this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

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Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

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[–] Yllych@hexbear.net 93 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The same person can be a customer at Walmart, a worker at Walmart, and a shareholder/owner at Walmart. Class as a Marxist concept maybe made sense when you could only be a worker or an owner. But it doesn’t work in a world where you can seamlessly switch between categories, or be all of them at the same time.

Marxists when the Walmart greeter shows them his penny stocks (he is bourgeois now) walter-breakdown

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 81 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tbf, this is very loosely and poorly describing a process of socialization that is an inherent part of capitalism. Shame Marx never wrote about this in Vol 3 chapter 27 of capital.

[–] CrushKillDestroySwag@hexbear.net 31 points 2 years ago

Nobody's done the reading, everybody is just reacting to vibes.

[–] Kaplya@hexbear.net 53 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The same person can be a customer at Walmart, a worker at Walmart, and a shareholder/owner at Walmart.

You laugh but this is literally the foundational model of microeconomics: dynamic stochastic general equilibrium that they have been teaching to every econ students for the past few decades.

The economists around the world advising their governments have all been indoctrinated to some degree of this neoclassical belief.

[–] Yllych@hexbear.net 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Am I dumb or is it supposed to read like wank?

[–] Ho_Chi_Chungus@hexbear.net 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure all modern liberal "economics" is supposed to read like wank by design

[–] charly4994@hexbear.net 25 points 2 years ago

Feels like the self-selection scammers go for, anyone that would find it wank would self-select themselves out of the pool.

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 33 points 2 years ago

As a literal former Walmart greeter who got a few thousand in the Employee Stock Program, fuck this guy (and double fuck Walmart)

Getting fired by Walmart and making their Wikipedia page for it is the crowning achievement of my career.

[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 62 points 2 years ago (5 children)

The same person can be a customer at Walmart, a worker at Walmart, and a shareholder/owner at Walmart. Class as a Marxist concept maybe made sense when you could only be a worker or an owner. But it doesn’t work in a world where you can seamlessly switch between categories, or be all of them at the same time.

these people have rocks in their skulls

[–] LaughingLion@hexbear.net 47 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Marx expressly addresses this a number of times in his writings.

[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 23 points 2 years ago

Liberals and making arguments already explicitly disproven by books they refuse to read, NAMID.

[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 31 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"Oh you have $60 in stocks in a company, that makes you a capitalist." - people who say we don't understand economics

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[–] Rom@hexbear.net 29 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I want to see this dork seamlessly switch between Walmart greeter and Walmart owner. Just do it, if it's that easy.

[–] D61@hexbear.net 24 points 2 years ago

...and a shareholder/owner at Walmart...

Oh boy... somebody's gonna lose their shit when they hear about the different types of "shares" a company can buy/sell/trade.

[–] Rojo27@hexbear.net 56 points 2 years ago

How have we not considered the complexities of real life?ooooooooooooooh

[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 52 points 2 years ago (1 children)

aimixin:

Marxism is dialectic, it rejects absolute pure categories. Things sort of exist on a spectrum but sort of don't. The way Marxists use categories is to understand that everything is connected to each other through a series of quantifiable interconnected steps, but that something is always dominant, and this dominant aspect is what determines the overall quality of the thing in question.

If you're trying to shove everything into a pure category of absolutely worker, absolutely capitalist, then this is just a useless endeavor. When we talk of "worker" or "capitalist," we don't mean it as if these are pure categories, where a worker can't ever own capital, or that a capitalist can't ever do labor. They may do these things, they may exist somewhere in between. But clearly at some point, certain characteristics become dominant over others. Clearly Jeff Bezos's class interests are not the same as a minimum wage worker, as the latter likely has next to no capital while the former has far more capital than he could ever, by his own labor, afford.

There is no reason to try and shove this person you're describing into a specific absolute box. If they're a salaried worker who runs some very small business / self-employment on the side as supplemental income, you could just say they're a worker with petty bourgeois characteristics. You don't have to say they're absolutely "petty bourgeois" or a "worker". You can just describe that they have characteristics of multiple categories. No reason you cannot do this.

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 51 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Notice that none of them have read Marx. They've just found a secondary source they choose to believe. One that aligns with their baby political biases.

[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Peterson is the perfect example of this.

Spent 6 months prattling on about how he was gonna debate Marxism into the ground then when somebodybasked him what parts of marks writing he disagreed with was like "oh I haven't actually ever read anything by Marx"

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[–] Cummunism@hexbear.net 41 points 2 years ago (1 children)

a whole subreddit of people who can't take a scientific theory (that was meant to change and evolve) and apply it to current day. also you can tell most of them read the Manifesto at most.

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 38 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Half of them can't even differentiate between the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie. I don't think they even read the wiki for the manifesto. Just reddit comments.

[–] Cummunism@hexbear.net 23 points 2 years ago

they think today is totally different because service industries are much more prevalent. Service industries don't suddenly change the owners of the means stealing from the people who actually produce the work.

[–] axont@hexbear.net 35 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Real question, if these dorks don't believe classes exist, what do they think the function of a state is? Is there some other conflict within humanity that states mediate? It's probably some kind of dogshit like that racism simply happens for no reason, or criminality just comes from nowhere.

What is supposedly the reason states exist within a neoliberal framework? Because if classes aren't something that are real, why is a state even there? Capitalism can't chug along without one?

