I hate the “it has existed since caveman times.” Trading is an action and a concept, something we had always, meanwhile capitalism is just a system developed by the spooky scary muslims.
Basically we’re all serfs.
And increasingly ill-treated ones.
Omg, I have to say this way too often. The amount of people who think capitalism is commerce is too darn high.
Technically small companies also are just employees. Risks outsourced and it can be easily killed away when the bigger company doesn’t need them anymore. That’s so fucked up and governments all around protect this behavior.
That’s a very narrow view.
Many or most small companies have many customers - they’re not subcontracting to a single upstream provider.
In the case of small subcontractors, what you’re talking about is a necessary risk management strategy. It’s not a sneaky underhanded contrivance on the part of large companies. Its how “limited liability” is intended to work.
Of course governments protect this because it’s essential to a functional economy. You may as well complain about insurance or something.
to be fair there is a lot to complain about the existence of insurance, too
insurance is usually necessary when essential services like Healthcare are not fully nationalized/subsidized.
only exception I can think of is maybe some kind of fire or other destruction insurance, but even so it should be government provided.
There may be more exceptions i am not immediately thinking of, but basically, insurance how it exists right now is extremely fucking predatory and one of the worst things about capitalism - especially health insurance.
Health insurance is an exception amongst insurances.
The primary form of insurance is paying a third party to take on a risk on your behalf.
For example, if my business owns a truck, but I don’t want to take the risk that it might be stolen or be involved in an accident, I can pay someone else to take that risk. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a normal part of business.
However, there’s all sorts of weird things called insurance that are really something else. Life insurance is my favourite awful example. Some policies are ok, like I have $x left to pay on my mortgage, so I can get a life insurance policy for a similar amount and at least if I die my family will have the house paid off. Others are a weird kind of savings plan, where you pay a lot more but get a big pay out once you reach a certain age.
Health insurance in the US is obviously tangled up with politics and profiteering and is more like a complicated extortion plan than insurance.
As a general guide, any insurance you intend to make a claim on is usually problematic.
i mean, that all makes a lot of sense, and you’re not wrong, I just believe insurance ought to be a public service.
If the purpose of insurance is to spread risk so that people can still live their lives when unforeseen events happen, that benefits a country, that is a risk the government should be shouldering.
Anyway, I have found myself on a tangent. I guess fundamentally I don’t disagree with the concept of insurance, my biggest complaints are regarding the execution of it within capitalism, but you already basically said what I wanted to about health insurance in particular.
Yeah, well, I’m no communist! There shouldn’t even be a minimum wage, let the free market decide!
— Temporarily inconvenienced billionaires at my workplace.
There shouldn’t even be a minimum wage, let the free market decide!
And it did, sadly. 2/3 of the US states still use the federal minimum wage as a guide, even though it doesn’t even purchase a cup of coffee these days.
There shouldn’t be a minimum wage! The free market should decide!
If everyone had a baseline standard of living, capitalists could pay whatever they wanted. And if their proposed wage wasn’t worth doing, then no one would do it.
No one would do it
Unskilled labor does not have the luxury to just “not do it”. The capitalists know this, which is why they depress wages as far as they can to keep an entire class of workers under water.
If I were to lose my job, which can happen at any time working in a non-union shop in an at-will state, I would not be able to go anywhere and receive comparable wages in my area. I am studying to get certifications in a different industry that would give me some amount of freedom. For now, I work at the mercy of my employer.
The free market is a scam. It will take massive changes, paradigm shifts, to create an environment where the workers are free to go work where they choose, and be given actually competitive compensation.
Capitalists make money by turning a free market into a market with entry barriers so that they get an oligopoly or monopoly and can rise prices.
The free market is the enemy of the Capitalist.
Capitalists rely on the unemployed to suppress wages by always having somebody desperate enough to do it for less. They use minimum wage to create barriers for competing job offers.
With minimum wage, many jobs don’t exist that pay less but could have better working conditions or pay by allowing employees to take home expired food instead of making them throw it away.
This leads to more unemployed and lower wages for all.
Of course many people don’t have the bargaining power to rise their wages to their value. That’s when minimum wage helps. But, unions would be the much more appropriate solution, and financial support between unions.
pay by allowing employees to take home expired food instead of making them throw it away.
This is a person who thinks society would be better if stores gave workers expired food instead of money.
I think more power from having a free market outweights the shame of eating expired food.
If people can leave an abusive boss or toxic colleagues because they have another option then that is good.
That doesn’t mean that Walmart should be able to cut wages even further. That would mean that people would be more desperate, which doesn’t happen if there are more jobs and unions.
I think more power from having a free market outweights the shame of eating expired food.
You argument is that I should take a pay cut, and all I have to do is lower my material conditions.
You are trending toward slavery. Get your fucking head checked.
You argument is that I should take a pay cut, and all I have to do is lower my material conditions.
No. My first argument is that a job can have more benefits than wage and that a sub minimum wage job can lead to better material conditions than one with.
My second argument is that a surplus of job offers leads to better conditions for all and that minimum wage reduces that surplus to the advantage of the remaining employers.
You’re operating on the false premise that a decent wage and decent working conditions are mutually exclusive and that is the primary flaw in your entire argument.
Why wouldn’t walmart cut wages further if allowed to?
If it wasn’t literally illegal they wouldn’t even pay real money. We know this because its what companies did in the past.
