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Unfair in the sense that the buyer pays more than the cost of goods sold, but trade often increases utility for both parties anyway. People happily pay $1,000/y

Unfair in the sense that the buyer pays more than the cost of goods sold, but trade often increases utility for both parties anyway. People happily pay $1,000/year for homeowners insurance even though the expected losses and expenses are only $970 or whatever, because they don’t want to be on the hook for a new home if theirs burns down, and they’re generally better off for doing so. And they may buy it from for-profit insurers, even though those for-profit insurers are in direct competition with mutuals (basically co-ops) and there’s full price transparency, because despite the capitalist making an expected profit of $30 or whatever the stock insurer provides a better price or service. There’s absolutely no requirement that a capitalist (either the same one that stands to profit or a different one) control the flow of information in order to profit, lots of (probably most) capital funds the production of highly competitive and price-transparent goods, and all public stock companies disclose their expenses publicly. Even Google and Facebook provide clear prices to their customers, the issue with surveillance companies in particular is that their users aren’t the customers, but that’s totally orthogonal to the conflict you’re describing.

bsenftner 5y ago
I am talking about the relationship between the employer and the employee. That is the unfair relationship which Capitalism is dependent and is imperative they control the information of their participants.
- tfehring 5y ago
  I'm not sure that unequal relationship between employer and employee is a feature of capitalism per se - even in a market socialist system in which labor receives all that it produces, any individual worker depends on their employer more heavily than their employer depends on them, so you still have an imbalance of power. I also don't think it's really relevant here, since Google and Facebook employees are about the least coerced labor there is, considering that virtually all of them could another job earning an order of magnitude more than the minimal living wage in their area at the drop of a hat.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I'm not sure that unequal relationship between employer and employee is a feature of capitalism per se It is. It is also a feature, to a greater or lesser extent, of many systems that are downstream descendants of capitalism and haven’t replaced the elements that produce that feature. It is also a feature of the upstream immediate predecessor of capitalism (feudalism, in which control of the means of production is unified with land ownership and typically executive, and often judicial and legislative, power over those on it) in an even starker form. > even in a market socialist system “even”? Market socialism is a very close relative and (conceptually) descendant of capitalism, not some distant and opposed system. > in which labor receives all that it produces, any individual worker depends on their employer more heavily than their employer depends on them, so you still have an imbalance of power. In market socialism, the employer is an agent of the employees, who (in many versions) each individually hold guaranteed rights with respect to it much the same as citizens of a liberal democratic regime do against the State. Both the universal elimination of the employer fundamentally serving an interest outside of its employees and also the common (but not universal, “market socialism” is a broad category with lots of variations) guarantees of individual rights to employees exist specifically to mitigate the adverse effects of the employer/employee power balance that it retains from capitalism.

bsenftner 5y ago

I am talking about the relationship between the employer and the employee. That is the unfair relationship which Capitalism is dependent and is imperative they control the information of their participants.

tfehring 5y ago
I'm not sure that unequal relationship between employer and employee is a feature of capitalism per se - even in a market socialist system in which labor receives all that it produces, any individual worker depends on their employer more heavily than their employer depends on them, so you still have an imbalance of power. I also don't think it's really relevant here, since Google and Facebook employees are about the least coerced labor there is, considering that virtually all of them could another job earning an order of magnitude more than the minimal living wage in their area at the drop of a hat.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I'm not sure that unequal relationship between employer and employee is a feature of capitalism per se It is. It is also a feature, to a greater or lesser extent, of many systems that are downstream descendants of capitalism and haven’t replaced the elements that produce that feature. It is also a feature of the upstream immediate predecessor of capitalism (feudalism, in which control of the means of production is unified with land ownership and typically executive, and often judicial and legislative, power over those on it) in an even starker form. > even in a market socialist system “even”? Market socialism is a very close relative and (conceptually) descendant of capitalism, not some distant and opposed system. > in which labor receives all that it produces, any individual worker depends on their employer more heavily than their employer depends on them, so you still have an imbalance of power. In market socialism, the employer is an agent of the employees, who (in many versions) each individually hold guaranteed rights with respect to it much the same as citizens of a liberal democratic regime do against the State. Both the universal elimination of the employer fundamentally serving an interest outside of its employees and also the common (but not universal, “market socialism” is a broad category with lots of variations) guarantees of individual rights to employees exist specifically to mitigate the adverse effects of the employer/employee power balance that it retains from capitalism.