Who is the author of this poster?
I know this is a meme community and probably not the right place to ask. But the meme prompted my question and I promise this is a good faith question.
If labor is entitled to all it creates (i agree! In principle), who determines what that is? For example - someone operating an injection molding machine might “create” a million doodads in a year. But the machine and the material and the electricity and the QA of those doodads are all created/done by someone else. How is that divvied up?
Personally I am leaning toward UBI funded by a capital tax, along with a functional labor market, as kind of a solution here. But I’d appreciate any easy-to-digest references.
The thing last trips me up is the idea that there’s no value added by the employer so it’s all theft. Sure, the value added is definitely less than what the employer keeps, but there is some value added even if it’s only in the sense of an agent getting “buyers” for your labour.
The thinking, I believe, is not that managerial work isn’t work, but that ownership is not a reason to take a cut of the profits. Think of it more like - in a big corporation, lower and middle management does something useful (theoretically), as does the sales department, and even some of the corporate brass at the top. They still do some form of useful labor, even if primarily social and mental labor rather than physical.
But what do the shareholders do, other than make decisions whose only purpose is to maximize their own payout regardless of its effects on the health of the firm?
The managerial class may be over-compensated in our current system, but they still deserve compensation. But the investor class is parasitic, in this thinking.
The main thrust, I think, is “Fellow gets 90% of the profit just for owning the capital” is cut out of the equation more than the exact calculus of which laborers get what percentage. The answer to that question probably varies wildly depending on what kind of socialism or post-capitalist system one prefers.
Hypothetically each trade provides for the other. You raise cattle, so you give the baker some butter, and milk, and the butcher some meat, and they give you back some bread and steaks. The carpenter builds your and their homes and you each give him some of your goods. It’s a great theory, and works well in small communes. Idk how it works in a global society, and considering all of the failures we’ve seen with it, I’m not sure if anyone else knows either. I’m aware this is like an elementary level explanation, and ignores a lot of concepts and examples, but I’m typing on a phone, and I’m sure someone else will expand upon it.
It doesn’t work in anything beyond a small agrarian community with simple needs. It’s as much a fantasy as the idealized small American town of the 1950s. There are no closed-loop economies.
Which farmer is going to provide me with eggs every week in exchange for my work as a web server admin? Will the farmer be obligated to provide the carpenter with food for the rest of his life after building a house? A one-time trade isn’t going to keep the carpenter from starving to death. What exactly would an astronaut, or a philosopher, or a quality assurance engineer or a geologist offer in trade for basic sustenance or medical services?
Complex work requires a complex economy. A complex economy requires an abstraction for value (e.g. not barter) to allow for compensation for abstract and long-term tasks.
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR
That’s why I poop on company time
I want a high-quality print of this.
