The last thing I want to hear is how great capitalism is - as told by someone that capitalism refers to as capital.
There is no such thing as middle class, you’re either in the capitalist class or working class.
I read Thomas Pikettys Capital in the 21st Century recently, and it informed me on this topic. I still agree with you that those are the two most important class distinctions, but if I’m speaking with someone who is capable of nuance in the realm of socioeconomics I would give this statistic from that book: The top 1% own 30% of the wealth, the top 10% (which includes the 1%) owns 50% of the wealth, the next 40% (so not including those two prior categories) owns the rest, and the bottom 50% owns nothing. So there is now a patrimonial middle class that serves as a buffer between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, but this statistical analysis doesn’t really help with getting people aware of the fact that they are the poor and that they are poor BECAUSE a select few are outrageously wealthy.
Yes there is … middle class are the people that believe there is a middle class, without knowing that they are actually working class
There is, but it isn’t the liberal middle class that’s some arbitrary amount of money you earn as a salary, but petty bourgeois or in other words small business owners.
They’re in an unique position where they both own a business and live off of that income but are also forced to work in these businesses alongside their employees due to them not being wealthy enough to fully offload everything about it to the working class.
It’s not either or. If you have a retirement fund then you are also a capitalist.
Idiot.
I know you are but what am I.
(Seriously, at least give some reasoning otherwise even your typing effort is wasted)
You bought one of the many lies capitalists sold you
If you own equity in any company then you are part of the owner class. Simple.
You don’t get to vote, but you can move your money to funds that do invest.and vote ethically on your behalf.
If that makes you feel better, whatever man. I own a house and don’t consider myself part of the “ownership class”. I work hourly and my 403b is a joke, I am closer to homeless than wealthy by factors of magnitude.
I don’t consider myself part of the “ownership class”.
My main point is that the ownership/worker distinction is not binary. Most people are both (in very different proportions).
But my secondary point is that even the small investor has some (slight) power to influence which is usually not exercised.
Stakeholding is a long way from ownership in any meaningful sense. The “varying proportions” here are all on the coattails of capital from whichever angle you look.
It’s only a long way from control of the company.
It’s full ownership in terms of receiving a proportional share of the profits of the workers. That part is very meaningful.
“There’s no such thing as a rectangle, you’re either a parallelogram or you’re not a parallelogram.”
The idea of a middle class has absolutely nothing to do with socialism analysis of class relations; it’s simply a measure of quality of life.
Yeah, this level of pedantry does no one any good, and just makes one come off as snotty and condescending.
The ‘dialogue’ in the OP is the same way. 99% of the people who’d say “I’m a capitalist” define it no more specifically as ‘I like capitalism’, which in turn is typically defined no more specifically than ‘supplying what the market wants = profit’ by the vast majority of people.
Talking down to people does the opposite of fostering solidarity.
I don’t think it’s at all pedantic to point out that supporting capitalism doesn’t make you a Capitalist. You can’t have class consciousness without realizing the distinction.
It would be pedantic if you were pointing out an insignificant distinction. This is not that.
Talking down to people does the opposite of fostering solidarity.
I think it’s much more condescending to allow people to remain ignorant than to simply give them the right answer just so you don’t offend them if they happen to have fragile ego’s. I for one appreciate being corrected about things I am wrong about.
A measure of quality of life quite vague and incalculable because as humans we tend to manage money poorly sometimes in our lives.
The idea of a middle class is just capitalist propaganda to get 9-5 workers who earn significantly more than blue collar workers but look like 0 along with other lesser paid jobs when looking at wealth chart that has Billionaires
There are ideological capitalists and capital holders.
There are people who are capital holders who are ideologically left economically, some instances as far as full socialist.
There are people who hold little to no capital at all but believe capitalism is the best possible system.
As a percentage of their respective classes though, the later class traitor is unfortunately more common than the former class traitor.
Michael would definitely be the one to lack class consciousness, not Pam
Moreover, I think he’d be a pawn for a pseudo-communist, totalitarian regime. Draped in party-supplied luxuries, he’d still imagine himself a member of the proletariat and a champion for its cause. That’s my take on a Stalinist version of the office anyway.