[–] yuli@hexbear.net 33 points 2 years ago (1 children)

racism is just caused by people having misinformed ideas on race, and criminals just don’t properly reason about their actions or are immoral. the state exists simply to protect everybody’s human rights, which are established through rational discourse and proper argumentation. class interests? boorswasee? those are old bad ideas, now we have better ones like stakeholder capitalism <3

[–] axont@hexbear.net 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That really is the crux of their whole worldview, isn't it? Some people are dumb-dumbs and some people are smarty pants and it's the responsibility of the smart people to argue about why they should own everything.

They only conceive of conflict as misunderstandings, or improper education. They can't see inherent conflict in material terms.

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[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 34 points 2 years ago (5 children)

The meaning of classes has been almost completely destroyed by a bunch of people who would be in debt if they missed a paycheck not wanting to admit they're working class.

There's no class solidarity among the working class because people who make 50k a year wanna feel superior to people who make 20k who wanna feel superior to people on medicaid.

Meanwhile rich liberals know not to do too much to rock the boat and won't actually meaningfully oppose the oppressive system that made them rich.

[–] Tachanka@hexbear.net 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

a bunch of people who would be in debt if they missed a paycheck not wanting to admit they're working class.

there's also the opposite problem of petit bourgeois exploiters wanting to pretend they're working class because they have a "job" which consists of owning a couple of laundromats and renting out a 2 bedroom suburban home to some tenants

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[–] Barabas@hexbear.net 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Capital, Volume III introduces some analysis on this topic, but Marx's conclusion seem to imply that if you have a single dollar in 401(k), you are bourgeois, but CEO without company shares is class-traitor worker.

Marx failed to consider the 401(k) no-choice

You'd have to wonder how they don't simply self combust from cognitive dissonance when worshipping models like the laffer curve that have the scientific rigour of 'it came to me in a dream' while trying to nitpick shit like this. Capitalism didn't come fully formed with a neat date, so Marx is full of shit actually smuglord

[–] Elon_Musk@hexbear.net 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh you own 1/10000000 of a company? Guess you're in the owner class :shrugs:

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[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 24 points 2 years ago

W-2 vs Form 8949 and Schedule D (Form 1040) this shit ain't hard

Either you make your living thru wages and salary or capital gains, if you do both then you're a failed capitalist or a lucky gambling worker

For 99% of us tho, it's either W-2 or Schedule D

[–] DanComrd@hexbear.net 23 points 2 years ago (4 children)
[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 35 points 2 years ago

Class is an entirely useless metric for analysis, here let me show you by doing class analysis and getting mad because there's some nuanced edge cases to it

[–] HornyOnMain@hexbear.net 33 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Basically everything that Marx writes about capitalists is based on belief that there exists collective class interest.

Any CEO worth their salt will just fuck over their competitors if given chance, not act for good of capitalist class.

Whole idea of "reserve army of labor" is based on belief that capitalists will act to their own detriment for good of other capitalists.

this person has never heard of the prisoners dilemna

[–] DanComrd@hexbear.net 26 points 2 years ago

You are asking a typical redditor to think critically? data-laughing

[–] grazing7264@hexbear.net 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Any CEO worth their salt will just fuck over their competitors if given chance, not act for good of capitalist class.

What is cornering the market?

What is a monopoly?

What is a cartel/oligopoly?

Lolol

The purpose of a CEO is to make as much money as possible, not "fuck over their competitors", e.g form a monopoly. The path of least resistance is forming a price cartel with like one guy - i.e the immediate outcomes of early capitalism and the defining characteristics of the founding of most capitalist states.

Try getting healthy insurance or a phone plan today lmao. Try for 5 minutes to get municipal fiber in your city.

These rubes think the point of competition is to compete forever. The point of is to win.

susie-laugh

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[–] RedDawn@hexbear.net 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Regarding the first point, what does this person think the purpose of the bourgeois state is? Yes capitalists each have their own individual interests and compete with each other, but the state arbitrates those conflicts and maintains bourgeois dominance over society by enforcing the private property relations which benefit capitalists collectively to the detriment of everybody else.

[–] DanComrd@hexbear.net 16 points 2 years ago

There's clearly not a better alternative, that would be born out of capitalism. Nope, nuh uh. Clearly we just have to put up with the capitalists exploiting us until the sun hyperinflates and explodes.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

CEOs do fuck each other over, but it is unheard of for them to do this by, say, causing their competitor's employees to unionize. There are real and bitter rivalries in the bourgeoisie, but that does not mean they don't know who the real enemies are.

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[–] Hohsia@hexbear.net 22 points 2 years ago

Every day we get more and more proof why free speech was a mistake

[–] anaesidemus@hexbear.net 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Are you directly profiting from the labour of others? You are bourgeois.

Are you not? You are proletariat.

(this is an oversimplification and might be wrong)

[–] LesbianLiberty@hexbear.net 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We all profit and benefit from each other's labor, the primary difference though is whether your income is from your labor or from your ownership

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[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Marx literally addresses this. Neo Marxists have taken the concept further by considering the polarisation capital causes on a global scale through imperialism.

[–] thoro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 years ago

The Best and the Brightest, everyone.

...

These people are so fucking ignorantly smug

[–] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

What sort of a question even is that? If you need to work to make a living, you're the working class, you're a worker. If you own so much you don't need to work, you're some form of bourgeoisie.

Yes, there are some edge cases and outliers. But anyone claiming that's somehow not "a thing" is bizarre, it's just a very basic process of labelling.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago

Virgin hexbearist marxist vs Chad redditeur deboonker

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