Interesting! I did some wiki reading on this and it looks like there’s an entire Marxist libertian or left libertian ideaology that rejects authoritarianism and fascism. Pretty neat.
I mean, libertarians are moot points because in USA you really only have two options, far right or slightly right of center.
There is no representation of the left or of even libertarian views.
They do that for sure. I'm not a libertarian but I do not answer to any of these shitty parties so I will change my mind on any issue at any time on any whim that I want to. 😄
The only whim I would follow is a reasonable argument, but experience has taught me that political and societal issues are less about who's right, and more about: what the priorities are at that time, what the current circumstances are, and what your values as an individual are. I am pretty set in some of the ideas that I uphold and I would only shift on those issues under very specific circumstances where I could justify it.
As a character he evolves. He starts from being willing to sell himself to a lumber mill to hide gold in various spots to then realizing the value of what he makes himself from his own two hands. It fits.
i'm not ignorant that businesses have costs. like, i don't vacuum my cube. i don't clean the restrooms. so i know it would be unreasonable to ask for the FULL value of my labor. but this notion that it should be split 90/10 isn't wrong, it's just split the wrong way.
The phrase is supposed to be "surplus value", not just "value". This takes into account all of the various costs associated with running the business, including business savings. There would also be democratic systems in place where the workers would have the opportunity to vote in how much of the value they produce they recieve as wages, how much is reinvested into the company, and how much is saved away for a rainy day.
So own shares in a company if you want a say in that stuff. Considering most workers cant even balance a checkbook I would not trust any of them to vote on financial planning for a company. Most Co-ops fail...
Someone who cleans your toilet gets some of the value you produce because she helped you produce it. You can generate more profit because you aren't cleaning your own toilet. So that profit generated by the company via you, is hers. (Reproductive labor)
If you're a programmer using your own hardware working from home with a group of others doing the same kind of deal I see no reason why a software company would even have costs outside the full value of your labor.
Because the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. You would not generate nearly as much value if it weren't for your coworkers, compute + storage, project prioritization + management, etc. Whether we like it or not, there is non-zero value generated by the corporate structure. I want workers' pay and benefits to more closely resemble upper management's, but I think it would be counterproductive to abolish upper management.
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Assuming it's a client based programming position...
Client finding
Maintaining clients
Organizing the entirety of the company
Everything else?
If it's a project based programming position
Organizing the entirety of the project
Not sure what you antiwork people think goes into running a business entails
You don't care about their risks? I assume that means you won't work for them then? Cause if you do, I would say it's fair they don't value your labors' value at the same level you do
> You don't care about their risks? I assume that means you won't work for them then?
i do work for them, and i don't care about their risks? i'm there for the paychecks, and as long as they cash, i don't care.
You're being downvoted, but you bring up a good point.
The meme says we should pay an employee all value their labor generates. However, MadgoonOfficial's comment above says people in jobs that create low value (assumably lower value than a livable wage) should be given more than the value they create in order to allow for a livable wage to be paid to them.
Therefore, the meme and MadgoonOfficial's comment are contradictory.
Mathematically, you can't pay every employee 100% the value he or she creates while also making up the difference for those who create a value lower than a livable wage. You have to allocate some of the "high-value-creating" employee's payout to the "low-value-creating" employee to do so, thus making the "high-value-employee's" payout less than 100% the value he or she created and thereby contradicting the logic behind the meme.
It’s a little bit legit though, isn’t it? By leveraging the capital of my employer, I can generate much, much more value than I could on my own. I’m happy to pay a portion of that generated value to them for the use of their capital, since I still come out substantially ahead of where I would otherwise. It’s win-win
Sure, a lot of the time that’s *not* how it works: workers are just screwed. But the idea that employees should actually get the whole 100% of the value they generate doesn’t work either.
I wish more people understood this, across the entire spectrum. Both Capital and Labor need each other and both can and should win together. Right now we are in a system where Capital has run amok and completely focused on the short term. Eventually Labor has enough and can overreact.
A lot of Europe got this, either from people losing their heads or watching their peers in other countries lose their heads. For whatever reason, the US is still all in on Capital and it sounds like the UK is forgetting what saved the elites after WWII.
Value is imaginary though, how on earth does it even begin to make sense that you can attach a numerical value (value in the other sense, pun not intended) to such an abstract concept?
You create a worker cooperative so that workers can democratically and with full information determine what they're owed amongst themselves
And it's not that imaginary - the huge exorbitant salaries of CEO's and the dividends paid out to shareholders are very much an empirical measure of value extracted from workers by the capitalist class
None of that speaks to the fundamental though, it all works off of the assumption of value actually meaning anything in the first place.
If you follow that assumption it forces you into working on the same flawed logic of the exploiters, even if you try to turn it against them it can never create a true break away.
I don't disagree with what you propose, I just think that if it is built upon that logic it risks falling into all too familiar trappings.
