so many of my questions are just trying to understand how we could not make things only for profit
it's hard. partly why so many people take the Capitalist Realism inroad to anticapitalism. it's kind of the first thing you notice is how hard it is to imagine alternatives.
the bracelets that track if amazon workers are moving?
yes, and also that the innovations are used extremely inefficiently, as you rightly pointed out.
would you mind clarifying this part?
marx and engels' analysis was highly focused on the condition of the proletariat under industrialized capitalism in bourgeois european societies that hadn't necessarily thrown off their monarchies yet. consider that the year of publication of this is 1847, a year before the slew of liberal revolutions of 1848 in europe. so in terms of their relatively far future predictions of conditions and circumstances that did not reach their zenith until the end of WWI, the culmination of the communist preparation for the millennarian coming of the global revolution, they didn't take into account the increasingly global nature of capitalist exploitation. the colonial holdings of the fractured european society of the early 20th century were extremely valuable, and control over those was a key catalyst for WWI, a war of terminal crisis inn european capitalism, sort of imploding on itself. modern europe doesn't really exist until after that crisis concludes. it's also the stage of development where the communist revolution truly seemed to be ready to kick off, that circumstances for the proletariat had finally deteriorated to the point that bourgeois society itself was about to mindlessly obliterate itself. but, notably, the communist organization just never really gained traction to do the whole global revolution thing. marx and engels figured it would happen first in the imperial cores, because those places had the most developed proletariats. however, they didn't have a way to predict the interdiction of the colonial holdings on how the situation panned out. conditions essentially never really reached a point where communist organization could sweep away the authority of the bourgeois states. england never had a revolution, they had extensive colonial holdings, the profits of which could be used to give better wages to domestic workers while the capitalists still made incredible profits. the most successful colonial empires were the most able to use extra violence in the colonies to get extra labor and resources to buy off the proletariat at home. germany had a real attempt at a revolution, had very few colonies incidentally, and lost because the communists were betrayed by their social democratic allies, who at that point were too embedded in the operating structures of their bourgeois state to intentionally implode it. especially after they had agreed to let germany get involved in WWI, something that in many ways made the betrayal of the communist revolution inevitable. russia didn't have colonies, russia was the colony. the broader russian empire was the local bread basket of europe, operating at basically feudal production to grow grain for the industrialized west. it turned out to be much simpler to topple their bourgeois state because it barely existed in the first place.
so then... would like... a youtuber be petty bourgeois? a writer?
sure, those are good examples. a doctor that in a practice, a lawyer in a practice, typically work that is considered "professional" labor is petty bourgeois, specifically when it's private practice thereof. a lawyer that is solely a public defender is essentially a wage slave of the bourgeois society that employs them (and not a well-paid one mind you).
sadly they have to keep doing it because we need to finish the house we bought...
it's a funny thing, but from the analysis of how capitalism functions, your parents are unfortunately in the class of owners of the means of production, they're just bad at it in a technical sense. i don't mean that as a moral judgement, they're just not as good at doing capitalism as like, a wall street psychopath. the tension in liberalism ultimately comes down to these questions of how we are individually to feel and relate to things we want to morally valuate. circumstance would determine what would happen with your parents under a communist revolution. if they're truly kind people, perhaps their workers wouldn't harbor too much resentment, you know? but that's what it really comes down to, they're on the winning side in our society by being in the position to dictate to their workers that the extra part of the value they create is going to your parents' house that the workers can't share in. i'm not, and i don't think anyone normal would agree that your parents are inhuman monsters like elon musk. it's just that they're in the same relationship to other people in terms of the means of production.
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it's hard. partly why so many people take the Capitalist Realism inroad to anticapitalism. it's kind of the first thing you notice is how hard it is to imagine alternatives.
yes, and also that the innovations are used extremely inefficiently, as you rightly pointed out.
marx and engels' analysis was highly focused on the condition of the proletariat under industrialized capitalism in bourgeois european societies that hadn't necessarily thrown off their monarchies yet. consider that the year of publication of this is 1847, a year before the slew of liberal revolutions of 1848 in europe. so in terms of their relatively far future predictions of conditions and circumstances that did not reach their zenith until the end of WWI, the culmination of the communist preparation for the millennarian coming of the global revolution, they didn't take into account the increasingly global nature of capitalist exploitation. the colonial holdings of the fractured european society of the early 20th century were extremely valuable, and control over those was a key catalyst for WWI, a war of terminal crisis inn european capitalism, sort of imploding on itself. modern europe doesn't really exist until after that crisis concludes. it's also the stage of development where the communist revolution truly seemed to be ready to kick off, that circumstances for the proletariat had finally deteriorated to the point that bourgeois society itself was about to mindlessly obliterate itself. but, notably, the communist organization just never really gained traction to do the whole global revolution thing. marx and engels figured it would happen first in the imperial cores, because those places had the most developed proletariats. however, they didn't have a way to predict the interdiction of the colonial holdings on how the situation panned out. conditions essentially never really reached a point where communist organization could sweep away the authority of the bourgeois states. england never had a revolution, they had extensive colonial holdings, the profits of which could be used to give better wages to domestic workers while the capitalists still made incredible profits. the most successful colonial empires were the most able to use extra violence in the colonies to get extra labor and resources to buy off the proletariat at home. germany had a real attempt at a revolution, had very few colonies incidentally, and lost because the communists were betrayed by their social democratic allies, who at that point were too embedded in the operating structures of their bourgeois state to intentionally implode it. especially after they had agreed to let germany get involved in WWI, something that in many ways made the betrayal of the communist revolution inevitable. russia didn't have colonies, russia was the colony. the broader russian empire was the local bread basket of europe, operating at basically feudal production to grow grain for the industrialized west. it turned out to be much simpler to topple their bourgeois state because it barely existed in the first place.
sure, those are good examples. a doctor that in a practice, a lawyer in a practice, typically work that is considered "professional" labor is petty bourgeois, specifically when it's private practice thereof. a lawyer that is solely a public defender is essentially a wage slave of the bourgeois society that employs them (and not a well-paid one mind you).
it's a funny thing, but from the analysis of how capitalism functions, your parents are unfortunately in the class of owners of the means of production, they're just bad at it in a technical sense. i don't mean that as a moral judgement, they're just not as good at doing capitalism as like, a wall street psychopath. the tension in liberalism ultimately comes down to these questions of how we are individually to feel and relate to things we want to morally valuate. circumstance would determine what would happen with your parents under a communist revolution. if they're truly kind people, perhaps their workers wouldn't harbor too much resentment, you know? but that's what it really comes down to, they're on the winning side in our society by being in the position to dictate to their workers that the extra part of the value they create is going to your parents' house that the workers can't share in. i'm not, and i don't think anyone normal would agree that your parents are inhuman monsters like elon musk. it's just that they're in the same relationship to other people in terms of the means of production.