Michael would be aware for everyone, but he would get it wrong constantly
“I DECLARE SOCIALISM!”
“…you can’t just declare socialism.”
If only socialism were like shenanigans
I don’t agree that capitalism is a good system, but I also agree that those who can work should work, because that’s the only way society can function and get better.
If we were a hunter gatherer tribe and no one hunted or gathers we would die.
Just because we have cars and computers doesn’t mean no one has to grow food or sell food or clean the water and build the houses.
From each according to their ability. To each according to their need.
I agree with the “to their ability” but not so much with “to their need”
If everyone worked to just sustain themselves, those left in the fringes suffer and die. We need people who are willing to work more than what they need to in order to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves.
That’s literally what that means.
Get out of here with your
ChristianMarxist propaganda! /sspoiler
“When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.” - Jesus
You can work without furthering capitalism. Not everything is for-profit.
Through technology we have become way more productive though. Every increase in productivity can either be used to better the standard of living (assuming that requires more work) or be used to lower the amount of time people have to work. I think the people that want to work just because they like it are a big enough portion of the world population to feed and house every single person on the planet. But instead, the increase in productivity is being gobbled up by a few people at the top. (see productivity / pay gap)
No I do not work. I use to work so guess I graduated to Capitalist?
Devils in the details
Not using any social programs so not a socialist.
The VA provides socialized healthcare. I’m from a family of veterans and I can tell you firsthand that the socialized healthcare the VA provides is eons better than dealing with predatory insurance companies.
You earn the VA Healthcare benefit. It isn’t given to anyone. You serve then you qualify.
Sure but most of the working class earn their benefits from hard work yet they can’t access those benefits because of predatory insurance companies. I’ve seen the stark contrast as I have taken care of aging family. The point is socialized healthcare is much better and the VA provides that for now.
do you have a business that is incorporated? You enjoy socialist policies favorable to business.
Not owner of a business.
then you’re simply retired.
The only thing I know you work at right now is being full of shit so quit being so fucking cryptic
Earned benefits from military service. I only live off my earned benefits.
Per definition, a capitalist is a wealthy person who uses money to invest in trade and industry for profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism.
If you are, congratulations, you’re rich.
Negative not living on investments. Not inheritance, not lottery money, not criminal money. No I didn’t marry someone with money. No I am not a influencer or make money from any social media.
Then you’re not a capitalist, as per definition. Even though being an influencer or making money from social media wouldn’t make you a capitalist per se as well.
Best I can offer is proletarian defending the capitalists.
You can be both a capitalist and a worker…
Not only that, but being a capitalist doesn’t necessarily you’re giga rich, it just means you think favorably of capitalism as an economic system.
it just means you think favorably…
By that logic, a literal slave could be a capitalist so long as they believe in the efficacy and morality of capitalism. That doesn’t even track the layperson usage of “capitalist”.
So what do we call people who are in favor of capitalism but are working-class? “Bootlicker” is too vague, “liberal” is too specific (especially if you’re talking to an American, but even if you aren’t).
It’s as if words can have more than one meaning
Words have meaning based on usage. If I ask for a glass of water and you give me bleach, it won’t really matter whether you think the two are synonymous–I’m still going to have a bad time. This is why I appealed to the layperson’s usage in the comment above. Your definition of ‘capitalist’ certainly doesn’t track any academic usage, but it also doesn’t track the general usage of the term.
But now I’m stressing the terminological point too much which is really secondary to what the post is about. The goal is to note the fundamental difference between people who need to work for a living and people who can live on the profit from their investment & capital.
What are you rambling about? There’s two definitions to the word and both are commonly used:
Def 1:
someone who supports capitalism (= an economic and political system in which property, business, and industry are controlled by private owners rather than by the state, with the purpose of making a profit):
Def 2:
someone who has a large amount of money invested (= given hoping to get more back) in business:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/capitalist
Fair enough. The reasonable assumption is that the dictionary tracks the colloquial usage. So although the layperson’s usage is contradictory in some cases (e.g., “the slave was a capitalist” or “the capitalist was a communist”) this is more an indication of the ambiguity of natural language. Just like we can use the word “literally” to mean figuratively, we can refer to a slave as a capitalist. This is a rare case in which pointing to a dictionary does resolve a dispute. So I’ll concede your point about the dual-meanings of the word “capitalist”.
