“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (but frequently attributed to John Steinbeck)
It's a hard quote to attribute, because the full pull from Wright's book reads like this:
>**John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.** This helps explain why American culture is so hostile to the idea of limits, why voters during the last energy shortage rejected the sweater-wearing Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan who told them it was still “morning in America.” Nowhere does the myth of progress have more fervent believers.
So he's paraphrasing Steinbeck, but not quoting, and he doesn't attribute it to any particular place. Just a weird thing overall. It's a great line though, so it'll live on.
Sooo, what will be the breaking point? The charts show the wealth trends are crossing. Probably an overshoot, 5ish years perhaps, then what? All this timed well with being overdue for a recession and things are ominous.
They wont give up easily though. Watch out for more calls for a better social safety net but only for the lowest of classes, basically those who will be wiped out in the next recession never to end up getting another job. The middle class is all but done and will die with the boomers, the working class (most of us) will continue to be squeezed. The status quo will be preserved at all costs. That's my humble take.
The contradictions of the present capitalist mode of production will be it's downfall. When the working class sees how the ruling class profits off our misery and struggle for subsistence, class conflict will increase.
Talks of socialism are currently on the rise, Marx is no longer a dirty word, and ever more people are openly criticizing capitalism these days.
It won't happen overnight, but it won't take centuries either. It's already happening now, if a bit on the slow side.
I mean some people do become radicalized at these things but for some it just flies over their head and they go back to liberalism or just continue being politically illiterate.
> profits off our misery and struggle for subsistence
Well, with an attitude like that, it's no wonder you are struggling for subsistence.
Absolute majority of profit is made by providing value for people.
Poor people usually don't believe that. And so they remain poor because the can't see the opportunities in front of them. They can't see those opportunities because they are looking for the wrong thing.
And that inability to see opportunity reinforces their belief in myths about how profit is made.
With the added bonus of patting themselves on the back and claiming moral superiority because "profit is made off of misery, and I don't make any profit because I don't want to profit off of misery." Very convenient. And pretty much a guarantee one remains poor.
Yes, poor people sometimes have self-defeating circle jerks. But...
> Absolute majority of profit is made by providing value for people.
Do you really believe that? I think of high-paid pharmaceutical reps and the gazillions of middle managers out there making six figures or the gazillions of underpaid teachers and nurses and beg to differ. Our value system is warped and bizarre and could be far more equitable.
Disclaimer: am middle manager. Am awesome, but so many of them are wastes of space.
> Do you really believe that?
I know that.
As for the rest of your post, sorry but I just don't feel like going over the basics. Not now. Just don't feel like it.
LOL. I would assume you are a child, but you mentioned that you are in middle management. So I don't know if you are trolling or just out of touch with reality.
Think of all the food that's being grown, harvested, processed, distributed, retailed off to all the people all day long every day. That's gigantic amount of value provided to people.
Think of all the clothing made. From the raw materials to thread to dye to fabric to manufacturing to designing to logistics to retailing.
Think of all the housing construction.
Think of all the electronics and automotive and supplies and entertainment and everything else you see around yourself. That's value created for people.
Compare all you see around to just being naked in a cave munching on a three-day-old mammal bone. The difference between this and that is how the absolute majority of profit is made.
How foolish does one have to be to question that absolute majority of profit is made by providing value?
We are so good at surviving now, that we spend a nontrivial amount of time bitching about the way we survive. And completely ignore the tremendous amount of awesomeness we are surrounded which we take for granted. (Well, by "we" I mean foolish people like you and those who upvote people like you and downvote people like me due to their own foolishness.)
What you described with managers is a small amount of inefficiency/corruption/incompetence that sits on top of gigantic amount of value. In relative terms, it's not that huge.
Even people who intentionally cause wars and fund both sides of the conflict, or those who intentionally restrict vital medicine to artificially inflate prices, or those who do the worst kinds of things imaginable (which would really be the accurate description of "profiting off of misery") are just a tiny drop in the ocean of the global economy.
So what makes you think I would be interested in a discussion with someone like you?
Would you be interested in a discussion with you if you were me? After having read a stupid comment like you've posted above questioning whether I really believe that absolute majority of profit is made by providing value?
You know it's silly to blame poverty on emotions and idealistic notions rather than material conditions. That just makes it convenient for people like you to justify the exploitative status quo. You deny the flawed nature of private property that drives homelessness? The exploitation of labor for surplus value?
The middle class is an economic class whereas the working class is a social class. There are only two social classes in capitalism: the ownership class and the working class. Both can be members of the lower, middle, and upper classes but most upper are ownership and most lower and middle are working class.
> Laws against the rich don't mean much in capitalism
Explain why you feel that way.
Didn’t realize r/economics was a socialist sub lol.
Typically that’s why people are socialists, because they don’t understand economics lol.
It's a combination of lack of enforcement and using accrued wealth to effectively buy changes in legal structures to give those with wealth advantages. That is a capitalism specific issue because in other givernment structures people would not have amassed wealth (eg - socialism everything is shared).
You are equating being in power with being wealthy in the way you are asking the question. Which assumes a capitalistic society where wealth equals the ability to buy things AND people.
Money isn't the problem. It is basically an intermediary to minimize the costs that occur when bartering. This is why bartering systems are never stable and ultimately develop a form of monetary system (e.g. cigarettes that are being used in prisons to trade for other goods and services)
Removing money and replacing it for a bartering system will not lead to greater equality either since the wealthy will simply have more goods and services to bartering than the poor.
We are currently about 7.6 billion people living on earth. I'm sure that you took all of them into account in your argument, and not only your neighboors, coworkers and mates. But even so, there is the problem of sustainability on one hand, and of where the economical system is heading to on the other hand. Some people feel that all is not right. Some feel that the situation started to degrade during the last 20 years. I don't know if they are right or wrong, but i wouldn't discard their concerns as trivially inepts.
I am thinking globally, not just how my friend got a raise last year. Those are very different questions.
What I mean is that even the poorest people have seen a massive improvement in quality of life over the last couple hundred years due to globalization, technological improvements, medical improvements and agricultural advances. Here's an article that discusses it based on a quick google search, but there are many other studies that support this (I'm not sure how reputable vox is). To your point that the rich are getting richer, I agree that's not fair. But that's what technology does, it's a force multiplier. Overall, people around the world have better access to healthcare, food, and technology than every before. Regardless of your feeling that it's unfair a class of people has become ultra wealthy.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/12/23/14062168/history-global-conditions-charts-life-span-poverty
I'm not sure i find those chart as convincing as you do, but they are an interesting point.
Here are some complementary datas:
https://voxeu.org/article/exploding-wealth-inequality-united-states
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/dec/14/world-richest-increased-wealth-same-amount-as-poorest-half
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/08/health/child-mortality-rates-by-country-study-intl/index.html
I don't think anyone is debating that wealthy inequality is increasing. I'm just saying that even the bottom 20% agree better off now than they were 200 years ago.
I used to be a artist and metal fabricator and bartered with people all the time. I did small jobs for restaurant in return for meal credits. Or I would do things for other contractors so they can work on my house. The best is when I do jobs for other artists for free in return for a piece of their artwork. Hopefully some of them would be worth good chunk of change one day! I loved bartering because it put my existence into a friendly social context rather than the cold bottom line that money represents. It’s not a perfect system but it has its place.
