this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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Wealth is not income. You can't derive the rate of exploitation from wealth inequality.
I mean lol again. Especially if you need to stretch as far as the top 10%. Doctors, surgeons, electricians, linemen, plumbers, veterinarians, dentists, engineers, etc are all going to be producing more than double the value of your average retail worker.
The only way to create wealth is via work, e.g., income. It's not a perfect measure, I concede, since wealth is static and can accumulate over time. However, I think we can still use it as a rough estimation of stolen income over time.
However, this source claims there is a 70% gap between wages and produced value. That roughly matches the number I gave.
That is not what that data is or says.
158 is not 30% of 285 for starters.
Total wages paid are a bit over half of gdp. 55% is notably quite a bit more than 15%.