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Professor Richard Wolff a pretty famous economist and socialist. The phrase from the meme is a satirical statement during a 1hr lecture on the history of socialism
I fucking hate it when you're working and some guy comes into the room with his hands in his pockets and says things like "I need this to be done by Monday," all the while with no idea that he could take his hands out of his pockets if it was that important.
That's not necessarily true, most bosses are hired by capitalists. The capitalist is the person or entity that holds the capital necessary to jumpstart a process to extract profit.
@@poofypoof6508 yes he should've said the owners, the bosse are merely enablers and isolation layer between the capitalist n workers who get compensated better for being so.
I really can't believe this is on the internet. That example with an owner and a chef. I just wonder, if it is ONLY about getting a chef to cook burgers, why doesn't that chef buys ingredients and makes and sells burgers on his own? I wonder why is that. Richard doesn't include it in the calculation at all.
@@mike_7294 even if there weren't these costs , even then , the fact that the wage is certain creates a time differential where there is a place for bonus margin aka interest.
It's crazy, isn't it? What had to happen to people for them to deny when they are being taken advantage of? 😭 Edit: I though original comment meant telling working ppl that they are being screwed.
My guess is that people who could ask for a higher wage are scared their employer goes bankrupt, or they are fired. I am one of these kind of people, but I can't lay the finger on why I become defensive when I'm told about this, maybe because my boss works ~90 hours per week and earns an average wage, instead of some CEO making millions. Maybe because I'm rolling in the money because I don't spend any of it.
@@cy4069 That's it exactly. It's what lies at the true heart of the "American Dream". To someday become successful enough to screw other people like you're being screwed now.
So does that mean that if the restaurant only makes $1000 in the week that my labor didn't generate any value and thus I'm not entitled to any compensation?
Yes, if you were to own the means of production and your factory doesn't make a profit, you would not get any compensation, assuming there is no welfare available to you. But if the factory does turn a profit, as it usually does, you would see every bit of those rewards. However, under capitalism, if the business doesn't turn a profit, you would get laid off or fired, and if the company does turn a profit, you are not entitled to all of the value you've produced. Either way you get the short end of the stick.
no, you would still have the goods in stock for the next week. the scenario in question had a gross profit of $3,000, meaning there is still $2,000 worth of food items that have not yet been sold
Well in a realistic world you’d be paid for your work properly and accurately. In this world of capitalism they take advantage and that is where theft comes from .
At 60 hours a week I barely took home $900 every 2 weeks for some jobs in the past. Nobody should be working 60 hours a week, and only make $900 every 2 weeks. This was a job where I was a representative of a corporation. Selling products to other corporations, who would sell them in turn to consumers. I was selling over $60k a week in profit for the corporation I worked for. Yet compensated less than $1000 every other week. Despite such lengthy work weeks, and rather hard manual labor due to the types of products. Yet people get paid far less, for far worse jobs. None of this should be happening anywhere, its inhumane.
@@user-gz4ve8mw9l You were paid basically 7 dollars and 50 cents an hour... 2 week payroll... (minimum wage?) selling over $60,000 every 7 business days... rather hard physical labor... I could guess your job wasn't to sell to businesses customers at all. If anything, I would guess you never would even know the names of the companies which bought the products your company sold to them.
@@stuarthartman4502 LOL go cry to your idol Ayn Rand. If you don't like taxes then shove off to Somalia or Papua New Guinea since that's your idea of paradise in your delusional mind.
@@stuarthartman4502 taxation is indeed theft. But so are capitalist profits. And its those taxes that are used to uphold this economic system that allows those profits to happen. Theft to uphold theft.
@@joshuaramirez5399 seriously. The visuals of this have much more effort put into them too, unlike PragerU's that look like they took ten minutes to throw together.
@@tareke586 I would love them to do that next! It's such an important topic that could benefit a lot of people, especially if it talks about worker-cooperatives!
I agree with workers not getting the value of their labour, but then how would the restaurant owner in this case make money if he bought the ingredients and manages the restaurant while the chef cooks?
@@Zzzron135 Of course not. The worker did not create $2,000 dollars of value. The combination of labor+capital created $2,000 dollars of value. After all, if labor is able to create value by itself, why is labor deciding to work with someone else instead of working alone. If capital is adding no value, then labor should just go on its own. But you will never see a chef without the use of capital (tables, spoons, investments in a nice kitchen, etc).
This video is a load of shit. The workers value is not $2000. The reason that that burgers produced by the worker could be sold for $3000 was not SOLELY because of $1000 in raw ingredients, it was: - the commercial kitchen and equipment - the rent that was paid (or property that was purchased) to have a location to both make and seller burgers - the furniture that customers can sit at to eat after purchasing the burgers - the marketing and overhead to drive customers to the burger joint - the utilities (gas, electric, and water) to keep the place open The list is quite literally endless. I typically love this TH-cam channel, but this video was so poorly thought out.
@@Iniestoteles yeah but there's also a problem we don't know the exact value of his labor and the establishment is huge ( consider it as large business) now the owner is making profit from each establishment but while the worker can work at only one the income inequality rise from the scale of business small business owners are not the problem as they work along side workers or receive only less profits i.e enough to live a nice living that's all but big businesses receive a lot of money more than the owner can spend which causes concentration of wealth and all side effects To combat this we can reduce the market share of each big business by breaking it down like the monopoly act does or by imposing a wealth tax
The fact that the Capitalists were able to successfully propagandize the masses into believing that labor is NOT exploitative by definition- even though that's literally impossible- is just so discouraging. It's the most fundamental aspect of understanding worker's rights, yet we have to argue JUST to get to that baseline understanding before we can even begin discussing our global economic future in a humane way. There's just so much work left.
How is it exploration if you agree to something it's not exploiting you. You have agreed to a contract and can withdraw your self. On top of that you don't get paid what you make as you personally aren't exposed to the risk of the market and will be paid regardless of performance
uh oh, a brain Current neoliberal economics Torpedoed . . . . . The American Dream michael-hudson.com/2018/05/an-overview-welcome-words/ The economics taught today is known as neoliberal. This economics differs fundamentally from classical economics. For example, classical economics stresses taxing economic rent instead of labor and real investment, while neo-liberal economics does the opposite. An economic rent is unearned income that accrues to an owner from an increase in value that he did nothing to produce. For example, a new road is built at public expense that opens land to development and raises its value, or a transportation system is constructed in a city that raises the value of nearby properties. These increases in values are economic rents. Classical economists would tax away the increase in values in order to pay for the road or transportation system. Neoliberal economists redefined all income as earned. This enables the financial system to capitalize economic rents into mortgages that pay interest. The higher property values created by the road or transportation system boost the mortgage value of the properties. The financialization of the economy is the process of drawing income away from the purchases of goods and services into interest and fees to financial entities such as banks. Indebtedness and debt accumulate, drawing more income into their service until there is no purchasing power left to drive the economy. For example, formerly in the US lenders would provide a home mortgage whose service required up to 25% of the family’s monthly income. That left 75% of the family’s income for other purchases. Today lenders will provide mortgages that eat up half of the monthly income in mortgage service, leaving only 50% of family income for other purchases. In other words, a financialized economy is one that diverts purchasing power away from productive enterprise into debt service.
@@harrynimbley8901 You so thoroughly missed the point that it's jarring, but to summarize, the idea that you "agreed" to it and can quit are irrelevant and extremely misleading. It's not like you can quit your exploitative job and find a fair one, ALL labor in a capitalist system MUST be exploitative by design. The only way around it is to not work, which isn't an actual option for most people- it's not like we have UBI or something. So basically, you HAVE to get an exploitative job. The idea that you "agreeing" to it means it's not exploiting you is ridiculous- people don't have a choice. They HAVE to agree to it, they've got you by the balls.
Simply put: What's the most you've ever earned on a raise? 5%? 10%? I'm betting you didn't do 5% or 10% more to get that raise, you had to do 2 or 3 times the work. Sounds like a shit deal to me.
@@RoguSpanish Well then the situation is even more simple. Has a minimum wage increase in your life ever matched the cost of inflation or rising cost of living? If not, you are working either the same of more every year for less. I bet your government felt very good about themselves when they gave you back your own tax money after doing this to you. And if you eventually get a salaried job? You end up in the first scenario. And if you start a business? There's a 99.999% chance you lose your life savings and food/housing security, and a .001% chance you get to do this whole fucked up scheme to someone else. People are sick of this.
The solution is for workers to buy up controlling shares (held equally) in a company and then to outsource the front office to save money on support staff (secretary, purchasing, temporary services). The workers become equal business partners who democratically decide the amount to produce, how to produce (machines and labor), and how much to pay each worker based on their contribution (investment and labor) to production. Worker owned and operated enterprises then work with each other in a larger network. That way the workers form a cooperative and are able to keep most of the profits for themselves.
@@arschessen4000 Claiming Marx owns the theory of communism is like claiming Newton owns the theory of gravity. Neither own the phenomenon; both only receive credit for putting to words something that already existed in the real world.
4:38 So let me get this straight. When you have a voluntary job, all the profit made by your employer is theft from you, but when the government forces you against your will to pay taxes it isn’t theft? How about this, what if the government lowered taxes exponentially and freed up the market. Wouldn’t you logically be making more money?
@@antrim7008 eh, if it even takes even a fraction of the insane American pickup market it'll be better for the environment. At the end we can't expect too much from the country that can't even bother having proper public transport
@@hamnchee just take a loan, as if college loans and mortgages weren't enough. Realistically speaking, opening a business is only accessible for those privileged with enough money, connections, and time to "shop around". Even then, had I the resources to open up my own company, it would still not change the fact that wage exploitation is happening to hundreds of thousands of people. What do you people suggest? Should every single person open up a business?
@@hamnchee That's the problem, the only way for him to survive in this current market, is to make a PROFIT. And that means EXPLOITING someone else. In our current system we have two choices: Be Exploited Or Be the Exploiter Most people can't even be the Exploiter anyway, 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And lack education, time, and would be crushed in the competitive market. And if he starts a Worker Coop, other capitalist companies, banks, and investors will attempt to crush his business, the same way Feudal Lords stopped capitalism from forming because it threatened their way of life, EVEN though it was a more functional system.
Profit does not equal employee value. In an alternative scenario, the $2,000 profit goes to the employee. The next month, the restaurant lowers the price of the burger and generates only $1,000 in profit. Does this mean the employee value is now half of the previous month? No, because profit does not equal employee value.
Yes this true The so called "greedy capitalist" is making a risk His burgers may not be selled much and he gets only 1000 from the sales. Now he has to pay the costs and the chef He cant pay the chef cause otherwise he cant pay the costs But the contract forces him to pay thce 1000 The worker knows he is going to be payed But the greedy capitalist doesnt know how much profit he will make So thats a risk
@@memelord9232 A bit too simply. Repeat it like this, without the additional necessary knowledge and information, and any rightwinger and/or capitalist will laugh you out of town. There should be more info on capital goods, AKA the dreaded "means of production", besides just mentioning capital as "money used to set production into motion". I.e. That "chain of buildings full of kitchens" that Harold owns is QUITE LITERALLY where his part of the profit comes from. Sure, you flip the burgers - but you need a stove for that. And a building for that stove. And something to create the heat to fry those burgers. And a fridge for the meat. And a license of some kind. And somewhere to sell those burgers, preferably with some chairs and tables and pictures of happy cartoon animals devouring all those slaughtered cows. All of that has to be paid for BEFORE burgers can be made and sold. And since it's not the worker who pays for that but Harold - Harold gets a large chunk of the money made from the sale of the burgers. After all, it's Harold, the capitalist, who provided all of the conditions for the production of burgers - not the lowly burger flipper. It is only fair for him to take the biggest share. Dude's got expenses to pay in order to provide the burger flipper with a privilege of having a job. Isn't Harold after all a sort of a philanthropist? A job provider? In this economy? Not a thief but a saint? Saint Harold, the patron saint of burger flippers? Or even better, what if Harold actually knew the secret art of burger flipping? What if when his parents were trampled by a bull in a dark Pamplona alley, he vowed to revenge their deaths by grinding cows into burgers? What if Harold is secretly - The Burgerflipperman? And what if Harold's childhood trauma demanded him to do all the burger flipping all on his own? All of the above still applying, does that make Harold not just a saint (and sort of a superhero) but doesn't it also wash the entire system of any guilt? After all, is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? And aren't we all, deep down, small businessmen, like Harold? Yeah... well... The thing is... There's this pandemic going round and there's no profit created, so there's no money to share. Any burger flipper Harold might have hired is now out of a job. Even The Burgerflipperman himself isn't making any money. But get this. While the worker's ability to create the profit is gone, Harold gets to keep HIS - cause his share doesn't come from a skill or ability but from something he owns. Harold's REAL superpower is owning property. As in - the means of production. And a might superpower is that. Cause, while Burgerflipperman must actively use his skills and abilities to create profit, actively investing his time and strength into ever burger that he flips - Harold only needs to pay for the means of production once. And once the cost of said means of production is paid off, Harold still gets to keep the biggest share of the profit. After all, it is created by the means of production - and he owns them. And after all is said and done - he can still sell them. I.e. By being the owner of the means of production, Harold gets to eat his burger (profit) AND have it too. Many times over. While the worker he hired to flip burgers only gets to have profit from the labor he invests directly into flipping burgers. AND THAT IS WHERE THE THEFT TAKES PLACE! Not by Harold taking profit the worker worked for. Harold DOES really own a part of it, fair and square. It is in the fact that once the upfront investment in the means of production is recouped - Harold keeps both the means of production AND the entire share of the profit from said means. While the worker's investment of labor in that entire process, which provided profits to recoup those investments in the means of production - gets the worker NOTHING. That's where the theft takes place. Worker's work created the profit that paid for the means of production. But when it came time to benefit from the fruits of that labor, Harold kept both the means of production and the share they provided - making himself richer while leaving the worker where he started. Only older and tired and still stuck flipping burgers for Harold. That's why the capitalist system is corrupt at its core. Cause it is designed to favor ownership and wealth as opposed to work and skill. Any skill you can study or be taught to an expert level or even raw talent is meaningless compared to dumb luck of being born into a rich family. And that's not a system designed for justice or moral values. That's gambling. And that's without going into that whole greed stuff the capitalism runs on, favoring ownership and wealth over all else and all that.
@@d3nza482 I don't understand Marxist labor theory of value and this profit = theft stuff. I guess it rests on the assumption that property is theft, and that owners of land and capital contribute nothing of their own to productive enterprise. For the most part I think this is a faulty premise. Property owners add value by arranging other factors of production in such a way that they generate a profit. Profit is the income they receive for their efforts, and the risks they take (it is possible for entrepreneurs to fail, most do). So when Professor Wolff says that the capitalist is essentially stealing from his workers whenever he is operating at a profit, does this mean that the workers are stealing from the capitalist if he is operating at a loss? There are many conundrums and contradictions in capitalism, I am well aware of this. But I think there are just as many in Marxist theory, and the labor theory of value is usually at the center of these contradictions.
@@d3nza482 I think Marxist criticism of capitalism might've applied in the 19th century when private property rights were really private, and almost entirely absolute. By the turn of the 20th century none of these critiques apply. The capitalist as property-owner is now the capitalist as co-partner with the state in organizing the means of production to meet certain ends: productivity, efficiency, employment, health and safety, welfare, ect. That's why Marx's predictions never panned out. They probably would have, but the state interceded and we got liberal democratic capitalism, rather than classical liberal propertarianism. By regulating private property and market exchange, plus taking on the responsibility of providing for some degree of social welfare, the state prevented classical liberal propertarian capitalism from collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
@@MrYoda-sx6nc your vote matters if the two running presidents aren’t complete idiots. If that’s the case, it’s only a matter of how they will mess up your country, not if.
@@johnjohnson9090 I'm not a conservative. PragerU and Gravel Institute both are both populist propaganda machines. They ignore parts like that of course the worker will not get all the money, as some needs to be diverted to other stuff like r&d to improve the productivity, or the quality of the product. And the fact is that you've also consented by the contract.
I wish you went more into depth about possible solutions after explaining the profit is inherently exploiting the value of your labour. A lot of people will just be like "Yeah so? That's the way things are". These people need to be given a solution to at least consider moving away from thinking that things have to be the way they are now. We could push for worker cooperatives/democratized workplaces instead of authoritarian business models. Frame it as like a "No representation, no taxation" argument. If our work value is going to be exploited, we the workers should have at least a significant voice in where these profits are distributed to help grow the business.
I think that as the working class we need to start starving the ultra rich. Stop buying their products (if you are able), buy locally (online or brick and mortar), learn to become self sufficient and grow some or all of your own food if you can, start relying on small community commerce, dont be afraid to quit a job that's exploiting you (again, if you're in a position to do so that wont kill you). Anything counts because if we had millions of ppl doing 1, some or all of these things we'd eventually start seeing the billionaires cave in
This is a grossly misleading video. The worker didn't add the whole $2k difference on the ingredients cost, unless the business gets free electricity, pays no rent for the premises, has no HP to pay for the cookers and other equipment, does no advertising, pays no local or federal taxes, has nobody to do the accounts and other admin like ordering fresh supplies - the list goes on. The 2k is akin to gross profit, from which many costs are deducted, not just wages. The business would be closed in a day if run on the lines suggested. This channel is pumping out some pretty disgusting disinformation of its own here. If this guy is a real professsor, Dr. Dre can do your next surgery.
I was gonna say "Is this a leftist PrgerU" and then realised it's intentional from the comments. Seems a bit more kid-orientated perhaps ? I can dig that.
@Jacob Kissinger Holy shit, how is it used in schools? This is awful. Most of the data they present are either easily proven false or misrepresenting and their arguments are 90% fallacies.