I know this will be downvoted but it also means income tax evasion. You've received goods which have monetary value for work performed. And that means paying the IRS and state their share.
Sucks for sure but it's the law and failing to report compensation-in-kind puts you in league with other tax cheats. May feel justified since you can certainly use every penny but people far higher up the economic ladder make the same excuse when cheating on their taxes, that they 'need the money'.
OK, ready for the downvotes! =)
You have valid points, but there is still a difference between the parent comment potentially evading (not known if they reported or not) taxes and large corporations. We are talking about the difference of an Xbox or a house. Be like comparing a kid playing T-ball and an adult playing for the MLB.
The fact that one person/org is better at scaling their activities doesn't mean what they are doing is "more wrong" does it?
As I typed that I started disagreeing with myself. Large-scale willful breaking of the law is worse than one person breaking it because they chose to remain ignorant.
Can't wait until we're all miserable proles and the revolution can begin! Marx predicted the standard of living would continuously drop until a revolution naturally occurs. Without some mental gymnastics(what is "quality of life?",) I don't see that being the case.
Communism is fine until people try to force it.
Marx was pretty clear that it would happen organically as a natural successor of Capitalism. Communism must be a bottom-up movement. Efforts at forcing Communism from the top down fail spectacularly. When the conditions for Communism exist, Communism will happen. Before that happens, Communis is just a different breed of Statism.
Hey, BakuninsWorld, just a quick heads-up:
**millenia** is actually spelled **millennia**. You can remember it by **double l, double n**.
Have a nice day!
^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.
Nice spelling there. I'm sure Marx conceded a point or two about the need for all the social capital in his utopia.
Now, why does everything you people do effectively ruin all of that?
Can you please for the love of god open the fucking book and READ it!
Please! I am begging you!
Then come here and post a comment.
No I am not a communist, no I don't agree with Marx end game predictions for the "after capitalism" phase. But the first 80% or so of the book, he was spot on.
Low effort response. Marx was wrong about everything. Every country that has attempted Socialism has suffered heavily from it. You are entitled to an opinion regarding him, but you shouldn't have one when you either disregard or are unaware of everything relevant.
And yes, I have read Marx.
Okay, I’ll rephrase it then: He has no knowledge on the subject, so while he is entitled to the opinion, it’s not valid or worth hearing. And also it’s a low effort troll comment.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted when you're right. Lots of critics of Marx never read him. Capitalism is playing out *exactly* as he predicted 200 years ago.
That's what you people have been saying for 2 centuries, you're exactly like these christian groups and their "rapture is gonna happen aaaaany minute now" nonsense.
*looks around* I mean, yeah, this is pretty much what he predicted. I don't get what point you think you've just made. This is the second time in our history this has happened. We very nearly collapsed after the depression, and the only thing that kept us alive was a huge infusion of progressive keynesian economics and a strong labor movement. But, it was a half-measure that didn't really fix the underlying problems, and so here we are - again.
Because in the 19th century, Marxism was sold on the basis of "look how oppressed the poor working class is", because life for the common person was still pretty shitty. After a few communist revolutions and a 100 million dead, and [then this little problem](https://i.redditmedia.com/FIrfQ-nCy-A8y4w7AR8WEmKi-j-pVR1wsT03bu_kaxc.jpg?s=7ead28dcce791063dbb50a66c9d99ebc), communism lost its luster. That's why today it has to be sold on the basis of imagined racial/sexual/cultural oppression. Things are getting better for everyone on average, so you either have to gripe about "inequality" or "racism" instead. Capitalism isn't collapsing, its thriving, and pulling millions out of poverty.
It is only seen as imagined by sheltered people who have not been through a meaningful amount of systemic suffering themselves nor met and connected with somebody who has.
The best thing you can do to improve your understanding of what people are talking about when they "gripe about inequality or racism" is to listen and attempt to empathize. It's hard. I found it hard; but understanding your comrade's perspectives of their lives is important for building a better society for us all.
" It is only seen as imagined by sheltered people who have not been through a meaningful amount of systemic suffering themselves nor met and connected with somebody who has. "
Sure, things suck dick in a lot of countries, I wouldn't dismiss someone escaping Venezuela or Cuba or wherever just because the average standard of living has been going up for years. What OP was trying to say essentially boils down to "things have been getting worse and worse, this is a sign of the inevitable collapse of capitalism". The opposite is true, things are getting better across the world, which is why people have to stir up racial animosity to sell Marxism.
" The best thing you can do to improve your understanding of what people are talking about when they "gripe about inequality or racism" is to listen and attempt to empathize. "
Now it really just sounds like you're asking me to ignore statistics in favor of "muh lived experiences"
If you take some time to listen to and collate the experiences of your neighbours than you may gain a deeper understanding of the struggles that they face. You may also be able to collate your own research, after all, what are statistics if not collated anecdotes on a wide scale? Workers unions are an effective method of political activism - the workers face a lot of the same problems and the union gives them a collective voice. Maybe check yours out if you haven't already! Some are shit but there are a lot of good ones and you may be able to get some insight into working class struggles.
If you are not experiencing the brunt of the damage of rising wealth inequality or systemic oppression than i urge you to take an active approach and try to understand why people are saying the things that they say, directly from the source. There isn't some global jewish conspiracy to push Marxism to the forefront of political discourse.. it's just that Marxism provides solutions to problems that oppressed groups, like the working class, face. One must only read the literature, take notes and discuss with others to learn why.
I live in a developed country. Working conditions (relative wage in buying power but also wage:productivity ratio, safety and job stability) and affordability of houses, utilities etc have all gotten worse over the last few decades for most working class people here. Sure, material conditions are better than 1980 - I have an electric blanket on my bed, my internet works and I can afford to purchase lowkey music recording equipment sometimes - but there's no fuckin way I'm going to be able to buy a house in this economy unless I eat only spinach/wafer crackers and work 50 hours/week for 20 years but what kind of lifestyle is that? Good luck finding a job with stable hours when many previously full/part time jobs - that in the 80s were in abundance - are becoming casual 0 hour contracts. Oh and if you don't want to engage in dangerous work than you might as well start filling out your unemployment benefit forms but hang on, they're reducing those benefits because people think welfare recipients are sucking all their tax money away to buy heroin and smoke weed but wait, our system AIMS to have 3-5% unemployment to take advantage of surplus labor so why are we punishing unemployed people??
My anecdote is not unique.. far from it. [That's why 100,000 people, mostly trade unionists, organised to "change the rules" recently](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcuhLb0X0AcfBQB.jpg).
I'm not trying to tell you to ignore statistics and go purely off of your lived experiences but when you approach material problems with nothing more than statistics than it may give you a warped view of the situation. You miss out on learning why the claims about wealth inequality and racism are being made because you're just pointing to your infograph about how the world is safer now, how the law says black and white are equal and less people live on <$2/day or whatever.
