Mgxr44
26516
924
30
Just a reminder that the people critiqued in these memes are the same people who want you to think socialists are your enemy
Iblamemyparentstoo
levyathyn
Wage theft is the most prolific theft there is. No value in America from any other kind of theft even comes close; nearly as much wages are stolen from American workers every year as are paid to them.
AsheLake
Even this is an understatement. This theft only comes out of the wages that the workers were coerced into agreeing with, while the unpaid value of their labor dwarfs even that by orders of magnitude.
DJThuglifeSupreme
#10
Wapusk
We are not your enemy, we have learned from the mistakes of previous Socialist experiments. We now how computer modeling that can scale up to surpass the advancements of Soviet and Sino successes. All the tech bros are using it for is mastrabatory accumulation anyway.
SuckMyFatOne
What's especially sick about tent cities is how many veterans end up there after fighting for their country and returning home with PTSD. It's awful for everyone in that situation. I just especially feel that any country who does so little for war heros that they end up in a tent at best, does not deserve the sacrifice that was made by these men and women
RedLanternGrodd
I just want to afford the necessities without stress. I am no used to so little i just want to bare minimum for survival without stress. I shouldn't need a "side gig" to afford insulin. Or have to choose.
Ivain
You're right it's utterly bonkers. In parts of the sane world it's still possible to make a living and build a future. My sister and her fiance managed to buy a house on just his salary (my sister is about to graduate college, he's a few years older into a decent career), I am currently living well below my means and can thus build up savings, but some of that is definitely luck, and there's certainly no room for investments or luxury holidays or outright owning a car.
Mgxr44
✨capitalism✨it’s a death cult
RedLanternGrodd
A-fucken-Men. Can't wait for this to all be over.
MattoJanai
We all just want to survive. I don't know how they convinced the poor to be more poor. Have fun be a rich asshole. You can still pay me enough to live and be a piece of shit. My entire goal in life is to not have to check my bank account for a $5 purchase
SploogeMcDuck316
Hot take. I dont even care if billionaires exist if everyone who wants it gets a living wage and opportunity to thrive truly exists for all.
Mgxr44
I understood that, so long as you understand that’ll never happen and it’s one or the other
smhippy
#1 It hard for people to understand just how much a billion really is; A billion hours is equal to about 114,000 years. Billionaires shouldn't exist.
SMarkt
ever seen the movie "in time" ? a few years ago i would have called it great scifi.
Mahcks
Just some fun math: $1 billion is equal to 66,313 years of minimum wage at 40hrs/week.
draconicus
A lot more shit needs to be on fire.
theobituator
I'm sorry. I saw your user name and thought "random letters, 2 numbers: bot" and down voted. Looked at history. Seems legit,.or maybe one of "ours"...
Mgxr44
It’s a gamer tag I’ve had since middle school
Altqwenta
#5 This is not entirely true. Some people work 20+ years so they can apply to a house credit. Sometimes they put on rent this property so they can pay for it. They own no other properties, and this is how they build their patrimony. This is not the same as people with several houses living off the rental income. Its still unfair but housing system is way to complex to reduce it to a meme.
Bojovnik84
etherbunny41
Need more people doing what he did and quoting him.
Mgxr44
Are you not willing to live in poverty your whole life for some rich assholes that never had a real job?!?!
flightstosaturn
How is this any different than being born to a boomer?
jayman0123
boomers did live in poverty though. They lived in the most prosperous times the planet has ever known. Then they fucked it up
McBzz
They stole it all. They could have made great advances in science and technology, medicine, agriculture but a few psychos think everything ought to belong to them so they can fuck you and all your children.
Kyen155
ArchMagos
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1azR2OThmM2psNG8xbDkzd2xlNmR2NHRrM3JhczhvNXBtbzdpczBlMSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/yr7n0u3qzO9nG/200w.webp
philmoregraves
#9 was it liberals that didnt know it was based on capitalism? Who didnt know the show was based on capitalism?
kurvarVillain
MonkeyButterPants
Can we just call the billionaire class "The Smaug"?
