4 ms·

Thing is that people like Musk and Bezos derive their opulence from exploitation of people who have to sell labour to live. The fortune Bezos amassed is created

Thing is that people like Musk and Bezos derive their opulence from exploitation of people who have to sell labour to live. The fortune Bezos amassed is created through labour of people his enterprise employs. People piss in bottles working in Amazon warehouses so that Bezos can eat better food, live in a better house, pay for elite education, and have access to better/more comprehensive medical care. The reason this is the case is because people like Bezos own the means of production and ensure that labour and resources are directed towards their benefit first and foremost. These people simply won the birth lottery and now they get to rule over the rest of the people because of that. If you don't see that as a problem then I really don't know what to tell you.

sokoloff 4y ago
That's why providing people with a baseline of government dormitories, government rice, cheese, and beans, government medical care, and government education is critical to prevent the worst of the possible exploitations. Once that baseline is guaranteed, it's a much cleaner argument that Joe freely decided to work in a job moving heavy things around because he valued having a more pleasurable existence, rather than saying it was because he didn't want to slowly starve to death. No one wants to wake up at 4 AM and farm the land, to clean other people's shit out of a septic tank, or to wipe an incontinent 90 year old's ass. But all of those things need to be done and if we look at the history various economic systems, it seems like there's a lot to be gained in societal wealth, comfort, and advancement from one particular flavor over the others that we've tried. Giving everyone a safety net I believe is good and prevents exploitation. Giving everyone a hammock I believe is bad and prevents societal advancement.
- yogthos 4y ago
  Sure, providing universal basic services is a good start. However, the bigger question is what basis is there for private ownership of the means of production. Seems to me that a much fairer system would be to have a mix of cooperative and state ownership. The state could own all the essential industry that's required to provide the basic services such as food, healthcare, education, housing, and so on. Meanwhile, any nice to have things could be produced by cooperatively owned companies that compete on the market. Cooperative ownership would ensure that the profits are fairly distributed amongst the workers avoiding the problem with wealth accumulation. This model has been shown to work very successfully at scale already. A couple of great examples to look at are Mondragon and Huwawei. These are huge companies that employ thousands of people and have excellent track record of profitability and resilience. https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/ https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/ https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/question-answer/who-owns-huawei https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/question-answer/who-owns-hua...
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Huawei is privately owned (by the workers). There’s nothing stopping anyone else from choosing that. The moment I start a company, I own 100% of it. There’s no reason that I can’t hire someone for $X and Y shares per year (provided they agree, of course), exactly as Huawei does. It is very likely that some people would prefer $X+n and 0 shares rather than $X and Y shares. (This is especially true if those shares are not publicly sellable.) Someone else might prefer $X-n and 2*Y shares per year. If that’s agreeable to the shareholders (me, in this example) and the employee, we’re free to strike that deal as well.
    - yogthos 4y ago
      Except there is because you need initial capital to start a business, and when capital is handed out by rich VCs who want a stake in a business then good luck getting that capital for a cooperative. A different model could be that the central bank acts as the investor, and businesses are required to run using a cooperative model. Again, the point here is to have fair wealth distribution as opposed to having wealth accumulation. Given that the initial wealth is largely a factor of luck, the current model hardly seems fair or moral.

sokoloff 4y ago

That's why providing people with a baseline of government dormitories, government rice, cheese, and beans, government medical care, and government education is critical to prevent the worst of the possible exploitations. Once that baseline is guaranteed, it's a much cleaner argument that Joe freely decided to work in a job moving heavy things around because he valued having a more pleasurable existence, rather than saying it was because he didn't want to slowly starve to death. No one wants to wake up at 4 AM and farm the land, to clean other people's shit out of a septic tank, or to wipe an incontinent 90 year old's ass. But all of those things need to be done and if we look at the history various economic systems, it seems like there's a lot to be gained in societal wealth, comfort, and advancement from one particular flavor over the others that we've tried. Giving everyone a safety net I believe is good and prevents exploitation. Giving everyone a hammock I believe is bad and prevents societal advancement.

yogthos 4y ago
Sure, providing universal basic services is a good start. However, the bigger question is what basis is there for private ownership of the means of production. Seems to me that a much fairer system would be to have a mix of cooperative and state ownership. The state could own all the essential industry that's required to provide the basic services such as food, healthcare, education, housing, and so on. Meanwhile, any nice to have things could be produced by cooperatively owned companies that compete on the market. Cooperative ownership would ensure that the profits are fairly distributed amongst the workers avoiding the problem with wealth accumulation. This model has been shown to work very successfully at scale already. A couple of great examples to look at are Mondragon and Huwawei. These are huge companies that employ thousands of people and have excellent track record of profitability and resilience. https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/ https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/ https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/question-answer/who-owns-huawei https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/question-answer/who-owns-hua...
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Huawei is privately owned (by the workers). There’s nothing stopping anyone else from choosing that. The moment I start a company, I own 100% of it. There’s no reason that I can’t hire someone for $X and Y shares per year (provided they agree, of course), exactly as Huawei does. It is very likely that some people would prefer $X+n and 0 shares rather than $X and Y shares. (This is especially true if those shares are not publicly sellable.) Someone else might prefer $X-n and 2*Y shares per year. If that’s agreeable to the shareholders (me, in this example) and the employee, we’re free to strike that deal as well.
  - yogthos 4y ago
    Except there is because you need initial capital to start a business, and when capital is handed out by rich VCs who want a stake in a business then good luck getting that capital for a cooperative. A different model could be that the central bank acts as the investor, and businesses are required to run using a cooperative model. Again, the point here is to have fair wealth distribution as opposed to having wealth accumulation. Given that the initial wealth is largely a factor of luck, the current model hardly seems fair or moral.