I'm in my early 20s and make around 70k as a Software Dev, I have my own apartment...

It isn't all about you.

HAHAHA

...

No because someone always has to lose in life. I would rather it be them then me.

I never said it was I just myself as a representative of the Middle Class. What do you have to offer to the vast majority of Americans? From this thread it seems very little. The so called future you offer is not guaranteed so why bother embracing it?

Btw I'm not a right winger. I supported Bernie Sanders but I'm not against capitalism at all. I think it's the best system we've came up with.

using*

Actual healthcare, security, stability, a better public education, less war, a deeply cut defense budget, working towards better answers to climate change, a focus on science, the list goes on.

The question you should be asking is just how Capitalism offering your hypothetical children anything more than scorched earth

stopped reading there

We definitely have nothing to offer to someone who deifies their economic status like this.

Your life would probably improve under socialism anyway since your needs would be met, you'd work less often, and reap the full benefit of your labor rather than being cucked by your boss like at present. Really unless you plan on becoming a rent-collector or full in porky you only stand to benefit.

The degree to which others are required to "lose" is greatly exacerbated under capitalism. You don't seem to give a shit, but the system that exploits you is not ethical.

70k is pushing upper middle class.
You're in the minority.

>Actual healthcare, security, stability, a better public education, less war, a deeply cut defense budget, working towards better answers to climate change, a focus on science, the list goes on.

We can do all that and more within capitalism. Social democratic countries already have all that you've listed. Full blown socialism is a pipe dream that is not worth the risk for the vast majority of people, you people must understand this.

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We have a base intellectual standard around here, anything below gets bullied.

No, you can't. You can't get better healthcare with a market, you can't get a better education with charter schools, you can't defy the military industrial complex and its market strength without meeting it in turn with state strength to defy it

None of these things can be solved through capitalism, and to the majority of us, even petty "reforms". The entire structure of the US Government must change.

Full blown capitalism is a pipe dream that is not worth the risk for the vast majority of people

False we can do all that under capitalism. It's called social democracy and it's probably one of the best systems we've created that is infinitely better than some unknown called socialism which has shown itself to fail time and time again.

You've chasing pipe dreams when you can actually make real tangible changes that the Middle Class can feel straight away.

Can't wait until every country with a hot summer is unlivable in 20 years due to climate change because socialism isn't worth giving up my shitty apartment and game consoles.

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Full blown capitalism is a meme. Show me one full blown capitalist country.

I'm for capitalism under a social democratic context.

At least put the rose on, man.

To defend private property means you think it's perfectly fine if someone shows up to a machine that isn't being used with all of the resources required to use it but doesn't get to use it if he doesn't pay some random fucker who's going to set on his ass and do nothing a cut. Why do you think that's acceptable?

see you in 10 years bucko

All I can think of is that in communist areas the girls are not as fat because food is more scarce.

That's democratic socialism which is too extreme. I'm for basic social democracy aka something that actually works.

Reforms won't change things for the better, indeed the US hostially resists them under any possible means. And it mstill doesn't solve the problem of the military industrial complex, the US will turn over dead before it does anything positive.

And by then wealth inequality will be big enough it might as well already be dead, and the climate will cause another dust bowl.

Economic crash is headed into America sooner rather than later, I hopefully doubt you'll be singing Capital's praises then.

Socialism or barbarism.

Do you really think the current modes of production could continue if the third world were Nordic model socdems? Naive, to say the least. And no, you're wrong about you ever owning the full value of your labor under capitalism. Your job position only exists because it is profitable for your boss to take from you.

Your economic class is not determined by your income.

That is to cover ongoing costs like maintinence and repairs.
You would be very surprised how much that can be for an industrial grade piece of machinery.

S o c i a l i s m o r B a r b a r i s m

Fuck off
t. Scandi

We can also tackle climate change under capitalism. We don't need to destroy private property to do any of the things you guys want. Social democracy is the only forward for humanity.

Maintenance is something entirely distinct from profit; those who maintain and repair the machine are doing things to help you, while the guy who owns the machine is doing nothing of the sort.

The material decline of capitalism will do the convincing for us as the requirements for you lifestyle become impossible and the social network you rely on to survive disintegrates.

Find a higher purpose than consuming goods with the people you like.

That purpose could be becoming the greatest man you can be and advocating openly for your people. If you're white, having children is a net gain for the world. You should try to do so, and keep them in your mind as you become a reflection of wholesome, healthy life that inspires others to do the same. In this world, you build communal relationships with like minded people and don't live an atomised life.

