Edit: Mods forgive me I posted debate bro shit - but it seemed justified in this case.
Well, what's important to capitalism is not just the "ownership" of the means of production in a technical sense, but also the relations of power that come with massive accumulation of capital relative to others. There's a couple of ways to make sense of this. Instead of writing a whole ass essay right now, I'll explain just one rebuttal.
Their argument is one of technicality, which is a very lawyerly thing to do haha. but that's not a materialist understanding of the situation. We have to look at the power relations that exist, not just what the rules say on paper. Consider a financial schema split between two partners where partner A owns 999,999 shares, and partner B owns 1 share. Sure, it's technically correct to say it's a partnership, and that there are owners of capital. Owning the means of production makes that person a capitalist. Owning share(s) is owning the means of production. Both A and B own share(s). Ergo, both A and B are capitalists. The argument is logically valid!There's no distinction to be made! We must rejoice for Communism has been defeated! Perhaps you've already guessed, but there's more to the story than just that reductive logic. Control enough capital, and you have de facto control over all of the capital. B's 1 share will never override any decision by A's 999,999. A difference in quantity can in fact become a difference in quality.
In the US, The richest 1% own 50% of the stock market, and the richest 10% own almost 90% . Realistically, only the richest 10% have any real claim to being capitalists, with there being a huge difference in power between petty bourgeois wealth/power and B I G bourgeois wealth/power. Marxism explains that too - over time petty bourgeois get gobbled up by the tendency towards monopolization and forced back into the proletariat. Look at the rapid consolidation of wealth in the neo-liberal world, and you see that in action. The big recessions hurt the petty bourgeois and working class, and the big banks/financial capitalists win out. Fundamentally, your friends' argument that there's no difference ignores the material realities of the situation, the grand majority of people in the US own little to nothing, and subsequently have no control over of the means of production.
Edit: Mods forgive me I posted debate bro shit - but it seemed justified in this case.
Well, what's important to capitalism is not just the "ownership" of the means of production in a technical sense, but also the relations of power that come with massive accumulation of capital relative to others. There's a couple of ways to make sense of this. Instead of writing a whole ass essay right now, I'll explain just one rebuttal.
Their argument is one of technicality, which is a very lawyerly thing to do haha. but that's not a materialist understanding of the situation. We have to look at the power relations that exist, not just what the rules say on paper. Consider a financial schema split between two partners where partner A owns 999,999 shares, and partner B owns 1 share. Sure, it's technically correct to say it's a partnership, and that there are owners of capital. Owning the means of production makes that person a capitalist. Owning share(s) is owning the means of production. Both A and B own share(s). Ergo, both A and B are capitalists. The argument is logically valid!There's no distinction to be made! We must rejoice for Communism has been defeated! Perhaps you've already guessed, but there's more to the story than just that reductive logic. Control enough capital, and you have de facto control over all of the capital. B's 1 share will never override any decision by A's 999,999. A difference in quantity can in fact become a difference in quality.
In the US, The richest 1% own 50% of the stock market, and the richest 10% own almost 90% . Realistically, only the richest 10% have any real claim to being capitalists, with there being a huge difference in power between petty bourgeois wealth/power and B I G bourgeois wealth/power. Marxism explains that too - over time petty bourgeois get gobbled up by the tendency towards monopolization and forced back into the proletariat. Look at the rapid consolidation of wealth in the neo-liberal world, and you see that in action. The big recessions hurt the petty bourgeois and working class, and the big banks/financial capitalists win out. Fundamentally, your friends' argument that there's no difference ignores the material realities of the situation, the grand majority of people in the US own little to nothing, and subsequently have no control over of the means of production.