“Well, but I own the machines.”
“How did you get the machines?”
“Sold products and bought them.”
“Wait, you sold products before buying the machine? How did you make those products? That seems like circular reasoning.”
“Actually, you’re right, I initially took out a loan to buy the machine in the hopes I could sell enough products to pay off the loan.”
“That seems like it was a risk.”
“It was. But, I spent a lot of time analyzing the market, coming up with estimates of how much people would buy, how much someone who could operate the machine would cost in wages, all that sort of thing.”
“That seems like a lot of work.”
“It was a fair amount of work.”
“Who paid you to do that work?”
“Nobody paid me, I hoped to get paid once I could start selling products.”
“So, why didn’t your worker start his own business and buy his own machine instead?”
“Ah, well, that’s the part that’s a bit unfair. See, I could afford to spend the time analyzing the market because my family is rich, and I didn’t need to work gruelling 8 hour days. Also, when it came time to take out a loan to buy the machine, the bank was happy to give me the loan because of my family name.”
“Ah, and your worker?”
“Great guy, but he has a family to support and no rich parents. He couldn’t take the time to analyze the market for a new business because he has to hold down a job. And, even if he could find the time to do that, the bank probably wouldn’t give him a loan for a new business because he doesn’t have any business history, or assets to use as collateral. Also, he can’t really afford to fail.”
“Afford to fail?”
“Yes. Like I said, I have rich parents. If my business fails, my dad will rib me about it a bit. But, it’s not like I’ll be out on the street.”
“And your worker?”
“Well, he could certainly try to start a business, but if the business failed he’d be in real trouble. No rich parents, you see. Plus, I have great accountants. If my business fails, they’ll use it as an offset for my taxes. Technically, anybody can do that, but good luck figuring out how to do that with TurboTax or something.”
“So, really, it’s oversimplifying to say that you do nothing, and the worker does everything.”
“Yeah, he makes what I tell him to make, but I figure out how much to charge, where to sell it, where to buy the raw materials, basically everything about the business other than operating the machine.”
“But, operating the machine is important.”
“Of course! It’s vitally important. But, you see, I bought a machine that costs a little more but is designed to be extremely easy to use. Because just about anybody can use it, I don’t need a worker with special skills. That means I don’t have to pay too much in wages.”
“So, really, if there’s unfairness here it’s structural. You come from a rich family, so it’s easy for you to start a business. He doesn’t, so his only real option is to get a job from someone like you.”
“That’s right.”
“But, it seems like that could all be changed with a few changes to the laws. You pay a bit more in taxes, he pays a bit less, then he can save up and maybe start his own business?”
“Yeah, that might work. But, here’s the kicker. He voted for the same guy I did. The other candidate was promising tax reforms, enforcing anti-monopoly laws, etc. But, my guy got everyone scared about trans athletes and brown people crossing the border. My worker’s a good guy, but he’s super racist. As long as you’re going after the brown people, that’s what matters to him.”
I think the thing I find deeply unfair about the situation is let’s say this arrangement of work is 100% accurate.
The owner did the analysis, took out the loan, set up the machine that the worker works.
At some point that work ends for the owner, the analysis is complete, the loan is paid back. There capitalists work effectively ends and the workers goes on forever and the split stays the same.
There is no point where the owner goes, “well if I had billed the company for my analysis and the initial loan I’d have been paid back 10 times over, time to give more to the worker.”
They get to set up the machine because of the wealth and privilege that is indicated here and then extract forever.
When they die, they can hand that enterprise to their heir, who did nothing. Not one ounce of analysis, not one drop of risk in taking out a loan, and that heir can extract value forever.
And they will get to take $6 of every $10 forever because they had the good fortune of being able to afford the machine and take advantage of a system set up by people that own machines which unsurprisingly has a simple rule, the people that own machines get the money.
At some point that work ends for the owner
It doesn’t really. They need to keep aware of what’s happening in the market. What are their competitors doing? Is the market becoming saturated? Are there new technologies which will change things? Are fashions changing? Are laws changing?
It’s probably less work to keep things going than it is to initially open the business, but the work never ends. Most businesses don’t even last 10 years, let alone “forever”. 5 years is about the average a business lasts. That’s because the job of the owner, spotting problems before they hit the business and adapting the business to the new situation, is hard. It’s not difficult labour, like running a machine can sometimes be, but it is difficult to get it right.
When they die, they can hand that enterprise to their heir, who did nothing
Estate taxes and inheritance taxes exist. They’re far too generous most of the time, but they exist.