@Jacob Kissinger This is really upsetting. If this had ever happened to me, specially during my rebel teenager years, I'd probably make a fuss, talk over the video, and leave the classroom. @Laughing Gas Oh, wow, that is so appalling. Did they frame that as "States Rights"? Probably, just like companies, states are people too (when it's convenient to them, that is).
My teacher used a prageru vid to explain capitalism, I made it clear from the first few months that I am not a huge fan of capitalism, but alas the agitprop continues
Imagine an established burger restaurant. The owner has made back their intial investement, and even employs someone to manage the busniess for them. They don't need to do anything but still "earn" money from the business. What happens when we take the labourers out of the picture? The restaurant shuts down. It can no longer operate. All the equipment and ingredients are worth nothing to the owner without a workforce. What happens if we remove the owner from the picture? Nothing changes. The business continues to operate as normal, and can in fact do better than before, as all that excess money that was going to the owner can be invested back into the workforce and the running of the business. So why do we accept it as right and just that the people at the top should take the lion's share of the value created by the workforce?
I'm sure the division of labor is going to be completely equal and there won't be any chaos from the power vacuum from the sudden disappearance of the owner at some arbitrary point in the company's life.
@JC 1985 I'm sure people are going to be chomping at the bit to start a new business only to be kicked out by the workers in your fairy tale utopia. Better yet maybe the government should step in and remove proprietors after they get the ball rolling.
so, I think its important to note that we aren't really talking about small businesses here. its just an analogy to make the concepts easier to grasp. but large businesses, chains, and franchises really do operate this way, with the owners/shareholders contributing almost nothing to the actual running of the business. small business owners face a long struggle to get their business off the ground - but the more access to capital you have, the easier it is to set up a successful business. with enough initial wealth, any chump can start a successful business, hiring consultants to come up with a business plan, marketing experts to focus on branding, and expensive advertising campaigns to bring in customers. this is what "the rich get richer" means.
@@MalcolmCooks "With enough initial wealth any chump can make a successful business" Thank you for saving me time I would have wasted in this conversation. You have mercifully shown me you have no idea what you're talking about.
I’m a business owner, and the majority of the “profit” goes back into the business itself in my experience, for example, I buy my guys uniforms, I give them big work vans to use so bc some either don’t have a car themselves, or using your personal car for work would just kind of suck over all, I pay for the insurance on those cars, and pay for any tickets they may get while driving them, they can bring personal tools they buy themselves to work if they want, but I buy all the materials I know they’ll need to get a job done, and if they use the company card to get a water or soda here and there where’s the harm in that? Thing is, I also have to be sure that “everyone gets a piece of the pie” so to speak, I have to make a profit, so does the company, and so do my guys, if I don’t make sure they can afford food, shelter, healthcare, etc, then we all suffer for it, I’m sorry if that seems wrong to some people, but this way of living has only served my family, and the families of my guys well so far. I feel like this is leaving out a lot more information then it should, like explaining how business tend to function.
He did explain the cost of running a business in the 1000 dollars contributed. I respect your position in the company and your concern for your workers, but what if you were the representative of your workers. What I mean is that the profits should be shared equally and distributed in the company. This would be a more equal and fair exchange. If we did live in a society that had these systems the government would already provide things like healthcare and shelter. The mass profit of bigger corporations and government tax revenue would make it possible to have a more equal society. Of course, there wouldn't be absurd rich people, but that is a price to pay for fair treatment of individuals.
What you're doing is just normal. The guy in the video is an idiot. In his stupid simplistic example, the "capitalist" provides the environment and materials for the venture with his own resources and takes on the brunt of the financial risk. Is this doesn't justify his cut of the profit, I don't know what does. This guy is acting like kitchens, restaurants, and materials to make burgers come out of nowhere. Not to mention, most small business owners also personally manage their business, which is a lot of work too.
i’m sorry but that quote is so dumb. capitalism does exactly what it is designed to do which is to extract value from the working class. socialism isn’t what made capitalists rich.
@@jesse7328 how do you explain their constant government bailouts throughout this pandemic while small businesses got next to nothing? A lot of critics of socialism describe it as government handouts, so..
@@AlOlexy socialism is not when the government does stuff or when people give each other free money. it’s a transition state into a stateless moneyless society. you clearly don’t understand what your talking about
No matter the style they have consistently been very slick and pleasing. This is what they need to make a good counter to the slick and big prageru. I do like this a lot but I have not come away from any video from this channel and said "wow this is shody" they are doing great work no matter the art direction
There's only so much getting bread crumbs for your hard work that you can take. It's why I never lasted more than a couple years at most retail jobs. You just just feel the weight of the fat cats shitting on your work and getting paid much more to look down on you
And so, did you, as an anti-capitalist, take your super valuable labor and quit? Did you sell your instructions on your own at more that $5 to recover some of that stolen value? Or did you stay with the company that hired you, and continued enriching those dirty capitalists that are enslaving us all?
@@GoldenRockefeller lol no I demanded a 100% raise and was basically laughed at and was offered a $1 raise. So me and my girlfriend who also worked there at the time were able to take some of the costumers and start our own private teaching instruction. After that I worked a lot less and was making more money.
@@kitty7184 So now you are running your own business like capitalist. If your business grow and you need more employees are you going to pay them the same money?
The burger example completely ignores the fact that the Capitalist had to provde the shops and work environment in the first place. The provision of those resources has value (on top of the value of the resources themselves). That value I would argue, has come from identifying a demand in the market, and directing resources to meet it.
There is still the fact that the capitalist doesn't create all the value alone. In the example he does as much as a manager and/or a marketing specialist, who also can be hired to work for a wage instead of gaining access to all the money in the company. Why?
The value that you are describing is entrepreneurial profit. The return for putting an idea, location, equipment, raw materials, product and process together in a way that customers are willing to pay for it all.
Let's say, hypothetically, that I were to leave a comment to improve this video's chances of reaching more viewers via the algorithm. Let us also say, for the sake of debate, that I am very unoriginal. Now, considering that Ben Shapiro is a very popular person to make fun of in leftist circles, could it not be assumed that I would write this comment?
Could you do a video on imperialism? It's usually left out of debates because people don't want to admit their country is basically destroying the whole world but it's very important.
Yes! Imperialism is really important to understand for our modern world. It's basically this situation, but Harold is a rich country, and you're a poor country, though there's definitely some more complexity.
Judging from the comment section, it's impressive how the amorality of the matter has gone above so many heads. No, capitalists are not evil per se just because they're capitalists. The issue is that they're playing their role in a bad system which is intrinsically exploitative *regardless* of how good or bad capitalists themselves may be.
Conservatives HAVE to take these things personally, it's part of their entire thought processes. They can't see it as an issue that's detached from individual morality
@@reubennb2859 Yep, it's the same as "All Cops/Landlords Are Bastards". It's not, generally, an assault on any one individual, just a catchy way to comment on how broken and bad for society those systems can be. "Be ruthless with systems; be kind to people." --Michael Brooks
@@reubennb2859 i have seen certain leftists tho bashing ppl like landlords and that. Even if it's like a lady who can't work who has no other source of income etc. Rather than focussing on the system.
@@lemurdog There's a slightly depressing amount of guillotine humour and violent revolution fantasising on certain parts of the left, you can tell leftism has become more identity than ideology to them. Bear in mind though, if the leftists did get what they wanted, the lady with no other source of income would get a good quality of life without having to make another poor person pay her a huge chunk of their income in return for shelter.
@@reubennb2859 How come nobody talks about the freedom in the capitalist system. Millions, MILLIONS of people from all over the world want to come to America for the opportunities. Are these folks all wrong. Is the capitalist propaganda machine out there so powerful as to delude all these people. You know what these new immigrants hate? They hate seeing socialism growing in America. Many of them know first hand (something you lack) the evils of socialism. Oh, and by the way, it is personal. If you want to change the world start with yourself. Make a bunch of money. Buy an apartment house. Rent in out for less than its worth because you're so nice. Watch it go downhill. Watch the people thrown out onto the street. Bring in a wrecking ball and start all over. Capitalism works way better than any socialist wants to give it credit for.
I don’t get robbed of my labour because I volunteer it for free - all of it: I survive exclusively on alms, and sometimes on whatever I can grow or forage.
Right, because the capitalist is the one that must employ labor-saving technology, otherwise they can't adjust wages accordingly. The employer is upset that you're getting more than was bargained for, and from their perspective it's taking away from their potential profit.
Is that seriously something which has happened to you? If so, that's ridiculous. If you can write software which saves money and time you should be promoted. I hope you can get into a field where your programming skills are valued.
@@iAmTheSquidThing Yeah, it did. Since my performance has a proven track record, I was only given a warning and currently still work for the company, but future use or distribution of any scripts would result in termination. I'm currently looking into the software field for something entry level. Fingers crossed 🤞
The video is not clear enough, since the value is created by both the worker and the capitalist, and because the investor initiated the project, he could pay 500 to the worker and 500 for infrastructures and keep 1000 as his profit. And anyone is free to do that assuming one has the power.
who's in charge of the companies success? Who tells who what roles to follow? There is no incentive to produce if you can't get a raise or get a promotion. We need hierarchy and inequality, why? because we need responsibility and drive, which only come through climbing the ranks.
If we were to produce less than our labor then how could a business operate!??!? we must produce more than what we earn so that the business can succeed, of course someone above me has a bigger slice of the pie, but if that means that he has more responsibilities, more risk, and overall more investment into the stock, then doesn't that constitute as fair share?
@@chrisj984 Nothing like democracy though! No matter how many rough edges are smoothed, it is not like democracy. Edit: Capitalism, whether pure or not, is anti-democratic. More democracy is better for more people than less.
Holy cow! So glad you cleared that up for me. Now I realize that the glorious workers’ paradise of the former Soviet Union never exploited the people at all. They simply all chose to become impoverished for the good of the state!
China a communist country used state sanctioned capitalism to get millions out of poverty, capitalism has taken more out of poverty than any other system. Yes it has its failures because we are human.
What about Harold's labor? Why shouldn't he be compensated? You don't mention that bit. What about the fact that you wouldn't be making a single burger without Harold's building, equipment and money to pay you? Harold created something. The worker just followed directions. Harold's labor of creation as well as organizing and facilitating everyone else's labor is worth much more to the enterprise than the person making burgers. No burgers are being produced without Harold whereas the worker could easily be replaced by a new trainee. Harold put in 70+ hour weeks back when he wasn't getting paid for it just to get the thing started. Harold very much deserves every cent of profit he gets. By the way, most companies have a 5-15% profit. Very few have more than 20% and none have a 67% profit like this example. Y'all need to go learn how to run a business. Then go start one and see if you feel like sharing equally with people who didn't put in the same work as you did. You can create a co-op today if you get off your ass...
No, not at all. UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words ) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire. THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT - - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - - YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1% th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
It's a difficult thing to hear. Especially to a person who feels that they are making a good living. The most stark example of how capitalism steals wages to me is actually professional athletes. Lebron James makes what $80m a year? Now realize: in order for him to get paid that much, that means he is worth MUCH more than that. Even someone making $80m a year is having money stolen from them, because they aren't an owner.
@@marcusniaz3110 And where did the Capitalist get that money to invest? Labor. Labor creates capital. Not the other way around. The Capitalist wouldn't have any capital to invest if Labor didn't create it. Capital is the fruit of Labor. Labor isn't the fruit of capital.
@@reddeadmadness4097 That doesn't really make much sense because labor without capital is worthless. You can't produce anything with labor if you don't have machinery, supplies, factory building, electricity, etc.
How is it "paying you what you're worth" to give you the entirety of the revenue when you could only make money thanks to someone else paying the start up costs. If workers in a business deserve 100% of the revenue, what do people working in a co-op deserve. 110%?
Without someone putting up $1000 for ingredients and getting a kitchen, nothing would ever happen. The worker is not the entire cause of the profit, so the discussion of him not making the entire profit is illogical
@@LearnersNation Well he is, for the very fact that the worker IS NOT FORCED TO WORK AGAINST HIS WILL. He CHOSES to work for a predetermined amount of wages.
@@whitehavencpu6813 And if you don't work for a boss under capitalism, you'll probably die. Not everyone can be start a company, or work on their own. In the U.S, around 50% of homeless people actually work. Think about that.
Right. You have a choice though, so it cannot really be theft. You know, like the workers have choice. If you don't like to pay the taxes, then don't buy what is taxed. Simple. Make it yourself.
@Reverie You got my point. See there is choice. You don't have to pay taxes like you don't have to work for money. Unfortunately, in today's world that person in the cave or shack is tresspassing and is breaking the law, or is in some small (or large) way being supported by someone who is paying taxes. The choice arguement is overblown. EDIT: Some Amish largely avoid electricity and they do manage to have light at night and not live in the woods.
@@davidpeppers551 socialists' criticisms of capitalism do not boil down to "it doesn't give us choice." Plainly, it gives choices--limited bad choices. Similarly, no tax collector or capitalist is ever jailed for the crime of theft, and yet, in the normal course of talking, people still say "[profit or taxation] is theft." Semantic arguments are really terrible at disproving why socialists are incorrect about things. Just, fyi.
@@crappozappoFreedom to choose is tremendously exaggerated. It tends to assume that all parties to the agreement have an equal amount of freedom to choose and that all parties have equal freedom to walk away from the transaction or relationship at any time and choose not to ever enter into it ( the freedom of not having to choose ). This is not mere semantics. Power disparities do have large impacts on freedom. We've gone from rule by bloodlines to rule by money. They are both quite arbitrary and undemocratic. Sure a small company rises from time to time into the big money circle. Sometimes merit is responsible for success, but money, not merit, is the main thing which sustains the system and the companies involved. If you or I started a company to go up against Tesla/Micrisoft/Amazon/Walmart or whichever sector dominator you choose, there are two most likely outcomes. These outcomes would probably represent well over 75% of all outcomes. We would stay small (though we might be the biggest player in very small markets too unprofitable for them to bother with), we go bankrupt, or if we were extremely innovative and posed a real threat....... In the case of being a very innovative threat. They could hire away all our talent and they would be able to pay more (at least for a time). This is not a new phenomenon. I'm sure you have heard of it. They could threaten legal war of some kind or other and drive you into the ground. They could also buy out your company to make sure it stops the threatening innovations. They could also do all of the above. So destruction from poor management, lack of resources, or unfair/uneven competitition, or a buyout. These are much more likely outcomes than significant market share and continuing innovation. Customers lose, employees lose, real competition declines, but the money wins. Or is this just semantics?
Why can’t Harold give his boss the finger and cook his own food? He can’t in order for his labor to be productive there must be capital provided from the employer.
This video is a damned lie, the average small business owner has a tiny profit margin. Usually they have to get a business loan that they have to pay back with interest, buy or lease equipment, pay employees, pay for the food and other things they need, pay for advertising ETC, then they themselves have to work long hard hours. so the tiny bit of profit they do make is EARNED.
ok and then what abouyt massive corporations? They arent making a risk by existing. Theyre already successful so why havent the employees wages risen in line with that>
"Socialism is when government does stuff. When it does a lot of stuff, more socialist it is. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it is communism" - Karl Marx
@@chenxie8184 Haha lol IKR. They will look at how Stalin sent anti-communist people threatening the revolution to gulag but will forget on how Marxism turned peasant Russian society into an industrial powerhouse in 2 decades. I know Stalin was way too extreme but I laugh at western hypocrisy even more.
I think splicing in the clips of the speaker is really effective. It makes the work feel less anonymous, and makes the expert FEEL more like an expert, rather than just a voice narrating.
The risk justification is so bad. Dictators take massive risks when they start authoritarian governments. Doesn't mean they somehow "deserve" all that power.
Its so weird how he just says very obvious and sound things in a tone of voice in an attempt to make something sound bad. The "profit" is what the capitalist gets out creating the business, its their pay. So, if you want to create something.. you should not be paid? Only if you work in someone else's creation.. who should not be paid for creating it? So only "physical" labor means anything, and being intelligent or coming up with concepts mean nothing. BTW, almost all leaps in technological advancement occurred due to concentrations of vast wealth, but feel free to "return to monke."
who pays for: the electricity, heat, business tax, property tax, rent, mortgage, insurance, maintenance, workers compensation, the driveway, and lot that will eventually need to be re-paved etc, the roof which will inevitably need repair or replacement. the community projects that will also inevitably pop up, the owners wage ? who ? standard business models cost is usually within an ethical entity range of 50% of the fixed operational costs.
All of those costs, in the context of the thought experiment presented here, are included in the cost of 'ingredients.' Those are all things necessary to create the burger, and the capitalist pays for them. When the capitalist makes profit though, that is the revenue minus the cost of 'ingredients,' or all those costs you brought up. They still make a profit. They still take the value of your labor. You are still exploited.
@Karym Eliya And where have you seen proof of that, considering a communist society has never even existed and the most socialistic first world nations are also the ones with the highest standards of living? And please don't say Venezuela is your proof, there's enough stupid in this comment section as it is.
@@Arbaaltheundefeated I'm assuming you are talking about the nordic countries as being socialist. To keep it a buck fifty they are no where near socialist. It's a mixed market economy with a social safety net. But for the vast majority of the system, it is a capitalist system.
But if no one was in a position to employ someone, then no one would have a job. Someone must first have the capital with which someone else can then be employed. If no one owns anything, then no one owns anything.
I don’t think it’s theft Theft is when someone takes something that is yours. If you agree to a wage and are paid that then nobody stole anything from you. Someone else used your labor better than you could have otherwise. That is not stealing
I agree but at the same time I feel like people are so used to seeing that this is normal and okay and no one questions it. That mindset is kinda why we still have minimum wage and as a whole we’re allowing them to rip us off but again I’m not really informed about this topic its just a thought i have
@@franklinkernan6367 It's the same screw but from the other end, the value of your labor is extracted from you so that someone else can make a profit off of the little guy. The value of your work lines someone else's pocket so they don't have to actually labor for their money, and can live as a leech of of yours.
