In general, I'd argue the correct way to look at this would be from class interest perspective. What it really comes down to is whether your labor is the primary source of your income or whether it is your capital. If you're in the former category then you're a worker and you have common interest with other workers. If you're in the latter then your interests are directly opposed to those of the working class.
Sedan 13 points a month ago
Greetings, Comrade!
I would also like to offer a slight clarification: not "oligarchs," but the bourgeoisie; not "workers," but the proletariat. That is, if we are following Lenin.
Do not forget that, under a capitalist system, the proletariat consists not only of workers and peasants but also of the intelligentsia—doctors, teachers, researchers, engineers, and the like.
The middle class, too, is for the most part part of the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie, meanwhile, enriches itself through "surplus value." Were it not for this surplus value, then—firstly—all goods would be twice a scheaper, and—secondly—all global financial institutions would be abolished as unnecessary.
Sedan 3 points a month ago
I told you recently that the understanding of socialism in the West—and my own understanding of it—are two different poles.
That guy is very smart and well-read, but what he says... really surprises me.
When I read his first post, I didn't even understand which camp he belonged to... because a person cannot defend oligarchs while being a socialist. To me, that is nonsense!
orioler25 -10 points a month ago
This is not a very usable understanding. How do you make sense of people whose labour is the primary source of their income and who also have a material interest in the maintenance of private property, such as home-owning middle-class people. Material interests aren't as simple as "workers for workers, owners for owners," it describes the intersecting and even contradictory ways in which people navigate this system to achieve or maintain their own level of material security. Similarly, the kind of class analysis you just described is bereft of any explanations for how race, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, or ability intersect in class dynamics; there is a reason we don't do it this way.
dessalines 12 points a month ago
whose labour is the primary source of their income and who also have a material interest in the maintenance of private property, such as home-owning middle-class people.
Private property in the socialist context doesn't refer to home ownership (unless its being used for landlording). It means ownership of means of the production, exploiting labor power. You can consider it synonymous with "absentee property".
There are certainly some workers who earn some from their labour, and some from exploitation of others labor, but one is usually dominant. And of course in the long term, the trend of centralization of production means that these small-scale exploiters (petit-bourgeios) are eventually pushed out by bigger fish, and have to become workers themselves (called proletarianization).
Sedan 10 points a month ago
How do you make sense of people whose labour is the primary source of their income and who also have a material interest in the maintenance of private property, such as home-owning middle-class people.
As I understand it—judging by the name of this community—we are discussing socialism.
Under socialism, there is no middle class. In the USSR, a manual laborer earned a higher salary than an engineer or a doctor—unless, of course, the latter was a professor.
If a worker performed their job well, they received an apartment free of charge.
As for what you are writing about socialism—viewing it through the prism of capitalist terminology—it strikes me as, at the very least, both strange and incomprehensible.
orioler25 -9 points a month ago
This is my first time engaging with this community (I think) and it is surprising to see comments like this. Home-ownership was used here because it references real, commodified material resources (land, shelter, etc.) which is only able to be owned by someone through specific social and property relations. While a 401k might be another example of private (I'm not sure what distinction you're referencing, but it certainly isn't materialist) property, as in a material thing that individuals claim exclusive access to, its dependency on financialization and abstraction from material value makes it a bad example for how property ownership specifically functions in relation to material resources and social/political systems.
orioler25 -5 points a month ago
Roleplaying games are a form of entertainment where people will act in the role of some fictional character, typically in a fantasy world, with others; like Dungeons and Dragons.
My use of it here is both as a joke and a genuine expression of disappointment in the lack of real engagement with socialist scholarship and ideas I've seen in this brief interaction.
Sir_Premiumhengst 5 points a month ago
But hur durr! Who gives you the money to do all these things? HaVe YoU sAiD ThAnKyOu?!
SocialistVibes01 4 points a month ago
I'm still new. Doesn't /c/Socialism have a policy against brainwashed edgy kids?
plyth 3 points a month ago
Let's not say anything. They create circumstances that ensure their payments.
Workers have to understand what the oligarchs do so that workers can create structures that ensure that workers receive what they deserve.
CommanderCloon 3 points a month ago
No? If there was no hospital CEO there'd still be a need for healthcare and people to provide it. Same goes with everything.
gandalf_der_12te -16 points a month ago
plants do all the growing thus all the food should belong to plants
gandalf_der_12te -7 points a month ago
wait i have a picture for u
although i don't get how that's related to my comment
wait wait wait after thinking about it for several minutes, i got it. it's because plants don't have a consciousness so nothing can belong to plants. however i'd like to interject that a similar situation arises with children who aren't considered able to make their own decisions in many situations so others make them for them, however the decision must always be in the interest of the child. likewise, one could argue that while humans hold the plant's output, they must use it in the interest of the plant.
gandalf_der_12te -9 points a month ago
actually yeah, being high can be a surprisingly good source of getting new ideas. they don't always have to make sense at first, but they get filtered after getting sober.
if you want to be a good writer, you should give it a try i think. or are you strictly anti-drugs?
calmblue75 3 points a month ago
I don't understand whether you're comparing plants to humans or workers to plants.