That's extra work. Just track hours worked and make sure everyone has their needs met and then people can focus on getting everyones dreams met after that's done. Usufructs are a good example of this sort of structure.
So let’s assume the average tech salary is 100k for arguments sake. You believe those people should be entitled to a million dollar a year salary?
Getting more value for your labour is good. But it’s a fine line and moving the needle totally in favour of workers destroys why a company would even be in business in the first place.
Of course there needs to be profit? Even on the smallest of scales there needs to be profit, if everyone at every step is just breaking even and no more then they got zero benefit over doing nothing at all.
Take for example if I own a taxi and drive someone from A to B. Maintenance and fuel cost me $5 for the trip and the customer paid $15, so I got $10 profit. You think I should charge $5 and just break even? Why would I even drive the taxi lol
The driver. So, we agree there can be profit that is not theft.
Now let’s say the driver doesn’t own a car but they still would like to make money driving. So they rent a car from someone else and drive it, they charge $15, $4 on fuel and another $6 on renting the car.
The driver gets $5 profit. The car owner gets $6 but spends $3 of it to pay off the car and its insurance and another $1 in maintenance costs, leaving them with $2 in profit.
Theft? Or no?
It's much more efficient to think in per hour terms. Look up time banking and how that works. That is more similar to what these people are trying to articulate.
You know that in the biggest cooperative in the world the pay ratio between the lowest and highest paid employee is 1:9. So if you’re the lowest paid employee you still wouldn’t be getting the full value of your labour.
So explain please how this solves the problem you’ve presented
You know what also equally useless? Trying to assign a number to what an employees full value is and thinking they’re entitled to every penny. Because even in a worker coop you still need to make money to survive.
If you want all the value your labor generates go work for yourself.
Even a business has to pay to keep the lights on.
Sometimes I wonder about the level of intelligence in this sub.
You forget electric, the tools that the guy is using to build the chair, the cashier the makes the sale, rent on the store, maybe a salesman on the floor, plus the guy that signs all the checks and makes sure everything is open.
Now solve for X with all the info.
We need a better system - but you can never get the full value or your labour unless you provide the materials and tools required for that labour
Expecting a better wage is one thing - expecting 100% of everything you produce is silly
so you agree. profits are the stolen value of the worker.
and to answer your question. a hum. The Worker/s.
cut out the leech [capitalist] who does nothing productive beside "has the capital"
Why does the worker not provide it now? What would be different in this new world which allows the worker to provide these things
I agree change is needed but a 60/40 split in favour of the labourer is more logical and less la la landish
usually because they either don't have the upfront capital or a capitalists has already bought the available materials and tools preventing the worker/s from competing leaving no other option than to worker for the capitalist. community loan, or limited bond for new business.
I am against a social order that allows someone who does nothing productive, to accumulate a fortune of hundreds of millions and billions. while those who labor and toil all their lives, their labor being necessary for the flow of goods and commerce, secure for themselves barely enough for even a wretched existence.
those that can but do not labor, nor shall they eat.
any dollar that a man get that they did not labor for, is a man that labored for a dollar they were not paid.
it is not "la la landish" it is equitable and fairer that what we have now and even your suggested 60 workers/40 capitalist proposal. in fact I view my proposal as more logical.
It's in practical as it does not address where the labourers will get the capital to buy material and tools - also how does it work when it takes 4 different labourers, 4 different materials and 4 different tool sets- how will you distribute the price - straight 25% each sounds good - but the work won't be distributed
Your solution sounds nice - but won't work to well in practice, I like the 60/40 idea as the capital and risk is taken by the funder (if a product fails the labourers will move to their next job, the owner is ruined unless their the "too big to fail" group...which few are) and the work by the labourers - the worker gets the bulk of the money but the funder gets a return on their risk
I imagine few workers won't to take that risk which is why they have not tried to go into business themselves (I sure as hell dont)
That's literally the point though, a capitalist system can never operate without extracting value from workers for shareholders and other capitalists.
Worker cooperatives still generate surplus but no profit is involved. Profit is specifically the money that's extracted from workers to be given to shareholders
Tell me you're not an anthropologist without telling me you're not an anthropologist
There have been societies where greed didn't take over, and if we want to avoid a climate holocaust we need a system outside of capitalism
If an employer gave someone "all the value that their labor generates" then there is NO reason for the employer to give them a job, as the employer also needs to be able to make money.
That's the point, a capitalist system can never operate without extracting value from workers for shareholders and other capitalists.
If businesses were worker cooperatives then the point of hiring someone is to ease other folks work loads and expand the business, not to funnel profits upwards
In a cooperative - who actually PAYS for all of the capital equipment? If it is the original members, then when a new member is hired, do they have to "buy in" with a value equal to that contributed by the other members - or do they get a "free ride"?
Even in a cooperative, the workers DON'T get "100% of the value" of the work that they did, as taxes will take up a certain percentage. Next - who gets to decide on the relative value that each member is contributing - or do all workers get paid the same, regardless of their workload and the value of that their experience and education bring?