This video is unfair and your examples are unfair too. Profit is required to run a business. It's not not totally accurate to say that the labor is being underpaid because that's not how profits are derived. Profits are the difference in cost of making and selling a product and it's selling price.
@@franklinkernan6367 After a certain point a land lord begins making more money than what they originally paid for the property. They begin profiting through the exploitation of the renter/worker. They produce nothing and give nothing back to society. Their property in of itself does not produce goods and the landlord himself is not providing a service, the property is providing the service, but property is not a person. Profit only comes into the equation when the renter/worker is exploited for money.
@@jackkraken3888 And the majority of the profit goes to the Capitalist who produces nothing. All the profit came from the worker. Commodities do not earn profit without production, that's where the worker comes in. After some point the original capital the capitalist put in, is paid back in full to the Capitalist and some. After that, they are simply exploiting workers.
So basically, nobody should be an employer. Let’s just throw out the economic system of the past thousands of years. No more businesses. Socialism is obviously a recipe for economic collapse. We would all be equally poor because no one would be allowed to get ahead.
It hasn’t been the economic system for thousands of years. More like 250 years. And slave masters didn’t want to evolve either because their system was good for them, as well.
And that they "create jobs" bringing people out of poverty and creating this "wonderful world" we live in. Where everyone is free to do as they please and no one suffers except by choice.
The rich didn't get to where they are because they worked harder than everyone else, but rather because their employees did, while they were paid as little as possible for it.
@@Warren_Peace an honest paiment, counting inflation and all is 30 an hour. And before you say anything, yes every job must permit a man alone to build a family, even if the job is "flipping burgers" or some bullshit. And if you think this is a radical idea,the idea of a many building a family out of his job, whatever it may be, it's a idea teddy roosevelt advocated for.
@@sov7513 Well if you got a problem with that, blame whoever thought that imposing minimum wage is a good idea, since that nonsense killed any incentive to increase wages naturally... And also, learn the value of saving money and not spending it as fast as you earn them, because I don't think Teddy advocated for being a spendthrift.
@@Warren_Peace except when capitalists prey on necessities and other things required to survive and also use human well being as a funnel for profit so you literally can't buy or save living pay check to paycheck just to have a roof and food OH WAIT minimum wage (the minimum supposedly required to pay for a full life) doesn't even barely cover the jacked up prices of food and lets not even get started on rent. You're what's wrong with the world see yourself out
The employer didn’t steal from the employee, he first risked HIS $1000 and risk of having an employee. Why would he take all risk and give you money if he doesn’t get anything at the end?
Not to mention, if the employee really wants $2000 for his work, he should start his own burger joint. If he can't make that work, his labour isn't really worth 2k, because he's not adding on all that extra value by himself. He gets paid based on how much work he does, not based on how much new income comes in, because without the CEO, no one would be making anything.
@@Xpistos510 No, the "taxation is theft" is actually true. Even if we admit, accept, or agree that taxes are necessary, they are still theft. The "profit is theft" is just dumb and untrue.
Yeah, capitalists just push out propaganda to get people on their side us socialists try to get normies to read 500 pages of economic theory from fucking 1869 as an introduction to our views lmao
@@liquidsnake6879 anyone who wants to be treated fairly is jealous of the people who are treated like royalty. i assure you that your valiant and noble defense of the corporations that own you means nothing to them and does nothing to stop socialist policies from being implemented.
@@schnoz2372 Corporations don't own me, they provide goods and services that i purchase or not, upon my desire and convenience, if anything, any control any corporation may exert over you must come from the Government. Socialists seek to expand said government and it's authority and power over common citizens, thus being the biggest tools there are and that is the reason why the corporations you talk about have aided proto-socialist movements and often shill for them, they understand that increased government authority will benefit them and trust me, AOC and Sanders are more than bought at this point lol to me it was clear Sanders was bought and sold when he did a 180º on the "Koch Brothers plan" that he's yet to justify or explain. But people keep clamouring for the revolution from AOC who's selling them 2$ sweatshop t-shirts for 30 dollars lol
Imagine if your wages was a agreed upon share of the profits from your labor. Personally, I have nothing against someone who setup the business and put money down up front to get started from making money, but as was said, the percentage is just wrong for workers versus CEOs. I worked as a garage tech and one time I by accident got to see how much they charged the customer for labor versus me. I installed the door and got paid $80 and they charged the customer $1,400 not including rhe profits from the door itself. Pissed me off. They made me work like a dog for 10 hours a day and I was having to sleep in my car to make end meet and save anything. They had new cars, big nice houses in expensive neighborhoods. What a con job those scumbags have going.
What’s to stop you setting yourself up as a rival? If you know that charge £1400, why not charge £1200? Or £1000? If you know your competitor and can create a competitive advantage, you’d be able to do better than them? Why did this not occur to you? Even if you had no money to start, the first customer you have, you ask for an up front cost to buy parts, then fit and charge. It’s not hard is it?
@@dave3295 right? be your own boss then. Its not as easy at it seems. Your boss might charge $1400. But I bet he spent minimum $300000+ to build up a shop, set up marketing to get clients it, pay employees, pay for all that expensive equipment, pay rent, pay taxes, pay bills, pay for parts, pay for every expense. Yea he deserves the big bucks after everyone else gets their cut. He put his money on the line. If the business flops he will be in debt for a decade. You will get an unemployment check until you find the next job. It seems unfair when you dont understand business. The same ignorance is what keeps you stuck. Instead of watching this pity party video, watch videos that will help you improve yourself.
@@dave3295 Woah what an out of touch mind you have there! He literally lives in a car, how is he supposed to build a business while barely being able to feed himself? Where's the capital gonna come from? Equipment? Labour? Marketing? Business Rent? Damn bro, you must've been raised with a golden spoon if you think it's that easy. Your fridge head seems to be empty.
@@xilencered7788 “Be your own boss then.” “Your Boss might charge $1400. But I bet he spent a minimum of +$300,000.000…” Bruh, that’s just it. Starting a business is extremely hard, especially if you don’t have capital already to put down and are living out of a fucking car. You make it sound relatively easy, but most small businesses go out of business within their first year. Telling people to just start their own businesses is such a dumb take too cause it won’t fix anything. If your competitor has more resources to utilize and a dedicated customer base already too they can just crush your puny business. Just charging cheaper than them is nothing, cause they’re already established and could probably take a small blow to profits to drop their prices lower than you’re able to go to support yourself. We need labor laws so people aren’t being paid $80 for labor that produced $1400 in profit. Make the exploitation of workers illegal by fining and taxing tf out if those who do it. I guarantee it’ll start happening less, or stop happening all together.
@@Azerfield i am trying to explain that it is harder than it sounds. I know cuz I am going thru that process, I am 1 year in, all revenue gets invested back into my business growth. I am not rich but everything that I put aside from my regular job also goes into my business. My employees always get paid, I dont pay myself probably wont for another 6 months. When I finally become successful, why should I pay some new unskilled worker 25 an hour. Thats stupid. After all the struggles and sacrifice. Be your own boss. See if you can actually pull it off.
Yeah, you should google that instead of watching this. This describes that theory well but fails to mention that theory is also controversial. This theory is rejected by many post-Keynesian economist, for example.
@@xwtek3505 yeah all modern economic schools reject this but it was part of the classical school and is a key idea in analysis of capital and it's accumulation
For anyone saying "what about the costs of keeping the lights on, paying accountants, blah blah blah.... That's all part of the chunk labeled 'ingredients'. And for anyone saying "what about the labor the capitalist does, like managing the store, employees, etc?" They don't need to do any of that. They can hire anyone to do anything with their capital. If they decided they wouldn't lift a finger, they could get away with it. They decide how much labor they can do and you don't. And if you say then, "well, what if we make it so that people's labor is always well-compensated enough that a capitalist who refuses to labor can't make any profit?" then YOU GET IT. STOP HERE AND THINK FOR A MOMENT.
hm how about the use of some amount of “profit” for the expansion of the company? or a means to buffer the company from bankruptcy? i generally agree with the message of this video, but no one is allowed to make profit, then other ventures cannot be pursued. for instance, i know that for every hour i work at my job, the company needs to make $241.73 to make the profit margin they want (my grocery store has a projected profit margin of about 8% iirc). generally speaking, they don’t sit on this profit for long; they’re constantly buying new locations to make more of their stores, as well as expanding their warehouse network. now, if we consider this expansion as part of the ingredients cost, then yes of course any additional profit is objectively exploited. but if we just see the money as profit, then “good” businesses can never expand into new markets
@@jon.bo_ Glad you brought this up. But, consider that all of the expenses you listed (expansion, investment, savings) could be potentially decided by anyone with a vested interest in the company, not only a capitalist owner. If a business is 'good', anyone could - as individuals or as a group or a government - decide to invest in it and the company could grow and expand as a result. The problem right now is that only the capitalists gets to decide how to allocate that money.
I work for Home Depot and I became chummy with some of the gals who work at the customer service desk. Primarily with the one that deals with our daily revenue. It is astounding how much Home Depot makes in one day at our store alone and yet won’t pay us fairly or will work you to the bone. It’s not just Home Depot, it’s everywhere. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of selling my life away cheap by the hour. And our society looks down on prostitution. Atleast those gals get their money’s worth after getting screwed
Why would they? Home Depot just like other businesses primary focus is bring profit to shareholders/owners. That is main reason why companies stay in businesses. No Profit businesses will shutdown.
Because the primary focus of companies is maximize profits for shareholders and owners. Not to pay a fair-wage to employees . Pay is low is because shareholders and owners want it low so, the CEO has to follow orders. CEO has to hit a certain percentage in profit or will be terminated.
Never heard such rubbish! When you become an employee you make a willing transaction, sacrificing some of the value you generate in exchange for diminished responsibility, security, lower risk, etc. If you want the full value for your work, start your own business in what you're good at and do it better than everyone else. Or, align your interests with your employer's, by purchasing shares in the business in which you work. Or invest in the market as a whole. In the given example, there are many flaws. The burger chef is ONLY responsible for cooking the burgers. This is a tiny part of the business. They do not get involved with the ownership/maintenence of the building. They did not think of the brand name, design the logo, perform market analysis to decide the best location and nature of business to start, do any sourcing of other staff, decide who to source the ingredients from, at what cost and how much on what day. They don't ship the ingredients to the store, they don't unload them into the refrigerator, or pay for and maintain the equipment to do the cooking, make any decisions on pricing, or sourcing or designing packaging, sourcing adjuncts eg drinks etc, or managing or doing point of sale, etc. They don't bring in the customers (except for the portion of customers that are brought in by the quality of the cooking, but again this is partly down to the ingredients sourcing and the equipment and branding), they don't pay the utilities, they don't have any exposure to business risk. They don't manage employee holidays, shift schedules, payroll, accounting for the business, the business tax returns, training employees, cleaning the establishment, abiding by regulations, both employment regulations, food safety and hygiene regulations, health and safety regulations for employees, taking the ultimate responsibly for the safety of the customers and staff. Purchasing all of the many required insurances, paying landlords their rent and the local council their business rates. **The employees get paid even if the business makes a loss.** Business is incredibly complex and the margins are thin. I would say, considering the above, the chef is surely lucky to get $1000 out of the $3000 revenue. There will be very little left for the owner to live on. If you think the owner deserves no compensation because 'they didn't cook the burgers' then I'm at a bit of a loss. Most of the things I listed above are organised and maintained by business owners, or delegated to further employees that must be paid, trained, managed, etc. Profit isn't theft, it's well deserved for making the machine of business run at all. This vision of capitalists sitting on their arses getting paid for nothing is false. Really successful capitalists work eighty hour weeks putting together all the stuff I listed above. What's more, often when setting up a business like this, it often doesn't turn a profit for a year or two or more! Imagine the stress on that business owner, having poured their heart and soul into something, not seeing any profit for years sometimes. Yet as an employee you are paid so long as you turn up. You don't think the owner deserves compensation for that if they manage to get things going? If the chef is also the person that does everything above, then surely he deserves much of the profit. But in reality he will simply make the burgers.
@@blumousey This giant wall of text completely misses the whole point: wage labour is NOT voluntary. The alternative is being homeless and starving. And "just open your own business" is completely impossible for the vast majority of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck.
@@katerwaul9574 I agree in principle, there should be better measures in place to get people off the ground. But I disagree that wage labour is not voluntary. Everyone needs to work, everyone needs goals and a purpose. Most very successful people, despite the fact they could retire tomorrow if they wanted, continue to work extremely hard.
@@blumousey _"When you become an employee you make a willing transaction"_ I don't care! Just as you shouldn't be able to sell yourself into slavery, you should only be able to sell your labor power if you still have part in the decision making process about it. We don't live in a dictatorship you say? Then give every worker an inalienable right to do democracy in the workplace!
"If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property! may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?" -Proudhon
There's nothing wrong with profit being a motive. The problem is when workers are not fairly compensated for their work. I always hear capitalists say "without CEOs who would run the companies?". Do they think we cant hire a CEO?
@@trollnerd but isn’t profit always theft? When an employer hires a person, for them to turn any profit from the relationship, an employer needs to pay their employee less money than the employee generates.. right?
@@whysocurious7366 Not necessarily. I built a video game (I am the sole developer) and I charge money for in game currency. I had to invest money in servers, and I put sweat equity into writing code on the weekends. I charge my players more for the in game currency than it costs me to provide it to them. That is technically a profit, but I don't feel that I stole from anyone to get it.
This example is missing a detail. The worker here is not the only one adding value to the ingredients. Harold in this situation is finding the right ingredients, setting up the environment to make the burgers, and then finding where to sell the burgers. Adding all 2000 dollars worth of value to the chef is missing the work that Harold did. If the chef did all of Harold's work themself they would spend more time and therefore their time would be worth less.
i think you miss the big picture. harold has already have the money, so that he can set up works with the money he has, because the distribution of wealth is constructed to flow in capitalist way. but the chef has no capital(money) to set up a business. so he has no alternative way than selling his own labor, he has to do so. and the system always shows us that capitalist do anything to reach higher profits. there must be labor institutions for workers to say some about the system which is run by their labor. otherwise it is all big multinational corparations that runs the entire global system without any moral, economic, enviromential restrictions.
Adraria8, don't be dim. Think about how exploitation is true within the wider context. Sure, here are your choices -- you can work for *this* capitalist who will exploit you, or you can work for *that other* capitalist who will exploit you, or you can starve. See? Feel free to choose and enter into whichever of those options suits you best.
Despite all the complex political theories and philosophies, the core of socialism is simple. Replacing the capitalist wage labor system, with free labor associations. Proudhon said in best in 1848: “Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. [...] We are socialists [...] under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. [...] We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.”
@@arnieg8800 the state capitalist system is. Have you ever heard of free market anti-capitalism or mutualism? In 19th century America, a strain of individualist market anarchists (adherents of Proudhon) were already saying what we do today. These market anarchists were anti-authoritarian reformers and radicals who regarded individual sovereignty and free market competition as the answer to the social and economic problems of the day. They saw the State as the source and protector of big business titans’ monopoly power and accordingly of the laboring classes’ suffering and deprivation. Building on the ideas of classical economists like John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the Individualists developed theories and experiments addressed to issues ranging from money and banking to private property in land. They opposed capitalism as a system of privilege, exploitation, accumulation without limit, theft, abuse, and wage slavery, all supported by the coercive authority of the state. Students of the principles of classical political economy - the ideas of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, et al. - the Individualists contended that the full realization of those principles and ideas meant an economic paradigm very different from capitalism, which they viewed as the successor of feudalism and mercantilism as a political, rather than economic creature. “Laissez-faire,” they said, had been improperly and spuriously leveraged for the defense of a system of injustices that in fact had nothing to do with legitimate free markets. Capitalists, the idle rich, were only able to profit from the labors of the industrious because they were protected by unfair advantages, embodied in law, that allowed them to escape the natural outcomes and pressures of genuine, full-fledged competition.
@@blackflagsnroses6013 Work is a voluntary exchange in all Western democracies. You can create any model/system you want if you get the audience behind your ideas. What is lacking is the individual genius to realize ideas and that is why most people accept to work in poor conditions due to their own pitfalls/irresponsibility( And to a large degree it is genetic rather than environmental that they are in a position lesser than the idea creator(entrepreneur/business owner))
@@frocco7125 exactly. Despite the cries of “freedom” from capitalists it’s the socialists that want the abolishment of state, and anti-authoritarianism.
Part of the reason why so many poor people buy into this is because when you grow up watching your parents suffer and struggle in the workforce you start feeling that the solution is for you to become the boss and escape. Everyone is so wrapped up in their suffering that they don't understand that the system itself is what is causing it. Instead of asking "why do I need to be rich to live decently and without fear" they say "if only I had more money then I wouldn't have to live like this." And in a way I don't blame them. It's hard to think about the greater issues at play when you're starving and struggling to make ends meet. That's why it's the responsibility of people who can think about these things to do something about it.
@@LibertyFascism Maybe they can become self-aware enough to think beyond just their own personal needs, probably. We are social animals, and to maintain both mental and societal health we need to support one another in a mutually beneficial way. If someone's objective in life is to merely accumulate as much wealth as possible, they aren't that far up Maslowe's Hierarchy of Needs.
@@rikk319, so the replacement could be people suddenly not being self-centered? Why hasn't that already happened? Is that something we could count on if we go socialist? It has never worked. Order and innovation come from people at the top of companies caring very much about making profits.Taking that away would be like taking the engine out of a car. It won't run. That is why the Soviet Union collapsed. It is why the rest of the Eastern Bloc was a horror story. It is why Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea are third-world nightmares.
