"throw capitalism at it" ad absurdum

[untermensche]

No capitalists ever did any productive work. Thieving is what capitalists do.

Sorry, but I have worked for capitalists that most certainly did productive work.

A capitalist is somebody who uses capital to make more capital, like Trump.

Not somebody who trades their labor for a wage.

They are rightly called wage slaves.

 

[Elixir]

Some of us ARE working people.

No capitalists ever did any productive work. Thieving is what capitalists do.

What's the difference between a businessperson and a capitalist? I know that I work hard doing stuff that saves lives, I run a business, and I hope some day to make a (admittedly small) fortune from it. Am I a capitalist, a businessman or both?

ETA: I employ 20 or so people who are what have been called "wage slaves". In my business nobody's paycheck is less than 40% my own. Am I a wage slave to myself?

 

[dismal]

No capitalists ever did any productive work. Thieving is what capitalists do.

What's the difference between a businessperson and a capitalist? I know that I work hard doing stuff that saves lives, I run a business, and I hope some day to make a (admittedly small) fortune from it. Am I a capitalist, a businessman or both?

ETA: I employ 20 or so people who are what have been called "wage slaves". In my business nobody's paycheck is less than 40% my own. Am I a wage slave to myself?

It's not the ratio of their earnings to yours that makes them slaves, it's all the chains and floggings.

Unless they're into that sort of thing.

 

[Elixir]

What's the difference between a businessperson and a capitalist? I know that I work hard doing stuff that saves lives, I run a business, and I hope some day to make a (admittedly small) fortune from it. Am I a capitalist, a businessman or both?

ETA: I employ 20 or so people who are what have been called "wage slaves". In my business nobody's paycheck is less than 40% my own. Am I a wage slave to myself?

It's not the ratio of their earnings to yours that makes them slaves, it's all the chains and floggings.

Unless they're into that sort of thing.

Would they be here if they weren't?

I figure that the real difference between me and them is the ten years I have invested in the business, paying tax on the earnings that I have never seen because they all go back into the biz. It could all go to hell tomorrow, and they would be none the worse off other than having to find another job. I will have suffered for ten years carrying the weight of responsibility for the health of the Company and its employees, and would have been financially better off managing a fast food restaurant all that time. Yeah, I pay myself a better-than-average salary, but at the end of the year I don't even take home as much as my best employees, due to the excessive tax burden on small business "profits".

So I'm a gambler - betting that I can create and maintain something that will eventually be worth more to someone else than it cost me to create and maintain it. Not a smart thing to do on the face of it...
(On the brighter side, there are a couple of multi-billion dollar companies sniffing around us right now... fingers crossed. Not particularly optimistic, but hopeful!)

Still not clear if this is capitalism or "just" business.

 

[Axulus]

It's not the ratio of their earnings to yours that makes them slaves, it's all the chains and floggings.

Unless they're into that sort of thing.

Would they be here if they weren't?

I figure that the real difference between me and them is the ten years I have invested in the business, paying tax on the earnings that I have never seen because they all go back into the biz. It could all go to hell tomorrow, and they would be none the worse off other than having to find another job. I will have suffered for ten years carrying the weight of responsibility for the health of the Company and its employees, and would have been financially better off managing a fast food restaurant all that time. Yeah, I pay myself a better-than-average salary, but at the end of the year I don't even take home as much as my best employees, due to the excessive tax burden on small business "profits".

So I'm a gambler - betting that I can create and maintain something that will eventually be worth more to someone else than it cost me to create and maintain it. Not a smart thing to do on the face of it...
(On the brighter side, there are a couple of multi-billion dollar companies sniffing around us right now... fingers crossed. Not particularly optimistic, but hopeful!)

Still not clear if this is capitalism or "just" business.

If your business implodes, you were just a casino gambler who bet big and caused a small crash (employees lose jobs). If your business is wildly successful, you are stealing money off the backs of your wage slaves.

 

[Elixir]

Would they be here if they weren't?

I figure that the real difference between me and them is the ten years I have invested in the business, paying tax on the earnings that I have never seen because they all go back into the biz. It could all go to hell tomorrow, and they would be none the worse off other than having to find another job. I will have suffered for ten years carrying the weight of responsibility for the health of the Company and its employees, and would have been financially better off managing a fast food restaurant all that time. Yeah, I pay myself a better-than-average salary, but at the end of the year I don't even take home as much as my best employees, due to the excessive tax burden on small business "profits".