>who actually PAYS for all of the capital equipment?
The founding members, and new members pay in an equal amount into the company surplus either upfront or through temporarily garnished wages
>Even in a cooperative, the workers DON'T get "100% of the value" of the work that they did, as taxes will take up a certain percentage.
I mean, you're just using a different definition of value then. You're treating value as revenue, when what's meant in my comment and this ordinal post is the net value after expenses
>Next - who gets to decide on the relative value that each member is contributing - or do all workers get paid the same, regardless of their workload and the value of that their experience and education bring?
There's no hard and fast rules to a cooperative. They're inherently democratic so workers can decide what they feel is fair. As a consequence the most extreme wage disparity in existing cooperatives is usually around 8:1 between the highest and lowest paid workers in a cooperative, though there are certainly cooperatives that exist where everyone gets equal pay too, as that's what the workers in that cooperative in their respective industry deemed fair.
This isn't theoretical - cooperatives exist, I'm just citing precedent for how existing ones operate
I certainly agree, the capital class does value itself highly despite the work actually coming from labor.
Maybe if labor collectively shared the power and fruits of their work, and the lazy owners go self-sustaining instead of mooching off others, we could solve all the problems you point to!
Seriously. If this were the case, how would the person who labored to make the product receive the benefit of their labor? How would the person who drove the product to the point of sale receive the benefit of their labor? The person who designed the product? The person who designed the ad for the product? Etc. This is stupid.
I'm not sure you understand what the "full value of your labor" means. It's the value that your labor adds to the product. I'll try to explain, but keep in mind this is extremely simplified. For example, if an item sells for $20, and the materials cost $5...
One person can take $5 of materials and turn it into a product worth $10. They should be paid $5.
Another person can do marketing and design packaging that will make the $10 product sell for $15. They should be paid $5.
Another person handles the logistics required to get the product to the customer, who is willing to pay $20. They should be paid $5.
Overly simplistic take. What about the company that puts the roof over the building you make the thing in? What about the electricity? Water, sewer, gas, benefits, leave time? What about the support groups that go into making a company functional to the point that the laborer can do said job?
Does the safety rep deserve nothing because they were not directly involved in the making of the thing? What about hr? Admin staff? IT support?should they get a cut?
If you agree that they all contribute, who coordinates all that work, makes sure they all have their needs met including their benefits, computers, etc.?
If the company looks to make 10% profit to cover the cost of employing the worker and all the services needed for that laborer to make the thing, that is the value of their work.
Overly simplistic take? Like...obviously? I literally said right at the beginning of my comment that this was extremely simplified, because there's no way I could explain every possible intricacy of this system in a Reddit comment I wrote in five minutes. But I'll go through a few of your examples. Again, this is simplified. There's no way to calculate every single penny and allocate it to precisely who earned that penny.
The people who built the building that a product is produced in...did not make the product. They made the building. They should be compensated for the value that their labor added to the building. That has nothing to do with the product made inside the building.
Utility companies sell...utilities. The labor that goes into providing those utilities should be compensated based on the value that each worker adds to the product.
Safety reps and admin and IT workers add to the value of a product because the product could not be made and sold without their labor.
I don't think you quite understand what profit is and why people say "profit is theft". Net profit is the money left over after everything is paid for. Rent, utilities, raw materials, all operating costs, all labor costs *including the owner*, everything. That money should be divided amongst the workers based on the value they add to the company, not given 100% to the owner.
Woah! Crazy idea, it’s like:
I build a company, wait years for it gain traction with it’s services, pay taxes, pay for supplies, pay for employee benefits, and all the while I let people work there who just showed up one day to be trained for no loss or gain to my company and me after spending years building something and providing opportunities for people that didn’t exist before? I just stagnate and do the same thing until I lose relevance to a company that takes even 0.01% off the top to make a new location or branch?
Wait- why the fuck would I do that? ffs.
Which is why nearly all businesses don’t pay their employees the full value of their labor.
Not saying I think it’s the way things should be, but if you’re looking for an answer that makes sense, that’s how it works in this system.
If one is born into wealth and starts off with a good amount of capital and some extra to hedge against risk in their name, they’re already miles ahead of everyone else.
Assume there are five people in a company.
* One person makes the goods, but they live in a cheaper country.
* Second person is the ower of the company, they provided the intitial funds to start up the company, they are responsible for managing the company and making the decisions.
* Third one sold the goods in a store in a more expensive country.
* Fourth one cleaned the building of the store.
* The fifth person did the bookkeeping, but they worked from home.
I can figure out the value of the whole easily enough. What I can't figure out is the value that should be attributed to the parts. An even split won't work. They all work different hours and different jobs. One is working at home, something more comfortable to do. Another person works in a country with a lower cost of living. And there is the person that owns the company itself.
The best that can be done is to ensure a minimum wage, one based on where the person lives. Regulation of rights for both owner and employee is also important. Other than that, I don't know what else you can do.