This is still not the main idea, however, as evidenced by the question “Do you have to work to live?” So let’s circle back to your first comment. When you argue that, “You can be both a capitalist and a worker.” this is not using the term capitalist in the same way as the post. In other words, if we concede your point that there are two ways to understand “capitalist”, then your original comment is not addressing the claim at issue.
When you argue that, “You can be both a capitalist and a worker.” this is not using the term capitalist in the same way as the post. In other words, if we concede your point that there are two ways to understand “capitalist”, then your original comment is not addressing the claim at issue.
Reasonable point. The way I see it is this. A capitalist, in the sense that it’s meant in the meme and my statement, implies that somebody has capital to invest. This isn’t necessarily tied to billionaires. A lot of working class people invest their money in hopes of making more. A lot of working class parents and grandparents put their lives savings into a rental properties to help them during their retirement. Most main street businesses are owned by locals. A good chunk of the stock market is owned by small investors. Obviously, these aren’t going to have the impact of a Bezos or Zuckerburg type of money, but they still count. These are examples of working class people who are also capitalists.
These are examples of working class people who are also capitalists.
They are capitalists in the sense that they believe in capitalism. But they are not capitalists in the sense that the post is using (i.e., a part of the capitalist class).
Members of the working class sell their labor in order to gain money and buy the necessities of life. Those in the capitalist class buy labor in order to see a profit on the money they already have. The worker lives on their labor while the capitalist lives on their profits. The idea that someone is in the capitalist class based on a minimal investment in the stock market ignores the fact that they must continue to sell their labor in order to survive. Similarly, Jeff Bezos can can work hard as the CEO of Amazon, but that does not make him working class. It makes him a “worker” in the weak sense that he decides to work, but that’s not what’s at issue in the post.
To be fair, most people who disagree with the ideology behind the post are not aware of the class analysis and so will default to the weaker use of the terms. (“Everyone can just choose to be a capitalist or a worker!”) But the question “Do you work for a living?” is an indication that we’re invoking deeply entrenched class distinctions. Typing this out, I realize the people who upvote the post already know all this, which gives the illusion that everything I’ve written above is immediately obvious.
These are not mutually exclusive terms.
Definitions, especially definitions of political terms, vary a lot these days. But if we go by the leftist (and original) definition, the terms are definitely mutually exclusive.
So you want to change the name of ideology, that postulates free market relations as important part of human freedoms? Fine, it can be Classic Liberalism if you want.
i dont see why even communism would mean there are no free markets: in the most basic definitiv communism is (economically) a system in which the working people control the means of production. this could e.g. be achieved if all companies were work coops - thus workers controlled the companies and therefore the means of production if we dont change anything else there will still be a free market
Uh-huh. How do we define means of production? Can I come to your home and take your PC? I mean that’s means of productions alright. So it shouldn’t be privatized, and thus, traded.
(are we seriously discussing communism supporting free market? are we seriously considering communism as a sane ideology? what next, try nazism, because real nazism was never tried?)
please explain to me how if every current company was a workercoop free markets were endangered
Private property (as opposed to personal property) is property owned by individuals or entities that generate profits from others’ labor, and is abolished under communism. So, no, you can’t take someone’s personal PC (or any personal property). I’m not that deep into communist theory or thought, so not sure if “free markets” can exist under communism (I know money and states don’t exist), but I know there are theoretical socialist societies where free markets exist (market socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc).
I don’t know enough about communism to say whether I support it or not, so just being clear that I’m a largely impartial observer here-
I have to ask, if you are actually trying to make your argument in good faith, are you really unable to think of reasonable answers to your own question? Like right off the top of my own head, even in our present society we have different sets of regulations for freelancers than we do for places with employees. A democratized workplace is irrelevant for a business with one worker.
That said, as a free software advocate, the topic of intellectual “property” must be addressed. Since I do think proprietary software is a moral wrong, I would support a world in which open-source is codified into law.
