You must log in or register to comment.
The early 20th century labor movement negotiated with the 1% to get a ceasefire in the class war. Here we are now.
What have we learned about negotiating with capitalists?
The first therapeutic insulin was developed by University of Toronto. However, they did not have the money or means to mass produce it and thus the patent was sold to pharmaceuticals. Cuba and USSR are also pretty impressive with their biotechnology but unable to scale up their ideas.
I always see this narrative of “ceasefire with socialists” but the end of the day, you still need money. Even China abandoned pure socialism/communism and instead went to state capitalism. But at least China tax and rein their billionaires unlike the rest of the spineless world.
I think the problem is that with the rise of the middle class in the mid-20th to 21st century, everyone had become NIMBYs and complacent, after having been spoiled by the post-war economic boom and globalisation. Much of the world have gotten private property and benefitted from deregulation and thus unwilling to give a helping hand. Instead, the ladder is kicked down. The 19th and early 20th century still had a large amount of working class who are brave to mobilise against wealth inequality. However, that demographic shrunk and both the left and centre-left had to cater to the now larger and wealthier, but admittedly, pretty selfish professional, managerial middle class. In other words, uplifting the society has, paradoxically, created an unequal society because many have now gotten a piece of the pie but unwilling to give even a small piece to the remaining few left behind.
Edit: clarity
“Well, but I own the machines.”
“How did you get the machines?”
“Sold products and bought them.”
“Wait, you sold products before buying the machine? How did you make those products? That seems like circular reasoning.”
“Actually, you’re right, I initially took out a loan to buy the machine in the hopes I could sell enough products to pay off the loan.”
“That seems like it was a risk.”
“It was. But, I spent a lot of time analyzing the market, coming up with estimates of how much people would buy, how much someone who could operate the machine would cost in wages, all that sort of thing.”
“That seems like a lot of work.”
“It was a fair amount of work.”
“Who paid you to do that work?”
“Nobody paid me, I hoped to get paid once I could start selling products.”
“So, why didn’t your worker start his own business and buy his own machine instead?”
“Ah, well, that’s the part that’s a bit unfair. See, I could afford to spend the time analyzing the market because my family is rich, and I didn’t need to work gruelling 8 hour days. Also, when it came time to take out a loan to buy the machine, the bank was happy to give me the loan because of my family name.”
“Ah, and your worker?”
“Great guy, but he has a family to support and no rich parents. He couldn’t take the time to analyze the market for a new business because he has to hold down a job. And, even if he could find the time to do that, the bank probably wouldn’t give him a loan for a new business because he doesn’t have any business history, or assets to use as collateral. Also, he can’t really afford to fail.”
“Afford to fail?”
“Yes. Like I said, I have rich parents. If my business fails, my dad will rib me about it a bit. But, it’s not like I’ll be out on the street.”
“And your worker?”
“Well, he could certainly try to start a business, but if the business failed he’d be in real trouble. No rich parents, you see. Plus, I have great accountants. If my business fails, they’ll use it as an offset for my taxes. Technically, anybody can do that, but good luck figuring out how to do that with TurboTax or something.”
“So, really, it’s oversimplifying to say that you do nothing, and the worker does everything.”
“Yeah, he makes what I tell him to make, but I figure out how much to charge, where to sell it, where to buy the raw materials, basically everything about the business other than operating the machine.”
“But, operating the machine is important.”
“Of course! It’s vitally important. But, you see, I bought a machine that costs a little more but is designed to be extremely easy to use. Because just about anybody can use it, I don’t need a worker with special skills. That means I don’t have to pay too much in wages.”
“So, really, if there’s unfairness here it’s structural. You come from a rich family, so it’s easy for you to start a business. He doesn’t, so his only real option is to get a job from someone like you.”
“That’s right.”
“But, it seems like that could all be changed with a few changes to the laws. You pay a bit more in taxes, he pays a bit less, then he can save up and maybe start his own business?”