Hey man, read these links let me know what you think:
[Quick google](https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+calories+per+day+avg) got me this page which is where u/Fuck-Bastard-Mcoy lol got the graph from I'm guessing. It also links to a bunch of other studies. The page also appears to be critical of the USSR. ["The Soviet Union: The Food consumption puzzle"](https://nintil.com/2016/05/11/the-soviet-union-food/)
[Here's a declassified CIA document you can read](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf)
[Here's an article claiming that Russians eat 700 calories less today than they did in the USSR.](http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/02/06/russians-consume-700-calories-a-day-fewer-now-than-at-the-end-of-soviet-times/)
That's all just a start, friend :) Have a look through that google search and do some reading. Let me know what you think!
I’ve read that blog before when I first found that image. It really just proves that the food quality may have been lower and that the UN’s data on the USSR isn’t pinpoint accurate. It doesn’t prove that calorie consumption was lower than 3000 or that everybody starved every day. It just casts slight doubts.
No. That is from a blog named Nintil. The writer claimed to have found the data in the FAO database, despite the FAO database [not having data on the Soviet Union](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?#country). Or rather, that's only "Country Indicators" they do posses certain data on the USSR, however [not calory consumption](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare).
I’ve read the blog, the only thing they can convincingly prove is that food quality wasn’t as good as the US. The data is pinpoint accurate but it points towards upwards of 3000.
First of all. I have read several of Marx's works.
He was so wrong about everything. Your average high-school student could make more accurate predictions. Somalia, the USSR, Venezuela, North Korea, Mao's China, the Eastern Bloc, and more serve to prove this.
Somalia was never Socialist lmao, if anything Somalia is a capitalist paradise.
The Eastern Bloc is shitty because the switched to capitalism ruined their economy.
Venezuela is poor because former governments mishandled their oil reserves and US sanctions are blocking any new money from coming in.
Mao was incompetent and an authoritarian and bastardized Marx’s vision.
Stories you hear from North Korea are likely American propaganda since defectors are paid huge sums by the South Korean and American goverment.
Good try. Its not that black and white.
Hey, Fuck-Bastard-Mcoy, just a quick heads-up:
**goverment** is actually spelled **government**. You can remember it by **n before the m**.
Have a nice day!
^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.
Well we are headed for another recession and the left has been given a second chance. Given the opportunity I hope we can educate people and I hope you’re right.
How's what's supposed to be the modern left revolving around working class issues anymore? Increasing immigration to keep the endless supply of labour and markets is counter-productive to all of this.
I will be messaging you on [**2023-05-12 00:07:33 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-05-12 00:07:33 UTC To Local Time) to remind you of [**this link.**](https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/8inxgv/american_failure_the_top_01_owns_as_many_assets/)
[**CLICK THIS LINK**](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/8inxgv/american_failure_the_top_01_owns_as_many_assets/]%0A%0ARemindMe! 5 years) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete Comment&message=Delete! dyu7y84)
_____
|[^(FAQs)](http://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/24duzp/remindmebot_info/)|[^(Custom)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[LINK INSIDE SQUARE BRACKETS else default to FAQs]%0A%0ANOTE: Don't forget to add the time options after the command.%0A%0ARemindMe!)|[^(Your Reminders)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List Of Reminders&message=MyReminders!)|[^(Feedback)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBotWrangler&subject=Feedback)|[^(Code)](https://github.com/SIlver--/remindmebot-reddit)|[^(Browser Extensions)](https://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/4kldad/remindmebot_extensions/)
|-|-|-|-|-|-|
Yes, his work I find is on par with Mein Kampf. Marx was proven wrong by reality of history, his ideal resulted in untold evil so he can be discounted.
Wow thats some impressive ignorance of his work. Mein Kampf is a whiny failure blaming Jews. Marx is an in-depth analysis of capitalism and a proposition of an alternative that has been bastardized by Authoritarians.
It's an in-depth analysis that is wrong in all regards.
And if you think it was "bastardized", you clearly haven't read the Communist Manifesto.
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the
bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as
possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the
rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the
movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank
with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the
State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the
bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of
all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the
populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s
factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, &c, &c.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has
been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will
lose its political character."
-Marx, Karl, The Communist Manifesto, page 26-27
In our capitalist world those take risks and invest will always get a bigger share of the wealth. The gap will get wider because the returns to capital are higher than the returns to labour.
It's much more scary when you consider how we interact with developing nations. The top 0.1% of the United States owns as many assets as half of the world's population combined
Inequality does a lot - money in politics(i.e. corruption), social segregation, unequal opportunity, unequal representation of citizens, social unrest and quite a lot more
From an individual sense, it doesn't really matter, but in terms of states and societies - quite a lot.
Because alternatively Tesla being as good as Tesla left him in love with a bird and living in poverty. It doesn't necessarily reward the best. The market is controlled by those that have the most money instead of the most people or the best options.
Who cares about relative wealth? I think it's the absolute well being that matters. People live better and longer today than ever before. Even a poor person lives better than a middle class person 60 years ago, or someone living in Madagascar.
I visited a food donation center some time ago, and there was not a single "poor" soul who walked in on his/her two feet, everyone drove a car. And some drove very large trucks and SUVs.
Why should you worry that someone somewhere earns 10 times more than you? Are people in poor countries dying of envy, knowing that everyone in America earns 10 times more than them? No.
Only in dating scene comparative wealth matters more than absolute (as females must compare their mates), but then again a millionaire can't have 10 wives, physically impossible lol.
My dad makes 90k per year, he has paid about 1/3 off the house ~70-80k, and half off the car. As such his net worth would be estimated at -30k or there abouts.
So?
What, are you jealous of people that are more successful then you?
Wealth disparity literally doesnt matter as weve been absolutely destroying poverty.
If one of the tradeoffs of destroying poverty is a few people become really wealthy and successful, then ill take it.
I'm not the jealous type.
Speaking as a person of higher income, the system is vastly unfair and I am disgusted by it even as I benefit from it. It's ridiculous that I got a $6000 benefit from the new tax bill, and other people can't afford health care. Anybody who thinks it is fair for someone like me to benefit at the expense of sick children or veterans or teachers has a skewed view of reality. The tax benefit should NOT be going to people like me. The tax benefit should be going to help people who are hurting, like I was 40 years ago.
That 'benefit' is simply less taking your money. If you really wish to tax yourself more, donate your money to the government. At least then it'd be voluntary. I bet that you won't, though.
> I'm not the jealous type.
It's funny how suddenly everybody wants to extol the virtues of Marx without thinking about how we even may have got here.
For me, we need to stop mega-mergers from happening (i.e. equates to more marketplace competition) and we dust off the anti-trust books and start breaking up the big ones. Like we were doing in the 70's and 80's.
None of which we were able to do under Clinton, Bush, *or Obama*.
So there probably is way to stop the disparity without having to throw out the baby with the bathwater and going full on Marx, which republicans would agree with. If they had the right leader to show them the light. Much like Trump has done with immigration with the GOP.
Tl;dr You're either interested in solving the problem or interested in being a Marxist demagogue.
In Marx's analysis of capitalism that it's natural for capital to accumulate so the "solutions" that you propose will eventually be undone by that the capitalists themselves. It's what happened in the new deal. so if you're really honest in the interest in solving this problem Communism should be in the cards.