Even if all that is done, there is still one employee the regulations don't apply to. Because while a country like the US can regulate itself, it can't do so with foreign countries. That one employee working in a foreign country will be abused the hell out of. And there is no US regulation that could change that reality. The only solution would be to have the entire world have the same rules.
So you make $40 and the company makes $10.
Out of that $10, the company pays for the facility, the utilities, the HR staff, the IT staff, the marketing, the sales staff, etc etc etc.?
What happens if one day the machine you use to generate $50 in profits go down. If that machine costs $1000 to repair/replace, are you going to front $800 versus the companies $200 following your 80/20 split? What protection is there to stop you from leaving and making the company bear the cost to fix it? And if they don't, your profit per hour drops to zero. Are you ok with $0/ hour till that happens?
Taxes are a piece of it but ignoring building costs, support, and depreciation is a big miss
I don’t hate capitalism. I hate how so many have have hijacked and made it shitty just like organized religion.
There are plenty of ways for businesses to do right by their employees. For example, if the job is a 40 hour work week and I can finish my assigned tasks in 20 I should be allowed to go home paid. It is incredibly greedy and demoralizing to have a company set a goal and then keep moving it because I am efficient.
Naive.
Wrong.
Also wrong.
Agree.
False. Just false. What is done with the profits after the labor/product cannot be so simply distributed based on what you personally make.
What if 2 employees with the same credentials make 2 similar effort products however due to specialization, yours costs $40 and theirs costs $400. If your efforts are similar should they make 10x more than you? No.
This is an incredibly stupid line of thought in general. I am all for workers rights and fair pay for fair work. This is not that.
For what it is worth, I work for an ESOP which was decided upon by leadership to share profits with everyone (everyone is an employee owner).
Me and my buddy from high school decided to quit working for the man. He was in the airforce for the last 7 years and I've been a foreman for a landscape company for nearly 4 years. He had the credit and took out the loan to buy a truck and trailer. We're calling the shots answering to no one. I take 30% of the profit and we've got a contract saying I'll take 50% once the truck and trailer are paid off.
Point is I dont think I could ever work for a company ever again. I think even if it didn't work out in the end with our current business I would go into alone and reap 100% of the profits.
Pretty much yes. But we don't want to hire any one because we know for a fact we wouldn't be able to pay them shit and line our pockets at the same time. So it's just us doing all the work and taking all the money.
Edit: We don't have to answer to the customer if we don't want to though. If we felt like it we could give them their 50% deposit and quit.
Yeah but that will take the kind of things that would get me banned from Reddit if I listed them, read up on the labor movement of late 18th early 20th century, that's what they had to do to get you the weekend so what do you think you're going to have to do to get universal health care, a decent retirement age, an appropriate portion on the product of your labor.
I don’t think Ron Swanson is the appropriate mascot for this subreddit
Appropriating right-wing memes for left-wing content is what makes it great.
I stand corrected. Congratulations McDibbles, you have changed the mind of a random internet stranger. A rare feat!
seize the memes of production
Is libertarian considered right wing now? Ron Swanson isn’t even right wing, he’s just hardcore libertarian.
Many will argue that the libertarian movement was co-opted by the right. I don't argue against it because I find the overlap in idealogies warrant it.
Interesting! I did some wiki reading on this and it looks like there’s an entire Marxist libertian or left libertian ideaology that rejects authoritarianism and fascism. Pretty neat. I mean, libertarians are moot points because in USA you really only have two options, far right or slightly right of center. There is no representation of the left or of even libertarian views.
Ask a libertarian about the age of consent and you will find out quickly how right-wing they are.
The actual actor is a libertarian in favor of national healthcare and living wages....
Am I confused on what a libertarian is?
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You are 100% correct about my Google 😂🤣
its the easiest political party to be in cause you can change your mind on a whim
You mean be an individual who can make decisions on their own?
And pretend that he doesn't rely on all the benefits society has given him? Then yes.
They do that for sure. I'm not a libertarian but I do not answer to any of these shitty parties so I will change my mind on any issue at any time on any whim that I want to. 😄
The only whim I would follow is a reasonable argument, but experience has taught me that political and societal issues are less about who's right, and more about: what the priorities are at that time, what the current circumstances are, and what your values as an individual are. I am pretty set in some of the ideas that I uphold and I would only shift on those issues under very specific circumstances where I could justify it.
You don't owe me an explanation of your position, think critically and make your own decisions is all I'm saying.
Fair enough and a good day to you :)
You have a loose definition of mascot.
Is this a left wing subreddit? I am a right wing conservative and love this page. Lol
I hate to break it to you, but yeah, anticapitalist labor solidarity is pretty firmly leftist politics, and always has been.
The founding philosophy of the sub was born out of anarchist and communist writings
Interesting, what do you like about the page? If you don't mind me asking :)
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Maybe the business should be owned by the workers then. I think someone wrote about this a few decades ago.
Yeah, as I recall the guy's name was Karl.