The existence of millions of sub-livable wage jobs isn’t going to make walmart increase its wages, I feel like you’re trying to bend reality to pretend removing restrictions on capitalists exploiting workers somehow helps workers.
I feel like you’re trying to bend reality
We live in a Capitalist world with deep propaganda. The workers must long for the wrong things to keep them trapped. Opposing free markets is one of those traps.
Why wouldn’t walmart cut wages further if allowed to?
Either because unions force them or because better jobs are available.
If it wasn’t literally illegal they wouldn’t even pay real money.
True. But if you think of mining towns, there was no competition. Without competition workers were trapped and everything cost more than they earned. Minimum wage is like a soft mining town. Some competition is cut away.
The existence of millions of sub-livable wage jobs isn’t going to make walmart increase its wages
Sub-livable doesn’t help. But if sub-mimimum wage comes with a better package, e.g. child care or health coverage or short commute, then it creates a livable competing option that forces Walmart to rise wages.
The market must be turned to the advantage of the workers. The problem is not the minimum wage but the lack of jobs. With enough jobs nobody has to work for sub-minimum wage unless it’s to their advantage.
Either because unions force them or because better jobs are available.
And you think removing minimum wage would cause unions to become stronger and better jobs be made available?
The market must be turned to the advantage of the workers.
This is done by forcing the capitalists to operate on our terms, not letting them exploit workers with even less regulation wtf?
Sub-livable doesn’t help. But if sub-mimimum wage comes with a better package, e.g. child care or health coverage or short commute, then it creates a livable competing option that forces Walmart to rise wages.
A company giving its employees expired food instead of money isn’t going to make other companies increase wages.
With enough jobs nobody has to work for sub-minimum wage unless it’s to their advantage.
??? People are already forced to work for unsustainable wages and end up in debt or working while homeless.
It really feels like you started out with the assumption that capitalism is the best possible solution for everybody and then went backwards to figure out why this isn’t matching observations.
And you think removing minimum wage would cause unions to become stronger and better jobs be made available?
No. I think minimum wage makes people feel that they are protected enough while they are torn apart by the market dynamics. The job market must be so good that no minimum wage is needed. Minimum wage takes people out of the fight while they are still needed.
This is done by forcing the capitalists to operate on our terms, not letting them exploit workers with even less regulation wtf?
That fight is in supply and demand of jobs. Minimum wage masks the fact that there are not enough jobs. It feels like a weapon of the workers but it is one of the employers.
A company giving its employees expired food instead of money isn’t going to make other companies increase wages.
It comes down to a worker choosing between two jobs. If the food job doesn’t exist the other company can offer minimum wage and win every time. With the food job, their offer must be better than the other company.
With a shortage of jobs, minimum wage is needed to keep wages high because workers undercut each other. The important part is to turn the market around and create a shortage of workers. That’s where the fight must be. Union do that when they strike. Minimum wage hides that workers have that power.
??? People are already forced to work for unsustainable wages and end up in debt or working while homeless
Because the emloyers don’t have a shortage of workers and housing costs too much. Another market that the Capitalists control that can be changed. Free workers and not enough housing, how can that be in a country with plenty of land?
It really feels like you started out with the assumption that capitalism is the best possible solution
It does but I argue for free markets. That’s the opposite of capitalism. Capitalists control the markets and remove competition among employers to their advantage.
Competition among workers is bad for workers because everybody lowers their demands.
Competition among employers is good because they make higher offers.
Workers need to control the work market, not leave it to politicians who are bought by the Capitalists.
This is how Sweden works and why Sweden has been blocking an EU minimum wage. The unions are supposed to ensure reasonable wages and working conditions, which they have done for the most part.
Isn’t anyone with one share of a stock a capitalist?
Technically yes but it’s a difference without a distinction since you really don’t carry any power unless you have a plurality or greater of shares in a given company
What if someone had a few hundred million across various ETFs, still with no voting power
Then they are a rich wagie
If your dividends are just enough to get you a cup of coffee every once in a while, you’re a microcapitalist.
these are important distinctions that are often glossed over and obscured: capitalist vs supporter of capitalism; Republican vs Republican-aligned voter. terms that make one seem like part of the in-group when they’re not; terms that are nouns rather than verbs, that make an idea seem like an identity, so that changing your mind seems like uprooting your whole personality
A word ending with -ist is just a person that aligns with the word ending with -ism. You can definitely be a salaried worker and be a capitalist. There’s evidence for this everywhere, especially through various social media, as just one example.
Morphemes have purpose in words. They’re not for vibe-communicating.
You mean like artists are aligned with artism?
Words have different meanings, depending on the context they are used in.
I think OPs argument is silly, but doesn’t defintion number 2 from your screenshots favor OP?
Sorry none of this makes much sense.
I’ve never heard a single person claim to be a capitalist.
The “people who have the power to repossess your belongings” are lenders.
In most developed countries, employees have pension funds, and those pension funds are likely invested in large corporations including lenders. The amount of money invested in this way, in the pension funds of employees, is far, far greater than that of a single obscenely wealthy investor.
Where i live the pension is founded by taxes and spent only for pensions, isn’t like that in most developed countries except the USA and a few others?
I don’t really know which countries have private pension funds.
Certainly in countries with an ageing population it’s difficult to fund retirement pensions with tax revenue.
