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The capital that most Americans "own" is managed by a very small class of capital managers at elite financial institutions. The point is, who controls the lever

The capital that most Americans "own" is managed by a very small class of capital managers at elite financial institutions. The point is, who controls the levers of power, and whose interest are they operating them in? The distinction you're making isn't much more than pedantry. It should be considered remarkable that Marx's observations need only minor adaptations after one hundred fifty fucking years.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Marx's observations need incredibly severe adaptations. By Marx's original standards, Uber drivers should be some of the least exploited workers in the world - they own the means of production!
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  Only if you ignore that the Uber app, its customer base, its billing system, and everything else attached to the Uber system is owned by... Uber and its investors. Are you saying because they (maybe barely, if at all) own the car, they are capitalists? Anyways, Marx isn't scripture. Just a dude with some interesting writing some of us find cogent still. Marx himself would have bristled at being treated as some sort of biblical style authority. Of course it needs adaptations. But maybe not the ones you are suggesting.
- danharaj 7y ago
  I know that you know this is a stupid point that can only be reached by reading Marx in the most obtuse way possible.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't know that. I'm aware that a lot of modern people do take Marxism to be a kind of vague position that wealth is bad and poor people are great, but I think they're wrong. What I've read of Marx makes it very clear that he's talking about the industrial labor class of his time, which really was terribly exploited in ways we've since eliminated.
    - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
      Wealth bad, poor good is certainly not the reading I have of Marx. If anything Marx was entranced by wealth and despaired its concentration and waste. How autocratic narcissitic tyrants like Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot made use of some of his words is another story entirely. I also think the definition of "industrial labour class" has changed significantly. The analysis still applies. In the Anglo-American world we get caught up with Marx's use of the word "class"; because to us it has the connotations of social class; aristocracy, gentry, etc. But Marx had a very specific technical economic meaning, and it had to do with proximity to economic power and control. I don't think that's substantially changed, though it has become more subtle. In large part because of the post-WWII settlement between labour and capital in the west that created the 'middle class', which was really just a prosperous section of the working class. That segment of society is shrinking though.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Marx's observations need incredibly severe adaptations. By Marx's original standards, Uber drivers should be some of the least exploited workers in the world - they own the means of production!

cmrdporcupine 7y ago
Only if you ignore that the Uber app, its customer base, its billing system, and everything else attached to the Uber system is owned by... Uber and its investors. Are you saying because they (maybe barely, if at all) own the car, they are capitalists? Anyways, Marx isn't scripture. Just a dude with some interesting writing some of us find cogent still. Marx himself would have bristled at being treated as some sort of biblical style authority. Of course it needs adaptations. But maybe not the ones you are suggesting.
danharaj 7y ago
I know that you know this is a stupid point that can only be reached by reading Marx in the most obtuse way possible.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I don't know that. I'm aware that a lot of modern people do take Marxism to be a kind of vague position that wealth is bad and poor people are great, but I think they're wrong. What I've read of Marx makes it very clear that he's talking about the industrial labor class of his time, which really was terribly exploited in ways we've since eliminated.
  - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    Wealth bad, poor good is certainly not the reading I have of Marx. If anything Marx was entranced by wealth and despaired its concentration and waste. How autocratic narcissitic tyrants like Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot made use of some of his words is another story entirely. I also think the definition of "industrial labour class" has changed significantly. The analysis still applies. In the Anglo-American world we get caught up with Marx's use of the word "class"; because to us it has the connotations of social class; aristocracy, gentry, etc. But Marx had a very specific technical economic meaning, and it had to do with proximity to economic power and control. I don't think that's substantially changed, though it has become more subtle. In large part because of the post-WWII settlement between labour and capital in the west that created the 'middle class', which was really just a prosperous section of the working class. That segment of society is shrinking though.