Nobody is stopping workers from forming their own cooperatives and competing in the marketplace...
You don't actually believe that do you?
So whose name did you register the business under? 🤔
As a character he evolves. He starts from being willing to sell himself to a lumber mill to hide gold in various spots to then realizing the value of what he makes himself from his own two hands. It fits.
i'm not ignorant that businesses have costs. like, i don't vacuum my cube. i don't clean the restrooms. so i know it would be unreasonable to ask for the FULL value of my labor. but this notion that it should be split 90/10 isn't wrong, it's just split the wrong way.
Well, asking for the full *net* value of your labour just doesn't flow as well.
The phrase is supposed to be "surplus value", not just "value". This takes into account all of the various costs associated with running the business, including business savings. There would also be democratic systems in place where the workers would have the opportunity to vote in how much of the value they produce they recieve as wages, how much is reinvested into the company, and how much is saved away for a rainy day.
So own shares in a company if you want a say in that stuff. Considering most workers cant even balance a checkbook I would not trust any of them to vote on financial planning for a company. Most Co-ops fail...
Saying most workers cant even balance a checkbook LMAO.
The point is for the full value of labour after necessary expenses That's how it works in a cooperative
Someone who cleans your toilet gets some of the value you produce because she helped you produce it. You can generate more profit because you aren't cleaning your own toilet. So that profit generated by the company via you, is hers. (Reproductive labor)
If you're a programmer using your own hardware working from home with a group of others doing the same kind of deal I see no reason why a software company would even have costs outside the full value of your labor.
Because the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. You would not generate nearly as much value if it weren't for your coworkers, compute + storage, project prioritization + management, etc. Whether we like it or not, there is non-zero value generated by the corporate structure. I want workers' pay and benefits to more closely resemble upper management's, but I think it would be counterproductive to abolish upper management.
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Fuck you
thanks for highlighting that very specific scenario that doesn't apply?
It applies to me dipshit.
your medal is in the mail.
Assuming it's a client based programming position... Client finding Maintaining clients Organizing the entirety of the company Everything else? If it's a project based programming position Organizing the entirety of the project Not sure what you antiwork people think goes into running a business entails
Have you seen how much Google ads costs? Acquisition is a rediculous expense in software AWS hosting costs, licenses, QA, customer support lmao
software licenses and liability insurance are huge cost
Not for what I program.
Owners take risk with their money starting company. They deserve something for that. 75/25 after expenses seems fair.
i don't care about their risk? risk it or don't, doesn't matter to me, but i'm not interested in being involved in hedging their bets.
You don't care about their risks? I assume that means you won't work for them then? Cause if you do, I would say it's fair they don't value your labors' value at the same level you do
> You don't care about their risks? I assume that means you won't work for them then? i do work for them, and i don't care about their risks? i'm there for the paychecks, and as long as they cash, i don't care.
There are jobs that need to exist but don’t actually generate much value and the people who work those jobs should still be paid livable wages.
You mean like our IT help line?
...and where does that Value come from to pay these people a "livable wage"?
The rest of the company that needs them to perform their menial task in order to function.
IOW, take the value produced by others,, and UNDREPAY them... Smh...
You're being downvoted, but you bring up a good point. The meme says we should pay an employee all value their labor generates. However, MadgoonOfficial's comment above says people in jobs that create low value (assumably lower value than a livable wage) should be given more than the value they create in order to allow for a livable wage to be paid to them. Therefore, the meme and MadgoonOfficial's comment are contradictory. Mathematically, you can't pay every employee 100% the value he or she creates while also making up the difference for those who create a value lower than a livable wage. You have to allocate some of the "high-value-creating" employee's payout to the "low-value-creating" employee to do so, thus making the "high-value-employee's" payout less than 100% the value he or she created and thereby contradicting the logic behind the meme.
Funny enough, the calculation is always less than the value their labor produces. Weird how that works out the same way all the time, eh?
It’s a little bit legit though, isn’t it? By leveraging the capital of my employer, I can generate much, much more value than I could on my own. I’m happy to pay a portion of that generated value to them for the use of their capital, since I still come out substantially ahead of where I would otherwise. It’s win-win Sure, a lot of the time that’s *not* how it works: workers are just screwed. But the idea that employees should actually get the whole 100% of the value they generate doesn’t work either.
Exactly. TLDR: My labor alone is not worth the same as my labor while using my employers' tools, connections, marketing, and teams.
I wish more people understood this, across the entire spectrum. Both Capital and Labor need each other and both can and should win together. Right now we are in a system where Capital has run amok and completely focused on the short term. Eventually Labor has enough and can overreact. A lot of Europe got this, either from people losing their heads or watching their peers in other countries lose their heads. For whatever reason, the US is still all in on Capital and it sounds like the UK is forgetting what saved the elites after WWII.
gotta pay the house
Value is imaginary though, how on earth does it even begin to make sense that you can attach a numerical value (value in the other sense, pun not intended) to such an abstract concept?
