Capitalism, The Best Solution to Poverty

[Joe]

[rainbow]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

[Rum]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

Not strictly true under a Marxist definition in my opinion. You have to actually have ownership of some kind of the means of production - a shareholder at least.

Watched a very interesting documentary on an obscure internet channel last night about the huge boom in the internet economy in China. Small villages with old fashioned craft based workshop industries going on line and increasing the wealth of villages by several multiples. Perhaps one entrepreneur in charge but of course all under the watchful eye of ‘the party’. That was just one example.

[Brian Peacock]

"I see dicks everywhere."

Is that from the porno version of The Sixth Sense?

[Hermit]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

Bollocks. The people with cushy jobs in corporations do the bidding for the shareholders who own the means of production. So, if a CEO, or whoever, does not measure up he (96% of CEOs are male) is awarded the golden parachute, and another one is given the job of producing the desired dividends and increases in capital value. Same with Boards of Directors. The exceptions are CEOs who simultaneously own the lion's share of a company's stock. Either way, the owners control the means of production.

[rainbow]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

Not strictly true under a Marxist definition in my opinion. You have to actually have ownership of some kind of the means of production - a shareholder at least.

Yebbut Marx is dead and hasn't seen the developements of the last 150 years.

Shareholders are very often pension funds, banks and other financial institutions that hold the money of the trusting people who put their savings in. Helped by so-called tax breaks for one's retirement.
Everyone I know has some sort of pension plan that includes share ownership, yet they have no voting rights to the shares they own. It is apparently too bothersome to consult them on where their investment goes and how the corporations that issue the shares do with the money.
...so the fund managers do that for you, take bonusses off the top and make sure their mates get the top jobs.

Nice. Also risk free for them since it isn't their money they are playing with.

Compare and contrast to old style Marxian Capitalism, where the owners of the factories and farms actually had to invest their own money.

[rainbow]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

Bollocks. The people with cushy jobs in corporations do the bidding for the shareholders who own the means of production. So, if a CEO, or whoever, does not measure up he (96% of CEOs are male) is awarded the golden parachute, and another one is given the job of producing the desired dividends and increases in capital value. Same with Boards of Directors. The exceptions are CEOs who simultaneously own the lion's share of a company's stock. Either way, the owners control the means of production.

Do you know who the shareholders are?
Look at your 401(K), or equivalent, and see if you know what you own. Can you do it?

[rainbow]

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/s ... -plans.asp

Read it and understand how ownership and control have changed.

[Hermit]

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/s ... -plans.asp

Read it and understand how ownership and control have changed.

Oh, an article discussing the pros and cons of buying shares in relation to retirement funds. Well spotted, rainbow.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh, I see; "No true capitalism..."

You no longer need ownership to control the means of production, or to obtain the benefits of the surplus obtained.

You just need a cushy jop in a corporation.

Cushy? That's an interesting word.

• cushy (adj.)
  
  "easy," 1915, Anglo-Indian slang, from Hindi khush "pleasant, healthy, happy" + -y (2). Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary" (1898) has cush "a soft, useless person," identified as Scottish and Northumberland and explained as "A common term of reproach, used of one who allows others to beat him, either in self-defence or at work," hence cushie "soft, flabby."
  
  etymonline.com

To me this speaks of hierarchy and where you draw the dividing lines between the elements in the table: between the shop-floor worker and the foreman, the foreman and the manager, the manager and the board member, the board member and the CEO, the CEO and the owner/s? For each of the former in the hierarchy the latter's job appears cushier, and for each of the latter the former's job is of less value than their own. In Marx's time this kind of multi-teired class structure was slimed down enough to appear a lot more straightforward - the great mass of people worked on the base level of the shop-floor producing stuff the value of which they could barely afford themselves, which made the so-called 'class struggle' seem fairly simple - it was a tension between those in and on the boarders of abject poverty (like Marx himself) and the few people who relied on the authority of the state to keep them in that position. There's a case to be made that it was the struggle for a democratic representation of the interest of the broad mass of people which allowed the majority of people to partake economically as consumers, and thus that it was democracy rather than Capitalism which addressed the inequities of system poverty. Nonetheless...

Now if we say that everybody up and down the hierarchy works an eight-hour day then where does this idea of 'cushiness' come from, and what does it represent(?) - and I think we have to ask this question because 'cushiness' seems to act as some sort of justification for complaint, that is; in a class dynamic, where classes exist as position on the hierarchy-table, it seems to justify complaints or resentments from the people on the denominator side of the worker/foreman, manager/board member fraction against the numerators above them on the basis of the relative ease of their eight-hours and the apparent value returned to them for thier time, in circumstances where the value of one's time is a function of one's position in the hierarchy divided by the a portion of the value of everyone below you in the table.

But while the foreman's position appears 'cushy' to the shop-floor worker, and the manager's job appears 'cushy' to the foreman, the apparent ease or arduousness of each position's eight hours I don't think it's the basis of the main complaint - and anyone who's seen the effects of workplace stress in a management role is unlikely to disagree with the idea that being a manager can be an arduous physical task. No, it's the remuneration each position receives for their eight-hours relative to those below them in the hierarchy which seems to justify the charge of 'cushiness' because for their eight hour each position on the table can afford to indulge more of their desires, and thus they become 'softer' or 'flabbier' as the etymology suggests.

So, expressed in Marxist terms, does this mean that a theory of labour and class expressed through relative 'cushiness' is basically an exercise in fat shaming those further up the hierarchy than oneself?

[rainbow]

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/s ... -plans.asp

Read it and understand how ownership and control have changed.

Oh, an article discussing the pros and cons of buying shares in relation to retirement funds. Well spotted, rainbow.

You may do your own research. I'm not here to spoonfeed you.
Are we clear?

[Hermit]

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/s ... -plans.asp

Read it and understand how ownership and control have changed.

Oh, an article discussing the pros and cons of buying shares in relation to retirement funds. Well spotted, rainbow.

You may do your own research. I'm not here to spoonfeed you.
Are we clear?

Crystal. I've become used to you refusing to defend your assertions quite some time ago.

[rainbow]

Crystal. I've become used to you refusing to defend your assertions quite some time ago.

Suck it up, buttercup.

[Brian Peacock]

[rainbow]