fat that we're dying. Not starving. FAT!

Not sure that all the money is moving to those who own the most capital/machines. It seems to be moving to those that have the most data.

Mark Zuckerburg has very little of what I'd call "capital" that actually produces stuff, yet he makes tons of money.

Means of production.

Are you saying that data is the means of production?

I would disgree. Advertising is more important because stuff is less valuable. Therefore the data (which enables effective advertising/selling) is more valuable than the means of production.

They certainly aren't the same thing. You can produce tons of stuff without data. You would just have no idea what to produce or how to sell it.

> Are you saying that data is the means of production?

No, I was thinking about the infrastructure (servers). I am saying that Facebook has the infrastructure (rackspace) to produce (or subsidize the production) content and the money actually goes to Facebook. I don't know if the reasoning is sound though: would a newspaper own the means of production if they owned the printing machines ?

Servers are capital, I agree, but I don't think that's what makes FB valuable. The data is what's valuable, and I think it's a mistake to think of data as capital.

> Capitalism is working quite as intended right now.

But is it also working as advertised ?