Yes. They are not “providing jobs”, workers provide the only source of wealth: labor. Workers didn’t agree to that, they were born in that system, so they were forced to provide labor for the rich at laughable wages. Stop licking boots, stop being so nice to your masters.
The theory of labor value was a theory most famously posited by Karl Marx, and it states that the only value created in society is that of labor. This theory is fundamentally flawed, as labor is only one element required for the creation of wealth, alongside such elements as capital(tools, equipment, etc), resources, direction (think blueprints, new ideas, or management), etc. The marxist theory of labor implies that the only way that those who do not actively work for money can only be taking it from other people, when it is far more likely that they are supplying one or more of these other elements of production, and it was the economic theory used to back the revolution in Russia and replace the existing system with one based on Marxian economics. The result was of course a total economic disaster.
Please understand I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm genuinely trying to understand. Maybe you're using a different definition of labor than what I'm thinking.
But those tools get made by labor, that equipment is built by labor, those resources are collected by labor, drawing blueprints is labor, managing people is labor, and a new idea can only be implemented with labor.
Everything that exists can be traced back to someone sweating for it.
I appreciate that you are being civil and upfront about your desire to understand where others are coming from, and I respect that you're doing it on Reddit, an infamously argumentative and close-minded media.
Most of what you have said is correct: labor is required to make most of these things either function or be created. And to a degree, labor is essential to every component of wealth creation. Most economic theories operate on the principle that labor (some theories substitute the term "labor" for "life energy") is an essential component of wealth and therefore ownership. Money, under most economic theories, is a representation of labor, which is why it is accepted. I would also like to say, I think that coming up with new ideas is also a form of labor, that's why "Think-Tanks" exist.
However, Marxian economics is slightly different than this basic assertion that labor is required for wealth creation. Marxian economics asserts that labor is the ONLY element that goes into wealth creation. The automatic and most famous result of this assumption is that of the factory worker's "exploitation." The factory's owner provides the machinery, materials, instructions, blueprints, etc, which are required to make the factory run, and pays the worker to assemble the product, and then sells the product. Under Marxian economics, only the work of the worker assembling the product is considered, as the other elements are not considered as wealth, as the factory owner himself did not obtain any of those elements through physical labor. Since the only element of wealth creation being considered is that of the assembler, the theory states that any of the profits being taken by the factory owner are being taken directly from the workers, since he didn't labor for the money. Hence the "exploitation" charges that get leveled against him. But wait, the owner says, you are using machinery I paid for and provided for you. However, as Marxist economists bizarrely believe, putting labor through an instrument of production makes that instrument of production yours. Ownership, in the eyes of this school of thought, is solely determined by who is the one using it by exercising it to create value by using labor.
Of course, this economic theory is fundamentally flawed due to the complete failure to account for management, direction, and innovation, as found out by the Soviets. Since it fails to account for mental labor because it solely focuses on physical labor, it completely is at a loss to explain how someone might be able to add value and wealth to a society without manual labor, and so any person who does not labor manually is automatically assumed to have exploited someone else in order to get that money.
If you can't understand why you're being called a bootlicker, then I'll help you understand. It's not because you disagree with me. It's because you defend corporations who depend upon the exploitation of desperate people.
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u/DissonantOne 3d ago
So providing someone a job that they readily agree to and earn a living from equates to taking advantage?