So I'm a gambler - betting that I can create and maintain something that will eventually be worth more to someone else than it cost me to create and maintain it. Not a smart thing to do on the face of it...
(On the brighter side, there are a couple of multi-billion dollar companies sniffing around us right now... fingers crossed. Not particularly optimistic, but hopeful!)

Still not clear if this is capitalism or "just" business.

If your business implodes, you were just a casino gambler who bet big and caused a small crash (employees lose jobs). If your business is wildly successful, you are stealing money off the backs of your wage slaves.

That seems to be about it. Unbeknownst to my employees, the plan is to compensate them all with a portion of proceeds (based on tenure not wages/salaries), should such proceeds exceed what we have actually invested. We feel that's necessary because if someone else owns the Company there is no assurance that any current employees will be kept on. I guess a "real" capitalist wouldn't consider that kind of thing...

 

[dismal]

Still not clear if this is capitalism or "just" business.

"Capitalism" is merely an economic system characterized by well-defined and enforced property rights and mutually voluntary exchanges.

You are part of a system that has these elements whether you run a business or not.

 

[coloradoatheist]

If your business implodes, you were just a casino gambler who bet big and caused a small crash (employees lose jobs). If your business is wildly successful, you are stealing money off the backs of your wage slaves.

That seems to be about it. Unbeknownst to my employees, the plan is to compensate them all with a portion of proceeds (based on tenure not wages/salaries), should such proceeds exceed what we have actually invested. We feel that's necessary because if someone else owns the Company there is no assurance that any current employees will be kept on. I guess a "real" capitalist wouldn't consider that kind of thing...

Of course they do. Usually employees want a higher wage up front than a hope of something later, but each individual is different. Many models exist for how people get paid.

 

[untermensche]

Still not clear if this is capitalism or "just" business.

"Capitalism" is merely an economic system characterized by well-defined and enforced property rights and mutually voluntary exchanges.

You are part of a system that has these elements whether you run a business or not.

Nothing voluntary about wage slavery.

Capitalism is a system of forced servitude for most within it.

 

[dismal]

"Capitalism" is merely an economic system characterized by well-defined and enforced property rights and mutually voluntary exchanges.

You are part of a system that has these elements whether you run a business or not.

Nothing voluntary about wage slavery.

Capitalism is a system of forced servitude for most within it.

Yes, this is why having drawn wages I feel like my life experience so closely parallels that Bob Marley song:

Old Pirates, yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit

 

[untermensche]

Nothing voluntary about wage slavery.

Capitalism is a system of forced servitude for most within it.

Yes, this is why having drawn wages I feel like my life experience so closely parallels that Bob Marley song:

Old Pirates, yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit

Many house Negros lived well and many came to the defense of the good master.

It didn't make the institution free.

Most people become wage slaves due to necessity, not desire.

It is something very few enter into freely.

Capitalism, in action, is the few taking advantage of the needs of existence to turn the many into their wage slaves. Freedom is something completely different.

 

[Harry Bosch]

"Capitalism" is merely an economic system characterized by well-defined and enforced property rights and mutually voluntary exchanges.

You are part of a system that has these elements whether you run a business or not.

Nothing voluntary about wage slavery.

Capitalism is a system of forced servitude for most within it.

I volunteered to be a wage slave! Far less stress than being an owner. I value my weekends!

 

[untermensche]

Nothing voluntary about wage slavery.

Capitalism is a system of forced servitude for most within it.

I volunteered to be a wage slave! Far less stress than being an owner. I value my weekends!

What experience do you have with employee group ownership and control in a democratic manner?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sorry, but I have worked for capitalists that most certainly did productive work.

A capitalist is somebody who uses capital to make more capital, like Trump.

Not somebody who trades their labor for a wage.

They are rightly called wage slaves.

You fail to understand that the person who uses their capital to make more capital likely works very hard at doing so.

Just because it's almost all thinking rather than manual labor doesn't make it not work.

Since college I have never been more than two hops from the owners/C-level employees and until my current job I have had routine interaction with them.

