Rich people are just better, and because they’re better anything they do with their money is automatically better. So they should get all the money and if you want to be a good person just get rich like them.
The ol’ more money = better than theory
David Cross, my love!
It’s funny because it’s really close to the truth:
Rich people are just better [at getting other’s money], and because they’re better [at getting other’s money] anything they do with their money is automatically better [at getting other’s money]. So they
shouldwill get all the money and if you want to be a good person [at getting other’s money] just getrichbetter [at getting other’s money] like them.
It’s actually about power and leverage, not lifestyle. Rich people don’t actually spend most of their money on personal luxuries, they spend it on acquiring more wealth, which translates into more control over resources and people’s lives. Regular people don’t actually spend most of their money on luxuries, they spend it on maintaining their place in a world someone else owns.
The narrative that it is about what level of material status someone is living in or deserves is a distraction. It wouldn’t matter at all if the rich started living more spartan lifestyles. They still have the wealth and power, that will manifest one way or another as control over other people’s lives, and that’s what they’re really there for.
The point is that if that money is used to pay employees properly, the wealth/power balances evaporate, and we’ll have a much fairer society society where our democracy isn’t undermined by monied interests.
if [yacht money] is used to pay employees properly, the wealth/power balances evaporate
Several issues with this. As other comments have pointed out, the specific money in question here isn’t actually very significant. But say you expand what’s considered to all company profits. A company won’t voluntarily pay more for a service of a given quality than they have to, because its existence depends on being better at profit seeking than other companies. If they do have to (maybe because of a regulation) pay more than the market rate, the priority is going to be reorganizing the business to employ fewer people, overwork the people who are still employed, or otherwise arrange themselves so that as much of the profits as possible are still going to the owners. The power dynamic between employer and employee remains the same, because their relative negotiating power is largely unchanged, and so would be the balance of wealth.
the specific money in question here isn’t actually very significant.
It’s all the revenue leeched away from workers to shareholders - that’s the majority of the entire global economy. What are you talking about?
A company won’t voluntarily pay more for a service of a given quality than they have to, because its existence depends on being better at profit seeking than other companies.
I’m not proposing we make it voluntary.
If they do have to (maybe because of a regulation) pay more than the market rate, the priority is going to be reorganizing the business to employ fewer people, overwork the people who are still employed, or otherwise arrange themselves so that as much of the profits as possible are still going to the owners.
Companies aren’t welfare schemes - they run as lean as possible today. I’m proposing the workers be the owners.
The power dynamic between employer and employee remains the same, because their relative negotiating power is largely unchanged, and so would be the balance of wealth.
Workers own the company, workers get paid fairly, workers decide how the company is run. Shareholders no longer exist, and must live off the welfare state or get a real goddamn job.
I’m proposing the workers be the owners.
What I like about this solution is that it does to some extent directly address the problem of negotiating power. I am skeptical about the practicality and sustainability though. For example there was a worker owned brewery I was aware of, which had an employment scheme in which accumulated time in the company translated into shares of ownership. The brewery became successful, and the now somewhat wealthy workers preferred to keep their wealth rather than continuing to distribute it to new employees, and so they voted to sell and accept a payout. I’m not sure this is an easily solved issue; it seems that any financial endeavor will have winners and losers, and the winners will do what they can to retain their position.
This is because co-ops these days still have to compete in a capitalist market, and need to be ruthless to remain competitive. I’m not saying this is good. Just that it’s not a problem inherent to worker management - it’s a problem with the system they have to work under.
If this worker management extended to the whole economy - i.e. socialism - then these incentives would no longer exist. The economy would no longer be a competition requiring ruthless tactics.
Isn’t this solved if you can’t sell your shares?
I don’t think it would be. What happens when someone leaves the company or is pushed out? Automatically lose their shares? Who determines what proportion of shares or pay you get for which roles or level of seniority? What about nepotism? Ownership implies control, control gets used to advance your own interests.
This is far enough down the line with enough positive progress to be had in the meantime (e.g. German-style employee representation in boards, greater share grants to employees, etc.) that I’m comfortable figuring that one out later.
My gut feel would be that you share profits while you work for the company and lose the shares when you leave. There would be a fairly equitable allocation of shares irrespective of roles with employees to vote for greater allocations if needs dictate. Nepotism would be dramatically reduced compared to today with a more democratic workplace. Much like I like my countries democratic, I like my workplaces democratic - the interests of the workers are the interests of the nation.
