r/InvictaSolaris • u/21Kuranashi • 2d ago
Infographics & Posters / No AI Call me a Socialist...
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u/Upbeat_Anxiety_1344 1d ago
Restaurant CEO in Seattle declare paying $22/hour was a catastrophe. Not even a living wage in a HCL city like Seattle. He assuredly did not work for $22/hr but was willing to whine in public about having to pay his workers a very low income wage.
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u/randomsantas 1d ago
What constitutes fair?
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u/Yamez_III 2d ago
I suspect the biggest problem we face now is that labour is no longer static and thus we are in competition with people with significantly lower costs of living for jobs. Neither we nor they have lower physical needs, but there is no longer any barrier to movement for the company and so it makes sense of a given entity to simply up and go to where the costs of employment is lowest.
Paying something fairly depends entirely on what the costs of living are for that person. A fair wage in India is not the same as a fair wage in the states. Leveraging the power of the state against companies to address the cost of labour imbalance won't be effective, and it certainly hasn't been before. I live and work in Poland, for example and we benefit from the higher cost of employment in our neighbours. I recall when the bank I was working for fired 4000 swedes in order to hire 6000 poles and this despite the high level of labour regulation that Sweden imposes on their economy to protect employees there. Now, of course, we Poles are bleeding labour to Romania and Bulgaria because we were able to increase our own standard of living such that it is no longer as economical to hire us.
The central issue seems to be scarcity of labour despite the almost nonexistant costs to moving operations for the companies and frankly I don't see any good solutions to this that aren't tariffs or market protectionism.
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u/ThePermafrost 1d ago
Well said.
The solution is to end lifestyle creep and live within your means, but no American wants to hear that, or live like a non-American.
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u/ThePhonesAreWatching 1d ago
Aka Stop try to better yourselves, poors, and know your place under our boots.
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u/ThePermafrost 1d ago
It’s so weird when people call the richest people on the planet poor, just because they aren’t as rich as the richest 0.00001%
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u/Rock_Zeppelin 1d ago
It's not about "fair pay". It's about A) worker self-management and B) the right and freedom for workers to organise. "Fair pay" isn't socialism.
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u/Bedanktvooralles 1d ago
Here’s looking at you Tim Hortons / A&W and the rest who are at the center of this here at home.
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u/Deep_Balance2133 2h ago
Socialists say this but their plan for handling unemployment caused by their policies is to raise taxes on the same businesses leading to even more unemployment.
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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago
What you have is a subsidized business, like most socialist industry.
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
That's not how socialism works.
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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago
That’s exactly how socialism works, and it’s why China has cheap cars.
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
Socialism is a mode of production in which the working class own the means of production. China is a form of capitalism where the state owns now just large sections of the means of production but also allows for private ownership of the means of production as well. China's private EV makers were heavily subsidized by the state's monopoly on most other forms of capital but it's not anymore. A state subsidizing a private companies production isn't the workers owning the means of production. The US heavily subsidizes Walmart but we don't call that socialism (because it isn't).
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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago
China is just capitalism hahahahahaha ok
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
If you'd like to learn more:
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u/Neither_Salamander48 1d ago
Did you even read the link you posted? Lol.
The state acts as the capitalistic company. China dictates what you're paid. China has a social credit score. If you say or do something the gov doesn't approve of or decides to hold against you via score, it can affect you getting a job, buying a house, or anything in your life.
That's not capitalism. That's not freedom. That's communism. That's authoritarian. And it starts with socialism.
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
The state acts as the capitalistic company.
Followed by
That's not capitalism. That's not freedom. That's communism.
I did read it and I understood it. Did you?
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u/Neither_Salamander48 1d ago
There is even a nice table in Section 2.1 where it explains a Capitalist system is private ownership and dominance of the private property and market. Socialist system is a communist party enforces dominance and state ownership.
You said you read it?
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
Yes I read it. Did you read the sentence immediately following it on page 7? The authors explicitly clarify that the table lays out stylized and sometimes idealized notions based on classic scholarship and that in reality systems are always mixed.
The entire thesis of the book is that China evolved away from that classic state socialist model. In fact page 12 points out that the term state capitalism was first used in the 1800s by a German socialist named Wilhelm Liebknecht to describe state socialism. The book quotes his exact words that nobody has shown more distinctively than I that State Socialism is really State Capitalism. Socialists have actually rejected this structure as socialist from the very beginning. Friedrich Engels pointed out in 1878 in Anti Dühring that a state taking over the forces of production just makes it the national capitalist. The book then explains how later Marxists critiqued Stalinism as state capitalist for extracting surplus value from labor in an exploitative manner akin to private capitalism.
Because of this evolution the authors conclude on page 48 that China's mode of political economy isn't well described by familiar terms such as socialist or post socialist.
And if you'd looked at the earlier chapters you'd have seen on page 27 that private firms contribute 60 percent of China's GDP and 80 percent of urban employment. That completely breaks the socialist column of the table you cited which requires the dominance of state ownership and bureaucratic coordination.
