• Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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    2 days ago

    Well idk about you, but I pretty frequently make homemade soaps and breads from scratch and no pe0ople or animals were harmed at any point

    Because that doesn’t describe capitalism. The capitalist mode of production involves a business owner (capitalist) who owns the capital, and a worker who doesn’t own capital. The capital-less worker enters a “free” employment contract with the capitalist, in which the worker sells his labour time as a commodity to the capitalist to put the capital to work, in exchange for a wage lower than the total value of goods/services produced, NAD those goods/services are later sold in a free market.

    What you’re describing is manufacture, not capitalism, and it was abundant in pre-capitalist societies in which a lot of the total consumption didnt come from purchases in a market.

    • finitebanjo@piefed.world
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      2 days ago

      CApiTaLism iS WHEn uh um SlAVeRy

      I’m not going to give people the time when they’re arguing with dictionaries. I live in a capitalism, I participate in a free market, I set the value of my own labor the same as everyone else.

      • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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        2 days ago

        I didn’t say the word slavery at any point, I specifically talked about “free” contracts. It’s the literal definition of capitalism, I haven’t made judgment or given an opinion.

        I set the value of my own labor

        No, you don’t. Your wages are limited upwards by the total productivity, and downwards by the reserve army of labor. This is well studied and measured, and the only way to fight it within capitalism collectively and meaningfully is through artificial labour scarcity, i.e. unionization

        • finitebanjo@piefed.world
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          2 days ago

          And in your imaginary socialism the concept of currency doesn’t exist? Your wages have an upward limit by the total productivity no matter the system.

          • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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            2 days ago

            Socialism isn’t imaginary, it’s materialist. The whole importance of Marx and Engels is that they defended scientific socialism as opposed to Utopian socialism. I don’t want utopias, I want real working policy.

            Wages will always have an upper limit by total productivity, but they don’t need to be driven down by a labour reserve pool of unemployed people and/or poor peasants willing to migrate and become industrial proletariat. Just guarantee employment to everyone and salaries will go up dramatically. But guaranteeing employment to everyone has only been achieved by socialist revolutions.

            • finitebanjo@piefed.world
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              1 day ago

              So you’re anti-immigration, then? Isn’t that so much more of a “fuck you” to those poor farm workers than my stance was?

              • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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                1 day ago

                I’m not anti-immigrstion because I’m not nationalist. Immigration does drive the wages down on the place where immigrants arrive, but it drives them up on the area of origin in the same way.