WTAF are you talking about. On Lemmy, you’re either a communist or a billlionaire tooting nazi.
I’m in favour of a progressive tax on income, in favour of inheritance tax and in favour of a wealth tax. That doesn’t mean I think some people shouldn’t become rich from their efforts or that every wealthy person has gotten their by exploring the labour they employ (everybody else free to take that risk too).
I’d like my government and country run like the Nordics. Where I do fit in in your insane binary world?
Me too. If you think the Nordics is bad, don’t move move to the U.K. or US where I am. We can argue all day long about our experience of each system, but look at the Gini coefficient alone for some data.
Yeah, I am proud of my country’s history of somewhat national control over resources and not super incredibly terrible distribution of wealth. The bar set by the UK and US is outstandingly low though, and the trend for the Nordics is going in the wrong direction, and has been for 50 years, even though there were lots of potential for improvement even 50 years ago.
The communist viewpoint is that bourgeoisie interests will inevitably erode social democracies and make them rot from within. You have to replace the capitalist mode of production to have a chance at combatting exploitation of nature and people in any real and lasting capacity.
You know that most retirees rely on passive income, right? That investment is for the working class as well as the bourgeois and wealthy? Fucks sake, I wait tables and I invest, both in stocks and real estate.
Maybe this is different where you live, but where I live, most retirees have retirement investments, not pensions, and even pensions are usually drawn from a fund that is invested in the market. You can argue this shouldn’t be the case, but you cannot seriously argue that this is not the case.
I’m not watching a video. Anything worth saying is better said in plain text.
Again, I wait tables and will not receive a pension; I barely receive a wage. Any late-life income is going to be either support from my children or from investments I make now.
At this point, I almost have to think you’re trolling. Until you prove it, though, I’ll attempt to keep discussing in good faith.
And so, your link: “Usury” is the English word for that concept. And investments generally aren’t interest-bearing loans, anyway, but profit-sharing ventures.
Further: If I take my wages, my active income, and I invest it, the income from those investments is passive income, even if the initial investment was made with active income.
Finally: Videos are an ablist format that are hostile to those with vision and hearing impairments, both of which I have. I don’t think saying “use your words” is refusing new information, but rather demanding it.
there is Investment into “schaffendes Kapital” —> productive Capital … it Produces … it Consumes … most of what it produces increases general wellbeeing (there is Consumer deemand because it does) …it is goodish side of Kapital
there is Investment into “Raffendes Kapital” —> “Extracting Capital” … Rent & Interest… it does not Produce … no , it is evens dependent on Decreasing Production… decreasing general wellbeeing… decreased Housing --> increased Rent
interest produces nothing as well , it extracts Money (by a mathematical calculation , that does not really exist) and then produces Guilt by Misfortune…
–> it decreases general wellbeeing
think about your Rent . what Percentage of your Wage do you Pay just for Rent ? You Pay because a Human necessity (housing) is made “scarce” …
important distinction is that you are with me on that comes from the Fact that you are working class.
The Ruling Class (/ Elite / Passive Income Creditor Class / Bourgoise / Ownership Class / extractor Class ) lives from YOUR Labour , they are NOT with me on that .
(Labour is the source of all Value)
passiv income lives my others peoples Labour --> Parasiticlly , So it gonna have an Ideology that allows them to live by other peoples labour … And they will create a System that protects their Passiv income over all else … and they will not allow anybody to question their Income Or their System…
And yes thats the System we have.
"the Debt must be Payed! is the higest Maxime " … take the withering America for example…
the Interest has now exceded ALL other expanses … it gets complettly suffrocated by the Passiv income Class… No healthcare , Not Pensions , No nothing… no houses … rent 1/2 of the Income … etc. And who is guilty on that Misery … ? They are … Even the Bible and the Torah allready forbade that sin… Because they Rule and they know of nothing that is more Holy than “Their Income , by YOUR Labour” … they will literally burn the planet down before they gonna give back even tiny fraqments of what they have taken … they are the CLASS ENEMY … the Parasite … because imagine a America freed from its Debt (Debt Cancelation) ? or an America freed from its Rent (Housing Reform /Landreform) … It will never happen…
Because the “Common Class Interest” of all your Rulership will be to protect their Income. …Not America …
Knowing to differentiate beetween “Active and Passiv Income” / “Working Class & Bourgoise” / “Plebs and Patricians”
is Called “Class Counsiousness” , and the hole eternal War beetween Passiv (suffrocating) and active (building) Income is Called the “CLASSWAR”. … you probably have heard Marx:
“The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes”
revolutionary reconstruction is the like Golden Age , while the Common Ruin of the Contenting Classes is the “Dark age” , the Rulership of the Suffrocating capital that is threatend by all that is good.
See, this is part of why I’m not a communist. Not all value derives from labor, some is naturally occuring.
The other sticking point is the inherent value of labor. In communist theory (as I understand it) the value of the final product is equal to the value of the labor required to produce it. But this means that if the product is, well, crap, then the labor put into it is without much value. That’s a no-sell for me. You can say that the value of the labor was wasted, but to say it doesn’t exist? I can’t agree to that proposition.
