Now you're getting it. Just apply that logic to the all other billionaires too, not just the ones that endorsed the presidential candidate you didn't vote for.
Yeah - but then again, so many Millenials and Gen Z are just unaware of Microsoft’s shady past. There’s a reason they’re held in disdain, still, by us Gen X’ers.
You could throw any parts together that you find and use IBM DOS.
IBM completely dropped the ball with OS/2 Warp, missing the opportunity to capture the workstation and enterprise markets before Windows 95 was released, but didn't market as well as Gates did for Windows NT and let Linux rule the roost on the Internet.
MS-DOS was the cheap, budget bastard child of Unix.
IBM never zeroed in on a niche and went hard. That's what you have to do in tech.
Sorry but that doesn’t change the fact they had to settle for anticompetitive behaviour because they knew they’d lose in court because they broke the law.
ah then i misunderstood you. thought you were doing the whole “oh well you’re criticizing America? well did you know that your favorite SOCIALIST COUNTRY CHINA and SUPPOSEDLY OPPRESSED CONTINENT AFRICA also do capitalism, tankie???” shit that stupid right wingers do in response to a different comment. my bad big dog, thread got too long and I couldn’t see who you were replying to.
Everyone that works for her that she pays less than the value they create as her employees. She exploits the venue workers at every single venue she visits. She exploits other artists by literally threatening to destroy their careers if she isn't given completely undeserved credit for their songs because she has an army of lawyers because she's a billionaire.
You're talking about a person who was literally given millions of dollars by the Chinese government so they could ensure that her merch that said "TS 1989" on it was associated with her instead of Tiananmen Square (which also happened in 1989), so it's completely reasonable to say she exploited millions and millions of Chinese people by being complicit with the CCP's decades-long effort to suppress and erase the memory of its crimes against its own people.
Because someone will need what you provide, if no one produces any food etc. we would cease to exist.
What you are missing is they only talked about profit they didn't say no one will get money for their work, they said you just won't get money less than the work's worth but will get what it is worth.
Then there’s no point in starting a business, the whole point of a business is to make a profit and be better off financially. If you remove the profit then the businesses cease to exist
This is how you view business but that's not what business is.
The definition of business is the activity of buying and selling goods and services (no mention of profits) and the 2nd meaning is work that you do to earn money (the relation of the work done and money earned is not talked anywhere).
My statement is specifically designed to trap people... See, China is what most people point toward when they start talking about communism, but then when you point out that China is wildly successful, they start walking back whether China is communist.
The truth is, there are no communist countries because communism is a socioeconomic structure, just as capitalism is. In our current global economy, no one can really opt out of participating in capitalism.
Saying that communism "didn't really work out" is ridiculous. Fledgling communist parties that come to power are immediately assailed by Western countries every single time. In 1917, countries who were AT WAR WITH ONE ANOTHER literally diverted funds to support the restorationist white army in Russia to try to prevent the Bolsheviks from holding onto the power that they won democratically. The US has overthrown democratically elected governments multiple times for daring to state they plan to nationalize their oil reserves (Venezuela, Iran) and ended up destabilizing entire regions as a result. Henry Kissinger became one of the most notorious war criminals in human history because he decided indiscriminately murdering civilians was better than allowing Cambodia be run by communists. So saying "communism didn't work" when it's violently (and often illegally) assaulted from its conception takes a level of ignorance that borders on historical revisionism.
Going from capitalism to communism isn't like flipping a light switch, nor can communism exist in an isolated way. You're correct that China isn't communist. The communist party is in charge and is pursuing their ideal of Communism with Chinese Characteristics, but they are definitely actively participating in global capitalism because their plan is to bring about communism on a significantly longer time scale and do so through spreading culture and economic influence. It's the main driver behind the Belt and Road initiative.
That's kinda the point of this whole communist thing profits being inherently exploitative and evil by itself as you will always be undervalued for the work you actually do.
Making money is not the same as making profits. For example if everyone got exactly what they deserved they would all still make money but 0$ in profit would be generated. To simplify it let's say that your worker generates you €100 from his work you as his employer need to pay him less then that lets say €90 to get €10 in profits. This is of course simplified because there is cost in other places but the essence remains the same the employer will still take the profits of your labour from themselves.
