- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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What the capitalists did was pay all the workers right after they did the work, even though the phones wouldn’t actually be sold for some time after that. Capitalists bring capital. Money. It takes money to get things started.
I completely agree that the rewards are all disproportionate. The people who put up the capital shouldn’t get all the rewards. But it’s just dumb to claim that they play no role at all. If that’s true, walk out of your house and make a phone you designed yourself out of sticks you find on the ground.
The only thing you can remove from the process and still get the same result is capital…
And while I get that capital does “play a role”, at least insofar as incentive predicated on people’s ability to function in the capitalistic society we currently inhabit goes, to imply that somehow without it people would be left to trying to “design a phone out of sticks on the ground” is extremely disingenuous.
The only thing you can remove from the process and still get the same result is capital…
People want to be paid for their labor, and with no capital you aren’t paying them. You just fell flat on your first purchase order for the first component.
Money is made up. The only reason people have to be paid for their work is because the capitalist system requires it for those workers to survive. All the capitalist system does is put the allocation of resources in the hands of a minority of powerful people. It happened under kings before that. There’s nothing special about capitalism. It only changes the concentration of power from lineage to who exploits the capitalist system best. It could just as easily happen under a socialized system that actually benefited workers in far more equitable ways. It sadly gets quashed by the greedy monsters of this world with manipulation and violence.
The only reason people have to be paid for their work is because the capitalist system requires it
Naw, people like being paid for their work.
Having food is nice, having a home is nice, having a car is nice, having a vacation is nice.
People like being paid for their work.
Capitalists giving you those privileges only exists in a capitalist system. Do you think people in communist systems or centralized state systems didn’t get to eat, or have homes, or travel? Just because capitalism is the way we are allocating resources and privileges in a lot of countries today, doesn’t mean it’s the only way these things can be distributed to people. People act capitalism isn’t only a 300 year old economic system.
I have made things with my hands for which I was not paid. I even gathered the materials. I am bad at capitalism.
You:
People want to be paid for their labor
Me:
capital does “play a role”, at least insofar as incentive predicated on people’s ability to function in the capitalistic society we currently inhabit goes
How awkward, you must have missed me making that exact point…
So sure, people want to be paid. But let’s be clear: they don’t inherently want money, they want to survive, create, and ideally thrive in the society they inhabit. Capital is just the tool we happen to use right now, it’s not essential to the concept of creation.
People created long before money existed, and they still create today without a paycheck attached. Remove capital from the picture, and as long as the work has value to those involved, it still gets made.
The real kicker? Capital often corrupts the process, pushing people to maximize profit instead of maximizing quality or true value.
So sure, people want to be paid. But let’s be clear: they don’t inherently want money
Except the rich, right? But they are a different species, of course. Not at all the same human beings you see when you look at the noble proletarian!
All people want nice things while not having to work or think hard. All people are pretty okay having others do the work for them. This is not a unique feature of the rich which will vanish from humanity if we wave a magic wand and vaporize the upper class.
That’s quite a leap. The wealthy aren’t some separate species with different desires, they want the same fundamental things as everyone else. I never implied anything about “the rich”, and regardless my point isn’t about them. It’s that capital itself is non-essential.
Yes, there’s a bigger discussion to be had about human nature, whether people create out of an inherent drive or simply to secure comfort, and how different incentive systems shape that. But none of those discussions lead to the conclusion that a capital-based economy is the only system in which people would create.
I was being ironic. The rich definitely aren’t a different species. They are just another window on human nature.
We can abstract money until it’s meaningless and then say “see, it doesn’t do anything.”
But even if you regress everything to a basic barter economy, capital still matters. You want to gather 40 workers for a year to create an irrigation canal? Well someone has to be prepared to feed them for a year, THIS year, before the canal can benefit any crops. Otherwise they’re going to fuck off back to their own arid fields and scratch out another year.
So you see, the village can’t get a new canal without the labor of the workers, but you can’t get the labor of the workers without some ready capital. Theres absolutely nothing abstract about it. Capital matters.
What we all get mad about is that the guy with the capital then OWNs the canal and charges high prices for the water. And the way to solve that is by collectively bargaining for some worker ownership at the start. People like yourself get lost hating the guy with the capital and convincing yourself he doesn’t matter. He does. You just need to negotiate for a better shake.
That has been hard to do historically because there’s always some jackass who comes along and says “I’m starving, and I can dig ditches, just feed me while I do it.”
If a village needed something done, then they could figure it out collectively, you don’t need business to get things accomplished.
I can’t tell if you’re trolling, arguing in bad faith, or just not reading carefully.
I never said I “hate the guy with the capital,” nor did I claim money “doesn’t do anything.” Its role in organizing labor and distributing resources is obvious.
What I said is that money isn’t essential. In your canal example, what’s actually required are laborers, food, and tools. Incentives can be monetary, collective need, shared access to resources, the sheer fun of it, or even coercion (though that last one is obviously undesirable).
The point stands: a canal, or a phone, can be built through many incentive systems that don’t rely on capital. What other element can be removed before the outcome is no longer the same?
p.s. You were not being ironic. You were being hyperbolic.
