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Memes @lemmy.ml

Kidplayer_666 @lemm.ee

2y ago

Lemmy might, MIGHT have a small bias towards the left

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1.8K comments

Well the main thing is the concentration of capital. Guys like Jeff Bezos aren't interested in founding cooperatively-owned companies, and they have all of the money. Add in the fact that average people are very strongly atomized and prevented from forming stable social bonds, and the likelihood that you'll get a cadre of people together who want to start a cooperative business and can also afford to do so is very, very low.
That said, the few coops that manage to exist are often the best places in their industry to work, precisely because the profits are shared more equally than in the more common private or publicly traded corporations.
- Bezos had to start off somewhere.
  Just a small loan of a quarter million dollars from his parents to bail out his failing company, which one would be hard-pressed to imagine he would have even had that much success in founding if not for his wealthy parents supporting his upbringing as they did.
  
  That is how capitalism works.
  Yes. And it is deeply unfair in how it rewards entrenched wealth rather than giving everyone equal opportunities. That's why socialists are opposed to it.
  
  I didn’t come from entrenched wealth
  Other than not being born in the slums of an exploited country, right?
  
  I've worked hard for what I have too. That doesn't stop me from looking around, seeing that there are billions of people on this planet who work way harder than I do for way less than I have, and saying "this system should be changed."
  idk what communist countries you've been to, but if you compare for example the average Cuban's quality of life to that of the average person on any other Caribbean island, capitalism doesn't come out looking too hot. Most post Soviet countries are still poorer today than they were in 1989, almost everyone who has been lifted out of poverty in the past generation is Chinese, and there are literally hundreds of capitalist countries that have been doing capitalism for a hundred years or more that have remained the poorest countries in the world regardless.
  The objective reality is that communism is leaps and bounds better at organizing society than capitalism can ever be, full stop.
  
  Cuba did not have values above the very low threshold for undernourishment or child mortality at any point since 2000 and is therefore not included in the 2022 Global Hunger Index.
  In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, Jamaica ranks 35th out of the 121 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2022 GHI scores. With a score of 7.0, Jamaica has a level of hunger that is low.
  Undernourishment in Cuba has been under 5%, and child mortality under 1%, every year since the year 2000. For Jamaica undernourishment currently hovers at 6.9%, and child mortality 1.3%.
  Anecdotes are useless in a discussion like this. I don't care what you think you saw, I care about the facts.
  
  Stats are stats. If Cuba, even while facing a crisis in its food production due to lack of seeds, gas, and fertilizer, is still able to feed its people better than its neighboring countries, then that is a stirring indictment of capitalism.
  Both of your examples link to a drop in imports as the cause of shortages, itself a symptom of the ongoing global production crises caused by COVID-19. A wealthy country like the USA can paper over a problem like that by throwing around money and credit - a small country like Cuba can't.
  Consider how Cuba's economy could possibly respond differently to this situation if it were capitalist. I suppose they could take massive IMF loans in order to shore up imports, at the cost of "structural adjustments" that cause untold damage to future generations by eliminating the government's mandate to run public services - but that plan hasn't exactly worked in the long term anywhere it has been tried.
  The fact is that these crises are well outside the sphere of influence of Cuba's economy or government, and are exacerbated by American imperialism against Cuba and its allies (ie literally hijacking Venezuelan oil shipments using the US Navy). Regardless of political ideology or economic policy, Cuba would be facing these crises one way or the other, and centrally planned communism has proven time and time again that even if it's not perfect it's better at navigating these problems than a competitive market capitalist system is.
  
  Cuba has a longer life expectancy, America is winning hard.
  
  This is ironically a poor sales pitch, unless you believe that networking, marketing, and familial wealth should be what orders society.
  And I never said that 250k was all they had, and in fact being able to throw that much money at something is going to be less and less of a concern the more money you have, though I don't think his family was "poor as hell" to start with. Unfortunately for this point, their finances at the time are not publicized that I can find.
  
  It’s all part of how society works.
  I said should, not does.
  But he didn’t steal profits.
  Back then, he used a considerable amount of money to run at a loss. Nowadays, he does steal a remarkable level of profits in the unpaid wages of the employees who keep winding up in the news for being forced to piss in bottles or drive to work in a hurricane.
  