Don't ever push this nonsense of egalitarianism, it creates the worst governments on earth. Eventually they resort to a hierarchical nationalist organisation of some kind anyway, or just inflict a tonne of suffering before an inevitable collapse. Nations absorbed with a cosmopolitan capitalism are similarly harmful, obviously that's not desirable if you have any moral character. Just think of abuses in healthcare for examples of what that can become, i.e. undereducated, negligent Haitians taking care of elderly people and leaving them to rot with bed sores. Inflated prices, etc. You should have markets in any ideal society, but they should be constrained.

As for anarchism, that just invites a foreign power to wrest control. It could only be temporary (and really not desirable imo) in anything except a hypothetical vacuum.

Alternatively, you can ride the tiger of modernity.

(Impending butthurt imminent)

The way things are going indicates that we cannot and the beast that is capital will continue to consume until we all die. You keep saying these things, that we can achieve the same kind of justice and equality under capitalism, despite the body of evidence that actually we're destroying our environment faster than ever and increased regulation in the 1st world is doing nothing for the 3rd.

Not efficiently. There's a reason social democratic countries get flooded with economic migrants. The only way they can exist is by keeping the third world, the third wold. Secondly, the minute social democracy gets in the way of the profit motive, those reforms disappear. It's why the New Deal eroded. What you are asking for is a half measure.

Somalia

The guy who owns the machine has to pay for maintinence and repairs.
Repairs is the big one. If you used his machine and broke it, he might then lose his livelihood if he cant afford to repair or replace it.

Thats why when you contract a machine shop the initial setup costs for a modern CNC machine seem astronomical.
You are not just paying for the basic costs like electricity, maintinence and wear and tear on the machine but also the chance that you might break a 5 figure machine that they would need to replace at great cost to themselves.

Having your spoiled little runts isn't doing anyone any favors

Who the fuck cares? Why is this relevant?

If socialism was of no benefit to me I wouldn't consider it worth pursuing.

Doesn't answer the question.

That depends. Do you think you're are getting you are fully compensated for your labor? Do you want to spend the rest of your life doing something that (presumably) doesn't have a direct relation to your personal needs? Do you wish to live in a world without having to bear seeing the putrescence of poverty, and all the ugliness that springs from it?

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So whats your solution besides reform? A bloody revolution? Get fucking real. Political change can be achieved, history is proof of this. Civil Rights, marriage equality, minimum wage laws, health care act, etc. I can go on.

You shit on reforms but completely ignore how effective reforms can be. What we've had in the past is wrong reform but just because some of the policies that have been enacted have been shit doesn't mean good reforms can't be put into place.

Having unwarranted self importance isn't helping yourself at all.

Caring about yourself or your own interests is "unwarranted self-importance" now?

I tried reading marx but it sounded like the ravings of a guy who has never had a job but thought he knew all about it.

Eventually it will come to that if you don't take a HARD left turn fast. It will get to the point where it becomes historical inevitability.

Remember, America has had the most violent labor history next to Russia. The future isn't any different than it would have been then, there's no reason to suggest people won't get on the streets even if it means their deaths like in the past.

The question is simply, Socialism, or Barbarism

Climate change is a product of the Capitalist system. It is a result of the systemic contradictions that Capitalism relies on to exist. It's as though you're saying "we can tackle this slavery issue under slavery."

Begone. Your idealism has no place here.

You're wrong, because private property is the cornerstone of everything that we want changed. A decent future for humanity is completely incompatible with the concept of private property as it is currently understood, similar to how private property as it is now was incompatible with feudalism. You can cling to this property form if you want but the undeniable fact is that private property has to be destroyed or else billions are going to die one way or another. If you want to fight to protect the rich man's property go ahead, but don't come crying when the mean socialists are hanging you with the slave masters you love.

You can't reform your way out of capitalism.
Read a fucking history book. It's already been tried.

Meaning "I read a bunch of stuff I didn't understand and disagreed with it."

There is zero guarantee that socialism would solve the climate change problem stop saying this.

You keep trying to assume I don't know what maintenance is. I do, you're just not getting it. If some mechanic came along and wanted to use the machine and then pick up after himself to put it in the same condition it was when he started using it your defense of private property would mean you're fine with him still having to give a cut to the owner, who again contributed nothing to the whole affair.

Thats because under communism only a handful of elites would have cars, phones or computers.

