4 ms·

Karl Marx said capitalists gain profit by expropriating the wealth a worker creates during surplus labor time. There is a conflict in the relation of productio

Karl Marx said capitalists gain profit by expropriating the wealth a worker creates during surplus labor time. There is a conflict in the relation of production between the worker creating the wealth and the heir seeking to expropriate it. Feudal pre-capitalist society did not need unemployment, but capitalist society does, if there is no reserve army of labor ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour ), the workers creating wealth have more leverage to keep more of the wealth they created. This is all happening because the rentier class is seeking to retain its rate of profit.

okr 3y ago
The times were never easier for the laptop class to get self employed and leaving the hamster wheel. (Besides,i noticed, that on HN, where a lot of people program machines to do the work for them, profiting from the productivity gains, have an affinity to quoting Marx. I do not know why that is.)
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  You're greatly overstating the pipeline in education, knowledge, attention, and effort that's required to get to that point. And to stay there. If it were easy there wouldn't be corporations.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    They never said it’s easy, just that it’s easier. That’s true.
- nebulousthree 3y ago
  (It's almost as if it's because they're able to differentiate between a machine and a human being.)
kriskrunch 3y ago
Capitalist societies did more to improve the lives of everyone on Earth than Marxism ever did or ever could. Have you walked the streets of Havana? I have. Talk about oppressive... And depressing.
- StillBored 3y ago
  Please, being under economic sanctions for longer than most people on this board have been alive has done more to damage Cuba than any kind of political/economic system could have ever managed. Especially given their main industry was tourism and agriculture. The rich Americans that poured dollars into Havana, were cut off along with the supply of manufactured goods, and being a resource poor island made it hard to build an industrial base. Compared with their more capitalist neighbors who aren't doing great either, might point you to reasons why a whole region, which includes a resource rich continent have been struggling for the past couple hundred years. I will start you off with the wikipedia page on banana republic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
  - kriskrunch 3y ago
    Please! :) The Castro regime made the decision to seize any land from anyone with 50 acres or more. What sort of outcome did Fidel, Che, and Cienfuegos expect? Well, they expected to build thriving trade economy with the Soviets... whoops! My point is Marxism/Socialism trades one form of oppression for another. Marxism fails to identify poor leadership as oppressive. Socialist systems are run by error prone leaders that crave power and fortune... They are the same people that run corporations under a different flag. Che was killed trying to overthrow another nation to put in Cuban friendly socialist leadership... How is that different from your banana example? At least in capitalism we can vote with our dollars. We can spend our money on things we believe in. Not with socialism. Good luck finding choice or innovation that the state doesn't support. It literally crushes innovation. Besides these arguments, what great things came from Marxism that we enjoy today?
    - StillBored 3y ago
mindslight 3y ago
That's an odd analysis. The reason there was no unemployment was because labor's bargaining power was very low. Similar to how if minimum wage and social safety nets were removed, unemployment would drop significantly. It's also a terrible idea to pin the responsibility on the current trend, rather than the many trillions of dollars printed over the past few decades (culminating in Covid), that were mostly handed to Wall Street and friends. That was an extreme concentration of wealth, pulled directly from the edges where people are stuck transacting/saving in dollars. The reason it's not glaringly apparent is that technlogical productivity improvements compensate for it. Interest rates existing again is better viewed as a correction from the past few decades of misallocation. I agree that the centralizers will gain on this part of the cycle, as they do with every change. But rather than condemn the current conditions (thus setting the stage for another cycle of looting), we should aim to hold them as they are and let the economy rebalance to favoring some saving rather than pure immediate consumption - especially in light of needing more environmental sustainability.
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  > if minimum wage and social safety nets were removed, unemployment would drop significantly. An unsupported assertion I'd suggest. However, I think we can definitely say that removing worker protections leads to worse life outcomes for the poorest - and perhaps the richest too if we factor in rising crime due to inequality (compare US and EU). It may also reduce the size of the economy, the few remaining rich people don't need to actually spend much in aggregate (there is only so much food, furniture, foreign holidays etc they can consume).
  - mindslight 3y ago
    I wasn't saying that as if it would be a good thing. Just that it would be closer to historical conditions where people were desperate to eat, and could be paid very little due to that desperation.
kneebonian 3y ago
Marx said a lot of things and almost all of them were wrong. Included in Marx's greatest hits are "The most capitalist countries will be the first to fall to communism" when in reality the only two major countries to fall to communism were theocratic monarchies that it would be a struggle to call capitalist. "After the dictatorship of the proletariat the organs of the state will naturally fade away." Yet everytime the proletariat gets into power it seems that the organs of the state only strengthen. "I shouldn't have to work other people should pay for me to continue to live." It turns out Karl never had a job, and spent most of his life mooching off of others, exactly as he accused the capitalists of doing. In fact everything Marx said that could be evaluated against reality turned out to be wrong, so why should I trust the rest of what he said?
- nebula8804 3y ago
  >"The most capitalist countries will be the first to fall to communism" when in reality the only two major countries to fall to communism were theocratic monarchies that it would be a struggle to call capitalist. Have you seen the trends the US is moving towards? [1]:https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/20/eat-the-rich-why-millennials-and-generation-z-have-turned-their-backs-on-capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/20/eat-the-ric... I think you are writing off this quote too early. Also, the US has gone though this cycle before. When things got near the breaking point the elites threw some crumbs to the rest(eg. Social Security, Medicare). >"After the dictatorship of the proletariat the organs of the state will naturally fade away." Yet everytime the proletariat gets into power it seems that the organs of the state only strengthen. We've never really hit this point in the west because of reasons said above. >"I shouldn't have to work other people should pay for me to continue to live." It turns out Karl never had a job, and spent most of his life mooching off of others, exactly as he accused the capitalists of doing. You could argue Automation is paying capitalists elites to continue to live. Just spread more of that wealth around.
- Convolutional 3y ago
  Lenin also said communism would be built in the West, not Russia. Circumstances allowed power to fall into the Bolsheviks hands and he decided to take it - to the surprise of Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev etc. The second point follows from the first.
prottog 3y ago
> the heir seeking to expropriate it Capital owners all inherited their capital, I take it? > Feudal pre-capitalist society did not need unemployment, but capitalist society does The high productivity of capitalist societies plus technological advances mean that people can be unemployed without starving to death. Feudal societies did not need unemployment because everyone was working to the bones. > the workers creating wealth have more leverage to keep more of the wealth they created I encourage everyone to negotiate as much of their share as they can. But if the underlying thesis was true and capitalists provided no value and workers all of the value, then the world's best companies would be worker cooperatives. I see no evidence that this is the case.
nebula8804 3y ago
Capitalists seem to be fighting a losing battle. Birth rates will not recover until possibly once Gen Alpha comes online. Thats ~20 years from now. And thats a big IF the elites convince millennials to bear kids en-mass(heard about people like Elon and neoliberals like Peter Zeihan pushing people to have kids?). Frankly I don't see it happening unless millenials really start getting some more stability. Seems like the new "kids" are actually dogs/cats. Who knows? Maybe the Millenials that are inheriting their parents houses/the ones who became successful in tech early will make up the shortfall for the rest of the generation. At the same time oldest millenials are turning ~40 now so if they haven't had kids time is running out. Clock is ticking.

