I think you're wishing they were the same, ideologically. I'm not judging your aspirations, but I am a consumer and I am certainly not in the same socio-economic group as Amazon factory employees - even if I do support some of their struggles.
> I am certainly not in the same socio-economic group as Amazon factory employees
This is exactly the point. Socio-economic groupings ARE political. You feel your interests are different from someone making 30k/year, because of the wedges driven into the working class, but in all likelihood you have much more in common with a warehouse worker than you do with someone whos income comes entirely from their ownership of amazon. Do you worry about losing your job? How many months unemployed before you lose your house? These are things that ownership class people don't have to worry about, but you and an amazon warehouse worker both do.
Ah, well I wrongly assumed you worked. You’ve moved into the owning class and your interests have been severed from those of working people. Congrats, you’re now living off the efforts of others, and caring about those people’s fate is now fully optional for you.
You worked, you gained capital, now your capital earns you money. But to pretend that’s anything other than you owning the means of production while other people’s labour does the actual production is just a lie. If you believe you deserve the fruits of their labour because of your past efforts, that’s one thing. To pretend it’s your money producing for others… well money doesn’t produce
I built things, and now people use those things to build more things. You're the one pretending that means aren't an integral part of production. How exactly can labor be performed without means?
You're making a very basic error here in devaluing the past work of others. If you correct your error, your rather strident ideology will likely disintegrate.
Think about it, maybe take some time and build something useful that helps others. Get back to me later.
Labor is performed physically. That is the method in "means and methods." Means can amplify and enable labor not possible and or practical otherwise.
Having built a means, and let's be real here: You could have funded the labor that created whatever means we are discussing here. That's not the same as actually building a thing. Now, many who do fund things participate directly. That's great!! (and something I believe makes better "things.") You could have done that too, and or both!
Let's talk about past work:
Say we have someone who made a tool, a means to better or possible labor. The product of their labor is some degree of wealth, right?
And while we are on the topic, wealth in the most fundamental sense, is defined by time; namely, how much of a person's waking time is purposed for them. Wealthy people self-purpose most of their time, if not all of it. Poor people have most of their time purposed for them.
One product of labor is the wealth needed for people to address cost and risks associated with continuing to exist. A food store, as an example, created with tools is wealth in that a person having that food store can choose to spend their time differently, purpose it, because the demand for food is met in advance, reducing cost and risk, which makes them able to afford to purpose their time.
They could invest that in better tools, means, or pursue the arts, or just relax, play, whatever. That's what wealth actually does.
Now, having created wealth, this person frees time and or depending on the means created, may free many other people's time. That's worth something, right?
I think so.
Now, let's carry on and say this person creates more tools, means with their bounty of time. That's an investment in themselves as well as others and the benefits are reduced costs and risks for them and everyone around them. More people are more wealthy, which frees more time and with that time comes more creation, innovation, arts, culture, the works.
That society, as it develops, becomes wealthy and can advance.
Notice I don't have money in any of that?
The reason I don't, is to highlight what wealth is, how it's distributed, and what it all means for the people involved. The actual work, wealth created, wealth maintained (it comes with it's own costs and risks), are all centered on labor.
It's not about money at all. Money, in the sense that matters to us continuing to exist here as people, doesn't actually do anything meaningful at all!
(this is why many people have strong, negative feelings about people born into or marrying into money)
Money permits things like leverage, usury, and other exploitations as well as decisions about who gets what and why. It does not, in and of itself, actually create wealth. Gamblers and money changers deal in money to get more money and when that's all boiled down, it's trading favors and or committments.
Take our means, tool creator makes a lot of tools. They could just share them, and many benefit. They could loan them out in exchange for things they value, and or could require others do, say, or avoid things desirable to the creator of the tools. And if that were unjust, others would simply make their own tools.
'nuff said there.
Now, let me visit wealth and society one more time.