In general, a successful business is a good thing for everyone. The fact that it’s successful means that people think that whatever it’s selling is worth buying. They’re better off with less money and whatever the business is selling than they were with just the money. Their world is better because the business exists. In addition, a successful business that generates a profit can be taxed. Taxes from successful businesses can be used by the government to provide services for everybody.
So, we should be encouraging people to start businesses. One obvious way of encouraging it is to allow them to keep some of the profits that result. Of course, that should be offset by the taxes the business pays. The question is what level of taxation is too little vs. too much.
It’s also unfair that starting a business is easy for some people who are already rich, and difficult for everyone else. Something like UBI would start to even the playing field, allowing someone the opportunity to fail without losing everything.
Fundamentally, the problem is that the rich and powerful always ensure that the laws and the structure of society benefits the rich and powerful. But, it goes in cycles. When they get too rich and too powerful, there is often unrest that takes the power back.
I can’t tell if this is pro or anti capitalist tbh
Good.
it’s almost like the economic model name we give it is irrelevant and we should instead be focused on processes and outcomes 🤔
pretty obviously pro cap
in what way is describing how a system works pro anything?
The best systems are those that analyze the practical processes and outcomes and optimize for distributed prosperity regardless of the individual component processes’ economic model.
Some systems make sense to be capital-driven because of the massive initial investment required to ship the first product for things that are luxury-only (movies, etc)
Other systems should NEVER be capital-driven because they are tied to basic human needs and rights (health-care, education, etc)
The first step towards reaching the best system for everyone to attain a minimum level of prosperity that scales upward based on their own desire for additional luxury is breaking down existing systems to identify the exact places where they fail, so we can be selective about how build systems going forward and intelligently implement safeguards when we choose one system vs another for a given vertical.
I think it (maybe unintentionally) falls on the pro-capitalist side because it suggests that the fundamental contradiction of capitalism — that private ownership of the means of production inevitably leads to class-based unequal relationships to production — can be reformed. In reality, reforms are used by the capitalist class to placate workers and defuse revolutionary fervor, and are eroded almost immediately after passing. Only a complete revolution to collective worker ownership of the means of production can resolve the contradiction.
I meant because the trope of the poors being ignorant racists was a bit too hard to believe someone would want to admit to.
“Yeah, that might work. But, here’s the kicker. He voted for the same guy I did. The other candidate was promising tax reforms, enforcing anti-monopoly laws, etc. But, my guy got everyone scared about trans athletes and brown people crossing the border. My worker’s a good guy, but he’s super racist. As long as you’re going after the brown people, that’s what matters to him.”
Yeah, that’s a bit anti-worker, but racism and bigotry is one way that capitalists stoke division in the ruling class, and it has been very effective so far.
it suggests that (…) can be reformed.
it could. unfortunately the boss’s dad owns the politicians making the law, so it won’t be.
Only a complete revolution to collective worker ownership of the means of production can resolve the contradiction.
that’s just delusional. if such thing happened, and every person in the world would get the same amount of money and means of production, it would only take time for those better at management/leadership to - again - have more than the others.
people are not equal. i am not taking position and claiming it is good/bad, but it is a fact, no matter how someone might not like it. and all this is not saying that the current system is not fucked up.
<it could. unfortunately the boss’s dad owns the politicians making the law, so it won’t be.>
So de facto, due to structural issues inherent to the system, it can’t be.
Marxists never claim that people are equal. The motto is, after all, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”
There’s a lot more I could say to dispute your understanding of socialist theory and history, but I don’t have all day, so suffice to say: collective ownership of the means of production does not have the same structural tendency towards class formation as private ownership does.
just an accurate description of the hellhole we live in.
it is a fact. facts are not pro- or anti- something, they just are.
this is sane washing wealth inequality
the reality is usually those original rich family members did some real heinous shit to get that wealth
this is sane washing wealth inequality
it is not sane washing of anything. it is a description of things.
stop, calm down, take a deep breath, and then answer the question:
- is it true?
not - “do you think this is how it should be?”
because it seems you have trouble grasping that these two are completely different questions.
- is it true?
Do you think wealth inequality was achieved through the behaviors of the insane? These systems were purpose built to function a certain way for the benefit of certain people. It was incredibly sane, just selfish.
Generational wealth inherited from people who benefitted from immoral systems is a fundamentally problematic system. Breaking down the logic behind it is not “sane-washing” or whatever unless it comes with opinions on the merit or fairness of the problematic elements.
Quite the contrary, the OC did not offer any opinion on whether these things were fair or “okay”. They only fleshed out the specific logic used in the creation of these systems.