But the problem here is that it sounds like you’re trying to make the, “they’re coming for your toothbrush!” fearmongering in a way that almost sounds plausible, but it really isn’t if you just apply a little common sense.
No one is coming for your toothbrush, and no one is coming for your little gaming pc.
Software development can be a place with employees, it’s not limited to freelance. So I don’t really get your point.
Government, and thus, laws, aren’t supposed to be the moral guide. This is not a church. As much as I dislike proprietary software, it’s their right to do so.
And it’s completely on users that we tolerate that, instead of voting with our money by donating to FOSS. But then again, if you compare how much money you can get from selling proprietary software and from donations on FOSS, it’s clear that FOSS isn’t doing great, cause they haven’t find a way to attract the same volume of money.
Okay, so just so we’re clear, you are not a good faith actor, then? I’ll go ahead and directly break down why you’re full of shit in that case.
Software development can be a place with employees, it’s not limited to freelance. So I don’t really get your point.
In your previous comment you said, “Can I come to your home and take your PC?”, which implies a single person, doing their own thing - a freelancer. Now you’re moving the goalpost. But okay, whatever. We’re talking about a case where you’re a part of a group of people, providing a product or service together? Then what gives you the right to be a dictator? All members of the group should have an equal stake and ownership of the properties being utilized for whatever is being made, and management of the group should be run in a way that is democratized.
But even in your new scenario, how is the outlandish idea of someone coming to your house to take your pc even in the realm of realistic possibility? If we’re talking about a group of people making software, then realistically all members probably have their own computers, and are using those to make their contributions. In this case the thing at stake is the software product. There’s already precedent for situations like this - it is possible to make an entire software compilation available to the public under one common license, and at the same time make it the case that all code and content contributions are under ownership of each individual making their contributions. Of course this is a case of permissive or copyleft license systems being applied on top of the wider framework of private intellectual property law. I’ll address that more in your next points.
But let’s go even more unrealistic. Let’s say for some weird reason that you are the only one who could afford a PC to work with, in a landscape where private property has been abolished. If we’re talking about a case where you’re a freelancer, no one else has a stake in your PC. Even if you’re using it as a “means of production”, it’s arguable the hardware should still be considered “personal property,” since it blurs a line between something you’re using for work-related activities as well as personal activities, in addition to the fact that no other workers have any kind of stake in it.
But then on the case of groups, then things start to change. As previously mentioned, no, you shouldn’t get exclusive rights to software you didn’t create yourself, as a start. As for the hardware - we already live in a landscape where there are regulatory hurdles you have to jump through in order to start a business. In a system with no private property, you would likely be expected to enter your PC and any other relevant hardware into some kind of property trust before you could even legally start to hire (or otherwise cooperate/collaborate with) other people. In that case, you have already voluntarily made the agreement that what was your PC is no longer just yours anymore. In such a case you would still have a partial ownership of your PC, but every other member of your team - likely under the umbrella of the organization that you would have had to have founded - would also have equal ownership.
And in this highly highly specific case, in which you were either too poor or too negligent as a founder to bother getting a real office to run your organization out of; if people are coming into your house and taking “your” PC, it implies that it’s YOU who has criminally done something to break the social contract that YOU agreed to. In which case, every other stakeholder would be well within their rights to get the disputes settled in the courts of law that would exist in this hypothetical scenario.
Government, and thus, laws, aren’t supposed to be the moral guide. This is not a church.
So people should be allowed to steal, assault others, and kill? Please try to make less sense.
As much as I dislike proprietary software, it’s their right to do so.
It sounds like you’re operating with a complete misunderstanding of what free software is, and why it exists. FOSS is not just another kind of product. It’s not a brand, and it’s not a commodity. It is a fundamental rewiring of the social and legal relationships between people, within the digital landscape. The foundational premise of free software is that when someone provides software to you that does not respect your rights to use, study, copy, modify, and share that software, then what they are doing is establishing an unequal - and thus unjust - power relationship over you. You can see this in practice when an app uses drm to lock you out of features, as well as when companies embed surveillance into virtually all the software we use these days - inevitably becoming direct supporters of oppressive regimes.
So yes, proprietary software is inherently unjust, and it should be supplanted, and abolished.