SuckMyFatOne
Putrescent minges also would be acceptable
Jonson71
#10 literally every image in this post is telling me who my enemy is
Mgxr44
Except I gave you reasons. What reasons do they give you to be afraid of socialists?
Jonson71
The meme doesn't mention anything about Reasons. And I'm not afraid of socialists. The meme says "only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is" and this entire post is about you telling us who our enemies are. You annotating the meme after the fact to include a clause about "unless that person gives you good reasons" kind of defeats the purpose of the pithy quote.
Mgxr44
Here’s more of the quote.
“We're taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don't have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is."
The idea is they want you to be afraid of things you don’t understand and to not question the system you’re born into. You live in the heart of capital where you’ve been bombarded by anti communist/socialist propaganda for decades. That’s what it’s referring to.
Jonson71
It makes much more sense as a full quote.
Mgxr44
Fair
jj999124
When I was a kid, we didn't murder CEOs
They just gave us each a penny and we did what we were told
They don't care how many people they watch work themselves to death
The only thing that they're scared of is a bullet in the chest
Monopoly money
They spend it like it's nothing
A mansion, an airplane
A couple politicians
Monopoly money
I kinda think it's funny
You buy your way to heaven
But you die like the rest of us
https://youtu.be/wUaCz28bm18?si=jrRHXBlKychJM7xm
MrsHowVeryDareYou
While I absolutely agree with 99% of this, there is something to be said for starting the company, fronting the money, and assuming all the risk. It is, however, fucked up that salaries are so wildly unbalanced. Remember when Ben & Jerry’s had a policy that they would never pay themselves more than 7x what the lowest paid worker made? That was the way.
WolfTarAnis
There's definitely a burden that comes with responsibility, noone is against fairly compensating bosses, even 10:1. It's the current 100:1 norm - that's a problem.
MrsHowVeryDareYou
Fuck me, further googling shows it was a 5:1 ratio in the 90s, and the lowest paid workers were making $12/hr (in the 90s!!!). Then 7:1 for a new CEO. Then 17:1 in 2000. And then they abandoned the whole idea.
SMarkt
you know, the first type of capitalism was pretty ok. it was invented by the pirates of the carribean. They divided the loot fairly. The captain received 10 shares; the officers, 5; the helmsman, the ship's carpenter, and the sailmaker, 3; the cook, 2; and every sailor, one share. And the cabin boy got half a share. Today, the boss takes 90 parts of the loot, and everyone else has to share the rest. The pirates made their captain walk the plank if he became too greedy.
PennysWorthOfTea
But that's not capitalism. Capitalism for pirates would be if the captain was the sole owner of the entire ship, made executive decisions independent of the wishes of the crew, & paid the crew the a flat rate (instead of a %) regardless of how much loot they plundered while keeping the majority of capital for himself.
My understanding is that capitalism got it's start in medieval Venice with the rise of investing in shipping markets.
tidepool
#3 yes but they provide the tools and pay for the processing and probably transportation. I’m not saying workers shouldn’t be appropriately compensated for their work, especially deadly kinds, but the boss also has costs and manages the financial side. Gotta get a return on it otherwise why do it?
AsheLake
1] How did they get the capital for those things? They didn't make the tools. They don't drive the tricks. They don't even manage the finances (The boss is not the owner). The starting capital came from other exploited workers.
AsheLake
2] Obligatory RoI for investors is also a weird premise. If you put in $30k worth of money, why should you be entitled to anything more than $30k in profit? Why should a one time investment yield anything more than a one time payout?
Meanwhile, the workers continue to risk their labor, careers, and even lives in the mines. Their contribution is greater, and continues to grow as they work, but their RoI tightly limited, while the capitalist's return is unlimited.
Mgxr44
Also, on another level, you’re now playing with fire as you’re setting up your entire economy to pitt the “haves” (capital) interests against the “have nots” (workers). And if you think the people with all of the money are gonna lose to the people who could go homeless if they miss a paycheck… well, I’d say that’s not gonna happen. And it doesn’t
Mgxr44
What I hear you saying is that once a government has the ability to provide and manage capital, the capitalist system becomes obsolete. And to that I say that both Marx and I agree.