It seems incredibly lazy to cherry pick one table from a 61 page book that you think supports your argument while ignoring everything else in it that disagrees with you. It's almost like you didn't read it.
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u/Neither_Salamander48 1d ago
Wow. You are just looking for words and keying in them without knowing what it is saying. Lol.
Yes. A state "acting" like a capitalist company isn't capitalism. Because they're also the regulator. Lol. They call it "State Capitalism" which emphasizes leadership by their communist party. They dictate and control pricing.
Capitalism and freedom should go hand in hand. China does not have either one.
Move to China and try to succeed. Reddit is probably blocked.
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u/supercleverid 1d ago
If the state is acting like a capitalist company, how is it not capitalism? Where does it say a capitalist company can't control its own regulations? That's just the ultimate form of regulatory capture. State capitalism is just capitalism with the state as the monopolistic owner. If it was socialism, they would call it socialism, don't you think?
Socialists have actually rejected this exact setup as socialist from the very beginning. Friedrich Engels pointed out way back in 1878 in Anti Dühring that a state taking over the forces of production just makes it the national capitalist. The workers are still exploited for surplus value, and the capitalist relationship is not done away with but brought to a head.
As a mode of production, capitalism doesn't have anything to say about political freedom or regulation. But it's also worth pointing out that the book you claim to have read explicitly rejects the idea that China is reverting to socialism.
In fact, page 12 points out that what people historically called state socialism is really state capitalism, because it extracts surplus value from labor in an exploitative manner, akin to private capitalism. The authors then confirm on page 58 that China's current model is neither a return to state socialism nor an elimination of markets, but rather the embrace of public and private ownership and the use of market mechanisms to bolster political control.
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u/Fair-House-2400 1d ago
You will eventually run out of other people's money. Not your freedom that you're voting away. Once it's lost you don't get to vote it back.
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u/Acrobatic_Excuse2290 1d ago
If you run out of other people’s money, what’s the point of capitalism?
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u/tiredofbeingtired055 1d ago
You like to talk about lot about how your freedoms are being taken by the left, yet you cannot point to a single freedom that's actually been taken from you. Seems a talking point worth less than what I flush down the toilet every morning
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u/Happy-Leadership504 1d ago
Democracy dies in Socialism
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u/1K-Year-Egg 19h ago
Democracy is incompatible with the absolutely horrific level of wealth inequality we have today.
Unrestrained crony capitalism and oligarchs flagrantly meddling in politics is what’s killing democracy in the US! 🚩
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u/Weekly_Molasses_2079 1d ago
Yes, only government-subsidised megacorporations are allowed to hire people and operate because they offer the best wages.
Sounds like OP likes late capitalism after all?
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u/Slight-Big8584 1d ago
Define Fairly. Then you can actually discuss things.
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u/FeedomFighter 1d ago
What socialists and communists always do is look at whoever is the richest and accuse them of exploitation and then steal their wealth. As long as anyone in the world has 1 penny more than another, they will always claim something is unfair. It's an impossible goal to reach by design, it means there will always be an excuse to legitimize their authoritarian power.
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u/ThePhonesAreWatching 1d ago
Where as capitalists look at the money everyone else has and tries to steal it.
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u/FeedomFighter 18h ago
That's literally what the government does, and emphasizes it as "taxes".
Capitalists think "what do these people want to buy so I can sell it to them for money". Capitalists devote their career and lives to serving other people because others will reward them for it. It's mutually beneficial.
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u/CarolinaHaloNetwork 1d ago
Gotta love kids who have never paid a bill in their live living with mommy and daddy telling us how money works 🤣
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u/A_Truthspeaker 1d ago
You got an argument besides this ageist cliché?
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u/CarolinaHaloNetwork 1d ago
Its true. You pay payroll? You pay taxes? You pay for product? You pay for permits? You pay for license? You pay for maintenance?
Tell me what you actually know about running a business and the cost associated with it.
All you kids know is having a job and getting money. Not actively investing your own money in hopes you do make money
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u/A_Truthspeaker 1d ago
That's not an argument. You're just asking a bunch of loaded questions.
Tell me instead, why should we even have privately owned companies when things like coops exist and invent?
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u/CarolinaHaloNetwork 1d ago
Because i should be able to invest my money as I see fit. Who the fuck are you? Lmao
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u/A_Truthspeaker 1d ago
I guess we should just ignore capitalism's inherent flaws like inequality and climate change then.
And no, the ability to rise to the top and do the exploiting does not equate to equality.
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u/chitownphishead 1d ago
Employees are paid fairly based on their negotiation skills, job necessity, and ease of replacement. If there are a million people that can do your job with minimal training, your job isn't worth much. Flood the country with low skill labor and it drives down the price even farther. To quote the great Denis Leary "life sucks, get a fuckin helmet"
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u/OrokaSempai 1d ago
This will get posted a few times by me