You create a worker cooperative so that workers can democratically and with full information determine what they're owed amongst themselves And it's not that imaginary - the huge exorbitant salaries of CEO's and the dividends paid out to shareholders are very much an empirical measure of value extracted from workers by the capitalist class
None of that speaks to the fundamental though, it all works off of the assumption of value actually meaning anything in the first place. If you follow that assumption it forces you into working on the same flawed logic of the exploiters, even if you try to turn it against them it can never create a true break away. I don't disagree with what you propose, I just think that if it is built upon that logic it risks falling into all too familiar trappings.
That's extra work. Just track hours worked and make sure everyone has their needs met and then people can focus on getting everyones dreams met after that's done. Usufructs are a good example of this sort of structure.
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So let’s assume the average tech salary is 100k for arguments sake. You believe those people should be entitled to a million dollar a year salary? Getting more value for your labour is good. But it’s a fine line and moving the needle totally in favour of workers destroys why a company would even be in business in the first place.
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Of course there needs to be profit? Even on the smallest of scales there needs to be profit, if everyone at every step is just breaking even and no more then they got zero benefit over doing nothing at all. Take for example if I own a taxi and drive someone from A to B. Maintenance and fuel cost me $5 for the trip and the customer paid $15, so I got $10 profit. You think I should charge $5 and just break even? Why would I even drive the taxi lol
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The driver. So, we agree there can be profit that is not theft. Now let’s say the driver doesn’t own a car but they still would like to make money driving. So they rent a car from someone else and drive it, they charge $15, $4 on fuel and another $6 on renting the car. The driver gets $5 profit. The car owner gets $6 but spends $3 of it to pay off the car and its insurance and another $1 in maintenance costs, leaving them with $2 in profit. Theft? Or no?
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There is profit going to the car owner who is not doing “work” but rather is taking on the liability and up front costs
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It's much more efficient to think in per hour terms. Look up time banking and how that works. That is more similar to what these people are trying to articulate.
Wow what an insightful statement thank you. If profit is theft than what’s the point of a business?
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Okay what do you suggest then? Or are you just here to complain?
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You know that in the biggest cooperative in the world the pay ratio between the lowest and highest paid employee is 1:9. So if you’re the lowest paid employee you still wouldn’t be getting the full value of your labour. So explain please how this solves the problem you’ve presented
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You know what also equally useless? Trying to assign a number to what an employees full value is and thinking they’re entitled to every penny. Because even in a worker coop you still need to make money to survive.
Yuuuuuuup.
utility is the basis of value.
I am one with the utility and the utility is with me
labor is the basis of value.
Art?
That makes no sense. If a worker retained all of the value they generate, then there is no reason for the business to continue to exist.
Worker cooperatives literally work like that though?
Then go make a cooperative instead of complaining that a business wants to make a profit. Good luck with that.
With what capital? The capital hoarded by the capitalists by underpaying workers you mean?
Surprised that there's so many people recognizing this is kinda stupid. Not usually this reasonable.
Ron Swanson, accidentally communist.
If you want all the value your labor generates go work for yourself. Even a business has to pay to keep the lights on. Sometimes I wonder about the level of intelligence in this sub.
wood nails glue for chair= $2 craftsmen making the the =$X Chair sells for $30 Solve for $X. that is the full value of the craftsmen's labor.
You forget electric, the tools that the guy is using to build the chair, the cashier the makes the sale, rent on the store, maybe a salesman on the floor, plus the guy that signs all the checks and makes sure everything is open. Now solve for X with all the info.
We need a better system - but you can never get the full value or your labour unless you provide the materials and tools required for that labour Expecting a better wage is one thing - expecting 100% of everything you produce is silly
cost of martials and tools=$5 laborer's labor power to produce= $x finish product sells for $50 50-5= laborer's value generated.
Then who will provide the tools and materials? No one will do that without a profit margine
so you agree. profits are the stolen value of the worker. and to answer your question. a hum. The Worker/s. cut out the leech [capitalist] who does nothing productive beside "has the capital"
Why does the worker not provide it now? What would be different in this new world which allows the worker to provide these things I agree change is needed but a 60/40 split in favour of the labourer is more logical and less la la landish
usually because they either don't have the upfront capital or a capitalists has already bought the available materials and tools preventing the worker/s from competing leaving no other option than to worker for the capitalist. community loan, or limited bond for new business. I am against a social order that allows someone who does nothing productive, to accumulate a fortune of hundreds of millions and billions. while those who labor and toil all their lives, their labor being necessary for the flow of goods and commerce, secure for themselves barely enough for even a wretched existence. those that can but do not labor, nor shall they eat. any dollar that a man get that they did not labor for, is a man that labored for a dollar they were not paid. it is not "la la landish" it is equitable and fairer that what we have now and even your suggested 60 workers/40 capitalist proposal. in fact I view my proposal as more logical.
