Anonymous #1 6w

Capitalism is the only system that can change that. You will stay poor under everything else but get fucked by the government

-2

Anonymous OP 6w

How does a shareholder extracting excess value off of my labor enable me to rise out of poverty?

17

Sounds like you’re conceding the point that you’d prefer to build wealth by owning stuff and producing nothing rather than reaping the fruits of your own labor.

1

But you literally did no labor to produce that $250! Isn’t that kind of a fucked-up system, especially for the workers of the companies whose shares you own who don’t necessarily have the means to buy in themselves?

1

I’ve made zero claims about how I handle my finances, and I’m not sure why you’re making assumptions about how I do so. Additionally, I find it odd that you make the assumption that it is a simple matter of personal choice that is hindering every other low-income worker from achieving the same social mobility that your mom did, especially considering that median cost of housing has risen relative to median wages since we were kids.

1

Additionally, unless you work at a (genuine) worker-owned co-operative, you’re likely being short-changed for your own labor and ought to be paid more for it.

1

You’re answering the question from the perspective of a shareholder, though, not as a worker. My whole criticism of capitalism is that the worker gets fucked over, and you haven’t refuted that claim. You seem to be agreeing with me that the only people who benefit under capitalism are the shareholders.

1

Wouldn’t it be nice if your state government paid you what you were worth, so that you didn’t have to leech off the workers for the companies whose shares you own? (I also have a Roth IRA and a simple brokerage account, so I am guilty of this as well; we can get into the ethics of participation of capitalism if you want)

1

Again, I worry that you’re making too ambitious of an induction that everyone can do exactly what your mom did with insufficient evidence. Do you want to go back into my housing cost argument as to why I think that belief of yours is mistaken?

1

Another thought: Given that your response to my criticism is that every worker should attempt to also become a shareholder, wouldn’t that just lead to a system where everyone makes shitty wages because everyone is simultaneously exploiting each other’s labor? At that point, why not eliminate the trading of shares and just pay everyone for what they produce with their labor?

1

I’m more of a socialist than a communist, but to be clear: in what ways do you think that a socialist economy would be worse than a capitalist economy?

1

I promise to try to help consolidate this conversation down to a single message exchange (feels like we have four comments going right now), but I’d like to respond to your most recent comment first: I feel like we have different definitions of socialism that we’re working with. Given that the definition I’m working off of is “an economic system where the workers own the means of production”, I have trouble seeing how most of the consequences you listed would necessarily follow from socialism.

1

Anonymous #1 6w

Could you flesh your claims out in further detail for me?

1

Yeah, you’re fine! We both have lives to live and you don’t have to respond right away.

5