A great many people in our society today are poor. Very large amounts of their time remain purposed for them. No matter our station in life, we all must deal with the cost and risks associated with continuing to exist here. Ideally, one's labor yields enough wealth to fund continuing to live and even more ideally, free time to persue one's own interests.
Today, roughly half of labor in the US does not yield enough to fully fund continuing to exist and or show up for work!
That scenario, when viewed through the lens I put here, is unjust and not equitable, nor sustainable. Say our tool, means maker demands large amounts of the fruits of others laboring with the means and or tools. And say they keep it to themselves, leaving most others to labor and remain poor in that very little, if any, of their time is available for them to purpose, build their own wealth, live a little.
How does that make any sense?
The answer is it doesn't. Not in the basic, human sense we all are forced to recognize and deal with.
You are asking others to value your past work as justification for your current position in life, when the real question is more like why so many remain poor, despite arguably fantastic past works?
Money is why. Money does a lot of good, and a lot of bad too.
Funding the making of a thing is not making the thing. Labor is what makes the thing.
Funding the making of a thing is a decision to make the thing, and money is one way we make those decisions. Others might be use or threat of force (having the army make people make things), or divine right (god says others have to make things), nobility (we are more qualified to determine who makes the things), and so forth.
With me so far?
Whatever it is you have done, if you did it directly through labor, or had a hand in it as part of shared labor, does not matter. The fact that you labored does matter, and it all has value. And that's great!
Funding things also has value, but it's not the same thing, and it's not an act of creation in the basic sense of creating wealth, and this is a point the other person in this discussion made.
A point I am making is valuing past works too highly actually does harm to society overall, and I've explained why and how that can be.
You do, when you speak of value. Money is how we measure value. Your monologue is a bit like talking about how tall things are and saying you haven't mentioned a unit of measurement and therefore the meter somehow a separate concept.
Value exists independent of money. Money is a way to measure value.
> Today, roughly half of labor in the US does not yield enough to fully fund continuing to exist and or show up for work!
Or they've chosen to volunteer their labor, as I do, because they don't need more income. Or they're studying to increase the future value of their work.
> The actual work, wealth created, wealth maintained (it comes with it's own costs and risks), are all centered on labor.
This isn't true. Perhaps I'm an artist and I live through selling my inventory. Perhaps I'm living on income from a hit app I published. There's plenty of wealth that isn't centered on current labor at all, especially in the field of technology.
> You are asking others to value your past work as justification for your current position in life
No, I'm not. The valuation has already occurred, voluntarily. I haven't asked; rather others have offered and I accepted.
> Money is why. Money does a lot of good, and a lot of bad too.
Money is a measure of value which exists independent of any currency system. Money isn't a why, it's just how we measure, and an intermediary form to allow value to be fungible. Instead of trading my hammer for my living expenses, I can trade my hammer for money. Money doesn't create the value of my hammer, it just measures it.
> Funding things also has value, but it's not the same thing,
I don't agree. Investment is a type of work like any other. Funding is, at its core, a value exchange. If what you say is true, and wealth is always a measure of labor (and I don't think it is) then it is exactly the same thing -- using money as an intermediate measurement.
> A point I am making is valuing past works too highly actually does harm to society overall, and I've explained why and how that can be.
I don't think you've made this point at all, much less having explained it.
Labor is how we create wealth. It is the only way we create wealth.
Wealthy people get to purpose more of their time than poor people do.
Time is money, money is time, OK?
Wealth can be assigned a value in terms of money.
Now, those who created the means expect to be valued and for the means to have value.
The basis for that value is the additional wealth per labor unit the means makes possible. As for their value... let's just call that a promise or suggestion of mutual benefit in the future and leave it there.
A great creator, innovator will make others around them wealthy, unless they require too much for having done the work. This is not hard to see.
With that in mind, let us further assign a dollar amount to all of that. Once we do, then we also assign dollar amounts to labor so they may be traded with greater efficiency and or flexibility.
With me so far?
When the dollar amount of that past work output is valued high, it can be said the greater percentage of wealth created by labor goes to those who own the means, tools.