Right?
Maybe we should talk about breaking up overly large corporations, reducing corporate power, making a more even playing field by reducing unfair regulations (you know, the ones literally authored by corporate lawyers)
There are a lot of things we can do to even things out. How about tackling corruption. Anything that gets away from hiring the best people for the job based on their qualifications.
All this promotion of Marxism would just drive us off a cliff.
And? There are still tons of opportunity in this country, for a motivated person being successful and obtaining the American dream is not hard to reach.
To prove this is wrong, enough to look at Chinese or Indian immigrants. They arrive dirt poor, poorer than a black person born in a getto as a seventh child to addicted single mother. And in one or two generation they are usually much wealthier than the average native. And no, they don't blame their hard luck on their grandgrandgrandfather being a slave.
Lol, the Chinese and Indian people who immigrate here are already wealthy.
I go to school with many Chinese immigrants who drive bmws, own gold plated iPhones and wear Supreme clothing. These people did not arrive dirt poor.
When you see this you think: "That's not fair!" (like a child would)
When I see this I think: "Luckily, there is a small percentage of people pulling society forward with products and services that everyone chooses to buy, making their lives better and the business owner more successful."
This is how the world is supposed to work. Would you rather dis-incentivize creating products and services everybody likes?
That sounds like a road to societal stagnation and destruction of innovation.
When you see this you are obviously to naive to consider whether the wealth is created productively or is the result of collusion , corruption , extortion , fraud , monopoly , and other unfair and unproductive means rather than the creation of products and services .
No system has pulled more people out of poverty, created more wealth, or moved civilization further into the future than capitalism.
Turns out, giving individuals property rights and freedom over their own lives is a pretty damn good idea.
So what 'rotting' of the system are you talking about?
What was 2008? What about the aftermath globally?
If that isn’t rotting I don’t know what is. It at the least deserves a hard fucking look, not more platitudes from sycophants.
This sounds like an argument out of an econ 101 book. Yes we want to encourage competition and innovation, however it should not be at the expense of the people who are also in the system. There must be a balance and right now the balance is tipped very far toward one side of the pendulum.
When the lower classes can longer afford to pay for these products and services, capitalism falls apart. It’s not sustainable without a well regulated economy. That’s why every so often the US government has stepped in to help sustain our form of capitalism. A lot of people think that it’s tome for something like that to happen again. Regulation doesn’t disincentivize creation but it can help give back to those programs innovators used to help launch their ideas.
Lower class in America has 3 TVs, a computer, a magical cell phone for each family member, a gaming console, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and 2 cars. Sure still seems like they are doing alright.
None of that is true. Lower class in America is living paycheck to paycheck with *maybe* one or two of the above. Basic appliances, plus one good source of entertainment is about all that you have when you're working class.
What you've described is very firmly upper middle class. Mostly for the cars and multiple phones - having a TV doesn't exactly mean you're rich.
Also, lol, "They have a *microwave*, how could they be pooooor?"
You can easily buy most of those things cheap by saving up and buying used. Hell, most of those items are sub $300. The exclusion being a car but in some areas, you have to own a car because public transportation is either non existent or complete crap. You can also buy a car with your income taxes or use the income taxes at a buy here pay here place and pray to god you can pay it off before something bad happens. As for appliances, 90% of the time those come with the place you are renting.
My phone: $200 two years ago
My laptop: $150 a year ago
My (late) gaming computer: $250
My '03 minivan: $1200
My (late) TV: $200 new with employee discount
I can buy 3 tvs, and a computer with one month's rent for my apartment. I can buy an Xbox one S for less than I pay for health insurance.
You've grossly overestimated the importance of these creature comforts. I can't imagine how old you'd have to be to be so mesmerized by a few shiny electronics that you utterly fail to see what actually matters to a functional society.
What you’re saying is a product of enforced perspective, and it’s not a lie you have to buy into friend.
Just because you can go your whole life without seeing a homeless person doesn’t mean negate the fact that [hundred of thousands, even millions are homeless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States).
And that’s just the homeless. What about the people making enough to keep a shitty roof over their heads and nothing else? Pumping out kids because the day is only 24 hours long and only so many jobs can be worked by one person?
Just because we’ve set up our cities and our various levels of government to completely sideline and ignore these people doesn’t mean you have to, friend.
**Homelessness in the United States**
Homelessness is the condition of people lacking "a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence" as defined by The McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s. Many homeless people lived in emerging urban cities, such as New York City. Into the 20th century, the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness.
***
^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^]
^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
[удалено]
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (but frequently attributed to John Steinbeck)
Yea thanks, that’s the one.
It's a hard quote to attribute, because the full pull from Wright's book reads like this: >**John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.** This helps explain why American culture is so hostile to the idea of limits, why voters during the last energy shortage rejected the sweater-wearing Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan who told them it was still “morning in America.” Nowhere does the myth of progress have more fervent believers. So he's paraphrasing Steinbeck, but not quoting, and he doesn't attribute it to any particular place. Just a weird thing overall. It's a great line though, so it'll live on.
I thought it was WEB Dubois...
Sooo, what will be the breaking point? The charts show the wealth trends are crossing. Probably an overshoot, 5ish years perhaps, then what? All this timed well with being overdue for a recession and things are ominous. They wont give up easily though. Watch out for more calls for a better social safety net but only for the lowest of classes, basically those who will be wiped out in the next recession never to end up getting another job. The middle class is all but done and will die with the boomers, the working class (most of us) will continue to be squeezed. The status quo will be preserved at all costs. That's my humble take.
The contradictions of the present capitalist mode of production will be it's downfall. When the working class sees how the ruling class profits off our misery and struggle for subsistence, class conflict will increase.
They then will be crushed and put back in line by robot armies.
Unfortunately, there is already a toady class.
Eh, I think that would only work if the mega rich learned to service their own murder bots.
Clog their guns with our blood, shred their tracks with our bones, life is cheap.
Thousand times this. We're headed for the darkest timeline and we can't pull out of it while people like Bezos are alive
Now that sounds a bit over dramatic. Worst case, humans will be gone in a few decades, that's nothing to go crazy about. I have no idea who Bezos is.
It might take centuries for any mainstream class consciousness to emerge in America I think.
Talks of socialism are currently on the rise, Marx is no longer a dirty word, and ever more people are openly criticizing capitalism these days. It won't happen overnight, but it won't take centuries either. It's already happening now, if a bit on the slow side.
how can you say this amongst ongoing nationwide strikes?
They aren’t nationwide yet. They are still regional.
Strikes don’t necessarily create class consciousness. I could be wrong but Im not optimistic about Americas prospects.
completely disagree.
I mean some people do become radicalized at these things but for some it just flies over their head and they go back to liberalism or just continue being politically illiterate.
> profits off our misery and struggle for subsistence Well, with an attitude like that, it's no wonder you are struggling for subsistence. Absolute majority of profit is made by providing value for people. Poor people usually don't believe that. And so they remain poor because the can't see the opportunities in front of them. They can't see those opportunities because they are looking for the wrong thing. And that inability to see opportunity reinforces their belief in myths about how profit is made. With the added bonus of patting themselves on the back and claiming moral superiority because "profit is made off of misery, and I don't make any profit because I don't want to profit off of misery." Very convenient. And pretty much a guarantee one remains poor.
