4 ms·

Its almost as if capitalism was made to extract as much surplus value from the worker to the capitalist as possible! (shareholder I mean I forgot its the 21th c

by o_p 7y ago

Its almost as if capitalism was made to extract as much surplus value from the worker to the capitalist as possible! (shareholder I mean I forgot its the 21th century)

chrisco255 7y ago
It's almost as if most Americans depend on 401Ks for their retirement and therefore are the shareholders you decry.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  (my opinion of course) but that’s a shame to attach something like retirement benefits to an unstable crash-prone system
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    It's not a shame, the stock market averages 8-10% returns a year. It's a huge source of wealth for people. And people also get social security at 65.
- cmmeur01 7y ago
  March 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 44% of private industry workers participate in a 401k. So no, most Americans do not have a 401k and seeing as that would be one of the easiest / most common ways to access the stock market, therefore have no shareholdings.
  - refurb 7y ago
    Add in pensions as well. Where do you think CalPers invests their money? Under their mattress?
- o_p 7y ago
  Oh, so the shareholders of the companies are the people itself? That sounds very communist :-) But thats not true, retirement funds own only around the 37% (according to [1]), considering thats millons of americans, the pie is clearly awfully cut. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/who-actually-owns-the-stock-market-2016-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-actually-owns-the-stock-...
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    According to your link, the share of retirement plans has increased dramatically over the past century and it looks like around 35% are attributed to foreigners, which is not a shock, as globalization has increased and even many other nations invest retirement funds in U.S. stock market. Over 54% of Americans own stock. https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-among-older-higher-income.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-amo...
jacques_chester 7y ago
Summarising just a smidge, Marx's theory described a system in which the difference between the labour value of a good and the price at which a worker can sell the labour power required to make the good accrues to the capitalist -- ie the person controlling the non-labour means of production. Putting aside the labour value of theory (it has some minor problems, like being wrong), you'll note that Marx was talking mostly about actual factors of production. Labour is one of these, the other traditionally-named factors are land and capital (ie, factories, machines etc). But most of the increase in the wealth of the wealthiest of the past 20 years has occurred almost entirely in the sharemarket, in which prices have run far ahead of net profits. Shares aren't, in themselves, factors of production. It might be argued that the extraction of surplus value is represented by the share price, except that the share price is set by shareholders or would-be shareholders trading with each other. It's hard to see the link as clearly as it existed back when "capitalist" meant "a man who owns the factory".
- cutler 7y ago
  Shares are a factor in production albeit indirectly. Stock markets were alive and well during the era described in Marx's works so his theories are still valid. Capital is more than just raw machinery and factories. Money and shares are abstract capital. If shares aren't a factor in production why does a company usually go bust when its share price crashes? What about the Great Depression? Share prices and speculation played a massive role in the 1930s crash. Marx spent most of Das Kapital differentiating market value and essential value and so it is with shares. A company has an essential value and a market-traded value. How closely these correspond varies. When the two diverge we have a bubble like the one around 2000.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    > If shares aren't a factor in production why does a company usually go bust when its share price crashes? You have causality backwards. > What about the Great Depression? Marx didn't predict it. He predicted a very different phenomenon based on the long rate returns to capital leading to periodic crises, which would end in a revolution and after that he gets a little bit vague. The Great Depression was an asset bubble that burst with no fiscal or monetary mechanisms available to cushion its effects. It was the most spectacular in a long line of crises exactly like it. > Marx spent most of Das Kapital differentiating market value and essential value and so it is with shares. Marx made the same error you're making; which is believing that there is a "true" or "essential" value for anything. His economics was based on the economics of the time, which had not yet solved the diamond-water paradox with the subjective theory of value.

by o_p 7y ago

Its almost as if capitalism was made to extract as much surplus value from the worker to the capitalist as possible! (shareholder I mean I forgot its the 21th century)

chrisco255 7y ago

It's almost as if most Americans depend on 401Ks for their retirement and therefore are the shareholders you decry.

andrekandre 7y ago
(my opinion of course) but that’s a shame to attach something like retirement benefits to an unstable crash-prone system
- chrisco255 7y ago
  It's not a shame, the stock market averages 8-10% returns a year. It's a huge source of wealth for people. And people also get social security at 65.
cmmeur01 7y ago
March 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 44% of private industry workers participate in a 401k. So no, most Americans do not have a 401k and seeing as that would be one of the easiest / most common ways to access the stock market, therefore have no shareholdings.
- refurb 7y ago
  Add in pensions as well. Where do you think CalPers invests their money? Under their mattress?
o_p 7y ago
Oh, so the shareholders of the companies are the people itself? That sounds very communist :-) But thats not true, retirement funds own only around the 37% (according to [1]), considering thats millons of americans, the pie is clearly awfully cut. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/who-actually-owns-the-stock-market-2016-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-actually-owns-the-stock-...
- chrisco255 7y ago
  According to your link, the share of retirement plans has increased dramatically over the past century and it looks like around 35% are attributed to foreigners, which is not a shock, as globalization has increased and even many other nations invest retirement funds in U.S. stock market. Over 54% of Americans own stock. https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-among-older-higher-income.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/211052/stock-ownership-down-amo...

jacques_chester 7y ago

Summarising just a smidge, Marx's theory described a system in which the difference between the labour value of a good and the price at which a worker can sell the labour power required to make the good accrues to the capitalist -- ie the person controlling the non-labour means of production. Putting aside the labour value of theory (it has some minor problems, like being wrong), you'll note that Marx was talking mostly about actual factors of production. Labour is one of these, the other traditionally-named factors are land and capital (ie, factories, machines etc). But most of the increase in the wealth of the wealthiest of the past 20 years has occurred almost entirely in the sharemarket, in which prices have run far ahead of net profits. Shares aren't, in themselves, factors of production. It might be argued that the extraction of surplus value is represented by the share price, except that the share price is set by shareholders or would-be shareholders trading with each other. It's hard to see the link as clearly as it existed back when "capitalist" meant "a man who owns the factory".

cutler 7y ago
Shares are a factor in production albeit indirectly. Stock markets were alive and well during the era described in Marx's works so his theories are still valid. Capital is more than just raw machinery and factories. Money and shares are abstract capital. If shares aren't a factor in production why does a company usually go bust when its share price crashes? What about the Great Depression? Share prices and speculation played a massive role in the 1930s crash. Marx spent most of Das Kapital differentiating market value and essential value and so it is with shares. A company has an essential value and a market-traded value. How closely these correspond varies. When the two diverge we have a bubble like the one around 2000.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  > If shares aren't a factor in production why does a company usually go bust when its share price crashes? You have causality backwards. > What about the Great Depression? Marx didn't predict it. He predicted a very different phenomenon based on the long rate returns to capital leading to periodic crises, which would end in a revolution and after that he gets a little bit vague. The Great Depression was an asset bubble that burst with no fiscal or monetary mechanisms available to cushion its effects. It was the most spectacular in a long line of crises exactly like it. > Marx spent most of Das Kapital differentiating market value and essential value and so it is with shares. Marx made the same error you're making; which is believing that there is a "true" or "essential" value for anything. His economics was based on the economics of the time, which had not yet solved the diamond-water paradox with the subjective theory of value.