Value too high, and labor fails to deliver enough value for the laborers. It may cost them more to perform the labor than said labor delivers to them.
And there is the harm done.
It may make more sense for laborers to abandon that expensive, though productive means, and secure more value per unit of labor, despite being less productive, and or potentially non compliant. They may simply employ the means and pay less, or nothing too, creating conflict.
Regardless of what the law is, or any of us may say or feel, the human costs and risks always present themselves and must always be met, or the people cease to exist.
Given how undesirable ceasingbto exist is, society often makes up the difference via subsidy, assistance of various kinds. This mostly assures more compliance, and does cost everyone.
And there you have increased crime, black markets of various kinds driven by people whose labor fails to generate enough wealth relative to their costs and risks associated with their existence and or showing up for work.
Taking money out of all that would look the same, just without the dollars.
It might look like that owner of the means having a large food store, or requires too much compensatory labor for their benefit, leaving the others in town poor, in that their labor fails to meet their collective costs and risks, which leaves them time poor, and therefore not wealthy, despite a means of being more wealthy available.
> Labor is how we create wealth. It is the only way we create wealth.
No. As noted above, wealth is also generated from capital. Sometimes in conjunction with labor, sometimes not.
> Wealthy people get to purpose more of their time than poor people do.
No. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. A better way to phrase this is that some people produce more wealth per unit of time than others.
> Now, those who created the means expect to be valued and for the means to have value.
No. I would say that the means are valuable, objectively, and independent of the desires of their creators. The focus on expectations here is irrelevant.
> And there is the harm done.
No. The value is not a subjective moral figure, it is actual. It represents actual utility, actual demand.
There is much greater harm done by ignoring these types of objective economic truths -- the kind of harm that reliably destroys societies and causes mass famine and death.
> or the people cease to exist.
This is why we have what's called "tax and spend capitalism," where we take a significant portion of gains and use them to provide a safety net.
I've paid roughly half of all of my life's production in taxes, and much of this goes to providing these safety nets. I've additionally written grants and made other large gifts to support others. The amount I have left to live on might be less than 10% of the value of my work product.
Your suggestion that we might need to ignore basic economic realities to provide for others simply doesn't follow. We don't need to do things that way and when we have, historically, it has never succeeded.
>wealth is also generated from capital. Sometimes in conjunction with labor, sometimes not.
No, it is not ever created with
capital.
Capital does not have agency. It is a vehicle for the product of labor. By itself, it is nothing.
This can be confusing and hard to see. Take it back to basic principles and it becomes much easier.
>Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. A better way to phrase this is that some people produce more wealth per unit of time than others.
I do not believe you understood.
Our lives are roughly divided into thirds. One to sleep, one to work, one to live.
When costs and risks are high, more time is required to meet them, and when unmet, people cease to exist.
Poor people's lives are basically two thirds work, one to sleep. Essentially, very little time not purposed for them. They work all the time and have no choice in the matter.
This can also be expressed as having little to no free agency.
Very wealthy people have almost none of their time purposed for them. This can be expressed as having almost entirely free agency. They may work all the time, or be at leisure. Their choice.
But of course it is. If I spend a year writing a book, ownership of the book is now capital. I may sell copies of the book (in digital form to keep things clear) for decades to come. The capital resource in this case generates income without additional labor on my part after its construction, and no labor on anyone else's part, ever.
> I do not believe you understood.
I do understand.
Your perspective stems from a measure of free agency. Mine stems from a measure of relative value.
Your perspective is useful when reasoning about moral issues related to overwork. For example, we should provide for those who cannot provide for themselves - so they do not cease to exist as you put it.
It is not so useful when reasoning about how to value the actual work output.
It is capital. It is also a means. And it is a book.
Now you sell copies, right?
Capital did not sell copies. You did, and you had to labor to do that.
In the digital case, literally thousands of people and their labor copy, distribute and take payment for your book. It takes a lot of people to maintain that network your book is on.