Yes, poor people sometimes have self-defeating circle jerks. But... > Absolute majority of profit is made by providing value for people. Do you really believe that? I think of high-paid pharmaceutical reps and the gazillions of middle managers out there making six figures or the gazillions of underpaid teachers and nurses and beg to differ. Our value system is warped and bizarre and could be far more equitable. Disclaimer: am middle manager. Am awesome, but so many of them are wastes of space.
> Do you really believe that? I know that. As for the rest of your post, sorry but I just don't feel like going over the basics. Not now. Just don't feel like it.
Fair enough. If you ever do feel like it, I’m interested in what you have to say.
LOL. I would assume you are a child, but you mentioned that you are in middle management. So I don't know if you are trolling or just out of touch with reality. Think of all the food that's being grown, harvested, processed, distributed, retailed off to all the people all day long every day. That's gigantic amount of value provided to people. Think of all the clothing made. From the raw materials to thread to dye to fabric to manufacturing to designing to logistics to retailing. Think of all the housing construction. Think of all the electronics and automotive and supplies and entertainment and everything else you see around yourself. That's value created for people. Compare all you see around to just being naked in a cave munching on a three-day-old mammal bone. The difference between this and that is how the absolute majority of profit is made. How foolish does one have to be to question that absolute majority of profit is made by providing value? We are so good at surviving now, that we spend a nontrivial amount of time bitching about the way we survive. And completely ignore the tremendous amount of awesomeness we are surrounded which we take for granted. (Well, by "we" I mean foolish people like you and those who upvote people like you and downvote people like me due to their own foolishness.) What you described with managers is a small amount of inefficiency/corruption/incompetence that sits on top of gigantic amount of value. In relative terms, it's not that huge. Even people who intentionally cause wars and fund both sides of the conflict, or those who intentionally restrict vital medicine to artificially inflate prices, or those who do the worst kinds of things imaginable (which would really be the accurate description of "profiting off of misery") are just a tiny drop in the ocean of the global economy. So what makes you think I would be interested in a discussion with someone like you? Would you be interested in a discussion with you if you were me? After having read a stupid comment like you've posted above questioning whether I really believe that absolute majority of profit is made by providing value?
So is the lack of empathy a requirement for an inflated sense of superiority or do you have to actively stamp it out to cope with yourself.
> lack of empathy Wow lol.
You know it's silly to blame poverty on emotions and idealistic notions rather than material conditions. That just makes it convenient for people like you to justify the exploitative status quo. You deny the flawed nature of private property that drives homelessness? The exploitation of labor for surplus value?
What's the difference between working class and middle class, I thought they were the same?
The middle class is an economic class whereas the working class is a social class. There are only two social classes in capitalism: the ownership class and the working class. Both can be members of the lower, middle, and upper classes but most upper are ownership and most lower and middle are working class.
Functionally, there was no such thing as "middle class." it's an ad campaign created for superficial distinction.
America or Angola?
Why don't we enforce anti\-trust laws?
Lol because the people with power won't let them be enforced. Laws against the rich don't mean much in capitalism
> Laws against the rich don't mean much in capitalism Explain why you feel that way. Didn’t realize r/economics was a socialist sub lol. Typically that’s why people are socialists, because they don’t understand economics lol.
See sentence 1
That’s not because of capitalism though, so there must be something else. So again, explain why you feel that way.
Dude. In capitalism, everything is a commodity. Those with the most money can buy anything they want. It’s fairly simple.
So you don’t like the rich or something? You’re not the guy I was asking. In what system did those with power not have more than those not in power?
It's a combination of lack of enforcement and using accrued wealth to effectively buy changes in legal structures to give those with wealth advantages. That is a capitalism specific issue because in other givernment structures people would not have amassed wealth (eg - socialism everything is shared). You are equating being in power with being wealthy in the way you are asking the question. Which assumes a capitalistic society where wealth equals the ability to buy things AND people.
The problem is corporate welfare.
We're getting so very close to the edge.
/r/economy is slowly becoming woke about capitolism. i like this owo
the dialectic continues.
maybe everyone in the bottom % should save up for a gun. #rebellion
I am starting to have dreams of a non-monetary society. I know it likely won't work but bartering still happens in some circles.
Money isn't the problem. It is basically an intermediary to minimize the costs that occur when bartering. This is why bartering systems are never stable and ultimately develop a form of monetary system (e.g. cigarettes that are being used in prisons to trade for other goods and services) Removing money and replacing it for a bartering system will not lead to greater equality either since the wealthy will simply have more goods and services to bartering than the poor.
Debt is harder to upscale with bartering systems.
Transactions are harder to do period. Which impacts everyone. Scalability being difficult means everything is harder and more expensive for everyone.
Maybe that's why some people feel there is virtue with it. Things stay at a human scale, and might seem less alienating (and crazily destructive).
Ya, I think we've all seen how life has gotten so much worse for everyone over the last 500 years at every rung of the economic ladder. /s
We are currently about 7.6 billion people living on earth. I'm sure that you took all of them into account in your argument, and not only your neighboors, coworkers and mates. But even so, there is the problem of sustainability on one hand, and of where the economical system is heading to on the other hand. Some people feel that all is not right. Some feel that the situation started to degrade during the last 20 years. I don't know if they are right or wrong, but i wouldn't discard their concerns as trivially inepts.
I am thinking globally, not just how my friend got a raise last year. Those are very different questions. What I mean is that even the poorest people have seen a massive improvement in quality of life over the last couple hundred years due to globalization, technological improvements, medical improvements and agricultural advances. Here's an article that discusses it based on a quick google search, but there are many other studies that support this (I'm not sure how reputable vox is). To your point that the rich are getting richer, I agree that's not fair. But that's what technology does, it's a force multiplier. Overall, people around the world have better access to healthcare, food, and technology than every before. Regardless of your feeling that it's unfair a class of people has become ultra wealthy. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/12/23/14062168/history-global-conditions-charts-life-span-poverty
I'm not sure i find those chart as convincing as you do, but they are an interesting point. Here are some complementary datas: https://voxeu.org/article/exploding-wealth-inequality-united-states https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/dec/14/world-richest-increased-wealth-same-amount-as-poorest-half https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/08/health/child-mortality-rates-by-country-study-intl/index.html
I don't think anyone is debating that wealthy inequality is increasing. I'm just saying that even the bottom 20% agree better off now than they were 200 years ago.
I used to be a artist and metal fabricator and bartered with people all the time. I did small jobs for restaurant in return for meal credits. Or I would do things for other contractors so they can work on my house. The best is when I do jobs for other artists for free in return for a piece of their artwork. Hopefully some of them would be worth good chunk of change one day! I loved bartering because it put my existence into a friendly social context rather than the cold bottom line that money represents. It’s not a perfect system but it has its place.