okr 3y ago

The times were never easier for the laptop class to get self employed and leaving the hamster wheel. (Besides,i noticed, that on HN, where a lot of people program machines to do the work for them, profiting from the productivity gains, have an affinity to quoting Marx. I do not know why that is.)

red-iron-pine 3y ago
You're greatly overstating the pipeline in education, knowledge, attention, and effort that's required to get to that point. And to stay there. If it were easy there wouldn't be corporations.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  They never said it’s easy, just that it’s easier. That’s true.
nebulousthree 3y ago
(It's almost as if it's because they're able to differentiate between a machine and a human being.)

kriskrunch 3y ago

Capitalist societies did more to improve the lives of everyone on Earth than Marxism ever did or ever could. Have you walked the streets of Havana? I have. Talk about oppressive... And depressing.

StillBored 3y ago
Please, being under economic sanctions for longer than most people on this board have been alive has done more to damage Cuba than any kind of political/economic system could have ever managed. Especially given their main industry was tourism and agriculture. The rich Americans that poured dollars into Havana, were cut off along with the supply of manufactured goods, and being a resource poor island made it hard to build an industrial base. Compared with their more capitalist neighbors who aren't doing great either, might point you to reasons why a whole region, which includes a resource rich continent have been struggling for the past couple hundred years. I will start you off with the wikipedia page on banana republic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
- kriskrunch 3y ago
  Please! :) The Castro regime made the decision to seize any land from anyone with 50 acres or more. What sort of outcome did Fidel, Che, and Cienfuegos expect? Well, they expected to build thriving trade economy with the Soviets... whoops! My point is Marxism/Socialism trades one form of oppression for another. Marxism fails to identify poor leadership as oppressive. Socialist systems are run by error prone leaders that crave power and fortune... They are the same people that run corporations under a different flag. Che was killed trying to overthrow another nation to put in Cuban friendly socialist leadership... How is that different from your banana example? At least in capitalism we can vote with our dollars. We can spend our money on things we believe in. Not with socialism. Good luck finding choice or innovation that the state doesn't support. It literally crushes innovation. Besides these arguments, what great things came from Marxism that we enjoy today?
  - StillBored 3y ago