It’s true that capitalists deserve to exploit workers?
where do you see such statement in the comment i reacted to? some red circles would help.
Does react mean reply? You replied to my comment which was
I can’t tell if this is pro or anti capitalist tbh
Maybe you replied to the wrong comment?
where did i say or agreed to that “workers deserve to be exploited”, the sentence YOU put in my mouth so you have something to disagree with? i replied to right comment and you know very well what i meant, you manipulative asshole.
I really enjoyed this. I hope AI didnt write it haha.
But who made the AI?
Beep, boop, you’re right that that post might have been written by AI. If you would like, I can swear like a sailor and we can delve into whether or not that shows I’m human.
$4.00 in October 1937 has the same buying power as $91.78 in August 2026.
Damn has there ever been a time where a working class American was paid a fair wage? Other than the brief period after WWII up until Reagan, that is.
That was still only a relatively small portion of the working class and even then it was only possible because the US took over control of global imperialism and were subsiding domestic worker wages with wealth extracted from the rest of the world.
surely not when you factor in in real estate 🙈
Instead of distractions over exact numbers, apply Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit: Does the pattern of owners profiting more from workers’ labor, and compensate as “market allows”, hold true regardless of the specific dollar amounts?
Let us not nitpick numbers as a distraction, but instead focus on the trend and the systemic issues of low wages, inferior benefits compared to many other nations, so they have less artificial scarcity and better lives, which is the goal. Demand better for all, not less for others once you got yours!
Appropriating the surplus value of labor
Yes, exactly!
(Maybe I’d say stealing or obtaining through coercion but why get too picky, eh?)
I can’t remember for sure how capitalism defines labor. I think it’s just an expense. You know, the idea is that if you can buy it for cheaper than you can pay to make it, then you’ll just fire all of your workers and buy the product. Just like that.
That’s why every time there’s a disruptive technology, every company loses its fucking mind. “Oh, I can get AI to code for cheaper than my engineers? Time to get rid of those expenses.”
Well, technically, customers pay bosses.
Customers give the business money for the goods. It could be directly to the boss, or other employees of the business. When we say the customer pays the boss in this case, “pay” refers to an uneven relationship between the customer, the business, and the boss. The business has a product that the customer doesn’t have or doesn’t have the means to produce, so they give the business money to obtain it. In this relationship, it is considered appropriate for the company to charge more than it costs to produce the good. The price is set by the boss, who decides what profit is achievable, and what they are willing to do to maximize that.
In the poem the worker is said to pay the boss because the employee is in a similar position as the customer. In this case, they are giving the boss a higher value than they are receiving from the boss. They are exchanging their labour and the finished goods in exchange for two items the boss has a monopoly on: money (which is required to obtain goods in a system where you are alienated from the fruits of your labour), and access to the means of production.
You could simplify the “labour and the finished goods” for surplus labour value. I hear some guy wrote some compelling books about how many yards of linen a coat is worth. Might be worth a gander.
Gold
If he’s paid four dollars a day and only makes 10 dollars worth of products, he’s probably turning a loss once material costs and everything are accounted for? As 10 dollars would be revenue, not profit
The specific numbers are hardly the important part of the story.
The story exists because of the numbers.
And if they’re not important to the story, there’s no reason for them not to be accurate.The story exists because of an employer taking advantage of an employee. The numbers can be whatever makes sense.
Look up sec filings for the company you work for (or whatever company you feel like getting mad at), and compare revanue and profits to employee counts, and how those numbers have changed in the past 15 years. If we define “productivity” as profits divided by employee count, then for my job “productivity” has increased 30x in 15 years while my wages have increased approximately 2.5x. If you define “productivity” as revanue divided by employee count, then it’s even worse.
The exploitation is the point, and the story works for anyone who’s worked too hard for too little, regardless of the specific numbers.
Agreed. The numbers are the basis of the abuse. So just use real numbers
The numbers are a measure of the abuse.
The existence of the numbers is the reason for the abuse
Talk about missing the forest for the trees. I notice that Econ101 people never want to include profit, or advertising to the cost of production. Both are inefficiencies due to adding cost without value, but it’s invisible to the system. Always left out when it comes to factoring costs. Weird.
As 10 dollars would be revenue, not profit
It does not specify what the $10 is a measure of.
The numbers are certainly off. This person would probably only be paid $2 a day, the costs and materials would only likely account for another $2 per day and they sell $10 in revenue and make the owner $6 of profit. But even then thats company profit and the boss takes a salary too. Then there’s taxes and other stuff and it gets complicated.