They work hard, the company does well. They don't work hard, the company goes downhill.

The only "capitalists" that do not work hard at it are those who simply buy stock--and the vast majority of those are the average people (although the purchases are often through pensions or 401ks rather than direct.)

 

[untermensche]

A capitalist is somebody who uses capital to make more capital, like Trump.

Not somebody who trades their labor for a wage.

They are rightly called wage slaves.

You fail to understand that the person who uses their capital to make more capital likely works very hard at doing so.

Just because it's almost all thinking rather than manual labor doesn't make it not work.

Since college I have never been more than two hops from the owners/C-level employees and until my current job I have had routine interaction with them.

They work hard, the company does well. They don't work hard, the company goes downhill.

It is not work to use capital to make capital.

It is making money without doing work. If you invest in a company that is not work. If you invest but in reality have no control over what you invest in you are not a capitalist. You are a gambler.

If they are doing work they are not capitalists.

They are merely workers who control other workers in a top down dictatorial scheme.

 

[barbos]

A capitalist is somebody who uses capital to make more capital, like Trump.

Not somebody who trades their labor for a wage.

They are rightly called wage slaves.

You fail to understand that the person who uses their capital to make more capital likely works very hard at doing so.

Just because it's almost all thinking rather than manual labor doesn't make it not work.

Since college I have never been more than two hops from the owners/C-level employees and until my current job I have had routine interaction with them.

They work hard, the company does well. They don't work hard, the company goes downhill.

"Company does well" does not mean society as a whole does better. For example there are scam companies which do well.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

No capitalists ever did any productive work. Thieving is what capitalists do.

What's the difference between a businessperson and a capitalist? I know that I work hard doing stuff that saves lives, I run a business, and I hope some day to make a (admittedly small) fortune from it. Am I a capitalist, a businessman or both?

ETA: I employ 20 or so people who are what have been called "wage slaves". In my business nobody's paycheck is less than 40% my own. Am I a wage slave to myself?

Therein lies the rub. Small business is substantially different from capitalism. I am no marxist, I've been a small business owner almost all my life, but I have to say, reading Marx really did open my eyes to capital.

 

[barbos]

What's the difference between a businessperson and a capitalist? I know that I work hard doing stuff that saves lives, I run a business, and I hope some day to make a (admittedly small) fortune from it. Am I a capitalist, a businessman or both?

ETA: I employ 20 or so people who are what have been called "wage slaves". In my business nobody's paycheck is less than 40% my own. Am I a wage slave to myself?

If you're sole owner of the business then wage you pay yourself is meaningless.

 

[DrZoidberg]

there has always been an idea in the united states that for any given problem, if one can find a way to apply capitalism, then the problem will solve itself. i can't argue with the track record - it has worked in many situations. i have some issues with the underlying assumption that greed is the prime motivator...but then again, history. you see where this is going....

i've actually heard, several times, of trump, 'if he can run a business, he can run a government' - to which i can only be nonplussed. is this the logic behind president trump?

Trump demonstrates the weakness of capitalism. Once you're rich enough you can't really lose. The rich form a nobility. Well, that's a problem. Because it's nepotism. A form of corruption. Corruption is bad.

Capitalism only works if bad ideas are allowed to die. That's the whole justification. But if you're rich enough there's no limit to how much you can fail and still beat the system.

 

[iolo]

A capitalist is somebody who uses capital to make more capital, like Trump.

Not somebody who trades their labor for a wage.

They are rightly called wage slaves.

You fail to understand that the person who uses their capital to make more capital likely works very hard at doing so.

Just because it's almost all thinking rather than manual labor doesn't make it not work.

Since college I have never been more than two hops from the owners/C-level employees and until my current job I have had routine interaction with them.

They work hard, the company does well. They don't work hard, the company goes downhill.

The only "capitalists" that do not work hard at it are those who simply buy stock--and the vast majority of those are the average people (although the purchases are often through pensions or 401ks rather than direct.)

Capitalists are people who live entirely by exploiting others, even that work being done by some of them. The sort of businessmen being discussed are engaged in primary accumulation, forcing particular people to make profits for them, but, like burglars or confidence men, prepared to put a bit of effort into picking pockets and conning the mugs.