xtian

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421.
by xtian 6y ago
Yes an investor has lower risk than a worker. A worker depends on continually selling his labor-power to survive. He can't do that if he gets sick or injured, if he gets laid off, if his area of expertise gets automated out of existenc
422.
by xtian 6y ago
It doesn't break down. Machines have been replacing workers since the dawn of industrial capitalism. That's not a new or future development. The value that a machine imparts to its end product is equal to the portion of its total
423.
by xtian 6y ago
Profit comes from ownership, a wage comes from selling one's labor-power on the labor market. The only risk an investor assumes is of having to transition from the ownership class to selling his labor-power on the market if all his inv
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by xtian 6y ago
Absolutely, and that's the only place profit can come from. The distinction between wage and value is important because it explains the inevitable tendency of capitalists to suppress wages and working conditions as competition drives i
425.
by xtian 6y ago
Not quite - he paid a wage to labor based on the current competition in the labor market and the cost of a worker to provide for his/her necessities. Then he sold the end product of the workers' collective labor for its value, det
426.
by xtian 6y ago
I was implying that it doesn't really matter what the nature of the impact is if common people aren't the ones controlling the levers of power. I'm not romanticizing anything. I'm simply trying to draw attention to the n
427.
by xtian 6y ago
Well roads do vary in their physical form and the social norms that govern their use in different parts of the world based on a lot of factors. But I would say roads in developed areas are pretty much the same everywhere because cars are on
428.
by xtian 6y ago
Labor market fluidity isn't pro-worker, it's an essential component of the commodification of labor. It simply means the shape of a person's life is more fully suborned to the demands of the market. It means competing on a na
429.
by xtian 6y ago
Your automobile analogy is actually extremely apt because when the car was invented and "jay drivers" (the original term) began killing hundreds of thousands of people, public consensus began to form around strictly limiting the s
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by xtian 6y ago
I would love to see the lobbying success rate of any NGOs which may exist to repeal laws which protect capital interests.
431.
by xtian 6y ago
Is one of those countries the US? Of course laws change in response to business interests. The context of this discussion is changing laws like the DMCA, though, which protect capital interests.
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by xtian 6y ago
My point is that’s a field of political power that even well-off members of the working class like computer programmers have zero access to. You will never affect a law which protects capital interests like the DMCA by writing your senators
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by xtian 6y ago
Which laws have you gotten changed through lobbying?
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by xtian 6y ago
The “war on drugs” has exacted a higher human toll on our society than any of the substances which you claim “have no place existing in the world.” Do some research.
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by xtian 6y ago
My point is simply that on the level of geopolitics there isn’t a difference between murder and manslaughter. You keep asserting that there is without articulating the material ramifications of that difference for the actual people who live
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by xtian 6y ago
How have you gained so much insight into Russia’s long-term geopolitical strategy and deduced that their primary goal is malice against American people? Through US media? Why do you think they’d invest considerable national resources into t
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by xtian 6y ago
Can you please explain the difference you’re talking about from the standpoint of a working class citizen of Iran in 1953 or of Chile in 1973?
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by xtian 6y ago
That’s deeply false. The US has engineered and provided support for coups around the world. Does that not count as destabilization?
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by xtian 6y ago
Long-documented behavior of the US to other countries as well.
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by xtian 6y ago
The only people with strong opinions on Greta Thunberg as a celebrity figure are those completely ignorant of the scientific consensus on the climate crisis. Go read the IPCC report and then decide how much you need to care about Greta Thun
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by xtian 6y ago
Well I didn’t sign my original lease for that building 20 years before the switch so if the traditional re-keying process had become more expensive I assume they would have simply updated their lease terms. Your list of vaguely plausible wh
442.
by xtian 6y ago
In most cases the tech is used as cover for eroding already minimal tenant rights and services. For example, one building I lived in switched to digital locks and the price for a lost key replacement went from $10 to $50. And according to t
443.
by xtian 6y ago
The USSR proposed deescalation and moratoria on new weapons development repeatedly during the Cold War, and they were consistently rebuffed. Did the US not have a presence in Europe on the Soviet Union’s doorstep? “Everybody does imperialis
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by xtian 6y ago
Can you share your justification for non-compete clauses in employment contracts as well as contracts which take ownership of employee work done outside work hours?
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by xtian 6y ago
Social safety net and sustainability regulations. It’s not normal in much of the world to spend your life with the looming fear of being bankrupted by a serious illness or to treat natural ecosystems as a zero sum game to be exploited.
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by xtian 6y ago
The US has fomented violent coups and interfered with legitimate elections all around the world in service of exporting capitalism and free market imperialism (e.g., in Italy, Indonesia, Iran, any number of countries in Central and South Am
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by xtian 6y ago
Right, historical materialism doesn't conflict with any of that, but it extends its analysis to the power structures that arise in society as a result of the material economic conditions.
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by xtian 6y ago
That's just historical materialism, FYI.
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by xtian 6y ago
Paramedics were the ones who killed Elijah McClain with ketamine. Putting aside that police shouldn’t be utilizing drugs period, there is zero justification for administering drugs to someone who isn’t a danger to themselves or others, as w
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by xtian 6y ago
> Twitter is not 'the mood of the nation'. Are you saying that, presented with the facts, most Americans would express satisfaction with the current distribution of wealth and its trajectory?

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