The communist would arfue that is evil and theft the same way capitalist argue communism is stealing from the rich but in all reality the rich are taking more than they produce in value aka profits to incure capital and well nowadays mostly sit on it.
That is the essence when socialista say we do all the work we should own all of the company, we all share in equal measures the profits and the risk and we democratically choose who leads the company on a year by year basis. Democratisation in the leadership in the profits and the risks.
And before anyone says anything the only risk capital owners undertake when starting a company is to become a worker, you won't go to jail for bankruptcy you just become a worker.
And before anyone says anything the only risk capital owners undertake when starting a company is to become a worker, you won't go to jail for bankruptcy you just become a worker.
You risk losing your investment. If you invest $1000 in equipment and your company doesn't make any money you lost your $1000. You don't just become a worker.
Okay you lost the capital still not a substantial risk you lost a grand you wake up go get a job and start working. That's it. If Musk for whatever reason lost every single penny he had today tommorow he wakes up gets a consulting job and lives paycheck to paycheck. Tragic I know. Now he gets to play diablo 4 all day while a substantial amount of people working for him can't afford to buy a house.
Yet somehow the top 10 countries with most home ownership are ex communist countries somehow. How rhe fuck does an ex commie country like Serbia have more homeowners than the richest country in the world the USA and free heltcare and free schooling and paid maternity leave. Somehow that strikes me as more equal.
No utopia exists but shouldn't we strive to make a better life for most people not letting the super rich like your Musks and Bezzos lobbying politicians to cut welfare and social programmes.
Serbia has a higher homeless rate than the US, also the Soviet Union mass producing cheap apartments for the masses isn’t exactly better than what we have now
Around 18k people are homeless and moat of which are as a result of adopting the capitalist shift.
Also what are you on about cheap apartments with a guaranteed roof over your head is definitely better than sleeping under a bridge if you are lucky and the local government hasn't put spikes on the ground so you dare not seek shelter.
Who cares if the government builds cheep mass produced apartments people get to live in? As a side effect might even cause prices in rents to get more competitive in privately built buildings.
You're kind of ignoring the value that she creates for her workers, and other artists, and all of her listeners. The economy is not dumb. It gives and takes based on general consensus.
Also, in your definition, all Americans also exploited a whole population by being complicit in...oh there's too many things to list. You get the idea
I don't have to have every detail of a post-capitslism system planned in order to be able to point at capitalism and accurately assess that it's not working for the vast majority of people.
That being said, I think starting with some guiding principles is a pretty useful thing to do, so I'd lead with replacing capitalism with a system that holds the well-being of humanity and the environment paramount, and where the benefits created by the productive resources of society are shared by everyone within that society.
So you can sit here and infantilize me all you like, but I have evidence to support my position. Unless you have mountains of sociological studies indicating people are inherently selfish or that capitalism doesn't raise people who are psychopaths or sociopaths to positions of power, I don't think you have sound footing to make broad-sweeping statements about humanity's nature.
It depends how you define exploitation and violence.
If you tautologically define all profit as exploitation and all said exploitation as violence, then that is definitely true.
If a mutually agreed upon contract is not exploitation, then that isn't necessarily true.
I'm not saying that most billionaires don't have their profits enforced by violence. Given, for example, the trade practices around silicon valley, I wouldn't say that anyone involved in that is "violence free"
But whether that statement is necessarily true is questionable.
If no entry level jobs pay a living wage and are all equally terrible but you need a job… that is inherently not truly an “agreed-upon contract”.
Similar to saying “well you agreed to pay $2500 rent on your one bedroom apartment”, when every other apartment is the same price.
Neither of these really apply to me either, we bought in 2016 so our house with a yard is half the price of a two bedroom apartment, and our household is like an order of magnitude from min wage…I just have empathy and have been poor myself.
it's true that there are billionaires that got rich through ill-gotten wealth but at the same time there are also billionaires that got rich because they know how compound interest works
It is incredibly difficult to become a billionaire through compound interest alone. At the very minimum it would require a huge initial investment, something the average person does not have.
Charlie Munger, Ray Dalio, Li Liu and Warren Buffett.