So sure, people want to be paid. But let’s be clear: they don’t inherently want money, they want to survive, create, and ideally thrive in the society they inhabit. Capital is just the tool we happen to use right now, it’s not essential to the concept of creation.
Money existed long before modern systems, too. Bartering an exchange of goods for other goods sucks ass. It was almost immediately swapped out for some form of money in basically every society in history. (And to be clear, ‘money’ doesn’t just mean a coin or bill, it was often a standard, easy to exchange good the society agreed upon, such as a grain or a precious metal.)
they don’t inherently want money
Let me ask you, if you work for a company that makes washers (the things one pairs with bolts), and your employer offered to pay you every paycheck completely in washers, would you find that acceptable? Or would you demand something easier to work with, would you demand your services be rewarded with money instead?
they don’t inherently want money
I bet you don’t get paid in fucking washers, you demand payment in money.
I’m not saying that capital, as a universal equivalent or barter substitute, is inherently a bad solution to the problem of trade. What I am saying is that capital is not inherently essential. It’s an imagined system, useful yes, but replaceable in countless ways.
Think about it: Sure, I wouldn’t want more washers than I have use for, but I don’t inherently want money either. What I want are the things money represents. If money disappeared tomorrow and some other proxy system took its place, I’d want that instead.
And when it comes to creation, say building a phone for example, money contributes nothing to the actual process. You need materials, knowledge, labor, and coordination. The only truly non-essential element is money. It’s as you said, simply a replacement for bartering.
If you disagree with my actual point, I’d love to hear the argument. But I can’t keep arguing with your point that we “need the Matrix in order to live in the Matrix”, or “money in order to live in capitalism”.
If that ‘proxy system’ was a measure of value you could easily exchange for goods and services, it would also be money. People invent money in every society because it just makes sense. Even in societies where they try to abolish money, money is instantly re-invented using some other measure because it is so damn useful for trade.
Sure, but like I alread said, money isn’t inherently bad. It has served as a practical answer to the inefficiencies of pure barter. It streamlined exchange, reduced friction, and in many cases distributed power more evenly than a sprawling barter web ever could. In that sense, money was a clever and fair solution for its time.
But whether or not money has created new problems, whether it’s outlived its usefulness, or whether a better system would come from reform or replacement, all of that is a separate debate. The central point remains: money is not essential to creation.
Building a phone requires knowledge, resources, labor, and coordination. Remove any of those and the phone can’t exist. Remove money, and the process still goes on, it may look different in how people access or exchange those inputs, but the act of creation itself doesn’t depend on capital. That’s the key distinction: the difference between a finished phone and someone tinkering with sticks isn’t money, it’s the tangible elements of production.
So the workers will work unpaid?
Some of y’all have never run a small business, and it shows.
Oh, hello again, mind keeping your responses to my comments under one thread? It’s inconvenient to jump around like this.
So the workers will work unpaid?
Obviously, in a capitalist system, a worker without the means to cover their needs won’t work without pay. But that only shows that pay is a mechanism of this system, not the goal itself. If another economic structure were in place, people would act according to the incentives and access points that system provided to meet their needs and wants.
We can already see this in practice today: retirees, hobbyists, and people with spare time often volunteer, create, or collaborate in groups for reasons that have nothing to do with money. Their motivation comes from purpose, community, or fulfillment. Proof that creation does not require capital to exist, only a framework that connects effort with meeting human needs.
Where did that capital come from?
The same place the fed and skilled laborers came from: the proceeds of previous enterprises.
Capitalist funded the creation of the iPhone and withdrawal rent on their funding.
There are many ways to fund the process.
Capitalists like capitalism because they get to extract more than they funded with no upper bound.
They leech off of the value of the workers who created the product because they think funding the arrangment entitles them to infinite returns on their investment.
It’s rent seeking with more steps and no overhead. There is zero upkeep because the input is the output, capital.
If capital was additive then adding twice as much capital would result in twice as much output and that is clearly not the case.
It’s a valve and it is like a damn operator taking credit for the river.
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Purchase of the device is Capitalism, because your money IS your vote, and YOU are the Capital of Capitalism!
Capitalism describes the division of labour and profits, not the purchasing of goods. YOU are not theCapital in capitalism unless you are working for the profits of the owner. The root word of Capitalism is Caput, meaning head or cattle. Capitalism’s root definition is basically the ownership of cattle or chattel.
In a planned economy, there are beepers and payphones. No one builds the most expensive commercial endeavor in all of human history – advanced silicon fab nodes
According to? The Soviets made it to space before we did, and China currently fabricates the vast majority of that technology. Technology isn’t native to any economic structure.
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Semantics do not create meaning, they describe it, poorly in most cases as vernacular evolves.
Claiming something is a semantic dispute by rote when being corrected is different than engaging in a reasonable semantic dispute.
Words do have meaning, and vernacular hasn’t changed enough to completely alter the meaning of an entire economic system…
Most of the people that worked for William Shockley have been interviewed and recorded, along with their protégés. Bo Lojek of Motorola also wrote History of Semiconductor Engineering (Springer).