See, this is part of why I’m not a communist. Not all value derives from labor, some is naturally occuring.
this is factually wrong. all value derrives from labour if not ,name a single object created without labour. What ever is “Naturally occuring” still needs Labour to Harvest or to transport or even to watch it and enjoy its beauty.
What labor is required for a sunset, or a clear mountain stream? What labor created the jet stream?
To harvest the ocean of fish requires labor, but to stock it did not. And a balanced ocean ecosystem has value whether or not it is utilized, as does a forest or the clear mountain stream.
So you can not sell the Jetstream you can sell the Jet that uses the Jetstream , the Sailoboat that uses the Wind or you can build it yourself all of which need labour , without this labour the “Jetstream” has no value.
we talk about Base Value NOT “Superstructure” Value , thinks you can touch … not like … “i enjoy sunsets value” but even that requires some labour or at least the absence of other labour necessities… , you made absent before hand by labouring… Freetime also derives its value and existance FROM Labour.
And you’ve exemplified the heart of my gripe: There is more to value than economic value. I’m not talking about selling the jetstream, but about how it provides stable weather patterns to both the American Midwest and Central Europe. There is value in that.
I appreciate your base / superstructure argument but I don’t understand it without further explanation. A lot of the superstructure half do seem related to production: education and art, to name just two.
And you’ve exemplified the heart of my gripe: There is more to value than economic value.
yes the Superstructure.
Superstructrue is exactly this unmessurable mass that is not “konret” that doesnt have owners , can not be divided or counted etc…
Art is aexample on how it work. Like “who Produces the Art for whom” is the “Relation of Production”… The Flemish Masters painted those tha t could affort their Product the Elite … therefore the Art from this era is filled with many many Ruler and Aristocrat Paintings , showing their Welth and Power… In the Sowjet Union the Painting where comissend by the working class (or in a working class Ideology) the Painting therefore Depict Socialist Themes etc. “Collectivism / Struggle / Classwar” …,
and dont forget the Mirror relation <—>the other Art the “rebell” side of art is also shaped by the “Base” , even if it critizes it , it will critize its base…
Btw this “superstructure and Base” thing is the “Dialectical and Historical Materialism” … very usefull concept to analyse the world with. Its like the “Atom of the Process” … there is always a “Base Need” that will shape “its Superstructure” …
Crimea is Ukrainian in western ( “Superstructure”) … but certainly not in the messurable and touchable Soil (“Base” ) .
and as Base shapes the Supersturcture --> every day that passes without Crimea beeing owned by Ukraine --> it belongs to Ukraine a little less --> until its gonna be like California and Mexico <-- --> And the Mirror relation is Ukraine know about this ! --> therefore wants to retake it (in Soil & Base) ,
Not in the “Superstructure” ,in here Ukraine owns it allready , so there is no Issue … the Issue again … stems as always . from the Base … that is Russia “actually” owning it.
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away. The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into being and going out of being.
Nature is the test of dialectics, and it must be said for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature’s process is dialectical and not metaphysical, that it does not move in an eternally uniform and constantly repeated circle, but passes through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception of nature by proving that the organic world of today, plants and animals, and consequently man too, is all a product of a process of development that has been in progress for millions of years.
You never even started discussing in good faith and refuse to learn anything you’re just a smug liberal licking the boot of people that hate you and steal from you.
You can have a capitalist economy without billionaires. It just requires a wealth tax and welfare state. Nothing wrong with small businesses and anti trust.
All that said, UBI is inevitable with the rise of automation, as the value of labour drops to zero. The only question is: will the labour class fight for their share of the pie, or will they roll over and just die of hunger.
I believe the most productive framing of UBI is directed toward the capitalists:
Say automation replaces the workforce you employ, with monumental savings to you! Now what?
The products that the businesses you control create require consumers. No consumers, no sales. Henry Ford realized this a century ago, which is why he championed a robust minimum wage. What good is the most efficient production if supply dwarfs demand? Even if you produce luxuries for the capitalist class, the buying power of those capitalists is predicated on their own profits. Elimination of the consumer class decimates the purchasing power of the capitalists which rely on their consumption, trickling up the chain.
Logically, it’s best to view the taxes that enable UBI as akin to the ante at a poker table, with returns on production and marketing resembling the strength of your cards. If everyone at the table pays in, and you have the strongest hand, you get out more than you put in.
If Coke, Pepsi, RC Cola, and the various generics pay in relative to their revenue, but Pepsi secures an outsized market share, their profits outpace the ante.
This is inevitable, the alternative being total collapse for all parties. Maybe you’d be the last to exit the market, but without the ante system, everyone will exit the market soon enough.
the-deserter Political consciousness has eroded. The poor root for their capitalist billionaire oppressors. They no longer care to have the pride to fight for themselves.
Eh. Using your tremendous wealth for vaguely directed battery is less than optimal. I think I’d take any of the real philanthropist billionaires over Bruce Wayne.
You mean the guy that brutalized petty criminals and people with mental health issues instead of addressing any underlying conditions that he could with his vast wealth? You chose the fascist furry of all people?