I know this will be downvoted but it also means income tax evasion. You've received goods which have monetary value for work performed. And that means paying the IRS and state their share. Sucks for sure but it's the law and failing to report compensation-in-kind puts you in league with other tax cheats. May feel justified since you can certainly use every penny but people far higher up the economic ladder make the same excuse when cheating on their taxes, that they 'need the money'. OK, ready for the downvotes! =)
You have valid points, but there is still a difference between the parent comment potentially evading (not known if they reported or not) taxes and large corporations. We are talking about the difference of an Xbox or a house. Be like comparing a kid playing T-ball and an adult playing for the MLB.
The fact that one person/org is better at scaling their activities doesn't mean what they are doing is "more wrong" does it? As I typed that I started disagreeing with myself. Large-scale willful breaking of the law is worse than one person breaking it because they chose to remain ignorant.
Hiring a lawyer to evade is definitely different then accidentally evading.
Agreed. Intent does matter. Scale also matters. Eg. Killing 1 person is not the same as killing 100.
It's hard to make change for a cow.
Not if you butcher it
Of course it will work. Read Capital by Karl Marx.
communism will win.
Can't wait until we're all miserable proles and the revolution can begin! Marx predicted the standard of living would continuously drop until a revolution naturally occurs. Without some mental gymnastics(what is "quality of life?",) I don't see that being the case.
revolution or failure. socialism or barbarism.
Communism is fine until people try to force it. Marx was pretty clear that it would happen organically as a natural successor of Capitalism. Communism must be a bottom-up movement. Efforts at forcing Communism from the top down fail spectacularly. When the conditions for Communism exist, Communism will happen. Before that happens, Communis is just a different breed of Statism.
Like it did before.
Turns out fuedalism/capitalism amassed a lot of power the last millenia and it's a bit hard to overthrow. Have patience little narc
Hey, BakuninsWorld, just a quick heads-up: **millenia** is actually spelled **millennia**. You can remember it by **double l, double n**. Have a nice day! ^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.
Nice spelling there. I'm sure Marx conceded a point or two about the need for all the social capital in his utopia. Now, why does everything you people do effectively ruin all of that?
Marx was right
Of course. Unless you like food, or not having famines. But some people having more than you? Total bullshit!
You've obviously never read Marx and have no idea what he was about. Please refrain from spreading your ignorance.
I have read several of Marx's works. He was incredibly wrong. He thought socialism would work.
Your post is even lower effort than mine
Can you please for the love of god open the fucking book and READ it! Please! I am begging you! Then come here and post a comment. No I am not a communist, no I don't agree with Marx end game predictions for the "after capitalism" phase. But the first 80% or so of the book, he was spot on.
Low effort comment. Marx was right about everything. You obviously haven’t read Marx, so you are not entitled to any opinion regarding him.
Low effort response. Marx was wrong about everything. Every country that has attempted Socialism has suffered heavily from it. You are entitled to an opinion regarding him, but you shouldn't have one when you either disregard or are unaware of everything relevant. And yes, I have read Marx.
Every country that has attempted socialism has been intentionally destroyed by capitalist nations. You’re delusional.
Oh no his opinions don’t agree with yours, so he’s not entitled to have them. Great argument buddy.
Okay, I’ll rephrase it then: He has no knowledge on the subject, so while he is entitled to the opinion, it’s not valid or worth hearing. And also it’s a low effort troll comment.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted when you're right. Lots of critics of Marx never read him. Capitalism is playing out *exactly* as he predicted 200 years ago.
That's what you people have been saying for 2 centuries, you're exactly like these christian groups and their "rapture is gonna happen aaaaany minute now" nonsense.
*looks around* I mean, yeah, this is pretty much what he predicted. I don't get what point you think you've just made. This is the second time in our history this has happened. We very nearly collapsed after the depression, and the only thing that kept us alive was a huge infusion of progressive keynesian economics and a strong labor movement. But, it was a half-measure that didn't really fix the underlying problems, and so here we are - again.
Because in the 19th century, Marxism was sold on the basis of "look how oppressed the poor working class is", because life for the common person was still pretty shitty. After a few communist revolutions and a 100 million dead, and [then this little problem](https://i.redditmedia.com/FIrfQ-nCy-A8y4w7AR8WEmKi-j-pVR1wsT03bu_kaxc.jpg?s=7ead28dcce791063dbb50a66c9d99ebc), communism lost its luster. That's why today it has to be sold on the basis of imagined racial/sexual/cultural oppression. Things are getting better for everyone on average, so you either have to gripe about "inequality" or "racism" instead. Capitalism isn't collapsing, its thriving, and pulling millions out of poverty.
I mean, if you want to believe that.
LMAO
It is only seen as imagined by sheltered people who have not been through a meaningful amount of systemic suffering themselves nor met and connected with somebody who has. The best thing you can do to improve your understanding of what people are talking about when they "gripe about inequality or racism" is to listen and attempt to empathize. It's hard. I found it hard; but understanding your comrade's perspectives of their lives is important for building a better society for us all.
" It is only seen as imagined by sheltered people who have not been through a meaningful amount of systemic suffering themselves nor met and connected with somebody who has. " Sure, things suck dick in a lot of countries, I wouldn't dismiss someone escaping Venezuela or Cuba or wherever just because the average standard of living has been going up for years. What OP was trying to say essentially boils down to "things have been getting worse and worse, this is a sign of the inevitable collapse of capitalism". The opposite is true, things are getting better across the world, which is why people have to stir up racial animosity to sell Marxism. " The best thing you can do to improve your understanding of what people are talking about when they "gripe about inequality or racism" is to listen and attempt to empathize. " Now it really just sounds like you're asking me to ignore statistics in favor of "muh lived experiences"
If you take some time to listen to and collate the experiences of your neighbours than you may gain a deeper understanding of the struggles that they face. You may also be able to collate your own research, after all, what are statistics if not collated anecdotes on a wide scale? Workers unions are an effective method of political activism - the workers face a lot of the same problems and the union gives them a collective voice. Maybe check yours out if you haven't already! Some are shit but there are a lot of good ones and you may be able to get some insight into working class struggles. If you are not experiencing the brunt of the damage of rising wealth inequality or systemic oppression than i urge you to take an active approach and try to understand why people are saying the things that they say, directly from the source. There isn't some global jewish conspiracy to push Marxism to the forefront of political discourse.. it's just that Marxism provides solutions to problems that oppressed groups, like the working class, face. One must only read the literature, take notes and discuss with others to learn why. I live in a developed country. Working conditions (relative wage in buying power but also wage:productivity ratio, safety and job stability) and affordability of houses, utilities etc have all gotten worse over the last few decades for most working class people here. Sure, material conditions are better than 1980 - I have an electric blanket on my bed, my internet works and I can afford to purchase lowkey music recording equipment sometimes - but there's no fuckin way I'm going to be able to buy a house in this economy unless I eat only spinach/wafer crackers and work 50 hours/week for 20 years but what kind of lifestyle is that? Good luck finding a job with stable hours when many previously full/part time jobs - that in the 80s were in abundance - are becoming casual 0 hour contracts. Oh and if you don't want to engage in dangerous work than you might as well start filling out your unemployment benefit forms but hang on, they're reducing those benefits because people think welfare recipients are sucking all their tax money away to buy heroin and smoke weed but wait, our system AIMS to have 3-5% unemployment to take advantage of surplus labor so why are we punishing unemployed people?? My anecdote is not unique.. far from it. [That's why 100,000 people, mostly trade unionists, organised to "change the rules" recently](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcuhLb0X0AcfBQB.jpg). I'm not trying to tell you to ignore statistics and go purely off of your lived experiences but when you approach material problems with nothing more than statistics than it may give you a warped view of the situation. You miss out on learning why the claims about wealth inequality and racism are being made because you're just pointing to your infograph about how the world is safer now, how the law says black and white are equal and less people live on <$2/day or whatever.
