• Infynis@midwest.social
      ·
      11 months ago

      Nothing in America stops the workers from owning the factory or the profits.

      Fully stop? No, not technically. But our society makes it as close to impossible as it can be without being illegal

        • uralsolo
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          deleted by creator

                • uralsolo
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  deleted by creator

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  This is ironically a poor sales pitch, unless you believe that networking, marketing, and familial wealth should be what orders society.

                  And I never said that 250k was all they had, and in fact being able to throw that much money at something is going to be less and less of a concern the more money you have, though I don't think his family was "poor as hell" to start with. Unfortunately for this point, their finances at the time are not publicized that I can find.

                    • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      It’s all part of how society works.

                      I said should, not does.

                      But he didn’t steal profits.

                      Back then, he used a considerable amount of money to run at a loss. Nowadays, he does steal a remarkable level of profits in the unpaid wages of the employees who keep winding up in the news for being forced to piss in bottles or drive to work in a hurricane.

            • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              He started out with a small loan of $250,000 from his parents, in 90s $s if memory serves.

              You're just a bootlicker aren't you? Lazy workers could be billionaires if they just tried

                • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  11 months ago

                  250k is a lot of money. It was more even more money in the 90s. Its an exceptionally large amount of money to recieve for free straight from your parents.

                  People don't become billionaires from working. They become billionaires by taking profit from the surplus value of other peoples work.

                  But you believe in a propagandized version of capitaliam where everyone could equally become a billionaire, its a meritocracy, you're all jealous and lazy of our deserving overlords bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker

                    • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      250K isn't that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn't.

                      Completely out-of-touch.

                    • Tomboys_are_Cute [he/him, comrade/them]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      $250,000 isn't a lot of money to the average person

                      Thats literally 5-6x the median annual income what the hell are you smoking. That is a life changing amount of money to most of the country.

                      they didn't take the profit from anyone

                      They took that profit from the people working there. Profit is the difference between expenses and income. In order to turn a profit companies cannot pay workers what their work earns the company, there has to be a difference. In economic parlance this difference is referred to as surplus value being generated by the workers for the company. If workers were paid what they were worth then the profit margin of that company would be 0% but those people would all be paid more than they are now. Whether you think the workers are entitled to the full value of what they create is an ideological determination that I will judge you for.

                    • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      The average US worker has a salary of $46,800 (in 2018) before taxes. Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, it would take over 5 years for them to make 250k. Again, this is before taxes, and without spending anything. For the vast majority of people, 250k is a lot of money.

                      Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, the average worker would have to work the entire length of all human history in order to earn a billion dollars. If they were to make as much money as Jeff Bezos, they would have to work for 2.8 million years.

                      Assuming you earned a million dollars every year, it would take 1000 years to earn your first billion dollars.

                      It's not possible to become a billionaire simply through working, as humans do not live that long.

                        • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          Exactly. So you agree that it's impossible to earn and save a billion dollars just by working hard. It requires either exploiting your workers by stealing their surplus value, or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

                          • Tachanka [comrade/them]
                            ·
                            11 months ago

                            or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

                            Which is also just stealing surplus value by proxy, since return on investment is simply a share of the company's profits, which is itself just surplus value, or unpaid labor.

                            • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
                              ·
                              11 months ago

                              If I don't take what my boss offers I will starve to death and die. That is not what I would consider a strong bargaining position. I can go to the other company that I could work at but they both work together to keep wages low. I have no power to improve my status because the system is rigged against me and every worker like me

                                • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  11 months ago

                                  So you are saying that as black people on average don't earn as much as white people they just aren't as good as them? It is their fault for the way the system treats them? I would hope that is obvious ridiculous to you. However the average person has just as much control over the capitalist system as black people have over the police state.

                            • rogrodre [none/use name]
                              ·
                              11 months ago

                              When you're old enough to work you'll sell it to whoever you can at whatever price they offer and you'll be lucky to get annual raises that match inflation.

                    • aebletrae [she/her]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      11 months ago

                      If wealth were actually distributed in the US equally that might be true, but as it is it's more than double what most Americans have, even ignoring inflation.

                      The average net worth of all American families was $746,820, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, while the median figure was $121,760.

                      The Average Net Worth Of Americans—By Age, Education And Ethnicity

                    • eatmyass
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      10 months ago

                      deleted by creator

                      • brain_in_a_box [he/him]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary

                        And this was supposed to be an argument for billionaires deserving their wealth?

                  • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    I'm legit trying to figure out the logic that determined which of his posts he should delete and which ones he shouldn't. Seems like it's whatever was getting a lot of replies, but also some other random ones for fun?

            • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              Where do they get the business owner who wants to do that? Can it happen? Sure, it has. But thats not going to happen for most bussiness operation in capitalist countries. Can workers get the money to buy out their owners? Sure. But that's not super likely in most situations either.