PennysWorthOfTea
Where do you think they got the funds to purchase all of that?
Hint: it wasn't earned
RedAppleSoda
#9 What?
CandidGamera
I guess OP thinks that if you like a text you wholeheartedly endorse its surface-level scenario? Because clearly one cannot enjoy a text for being satire that criticizes something that you would also criticize based on your ideological leaning?
phalanxausage
Just another meme to divide the left. Right-Wing propaganda does not only target the right.
RedAppleSoda
It reminds me of the past few presidential elections. Momentum for the Dem candidate was constantly tempered by ideological purists who, while claiming they will vote for the Dem, do everything they can to dampen enthusiasm in online discourse.
AsheLake
The belief that liberals are leftists is a victory for right wing propaganda.
Imustntrunaway
As a leftist, I agree.
American liberals are ineffectual at best, cowards, and captured opposition. Better than actual fascists is a fucking low bar to clear, and they barely manage that.
They might get my vote when there's a lack of better options, which is all too often, but I'll pick Bernie or AOC or literally anyone who stands for more than lining their pockets every damn time over these corporate owned suits.
AsheLake
Absolutely.
Mgxr44
Liberals aren’t considered the left anywhere else but the US dude. Which is very intentional, because they don’t want you to think there’s anything to the left of them, and that it’s all just liberalism, and it isn’t. Liberals are capitalists. The meme is attacking capitalism…
phalanxausage
Y'all, I'm a straight up socialist but I recognize that the chief reason the right has managed to take over this country is that everybody to the left of them would rather fight amongst themselves than form some sort of coalition to defeat the fascists.
LtRooney
Liberalism is defined as an ideology that values capitalism and democracy, Americans might call Liberals "centrists" as American fascists use "liberal" to mean "anyone left of Sauron." The meme is saying, "look at these pro-capitalist dipshits missing the obvious anti-capitalist message!"
DietCokeIsMyDrugOfChoice
"Anyone left of Sauron" fucking amazing & hilarious 😂
anarchoFeline
liberalism, sometimes referred to as classical liberalism, is an ideology based around personal liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. neoliberalism is an ideology based around free market capitalism, deregulation, and privatization. the Democratic party is a neoliberal organization that has some classical liberals in it.
AsheLake
1] Classical liberals were pro-capitalism too. They just weren't ready to see that capitalism could not achieve those values, even though some people did predict this failure. In their context, they believed capitalism was an improvement from feudalism. (It should have been telling when the aristocracy got on board after they realized they could continue dominating.)
So liberalism and capitalism are joined at the hip. Capitalism is the economic system, and liberalism is its justifying ideology.
AsheLake
2] Classical liberalism has failed to achieve its values through capitalism, and neoliberals are willing to throw those values away to further capitalism as what it has turned out to be, another, more efficient way for the elite to extract labor from the masses.
PennysWorthOfTea
An important addendum for further clarification: In the US, "liberal" is usually equated to "left/progressive" while to the rest of the world, US liberals are right-leaning center. There is no actual left in US politics.
Wynterknyte
The CIA 'disappeared' anyone further left.
PennysWorthOfTea
The ones that cops or FBI didn't imprison or murder.
FckleberryFarms
#1 succinct and accurate
AsheLake
Lol, @Chooseausernameandyoureallset tried to refute a simple observation by asking misleading questions, then got butthurt and blocked me when I straightened it out.
Getting big mad when your question is answered and misunderstandings are cleared up is a sure sign that you were just JAQing off.
Mgxr44
Yeah, doesn’t seem like a guy trying to have a conversation
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
Can you explain how the value of a company is hours of your life you could've spent not working?
AsheLake
0] It doesn't say "the value of a company," it says "The billion's the rich are accumulating."
You're mixing up revenue with speculative value people use to gamble. To be fair, that speculative value should be informed by the revenue, but it is also influenced by myriad other confounding factors that are completely outside of the scope of this discussion.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
The billions the rich are accumulating are almost all tied up in companies. Like Bezos with Amazon, or Zuckfuck with Meta.
I didn't mix up anything, you simply can't understand what I said. That's a problem with you. Go fix it.