@@LibertyFascism Sigh. People like you always point to the low-educated, agrarian-based nations that jumped straight from feudalism to a failed attempt at socialism on the way to unrealistic communism. All of those countries were or are also authoritarian. You conveniently leave out the social democracies in Europe because that will crimp your argument off. Notice also that those "socialist" European nations are also mixed economies, and not true socialist economies, so again, your "reasoning" is black and white and suffers from the typically weak arguments of such perspectives. You also seem to lean heavily authoritarian, or at least in the direction of the mild-to-moderate sociopathy found in libertarianism, with their belief in some magical brilliant class of property/capital owners who will solve everything if we'd just leave them alone to do their sociopathic/self-centered thing and let their happenstance wonderful pixie dust powers trickle down on the rest of the clueless, pointless masses.
@@rikk319, authoritarianism always comes with socialism. Always. A government that can give you everything is a government that owns you. It is slavery. The Scandinavian countries have market economies and low business taxes. They are not socialist countries. They also depend on the United States for military protection, so they don't have substantial military budgets. Mass theft is sociopathic. Stop supporting it. We minarchist libertarians support laws against victimization. You support government-sanctioned victimization.
The capitalist paid for the means of production. How would you cook without ingredients, electricity, a local? It is thanks to the capitalist/owner of the means of production that you can produce labor. If you don't want to get "robbed", be your own capitalist: buy and own the means of production.
I agree to an extent. Not only is the capitalist generating the opportunity for the worker to exchange labour for money, they also have to accept the risk that the venture fails, i.e., they have insufficient customers to cover their costs. Where this falls over though is when the rents extracted from the worker are very high (e.g., the working conditions are poor, quota on expected work is very high etc), while the money they exchange for that labour is very low. In this case the worker should leave and the capitalist will have to adjust his offering and expected returns or have no workers. But what if they can't leave? What if there are no other jobs? Or the education system is so poor they can't upskill and "become their own capitalist"? And there are many many examples where the capitalist removed themselves from liability (e.g., corporations) and so have no risk. When you add intergenerational wealth into the picture it's clear the current capitalist vs worker power imbalance can not hold. Let them eat cake time is almost upon us...
the capitalist dont get money from working or even breaking a sweat. they get profit form owning. and owning something does not generate profit, labor generates profit. the capitalist didnt make those ingredients, didnt work to provide that electicity, etc, it is all provided by farmers, engineers, workers, etc. and workers have a much harder time starting their business because the profit of their labor goes to the capitalist. half of my salary that I worked hard for goes to my landlord who doesnt need to life a finger. The capitalist gets richer, the poor gets poorer.
I live in a socialist country and here they steal so much from the businessmen that they are leaving the country and there are more and more people out of work, because the only thing socialism seeks is to create equality by impoverishing everyone. believe me you dont want to live in a country like this.
@@Thomas_1030 If you still have a state, it's not socialism. If you don't own and have democratic control of your means of production, it's not socialist. Just like America claims itself a democracy, it is not. Your country may call itself socialist but that doesn't make it true - you'll need community action, class consciousness, and some guts to stand up and actually achieve the goals of socialism.
I liked how this argument was framed in this video, I know some people might be skeptical if it’s framed as all capitalists are intrinsically evil, but by framing it as capitalists have to act in a certain way to maximize profits, then it can be framed as capitalism it self is bad, which is the message we wanna get out there in a concise easy to understand way.
capitalists have to become that evil person. they have to put profits above all. if they dont, their competitors will, and they will put them out of the game..
Never heard such rubbish! When you become an employee you make a willing transaction, sacrificing some of the value you generate in exchange for diminished responsibility, security, lower risk, etc. If you want the full value for your work, start your own business in what you're good at and do it better than everyone else. Or, align your interests with your employer's, by purchasing shares in the business in which you work. Or invest in the market as a whole. In the given example, there are many flaws. The burger chef is ONLY responsible for cooking the burgers. This is a tiny part of the business. They do not get involved with the ownership/maintenence of the building. They did not think of the brand name, design the logo, perform market analysis to decide the best location and nature of business to start, do any sourcing of other staff, decide who to source the ingredients from, at what cost and how much on what day. They don't ship the ingredients to the store, they don't unload them into the refrigerator, or pay for and maintain the equipment to do the cooking, make any decisions on pricing, or sourcing or designing packaging, sourcing adjuncts eg drinks etc, or managing or doing point of sale, etc. They don't bring in the customers (except for the portion of customers that are brought in by the quality of the cooking, but again this is partly down to the ingredients sourcing and the equipment and branding), they don't pay the utilities, they don't have any exposure to business risk. They don't manage employee holidays, shift schedules, payroll, accounting for the business, the business tax returns, training employees, cleaning the establishment, abiding by regulations, both employment regulations, food safety and hygiene regulations, health and safety regulations for employees, taking the ultimate responsibly for the safety of the customers and staff. Purchasing all of the many required insurances, paying landlords their rent and the local council their business rates. **The employees get paid even if the business makes a loss.** Business is incredibly complex and the margins are thin. I would say, considering the above, the chef is surely lucky to get $1000 out of the $3000 revenue. There will be very little left for the owner to live on. If you think the owner deserves no compensation because 'they didn't cook the burgers' then I'm at a bit of a loss. Most of the things I listed above are organised and maintained by business owners, or delegated to further employees that must be paid, trained, managed, etc. Profit isn't theft, it's well deserved for making the machine of business run at all. This vision of capitalists sitting on their arses getting paid for nothing is false. Really successful capitalists work eighty hour weeks putting together all the stuff I listed above. What's more, often when setting up a business like this, it often doesn't turn a profit for a year or two or more! Imagine the stress on that business owner, having poured their heart and soul into something, not seeing any profit for years sometimes. Yet as an employee you are paid so long as you turn up. You don't think the owner deserves compensation for that if they manage to get things going? If the chef is also the person that does everything above, then surely he deserves much of the profit. But in reality he will simply make the burgers.
@@blumousey profit is mathematically theft. I'm sorry that you're getting triggered by the admittedly loaded term "theft" but if you can't understand that productivity minus wage equals profit then you're as thick as a brick.
@@crappozappo just because a business is profitable does not mean that employees deserve all of the value. My example above demonstrates why a chef should not get all of the revenue from the burgers he makes. Every employee is similar in one way or another. There is a lot that is 'taken care of' for them by the business owners. A specialised, curated niche is carved out for them. And a value is assigned to that niche.
Harold put forward the property, assets and money for supplies at his own risk. Chef risked nothing for a guaranteed wage. Greater risk brings greater rewards and losses, this a fact of life. Harold gave chef an opportunity he didn't have before by fronting capital and property unavailable to chef at that time. I do disagree that profit (and money) shouldn't be our guiding social interest, but your reasoning needs work.
@SUPER GREEN Not true. Atomatization itself creates employement in another part of the economy as steel refination need to be done, programmation needs to be done by someone too, machine maintanence and repair, automatization marketing and investment by business. But if u think that there's a very high increasing automatization, you should tell all workers to invest on those business whose target is to automatize other business, as they seem to have plenty work and guaranteed clients(thus, guaranteed profit). Automatization is good, as it increases productivity with less labour needed: more production= more goods for less price= higher adquisitive power for the citizens = more wealth for all. As economy becomes more automatizied, and less labour hours are needed, the demand for musicians, artist and entertaintment jobs will increase as we will have more time and money (partially coming from investments in automatizing the economy for example) to enjoy them. Edit: Unemployement doesnt exist in a free economy, as there will be always someone with needs to be covered and some with the resources (and profit search) to cover those needs. Unemployement is artificially created by laws forbiding some of those naturally-done exchanges to happen.
Thank you for watching! We're launching this project to counter right-wing disinformation sources like PragerU. The problem is, they have millions of dollars in oil billionaire money and we have nothing but our supporters and our ideas. The only way this can succeed is if the people who want to see it help us out. Consider becoming a patron of the Institute and making these videos possible: www.patreon.com/gravelinstitute. We will be forever in your debt.
Thank you for doing important work and especially for actually having facts.
Can we recommend topics? Or pass along self-written academic essays on related subjects?
Already did so!
The 3 d art u guys have is really good 👍
you should add hashtags for the video! so more find it. and stan nct 127 and check out their music 🌹
cant believe you got the "socialism is when the government does stuff" guy
what is that actually him
@@jeppekjr349 yea it is, p sure he said it as a joke tho
@@jeppekjr349 yeah it's him
@@zack-ne1li oh no its just that it's taken out of context, it was meant to represent how people who don't know about socialism view it
Professor Richard Wolff a pretty famous economist and socialist. The phrase from the meme is a satirical statement during a 1hr lecture on the history of socialism
Capitalism is when the bosses DON'T do stuff. And the LESS stuff they do, the MORE capitalist it is.
And when they do nothing at all...
@@telexghoulie it's lassefaire
I fucking hate it when you're working and some guy comes into the room with his hands in his pockets and says things like "I need this to be done by Monday," all the while with no idea that he could take his hands out of his pockets if it was that important.
That's not necessarily true, most bosses are hired by capitalists. The capitalist is the person or entity that holds the capital necessary to jumpstart a process to extract profit.
@@poofypoof6508 yes he should've said the owners, the bosse are merely enablers and isolation layer between the capitalist n workers who get compensated better for being so.
Profit is when corporations do theft. And the more theft they do, the more profit it makes
And when it does a real lot of theft, it uses resources and cheap labor from other countries in order to get richer and that's imperialism
a popular channel's comment with only 18 likes? weird comments section
btw you make good video essays, i watch them sometimes
Socialism is when the government does stuff, and it's more socialism the more stuff it does, and if does a whole lot of stuff, its communism.
Bingo!
I liked this before seeing who it was, whaat
I really can't believe this is on the internet.
That example with an owner and a chef.
I just wonder, if it is ONLY about getting a chef to cook burgers, why doesn't that chef buys ingredients and makes and sells burgers on his own? I wonder why is that. Richard doesn't include it in the calculation at all.
There’s also rent, utilities, insurance, taxes, legal, maintenance, renovations, the list goes on and on.
Also what happens if you lose money??😂😂
@@mike_7294 even if there weren't these costs , even then , the fact that the wage is certain creates a time differential where there is a place for bonus margin aka interest.
based
yooo geosquare in the gravel institute comments lfg
Geosquare in the socialist comment section? Amazing!
Based Minecraft speedrun moderator?
Woah based minecrafter
double based
People get surprisingly defensive when told they're entitled to more money
It's crazy, isn't it? What had to happen to people for them to deny when they are being taken advantage of? 😭
Edit: I though original comment meant telling working ppl that they are being screwed.
@@carlogaytan7010 being told that one day they can take advantage of others
My guess is that people who could ask for a higher wage are scared their employer goes bankrupt, or they are fired. I am one of these kind of people, but I can't lay the finger on why I become defensive when I'm told about this, maybe because my boss works ~90 hours per week and earns an average wage, instead of some CEO making millions. Maybe because I'm rolling in the money because I don't spend any of it.
@@cy4069
That's it exactly. It's what lies at the true heart of the "American Dream". To someday become successful enough to screw other people like you're being screwed now.
lmao!!
Interesting to see you guys experimenting with art styles. The visuals are a lot crisper here.
Unlike PragerU, which continues to use it’s bathroom door character designs
i really liked this new art style! it gives more personality to the video!
@@charliestoops8815 I'm sure they outsource their work to exploited workers.
@@MrAustinhoch hahahaha
Sounds about right
So does that mean that if the restaurant only makes $1000 in the week that my labor didn't generate any value and thus I'm not entitled to any compensation?
If that happens you'll get fired.
Yes, if you were to own the means of production and your factory doesn't make a profit, you would not get any compensation, assuming there is no welfare available to you. But if the factory does turn a profit, as it usually does, you would see every bit of those rewards.
However, under capitalism, if the business doesn't turn a profit, you would get laid off or fired, and if the company does turn a profit, you are not entitled to all of the value you've produced. Either way you get the short end of the stick.
no, you would still have the goods in stock for the next week. the scenario in question had a gross profit of $3,000, meaning there is still $2,000 worth of food items that have not yet been sold
Well in a realistic world you’d be paid for your work properly and accurately. In this world of capitalism they take advantage and that is where theft comes from .
@@ioioiotu Maybe not right away, but the layout is on the way.
At a $7.25 minimum wage the worker in that scenario gets far less than $1000 a week.
True. And Harold got a lot more than $2k before paying up.
At 60 hours a week I barely took home $900 every 2 weeks for some jobs in the past. Nobody should be working 60 hours a week, and only make $900 every 2 weeks. This was a job where I was a representative of a corporation. Selling products to other corporations, who would sell them in turn to consumers. I was selling over $60k a week in profit for the corporation I worked for. Yet compensated less than $1000 every other week. Despite such lengthy work weeks, and rather hard manual labor due to the types of products. Yet people get paid far less, for far worse jobs. None of this should be happening anywhere, its inhumane.
@@user-gz4ve8mw9l i hope your life get better man your situation is the proof of how cruel and unjust capitalism is
@@user-gz4ve8mw9l You were paid basically 7 dollars and 50 cents an hour... 2 week payroll... (minimum wage?) selling over $60,000 every 7 business days... rather hard physical labor...
I could guess your job wasn't to sell to businesses customers at all. If anything, I would guess you never would even know the names of the companies which bought the products your company sold to them.
@@argosgiovanni5988 social justice is injust
Someone send this to the libertarians who don’t like taxation because it’s theft
Taxes actually go towards improving the community and people's lives. Profit doesn't.
How is our current form of taxation not theft
@@stuarthartman4502 LOL go cry to your idol Ayn Rand. If you don't like taxes then shove off to Somalia or Papua New Guinea since that's your idea of paradise in your delusional mind.
@@ForeverTraitor That's just a band-aid on a gut wound and a form of escape from the responsibility of getting directly involved.
@@stuarthartman4502 taxation is indeed theft. But so are capitalist profits. And its those taxes that are used to uphold this economic system that allows those profits to happen. Theft to uphold theft.
Bruh, this channel is so fucking needed right now
PragerU got nothing on these guys
@@joshuaramirez5399 seriously. The visuals of this have much more effort put into them too, unlike PragerU's that look like they took ten minutes to throw together.
This is actually their best video yet
The concept is so simple
Next up, workplace democracy!
Spread the word.
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
@@tareke586 I would love them to do that next! It's such an important topic that could benefit a lot of people, especially if it talks about worker-cooperatives!
I agree with workers not getting the value of their labour, but then how would the restaurant owner in this case make money if he bought the ingredients and manages the restaurant while the chef cooks?
@@ExPwner but if the chef created 2000$ of value and isn't receiving that amount, is he not being exploited?
@@Zzzron135 Of course not. The worker did not create $2,000 dollars of value. The combination of labor+capital created $2,000 dollars of value. After all, if labor is able to create value by itself, why is labor deciding to work with someone else instead of working alone.
If capital is adding no value, then labor should just go on its own. But you will never see a chef without the use of capital (tables, spoons, investments in a nice kitchen, etc).
This video is a load of shit. The workers value is not $2000. The reason that that burgers produced by the worker could be sold for $3000 was not SOLELY because of $1000 in raw ingredients, it was:
- the commercial kitchen and equipment
- the rent that was paid (or property that was purchased) to have a location to both make and seller burgers
- the furniture that customers can sit at to eat after purchasing the burgers
- the marketing and overhead to drive customers to the burger joint
- the utilities (gas, electric, and water) to keep the place open
The list is quite literally endless. I typically love this TH-cam channel, but this video was so poorly thought out.
@@Iniestoteles yeah but there's also a problem we don't know the exact value of his labor and the establishment is huge ( consider it as large business) now the owner is making profit from each establishment but while the worker can work at only one the income inequality rise from the scale of business small business owners are not the problem as they work along side workers or receive only less profits i.e enough to live a nice living that's all but big businesses receive a lot of money more than the owner can spend which causes concentration of wealth and all side effects
To combat this we can reduce the market share of each big business by breaking it down like the monopoly act does or by imposing a wealth tax
Without profit we would all still be living in caves.
Prageru: socialism is everything i don't like
prageru; the more i dont like, the more socialism it is!
Right wingers of every flavor: socialism is everything I don't like.
Prageru: asking the wealthy to endure any slight inconvenience whatsoever in order to help other people is evil.
PragerU be like: NO ALL YOU'VE JUST DESCRIBED IS SOCIALISM! Good American values are great!
@@gwills9337 And if I really don't like it, then it's communism.
The fact that the Capitalists were able to successfully propagandize the masses into believing that labor is NOT exploitative by definition- even though that's literally impossible- is just so discouraging. It's the most fundamental aspect of understanding worker's rights, yet we have to argue JUST to get to that baseline understanding before we can even begin discussing our global economic future in a humane way. There's just so much work left.
This is a brilliant and sobering comment. Thank you.
To clarify, labor itself isn't exploitative by definition. There will always be labor. Labor under capitalism, on the other hand...
How is it exploration if you agree to something it's not exploiting you. You have agreed to a contract and can withdraw your self. On top of that you don't get paid what you make as you personally aren't exposed to the risk of the market and will be paid regardless of performance
uh oh, a brain
Current neoliberal economics Torpedoed . . . . . The American Dream
michael-hudson.com/2018/05/an-overview-welcome-words/
The economics taught today is known as neoliberal. This economics differs fundamentally from classical economics. For example, classical economics stresses taxing economic rent instead of labor and real investment, while neo-liberal economics does the opposite.
An economic rent is unearned income that accrues to an owner from an increase in value that he did nothing to produce. For example, a new road is built at public expense that opens land to development and raises its value, or a transportation system is constructed in a city that raises the value of nearby properties. These increases in values are economic rents. Classical economists would tax away the increase in values in order to pay for the road or transportation system.
Neoliberal economists redefined all income as earned. This enables the financial system to capitalize economic rents into mortgages that pay interest. The higher property values created by the road or transportation system boost the mortgage value of the properties. The financialization of the economy is the process of drawing income away from the purchases of goods and services into interest and fees to financial entities such as banks. Indebtedness and debt accumulate, drawing more income into their service until there is no purchasing power left to drive the economy.