  Now days he’s not part of the company.
  I don't think this all happened right when he retired in 2021
  
  He started out with a small loan of $250,000 from his parents, in 90s $s if memory serves.
  You're just a
  aren't you? Lazy workers could be billionaires if they just tried
  
  250k is a lot of money. It was more even more money in the 90s. Its an exceptionally large amount of money to recieve for free straight from your parents.
  People don't become billionaires from working. They become billionaires by taking profit from the surplus value of other peoples work.
  But you believe in a propagandized version of capitaliam where everyone could equally become a billionaire, its a meritocracy, you're all jealous and lazy of our deserving overlords
  
  250K isn't that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn't.
  Completely out-of-touch.
  
  $250,000 isn't a lot of money to the average person
  Thats literally 5-6x the median annual income what the hell are you smoking. That is a life changing amount of money to most of the country.
  they didn't take the profit from anyone
  They took that profit from the people working there. Profit is the difference between expenses and income. In order to turn a profit companies cannot pay workers what their work earns the company, there has to be a difference. In economic parlance this difference is referred to as surplus value being generated by the workers for the company. If workers were paid what they were worth then the profit margin of that company would be 0% but those people would all be paid more than they are now. Whether you think the workers are entitled to the full value of what they create is an ideological determination that I will judge you for.
  
  1: didn't touch that for some reason
  2: I am aware they ran on venture capital. You didn't address where they take their profit from now that they've achieved their dream near-monopoly status. That status that would have been impossible without their thousands of employees to begin with.
  
  s coffee. It just needs to be coffee
  No. This is absolutely wrong. There's an entire grading system involved.
  
  Lol eat shit, lib
  
  250k is a plane. A literal fucking aircraft.
  
  The average US worker has a salary of $46,800 (in 2018) before taxes. Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, it would take over 5 years for them to make 250k. Again, this is before taxes, and without spending anything. For the vast majority of people, 250k is a lot of money.
  Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, the average worker would have to work the entire length of all human history in order to earn a billion dollars. If they were to make as much money as Jeff Bezos, they would have to work for 2.8 million years.
  Assuming you earned a million dollars every year, it would take 1000 years to earn your first billion dollars.
  It's not possible to become a billionaire simply through working, as humans do not live that long.
  
  Exactly. So you agree that it's impossible to earn and save a billion dollars just by working hard. It requires either exploiting your workers by stealing their surplus value, or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.
  
  or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.
  Which is also just stealing surplus value by proxy, since return on investment is simply a share of the company's profits, which is itself just surplus value, or unpaid labor.
  
  If I don't take what my boss offers I will starve to death and die. That is not what I would consider a strong bargaining position. I can go to the other company that I could work at but they both work together to keep wages low. I have no power to improve my status because the system is rigged against me and every worker like me
  
  When you're old enough to work you'll sell it to whoever you can at whatever price they offer and you'll be lucky to get annual raises that match inflation.
  
  Yeaaaa delete that shit, coward
  
  If wealth were actually distributed in the US equally that might be true, but as it is it's more than double what most Americans have, even ignoring inflation.
  The average net worth of all American families was $746,820, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, while the median figure was $121,760.
  — The Average Net Worth Of Americans—By Age, Education And Ethnicity
  
  Ok then go ahead and lend me $250k right now. I promise I'll pay it back.
  
  I'm not telling you my business plan before I receive the money
  
  since he deleted it, here's what this loser wrote:
  250k isn't that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn't.
  You don't even get how billionaires are made. LOL. They didn't take the profit from anyone. Amazon doesn't give a dividend.
  Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary. Since people are not expecting to make money from a dividend, it's all made up.
  It is why Amazon could drop in value tomorrow if people felt it wasn't going to continue to climb in value. The only way to make money is still sell the shares.
  
  Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary
  And this was supposed to be an argument for billionaires deserving their wealth?
  
  I'm legit trying to figure out the logic that determined which of his posts he should delete and which ones he shouldn't. Seems like it's whatever was getting a lot of replies, but also some other random ones for fun?

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