Something as extensive as 19th century journalism and covering world events, isn't a job apparently.

There's actually A guarantee. The one where you have zero guarantee, is capitalism.

You don't believe this do you

Reform is only useful insofar as the system you exist in can allow such reforms. Once we exceed capitalism ability to care for us, people will see the futility of reforms.
Also, invoking history against us is a double edged sword for you. Let us not forget that most Social Democratic reforms cam about by the force of mass Union activity, and the treat of Communist revolution in the west. They where not simply gifted to the proles from the state. Also, the very system we live in now, Liberal Democracy, had to come about through violent upheaval against the old feudalistic mode of production. Early incarnations of it failed, but revolt after revolt, it slowly succeeded in overcoming he old world.

Who said out of capitalism? I like capitalism and I want to stay within that system.

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Will the resources to make those magically disappear or something?

Is it one faggot making this thread every week?

Yeah, with violent revolution. Like the American Revolution and the French Revolution and the Meiji Restoration and the Haitian Revolution and the US Civil War.

You mean "not at all?"

If someone's immense fortune relies on keeping a system in place then they're going to first rig that system so that it can't be changed and then use a portion of that wealth to pay people to kill you if you try to change it.

Read a fucking book for Christ's sake.

It's painfully obvious you have little clue about what you are talking about.

Then reforms for what purpose?
The heart of all the issues is capitalism.
It's why your reforms fail, because when they are no longer profitable for the bourgeois to uphold, they do everything in their power to do away with them because they are no longer in their self-interest.

No, socialism has a chance of continuing climate change if the democratic combination of workers decided they would prefer continuing to use fossil fuels and adapting to circumstances than acting against climate change at a cost to their production and subsequently their QoL. It is, however, absolutely guaranteed that capitalism will continue climate change because the nature of capitalism is to crush any fragment of commonwealth it can wrap its hands around.

Any socialist org you care to name takes it very seriously. An economic system that demands sustainability over raw market profits is our only hope for solving the problem.

Forget about maintinence for a moment.

The reson why you cant just walk in to a factory and use their machines is that you might break a machine that is worth more than you could ever pay back in your entire life.
You might put someones family in to poverty because they rely on the the tool you just broke to make a living.

You did. You're asking for answers to problems that socialism in the past gave dents into capital for, dents that you think are positive.

Without that violent struggle, nothing you "like" about your bougie lifestyle would exist now, shrinking as it may be. It would be as it was in the Industrial Revolution. A sickening smoggy place, with little guarentee of safety.

Ironically, that's where we're headed now.

So you either see the need to take a hard left turn, you understand that like in the past, labor violence is inevitable, and that change can be good in the long run. Stoking the fires of an interconnected world against an exploiting class.

Or you simply ask yourself "Why should I change" to a bunch of socialists over and over again while your quality of life diminishes over your lifetime.

Involved significant struggle by armed blacks, often socialists, and violence
Involved significant struggle by labour unions, obviously socialists, and violence

read Luxembourg, or even any fucking book for that matter

Material abundance is not racially exclusive. Sure, white people (and East Asians for that matter) are generally successful and unfortunately that success creates involution/degeneration.

Our society is in what looks like a downward spiral. Just living out a consumerist life of stuffing your fat face with chips and watching Game of Thrones is not going to be fulfilling. Nihilism often results in this kind of response.

Deriving your purpose from hating people or yourself like many of the conflicted people here is similarly unfulfilling.

Ah I'm sorry but last I checked neither of those things required overthrowing capitalism. We achieved them within capitalism.

The reason i can't go up to a factory and use the machine is because a security guard will call the cops to come and beat and imprison me for doing so, assuming they don't just decide to skip all the paperwork and kill me on the spot for convenience's sake.

Having your spoiled little runts isn't doing anyone any favors

Oh look, its another "OP comes here to argue and ends up getting BTFO'd" episode

You got your reforms the serious threat of revolution from armed sections of the working class, yes

That is the STUPIDEST fucking thing I have ever read. No, that is just flat out bullshit. Why the fuck would there be BILLIONS more people who AREN'T DYING OF DISEASE than there were even a hundred years ago? It's because people don't "have to" "lose" in life. Technological and social development's entire point is to make it so that people don't have to.

This is simply not an argument.
What was achieved was only done so through the treat of upheaval. And it was only given to the Proles/Blacks/Everybody to pacify moments that threatened capitalism or the profit of capitalists.