For example, formerly in the US lenders would provide a home mortgage whose service required up to 25% of the family’s monthly income. That left 75% of the family’s income for other purchases. Today lenders will provide mortgages that eat up half of the monthly income in mortgage service, leaving only 50% of family income for other purchases. In other words, a financialized economy is one that diverts purchasing power away from productive enterprise into debt service.
@@harrynimbley8901 You so thoroughly missed the point that it's jarring, but to summarize, the idea that you "agreed" to it and can quit are irrelevant and extremely misleading. It's not like you can quit your exploitative job and find a fair one, ALL labor in a capitalist system MUST be exploitative by design. The only way around it is to not work, which isn't an actual option for most people- it's not like we have UBI or something. So basically, you HAVE to get an exploitative job. The idea that you "agreeing" to it means it's not exploiting you is ridiculous- people don't have a choice. They HAVE to agree to it, they've got you by the balls.
Simply put: What's the most you've ever earned on a raise? 5%? 10%?
I'm betting you didn't do 5% or 10% more to get that raise, you had to do 2 or 3 times the work. Sounds like a shit deal to me.
Its clear why they like preaching the boot strap method so much, the harder you work, the more they make!
Most raises are between 2-4%
That doesn't even make up for inflation and cost of living adjustment
@@benjaminschooley3108 bingo
Hahaha, a "raise"?? The only thing close to a raise I've ever gotten is when they raise the minimum wage and force my boss to pay me more.
@@RoguSpanish Well then the situation is even more simple. Has a minimum wage increase in your life ever matched the cost of inflation or rising cost of living? If not, you are working either the same of more every year for less. I bet your government felt very good about themselves when they gave you back your own tax money after doing this to you.
And if you eventually get a salaried job? You end up in the first scenario. And if you start a business? There's a 99.999% chance you lose your life savings and food/housing security, and a .001% chance you get to do this whole fucked up scheme to someone else. People are sick of this.
The solution is for workers to buy up controlling shares (held equally) in a company and then to outsource the front office to save money on support staff (secretary, purchasing, temporary services).
The workers become equal business partners who democratically decide the amount to produce, how to produce (machines and labor), and how much to pay each worker based on their contribution (investment and labor) to production.
Worker owned and operated enterprises then work with each other in a larger network.
That way the workers form a cooperative and are able to keep most of the profits for themselves.
Exactly
At least someone has a decent idea
In the US there are small to medium business that are owned by employees called ESOPs. Many are very successful, employees have long term employment.
Will never get tired of listening to Richard Wolff's take on things. Great visuals too!
Not really his but rather Marx' take, but I agree
This is just the second of many videos to come with Professor Wolff! We're gonna do a whole course on economics with him.
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
@@TheGravelInstitute OMG I'm in love
@@arschessen4000 Claiming Marx owns the theory of communism is like claiming Newton owns the theory of gravity. Neither own the phenomenon; both only receive credit for putting to words something that already existed in the real world.
These visuals are only getting better. Great job guys!
Thank you! We're going to be bringing in new animators and experimenting with new styles for the next few weeks.
@@TheGravelInstitute This was absolutely gorgeous. Are you free to disclose which artist(s) animated this one?
no the visuals are great!
@@masonmichalec2942 The animators are credited at the very end! They're Austin Hochstatter, b_see_d, and Alex Noelke :)
@@TheGravelInstitute 👍great👍video👍
Everyone put the link to this in PragerU’s comments
Yes
Prageru: but.... but.. Eh vuvuzela, no iphone, 100 gazillion people, janitor=doctor,
@@1homelander179 lol
@@1homelander179 uhh u forgot my human nature king
Don't increase the PragerU engagement scores by commenting on their videos.
4:38 So let me get this straight. When you have a voluntary job, all the profit made by your employer is theft from you, but when the government forces you against your will to pay taxes it isn’t theft? How about this, what if the government lowered taxes exponentially and freed up the market. Wouldn’t you logically be making more money?
spot on
Throwing shade at Elon Musk and his cybertruck.
Namaste, Mr. Watts. Nice to see you here.
😏😁
Bulky gimmicky piece of shit
@@antrim7008 eh, if it even takes even a fraction of the insane American pickup market it'll be better for the environment. At the end we can't expect too much from the country that can't even bother having proper public transport
@@manaspradhan8041 The improvement will be marginal. The environment can only be saved through systemic change.
I liked the older art style tbh. The claymation is really good but the old art style was easier to comprehend and follow.
I agree. Having it be more cartoonish made it look cooler. But the interjection of professor Wolff himself is solid
We're changing it up often! Old style will be back, along with this one and new ones!
It’s really cool that they bother trying unique/different art styles though, unlike prager who has the same boring as fuck art
I enjoy how they change the style around but keep a constant palate to tie them all together
@@TymonBrownTV pog
Boss makes a dollar
I make a dime
That's why I watch The Gravel Insitute
On company time
why don't you create your own company then?
@@charlesparent-spioneck9928 Because to do so I need money that I don't have. You can't just open a company with some loose change
@@eduardoazevedosarnento4295 Put together a business plan and shop around for business loans and investors.
@@hamnchee just take a loan, as if college loans and mortgages weren't enough. Realistically speaking, opening a business is only accessible for those privileged with enough money, connections, and time to "shop around".
Even then, had I the resources to open up my own company, it would still not change the fact that wage exploitation is happening to hundreds of thousands of people.
What do you people suggest? Should every single person open up a business?
@@hamnchee That's the problem, the only way for him to survive in this current market, is to make a PROFIT. And that means EXPLOITING someone else.
In our current system we have two choices:
Be Exploited
Or
Be the Exploiter
Most people can't even be the Exploiter anyway, 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And lack education, time, and would be crushed in the competitive market.
And if he starts a Worker Coop, other capitalist companies, banks, and investors will attempt to crush his business, the same way Feudal Lords stopped capitalism from forming because it threatened their way of life, EVEN though it was a more functional system.
Profit does not equal employee value.
In an alternative scenario, the $2,000 profit goes to the employee. The next month, the restaurant lowers the price of the burger and generates only $1,000 in profit.
Does this mean the employee value is now half of the previous month? No, because profit does not equal employee value.
Yes this true
The so called "greedy capitalist" is making a risk
His burgers may not be selled much and he gets only 1000 from the sales. Now he has to pay the costs and the chef
He cant pay the chef cause otherwise he cant pay the costs
But the contract forces him to pay thce 1000
The worker knows he is going to be payed
But the greedy capitalist doesnt know how much profit he will make
So thats a risk
I like how you warmed up then are going full ball into leftist theory. Thanks
its good to see it explained simply!
Problem 😳
@@memelord9232 A bit too simply. Repeat it like this, without the additional necessary knowledge and information, and any rightwinger and/or capitalist will laugh you out of town.
There should be more info on capital goods, AKA the dreaded "means of production", besides just mentioning capital as "money used to set production into motion".
I.e. That "chain of buildings full of kitchens" that Harold owns is QUITE LITERALLY where his part of the profit comes from.
Sure, you flip the burgers - but you need a stove for that. And a building for that stove. And something to create the heat to fry those burgers. And a fridge for the meat. And a license of some kind. And somewhere to sell those burgers, preferably with some chairs and tables and pictures of happy cartoon animals devouring all those slaughtered cows.
All of that has to be paid for BEFORE burgers can be made and sold. And since it's not the worker who pays for that but Harold - Harold gets a large chunk of the money made from the sale of the burgers.
After all, it's Harold, the capitalist, who provided all of the conditions for the production of burgers - not the lowly burger flipper. It is only fair for him to take the biggest share. Dude's got expenses to pay in order to provide the burger flipper with a privilege of having a job.
Isn't Harold after all a sort of a philanthropist? A job provider? In this economy?
Not a thief but a saint? Saint Harold, the patron saint of burger flippers?
Or even better, what if Harold actually knew the secret art of burger flipping?
What if when his parents were trampled by a bull in a dark Pamplona alley, he vowed to revenge their deaths by grinding cows into burgers? What if Harold is secretly - The Burgerflipperman?
And what if Harold's childhood trauma demanded him to do all the burger flipping all on his own?
All of the above still applying, does that make Harold not just a saint (and sort of a superhero) but doesn't it also wash the entire system of any guilt?
After all, is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? And aren't we all, deep down, small businessmen, like Harold?
Yeah... well... The thing is... There's this pandemic going round and there's no profit created, so there's no money to share. Any burger flipper Harold might have hired is now out of a job. Even The Burgerflipperman himself isn't making any money.
But get this.
While the worker's ability to create the profit is gone, Harold gets to keep HIS - cause his share doesn't come from a skill or ability but from something he owns.
Harold's REAL superpower is owning property. As in - the means of production.
And a might superpower is that.
Cause, while Burgerflipperman must actively use his skills and abilities to create profit, actively investing his time and strength into ever burger that he flips - Harold only needs to pay for the means of production once.
And once the cost of said means of production is paid off, Harold still gets to keep the biggest share of the profit.
After all, it is created by the means of production - and he owns them.
And after all is said and done - he can still sell them.
I.e. By being the owner of the means of production, Harold gets to eat his burger (profit) AND have it too. Many times over.
While the worker he hired to flip burgers only gets to have profit from the labor he invests directly into flipping burgers.
AND THAT IS WHERE THE THEFT TAKES PLACE!
Not by Harold taking profit the worker worked for. Harold DOES really own a part of it, fair and square.
It is in the fact that once the upfront investment in the means of production is recouped - Harold keeps both the means of production AND the entire share of the profit from said means.
While the worker's investment of labor in that entire process, which provided profits to recoup those investments in the means of production - gets the worker NOTHING.
That's where the theft takes place.
Worker's work created the profit that paid for the means of production.
But when it came time to benefit from the fruits of that labor, Harold kept both the means of production and the share they provided - making himself richer while leaving the worker where he started.
Only older and tired and still stuck flipping burgers for Harold.
That's why the capitalist system is corrupt at its core. Cause it is designed to favor ownership and wealth as opposed to work and skill.
Any skill you can study or be taught to an expert level or even raw talent is meaningless compared to dumb luck of being born into a rich family.
And that's not a system designed for justice or moral values.
That's gambling.
And that's without going into that whole greed stuff the capitalism runs on, favoring ownership and wealth over all else and all that.
@@d3nza482 I don't understand Marxist labor theory of value and this profit = theft stuff. I guess it rests on the assumption that property is theft, and that owners of land and capital contribute nothing of their own to productive enterprise. For the most part I think this is a faulty premise. Property owners add value by arranging other factors of production in such a way that they generate a profit. Profit is the income they receive for their efforts, and the risks they take (it is possible for entrepreneurs to fail, most do). So when Professor Wolff says that the capitalist is essentially stealing from his workers whenever he is operating at a profit, does this mean that the workers are stealing from the capitalist if he is operating at a loss? There are many conundrums and contradictions in capitalism, I am well aware of this. But I think there are just as many in Marxist theory, and the labor theory of value is usually at the center of these contradictions.
@@d3nza482 I think Marxist criticism of capitalism might've applied in the 19th century when private property rights were really private, and almost entirely absolute. By the turn of the 20th century none of these critiques apply. The capitalist as property-owner is now the capitalist as co-partner with the state in organizing the means of production to meet certain ends: productivity, efficiency, employment, health and safety, welfare, ect. That's why Marx's predictions never panned out. They probably would have, but the state interceded and we got liberal democratic capitalism, rather than classical liberal propertarianism. By regulating private property and market exchange, plus taking on the responsibility of providing for some degree of social welfare, the state prevented classical liberal propertarian capitalism from collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
"If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it." Mark Twain
@@MrYoda-sx6nc your vote matters if the two running presidents aren’t complete idiots. If that’s the case, it’s only a matter of how they will mess up your country, not if.
@@mihneacireasa4613 No your not getting it obviously.. Your vote never mattered especially since this last election proved it
Actually, that’s a translated quote from Kurt Tucholsky. It was just attributed to Mark Twain in American memes because people know him better.
@@MrYoda-sx6nc the thing is America actually does make efforts to prevent certain groups of people voting lol
@@molime4717 that’s their point.
I like how Mr. Wolff says "capitalism" the same somber way people over at PragerU say "Communism", it's pretty refreshing
Exactly both make the wrong system responsible
And both dont actually know anything about the other system
@@FractalComputer If they don't know anything then what part of the explanation of profit in the video here was inaccurate? Conservitard fail
@@johnjohnson9090 I'm not a conservative. PragerU and Gravel Institute both are both populist propaganda machines. They ignore parts like that of course the worker will not get all the money, as some needs to be diverted to other stuff like r&d to improve the productivity, or the quality of the product. And the fact is that you've also consented by the contract.
@@FractalComputer how is it consent if there’s literally no other way to make money? That’s coercive.
I wish you went more into depth about possible solutions after explaining the profit is inherently exploiting the value of your labour. A lot of people will just be like "Yeah so? That's the way things are". These people need to be given a solution to at least consider moving away from thinking that things have to be the way they are now. We could push for worker cooperatives/democratized workplaces instead of authoritarian business models. Frame it as like a "No representation, no taxation" argument. If our work value is going to be exploited, we the workers should have at least a significant voice in where these profits are distributed to help grow the business.
Solution: buy stock in the company.
I think that as the working class we need to start starving the ultra rich. Stop buying their products (if you are able), buy locally (online or brick and mortar), learn to become self sufficient and grow some or all of your own food if you can, start relying on small community commerce, dont be afraid to quit a job that's exploiting you (again, if you're in a position to do so that wont kill you). Anything counts because if we had millions of ppl doing 1, some or all of these things we'd eventually start seeing the billionaires cave in
@@ExPwner Love the elaboration here. Really added a lot.
Solution: Read anything post-1870s.
This is a grossly misleading video.
The worker didn't add the whole $2k difference on the ingredients cost, unless the business gets free electricity, pays no rent for the premises, has no HP to pay for the cookers and other equipment, does no advertising, pays no local or federal taxes, has nobody to do the accounts and other admin like ordering fresh supplies - the list goes on.
The 2k is akin to gross profit, from which many costs are deducted, not just wages. The business would be closed in a day if run on the lines suggested.
This channel is pumping out some pretty disgusting disinformation of its own here.
If this guy is a real professsor, Dr. Dre can do your next surgery.
I was gonna say "Is this a leftist PrgerU" and then realised it's intentional from the comments. Seems a bit more kid-orientated perhaps ? I can dig that.
@Jacob Kissinger Holy shit, how is it used in schools? This is awful. Most of the data they present are either easily proven false or misrepresenting and their arguments are 90% fallacies.
@@hindigente They recently made a video casting slavery abolitionists as the bad guys, they are bottom of the barrel bad.
@Jacob Kissinger This is really upsetting. If this had ever happened to me, specially during my rebel teenager years, I'd probably make a fuss, talk over the video, and leave the classroom.
@Laughing Gas Oh, wow, that is so appalling. Did they frame that as "States Rights"? Probably, just like companies, states are people too (when it's convenient to them, that is).
@@hindigente I’ve heard MANY stories of highschoolers and everyone being assigned pragerU videos for hw, like in Texas etc.
My teacher used a prageru vid to explain capitalism, I made it clear from the first few months that I am not a huge fan of capitalism, but alas the agitprop continues
Prager wishes he had slick 3D animation like this.
Guess the oil money wasn't enough to pay any animators a fair wage.
Pageru they are capitalist
They are earning profit from their patreon 😂
@@3Infinity aNd yEt yOu liVe iN sOcIEty damn bro you really thought you were onto something here
@@EricSandwich what do you mean 😅
Imagine an established burger restaurant. The owner has made back their intial investement, and even employs someone to manage the busniess for them. They don't need to do anything but still "earn" money from the business.
What happens when we take the labourers out of the picture? The restaurant shuts down. It can no longer operate. All the equipment and ingredients are worth nothing to the owner without a workforce.
What happens if we remove the owner from the picture? Nothing changes. The business continues to operate as normal, and can in fact do better than before, as all that excess money that was going to the owner can be invested back into the workforce and the running of the business.
So why do we accept it as right and just that the people at the top should take the lion's share of the value created by the workforce?
I'm sure the division of labor is going to be completely equal and there won't be any chaos from the power vacuum from the sudden disappearance of the owner at some arbitrary point in the company's life.
@JC 1985 I'm sure people are going to be chomping at the bit to start a new business only to be kicked out by the workers in your fairy tale utopia. Better yet maybe the government should step in and remove proprietors after they get the ball rolling.
so, I think its important to note that we aren't really talking about small businesses here. its just an analogy to make the concepts easier to grasp. but large businesses, chains, and franchises really do operate this way, with the owners/shareholders contributing almost nothing to the actual running of the business. small business owners face a long struggle to get their business off the ground - but the more access to capital you have, the easier it is to set up a successful business. with enough initial wealth, any chump can start a successful business, hiring consultants to come up with a business plan, marketing experts to focus on branding, and expensive advertising campaigns to bring in customers. this is what "the rich get richer" means.
@@MalcolmCooks "With enough initial wealth any chump can make a successful business"
Thank you for saving me time I would have wasted in this conversation. You have mercifully shown me you have no idea what you're talking about.
@@mogkiller1 lol just look at donald trump 😂
I’m a business owner, and the majority of the “profit” goes back into the business itself in my experience, for example, I buy my guys uniforms, I give them big work vans to use so bc some either don’t have a car themselves, or using your personal car for work would just kind of suck over all, I pay for the insurance on those cars, and pay for any tickets they may get while driving them, they can bring personal tools they buy themselves to work if they want, but I buy all the materials I know they’ll need to get a job done, and if they use the company card to get a water or soda here and there where’s the harm in that? Thing is, I also have to be sure that “everyone gets a piece of the pie” so to speak, I have to make a profit, so does the company, and so do my guys, if I don’t make sure they can afford food, shelter, healthcare, etc, then we all suffer for it, I’m sorry if that seems wrong to some people, but this way of living has only served my family, and the families of my guys well so far. I feel like this is leaving out a lot more information then it should, like explaining how business tend to function.