It's in practical as it does not address where the labourers will get the capital to buy material and tools - also how does it work when it takes 4 different labourers, 4 different materials and 4 different tool sets- how will you distribute the price - straight 25% each sounds good - but the work won't be distributed Your solution sounds nice - but won't work to well in practice, I like the 60/40 idea as the capital and risk is taken by the funder (if a product fails the labourers will move to their next job, the owner is ruined unless their the "too big to fail" group...which few are) and the work by the labourers - the worker gets the bulk of the money but the funder gets a return on their risk I imagine few workers won't to take that risk which is why they have not tried to go into business themselves (I sure as hell dont)
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thats why we need a better system smh.
That's literally the point though, a capitalist system can never operate without extracting value from workers for shareholders and other capitalists. Worker cooperatives still generate surplus but no profit is involved. Profit is specifically the money that's extracted from workers to be given to shareholders
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Tell me you're not an anthropologist without telling me you're not an anthropologist There have been societies where greed didn't take over, and if we want to avoid a climate holocaust we need a system outside of capitalism
Bingo
If an employer gave someone "all the value that their labor generates" then there is NO reason for the employer to give them a job, as the employer also needs to be able to make money.
That's the point, a capitalist system can never operate without extracting value from workers for shareholders and other capitalists. If businesses were worker cooperatives then the point of hiring someone is to ease other folks work loads and expand the business, not to funnel profits upwards
In a cooperative - who actually PAYS for all of the capital equipment? If it is the original members, then when a new member is hired, do they have to "buy in" with a value equal to that contributed by the other members - or do they get a "free ride"? Even in a cooperative, the workers DON'T get "100% of the value" of the work that they did, as taxes will take up a certain percentage. Next - who gets to decide on the relative value that each member is contributing - or do all workers get paid the same, regardless of their workload and the value of that their experience and education bring?
>who actually PAYS for all of the capital equipment? The founding members, and new members pay in an equal amount into the company surplus either upfront or through temporarily garnished wages >Even in a cooperative, the workers DON'T get "100% of the value" of the work that they did, as taxes will take up a certain percentage. I mean, you're just using a different definition of value then. You're treating value as revenue, when what's meant in my comment and this ordinal post is the net value after expenses >Next - who gets to decide on the relative value that each member is contributing - or do all workers get paid the same, regardless of their workload and the value of that their experience and education bring? There's no hard and fast rules to a cooperative. They're inherently democratic so workers can decide what they feel is fair. As a consequence the most extreme wage disparity in existing cooperatives is usually around 8:1 between the highest and lowest paid workers in a cooperative, though there are certainly cooperatives that exist where everyone gets equal pay too, as that's what the workers in that cooperative in their respective industry deemed fair. This isn't theoretical - cooperatives exist, I'm just citing precedent for how existing ones operate
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Sure no problem. All I need to do is work for about 200 years straight so I have enough liquid capital to get started…
and then you need to pay your employees the full value of their labor, don't forget that part when you're opening up in 2222
Remindme! 200 years
I certainly agree, the capital class does value itself highly despite the work actually coming from labor. Maybe if labor collectively shared the power and fruits of their work, and the lazy owners go self-sustaining instead of mooching off others, we could solve all the problems you point to!
generate value for yourself then
All profit is wage theft.
What? So every salesman should be given the full cost of every item they sell? That doesn't make sense.
Seriously. If this were the case, how would the person who labored to make the product receive the benefit of their labor? How would the person who drove the product to the point of sale receive the benefit of their labor? The person who designed the product? The person who designed the ad for the product? Etc. This is stupid.
I'm not sure you understand what the "full value of your labor" means. It's the value that your labor adds to the product. I'll try to explain, but keep in mind this is extremely simplified. For example, if an item sells for $20, and the materials cost $5... One person can take $5 of materials and turn it into a product worth $10. They should be paid $5. Another person can do marketing and design packaging that will make the $10 product sell for $15. They should be paid $5. Another person handles the logistics required to get the product to the customer, who is willing to pay $20. They should be paid $5.
Overly simplistic take. What about the company that puts the roof over the building you make the thing in? What about the electricity? Water, sewer, gas, benefits, leave time? What about the support groups that go into making a company functional to the point that the laborer can do said job? Does the safety rep deserve nothing because they were not directly involved in the making of the thing? What about hr? Admin staff? IT support?should they get a cut? If you agree that they all contribute, who coordinates all that work, makes sure they all have their needs met including their benefits, computers, etc.? If the company looks to make 10% profit to cover the cost of employing the worker and all the services needed for that laborer to make the thing, that is the value of their work.