mindslight 3y ago

That's an odd analysis. The reason there was no unemployment was because labor's bargaining power was very low. Similar to how if minimum wage and social safety nets were removed, unemployment would drop significantly. It's also a terrible idea to pin the responsibility on the current trend, rather than the many trillions of dollars printed over the past few decades (culminating in Covid), that were mostly handed to Wall Street and friends. That was an extreme concentration of wealth, pulled directly from the edges where people are stuck transacting/saving in dollars. The reason it's not glaringly apparent is that technlogical productivity improvements compensate for it. Interest rates existing again is better viewed as a correction from the past few decades of misallocation. I agree that the centralizers will gain on this part of the cycle, as they do with every change. But rather than condemn the current conditions (thus setting the stage for another cycle of looting), we should aim to hold them as they are and let the economy rebalance to favoring some saving rather than pure immediate consumption - especially in light of needing more environmental sustainability.

somewhereoutth 3y ago
> if minimum wage and social safety nets were removed, unemployment would drop significantly. An unsupported assertion I'd suggest. However, I think we can definitely say that removing worker protections leads to worse life outcomes for the poorest - and perhaps the richest too if we factor in rising crime due to inequality (compare US and EU). It may also reduce the size of the economy, the few remaining rich people don't need to actually spend much in aggregate (there is only so much food, furniture, foreign holidays etc they can consume).
- mindslight 3y ago
  I wasn't saying that as if it would be a good thing. Just that it would be closer to historical conditions where people were desperate to eat, and could be paid very little due to that desperation.

kneebonian 3y ago

Marx said a lot of things and almost all of them were wrong. Included in Marx's greatest hits are "The most capitalist countries will be the first to fall to communism" when in reality the only two major countries to fall to communism were theocratic monarchies that it would be a struggle to call capitalist. "After the dictatorship of the proletariat the organs of the state will naturally fade away." Yet everytime the proletariat gets into power it seems that the organs of the state only strengthen. "I shouldn't have to work other people should pay for me to continue to live." It turns out Karl never had a job, and spent most of his life mooching off of others, exactly as he accused the capitalists of doing. In fact everything Marx said that could be evaluated against reality turned out to be wrong, so why should I trust the rest of what he said?

nebula8804 3y ago
>"The most capitalist countries will be the first to fall to communism" when in reality the only two major countries to fall to communism were theocratic monarchies that it would be a struggle to call capitalist. Have you seen the trends the US is moving towards? [1]:https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/20/eat-the-rich-why-millennials-and-generation-z-have-turned-their-backs-on-capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/20/eat-the-ric... I think you are writing off this quote too early. Also, the US has gone though this cycle before. When things got near the breaking point the elites threw some crumbs to the rest(eg. Social Security, Medicare). >"After the dictatorship of the proletariat the organs of the state will naturally fade away." Yet everytime the proletariat gets into power it seems that the organs of the state only strengthen. We've never really hit this point in the west because of reasons said above. >"I shouldn't have to work other people should pay for me to continue to live." It turns out Karl never had a job, and spent most of his life mooching off of others, exactly as he accused the capitalists of doing. You could argue Automation is paying capitalists elites to continue to live. Just spread more of that wealth around.
Convolutional 3y ago
Lenin also said communism would be built in the West, not Russia. Circumstances allowed power to fall into the Bolsheviks hands and he decided to take it - to the surprise of Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev etc. The second point follows from the first.

prottog 3y ago

> the heir seeking to expropriate it Capital owners all inherited their capital, I take it? > Feudal pre-capitalist society did not need unemployment, but capitalist society does The high productivity of capitalist societies plus technological advances mean that people can be unemployed without starving to death. Feudal societies did not need unemployment because everyone was working to the bones. > the workers creating wealth have more leverage to keep more of the wealth they created I encourage everyone to negotiate as much of their share as they can. But if the underlying thesis was true and capitalists provided no value and workers all of the value, then the world's best companies would be worker cooperatives. I see no evidence that this is the case.

nebula8804 3y ago

Capitalists seem to be fighting a losing battle. Birth rates will not recover until possibly once Gen Alpha comes online. Thats ~20 years from now. And thats a big IF the elites convince millennials to bear kids en-mass(heard about people like Elon and neoliberals like Peter Zeihan pushing people to have kids?). Frankly I don't see it happening unless millenials really start getting some more stability. Seems like the new "kids" are actually dogs/cats. Who knows? Maybe the Millenials that are inheriting their parents houses/the ones who became successful in tech early will make up the shortfall for the rest of the generation. At the same time oldest millenials are turning ~40 now so if they haven't had kids time is running out. Clock is ticking.