Moreover, free software and free culture, in my view, is the premier blueprint alternative to private property in tangible form. You should read Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture, because it shows the history of the public domain - our original informational and cultural commons - how Disney built their empire on the foundation of that public domain, and then turned around to use lobbying to effectively kill it.
When you look at the full picture of how a commons often reciprocally allows wealth and abundance for many, and how ventures of private property inevitably drain, restrict, and ultimately kills that wealth and abundance for everyone except those few parasites, it starts to become clear that private property is, in fact, theft.
And it’s completely on users that we tolerate that, instead of voting with our money by donating to FOSS. But then again, if you compare how much money you can get from selling proprietary software and from donations on FOSS, it’s clear that FOSS isn’t doing great, cause they haven’t find a way to attract the same volume of money.
Your argument here is based on the loaded assumption of private property as something that’s default and justified, which I already pointed out is wrong. But to address your point about the profitabilty of FOSS, that’s just plain wrong. Sure, many choose to simply give free software away, and try relying on donations. That model only really works when a piece of software becomes widely depended on, critically so, and their struggles for funding gets enough public attention - like the case of GPG.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the only model. Everyone struggles for basic survival in our capitalistic hellscape, but that said, in the case of games for instance, ID used to have a decent model - separate engine and content, open-source the engine after some years. Continue selling the game anyway. Dwarf Fortress did something similar - they started life donation-based, then later built some quality of life improvements and sold the game on Steam - and made tens of millions.
Or the classic example, Red Hat. Their products are completely open-source. They sell it anyway. Some people opt for the free versions, and plenty of people still pay for the official ones - because the continuing support is worth it.
You’re also conflating monetary hoarding, with success of actual use. Sure, Microsoft is one of the richest companies in the world, but Linux is so ubiquitous on servers that it’s fair to say Linux runs the fucking internet. Windows might still dominate the desktop space (a position that is eroding now more than ever btw), and yet Linux’s ubiquity even goes so far as to power Android, which prevented Windows from ever dominating the mobile space (granted Android has problems of it’s own).
This needs to be situated in context too. The existing legal landscape loves private property. Its loves oligarchy. It wants to give every advantage to billionaires. And despite all of that, free software and free culture are probably two of the most successful and enduring lowkey anticapitalist movements in human history. They take private property law, and turn it against itself, creating a whole new commons that can’t be taken away. It is the Brazilian jiu-jitsu of anticapitalism. And it is the story of the Tortoise vs the Hare.
If you support FOSS, then you are already against private property - you just don’t realize it yet.
free software and free culture are probably two of the most successful and enduring lowkey anticapitalist movements in human history.
Because they aren’t lmao. Big tech predominanly runs linux on it’s servers. Big capital isn’t being damaged by FOSS, they profit out of it.
You’re also conflating monetary hoarding, with success of actual use.
Money = ability to develop more features. Linux is on servers. Linux barely fights the fight to be the gaming PC platform. FOSS completely loss mobile battle, whatever we have there looks more like survival than existence. Money would solve all these issues. Money FOSS didn’t attract.
Dwarf Fortress
Not open source. See, this doesn’t matter in games scenario. Being indie is already a huge plus, and people would buy your game just to support that (if it doesn’t suck). Because yes, working on your game nonstop 20 years is something that should be rewarded.
loaded assumption of private property as something that’s default and justified
Loaded assumption that I need to justify my private property.
when someone provides software to you that does not respect your rights to use, study, copy, modify, and share that software, then what they are doing is establishing an unequal - and thus unjust - power relationship over you
Which is unethical, but not illegal. Because nothing forces your to use that software.
Surveillance should be illegal, no questions here. User privacy should be sacred, and it should be written into constitutions.
So people should be allowed to steal, assault others, and kill? Please try to make less sense.
These are crimes. Immoral things are not crimes. Otherwise we end up in much worse society, like those who enforce moral guidelines of specific religions.
And in this highly highly specific case, in which you were either too poor or too negligent as a founder to bother getting a real office to run your organization out of
MY organization? I thought we are talking communism. OUR organization. And I can’t supply you with all the means of production, COMRADE. I’m not a WEALTHY CAPITALIST after all. So if you have your own PC and want a job, it’s now OUR PC. And if you don’t want a job, it means you are social parasite, and we probably better to take your PC anyway.