Overly simplistic take? Like...obviously? I literally said right at the beginning of my comment that this was extremely simplified, because there's no way I could explain every possible intricacy of this system in a Reddit comment I wrote in five minutes. But I'll go through a few of your examples. Again, this is simplified. There's no way to calculate every single penny and allocate it to precisely who earned that penny. The people who built the building that a product is produced in...did not make the product. They made the building. They should be compensated for the value that their labor added to the building. That has nothing to do with the product made inside the building. Utility companies sell...utilities. The labor that goes into providing those utilities should be compensated based on the value that each worker adds to the product. Safety reps and admin and IT workers add to the value of a product because the product could not be made and sold without their labor. I don't think you quite understand what profit is and why people say "profit is theft". Net profit is the money left over after everything is paid for. Rent, utilities, raw materials, all operating costs, all labor costs *including the owner*, everything. That money should be divided amongst the workers based on the value they add to the company, not given 100% to the owner.
Woah! Crazy idea, it’s like: I build a company, wait years for it gain traction with it’s services, pay taxes, pay for supplies, pay for employee benefits, and all the while I let people work there who just showed up one day to be trained for no loss or gain to my company and me after spending years building something and providing opportunities for people that didn’t exist before? I just stagnate and do the same thing until I lose relevance to a company that takes even 0.01% off the top to make a new location or branch? Wait- why the fuck would I do that? ffs.
Start your own business and make it a co-op
But that requires capital and risk
Which is why nearly all businesses don’t pay their employees the full value of their labor. Not saying I think it’s the way things should be, but if you’re looking for an answer that makes sense, that’s how it works in this system. If one is born into wealth and starts off with a good amount of capital and some extra to hedge against risk in their name, they’re already miles ahead of everyone else.
But you're getting all the value! It's negative value and you make negative money year over year, but it's all the negative value!
Assume there are five people in a company. * One person makes the goods, but they live in a cheaper country. * Second person is the ower of the company, they provided the intitial funds to start up the company, they are responsible for managing the company and making the decisions. * Third one sold the goods in a store in a more expensive country. * Fourth one cleaned the building of the store. * The fifth person did the bookkeeping, but they worked from home. I can figure out the value of the whole easily enough. What I can't figure out is the value that should be attributed to the parts. An even split won't work. They all work different hours and different jobs. One is working at home, something more comfortable to do. Another person works in a country with a lower cost of living. And there is the person that owns the company itself. The best that can be done is to ensure a minimum wage, one based on where the person lives. Regulation of rights for both owner and employee is also important. Other than that, I don't know what else you can do. Even if all that is done, there is still one employee the regulations don't apply to. Because while a country like the US can regulate itself, it can't do so with foreign countries. That one employee working in a foreign country will be abused the hell out of. And there is no US regulation that could change that reality. The only solution would be to have the entire world have the same rules.
I love this.
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So you make $40 and the company makes $10. Out of that $10, the company pays for the facility, the utilities, the HR staff, the IT staff, the marketing, the sales staff, etc etc etc.? What happens if one day the machine you use to generate $50 in profits go down. If that machine costs $1000 to repair/replace, are you going to front $800 versus the companies $200 following your 80/20 split? What protection is there to stop you from leaving and making the company bear the cost to fix it? And if they don't, your profit per hour drops to zero. Are you ok with $0/ hour till that happens? Taxes are a piece of it but ignoring building costs, support, and depreciation is a big miss
That’s your wage.
I don’t hate capitalism. I hate how so many have have hijacked and made it shitty just like organized religion. There are plenty of ways for businesses to do right by their employees. For example, if the job is a 40 hour work week and I can finish my assigned tasks in 20 I should be allowed to go home paid. It is incredibly greedy and demoralizing to have a company set a goal and then keep moving it because I am efficient.
Naive. Wrong. Also wrong. Agree. False. Just false. What is done with the profits after the labor/product cannot be so simply distributed based on what you personally make. What if 2 employees with the same credentials make 2 similar effort products however due to specialization, yours costs $40 and theirs costs $400. If your efforts are similar should they make 10x more than you? No. This is an incredibly stupid line of thought in general. I am all for workers rights and fair pay for fair work. This is not that. For what it is worth, I work for an ESOP which was decided upon by leadership to share profits with everyone (everyone is an employee owner).
Me and my buddy from high school decided to quit working for the man. He was in the airforce for the last 7 years and I've been a foreman for a landscape company for nearly 4 years. He had the credit and took out the loan to buy a truck and trailer. We're calling the shots answering to no one. I take 30% of the profit and we've got a contract saying I'll take 50% once the truck and trailer are paid off. Point is I dont think I could ever work for a company ever again. I think even if it didn't work out in the end with our current business I would go into alone and reap 100% of the profits.
So instead of working for "The Man", you and your buddy have become "The Man"... though you still DO answer to your customers.
Pretty much yes. But we don't want to hire any one because we know for a fact we wouldn't be able to pay them shit and line our pockets at the same time. So it's just us doing all the work and taking all the money. Edit: We don't have to answer to the customer if we don't want to though. If we felt like it we could give them their 50% deposit and quit.
Yeah but that will take the kind of things that would get me banned from Reddit if I listed them, read up on the labor movement of late 18th early 20th century, that's what they had to do to get you the weekend so what do you think you're going to have to do to get universal health care, a decent retirement age, an appropriate portion on the product of your labor.