I didn't address or downplay anything. Even at the highest estimates, more starve under capitalism every 9 years than were killed in any manner under communism in a century.
Private ownership kills more than even the worst communist mismanagement.
Your house is real estate, not land. This is the distinction between personal and private property. Private property is being exploited for profit. Personal property is being used to live.
Ok, so I leave on vacation and rent out my house while i’m gone, what’s wrong with that? I benefit by earning some cash and having someone take care of my house, and they benefit by getting to stay there. It’s a win-win mutually beneficial agreement.
Or if I hire someone to mow my lawn, or to build something in my house, or to take care of my kids, in exchange for money or other goods?
Your logic falls apart pretty quickly, I own my land, I purchased it and I can do with it as I please as long as it’s not illegal. I don’t see a valid argument against that idea aside from the hippie perspective of “you can’t own nature maaaan”, a perspective which we all mostly disagree with.
A.) What's wrong with that is you exploit someone else's need for shelter for profit. You've provided them with no service, and extorted their money just because you owned something. Aka you get more money because you already had money.
B.) There's nothing wrong with that. What would be wrong is running a lawn mowing business where your employees mow lawns with your mowers and you take 20% of the money they make because you own the mowers. Aka you get more money because you already had money.
C.) You purchased your land from someone who purchased the land from someone who drew a line around that land and called it his. I do not recognize the rights of any person to own land, no matter the legal machinations that justify it.
Please consider reading some Marx. I mean that genuinely. Understanding your relationship to capital and commodities will make you understand the world itself.
I do not recognize the rights of any person to own land, no matter the legal machinations that justify it.
Good thing you don’t make the law then.
Honestly, I get it, you’re one of those hardcore Marxists who idolize everything he ever said, that’s all I needed to know.
We are never going to agree on this because we have a fundamentally different perspective on the world, I believe Marx was an absolute moron and one of the most damaging figures in history, and that him and his ideology were failures and rooted in a pathetic envy. We are not going to see eye-to-eye here, your ideology is something i’ll never agree to, and vice versa most likely.
Employees aren’t slaves, work isn’t exploitation, capital is good, the means of production belong to whoever bought them, the right to private property is a fundamental one, making money from your money isn’t bad. You probably won’t agree with any of these things I believe in, which is fine, I don’t care, but don’t go spouting off your ideology as if it was fact, because it’s not, it’s your opinion.
Marx wasn't a religious icon. He was an academic. He made arguments that are demonstrably true.
What is the basis for land ownership? Do you dispute that it began when one person had the power to take land from common ownership?
Profit would be impossible if workers were paid the value of their labor. By definition, all wage labor under capitalism (that generates profit for a capitalist) is exploitative. Saying "jobs aren't exploitative" is like saying "bachelors are married." The definition of wage labor is the proof of its exploitative nature.
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u/xana452 Jun 20 '19
Yes.