Even if you’re using it as a “means of production”, it’s arguable the hardware should still be considered “personal property,” since it blurs a line between something you’re using for work-related activities as well as personal activities, in addition to the fact that no other workers have any kind of stake in it.
My home server too? What about LLM server rack with tonnes of videocards? Who draws this line, and why anyone draws this line for the stuff I buy with my own money? Is that what you think freedom is?
But even in your new scenario, how is the outlandish idea of someone coming to your house to take your pc even in the realm of realistic possibility?
I’m from post-soviet country. I’ve seen this mentality in action.
which implies a single person, doing their own thing - a freelancer
A -> B, where A is false.
Why do I need to be freelancer? Maybe I’m a vigilant builder of the new society, who noticed a KULAK who owns his own PC, and I want to help him by donating his PC for the GREATER GOOD?
The means of production are the tools, machinery, factories, land, etc., required to make goods. In ye olden times artisans/tradesmen/farmers would own their own tools (i.e., means to produce goods). However, since the industrial revolution, the craftsman have been put out of business. They cannot compete with machine production. So this is where we need to make the distinction between personal and private property.
Personal property are things you own for your individual use. Your house, clothes, toothbrush, etc. Private property is means of production used to make a profit for the person who invested (i.e., capitalist). Communism seeks to put the workers in charge of the workforce (i.e., workplace democracy). It also aims to abolish class, private property, the need for money/wages, and ultimately the state itself.
what next, try nazism, because real nazism was never tried
This is a poor comparison. The communists want to erase hierarchies of class, race, gender, etc., whereas the Nazis wanted to reinforce them. Need I remind you that the communist killed millions of Nazis in WW2?
Communists killed millions without any wars.
PCs are needed to create lots of different goods. Where do we put them? The classification is vague.
Today, 4 billion people live on less than $10 a day. How many billions around the globe suffer and die unnecessarily in capitalist countries? Why are the deaths of communism seen as a failure of the system as a whole whereas the exploitation of the land, labor, and resources of billions is seen as merely a problem with regulation? Capitalism has shown that it does not respect the environment, human rights, or even human life.
Yes, there were abuses and missteps in communist countries. But we have to place this history within the context of an economic system that was resisted by the U.S. because it threatened profits. The diplomatic isolation, trade embargos, and political assassinations that socialist countries attempted to withstand necessitated a strong centralized government. Of course, this provides fertile ground for corruption and abuse, but the goal of communism is to eradicate the state entirely! Whereas the goal of capitalism is a never-ending increase of profit at the expense of everything else.
Today, 4 billion people live on less than $10 a day.
Yeah, I lived in Ukraine. You should also mention that $10 could buy you different stuff in different regions of this planet.
How many billions around the globe suffer and die unnecessarily in capitalist countries?
There is no intent to let people suffer and die. There are all the liberties for every human in capitalist country to do anything they want to in order to live a happy wealthy live. Not everyone end up being successful.
It should never be equated to state-driven genocide.
the goal of communism is to eradicate the state entirely
Bullshit. This is just state-driven propaganda, a new religion that replaces an old one, which, as we know, is opium of the people.
Nobody gives up power willingly. Especially absolute power the authoritarian communist countries provide.
There is no intent to let people suffer and die
The intention is to make profit, human life be damned. It doesn’t matter whether the oligarchy intend for us to suffer when all the increases in productivity are being systematically siphoned to the top of this pyramid scheme we call an economy. It doesn’t matter if they intend for people to die when they can’t afford life-saving medical procedures. It doesn’t matter whether they intend for literal slavery to still exist, in 20-fucking-25, in service of profits. It doesn’t matter if they intend for civilians to die when we go to war to “protect” strategic resources or when we bomb the Vietnamese to “save” the people from communism or when we install a tyrannical pro-capitalist dictator in South America. The suffering and deaths under capitalism are incalculable, so this appeal to intention is less than convincing.