The Mondragon Corporation is an interesting example of a cooperative scaling up https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Shareholders at least the ones beating the market have a different skill set to workers. Replacing them with other workers might have issues with long term success.
I think you’d be better off changing laws that suppress workers wages and laws that unnecessary increase their expenses particularly rent
Owning things isn’t a skill, my dude. This is evident in the fact that almost the entire human race owns something.
Agreed on owning things I was talking about those getting an above market return.
Of what value is that to society? If there’s no value and massive downsides, why should we
protectreward them?When the market is shaped by austerity politics, corporate welfare, and wage depression, then “getting an above market return” depends on austerity politics, corporate welfare, and wage depression (which still is not the same as the “skill set” of owning shares).
Your objection sidesteps the broader observations, of how the masses of workers are oppressed by the greed of the very few, who sustain a self-serving narrative.
That skillset would no longer be relevant; their jobs would be made redundant. Companies in this scenario no longer need to seek growth and increasing profit margins. They only need to earn enough to pay their own salaries. And, because the workers are the ones who collectively manage the company, they can democratically make strategic plans for future production, and logistical changes to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of work necessary and improve their working conditions.
In abstract sense, when you make profit, it means that you’ve made a sufficiently good path to some end for other people. Like in electrical engineering.
The more your “path-shortening” effect, the bigger your profit.
It’s a system leading to optimization (in abstract).
they can democratically make strategic plans for future production, and logistical changes to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of work necessary and improve their working conditions
While this isn’t.
I’d be happy to see any idea aimed at improving human life conditions, general happiness and so on succeed. Just with leftist conversations it always looks like “the brakes and safety measures are making the car too expensive, let’s get rid of them”.
In abstract sense, when you make profit, it means that you’ve made a sufficiently good path to some end for other people.
In an abstract sense, sure. But in reality, profit does not require you to do any good. If it’s more expensive to dispose of waste ethically, for example, then waste will be disposed of unethically.
Like in electrical engineering.
Yes, I can’t argue that jobs exist that help other people.
The more your “path-shortening” effect, the bigger your profit.
Not necessarily. Insurance is one example.
It’s a system leading to optimization (in abstract).
In the abstract, I agree. But left to play out, monopoly and bureaucracy inevitably emerge.
While this isn’t.
Why not?
I’d be happy to see any idea aimed at improving human life conditions, general happiness and so on succeed.
Okay. Me, too.
Just with leftist conversations it always looks like “the brakes and safety measures are making the car too expensive, let’s get rid of them”.
I really don’t mean to be snide, but you have this backwards. Under capitalism, it requires the state to intervene to regulate it in order to, for example, add safety measures to cars. Socialist economies are, as I mentioned, democratic. The people need safety measures, and the people are in control of production, so safety measures will be in place.
I agree. As a major shareholder and successful business owner, I’m far better at relaxing on a beach in Bali than the lazy poors are. Our skill sets are not comparable.
The power dynamic between employer and employee remains the same, because their relative negotiating power is largely unchanged, and so would be the balance of wealth.
Louder for the people in the back.
welcome to commnistium
Just a jokeIf we can level the inequality before transitioning so power doesn’t just reconsolidate, yeah - that’d be great.
Many other distractions, like skin color, religion, sex orientation. Poor have one advantage and that is the numbers, at least in democracies. So you need to gerrymander them in any way you can think about.
No, having superior numbers is not necessarily an advantage. Crowds have unpleasant effects due to scale, when you’d want to organize them on some issue or even just inform them.
I’m not talking riots, I’m talking voting.
Even in that case. People often vote against their own best interest. Crowd effects play a big role in this.
But still, it’s the best thing the gen pop has.
The difference is that when you say “I can’t pay my employees more” most employees begrudgingly accept the pay they get anyway. But when someone says “I can’t pay my rent”, the landlord evicts them.
If not paying your employees more actually resulted in having no employees, they would be equivalent. The only practical way to make that happen is unionization.
It’s bizarre seeing that disconnect in real life.
At my last job, the wages were stagnant for years. The company held meetings to boast that they were making record profits, the highest increase yet. The following month, they refused to raise wages because it would be too expensive.
Somehow, they were shocked when practically everyone who was skilled left. They couldn’t get new people in the door, either.
They ended up having to raise everyone’s wages. (YAY union!)
You’re so close to hitting the fundamental truth here.
A landlord evicts someone who cannot pay rent because there are other people who can pay rent.
Employees leave if an employer pays too low if there are other, better-paying options available.
As there are typically, though not always, more available workers than available jobs at a given pay rate, the workers lack the employer demand necessary to set pricing wholesale.