This video sounds more like socialist propaganda
He did explain the cost of running a business in the 1000 dollars contributed. I respect your position in the company and your concern for your workers, but what if you were the representative of your workers. What I mean is that the profits should be shared equally and distributed in the company. This would be a more equal and fair exchange. If we did live in a society that had these systems the government would already provide things like healthcare and shelter. The mass profit of bigger corporations and government tax revenue would make it possible to have a more equal society. Of course, there wouldn't be absurd rich people, but that is a price to pay for fair treatment of individuals.
What you're doing is just normal. The guy in the video is an idiot. In his stupid simplistic example, the "capitalist" provides the environment and materials for the venture with his own resources and takes on the brunt of the financial risk. Is this doesn't justify his cut of the profit, I don't know what does. This guy is acting like kitchens, restaurants, and materials to make burgers come out of nowhere. Not to mention, most small business owners also personally manage their business, which is a lot of work too.
"Socialism for the rich. Capitalism for everyone else."
i’m sorry but that quote is so dumb. capitalism does exactly what it is designed to do which is to extract value from the working class. socialism isn’t what made capitalists rich.
@@jesse7328 how do you explain their constant government bailouts throughout this pandemic while small businesses got next to nothing? A lot of critics of socialism describe it as government handouts, so..
@@TheFoxfires socialism isn't when the government does stuff 🤦♀️
When big companies get bailouts like that, thats a part of capitalism.
@@TheFoxfires Absolutely. Plus, no one complains when big companies form coalitions and cartels (Unionizing) to dominate the market.
@@AlOlexy socialism is not when the government does stuff or when people give each other free money. it’s a transition state into a stateless moneyless society. you clearly don’t understand what your talking about
Love this new art style. Less “bougie tech company” and more “indie 3d animator.”
I like the 2D art style that was used with Zephyr Teachout and Briahna Joy Gray better. But that's just my opinion
Regardless, the art styles used in these videos don't use corporate language.
I prefer the 2d one, but I like this one well enough
No matter the style they have consistently been very slick and pleasing. This is what they need to make a good counter to the slick and big prageru. I do like this a lot but I have not come away from any video from this channel and said "wow this is shody" they are doing great work no matter the art direction
The animation done contains way more personality than PragerU
I think I became an anti-capitalist when I was working at a music studio as a private instructor. Each lesson cost $20 and I would only get paid $5.
There's only so much getting bread crumbs for your hard work that you can take. It's why I never lasted more than a couple years at most retail jobs. You just just feel the weight of the fat cats shitting on your work and getting paid much more to look down on you
And so, did you, as an anti-capitalist, take your super valuable labor and quit? Did you sell your instructions on your own at more that $5 to recover some of that stolen value? Or did you stay with the company that hired you, and continued enriching those dirty capitalists that are enslaving us all?
@@GoldenRockefeller lol no I demanded a 100% raise and was basically laughed at and was offered a $1 raise. So me and my girlfriend who also worked there at the time were able to take some of the costumers and start our own private teaching instruction. After that I worked a lot less and was making more money.
@@kitty7184 So now you are running your own business like capitalist. If your business grow and you need more employees are you going to pay them the same money?
@@kitty7184 pretty hilarious case study of why capitalism is great.
The burger example completely ignores the fact that the Capitalist had to provde the shops and work environment in the first place. The provision of those resources has value (on top of the value of the resources themselves).
That value I would argue, has come from identifying a demand in the market, and directing resources to meet it.
There is still the fact that the capitalist doesn't create all the value alone. In the example he does as much as a manager and/or a marketing specialist, who also can be hired to work for a wage instead of gaining access to all the money in the company. Why?
@@SMT-ks8yp If you don't like the rate of exchange of money for your time, don't take the job. There are other people to exchange your labor with.
The value that you are describing is entrepreneurial profit. The return for putting an idea, location, equipment, raw materials, product and process together in a way that customers are willing to pay for it all.
Let's say, hypothetically, that I were to leave a comment to improve this video's chances of reaching more viewers via the algorithm. Let us also say, for the sake of debate, that I am very unoriginal. Now, considering that Ben Shapiro is a very popular person to make fun of in leftist circles, could it not be assumed that I would write this comment?
There's only one problem Ben, reach to who? Fucking Aquaman?
My mind is on recovery mode after reading that high-level comment.
like Ben Shapiro
@@firelights3675 he did the thing.
nah, maybe?
Could you do a video on imperialism? It's usually left out of debates because people don't want to admit their country is basically destroying the whole world but it's very important.
Yes! Imperialism is really important to understand for our modern world. It's basically this situation, but Harold is a rich country, and you're a poor country, though there's definitely some more complexity.
Judging from the comment section, it's impressive how the amorality of the matter has gone above so many heads. No, capitalists are not evil per se just because they're capitalists. The issue is that they're playing their role in a bad system which is intrinsically exploitative *regardless* of how good or bad capitalists themselves may be.
Conservatives HAVE to take these things personally, it's part of their entire thought processes. They can't see it as an issue that's detached from individual morality
@@reubennb2859 Yep, it's the same as "All Cops/Landlords Are Bastards". It's not, generally, an assault on any one individual, just a catchy way to comment on how broken and bad for society those systems can be.
"Be ruthless with systems; be kind to people." --Michael Brooks
@@reubennb2859 i have seen certain leftists tho bashing ppl like landlords and that. Even if it's like a lady who can't work who has no other source of income etc. Rather than focussing on the system.
@@lemurdog There's a slightly depressing amount of guillotine humour and violent revolution fantasising on certain parts of the left, you can tell leftism has become more identity than ideology to them. Bear in mind though, if the leftists did get what they wanted, the lady with no other source of income would get a good quality of life without having to make another poor person pay her a huge chunk of their income in return for shelter.
@@reubennb2859 How come nobody talks about the freedom in the capitalist system. Millions, MILLIONS of people from all over the world want to come to America for the opportunities. Are these folks all wrong. Is the capitalist propaganda machine out there so powerful as to delude all these people. You know what these new immigrants hate? They hate seeing socialism growing in America. Many of them know first hand (something you lack) the evils of socialism. Oh, and by the way, it is personal. If you want to change the world start with yourself. Make a bunch of money. Buy an apartment house. Rent in out for less than its worth because you're so nice. Watch it go downhill. Watch the people thrown out onto the street. Bring in a wrecking ball and start all over. Capitalism works way better than any socialist wants to give it credit for.
I don’t get robbed of my labour because I volunteer it for free - all of it: I survive exclusively on alms, and sometimes on whatever I can grow or forage.
What a wonderful world. You've got it.
Broke: Taxation is theft.
Woke: Profit is theft.
Bespoke: Property is theft.
*galaxy brain * both are theft.
TAXATION without REPRESENTATION is theft.
Is it possible that they are both theft?
Existance is theft
You guys should do a video on imperialism. Probably try and get Michael Parenti on here
Don’t think they’ll ever do anything on Lenin, it’s too controversial for American audiences.
@@antrim7008 unfortunately you’re probably right
Please 😩
Blackshirts and Reds is just reading
A must read*
And yet when I automate my job using scripts, it's "wage theft".
Right, because the capitalist is the one that must employ labor-saving technology, otherwise they can't adjust wages accordingly. The employer is upset that you're getting more than was bargained for, and from their perspective it's taking away from their potential profit.
The capitalist is mad he didn't think of it first so he didn't have to pay you
Is that seriously something which has happened to you? If so, that's ridiculous. If you can write software which saves money and time you should be promoted. I hope you can get into a field where your programming skills are valued.
@@iAmTheSquidThing Yeah, it did. Since my performance has a proven track record, I was only given a warning and currently still work for the company, but future use or distribution of any scripts would result in termination. I'm currently looking into the software field for something entry level. Fingers crossed 🤞
What in the actual FUCK?! What company is this and how do we burn down the building and kill the owners?
The video is not clear enough, since the value is created by both the worker and the capitalist, and because the investor initiated the project, he could pay 500 to the worker and 500 for infrastructures and keep 1000 as his profit. And anyone is free to do that assuming one has the power.
I'd love to see a video on worker owned cooperatives.
Seconded. Getting the word out on those would genuinely do some good.
That would be a good video
Boosttttt
who's in charge of the companies success? Who tells who what roles to follow? There is no incentive to produce if you can't get a raise or get a promotion. We need hierarchy and inequality, why? because we need responsibility and drive, which only come through climbing the ranks.
If we were to produce less than our labor then how could a business operate!??!? we must produce more than what we earn so that the business can succeed, of course someone above me has a bigger slice of the pie, but if that means that he has more responsibilities, more risk, and overall more investment into the stock, then doesn't that constitute as fair share?
Most workers can point out the symptoms of capitalism but refuse to recognise the problem.
Aint that the truth!
Or they define the problem as "crony capitalism", not real, red blooded capitalism 🤪
@@chrisj984 Nothing like democracy though! No matter how many rough edges are smoothed, it is not like democracy.
Edit: Capitalism, whether pure or not, is anti-democratic. More democracy is better for more people than less.
Human nature based of biology that has been bouncing around for millions of years??
@@chrisj984 wrong
I want to see this channel explode in popularity.
Then help them!
I just want to see it explode.
sharing is caring
They need more regular content for that to happen
@@arnedarvin3507 Unless it's STDs...
Holy cow! So glad you cleared that up for me. Now I realize that the glorious workers’ paradise of the former Soviet Union never exploited the people at all. They simply all chose to become impoverished for the good of the state!
China a communist country used state sanctioned capitalism to get millions out of poverty, capitalism has taken more out of poverty than any other system.
Yes it has its failures because we are human.
Over 60 percent of the citizens of the Soviet Union voted to keep the USSR as their home in the last year's of its existence
Who said the soviet union engaged in workplace democracy and actually lived up to its claim of being socialist
Richard Wolff, the king
Monarchies are dead. Royalist/Monarchist are conservatives.
@@bradleyp3655 Ah, my bad.
Richard Wolff, the democratically elected leader who holds high regard among citizens
I think he would resent that without some additional qualifiers
Michael Hudson the Queen.
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Our economy of capitalism is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
you say you're a socialist, yet you believe in monarchy. Interesting 🤔
Don’t mind me, just offering up my sacrifice to the algorithm
Your not getting the real value for your sacrifice- the algorithm is exploiting you.
I am hereby interacting with this content. Very engaging!
Wow so many good points.
Good boy points
*Ever notice when the "Leader" gets Angry when you, and other people in the group, ask for a say in what the Whole Group is doing?*
What about Harold's labor? Why shouldn't he be compensated? You don't mention that bit. What about the fact that you wouldn't be making a single burger without Harold's building, equipment and money to pay you?
Harold created something. The worker just followed directions. Harold's labor of creation as well as organizing and facilitating everyone else's labor is worth much more to the enterprise than the person making burgers. No burgers are being produced without Harold whereas the worker could easily be replaced by a new trainee.
Harold put in 70+ hour weeks back when he wasn't getting paid for it just to get the thing started. Harold very much deserves every cent of profit he gets.
By the way, most companies have a 5-15% profit. Very few have more than 20% and none have a 67% profit like this example.
Y'all need to go learn how to run a business. Then go start one and see if you feel like sharing equally with people who didn't put in the same work as you did.
You can create a co-op today if you get off your ass...
THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN SACRIFICED FOR THE ALGORITHM
This reply has been sacrificed for the algorithm
May I offer this reply up as well?
Here’s a reply to soothe the beast. 😌
All hail the mighty algorithm!
reply
This is just blunt honesty. Anyone getting offended over these remarks might be feeling a little guilty.
It's a learning curve for a system that people are taught is the only way of living.
No, not at all.
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
I getting offended by the simplicity and how this video critiques capitalism without giving a good solution as a alternative.
It's a difficult thing to hear. Especially to a person who feels that they are making a good living. The most stark example of how capitalism steals wages to me is actually professional athletes. Lebron James makes what $80m a year? Now realize: in order for him to get paid that much, that means he is worth MUCH more than that. Even someone making $80m a year is having money stolen from them, because they aren't an owner.
@@AllMustJump Richard Wolffs youtube channel is full of the solution: Socialism
"So in the capitalism system, no one is paid what they're worth." Truer words never spoken. THANK YOU, Professor Wolff and The Gravel Institute!
the investment of the capitalist makes the employee worth something at all otherwise he'd be worth nothing
@@ExPwner How about looking at the wikipedia page that he himself referenced
@@marcusniaz3110 And where did the Capitalist get that money to invest? Labor. Labor creates capital. Not the other way around. The Capitalist wouldn't have any capital to invest if Labor didn't create it. Capital is the fruit of Labor. Labor isn't the fruit of capital.
@@reddeadmadness4097 That doesn't really make much sense because labor without capital is worthless. You can't produce anything with labor if you don't have machinery, supplies, factory building, electricity, etc.
How is it "paying you what you're worth" to give you the entirety of the revenue when you could only make money thanks to someone else paying the start up costs.
If workers in a business deserve 100% of the revenue, what do people working in a co-op deserve. 110%?
Without someone putting up $1000 for ingredients and getting a kitchen, nothing would ever happen. The worker is not the entire cause of the profit, so the discussion of him not making the entire profit is illogical
hahahaha you will understand someday that he is not wrong
but until then keep looking for the answer
@@LearnersNation could you please explain? Genuinely want to understand this
@@LearnersNation Well he is, for the very fact that the worker IS NOT FORCED TO WORK AGAINST HIS WILL. He CHOSES to work for a predetermined amount of wages.
@@whitehavencpu6813 And if you don't work for a boss under capitalism, you'll probably die. Not everyone can be start a company, or work on their own.
In the U.S, around 50% of homeless people actually work. Think about that.
I'm so tired of hearing "taxation is theft" from people who support capitalism
Right. You have a choice though, so it cannot really be theft. You know, like the workers have choice.
If you don't like to pay the taxes, then don't buy what is taxed. Simple. Make it yourself.
@Reverie You got my point. See there is choice. You don't have to pay taxes like you don't have to work for money.
Unfortunately, in today's world that person in the cave or shack is tresspassing and is breaking the law, or is in some small (or large) way being supported by someone who is paying taxes.
The choice arguement is overblown.
EDIT: Some Amish largely avoid electricity and they do manage to have light at night and not live in the woods.
@@davidpeppers551 socialists' criticisms of capitalism do not boil down to "it doesn't give us choice." Plainly, it gives choices--limited bad choices.
Similarly, no tax collector or capitalist is ever jailed for the crime of theft, and yet, in the normal course of talking, people still say "[profit or taxation] is theft."
Semantic arguments are really terrible at disproving why socialists are incorrect about things. Just, fyi.
@@crappozappoFreedom to choose is tremendously exaggerated. It tends to assume that all parties to the agreement have an equal amount of freedom to choose and that all parties have equal freedom to walk away from the transaction or relationship at any time and choose not to ever enter into it ( the freedom of not having to choose ). This is not mere semantics. Power disparities do have large impacts on freedom.
We've gone from rule by bloodlines to rule by money. They are both quite arbitrary and undemocratic. Sure a small company rises from time to time into the big money circle. Sometimes merit is responsible for success, but money, not merit, is the main thing which sustains the system and the companies involved. If you or I started a company to go up against Tesla/Micrisoft/Amazon/Walmart or whichever sector dominator you choose, there are two most likely outcomes. These outcomes would probably represent well over 75% of all outcomes. We would stay small (though we might be the biggest player in very small markets too unprofitable for them to bother with), we go bankrupt, or if we were extremely innovative and posed a real threat....... In the case of being a very innovative threat. They could hire away all our talent and they would be able to pay more (at least for a time). This is not a new phenomenon. I'm sure you have heard of it. They could threaten legal war of some kind or other and drive you into the ground. They could also buy out your company to make sure it stops the threatening innovations. They could also do all of the above.
So destruction from poor management, lack of resources, or unfair/uneven competitition, or a buyout. These are much more likely outcomes than significant market share and continuing innovation. Customers lose, employees lose, real competition declines, but the money wins. Or is this just semantics?
@@davidpeppers551 ....what is it you think I'm arguing, here?...
Omg harold would never due this i'm shaking and crying rn
Why can’t Harold give his boss the finger and cook his own food? He can’t in order for his labor to be productive there must be capital provided from the employer.
more like crapitalism lmaooooo
Get rekt lmao.
Got em
- Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1864)
goteeem
oof
This video is a damned lie, the average small business owner has a tiny profit margin. Usually they have to get a business loan that they have to pay back with interest, buy or lease equipment, pay employees, pay for the food and other things they need, pay for advertising ETC, then they themselves have to work long hard hours. so the tiny bit of profit they do make is EARNED.
ok and then what abouyt massive corporations? They arent making a risk by existing. Theyre already successful so why havent the employees wages risen in line with that>
The video was talking about a small business and so was I, big business is a different matter.
@@bt3743 Massive corporations own very slim profit margins too. Walmart's profit margin is 1.1%.
"Socialism is when government does stuff. When it does a lot of stuff, more socialist it is. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it is communism" - Karl Marx
Finally someone who really understands what Marx meant
@@loki362 It is a meme created by this guy to mock right-wing libertarians lol.
When the government does stuff 🥰🥰🥰
And when communism does a real lot of stuff, the whole west will demonize the communism's achievements.
@@chenxie8184 Haha lol IKR. They will look at how Stalin sent anti-communist people threatening the revolution to gulag but will forget on how Marxism turned peasant Russian society into an industrial powerhouse in 2 decades. I know Stalin was way too extreme but I laugh at western hypocrisy even more.
I think splicing in the clips of the speaker is really effective. It makes the work feel less anonymous, and makes the expert FEEL more like an expert, rather than just a voice narrating.