Capital can amplify labor. That is a tool, device, mechanism.
Capital can compensate others for labor too.
What it does not do is create. That is what people do. That is what labor is.
This is reductio ad absurdum. According to you, all things are labor because they somehow intersect with a world in which labor is performed, no matter how slight the effect.
In reality, I do not labor when someone orders something from my online store. The process is automated. The income is passive.
In fact, according to your line of argument, capital investments are labor too. Even if we accept the argument (which I don't) it utterly counters your position.
The reason the labor on your book sale is small is because the labor of many others was amplified and aggregated. It is passive to you, but the margin taken from your sale is paying other people.
Technology is an amazing thing, isn't it?
Your hard year of labor to make your book will see more readers, at a lower cost per acquiring readers than was possible before!
I do not follow your capital investment argument. Go ahead, put it out there. What are you thinking?
Let's talk it through.
This is a fairly high value conversation. It always is every time I have it.
Ideally, we build to a point where very little labor is required. We will have created great wealth!
Which brings me back to how we value people, labor, etc...
Some of us will still be doing the basics. Should those people not see some greater measure of that in their lives? Clearly, we will be able afford it.
In any case, using some Latin does not change the hard facts though. I am stating a fact to you. It is not opinion.
>Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. A better way to phrase this is that some people produce more wealth per unit of time than others
How we value labor, other things matters.
Say we talk about the people who make our shit dissappear, cleaning up, etc...
Much of this work is done at a loss to those who labor to do it. They are poor, having to labor most all of their time.
Without them, the cost to us is much higher. Having to manage our own shit, where to store it, who takes it away, amd so forth. Doing that work would deny us our time, we would be less wealthy, and or need to pay more to have these things done, make arrangements, and forth.
Further, our current society is one that requires, does not even provide for people not doing that work. Essentially, no matter what any of us says, a large number of us will be doing that work.
How then is that work not valued well enough to provide for those doing it? We all have the same hours, and theirs very seriously improve our ability to make use of our time each day.
Which is it?
Do we value them enough to insure their labor is not performed at a loss?
Or, if we are to subsidize their labor, and any reason is fine, how come it must be so painful, looked down upon, seen as some crime or failure to obtain this subsidy?
You write about basic economic realities.
The fact is, how we value things, why we value them matters and those valuations are not physical laws. Economics is not an objective science either.
Perhaps we place too high a value on some things and people, while ignoring value on other things and people.
None of this says we need to work for others, but it does strongly suggest we could be valuing things a bit differently and arrive at a much better overall outcome for people than we see today.
>I've paid roughly half of all of my life's production in taxes, and much of this goes to providing these safety nets. I've additionally written grants and made other large gifts to support others. The amount I have left to live on might be less than 10% of the value of my work product.
Without specifics, and there is no need for them here to be clear, your emphasis on capital as means to create wealth speaks to your work product actually being compensation for a number of other people laboring to create wealth, in addition to whatever labor you contributed.
What really happened there is a lot of labor was performed, wealth created and the laborers compensated for your use of their time for something you then own.
At no time did capital create anything. Labor did.
As for paying for safety nets, of course! A lot of people labored on your behalf, and ideally their compensation for that labor was enough for them to meet their costs and risks and maybe have some left over for their own purposes.
A lot of people labor as much as they can, and that does not happen. This makes those safety nets quite expensive! And it can be objectionable. When the product of labor is high enough to accumulate capital, should hose actually creating it at least not be doing so for less compensation than it costs them to perform the labor?
Secondly, why should others subsidize all that? They have their own purposes to get after.
>Your suggestion that we might need to ignore basic economic realities to provide for others simply doesn't follow. We don't need to do things that way and when we have, historically, it has never succeeded.
I made no such suggestion. What I did do was clarify both the nature of wealth and how is is created.
I then spoke to value and potential harm, and benefit. One harm is mentioned above, and that is the overall increase in everyone's cost and risk due to underfunded labor.