FckleberryFarms
Their "value" is your siphoned labor. That siphoned labor, if you still had it, is your time. You literally ARE time. If you work a regular job (and most are) you are selling your only resource (your time/skill which is also time) to survive. Do you think you get paid what you make for them? Or something even close to a reasonable margin? If you work for a corporation and they're publicly traded you can find their 10K financial reports. You can see exactly how much time they stole, aggregated.
FckleberryFarms
If this system were voluntary, because you got all your basic needs met (medicine/housing/food/etc), and it was just extra for Shiny Things it wouldn't be so odious. But it's not voluntary. You work or you fucking die (or you turn to crime) - at least in America.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
The value isn't determined by labor. It's made up. Remember this: https://www.thewrap.com/colin-kaepernick-nike-stock-loses-4-billion-market-cap/ ? If value was based on labor, what labor changed to make the company worth almost $4 billion less? Every single worker did the same the week before this and the week after. The amount of siphoned labor is unchanged, so shouldn't the value be unchanged?
Did they magically give $4 billion back to the workers from that lost value?
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
If value was based on siphoned labor, paying the workers more would make the company less valuable, because they're siphoning less, right? The value of a company drops when it gives someone a raise? Do we see a stock drop in auto companies whenever a new union contract with a pay raise is signed?
And wouldn't that mean that higher paid jobs are siphoned less, meaning worth less? If so, high paid tech jobs should result in low value companies. Except it doesn't.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
https://www.fastcompany.com/91552520/how-nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-treats-employees-of-the-worlds-most-valuable-company "Last year, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing noted that the median Nvidia employee made $301,233." Nvidia's market cap is $5.2T.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Mcdonalds-Restaurant-Salary "the average annual pay for a Mcdonalds Restaurant in the United States is $27,597 a year." McShit has a market cap of $194 billion.
Isn't that value backwards?
AsheLake
4] 4] By the way, tech jobs aren't getting the benefits they used to, now that the skills are more common. It used to be more like:
1000 - 500 = 500
But now that the required labor is more available, they can get away with paying less for the same output, because the workers' bargaining power is reduced when they become replaceable. Google employees don't get that rock star treatment any more, and that's a big part of why Google is raking it in lately.
AsheLake
3] "higher paid jobs are siphoned less," Nope. And it takes only simple math to see why.
1000 - 800 = 200
500 - 400 = 100
The first figure is the value the labor produced. The second is how much is withheld by the employer. The third is the remaining wage. You can see from these examples that the higher paid job can also still provide more profit for the company if their labor is more productive.
AsheLake
2] The value of a company increases when they figure out how to get more profit out of the same amount of labor without increasing wages. Otherwise textile mills and assembly lines would be pointless.
Again, you're looking at stock prices instead of revenue, so you're confusing yourself. Though stocks are notoriously reactive, so I'm sure they have responded to labor gains plenty.
AsheLake
1] First, all value is made up. So what?
That doesn't change the fact that shareholder profit is extracted from the value of labor that isn't fully paid to the workers who produced that labor. If you were paid the full value of your labor, the company would only ever break even.
"Market cap" is an abstraction that you crammed into the conversation, so don't be surprised when it doesn't fit. Of course speculative value is more volatile than the value produced by labor. That's a separate issue.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
Well you aren't the person I'm talking to now are you? Considering I asked THEM to clarify THEIR point, you really don't have anything to add now do you?
You crammed yourself into this conversation that had nothing to do with you, so don't be surprised when you don't fit. Go away.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
#1 The value of a company is hours you could've spent not working? What?
oldbaldjewishman
Yeah pretty sure they are getting rich and being billionaires regardless.
Chooseausernameandyoureallset
And that has nothing at all to do with me asking someone to clarify what they said.
What a fucking weird comment. Go away.
Jace99
This is a simple concept. If a company pays fair compensation for your labour, you can live a comfortable life AND save for retirement. You can pay off your home, because you can afford a home, and not die at your workplace of stress and old age. The value of any company is its workforce. Without them, the company does not exist. Meaning if they are not compensating you fairly, they are stealing years of your life. Make sense?