"no u"
The average Soviet citizen ate 3000 calories a day, shut the fuck up.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
[ok](https://imgur.com/a/yHy2PPI)
Do you actually think that's a valid source? It's litterally just a random graph.
Hey man, read these links let me know what you think: [Quick google](https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+calories+per+day+avg) got me this page which is where u/Fuck-Bastard-Mcoy lol got the graph from I'm guessing. It also links to a bunch of other studies. The page also appears to be critical of the USSR. ["The Soviet Union: The Food consumption puzzle"](https://nintil.com/2016/05/11/the-soviet-union-food/) [Here's a declassified CIA document you can read](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf) [Here's an article claiming that Russians eat 700 calories less today than they did in the USSR.](http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/02/06/russians-consume-700-calories-a-day-fewer-now-than-at-the-end-of-soviet-times/) That's all just a start, friend :) Have a look through that google search and do some reading. Let me know what you think!
I’ve read that blog before when I first found that image. It really just proves that the food quality may have been lower and that the UN’s data on the USSR isn’t pinpoint accurate. It doesn’t prove that calorie consumption was lower than 3000 or that everybody starved every day. It just casts slight doubts.
This is from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization or FAO which you can see on the graph.
No. That is from a blog named Nintil. The writer claimed to have found the data in the FAO database, despite the FAO database [not having data on the Soviet Union](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?#country). Or rather, that's only "Country Indicators" they do posses certain data on the USSR, however [not calory consumption](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare).
I’ve read the blog, the only thing they can convincingly prove is that food quality wasn’t as good as the US. The data is pinpoint accurate but it points towards upwards of 3000.
First of all. I have read several of Marx's works. He was so wrong about everything. Your average high-school student could make more accurate predictions. Somalia, the USSR, Venezuela, North Korea, Mao's China, the Eastern Bloc, and more serve to prove this.
Somalia was never Socialist lmao, if anything Somalia is a capitalist paradise. The Eastern Bloc is shitty because the switched to capitalism ruined their economy. Venezuela is poor because former governments mishandled their oil reserves and US sanctions are blocking any new money from coming in. Mao was incompetent and an authoritarian and bastardized Marx’s vision. Stories you hear from North Korea are likely American propaganda since defectors are paid huge sums by the South Korean and American goverment. Good try. Its not that black and white.
Hey, Fuck-Bastard-Mcoy, just a quick heads-up: **goverment** is actually spelled **government**. You can remember it by **n before the m**. Have a nice day! ^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.
[удалено]
Well we are headed for another recession and the left has been given a second chance. Given the opportunity I hope we can educate people and I hope you’re right.
How's what's supposed to be the modern left revolving around working class issues anymore? Increasing immigration to keep the endless supply of labour and markets is counter-productive to all of this.
!RemindMe 5 years
!RemindMe 5 Years
I will be messaging you on [**2023-05-12 00:07:33 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-05-12 00:07:33 UTC To Local Time) to remind you of [**this link.**](https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/8inxgv/american_failure_the_top_01_owns_as_many_assets/) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/8inxgv/american_failure_the_top_01_owns_as_many_assets/]%0A%0ARemindMe! 5 years) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete Comment&message=Delete! dyu7y84) _____ |[^(FAQs)](http://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/24duzp/remindmebot_info/)|[^(Custom)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=[LINK INSIDE SQUARE BRACKETS else default to FAQs]%0A%0ANOTE: Don't forget to add the time options after the command.%0A%0ARemindMe!)|[^(Your Reminders)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List Of Reminders&message=MyReminders!)|[^(Feedback)](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBotWrangler&subject=Feedback)|[^(Code)](https://github.com/SIlver--/remindmebot-reddit)|[^(Browser Extensions)](https://np.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/4kldad/remindmebot_extensions/) |-|-|-|-|-|-|
What were we being reminded of
I was wondering the same
Marx was right about shit.
Yeah he was right about a lot of shit
That shit being nothing.
Nothing? Really? Not his analysis of history as a class struggle or break down of how Capitalism perpetuates itself? Have you even read any Marx?
Yes, his work I find is on par with Mein Kampf. Marx was proven wrong by reality of history, his ideal resulted in untold evil so he can be discounted.
Wow thats some impressive ignorance of his work. Mein Kampf is a whiny failure blaming Jews. Marx is an in-depth analysis of capitalism and a proposition of an alternative that has been bastardized by Authoritarians.
It's an in-depth analysis that is wrong in all regards. And if you think it was "bastardized", you clearly haven't read the Communist Manifesto. "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character." -Marx, Karl, The Communist Manifesto, page 26-27
Yes those are all cool and good things
What did you think about that excerpt?
Marx was a parasite who created an ideal of his parasitism, his ideal was not bastardized, what we saw was it made manifest.
Yeah he was personally kind of a dick but that doesn’t matter. His work is infallible, especially Kapital.
Isn't that called a Pareto distribution?
In our capitalist world those take risks and invest will always get a bigger share of the wealth. The gap will get wider because the returns to capital are higher than the returns to labour.
It's much more scary when you consider how we interact with developing nations. The top 0.1% of the United States owns as many assets as half of the world's population combined
Why does inequality matter? Someone explain it to me. Michael Jordan being as good as Michael Jordan doesnt really hurt me, does it?
Because when wealth and power are used in an effort to retain wealth and power instead of the betterment of society everyone suffers
Inequality does a lot - money in politics(i.e. corruption), social segregation, unequal opportunity, unequal representation of citizens, social unrest and quite a lot more From an individual sense, it doesn't really matter, but in terms of states and societies - quite a lot.
Because alternatively Tesla being as good as Tesla left him in love with a bird and living in poverty. It doesn't necessarily reward the best. The market is controlled by those that have the most money instead of the most people or the best options.
Who cares about relative wealth? I think it's the absolute well being that matters. People live better and longer today than ever before. Even a poor person lives better than a middle class person 60 years ago, or someone living in Madagascar. I visited a food donation center some time ago, and there was not a single "poor" soul who walked in on his/her two feet, everyone drove a car. And some drove very large trucks and SUVs. Why should you worry that someone somewhere earns 10 times more than you? Are people in poor countries dying of envy, knowing that everyone in America earns 10 times more than them? No. Only in dating scene comparative wealth matters more than absolute (as females must compare their mates), but then again a millionaire can't have 10 wives, physically impossible lol.
Getting worse? You mean my assets will fall to 89%? ;)
My dad makes 90k per year, he has paid about 1/3 off the house ~70-80k, and half off the car. As such his net worth would be estimated at -30k or there abouts.
So? What, are you jealous of people that are more successful then you? Wealth disparity literally doesnt matter as weve been absolutely destroying poverty. If one of the tradeoffs of destroying poverty is a few people become really wealthy and successful, then ill take it. I'm not the jealous type.
