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Good. Reading through the comments I'm reminded of the incalculable damage and legacy of the Red Scare. To see just how far we, as a country, have moved right,

by jmyeet 2y ago

Good. Reading through the comments I'm reminded of the incalculable damage and legacy of the Red Scare. To see just how far we, as a country, have moved right, look at the statement by Abraham Lincoln [1]: > Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. That right there is Marx's Labor Theory of Value from the then Republican president. According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker. The moneyed interests around you create division, intentionally. The Red Scare was used very successfully to destroy any sense of class solidarity. Even the whole idea of the "middle class" is divisive. The so-called "middle class" have way more in common with the "lower class" than the capital-owning class.. I'm reminded of something LBJ said [2]: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. The predictable kneejerk reaction of "they don't deserve it" or "automate their jobs" makes me so sad. Those workers are you. Those workers earning a fair wage helps you. But really all it should take is seeing how much Starbucks [3] or Amazon or whoever spends on union-busting efforts to convince you of the necessity of unions. They're not doing that for your benefit. The fact that you get a weekend or sick leave or any number of other benefits is because people who came before you fought for those things, sometimes in blood [4]. [1]: https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on-labor-and-capital-1861.htm https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on... [2]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh... [3]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting-may-cost-it-240-million https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting... [4]: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homestead-strike https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homeste...

Workaccount2 2y ago
I was all about this idea until I learned that if you pay a worker more than what they produce, the whole system will collapse. The second cold hard truth was that most workers keep most of the value they produce (and ironically it is generally the highest paid workers that keep the smallest share).
lotsofpulp 2y ago
> According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker. Which class is the member of a mob family? If they’re not the one’s doing the killing are they the owner class? https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46 https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46 But more seriously, that Marx quote is too simplistic to model reality. For one, it ignores the fact that people are simultaneously in multiple different tribes (or classes), and that these change over a person’s life. One big one change is from the young class to the old class, where people change from being proponents of labor to being proponents of capital (including taxing labor to pay for old age benefits), and more broadly, to ensure social order because people get physically less capable and more dependent on a top down ordered society.

by jmyeet 2y ago

Workaccount2 2y ago

I was all about this idea until I learned that if you pay a worker more than what they produce, the whole system will collapse. The second cold hard truth was that most workers keep most of the value they produce (and ironically it is generally the highest paid workers that keep the smallest share).

lotsofpulp 2y ago

> According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker. Which class is the member of a mob family? If they’re not the one’s doing the killing are they the owner class? https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46 https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46 But more seriously, that Marx quote is too simplistic to model reality. For one, it ignores the fact that people are simultaneously in multiple different tribes (or classes), and that these change over a person’s life. One big one change is from the young class to the old class, where people change from being proponents of labor to being proponents of capital (including taxing labor to pay for old age benefits), and more broadly, to ensure social order because people get physically less capable and more dependent on a top down ordered society.