There are all the liberties for every human in capitalist country to do anything they want to in order to live a happy wealthy live.
This “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” rhetoric clearly doesn’t work for people in capitalist developing countries. Arguably doesn’t work for the poor in rich countries either.
Nobody gives up power willingly. Especially absolute power the authoritarian communist countries provide.
Socialism is not synonymous with authoritarianism. Strong central governments were necessary to resist the U.S… And these governments also lifted their people out of poverty: education, housing, healthcare, transportation, and jobs for all. Hell, the USSR went from literal feudalism to competing in the space race. You don’t have to agree with every historical example of communism to appreciate a system designed to work for everyone.
Means of production already has a definition you could have looked up instead of making yourself look like a clown.
“In economics and political theory, “means of production” refers to the physical and non-human inputs used for producing goods and services. These include land, tools, machinery, and infrastructure.”
Also, while it’s bad when people accumulate means and tools of production in private property, there is nothing preventing individuals from owning the tools they need to produce. And one could even argue that a PC is not a tool for production, it’s more a tool like a toothbrush, and as far as I am aware no communist project worldwide socialized toothbrushes so far, correct me if I am wrong.
Finally, nazism has been tried, and one could argue that a similar form of fascist government is currently in place in the USA, so I am not really sure what you want to tell us here.
Is the free market that enables human freedoms in the room with us now?
Free market IS human freedom.
You sound like one of the Disco Elysium characters who sit on the edge of the screen and repeat slogans
Have you ever checked if the market was free?
The person who happily answers “yup” to the first two questions isn’t going to understand the meaning of “You’re a worker.”
“I don’t wanna lose these chains! They’re all that I have!”
The number of “capitalists” with a negative net worth and assets that generate little or no profit is astounding. They’re just going through a hard time, though. They’re going to be one of the few that makes it.
I’m here wondering what exactly does OP want because other systems tend to be more abusive towards workers and nowadays people screaming they don’t want any work but all the benefits just sounds like lazy gen-z bums who watched too many tiktoks about how communism is utopia
Capitalism in itself isn’t inherently bad. It gets bad when the government does not put enough regulations, anti-trust/monopolistic laws in place, lacks in social systems/wealth distribution/taxing the rich, etc… Plenty of capitalist countries who are doing just fine. US is a good example about how not to do capitalism if you care about the people.
I disagree capitalism requires a bottom class that has to suffer for it to function, that makes it an inherently bad system regardless of government intervention.
Can you explain me why? Like I said, if government does it’s job and wealth distribution works, then no one really needs to suffer
There has to be someone without to create the demand for capitalism to work, I totally support what you’re saying and in a perfect world those people wouldn’t suffer but there is still an imbalance of power between capitalists and workers and that tension means both sides have to be perpetually hyper vigilant in protecting their own interests against each other.
Mind you, I don’t think communism is a good system either; humanity should be considering new forms of governance given our technological advancements have solved a lot of problems that these systems initially intended to.
Anyway that’s my perspective, appreciate you asking for an elaboration hopefully it’s some food for thought even if you don’t agree with me.
There has to be someone without to create the demand for capitalism to work
I feel like that is generated naturally by pretty much everyone who has money, which is where wealth distribution plays a major role. Even if you work low paid job, there should be (ideally of course) tax cuts, reasonable minimal wage even if your job does not generate minimum wage value (and not too low), bunch of social programs, including free public transport, ectera ectera, essentially making everyone contribute to moving money around, instead of hoarding it or paying only for food/water.
there is still an imbalance of power between capitalists and workers and that tension means both sides have to be perpetually hyper vigilant in protecting their own interests against each other.
Understandable, but can you imagine a society without some form of class hierchy, especially when it’s clear some people are naturally intelligent, while others are saved by “water is slippery” sign? It sounds like a society without competition. I get what you’re saying, I just can’t imagine something better and I understand if what I just said sounds controversial.
But you have a truck. A truck! Don’t worry about driving for less than minimum wage as an owner-operator.
It’s funny how corporations rebranded workers into collaborators and entrepreneurs, and ironic how many idiots fell for that. “No, I’m not a worker, I’m a COLLABORATOR!!”
I’m a mercenary, thank you.