The reason wages have been rising lately is because employers have been unable to find workers at previous salaries. There are most definitely businesses that have folded because of this - the business model for those companies did not account for higher wages, and raising prices was not possible in the interim.
That’s the actual interplay between these market forces, and yes, the reason that unionization is effective (and often necessary) in raising wages. It’s why collective bargaining is an essential control on labor markets
Correct. In one example the tenants are against the actual contract they need more than the landlord. In another it’s the other way around with business owners and employees.
It’s about negotiating power. Life isn’t perfect. Everybody has their own idea of humanism, fairness etc (albeit often similar to many other people). From that point to synchronize you either walk away, negotiate or use violence. The latter should cause immediate removal of the initiator from the society, though that doesn’t happen IRL - IRL that initiator is sometimes rewarded by various cockroaches. Walking away or negotiating is what normal humans in general do with varying results.
They accept it because what else can they do? A lot of them aren’t in unions and even if all of them quit, how are they going to find new jobs?
The thing is that it hurts the employer just as much as the workers if everyone quits, so if you unionize first, then threaten to stop working, then you’ve got someone who can negotiate with the employer so that you don’t have to quit and you get paid enough to not make you want to quit.
At my job, and I am looking for work elsewhere, you had to sign an employment contract saying you wouldn’t unionize. That doesn’t sound legal, but this is Indiana, so it probably is. If you want to know why I signed, I was desperate for a job.
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As said above, not a legal clause. So signing it is the smart thing to do – you can just ignore it and unionize anyway if you want.
It’s nice that they get written consent to fuck their employees at least.
If the corporations are making record profits, that means theyre hiring, it means you can go work for a rival.
I’m looking. The problem is I have sort of a weird and eclectic resume, which doesn’t look great to employers.
Both wages and prices are those most advantageous to the owning class as most oppressive to the working class.
The purpose of the post is to challenge the austerity narrative, of the immiseration of the working class being natural or necessary, more than simply desired by the greed of the owning class.
They think they got rich by sacrificing lattes and avocado toast. Therefore… you can be rich too!
I still remember reading a blog by someone explaining how easy it is to become rich like them. Step 3 or 4 was “Rent out the downtown condo your mother gifted you when you got married and continue living at home working at your parents non-profit” because obviously everyone gets a free condo when they get married.
As much of a joke as it sounds, the person was completely serious.
Mitt Romney’s wife shared this lovely story of when they were in college, they didn’t ask anything from their parents. They’d come visit and got them a nice dinner, that was it. Ann Romney had to order carpet samples and sew them together so they didn’t have to walk on bare floors. Sometimes, they were so stripped of cash that they had to sell stock to get money. They had to sell stock. SELL. STOCK.
She probably thought it was an uplifting story.
Rationalizing something that just happened to you in life’s lottery is a very common thing for humans.
I mean, some people here thinking that they are not “rich” because of being honest, cause all the “rich” are dishonest bastards, is of the same root.
I agree that both are wrong and also that being that disconnected from the reality is bad. It’s just that there are much more categories other than rich/poor in which many of us got the longer stick.
It’s Murphys golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules
Shareholders are leeches on society. Every dollar they earn was snatched from the workers that earned that dollar. We should focus on incentivising people that work for a living - not the lazy cunts that just own shit.
And unfortunately businesses have abdicated their responsibility for their workers retirements to the market. Many of us are now shareholders by way of our 401Ks.
They steal our retirement, I think it’s fair we steal their companies and resources.
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Please please please be referring to the toys.
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I would be eagerly sharing my toys, but fuck such kids.
They can afford to give the employees a bigger wage, they just don’t want to because the employees are willing to work for the current wage.
Willing takes out all the nuance. Forced to do so because of market forces, available jobs, location, skills, other responsibilities…
The illusion of choice
Your landlord can’t pay the morgage!
I was curious, so I pulled some quick numbers about Jeff Bezos.
Bezos has what I think is the biggest yacht in the world. It cost $500 million, according to the NYT. I am not intimately familiar with yacht ownership, but from 20 seconds of Googling I found a rule of thumb saying the yearly costs can be expected to be about 10% of the purchase price.
Currently, Amazon has over 1.5 million employees. That means Bezos’ yacht money could have given every employee a bonus of about $333, and the maintenance cost could give everyone a permanent raise of about $33 per year.
It’s a drop in the bucket.