                  • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    I'm sure this dude is bullshitting literally every single thing he's saying. Anytime someone makes a reasonable reply his immediate response is to demand proof. I would not be surprised if everything this person has said is a lie.

                      • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                        ·
                        11 months ago

                        If they actually had that kind of money they would understand that unemployment is used to violently force people to take jobs that they don't want to do. It keeps their entire system afloat and they somehow have no knowledge of it? Yeah, dude is a bootlicker

    • CAPSLOCKFTW@lemmy.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Nothing stops them! except shitty wages that are not enough to pay your absurdly high bills for housing, utility and shitty food plus competition which does not treat their eorkers fair and is therefore much more profitable and can easily destroy your worker-friendly cooperative, which they totally will do because CAPITALISM

        • Ho_Chi_Chungus [she/her]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Those lazy commies with their limp wristed excuses like: "The reality of living under a capitalist society". Why don't they just eat some bootstrap stew like my pa did and die of preventable illness generating labor value for someone else?

        • uralsolo
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          deleted by creator

            • uralsolo
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              deleted by creator

            • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
              ·
              11 months ago

              Massive inefficient redundancies that ended up making rich people money and hurting the poor? Yeah, fuck that.

            • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              11 months ago

              Wait...so these are your examples of people who "did something"

              Do you realize that the edge every single one of these companies had over the others is the willingness to do whatever it takes to extract as much value from labor for the least amount of money, right?

              You are just making the case for the complete destruction of capitalism. Only soulless psychopaths are rewarded here. Winning is not beating these people at the same psychotic game that they're playing.

                • aebletrae [she/her]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  This is the reasoning that leads to "if you think medicines are too expensive, stop buying them" with much the same problem of it not being quite that simple for the majority of humanity, whose "choices" are not as unconstrained as the ones you're familiar with.

                    • aebletrae [she/her]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      I know you deleted your earlier nonsense, but I saw some of it first, so I know how out of touch you are. You were wrong about how much wealth people have, but even after having that corrected, here you are with "It's just how the world works", another incorrect assertion that might describe your experience of the world, but is unrepresentative for humanity as a whole.

                      Most people don't have the luxuries you so clearly take for granted. Turning down exploitative employment is only an option for those with money in reserve. Most people do not have that. Going somewhere else means separation from family and friends—easy enough for the thoroughly unlikable, but community is important to most members of a social species. And, anyway, that's assuming there aren't legal restrictions like immigration controls. As I said before, most lives are more constrained than yours, and that isn't because those people are any less deserving. That is how the world works.

                      I'm going to suggest you read the article "Why Fascism is the Wave of the Future" by Edward Luttwak. Don't worry, it's just a warning, and it starts:—

                      That capitalism unobstructed by public regulations, cartels, monopolies, oligopolies, effective trade unions, cultural inhibitions or kinship obligations is the ultimate engine of economic growth is an old-hat truth

                      so it's not commie propaganda. But it might relieve you of some of your misconceptions, since you clearly aren't listening to us here. Of course, you could just carry on regardless, but then it'll be just far too clear that you're not acting in good faith.

                            • aebletrae [she/her]
                              ·
                              11 months ago

                              We don't allow slave labor like communism does.

                              You might want to recheck that constitution.

                              Oh, no, what am I saying? You don't want to do that, because that would once more point out that you're clueless in your assertions. Now I don't want to read any more of them. And I'm free to turn you down, right?

                            • RedDawn [he/him]
                              ·
                              11 months ago

                              Oh you don’t like being exploited? Well, you’re free to starve and die instead! Freedom!

                            • Egon [they/them]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              11 months ago

                              We don't allow slave labor l

                              Tell that to the 13th amendment and the prison-industrial complex. Maybe also phone up the people mining the minerals for your Tesla and your phone

                        • RedDawn [he/him]
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          The rich and the poor are equally free to sleep under a bridge at night.

                          Everybody is equally free to turn down a job when they need money for food, housing, medical care and other necessities of basic life.

                        • Egon [they/them]
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          I can't force someone to take a job, but I can starve them until they do. And I can make it illegal for them to acquire food in any way that isn't engaging with my system of capitalism.

                          proof

                          PIGPOOPBALLS pigpoopPIGPOOPBALLS pigpoopPIGPOOPBALLS pigpoopPIGPOOPBALLS pigpoopPIGPOOPBALLS pigpoopPIGPOOPBALLS pigpoop

                • UlyssesT [he/him]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Just because you say you enjoy the taste of shoe polish doesn't mean you're not a pathetic bootlicker.

                    • UlyssesT [he/him]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      11 months ago

                      You sound so effeminate when you say that.