"BrO, BuT RisK BrO, TruSt Me BrO, YoUr BoSs DeSerVes ThAt MoneY BrO, He ToOk A LoaN OuT BrO." - Prager University Graduate
LOL
BRO
The risk justification is so bad.
Dictators take massive risks when they start authoritarian governments. Doesn't mean they somehow "deserve" all that power.
Its so weird how he just says very obvious and sound things in a tone of voice in an attempt to make something sound bad. The "profit" is what the capitalist gets out creating the business, its their pay. So, if you want to create something.. you should not be paid? Only if you work in someone else's creation.. who should not be paid for creating it? So only "physical" labor means anything, and being intelligent or coming up with concepts mean nothing. BTW, almost all leaps in technological advancement occurred due to concentrations of vast wealth, but feel free to "return to monke."
@@thespaceproduction5505 Actually not true, most inventions are by engineers and normal people being funded by the government.
who pays for: the electricity, heat, business tax, property tax, rent, mortgage, insurance, maintenance, workers compensation, the driveway, and lot that will eventually need to be re-paved etc, the roof which will inevitably need repair or replacement. the community projects that will also inevitably pop up, the owners wage ? who ?
standard business models cost is usually within an ethical entity range of 50% of the fixed operational costs.
But bosses are just printing money for free off our hard work!!!! 🤪🤪🤪
All of those costs, in the context of the thought experiment presented here, are included in the cost of 'ingredients.' Those are all things necessary to create the burger, and the capitalist pays for them. When the capitalist makes profit though, that is the revenue minus the cost of 'ingredients,' or all those costs you brought up. They still make a profit. They still take the value of your labor. You are still exploited.
@@JFyre what is the opportunity worth?
all the profits gonna pay for every single things you mentioned above and still they make some profit out of your labor
@@4b14s otherwise they wouldn’t create the opportunity
This is why dismantling capitalism starts at labour movements
Unions baby
And decolonization :)
@@richjuin9504 lol, you crearly never lived in a country with unions in government
Capitalists should stop leaching off the system and get a job
Alexander Benavidez I can’t believe the stupidity in this comment section
@@89laxbro maybe it's not everyone else, darling.
@Karym Eliya And where have you seen proof of that, considering a communist society has never even existed and the most socialistic first world nations are also the ones with the highest standards of living? And please don't say Venezuela is your proof, there's enough stupid in this comment section as it is.
@@Arbaaltheundefeated I'm assuming you are talking about the nordic countries as being socialist. To keep it a buck fifty they are no where near socialist. It's a mixed market economy with a social safety net. But for the vast majority of the system, it is a capitalist system.
But if no one was in a position to employ someone, then no one would have a job. Someone must first have the capital with which someone else can then be employed. If no one owns anything, then no one owns anything.
Gotta interact for that algorithmic boost
Liked and commented for the algorithm
yes please!
We are all doing our part, no matter how big or small. ✌️
paying my tribute to the algorithm
I don’t think it’s theft
Theft is when someone takes something that is yours. If you agree to a wage and are paid that then nobody stole anything from you. Someone else used your labor better than you could have otherwise. That is not stealing
Everything is theft/exploitation with these people so it's really frustrating trying to talk to them.
@@Cacowninja It really is like talking to toddlers. It's better to save your breath and not engage.
@@ChristAcolyte You got a point, it's just that statists having their minds changed would be helpful to ending the state.
I agree but at the same time I feel like people are so used to seeing that this is normal and okay and no one questions it. That mindset is kinda why we still have minimum wage and as a whole we’re allowing them to rip us off but again I’m not really informed about this topic its just a thought i have
“In capitalism, the boss doesn’t pay you, you pay your boss” - Meme Master 06
Thanks Meme Master 06
Yeah, employers constantly committing value theft is pretty bad
@@redj1101 Your Welcome Red Jay TV
I didn't expect a based take from a man called Meme Master 06.
No, in Capitalism the CUSTOMERS pay the boss AND the workers.
Next should be "how all loans at interest are usury" and then "how rent is theft".
For "rent is theft" could you elaborate on that. I understand thinking that about extortionate rates but not in general.
@@franklinkernan6367 It's the same screw but from the other end, the value of your labor is extracted from you so that someone else can make a profit off of the little guy. The value of your work lines someone else's pocket so they don't have to actually labor for their money, and can live as a leech of of yours.
This video is unfair and your examples are unfair too. Profit is required to run a business. It's not not totally accurate to say that the labor is being underpaid because that's not how profits are derived. Profits are the difference in cost of making and selling a product and it's selling price.
@@franklinkernan6367 After a certain point a land lord begins making more money than what they originally paid for the property. They begin profiting through the exploitation of the renter/worker. They produce nothing and give nothing back to society. Their property in of itself does not produce goods and the landlord himself is not providing a service, the property is providing the service, but property is not a person. Profit only comes into the equation when the renter/worker is exploited for money.
@@jackkraken3888 And the majority of the profit goes to the Capitalist who produces nothing. All the profit came from the worker. Commodities do not earn profit without production, that's where the worker comes in. After some point the original capital the capitalist put in, is paid back in full to the Capitalist and some. After that, they are simply exploiting workers.
This actually has the potential to mass-spread socialist ideas. Keep up the great work!
Great work? Spreading socialism with a shitty video isn't great work lmao
@Epix Gamor Actually it is. Go be a bootlicker somewhere else.
@@MasterCombine Explain how and insults aren't arguments.
@@epix4300 you've just insulted the video
@@epix4300 how about you actually make an argument to begin with? stupid shitposting begets stupid shitposting my man
So basically, nobody should be an employer. Let’s just throw out the economic system of the past thousands of years. No more businesses. Socialism is obviously a recipe for economic collapse. We would all be equally poor because no one would be allowed to get ahead.
Except for the collective which equals to a big powerful and corrupt Government
That communism
It hasn’t been the economic system for thousands of years. More like 250 years. And slave masters didn’t want to evolve either because their system was good for them, as well.
But the 1% say they earned every penny.
And that they "create jobs" bringing people out of poverty and creating this "wonderful world" we live in. Where everyone is free to do as they please and no one suffers except by choice.
@@Zaekyr Ikr it's impossible to make a burger if somebody isn't taking all the profit from it
@@wachyfanning
If burgers were nationalized, you wouldn't need to make a profit.
The rich didn't get to where they are because they worked harder than everyone else, but rather because their employees did, while they were paid as little as possible for it.
@unarmed blackman All the hardest working people I've ever known earned minimum wage.
I’d love to see a vid on the 15-hour work week/ bullshit jobs
15$ an hour is a pittance.
@@ScottDavis-nu5uu First world problems huh?.... $15 is indeed a pittance if you wish to buy a luxurious yacht or something.
@@Warren_Peace an honest paiment, counting inflation and all is 30 an hour. And before you say anything, yes every job must permit a man alone to build a family, even if the job is "flipping burgers" or some bullshit. And if you think this is a radical idea,the idea of a many building a family out of his job, whatever it may be, it's a idea teddy roosevelt advocated for.
@@sov7513 Well if you got a problem with that, blame whoever thought that imposing minimum wage is a good idea, since that nonsense killed any incentive to increase wages naturally... And also, learn the value of saving money and not spending it as fast as you earn them, because I don't think Teddy advocated for being a spendthrift.
@@Warren_Peace except when capitalists prey on necessities and other things required to survive and also use human well being as a funnel for profit so you literally can't buy or save living pay check to paycheck just to have a roof and food OH WAIT minimum wage (the minimum supposedly required to pay for a full life) doesn't even barely cover the jacked up prices of food and lets not even get started on rent. You're what's wrong with the world see yourself out
Love that dulcet, silky voice of justice.
The employer didn’t steal from the employee, he first risked HIS $1000 and risk of having an employee. Why would he take all risk and give you money if he doesn’t get anything at the end?
Not to mention, if the employee really wants $2000 for his work, he should start his own burger joint. If he can't make that work, his labour isn't really worth 2k, because he's not adding on all that extra value by himself. He gets paid based on how much work he does, not based on how much new income comes in, because without the CEO, no one would be making anything.
@@samuelmerkel2888 Exactly 👍
Bingo like franchise do
Baby leftists: Cool mittens
Two years later: 👏Yess👏 all 👏profit 👏is👏 theft👏
The "profit is theft" slogan is as dumb as the Libertarian "taxation is theft slogan". Both are equally dumb.
@@Xpistos510 No, the "taxation is theft" is actually true. Even if we admit, accept, or agree that taxes are necessary, they are still theft. The "profit is theft" is just dumb and untrue.
Taxation and socialism are literally the only things stopping capitalism from becoming full on slavery.
@@aylbdrmadison1051 no, taxes are shit, they stole you, to give money to other people
Say what you will about capitalism, they've always had way slicker PR than us crusty socialists. I feel like this channel is the remedy to that. ⚒️🛠️
Yeah, capitalists just push out propaganda to get people on their side us socialists try to get normies to read 500 pages of economic theory from fucking 1869 as an introduction to our views lmao
@@te1327 Wait, isn't this video also propaganda?
@@marcusniaz3110 yes, this channel is a good example of what socialist Activision should be
@@te1327 Maybe if you read the wikipedia page that Richard Wolf references in this video you'll see how it destroys his own argument. Ironic isn't it?
"' BEHIND EVERY GREAT WEALTH THERE IS A CRIME '" (Balzac)
So true . Look at all the wealthy brits -
Behind every great diatribe against wealthy people there's juvenile jealousy, demagoguery or a combination of the two
That is sometimes true which is why some people got kicked out of 109 countries by 109 different courts for the same crimes.
@@liquidsnake6879 anyone who wants to be treated fairly is jealous of the people who are treated like royalty. i assure you that your valiant and noble defense of the corporations that own you means nothing to them and does nothing to stop socialist policies from being implemented.
@@schnoz2372 Corporations don't own me, they provide goods and services that i purchase or not, upon my desire and convenience, if anything, any control any corporation may exert over you must come from the Government.
Socialists seek to expand said government and it's authority and power over common citizens, thus being the biggest tools there are and that is the reason why the corporations you talk about have aided proto-socialist movements and often shill for them, they understand that increased government authority will benefit them and trust me, AOC and Sanders are more than bought at this point lol to me it was clear Sanders was bought and sold when he did a 180º on the "Koch Brothers plan" that he's yet to justify or explain.
But people keep clamouring for the revolution from AOC who's selling them 2$ sweatshop t-shirts for 30 dollars lol
Imagine if your wages was a agreed upon share of the profits from your labor. Personally, I have nothing against someone who setup the business and put money down up front to get started from making money, but as was said, the percentage is just wrong for workers versus CEOs. I worked as a garage tech and one time I by accident got to see how much they charged the customer for labor versus me. I installed the door and got paid $80 and they charged the customer $1,400 not including rhe profits from the door itself. Pissed me off. They made me work like a dog for 10 hours a day and I was having to sleep in my car to make end meet and save anything. They had new cars, big nice houses in expensive neighborhoods. What a con job those scumbags have going.
What’s to stop you setting yourself up as a rival? If you know that charge £1400, why not charge £1200? Or £1000? If you know your competitor and can create a competitive advantage, you’d be able to do better than them? Why did this not occur to you? Even if you had no money to start, the first customer you have, you ask for an up front cost to buy parts, then fit and charge. It’s not hard is it?
@@dave3295 right? be your own boss then. Its not as easy at it seems. Your boss might charge $1400. But I bet he spent minimum $300000+ to build up a shop, set up marketing to get clients it, pay employees, pay for all that expensive equipment, pay rent, pay taxes, pay bills, pay for parts, pay for every expense. Yea he deserves the big bucks after everyone else gets their cut. He put his money on the line. If the business flops he will be in debt for a decade. You will get an unemployment check until you find the next job. It seems unfair when you dont understand business. The same ignorance is what keeps you stuck. Instead of watching this pity party video, watch videos that will help you improve yourself.
@@dave3295 Woah what an out of touch mind you have there! He literally lives in a car, how is he supposed to build a business while barely being able to feed himself? Where's the capital gonna come from? Equipment? Labour? Marketing? Business Rent? Damn bro, you must've been raised with a golden spoon if you think it's that easy. Your fridge head seems to be empty.
@@xilencered7788 “Be your own boss then.” “Your Boss might charge $1400. But I bet he spent a minimum of +$300,000.000…”
Bruh, that’s just it. Starting a business is extremely hard, especially if you don’t have capital already to put down and are living out of a fucking car. You make it sound relatively easy, but most small businesses go out of business within their first year. Telling people to just start their own businesses is such a dumb take too cause it won’t fix anything. If your competitor has more resources to utilize and a dedicated customer base already too they can just crush your puny business. Just charging cheaper than them is nothing, cause they’re already established and could probably take a small blow to profits to drop their prices lower than you’re able to go to support yourself. We need labor laws so people aren’t being paid $80 for labor that produced $1400 in profit. Make the exploitation of workers illegal by fining and taxing tf out if those who do it. I guarantee it’ll start happening less, or stop happening all together.
@@Azerfield i am trying to explain that it is harder than it sounds. I know cuz I am going thru that process, I am 1 year in, all revenue gets invested back into my business growth. I am not rich but everything that I put aside from my regular job also goes into my business. My employees always get paid, I dont pay myself probably wont for another 6 months. When I finally become successful, why should I pay some new unskilled worker 25 an hour. Thats stupid. After all the struggles and sacrifice. Be your own boss. See if you can actually pull it off.
Love that they used the Cybertruck at 3:52
Appropriate, after Elon just became the richest capitalist on earth.
There can never be too many videos from you guys with Richard Wolff. You should make one with Second Thought, one day.
Oooo that would be great!
M Hudson is just as sharp
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
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THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
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Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
"value of labor" is subjective.
How? -without the worker , they would have no product.
These Richard Wolff ones are total bangers. Keep em coming
Hey Guys
Prof. Wolff has basically explained "The Labour Theory of Value", you can pretty much google the same to get more info
Each but I like it more when he tells me
Yeah, you should google that instead of watching this. This describes that theory well but fails to mention that theory is also controversial. This theory is rejected by many post-Keynesian economist, for example.
@@xwtek3505 yeah all modern economic schools reject this but it was part of the classical school and is a key idea in analysis of capital and it's accumulation
@@xwtek3505 Indeed, there are many economists whose job is to justify exploitation.
Why is anyone listening to post-keynesian economists lmao ? Those damned neoliberal didn't predict the 2008 crisis and called the few who did idiots
For anyone saying "what about the costs of keeping the lights on, paying accountants, blah blah blah.... That's all part of the chunk labeled 'ingredients'.
And for anyone saying "what about the labor the capitalist does, like managing the store, employees, etc?" They don't need to do any of that. They can hire anyone to do anything with their capital. If they decided they wouldn't lift a finger, they could get away with it. They decide how much labor they can do and you don't.
And if you say then, "well, what if we make it so that people's labor is always well-compensated enough that a capitalist who refuses to labor can't make any profit?" then YOU GET IT. STOP HERE AND THINK FOR A MOMENT.
actually, stock holders do exactly that. They have no clue how or what. they just sit and get paid from their "investments".
hm how about the use of some amount of “profit” for the expansion of the company? or a means to buffer the company from bankruptcy? i generally agree with the message of this video, but no one is allowed to make profit, then other ventures cannot be pursued. for instance, i know that for every hour i work at my job, the company needs to make $241.73 to make the profit margin they want (my grocery store has a projected profit margin of about 8% iirc). generally speaking, they don’t sit on this profit for long; they’re constantly buying new locations to make more of their stores, as well as expanding their warehouse network. now, if we consider this expansion as part of the ingredients cost, then yes of course any additional profit is objectively exploited. but if we just see the money as profit, then “good” businesses can never expand into new markets
@@jon.bo_ that sounds like buying more ingredients so you can make bigger profits
@@jon.bo_ Glad you brought this up. But, consider that all of the expenses you listed (expansion, investment, savings) could be potentially decided by anyone with a vested interest in the company, not only a capitalist owner. If a business is 'good', anyone could - as individuals or as a group or a government - decide to invest in it and the company could grow and expand as a result. The problem right now is that only the capitalists gets to decide how to allocate that money.
I work for Home Depot and I became chummy with some of the gals who work at the customer service desk. Primarily with the one that deals with our daily revenue. It is astounding how much Home Depot makes in one day at our store alone and yet won’t pay us fairly or will work you to the bone. It’s not just Home Depot, it’s everywhere. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of selling my life away cheap by the hour. And our society looks down on prostitution. Atleast those gals get their money’s worth after getting screwed
"wont pay us fairly" ... what does this mean? What's "fair" to you?
@@phonkphonk i think fair is enough to not have to worry about food, water, and shelter. you know, human necessities?
Then start your own business. Or get a better paying profession, like engineer or software developer.
Why would they? Home Depot just like other businesses primary focus is bring profit to shareholders/owners. That is main reason why companies stay in businesses. No Profit businesses will shutdown.
Because the primary focus of companies is maximize profits for shareholders and owners. Not to pay a fair-wage to employees . Pay is low is because shareholders and owners want it low so, the CEO has to follow orders. CEO has to hit a certain percentage in profit or will be terminated.
this whole employer-employee relationship is inherently exploitative, as it is explained here.
thanks for the great explanation, Prof. Wolff!
It's literally not at all. No serious person uses the word "exploit" unironically.
Never heard such rubbish! When you become an employee you make a willing transaction, sacrificing some of the value you generate in exchange for diminished responsibility, security, lower risk, etc. If you want the full value for your work, start your own business in what you're good at and do it better than everyone else.
Or, align your interests with your employer's, by purchasing shares in the business in which you work. Or invest in the market as a whole.