If your system requires change through cyclical violence of people it's not actually benefiting, its failed as a system.

I mean, enjoy Pajeet taking your job and having to work for the same wage as him afterwards. What you have now is only temporary. When the time comes you will not have a choice. You will join us or die.

*reforms with the

Correct, but I was explaining why they would react like that.

Id love to walk in to an IBM factory and play around with one of those chip wafer making machines. But they are very protective of them.

After he has to train him to do it you mean

if you're with them you're not with us

Nice argument when less than a decade ago the State had to step in and collectivize the burden of all that risk like we would have done in the first place while still allowing the owners to walk away with their cuts because the system would have collapsed otherwise.

Also, there's a lot of stuff that there's no "risk" at all in providing but nevertheless requires a payment to use. See the entire notion of intellectual property.

Maybe I am a Maoist third worldist after reading this shit, Jesus Christ.

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That is a very poor analogy.

He was saying that in life some people must be losers.
Your point would only hold water if nobody ever died of disease.

Obviously even with modern technology some people die of diseases. They are losers in the medical sense.

OP, the thing is

Nobody in the world, nobody in the history of capital, has ever became more free by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were repressing them.

It's always come at the threat of working class violence exponentially growing. If your system requires change through the barrel of a gun, it's inefficient and doesn't work for anyone besides an ever shrinking handful

Especially given the context of our modernn lives. Our problems require quick response, response Capital just doesn't have the interest to solve.

is this real?

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It's not technology holding us back from saving a few people, it's how its organized, and a public healthcare system can respond to an epidemic fucking faster than a market, that's undeniable.

I dont see how that is related to what we were discussing.

But for the record I am completely against the state stepping in and propping up failing businesses and bailing out banks etc.
If you cant survive then its time for someone else to take over.

The unemployed thank you for your opinion.

When Marx talks about exploitation he's not making a moral judgement, it's just a condition of capitalism. Exploitation is what enables capital accumulation in the first place. Capital that can then be reinvested, etc.
The problem with capitalism as a mode of production is the falling rate of profit (Partially a result of production becoming more capital rather than labor intensive) and it's various contradictions, which are at the root of social unrest and conflict. Now an occasional crisis might not seem bad, because as the past has shown people always found a way to kickstart the economy again.
But the logical end result of all this is the obsolescence of human labor. And in a system where people are forced to interact through markets, sell their labor and then buy their sustenance. That means disaster: Poverty at best, total social collapse at worse.
By analyzing capitalism or considering what might come after we can pre-empt this.

If you're still interested consider watching this youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6dXR6AfXE it provides a nice summary as to what marxism is (an analysis of capitalism, but not exclusively), that it isn't the same thing as communism/socialism and certainly doesn't have anything to do with advocating taxes or a minimum wage.

Also skip the manifesto.

That doesn't significantly altar the capitalist mode of production though. And social reforms are hardly safe when capitalism starts failing. See the NHS, social security in Europe and North America, rising tuition costs and student debt, etc.

Generally a bad idea. But violent uprising isn't a solution, it's more an inevitable consequence when capitalism (and other systems) are unable to mediate theirown contradictions. When people starve or are robbed of their dignity, they riot regardless of whether or not they've ever even heard of Marx.
Rather we just avoid that altogether and put systems in place for a smooth transition.

That is a bit of a generalisation!
There must be some people on this forum who are employed.

If the State hadn't gone and done anything at all we'd be stuck in the also retarded situation of there being simultaneously a bunch of unworked capital and a bunch of people without work. The solution the State provided was retarded but not having done anything would have been exponentially worse.

No you didn't. They react like that because they're paid to react like that, not because they're personally interested in whatever happens to any of these machines. These guards don't earn their living by these machines. They get paid whether the line is running or not.

This happens even with factories that have been shut down and are no longer productive. Even though all the machinery is there, even though no one is using them, and even though it's all just rotting because making new machines in India is cheaper than shipping the currently existing machines there, I'm still violently prevented from using them even though all the workers that rely on these machines have already been fired or worse.

They protect these machines because without enforcing this taboo of private property because without doing so there would very quickly no longer be any rich people, and as you might imagine they aren't too eager to be held responsible by the people they forced to be poor so that they could stay rich.

So not believing one retarded thing means I have to believe another?

I'm glad you're finally understanding the necessity for removing Capitalism.

Damit you are so wilfully stubborn.
I was explaining why the people who own the machines pay the guards to protect them.

I thought that would have been obvious to anyone.