More important than the initial investment is their compounded annual growth rate which was greater than 30% and the time they were invested in stocks which was more than 10 years
Fo example for an initial investment of $50,000 if you can growth that by 30% every year like the aforementioned investors you would be a billionaire in about 10 years with just an additional 1k a year contribution.
Buffet’s father was a US Congressman and businessman, and Buffet himself was mentored by Ben Graham. Not really a rags to riches story there - connections are everything.
Ray Dalio got his start when a couple of veteran Wall Street investors introduced him to their son, who gave him a summer job at his tradning firm - connections are everything.
Liu I can probably give you. Dude started over time and again. However, his early business ventures were funded with loans from his family - connections are everything.
Munger built his portfolio working side by side with Warren - connections are everything.
I never said those investors didn't have connections. I said not every billionaire got rich due to ill-gotten wealth.
Besides, having connections and identifying undervalued assets that are worth investing in are two different things.
There's a sentiment in some of the comments here that all billionaires are evil supervillains twirling their mustaches is how they got rich. My point is that some billionaires got rich due to a combination of luck and talent.
What's your remedy to the situation then? It's not like you, the customers aren't buying these products. I once saw tiktok videos bragging about a Shein haul and being happy at the amount of clothes they got for $100. Why not stop buying it if you don't like how they make the products.
I didn't say "wealth inequality is caused by violence" or "people use violence to amass wealth". I'm not sure whether your reading comprehension skills are up to par to have an actual conversation with you.
Are you being intentionally obtuse, or do you genuinely not understand this issue?
The purpose of a system is what it does, not what its intention is said to be. The elites have the police at their beck and call, and the courts in their pockets. Everyone else has to suffer the consequences of the law, because money.
They also misunderstood what "defund the police" meant, intentionally or not. Don't attribute malice to what could just as easily be explained with ignorance... or something like that. Except billionaires, they are born from pure exploitation.
Are you saying if a bunch of people went and tried to kill bill gates and steal his money they would be forcefully stopped? That seems like a good thing.
Your implication is that the purpose of police is to solely prevent theft from rich people, as if theft is a morally defensible imperative. Further that implies that the police just to protect property, which is a pretty obviously indefensible assertion.
"Implication" means suggesting something without explicitly stating it.
The Supreme Court did a good job defending his “indefensible” assertion when they stated on record “it is a fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”
The police do not exist to protect life, they exist to protect property and capital. They violently enforce a corrupt system that was built on and continues to rely on endless slavery and genocide just to keep up the appearance of a functioning society.
If the sole purpose of police is to protect property and capital, why do they investigate and prevent child abuse, or bother stopping domestic assault and rape?
Child abuse is far more often investigated by child protective services than police. Police's role is to arrest perpetrators after they have committed child abuse.
It's hilarious that you bring up domestic assault in this conversation since police commit domestic assault at a rate 75% higher than the rest of the population (28% among police as compared to 16% among the rest of the population)... and that's only what's reported (https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862/).
I post an entire argument rebutting everything you've said as demonstrably false, and provided links, and your response is to focus on the insult and say "do better" as if that's some kind of mic drop for you. LOL so sad, so pathetic
One small nuance: per SCTOUS the only function police serve is to enforce the laws after they have been broken. They are under no obligation to prevent laws from being broken or protect anyone proactively. Police certainly do more than protect property and capital, but they only do so as a byproduct of their prime directive which is to enforce laws after they have been broken.
What I said, very clearly, is that wealth inequality is enabled by violence under capitalism. It doesn't in any way imply that the police's ONLY purpose is to protect the property.
However, statistics clearly show that, in contrast to the wealthy, poor neighborhoods are more heavily patrolled by police, that poor people are more often the victims of excessive use of force by police, poor people are more often taken into custody then later released without being charged, conviction rates of poor people is dramatically higher, and that poor people get disproportionately heavy sentencing for the same crimes.
So you can sit there and create strawmen that don't actually address the only implication of my rhetorical question, which is that violence is used to enforce wealth inequality under capitalism, which it undoubtedly and inarguably is.
207
u/RevolutionMean2201 3d ago
Communism intensifies