Of course there are other ways you could slice this. According to Amazon’s own PR piece from 2018, they had about 250K employees earning their minimum wage of $15/hour. That money would go a lot further if concentrated toward the lowest-earning employees.
I hate this bullshit logic of “But this one person’s salary would not give everyone else very much!” Bezos is not the only one that should be making less. All of the chief officers should make less. All of the regional presidents should be making less. That money would absolutely be more than simply a drop in the bucket. I do agree that it should be concentrated to the lowest paid workers.
Just looked it up, and the regional VPs at Amazon are making an average of $190,000/yr. That’s not chump-change, but it’s definitely firmly in the “US” side of the “US vs THEM” equation. It also means if you cut all regional VP salaries in half, it won’t amount to more than 0.1% of Bezos’ typical earnings.
Even Amazon’s CTO only (yeah, “only”) apparently has a total comp package of about $300-500,000/yr.
Here’s the list of the problem folks. And to clarify something that helps your point on the “But this one person’s…” I GUARANTEE if executive compensation were capped based upon some multiple of individual compensation, they’d find the fucking money to give people raises.
If a CEO can only make 100x what workers do, that’s still unreasonable, but I guarantee those guys making $20M/yr will find a way to up the average salaries of workers as close to $200k as they can manage. And if we weren’t at-will employment in the US, they wouldn’t be able to just do it by laying people off.
So yes, taking money from just Jeff Bezos the people in that list will have the very effect you and I want… everyone making more.
That yacht isn’t the only unnecessary thing he owns and Amazon has plenty of other overpaid executives as well.
For sure.
I also would prefer for that money to be taxed to high heaven and put toward high-value social services, like, say, school meals.
I think my last comment came off with the wrong tone. To be clear: fuck yachts in general and Bezos in particular.
You seem to like math how about taking the profits and seeing if they can cover all the welfare they recieve and tax breaks.
I know Walmart can cover all the welfare it’s employees recieve
Bezos is a poor example as his super yacht is relatively cheap for him compare to most yacht owning CEO’s (and his company has tremendously more employees than most of those CEO’s companies do.) The equivalent of a yacht for Bezos would be his space rockets.
I don’t get how people can misunderstand your comment so completely. Can’t people read anymore or what?
Actually, I get it. It sounds like I’m arguing against the general point, which is that income inequality is fucking bullshit. And it is bullshit.
It really doesn’t if one can read.
ELKG: “Trickle down economics” is a lie, but there is a truth that nobody speaks “Trickle down memes”. Billion dollars of capital spent making movies that fill all the meme networks. And audiences who bitch and complain if one CGI scene has the slightest distortion, who bitch about production quality at every opportunity. They are addicted to the billionaires who fund their “Trickle down memes” that they copy/paste to every social media website for decades.
EL_Toddler: The Population of society is addicted to the images, faces, voices of the rich and powerful - even when they are incredibly ugly icons - they can’t stop speaking about their distinct orange skin color and the power that comes with political power and media stardom - “you can grab them by the pussy” power.
That power comes from the population, The People, who can’t resist repeating the memes. Worked for The Church in Europe in 1450 when the population was similarly meme-addled until a priest in Germany upset the meme apple cart and translated The Meme Book to German from Latin. A new printing press in Germany helped that too, even if The Church funded the first printings.
Remember kid, Tricke down Economics is a lie, Trickle Down Memes and images of the politicians, religion symbol memes, orange skin color images, they TRICKLE DOWN and that is REAL POWER over The Population! A population who can not resist taking an image of a famous orange person and repeating it hour after hour on their meme copying machines they hold in their hands or sit on their desk.
P.S. In polices, repeating a name alone, campaign signs that just show a couple colors on meme symbols and signs - work well on the population. This is proven with statistics of voting results vs. money spent on spreading the name. People generally do not go into issues and validate the performance after election that the politician is honest and delivers… name recognition by shear trickle-down of meme signs in yards, endorsements by other meme icons of society, and repeating their image and name in other places is what it takes.
I’m not digging this anti-science streak running through progressive movements lately.
It’s to the point where “capitalism bad” is also “space bad”.
They’re not protesting NASA or any other public space agency. It’s the private ones owned by billionaires they have issues with.
Just about every rocket launched for a NASA mission was built by a private firm.
You are implying what I am outright saying, that there is a growing anti-space sentiment growing within progressive movements.
You’re just straight up putting thoughts in people’s heads and getting mad at them for it.
“Look at how little sense this strawman makes!!1”
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This is reactionary / luddite logic at this point. We can do both. Easily.
You’re so pro space that you’re using the same shallow argument people who are anti-space have used since the Gemini days.