“Yeah, that might work. But, here’s the kicker. He voted for the same guy I did. The other candidate was promising tax reforms, enforcing anti-monopoly laws, etc. But, my guy got everyone scared about trans athletes and brown people crossing the border. My worker’s a good guy, but he’s super racist. As long as you’re going after the brown people, that’s what matters to him.”
I think the thing I find deeply unfair about the situation is let’s say this arrangement of work is 100% accurate.
The owner did the analysis, took out the loan, set up the machine that the worker works.
At some point that work ends for the owner, the analysis is complete, the loan is paid back. There capitalists work effectively ends and the workers goes on forever and the split stays the same.
There is no point where the owner goes, “well if I had billed the company for my analysis and the initial loan I’d have been paid back 10 times over, time to give more to the worker.”
They get to set up the machine because of the wealth and privilege that is indicated here and then extract forever.
When they die, they can hand that enterprise to their heir, who did nothing. Not one ounce of analysis, not one drop of risk in taking out a loan, and that heir can extract value forever.
And they will get to take $6 of every $10 forever because they had the good fortune of being able to afford the machine and take advantage of a system set up by people that own machines which unsurprisingly has a simple rule, the people that own machines get the money.
I wonder how many outraged posters have ever tried to be their own boss. I gladly trade 50% of my potential income for uninterrupted family time, PTO, marketing, customer service, support, accounting, tax declaration, and all the other crap that I had to do myself as a freelancer.
Some people like doing those other tasks and the owner/boss doesn’t do them but pays others to (while still taking the biggest chunk of the proceeds).
There are other forms of organization than capitalistic corporations with a parasite at the top. Cooperatives, collectives, and other organizations like that even exist today and are successfully functioning. The parasite serves no vital function and can be cut out to the benefit of everybody else.
In the company I work for the CEO does quite a lot of work, in the previous company the owners were there when I came in the morning and still there when I left home, writing code like me but also meeting customers, doing acquisition, finding out why the cleaning company didn’t send anyone that week, etc.
If being “a boss” is so easy, I don’t understand why don’t everyone here just go freelance, hire people and start browsing for Ferraris.
How does that boot taste?
Awesome, it is exquisite. I happily trade 2-3 hours everyday with my kids for some concept of “boot” of strangers on the internet.
If you are unhappy with your boss I’d say it’s a skill issue.
This isn’t about small companies with a handful of people, it’s about the ones with thousands of employees. And being a freelancer basically means not having anyone beneath you.
The whole point is about the massive amount of surplus value the employer takes off the employee. In small companies, due to a lack of machines, experience, connections in the industry and other things, there needs to be more work done for the same profit. So the employers will have to work themselves to rival other major corporations.
You shouldn’t see these type of things as a critique on the person, but on the system. You have to exploit your workers, otherwise you won’t be able to compete with the ones that do.
If you are a fair boss, and you give your employees the actual value of their work, you don’t have any to invest, and will eventually fall behind on technology. So the more someone exploits others, the more they’re able to invest in tech, therefore increasing their workers productivity, and the amount of money they can extract.
The owner of a major company has to be a major exploiter, otherwise they wouldn’t be where they are.
That’s why the problem is the system, not the person
I’d love to see a company of thousands of people without bosses…
I’m not talking about salaried management. Of course you need those positions. I’m talking about the owner/shareholders, who do no/next to no work, and reap the profits of the company.
What if the employees are shareholders? What if the shareholders paid for “the means of production”? What if the owner worked 80h a week for 10 years to start the company?
If you are not happy with the share of profits that you get, demand more. Unionize. Strike. Quit. Vote for politicians that support workers. Or start your own company. It’s a free country (wild concept, huh?).
You are describing other workers who own part of the company. Just because you call them “boss” does not make them the same as all “bosses”, and it certainly doesn’t make them the same as those taking the bulk of market profits in general.
So we consider CEOs and owners not bosses?
Just to clarify: this was a startup and all 3 were the only co-owners, +5 employees .