True. I'm just saying that pushing for a businesses collapse has more ramifications in Capitalism than just, oh a CEO got fired. It also creates a lot of unemployed people.

It should happen, but it's again, another flaw within capitalism that a company's collapse can effect the broader population.

If tomorrow someone came up with a system that even had a chance of being more successful than capitaism I would support it.

The sad reality is that Capitalism is the worst economic system we know of, apart from all the others.

Their are a multitude of reasons why defending property is in their interests, this is just overly simplistic
Some people put more thought into things then you, this does not mean they are stupid or oblivious, it just means you have not properly evaluated your position.

Communism is good actually

This is just unbased "just so"-isms

Social theories are spooks, clearly

And you're still wrong.

The people working the machines don't own the machines and they don't pay the people that protect the machines. The people that do own the machines don't actually work the machines. Ultimately they're concerned with neither the machines nor the people and will let both rot if it means making a few dollars more.

They did, it's called Socialism.

I know.This whole concept of using other peoples tools without them needing to pay someone to stand over your shoulder comes from an overly simplistic outlook.

Another obvious problem would be stealing resources.
If they let me go in to IBM and use their chip making machine, I might walk out with 100 Core i7s in my pocket.

Its just obvious to anyone who is in any way involved in this area that its never going to work.

…so you're saying that the capitalist doesn't even provide risk protection to his workers because in the case something terrible happened they would lose their jobs and livelihood anyway?

What does the capitalist actually provide then?

My local machine shop has 1 guy who works there and owns everything.
They do small jobs like honing engine blocks etc.

But even if the people who own the machines dont work with them on a day to day basis, they arent going to want random people coming in and breaking them for no benefit to themselves.

That's not a social theory, though.
It's pseudo history.

Of course not. If you go out of business you are out on the streets too.
Any risk protection you provide for them would have to be deducted from their wages.

Its better to pay your workers as much as you can and then maybe gently remind them its wise to have a savings account or something.

You are an absolute fool
You are taking property as some self justifying axiom without going into detail why someone can "own" these "tools" and the value they can be used to produce without actually interacting with them.
You cannot steal from a person what they have not made and their for not owned to begin with.
It is generally seen as being the death of an argument when someone needs to create ridiculous hypothetical to try and protect it.

One again another ridiculous hypothetical that oversimplifies societies production process.
And the strawman section. Social ownership over the means of production just means dummies walking in a breaking stuff at random because your world view is so delicate it requires ridiculous scenarios to sound well evaluated.
You perfectly fit the description of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Revolution probably won't happen in the first world, just be happy with your comfy job and hope the third world doesn't have an uprising leading to the first world falling in your life time.

I wouldn't be so sure. America has been boldly violent towards authority throughout the past. One doesn't just dismiss out of hand the possibility of it in the worse future to come, when something like the London riots (for whatever good that was) happened a blink of an eye ago in historical terms.

People will become sick of their working conditions and riot when it comes to fists, even if it means risking their own life.

why does it have to be about what benefits you, selfish cunt? it's straight to the wall with that attitude

There's also no benefit in them not letting them break, since they don't belong to them. Worst that could happen is they get in trouble by their boss.

christ, i hate new leftypol

The detail doesnt matter.

Obviously some people worked their ass off to get what they have and some people were very lucky to be born in to a rich family and get things given to them.
In general the people who have the rich parents have an awful work ethic and they will never be a big success see Briana Wu.
Successful self starters have a high intelligence and ultra high work ethic.

If your one of the unlucky people who is not intelligent, does not have a high work ethic and was not born to rich parents then Im sorry, you are one of lifes losers that were being discussed earlier.

That condemns a majority of the population, not one or two people. And it's not as simple as that, as capital grows so does its need for proles, so does its ever expanding gulfs of wealth.

This is all historic, it's happened before, you don't want to accept the world you live in is bleeding to death.

The person who owns the machines would be the boss you fool. He is the one who has to find the money to repair them when they break.

I dont like to mock the afflicted but you are frustratingly slow on the uptake.

I live for the day a political commissar tells you this and ships you off to the kansas gulags

Iny my generation it really is just one or two people who are that lazy.
But in the newer generations you might be right. The thing is we have 7 billion people. Theres no shortage.

None of what you like about your bourgeois lifestyle is going to last into the future. And it won't be the fault of socialism, capital will do that all on its own.

No, it really isn't.

Not only is this not an argument, it's untrue and your arrogance about modern American poverty is unbelievable.