In the given example, there are many flaws. The burger chef is ONLY responsible for cooking the burgers. This is a tiny part of the business. They do not get involved with the ownership/maintenence of the building. They did not think of the brand name, design the logo, perform market analysis to decide the best location and nature of business to start, do any sourcing of other staff, decide who to source the ingredients from, at what cost and how much on what day. They don't ship the ingredients to the store, they don't unload them into the refrigerator, or pay for and maintain the equipment to do the cooking, make any decisions on pricing, or sourcing or designing packaging, sourcing adjuncts eg drinks etc, or managing or doing point of sale, etc. They don't bring in the customers (except for the portion of customers that are brought in by the quality of the cooking, but again this is partly down to the ingredients sourcing and the equipment and branding), they don't pay the utilities, they don't have any exposure to business risk. They don't manage employee holidays, shift schedules, payroll, accounting for the business, the business tax returns, training employees, cleaning the establishment, abiding by regulations, both employment regulations, food safety and hygiene regulations, health and safety regulations for employees, taking the ultimate responsibly for the safety of the customers and staff. Purchasing all of the many required insurances, paying landlords their rent and the local council their business rates. **The employees get paid even if the business makes a loss.** Business is incredibly complex and the margins are thin. I would say, considering the above, the chef is surely lucky to get $1000 out of the $3000 revenue. There will be very little left for the owner to live on. If you think the owner deserves no compensation because 'they didn't cook the burgers' then I'm at a bit of a loss. Most of the things I listed above are organised and maintained by business owners, or delegated to further employees that must be paid, trained, managed, etc. Profit isn't theft, it's well deserved for making the machine of business run at all. This vision of capitalists sitting on their arses getting paid for nothing is false. Really successful capitalists work eighty hour weeks putting together all the stuff I listed above. What's more, often when setting up a business like this, it often doesn't turn a profit for a year or two or more! Imagine the stress on that business owner, having poured their heart and soul into something, not seeing any profit for years sometimes. Yet as an employee you are paid so long as you turn up. You don't think the owner deserves compensation for that if they manage to get things going?
If the chef is also the person that does everything above, then surely he deserves much of the profit. But in reality he will simply make the burgers.
@@blumousey This giant wall of text completely misses the whole point: wage labour is NOT voluntary. The alternative is being homeless and starving. And "just open your own business" is completely impossible for the vast majority of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck.
@@katerwaul9574 I agree in principle, there should be better measures in place to get people off the ground. But I disagree that wage labour is not voluntary. Everyone needs to work, everyone needs goals and a purpose. Most very successful people, despite the fact they could retire tomorrow if they wanted, continue to work extremely hard.
@@blumousey _"When you become an employee you make a willing transaction"_
I don't care! Just as you shouldn't be able to sell yourself into slavery, you should only be able to sell your labor power if you still have part in the decision making process about it.
We don't live in a dictatorship you say? Then give every worker an inalienable right to do democracy in the workplace!
"If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word,
It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to
show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and
death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property!
may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second
proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?"
-Proudhon
Life would be so much better if society was not centered around profit.
If only it were centered around making everyone whole.
There's nothing wrong with profit being a motive. The problem is when workers are not fairly compensated for their work. I always hear capitalists say "without CEOs who would run the companies?". Do they think we cant hire a CEO?
@@trollnerd but isn’t profit always theft? When an employer hires a person, for them to turn any profit from the relationship, an employer needs to pay their employee less money than the employee generates.. right?
@@whysocurious7366 Not necessarily. I built a video game (I am the sole developer) and I charge money for in game currency. I had to invest money in servers, and I put sweat equity into writing code on the weekends. I charge my players more for the in game currency than it costs me to provide it to them. That is technically a profit, but I don't feel that I stole from anyone to get it.
@Karl Marx We elect a CEO of the country every 4 years but capitalists think somehow we can't do the same thing at our workplaces.
This example is missing a detail. The worker here is not the only one adding value to the ingredients. Harold in this situation is finding the right ingredients, setting up the environment to make the burgers, and then finding where to sell the burgers. Adding all 2000 dollars worth of value to the chef is missing the work that Harold did. If the chef did all of Harold's work themself they would spend more time and therefore their time would be worth less.
Real theft in capitalism happens when Harold misjudges his contribution to the profit and over estimates his own work value
i think you miss the big picture. harold has already have the money, so that he can set up works with the money he has, because the distribution of wealth is constructed to flow in capitalist way. but the chef has no capital(money) to set up a business. so he has no alternative way than selling his own labor, he has to do so. and the system always shows us that capitalist do anything to reach higher profits. there must be labor institutions for workers to say some about the system which is run by their labor. otherwise it is all big multinational corparations that runs the entire global system without any moral, economic, enviromential restrictions.
bUt ThE wOrKeR cOnSeTeD tO hIs wAgEs So It’S nOt ExPlOiTaTiOn
thats right ma, I'm not unemployed, I'm making a decision to be financially dependant
You’re literally correct, despite the tone.
@@JCMoorer no, no
Adraria8, don't be dim. Think about how exploitation is true within the wider context. Sure, here are your choices -- you can work for *this* capitalist who will exploit you, or you can work for *that other* capitalist who will exploit you, or you can starve. See? Feel free to choose and enter into whichever of those options suits you best.
@@sidesplitter9497 yeah, yeah
Despite all the complex political theories and philosophies, the core of socialism is simple. Replacing the capitalist wage labor system, with free labor associations.
Proudhon said in best in 1848: “Under the law of association, transmission of wealth does not apply to the instruments of labour, so cannot become a cause of inequality. [...] We are socialists [...] under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership. [...] We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations. [...] We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies, joined together in the common bond of the democratic and social Republic.”
Who is disempowering yourself to do this? Free labor associations are not banned or anything, so why are you complaining?
Capitalism seeks liberty for the capitalists.
Socialism seeks liberty for all society.
@@arnieg8800 the state capitalist system is. Have you ever heard of free market anti-capitalism or mutualism? In 19th century America, a strain of individualist market anarchists (adherents of Proudhon) were already saying what we do today.
These market anarchists were anti-authoritarian reformers and radicals who regarded individual sovereignty and free market competition as the answer to the social and economic problems of the day. They saw the State as the source and protector of big business titans’ monopoly power and accordingly of the laboring classes’ suffering and deprivation. Building on the ideas of classical economists like John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the Individualists developed theories and experiments addressed to issues ranging from money and banking to private property in land.
They opposed capitalism as a system of privilege, exploitation, accumulation without limit, theft, abuse, and wage slavery, all supported by the coercive authority of the state. Students of the principles of classical political economy - the ideas of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, et al. - the Individualists contended that the full realization of those principles and ideas meant an economic paradigm very different from capitalism, which they viewed as the successor of feudalism and mercantilism as a political, rather than economic creature. “Laissez-faire,” they said, had been improperly and spuriously leveraged for the defense of a system of injustices that in fact had nothing to do with legitimate free markets. Capitalists, the idle rich, were only able to profit from the labors of the industrious because they were protected by unfair advantages, embodied in law, that allowed them to escape the natural outcomes and pressures of genuine, full-fledged competition.
@@blackflagsnroses6013 Work is a voluntary exchange in all Western democracies. You can create any model/system you want if you get the audience behind your ideas. What is lacking is the individual genius to realize ideas and that is why most people accept to work in poor conditions due to their own pitfalls/irresponsibility( And to a large degree it is genetic rather than environmental that they are in a position lesser than the idea creator(entrepreneur/business owner))
@@frocco7125 exactly. Despite the cries of “freedom” from capitalists it’s the socialists that want the abolishment of state, and anti-authoritarianism.
Part of the reason why so many poor people buy into this is because when you grow up watching your parents suffer and struggle in the workforce you start feeling that the solution is for you to become the boss and escape. Everyone is so wrapped up in their suffering that they don't understand that the system itself is what is causing it. Instead of asking "why do I need to be rich to live decently and without fear" they say "if only I had more money then I wouldn't have to live like this." And in a way I don't blame them. It's hard to think about the greater issues at play when you're starving and struggling to make ends meet. That's why it's the responsibility of people who can think about these things to do something about it.
What could effectively replace the profit incentive? If people can't make profits, why would they start businesses?
@@LibertyFascism Maybe they can become self-aware enough to think beyond just their own personal needs, probably. We are social animals, and to maintain both mental and societal health we need to support one another in a mutually beneficial way. If someone's objective in life is to merely accumulate as much wealth as possible, they aren't that far up Maslowe's Hierarchy of Needs.
@@rikk319, so the replacement could be people suddenly not being self-centered? Why hasn't that already happened? Is that something we could count on if we go socialist? It has never worked. Order and innovation come from people at the top of companies caring very much about making profits.Taking that away would be like taking the engine out of a car. It won't run. That is why the Soviet Union collapsed. It is why the rest of the Eastern Bloc was a horror story. It is why Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea are third-world nightmares.
@@LibertyFascism Sigh. People like you always point to the low-educated, agrarian-based nations that jumped straight from feudalism to a failed attempt at socialism on the way to unrealistic communism. All of those countries were or are also authoritarian. You conveniently leave out the social democracies in Europe because that will crimp your argument off. Notice also that those "socialist" European nations are also mixed economies, and not true socialist economies, so again, your "reasoning" is black and white and suffers from the typically weak arguments of such perspectives.
You also seem to lean heavily authoritarian, or at least in the direction of the mild-to-moderate sociopathy found in libertarianism, with their belief in some magical brilliant class of property/capital owners who will solve everything if we'd just leave them alone to do their sociopathic/self-centered thing and let their happenstance wonderful pixie dust powers trickle down on the rest of the clueless, pointless masses.
@@rikk319, authoritarianism always comes with socialism. Always. A government that can give you everything is a government that owns you. It is slavery. The Scandinavian countries have market economies and low business taxes. They are not socialist countries. They also depend on the United States for military protection, so they don't have substantial military budgets.
Mass theft is sociopathic. Stop supporting it. We minarchist libertarians support laws against victimization. You support government-sanctioned victimization.
The capitalist paid for the means of production. How would you cook without ingredients, electricity, a local? It is thanks to the capitalist/owner of the means of production that you can produce labor.
If you don't want to get "robbed", be your own capitalist: buy and own the means of production.
Or all employees quit then no production and the capitalist out on the streets.
I agree to an extent. Not only is the capitalist generating the opportunity for the worker to exchange labour for money, they also have to accept the risk that the venture fails, i.e., they have insufficient customers to cover their costs. Where this falls over though is when the rents extracted from the worker are very high (e.g., the working conditions are poor, quota on expected work is very high etc), while the money they exchange for that labour is very low. In this case the worker should leave and the capitalist will have to adjust his offering and expected returns or have no workers. But what if they can't leave? What if there are no other jobs? Or the education system is so poor they can't upskill and "become their own capitalist"? And there are many many examples where the capitalist removed themselves from liability (e.g., corporations) and so have no risk. When you add intergenerational wealth into the picture it's clear the current capitalist vs worker power imbalance can not hold. Let them eat cake time is almost upon us...
the capitalist dont get money from working or even breaking a sweat. they get profit form owning. and owning something does not generate profit, labor generates profit.
the capitalist didnt make those ingredients, didnt work to provide that electicity, etc, it is all provided by farmers, engineers, workers, etc.
and workers have a much harder time starting their business because the profit of their labor goes to the capitalist. half of my salary that I worked hard for goes to my landlord who doesnt need to life a finger. The capitalist gets richer, the poor gets poorer.
I just watched socialism for dummies a few days ago, so this is a funny coincedence!
I recommend his lecture called "Worker Co-ops: Theory and Practice of 21st Century Socialism"
I live in a socialist country and here they steal so much from the businessmen that they are leaving the country and there are more and more people out of work, because the only thing socialism seeks is to create equality by impoverishing everyone. believe me you dont want to live in a country like this.
@@Thomas_1030 If you still have a state, it's not socialism. If you don't own and have democratic control of your means of production, it's not socialist. Just like America claims itself a democracy, it is not. Your country may call itself socialist but that doesn't make it true - you'll need community action, class consciousness, and some guts to stand up and actually achieve the goals of socialism.
hold on...gotta kick-start the algorithm mechanism here....
Me too.
ALGORITHM FUEL
cntrl alt delete
UNDER CAPITALISM, EVERY PENNY OF A BILLIONAIRES FORTUNE
IS A PENNY OF UNPAID WORK THAT SOMEONE ELSE PERFORMED.
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THINK, PROFITS ARE UNEARNED INCOME, YOU DON'T GET IT ! or ? ( POW = play on words )
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Our economy is based on the failure of the ROMAN Empire.
THE FINANCIAL SECTOR’S PRODUCT IS DEBT
THEY ARE THE FASTEST GROWING SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY
DOLLAR CRASH IN PROCESS
NEOLIBERALISM - WE WANT YOU BANKRUPT
- - - - - - ECONOMIC - - - THOUGHTS - - - - -
YOU HAVE BEEN OUT MANEUVERED BY THE 1%
th-cam.com/video/-ELQf7aBLLM/w-d-xo.html
WE ARE WAGE SLAVES IN A DEMOCRACY
let me help! algorithm booooooooooooost!
@@darthjarjarbinkstherealsit6832 nice
I liked how this argument was framed in this video, I know some people might be skeptical if it’s framed as all capitalists are intrinsically evil, but by framing it as capitalists have to act in a certain way to maximize profits, then it can be framed as capitalism it self is bad, which is the message we wanna get out there in a concise easy to understand way.
capitalists have to become that evil person. they have to put profits above all. if they dont, their competitors will, and they will put them out of the game..
That's exactly why it's a *system* problem, and not a individual problem.
Never heard such rubbish! When you become an employee you make a willing transaction, sacrificing some of the value you generate in exchange for diminished responsibility, security, lower risk, etc. If you want the full value for your work, start your own business in what you're good at and do it better than everyone else.
Or, align your interests with your employer's, by purchasing shares in the business in which you work. Or invest in the market as a whole.
In the given example, there are many flaws. The burger chef is ONLY responsible for cooking the burgers. This is a tiny part of the business. They do not get involved with the ownership/maintenence of the building. They did not think of the brand name, design the logo, perform market analysis to decide the best location and nature of business to start, do any sourcing of other staff, decide who to source the ingredients from, at what cost and how much on what day. They don't ship the ingredients to the store, they don't unload them into the refrigerator, or pay for and maintain the equipment to do the cooking, make any decisions on pricing, or sourcing or designing packaging, sourcing adjuncts eg drinks etc, or managing or doing point of sale, etc. They don't bring in the customers (except for the portion of customers that are brought in by the quality of the cooking, but again this is partly down to the ingredients sourcing and the equipment and branding), they don't pay the utilities, they don't have any exposure to business risk. They don't manage employee holidays, shift schedules, payroll, accounting for the business, the business tax returns, training employees, cleaning the establishment, abiding by regulations, both employment regulations, food safety and hygiene regulations, health and safety regulations for employees, taking the ultimate responsibly for the safety of the customers and staff. Purchasing all of the many required insurances, paying landlords their rent and the local council their business rates. **The employees get paid even if the business makes a loss.** Business is incredibly complex and the margins are thin. I would say, considering the above, the chef is surely lucky to get $1000 out of the $3000 revenue. There will be very little left for the owner to live on. If you think the owner deserves no compensation because 'they didn't cook the burgers' then I'm at a bit of a loss. Most of the things I listed above are organised and maintained by business owners, or delegated to further employees that must be paid, trained, managed, etc. Profit isn't theft, it's well deserved for making the machine of business run at all. This vision of capitalists sitting on their arses getting paid for nothing is false. Really successful capitalists work eighty hour weeks putting together all the stuff I listed above. What's more, often when setting up a business like this, it often doesn't turn a profit for a year or two or more! Imagine the stress on that business owner, having poured their heart and soul into something, not seeing any profit for years sometimes. Yet as an employee you are paid so long as you turn up. You don't think the owner deserves compensation for that if they manage to get things going?
If the chef is also the person that does everything above, then surely he deserves much of the profit. But in reality he will simply make the burgers.
@@blumousey profit is mathematically theft. I'm sorry that you're getting triggered by the admittedly loaded term "theft" but if you can't understand that productivity minus wage equals profit then you're as thick as a brick.
@@crappozappo just because a business is profitable does not mean that employees deserve all of the value. My example above demonstrates why a chef should not get all of the revenue from the burgers he makes. Every employee is similar in one way or another. There is a lot that is 'taken care of' for them by the business owners. A specialised, curated niche is carved out for them. And a value is assigned to that niche.
Harold put forward the property, assets and money for supplies at his own risk. Chef risked nothing for a guaranteed wage. Greater risk brings greater rewards and losses, this a fact of life. Harold gave chef an opportunity he didn't have before by fronting capital and property unavailable to chef at that time.
I do disagree that profit (and money) shouldn't be our guiding social interest, but your reasoning needs work.
@SUPER GREEN Not true. Atomatization itself creates employement in another part of the economy as steel refination need to be done, programmation needs to be done by someone too, machine maintanence and repair, automatization marketing and investment by business. But if u think that there's a very high increasing automatization, you should tell all workers to invest on those business whose target is to automatize other business, as they seem to have plenty work and guaranteed clients(thus, guaranteed profit).
Automatization is good, as it increases productivity with less labour needed: more production= more goods for less price= higher adquisitive power for the citizens = more wealth for all. As economy becomes more automatizied, and less labour hours are needed, the demand for musicians, artist and entertaintment jobs will increase as we will have more time and money (partially coming from investments in automatizing the economy for example) to enjoy them.
Edit: Unemployement doesnt exist in a free economy, as there will be always someone with needs to be covered and some with the resources (and profit search) to cover those needs. Unemployement is artificially created by laws forbiding some of those naturally-done exchanges to happen.
we can easily fix the risk problem with all people equally risking and collectively owning the assets and property
@@dezh81guy93 and acknowledging that risk requires investment capital and the only real collateral is that the capitalist becomes a worker.
Very true. Tho, without his labor he would have no product.