• quarrk [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    It also needs emphasis that capitalist loss and gain are in terms of value, an abstract capitalist version of wealth and not direct material wealth. The same amount of value can represent different amounts of commodities depending on the productivity of labor at a given time. We are hilariously more materially productive today than we were in Marx’s time, but the logic of capital demands that, nope, we still need to gain by X% over the invested value regardless of how many physical commodities are required to embody that value. So, when we speak of sharing losses with workers, we should remember that we’re talking about a specific kind of loss that doesn’t necessarily even mean we’re struggling in terms of absolute material wealth.

    • JuneFall [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Good points. I also didn't mention cyclical problems of capitalism, or that those workers who clock in and [want] to "do their hours" would still have very vested interests about how many hours they have to do. The objective interest of the working class gets hidden by talk as the anti-communist poster did.