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One thing I can never understand about people who work in tech complaining about Marxist labor exploitation: why don't you start your own business? I've had mul

One thing I can never understand about people who work in tech complaining about Marxist labor exploitation: why don't you start your own business? I've had multiple coworkers who are into this leftist stuff, and I know they have orders of magnitude more money than it takes to buy the capital equipment needed to run the exact business they work for, given that they've been making a tech salary for years and computers are incredibly cheap. By their own estimate, they have the skills and understanding necessary to create the product themselves. So why don't they do it? My intuition is that the missing "surplus value" exists within the answer to that question.

stanleykm 3y ago
Is being a marxist, in your mind, just whining about stuff and being jealous of the haves?
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  No, but I think they frequently make the mistake of assuming goods/services have globally defined values. It's possible for both the buyer and seller of something to come out ahead in a deal. The option to start their own business is right in front of them. They even have a group of like-minded individuals with complementary skills that they could form a co-op with. Since they don't do that, obviously they're getting something from being a W-2 worker. It seems to me that they're not accounting for that something when asserting that there's some surplus value they're creating but not capturing. More accurately, that "surplus value" is being traded for whatever it is they get from W-2 work (e.g. a steady buyer for their labor). IIUC Marx says roughly that laborers are beholden to capital owners because they need access to that capital to be able to perform their labor. But lots of programmers/IT people have better equipment at home than their job provides (e.g. multiple large 4k displays, powerful CPUs, plentiful RAM). Many also have hobby homelab or colocated machines that they could easily run a business off of. They don't need access to someone else's capital, but they still sell their labor. It's the same as when people say that geo pay is "fair" because of cost-of-living differences. You're buying something (e.g. living 15 minutes from the ocean in an area with year-round perfect weather and lots of things to do) with that cost of living. Otherwise--obviously--you'd go somewhere else.
Spivak 3y ago
Because that becomes your life, that's the answer. The people who are willing to take those risks are very well compensated for it when they pan out. But there's a very reasonable belief that the labor market should be fair, free of exploitation, and that you should have basic protections and a civil means to address your grievances that aren't just quitting, starting your own business, or dragging your boss out of their office and either murdering them or beating the shit out of them as was customary historically. For everyone who starts there own business there are two to four orders of magnitude of employment contracts so almost by definition starting your own business can't be a solution for everyone.

stanleykm 3y ago

Is being a marxist, in your mind, just whining about stuff and being jealous of the haves?

ndriscoll 3y ago
No, but I think they frequently make the mistake of assuming goods/services have globally defined values. It's possible for both the buyer and seller of something to come out ahead in a deal. The option to start their own business is right in front of them. They even have a group of like-minded individuals with complementary skills that they could form a co-op with. Since they don't do that, obviously they're getting something from being a W-2 worker. It seems to me that they're not accounting for that something when asserting that there's some surplus value they're creating but not capturing. More accurately, that "surplus value" is being traded for whatever it is they get from W-2 work (e.g. a steady buyer for their labor). IIUC Marx says roughly that laborers are beholden to capital owners because they need access to that capital to be able to perform their labor. But lots of programmers/IT people have better equipment at home than their job provides (e.g. multiple large 4k displays, powerful CPUs, plentiful RAM). Many also have hobby homelab or colocated machines that they could easily run a business off of. They don't need access to someone else's capital, but they still sell their labor. It's the same as when people say that geo pay is "fair" because of cost-of-living differences. You're buying something (e.g. living 15 minutes from the ocean in an area with year-round perfect weather and lots of things to do) with that cost of living. Otherwise--obviously--you'd go somewhere else.

Spivak 3y ago

Because that becomes your life, that's the answer. The people who are willing to take those risks are very well compensated for it when they pan out. But there's a very reasonable belief that the labor market should be fair, free of exploitation, and that you should have basic protections and a civil means to address your grievances that aren't just quitting, starting your own business, or dragging your boss out of their office and either murdering them or beating the shit out of them as was customary historically. For everyone who starts there own business there are two to four orders of magnitude of employment contracts so almost by definition starting your own business can't be a solution for everyone.