It’s a silly argument with goalposts on Teflon bearings, and ignores the benefits of space exploration to people on earth, and the question of existential threats.
Ok an iPhone for example was made in China and then you say that Apple is a part of the communist party
Just about every rocket launched for a NASA mission was built by a private firm.
It does not follow from this that billionaires’ vanity projects should take precedence over paying their employees fairly.
How about both?
Pay employees fairly first.
Anti-space is not anti-science.
Space exploration (which is not even the target of any reference in the post) is profoundly expensive, and carries comparatively minimal scientific benefit.
Just about every rocket launched for a NASA mission was built by a private firm.
Maybe that should change.
Tell me you’re a shill without telling me you’re a shill.
Where does this silly notion come from? Elon Musk also said something like anti-science, anti-merit, anti-human thing and he’s not an original thinker. I’ve read some longtermism papers, but have yet to come across this exact wording. Where did you hear it? (Please don’t say Elon, tell me you at least have the primary source…)
In my ideal society, we have a state captured by the need for innovation and invention. We cannot solve our problems fast enough, and the state is driving science and technology at blazing fast speed. Joking a bit, of course.
I see Progressive is more like a political adjective. Someone who’s jumping to Capitalism Bad is probably a Soc. Dem. Or a Communist. But even a Liberal could be Progressive. Those bold argument types are probably never gonna have real power anyway. Don’t let a rotten apple spoil the bunch.
Space ia very divorced from Capitalism. Capitalists don’t pony up the funds for it, the public does. The state collects taxes for it.
The objection is against the personal thrills of the immensely wealthy paid by the labor of their immiserated workers.
No objection was given against projects that promote the common welfare.
Yes, the left has the anti-science streak, not the side that has wholly embraced evangelicals, promoted anti-vaccine nonsense and climate change denial and believed in trickle-down economics.
My dilemma is that when the right is so anti-science, the left should be a bastion for it. We can’t afford the rise of anti-technology sentiment on the left. The streak was always there(crystal healing, the OG anti vaxxers, anti gmo), and now is the worst time for a comeback.
A rich person using government funds to fulfill NASA objectives is not the same as a rich person owning a yacht, but these quips now frequently equate and attack both.
Disclaimer: I am a huge advocate for the sciences personally and politically, but I do think there’s reason to be cautious around new technology, especially with how powerful some new technologies are.
My dilemma is that when the right is so anti-science, the left should be a bastion for it.
I like the sentiment, but I don’t think we should get into the practice of defining political parties or stances as being in opposition to another party’s views. That’s basically how the right got so out of touch; they don’t have a coherent political or philosophical stance on anything beyond “if the libs think it’s good, it must be bad!” Progressives need to be better than that.
We can’t afford the rise of anti-technology sentiment on the left.
It’s not just rising; it’s a fact of human nature that people are scared of change, especially if it involves new science or technology that they do not understand. Even people that are politically and socially progressive struggle with this when it comes to technology and science. Hell, I have an advanced degree in Chemical Engineering and I teach chemistry at a community college, and even I struggle with deciding if certain technologies and trends are going to end up being harmful to my family or humanity as a whole (and I understand most of the fundamental principles behind these issues). So, while I (like you) wish the left was more of a champion for science, I understand why individual people aren’t. I also think that there’s a need to be careful around new technologies right now, as humanity has a well documented history of letting our reach exceed our grasp, and our knowledge around potentially dangerous areas like genetic engineering, neurology, environmental science, AI, etc. is roughly equivalent to a 4-year-old’s knowledge of a handgun.
That said, I don’t think this particular post is really anti-science so much as it’s attacking the personal use of spacecraft for frivolous ends like the space tourism of Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. Personally, I’m thankful that Musk was able to provide an impetus for electric cars becoming more mainstream and the use of private companies to push Earth-to-orbit spaceflight into a seeming renaissance, but I can do without billionaires trying to broadcast their importance to the world by buying rides on rocket ships for no reason. Or, you know, billionaires in general.
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Two neoliberals won’t be our only choices forever.
We have competition amongst economists and the marketplace of ideas will always continue to evolve toward better neoliberalism.
That’s funny because this system is highly inefficient and anti-meritocratic. The marketplace of ideas seems like it doesn’t even stock my favorite brands.
Yes, Hayek is still relevant. And you are right, just took time to understand.
People thinking he’s not are ignorant in mathematical statistics, control theory and obviously economics. I mean, ignorance and leftism, as always.
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Well… you see…
