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> Says who? The only "requirement of capitalism" is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights. Outside of a few niche organizations that benefit fro

• drekipus 3y ago
  > If unemployment did not exist, the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. What is the capitalist class in this case? In a perfect world this would be done by beatings and imprisonment, right? > Of course, very high unemployment is not good for capitalism, nobody was arguing this. It's not good in socialist or communist countries either. Or is that a uniquely capitalist problem? > But very low unemployment below some threshold is also bad. Marx explained this, but if you do not believe him, capitalists themselves and their theorists say exactly the same thing. Yes, that's what we're all agreeing on. It's not saying "Marx said it's bad, thus he was right about everything" What is the substance of your post? What are you trying to say? Because it sounds like you're agreeing with capitalism but under the guise of supporting Marx
• AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > If unemployment did not exist, the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. How so? There could be 0% unemployment and anyone could find another job easily, but the other job could pay less, or have less flexibility, or be in a less convenient location, so you still prefer the job you have now. Suppose unemployment is low because prices are high, so no one can afford to go without a job and will take jobs under unfavorable terms in order to make rent.
  • malermeister 3y ago
    Because the threat of a less convenient job is nothing compared to the threat to existence that is unemployment in capitalism.
    • goatlover 3y ago
      Wouldn’t that depend on the social safety nets in place? Say unemployment in Europe versus the US. Also nothing stopping a terminated person from seeking other employment opportunities.
      • thiagoharry 3y ago
        You know that the basis of all production the most labour intensive industries are not in Europe or US. But in third world countries. Its where you find most factories, mines, farms... You know why the industries migrate there? Because there is very little social safety and labour is cheap. When we talk about capitalism, we need to remember that it is a global economic system.
        • tptacek 3y ago
          Labor is cheap in those places because cheaply sold labor is a better deal for residents than subsistence farming; over time, the labor gets less cheap as living standards increase for those places. It's obviously possible to take that observation too far, and to excuse all sorts of abuses. But the underlying phenomenon seems to square pretty well with what we know about living standards over time worldwide.
    • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      That would still require the employer to have a monopoly on jobs. Unemployment is very frequently caused by people who can command wages well above subsistence level preferring to go unemployed while holding out for a wage consistent with their skills, even if there are a zillion subsistence-level jobs they could take in an instant if need be.
  • 3y ago
• jlawson 3y ago
  Very low unemployment (aka labor shortage) is bad for business owners, not capitalism. There is a difference. Capitalism is a system that everyone plays a role in in benefits from; it's not a group of people. One could consider labor shortage good and healthy for capitalism itself, since it increases worker wages and thus builds political support for the capitalist system.
  • pyuser583 3y ago
    My favorite shake restraint has a sign on the door that says, “due to labor shortages, this location is closed until further notice.” I’m not happy about that.
    • nradov 3y ago
      There is no shortage of workers who can make shakes. Don't believe every sign you see.
      • pyuser583 3y ago
        I doubt that … I live in a university town. Tons of non-employed students who love shakes.
    • leshow 3y ago
      It's not a labor shortage, it's a wage shortage.
      • pyuser583 3y ago
        Not all labor shortages are due to low wages. Like I said in another comment, I live in a university town that has tons of non-employed students. Who drink shakes. Customer service positions are a pain to fill. At any price. Many students are on foreign visas. Others devote their time and effort to internships. “Working at shake shop” doesn’t look good on resumes. Life isn’t just about wages, and low prestige jobs are under filled just as high prestige jobs are over filled.
• Natsu 3y ago
  > If unemployment did not exist, the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. This seems to envision that nobody can find new kinds of useful work or otherwise work for themselves, which is odd when you're on a site where most of the people work in jobs that did not exist if we turned the clock back just a few decades and quite a few people are their own bosses.
  • cgio 3y ago
    It’s not about nobody. Individuals can escape the intention. Statistically though you can have a target achieved by slowing the economy, as evident in the current situation. Of course, if the goal is not optimisation of output but of it’s distribution (with different views on what is the proper objective) then capitalism is only different to socialism in terms of definition of that objective. But similar to how we never achieved true socialism, we have never achieved true capitalism either, so I am wary of discussing on the merits of each theory on the basis of the pitfalls of their application. We still need a proper descriptive theory of our experience and socialism inadvertently is better at forming the initial angle of attack, giving a more articulate basis of discussion in terms of distribution rather than output.
    • Natsu 3y ago
      What gets called capitalism are basically imperfect, socially evolved things that have survived and worked well enough to survive. There are definitely rent-seeking parasites out there, but some of them are like the Kim family in NK.