                      You sound extraordinarily misogynistic and insecure when you say that. Got some Jordan Peterson books in your mancave, bucko? up-yours-woke-moralists

                        • UlyssesT [he/him]
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          The more you try to claim you're totally not enraged and everything is le funny to you, the more enraged you sound.

                            • UlyssesT [he/him]
                              ·
                              11 months ago

                              I’m not enraged at all.

                              Sure you're not, which is why you have to keep saying you're le laughing right now.

                              Clearly calling you a bootlicker hit close to the mark because all you've done since then is act insecure and misogynistic.

                              Show

                                • UlyssesT [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  11 months ago

                                  you keep resorting to personal attacks

                                  You're crying about that now? I know self awareness isn't your strong suit, but come on. pathetic

                                    • UlyssesT [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      11 months ago

                                      I am not crying.

                                      The more you keep bringing up your insistence that you're not raging about being called (apparently, correctly) a bootlicker, the worse you're making it sound for you.

                                      Crying about personal attacks after accusing me of being effeminate (because femininity bad, amirite bucko? jordan-eboy-peterson ) is really shooting yourself in the foot. You've already come across as misogynistic, insecure, and a stan for corporate masters that don't care if you live or die. You're just digging deeper.

                                      Continue. party-parrot-popcorn

                                      • Egon [they/them]
                                        ·
                                        11 months ago

                                        Ulysses you really need to engage with more chuds. Your posting power is wasted on comrades, this is wonderful

                                        • UlyssesT [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          11 months ago

                                          I haven't argued much at all with other Hexbears pretty much since federating happened.

                                          Your wish is granted. sweat

                                    • Flaps [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      11 months ago

                                      Might just go ahead and delete your entire account at this point

                • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  No one cares if you "buy into" anything. It exists whether you believe it or not.

                  The entire point of keeping unemployment at certain levels is so capitalists can dictate wages and responsibilities. It's not a secret. Bourgeois media openly panics whenever unemployment levels get too low.

                    • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      11 months ago

                      Right sure you do. I definitely believe you.

                      You can believe whatever you want but that doesn't change how the real world works outside your head.

                        • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                          ·
                          11 months ago

                          Sure, if that's even true, then good for you.

                          Again, you can believe whatever you want but that doesn't change how the real world works outside your head.

                            • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              11 months ago

                              Cool good for you (if that's even true)

                              Anyway, in the very real world that we live in, unemployment is kept at certain levels so capitalists can dictate wages and responsibilities. It's not a secret. Bourgeois media openly panics whenever unemployment levels get too low.

                                • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                                  ·
                                  11 months ago

                                  Yes, they are panicking because people have bargaining power to get higher wages. Are you still not connecting the dots there?

                                  I have a skill and I am not struggling like some of my other comrades are. That does not make me blind to the purpose of unemployment or to the fact that if everyone in the world had my skill set then that would mean there are a lot of important jobs that aren't getting done, a fact that, curiously, has completely escaped you.

                                    • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                                      ·
                                      11 months ago

                                      No, they are concerned about having to pay people more, because that cuts directly into their own profits. They are not more concerned about inflation then they are about their own loss of profit from having to pay workers more, unless they require so few laborers to run their business that inflation does actually cut into their profits more.

                                      Feds are increasing interest rates to increase unemployment. They directly stated that. You can Google it if you don't believe me.

                                      Quite a bit has escaped you and it is endlessly entertaining to me.

                                        • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          11 months ago

                                          Labor is the largest expense of a business wtf do you mean a wage increase "doesn't cut into profits" lmao

                                          Businesses had an excuse to raise prices so they did, end of story. That's not complicated in the slightest.

                                          The Fed is doing what they said they're trying to do, increase unemployment rates.

                                          Have a good one.

                • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  11 months ago

                  I try to tell myself that most of the people bought into capitalism can be rehabilitated, maybe some just need to spend a few years breaking rocks to get it through their heads that other people fucking exist on this planet.

                  Reading your comments has made me re-evaluate that

                • Egon [they/them]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  I don't buy into that lame beta theory of gravity. You go down. If you don't feel like going down, go up. It's that simple. That is the beauty of jumping. I can jump as high as I want

            • aebletrae [she/her]
              ·
              11 months ago

              The problem with notable examples is that they're pretty much never representative examples.

            • Cynetri (he/any)@midwest.social
              ·
              11 months ago

              Tesla is not close to bigger than GM. They only make consumer vehicles and maybe a model of semi truck but I don't think that's being produced yet, while GM has been making consumer cars in addition to commercial and military vehicles for decades. They might be valued as more but that doesn't really say anything in practical terms.

    • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      The system actively discourages that. It was tried in the 70s. Banks wouldn't work with coops because they were diffrent. Other companies wouldn't work with them because they didn't being as high a ROI. They were more efficient and stable, but under capitalism none of that matters.

    • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Did... did I say they couldn't? I think this continues to be a misunderstanding of what socialists believe.