• spacesatan@leminal.space
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    11 days ago

    I get that it’s a meme but 85% is delusional. If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.

    *online leftists coping and seething after food and housing don’t just magically spring forth from the earth when you abolish rent-seeking

    If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.

    • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online
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      5 days ago

      I get that it’s a meme but 85% is delusional. If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.

      *online leftists coping and seething after food and housing don’t just magically spring forth from the earth when you abolish rent-seeking

      If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.

      Well yeah, I do actually believe we will work significantly less because many jobs are bullshit, useless and only serve capital. That, and all the over production that ends up in landfills and the ocean because the line must go up.

      (Btw I spent yesterday testing sewage samples and I’d do it for free if I didn’t need money to survive so miss me with any ‘how would we convince people to do gross work’ bullshit)

      • spacesatan@leminal.space
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        5 days ago

        Why not say 99% if you’re just pulling a number out of your ass.

        and all the over production that ends up in landfills

        Overproducing food is fundamentally good and there is not that much overproduction of other goods. Clothing sure but that is not a massive percent of global labor.

        If socialism is that much more efficient than capitalism why is every socialist country not absolutely flourishing with 1 socialist worker reaping the same benefits as almost 7 capitalist workers?

        (Btw I spent yesterday testing sewage samples and I’d do it for free if I didn’t need money to survive so miss me with any ‘how would we convince people to do gross work’ bullshit)

        if ‘people will work for the joy of work’ was a reliable way to run an economy wouldn’t you see capitalists who aren’t reliant on wage labor choosing to work? You don’t because economies function by the norm not the exception and most people would rather relax and maybe make art than voluntarily do a shitty job that has an abstract benefit to society.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      10 days ago

      If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.

      See, once I started working a “Real Job” I saw just how much surplus value was stolen, and turned to Marxist theory to make cohesive sense of it. 85% isn’t an over-estimation, especially if we factor in imperialism. Workers in the imperial core are paid more and exploited less than workers in the periphery.

      If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.

      We will probably all work 30-40 hours a week for the next great length of time even in socialism, but with far greater societal guarantees and a less predatory system of distribution.

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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      11 days ago

      85% is a bit of an overestimate, but not by all that much. For the United States, total wages paid by companies to employees are about 11 trillion, out of a GDP of 29 trillion (stats from a year or two ago). This doesn’t count sole proprietorships and partnerships, but the high-end estimate is 62%.

      @draco_aeneus@mander.xyz’s implication that wealth follows linearly from income isn’t super rigorous, but it does match up closely enough in this case.

      If you have a Materially Productive Job and you have the ability + information required to calculate how much revenue a worker contributes to the company, you’ll know that this checks out. I wouldn’t expect everyone to be adequately positioned and also care enough in order to have that insight though.

      Nitpicking whether the executive and shareholders appropriate 85% or 50% of value is pointless. It’s a huge amount, it’s far more than income taxes, and it is the most important dynamic of the capitalist economy. And it is further corroborated with reports (from mainstream/orthodox sources) over the past year of how the majority of consumer spending is done by the rich.

      • spacesatan@leminal.space
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        11 days ago

        85% vs 50% is a massive difference. It would be the difference between a 20 hour work week and a 6 hour work week.

        • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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          11 days ago

          Both those possibilities (20h work week and 6h work week) sound great. The prospect is either working less, or working the same amount and keeping the monetary value of your labor, as opposed to working full-time just to pay 3/4 of your income just sustaining your existence, which goes straight to landlords or bigger companies.

          And if you can arrange a living that avoids the most common money traps, you can easily get by with 20 hours of work per week or less. I’ve certainly done enough juggling of part-time jobs to know this.