Are you claiming that certain technologies can only be developed under capitalism? Or that semiconductor engineering would have never surpassed a certain stage without a particular economic system? What does any of that have to do with the division of labour and profits?
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do not care to argue with you like this. I come here to hang out with digital neighbors, not to have some angry debate.
I don’t think we’re engaging in an angry argument? At least, I’m not upset. I think I’m just rebutting some of your claims and asking for clarification?
I get nothing out of this, and for a disabled guy in social isolation, these have a disproportionate negative impact. On my original LW account I just blocked everyone that argues or down votes as such toxic negativity is unwelcome, unnecessary, and mildly harmful to everyone.
So anyone who disagrees with you is being negative or harmful? I don’t really see how being disabled gives you the right to make inarguable inflammatory claims in a public forum.
The trials of physical disability may include a much reduced margin for adversarial encounters and contention. It is a subtle prejudice that is impossible to avoid.
You may want to talk to someone about that, but In my experience any prejudice you are self aware of are prejudices that can be avoided.
Have a great day.
You too.
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creation of a surplus of devices, through exploitation, for the purposes of profit is capitalism.
just buying stuff is just markets. barters and lemonade stands are not capitalist.
Where can I find this arbitrary definition of capitalism? Because barters and lemonade in a free market stands still sounds like capitalism to me, just on a smaller scale. Just because it seems more sympathetic doesn’t mean it’s not the same thing.
Im not saying that what you describe in your first paragraph isn’t bad, but words have meaning. If you intend to spread your thoughts on them, you’d do well to go beyond “capitalism bad mkay” because it makes people take your thoughts less seriously. So you end up preaching to the choir who’s already on your side and we’ve learned from reddit, Twitter and Fox that echo chambers are bad.
from wikipedia, for instance, with my highlights:
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
All of which can still be present for your hypothetical lemonade stand.
Careful with that rhetorical question or they’ll bring out a bunch of nutjobs books and ask you to read through untested and unrealistic theory from the past hundred years and then call you unintellectual for choosing the dictionary and textbook definitions over their pseudoscience.
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Humans did invent lemons to enjoy them, though. It was a very large and organized undertaking which led to commercial success for Egypt.
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and during a time … before capitalism. ;)
TBH Egypt was everything Communists claim about Capitalism. Idk why you would think otherwise.
Why would anyone build beepers if there are no mobile phones? That’s an entire wireless infrastructure that doesn’t need to be created or maintained. Beepers were the impetus for early wireless repeaters and signal towers. Phones created the data and load bearing standards but the hardware was built for the devices before phones.
In a planned economy the onus is on the person to be where they need to make or receive a call. Like the 70s and rotary phones. “Plan your day around what the day has planned for you” is what one of the most annoying teachers I’ve ever had said and it’s the perfect model for blaming the individual for problems outside their control. And that’s why central planners will use it to deflect from criticism.
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Absolutely nothing requires the only two options to be capitalisim and planned economy. Market socialism is a thing.
Idk kind of sounds like capitalism with extra steps. Seems like the major difference between people who oppose capitalism and everyone else is just how they define the word.
What exactly does the meme imply the solution is? State operated companies? Only allowing cooperative companies? Lynching CEOs and hoping the next batch will be better, AKA “doing a luigi”?
The reason it isn’t capitalism with extra steps is that the defining trait of capitalism vs socialism isn’t the presence of markets (which long predate capitalism as a distinct concept), but rather who owns what and how that ownership is justified and structured. Now, arguably market socialism is more similar to capitalism than a planned economy is, but capitalism doesn’t just mean an unplanned economy either (as those, again, are much more ancient than the term implies).
I don’t think the meme implies any particular solution. To be honest, it doesn’t really even imply a problem to be solved. To my eyes it just looks like it’s just mocking a particular argument used to defend capitalism, without really communicating much beyond a distaste for that argument and presumably with capitalism in general.
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I always blame Edward Bernays for a lot of things we have today.
Because he was responsible for taking his uncle’s insights and weaponizing them for profit and power?
I think you could make the argument that Communist Nations maintain the sweathshops responsible for creating the components of iPhones. Also for the profits.
Calling China’s economic system “communist” is a big stretch.
And you would be the fourth person here to point that out.
The comment only has one other reply that I can see, and that one takes issue with something else.
Me, Flandish, User Communism, and you have all made the point that non-capitalist nations currently don’t exist.
there is no such thing, nor can there be, as a communist nation.
Then there are no communist nations, nor in contrast does the phrase “capitalist nation” have any meaning.
I think its okay to talk about Capitalism’s flaws and want to fix it, but to completely oppose the only system of production and distribution to exist outside of Autocracy is not helping.
why does there not being any actual communist nations (by the very definition) mean to you there is no capitalist nation? we are in one right now.
If it’s the only kind of nation then it’s a distinction without purpose.
Capitalism is a historical development from feudalism, so you don’t need communism as a point of comparison/contrast for capitalist nation to exist.
Also, the “communist” countries are, strictly speaking, capitalist if you look at their mode of production and mode of distribution. Stuff is made largely for profit, there’s private ownership, markets, things are distributed via money. As a wise man once said, name doesn’t make a thing.
