You're connecting this back to Bill Gates when it's not about him anymore
Guatemala riots over budget, set fire to congress building over healthcare.
- Thread starter crimson5pheonix
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Gates sucking ass is a given, but I understand the conversation veered into hypotheticals in marxist theory of value
I don't understand how had it's to grasp that people get a wage that is a living-wage, which is pegged to their living expenses and not the value they produce.
You're talking about a subsistence wage, "living wage" is generally used much differently.
The soft bigotry of low expectations?
I believe you've independently discovered the negative effects of exclusive property ownership-- that's why they don't: they do not own some certain means which is denied them if they do not accept the employer's terms.
The employer that hires marketers, accountants, etc. is still just a rent-seeker and, however soulless any one of those jobs might be (I'm looking at you, marketing) they are still work. However much you want to treat the employer as some kind of necessary agent, it just isn't so.
Right. But is this not de facto a form of rent?
If you don't want to live in a cardbox on the streets, pay a landlord rent. That landlord is providing better accommodation than you could make on your own. If the landlords then own all the land, it doesn't change the fact you have to rent because you don't meaningfully have the freedom to do otherwise.
I know you're gonna say a bunch of nonsense about what counts as an employer in your word usage, but you can't have employees without employers. It is a logical necessity to have employers to do coordinated business. Even if it's the government, the government is an employer. The communes you love so much are employers.
Rent-sseking is a specific term for those who gain wealth without generating any, akin to a person who buys a property just to rent to someone else while doing nothing personally to increase or maintain the value of the property. Not everyone who charges rent is rent-seeking.
You keep telling me what I'm talking about. There's no reason for a conversation if you play my part
I mean, you're technically correct, but not in any way that matters to the argument at hand
It's impressive, honestly, that you equate billionaires like Gates and Bezos to employee-owned worker co-ops
He isn't technically correct. He is conflating employers with management and investment. The latter is required to provide the coordination necessary for a business to integrate with wider society. But there is nothing inherent about those positions that require them to own the business and tools, the capital. It's just how capitalism works. One can very easily conceive alternatives, such as equal ownership of a business between all employees, and all employees getting a say in hiring decisions.
I'd find this argument a bit more compelling if business owners had done a better job of coordinating business. I can't help but notice that if an economic system can't deal with a few months of lockdown without mass layoffs, then it's not a very robust system.
It's not so strange as you make it out to be. The complaints largely being leveled still apply. Even in an employee-owned co-op, someone can receive less value from the co-op than what is generated by their efforts personally. If the gains are split, the hardest worker likely gets short-changed. If the demand is to get out exactly the value you generate for your place of employ, the only way to do that in any economic system is the own the whole place personally, which is exactly the thing that you're all arguing against.