4 ms·

Capitalists and workers?

• jodrellblank 19d ago
  Worker and parasite? https://youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI https://youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI (The Simpsons)
• philipallstar 19d ago
  Capitalists are the ones who allocate - and risk - money to attempt to solve problems like this.
  • tclancy 19d ago
    Yeah and we wish they would stop. Because solutions like this are something the system optimizes for.
    • philipallstar 19d ago
      Then we wouldn't have anything that's hard to create and/or requires risk.
      • jackb4040 19d ago
        [flagged]
      • jodrellblank 19d ago
        Imagine claiming undue credit for the works of Euler, Einstein, Michaelangelo, and hundreds of huge Cathedrals all over Europe, while disclaiming the constant bailouts from the taxpayer so that Capitalists never actually risk or lose money, and being blinkered to the fact that 'money' doesn't solve hard problems or do hard things, workers do. Manhattan project? Taxpayer funded. Concorde? Taxpayer funded. Walking on the Moon? Taxpayer funded. What are you talking about.
        • philipallstar 19d ago
          > so that Capitalists never actually risk or lose money If you think capitalists never lose money then you're not on this planet. Obviously money is lost all the time. There are lots of investors, lots of companies, and few winners. This is mad. Of course bailouts happen, and they're done by the state. Capitalism would let them fail. > hundreds of huge Cathedrals all over Europe In this case the church was the capitalist. They risked the capital that paid for the cathedral. Although it was fairly low risk, as building a cathedral is pretty well understood. > Manhattan project? Taxpayer funded. Concorde? Taxpayer funded. Walking on the Moon? Taxpayer funded. What are you talking about. In this case the state is the capitalist, although it's taking the money by force rather than with a risk/reward voluntary investment. The worker isn't doing this by him/herself.
          • jodrellblank 19d ago
            Capitalism is not "when someone pays for something". By that logic when the USSR launched the Mir space station in 1986, because the state paid for it that made them capitalists. > Capitalism would let them fail. and yet ... Here we are. The state paying for things is Capitalism, and the state paying for this isn't Capitalism, in the same comment.
            • philipallstar 18d ago
              > The state paying for things is Capitalism, and the state paying for this isn't Capitalism, in the same comment. I see what you mean. In the first example: the context is we're talking about workers vs capitalists. The state is acting like the capitalist in that dichotomy for things like the Manhatten Project. The Manhatten Project wasn't a triumph of the ability for workers to do incredibly complex, expensive, risky projects. The money to do it came from somewhere else than the workers. So the Manhatten Project is not an example of workers over capitalists. In the second example I'm not talking in the frame of "everything is either worker or capital" (which wasn't mine) and introducing the much richer, more dangerous, and more powerful third entity: the state. Because state bailouts are not an example of capitalism.
      • deleted 19d ago
        [deleted]