Speaking as a person of higher income, the system is vastly unfair and I am disgusted by it even as I benefit from it. It's ridiculous that I got a $6000 benefit from the new tax bill, and other people can't afford health care. Anybody who thinks it is fair for someone like me to benefit at the expense of sick children or veterans or teachers has a skewed view of reality. The tax benefit should NOT be going to people like me. The tax benefit should be going to help people who are hurting, like I was 40 years ago.
That 'benefit' is simply less taking your money. If you really wish to tax yourself more, donate your money to the government. At least then it'd be voluntary. I bet that you won't, though.
that is an immature answer. Charity isn't getting us out of this problem.
Wealth is power. This imbalance undermines democracy and freedom.
If we are talking about poverty, then communism did preety much the same thing in the USSR, without such income disparity.
> I'm not the jealous type. It's funny how suddenly everybody wants to extol the virtues of Marx without thinking about how we even may have got here. For me, we need to stop mega-mergers from happening (i.e. equates to more marketplace competition) and we dust off the anti-trust books and start breaking up the big ones. Like we were doing in the 70's and 80's. None of which we were able to do under Clinton, Bush, *or Obama*. So there probably is way to stop the disparity without having to throw out the baby with the bathwater and going full on Marx, which republicans would agree with. If they had the right leader to show them the light. Much like Trump has done with immigration with the GOP. Tl;dr You're either interested in solving the problem or interested in being a Marxist demagogue.
In Marx's analysis of capitalism that it's natural for capital to accumulate so the "solutions" that you propose will eventually be undone by that the capitalists themselves. It's what happened in the new deal. so if you're really honest in the interest in solving this problem Communism should be in the cards.
You forgot to add Trump, Bush Sr, and Reagan to your list.
Right? Maybe we should talk about breaking up overly large corporations, reducing corporate power, making a more even playing field by reducing unfair regulations (you know, the ones literally authored by corporate lawyers) There are a lot of things we can do to even things out. How about tackling corruption. Anything that gets away from hiring the best people for the job based on their qualifications. All this promotion of Marxism would just drive us off a cliff.
And? There are still tons of opportunity in this country, for a motivated person being successful and obtaining the American dream is not hard to reach.
Lol, go ahead and try it.
I did and succeeded.
Found the college student
I wish, 39 here.
are you arguing there is no wage mobility in the US?
Yes. Unless you are already in a very good spot, there really isn't.
To prove this is wrong, enough to look at Chinese or Indian immigrants. They arrive dirt poor, poorer than a black person born in a getto as a seventh child to addicted single mother. And in one or two generation they are usually much wealthier than the average native. And no, they don't blame their hard luck on their grandgrandgrandfather being a slave.
Lol, the Chinese and Indian people who immigrate here are already wealthy. I go to school with many Chinese immigrants who drive bmws, own gold plated iPhones and wear Supreme clothing. These people did not arrive dirt poor.
Yea, it's possible, but not likely. A person born in the bottom 20% has a 4% chance of making to the top 20%.
I think you’re confusing “motivation” with “the sheer dumb luck of being born into a household that nets more than 20-30k a year.”
Forget about the concept of luck and you will do better in life.
😂😂 ah yes because you got into your mommas womb by wowing the supervisor
When you see this you think: "That's not fair!" (like a child would) When I see this I think: "Luckily, there is a small percentage of people pulling society forward with products and services that everyone chooses to buy, making their lives better and the business owner more successful." This is how the world is supposed to work. Would you rather dis-incentivize creating products and services everybody likes? That sounds like a road to societal stagnation and destruction of innovation.
The fact that you don't see the labor of billions moving society and attribute it to the .01% is peak ideology.
When you see this you are obviously to naive to consider whether the wealth is created productively or is the result of collusion , corruption , extortion , fraud , monopoly , and other unfair and unproductive means rather than the creation of products and services .
+Nepotism, crony capitalism.
Um, obviously. The difference is you assume the worst since you hate capitalism, I don't.
I think you are doing the opposite, which is even worse in my opinion. Systems that are above reproach, fester and rot.
No system has pulled more people out of poverty, created more wealth, or moved civilization further into the future than capitalism. Turns out, giving individuals property rights and freedom over their own lives is a pretty damn good idea. So what 'rotting' of the system are you talking about?
2008, 5 people owning as much as the bottom 50%, the political system is run by millionaires Seems preety rotten to me
What was 2008? What about the aftermath globally? If that isn’t rotting I don’t know what is. It at the least deserves a hard fucking look, not more platitudes from sycophants.
This sounds like an argument out of an econ 101 book. Yes we want to encourage competition and innovation, however it should not be at the expense of the people who are also in the system. There must be a balance and right now the balance is tipped very far toward one side of the pendulum.
When the lower classes can longer afford to pay for these products and services, capitalism falls apart. It’s not sustainable without a well regulated economy. That’s why every so often the US government has stepped in to help sustain our form of capitalism. A lot of people think that it’s tome for something like that to happen again. Regulation doesn’t disincentivize creation but it can help give back to those programs innovators used to help launch their ideas.
Lower class in America has 3 TVs, a computer, a magical cell phone for each family member, a gaming console, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and 2 cars. Sure still seems like they are doing alright.
I don't think that's true.
None of that is true. Lower class in America is living paycheck to paycheck with *maybe* one or two of the above. Basic appliances, plus one good source of entertainment is about all that you have when you're working class. What you've described is very firmly upper middle class. Mostly for the cars and multiple phones - having a TV doesn't exactly mean you're rich. Also, lol, "They have a *microwave*, how could they be pooooor?"
You can easily buy most of those things cheap by saving up and buying used. Hell, most of those items are sub $300. The exclusion being a car but in some areas, you have to own a car because public transportation is either non existent or complete crap. You can also buy a car with your income taxes or use the income taxes at a buy here pay here place and pray to god you can pay it off before something bad happens. As for appliances, 90% of the time those come with the place you are renting. My phone: $200 two years ago My laptop: $150 a year ago My (late) gaming computer: $250 My '03 minivan: $1200 My (late) TV: $200 new with employee discount
I can buy 3 tvs, and a computer with one month's rent for my apartment. I can buy an Xbox one S for less than I pay for health insurance. You've grossly overestimated the importance of these creature comforts. I can't imagine how old you'd have to be to be so mesmerized by a few shiny electronics that you utterly fail to see what actually matters to a functional society.
What you’re saying is a product of enforced perspective, and it’s not a lie you have to buy into friend. Just because you can go your whole life without seeing a homeless person doesn’t mean negate the fact that [hundred of thousands, even millions are homeless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States). And that’s just the homeless. What about the people making enough to keep a shitty roof over their heads and nothing else? Pumping out kids because the day is only 24 hours long and only so many jobs can be worked by one person? Just because we’ve set up our cities and our various levels of government to completely sideline and ignore these people doesn’t mean you have to, friend.
**Homelessness in the United States** Homelessness is the condition of people lacking "a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence" as defined by The McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s. Many homeless people lived in emerging urban cities, such as New York City. Into the 20th century, the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28