      • CapstanRoller 3y ago
        >socially evolved Funny how so much of this "evolution" had to happen at gunpoint, repeatedly, and must be enforced at gunpoint, continuously... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
• randomdata 3y ago
  > If unemployment did not exist, the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. That may be true, but that is not a condition of capitalism. Like the parent said, capitalism only speaks to ownership rights.
  • asu_thomas 3y ago
    Capitalism is a system in which those who control capital wield the most power, but without cheap enough labor to work the capital for a profit, capitalism will by definition give way to something else. Realize capital has no market value without labor to work it. This goes for real estate too, which workers require to rest themselves just in time to return to work to turn a profit for those that control capital.
    • ch4s3 3y ago
      This is a warmed over version of labor theory of value which is at its core wrong. Value is entirely subjective and contextual, and utility is not a function of labor inputs. Moreover high wages simply encourage innovation in labor saving devices and techniques. Tight labor markets aren’t the capitalists enemy. It’s no different than other input costs in some sense.
      • asu_thomas 3y ago
        Labor theory of value is literally just an argument that labor is the historical source of wealth. The terminology here is specific and intentional. Next, Marxists recognize 2 central forms of value: Use value is abstract, but not subjective. Exchange value is contextual. That's it. That's what you need to argue with, instead of your ridiculous straw men above. Additionally, it can hardly be stressed enough how unimportant labor theory of value is for Marxism as a whole.
        • astine 3y ago
          Um, no that's not correct. It's true that the origin of the labor theory of value is philosophers like Locke arguing that labor is the source of all value, but in the context that Marx was writing, Smith and Riccardo had popularized the notion that the market value of a good was proportional to the amount of aggregate labor that went into it. To his credit, Marx demonstrated that the market value of a good was not actually proportional to the amount of labor that went into it but he didn't abandon the idea that value of a good was somehow proportional to the labor used to make it. Marx: "Let us now take two commodities, for example corn and iron. Whatever their echange relation may be, it can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron, for instance 1 quarter of corn == x cwt of iron. What does this equation signifify? It signifies that a common element of identical magnitide exists in two different things, in 1 quarter of corn and similarly in x cwt of iron. Both are therefore equal to a third thing, which in itself is niether the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value, must therefore be reducible to this third thing. [...] As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can only differ in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value. If then we disregard the use-value of commodities, only one property remains, that of being products of labour." In other words, Marx excludes use-value (what normal economists call "utility") as being a factor in the price of a commodity, apart from needing to exist at all (he reduces its relationship to a boolean relationship,) and makes it a function of labor quantity. This is so central to his argument that it comes up in the first few pages of Capital.
• cmh89 3y ago
  We just experienced this though and it wasn't good for their stock price. Low unemployment means they have to pay their workers more to hire or retain them. More expense means they either need accept making less (bad for stocks) or raise prices to make as much money, which could be bad for business.
• willcipriano 3y ago
  > the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. They would have to offer higher wages and not just "industry average", like we saw during the pandemic. Then the planned economy folks decided that was the exact moment the free money faucet had to be cut off.
• refurb 3y ago
  This is an overly simplistic analysis. People may work hard for a number of reasons of which unemployment is only one - more money, a promotion, personal interest in the outcome (e.g. scientist), personal work ethic, you like this job more than other jobs (job preference due to management, coworkers, location, job type). Once again Marxism oversimplifies the world and ignores a lot of nuance.
  • thiagoharry 3y ago
    This is not true for most people where I live. I live in a third world country. Most workers are just trying to survive. You know that the basis of production and where you find the most labor intensive industries is not in Europe or USA. These industries, the mines where metal is extracted, farms where lot of the food in produced, are all in third world countries. Why Siemens move their factories to third world countries instead of their own country in Germany? Because labour is cheap. Ask any worker that work in these places if he work by personal interest or ethics. They are just trying to survive. They have families and all possible jobs pays little and requires a lot of effort. Perhaps you see this as an oversimplification because you are looking too near home in a biased position. The number of countries considered "rich" and "developed" is a minority. Capitalism is a global system.
    • refurb 3y ago
      I’m not sure that changes things at all. I live in a developing country right now where jobs are plentiful. Employees jump from employer to employer for more money. So while I don’t doubt the situation is different in your country, the fact that different situations exist would argue that it is an oversimplification.
• deleted 3y ago
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• roguas 3y ago
  > If unemployment did not exist Then I would pick activities that bring most value to my life. Often they still would be "commercial" activities.