Ravenheart 3 points a month ago
Capitalist objections to socialism always end up being more of an indictment of capitalism than socialism. It's hilariously ironic.
gandalf_der_12te -5 points a month ago
yeah i think they treat the worker's labor output like the fruits of the plants
diabetic_porcupine -19 points a month ago
Sounds good but who’s going to organize all the infrastructure that makes all these jobs possible in a functioning society? The people? They’re too busy doing all the work..
dessalines 21 points a month ago
Assuming this is serious: There's a slew of jobs that aren't part of commodity production, but still vital: organization, administration, management, transportation, distribution, maintenance, point-of-sale workers, etc. They make up a smaller proportion of workers, and are paid out of the surplus value created by the commodity producers, because they're still 100% necessary for production.
test_ 7 points a month ago
Well put, but at that point is it even surplus value? Loosely speaking, if they perform necessary labor in the supply chain, and they're paid a fair rate (money to live on, not get rich on), wouldn't their wage count as part of the cost of production?
dessalines 8 points a month ago
It's an issue that Marxist economists debate about. We have ways of calculating the costs for machine depreciation (so we can factor maintenance into surplus value), but it can get really difficult, or is sometime impossible, to calculate things like the value that a transport worker adds.
Meanwhile for commodity / direct producers, surplus value is an easy calculation: worker value added - wage paid.
There's also the issue that transportation and point of sale workers are in different economic sectors, in many different countries, which has implications for their place in the class struggle. John Smith's I imperialism in the 21st century gets into some of these.
Cowbee 8 points a month ago
I think one of the better explanations is to view production along the entire supply chain as the production of the commodity, not just in the moment of a factory. Socially necessary functions all require socially necessary labor, and this amalgum of socially necessary labor and raw materials forms the commodity. A commodity is not just a commodity in itself, it is a commodity that has been transported, advertised, and sold. It does get more complicated to calculate, but you can also break it down into its constituent elements.
Sedan 1 point a month ago
It’s an issue that Marxist economists debate about.
Comrade, surplus value has absolutely nothing to do with current production costs.
Surplus value is the capitalist's profit—nothing more.
According to Marx, surplus value is the value created by the unpaid labor of a wage worker—over and above the value of their labor power—and appropriated gratuitously by the capitalist. It is the hidden source of all forms of unearned income: entrepreneurial profit, commercial markup, bank interest, and ground rent.
In the USSR, there was no surplus value whatsoever; any "surplus" consisted solely of taxes earmarked for social benefits and similar expenditures.
Consequently, goods in the USSR cost a mere fraction of what the very same goods cost in the West.
Surplus value is the very mechanism by which capitalists grow rich—it is money out of thin air.
dessalines 6 points a month ago
Who did?
QinShiHuangsShlong 17 points a month ago
On the off chance this is serious.
The government.
QinShiHuangsShlong 18 points a month ago
In a capitalist society, this is impossible to implement.
Obviously but I wasn't talking about capitalist society.
Sedan 1 point a month ago
Are you saying that in China, the oligarchs are socialist, while in the West, they are capitalist?
No, Comrade—I am referring to the kind of socialism you are talking about: the kind of socialism that can coexist with capital.
I already gave you my answer in the previous post—having already realized you were from China, based on the characters in your username. You should understand what I meant.
Axolotl_cpp 4 points a month ago
looks at the comunity name Mmh socialism...
diabetic_porcupine -7 points a month ago
You mean… the oligarchs?
QinShiHuangsShlong 12 points a month ago
No, the government. "The government" as you likely imagine it is in fact made up of 2 components.
Is the government: The organ of administration and organisation necessary in all advanced societies.
Is the state: The organised arm of class rule. This exists so long as class antagonisms exist.
"The oligarchs" (the bourgeoisie) are an issue due to the fact that in capitalist countries they control the state and rule over the other classes. The aim of communists is to seize control of the state and then wield it to repress and proletarianise the bourgeoisie until only a single class remains. Once there is only one class, the proletariat, and all the means of production are publicly owned the state withers away (ceases to exist) as there are no longer any class antagonisms, however the government as an organ of administration and organisation remains as it is necessary to oversee and organise all of the publicly owned goods and services.
Sedan 0 points a month ago
No, the government. “The government” as you likely imagine it is in fact made up of 2 components. Thank you for enlightening me, Comrade...
Is the government: The organ of administration and organisation necessary in all advanced societies.
Yes, that is exactly what I said: for a government to function effectively in the sphere of social development, the dictatorship of the proletariat is absolutely essential!
The right to vote on state decisions belongs to representatives drawn from the people—those elected at the local level. The right to a real vote. That is how it worked in the USSR during the 1930s.
The only catch—as you well know—is that in the 1980s, the clause regarding the "dictatorship of the proletariat" vanished from the CPC Charter...
“The oligarchs” (the bourgeoisie) are an issue due to the fact that in capitalist countries they control the state and rule over the other classes.
And in socialist countries?... )))
The aim of communists is to seize control of the state and then wield it to repress and proletarianise the bourgeoisie until only a single class remains
It was an agonizing process; to achieve this, the USSR had to pass through "War Communism."
diabetic_porcupine -11 points a month ago
Fantasy world stuff. Sounds great in theory but when throughout human history has it ever worked?
WorldsDumbestMan 2 points a month ago
Me. Elect me!
mortalblade 1 point a month ago
as a young man, my dad worked as a mechanic in a small co op worker owned garage. Each week, the mechanics traded off managerial duties and were able to handle their business without much trouble. my dad had many jobs since then, but hes said that was probably the best job hes ever had.
go to feed...
go to feed...
Careful about stuff like this. The word "oligarch" always presents some liberal conditions by distancing the fundamental issue of private property from attention. Middle-class people are integral to this system because they have a vested material interest in maintaining property as well as the violence necessary for it to exist; they aren't "oligarchs" any more than the thousands of multi-millionaires are.
It is also contradictory to socialism to attribute systemic inequities exclusively to the actions of select individuals, not a system of power organized around property.
Edit: I'm seriously disappointed by the amount of uneducated mansplaining going on here, I won't be responding to any more comments from this community.
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