This is a Clinton voter

Actually that's the backbone of your ideology. You have yet to explain why private property is desirable. You just rely on invented scenarios of luddite dumb motherfuckers who constantly break machines.

All of these statements are meaningless folk wisdom drivel. The real statistical fact of the matter is that being born into a higher income bracket generally means you stay within that income bracket. The same goes for one's relation to capital. If you are bourgeoisie you stay bourgeoisie barring catastrophe or self-destruction. I mean for fuck's sake, take a glance at our president.

you are so steeped in ideology it's almost not worth talking to you.

Please tell me more about my lifestyle.

MFW im not American.

Then if he's the only one doing all the work and working the machines, what's it to us? There's no borgouis property relation between worker and borg

You don't have to be an American to understand what poverty is.

Exactly so why do you want to come in to his workshop and fucking break his machines that hes worked so hard for all his life.

Thats all I want to know.

You're already gloating all about it to a captive audience. We don't have to say shit.

are you trolling?
serious question, because you cant be this retarded unless you are under 17 years old.

Most Americans dont.

I was watching a news broadcast that mentioned American poverty and the kids they showed 'in poverty' were playing on their smart phones and had Sattelite TV.
Try telling a Chinese or Indian person that you are in poverty but you have all these electronic gadgets and devices. They would probably punch you.

I don't?
What are you going on about?

"the mode of production that I am defending is centred on the private ownership of property but the details are unimportant"

holy

fuck

I'd recommend reading Proudhon for a critique of the details of property that are apparently so unimportant but I'm not sure you'd be able to see the pages through all this fucking ideology

Having a phone means you're not in poverty, for a non American you're fucking recycling Fox News talking points about god damn poverty.

What next, you can't own a refrigerator for your food or else you're not in poverty.

Lmao the planet is dying, who cares how much money you make when you're gonna get boiled alive? Half the country is on fire and the other half is looking to get drowned as we speak lmao

That will be the case in the future of the US. Don't worry about it.
Having a phone means you're not in poverty, for a non American you're fucking recycling Fox News talking points about god damn poverty.

What next, you can't own a refrigerator for your food or else you're not in poverty.>>2062959

is this the old "he has a fridge" argument?
poverty is relative, someone having a phone doesn't make them middle class

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This person here did.

Ive been trying to understand how that could possibly work in real life.
Obviously if you dont agree with him then theres nothing more to say.

using a machine = breaking it on purpose

are you dumb or what

It's simple. OP just wants to live in peace inside an Oryx and Crake hellscape that is beyond all parody.

I suppose in Monaco or Qatar you could own a million dollar mansion, a rolls royce and technically be in poverty relative to your fellow countrymen.

I never said that wasnt poverty I said dont expect sympathy from people in genuinely poor countries. Because you dont have the latest smart phone or something.

Most breakages would be accidental.
But tival machine shops would break their compettitors machines on purpose. Of course.

What makes you think they're going to break it? Is knowledge of proper operation not included in "all of the resources required to use it"?

Besides, how is a worker accidentally breaking a commonly-owned machine in any way some kind of "gotcha" against the abolition of private property?

I mean rival.

Owning a refrigator and a phone, and owning a rolls royce are not the same fucking thing, you absolute fucking idiot.

Look up some webms of machines breaking. Or on youtube.
Its way more entertaining than using them for thier designated purpose.

u r a labor aristocrat

They are both unobtainable to genuinely poor people.

The person that owns the machine would be stock holder of whatever company owns the factory. The stock holder is only technically "the boss" by definition, but in reality that play little material part. In nearly all practical ways "the boss" tends to be a manager, another employee, and not the owner of the machinery.

putting someone owning a rolls royce and someone owning a fridge and a phone in the same category is heinous
fuck you

Owning a mini fridge and a phone is not unattainable to poor people, just owning one doesn't make you not poor. You're fucking retarded

Who are the genuinely poor? I guess you have to be African famine levels of wretched and miserable to be worthy of the title. Fuck off.

CHECK YOUR REFRIGERATOR muh privilege PROLES

Is completely irrelevant when you're talking about the systemic arrangement of property, property ownership, and managing its access. It's as pointless as trying to bring up one of the rare instances of self sufficient farmers in the US when the massively overriding standard is gigantic agribusinesses like Monsanto.

From your perspective its heinous.

Thats because of your level of wealth, a phone is easy to get and a rolls royce is not.
But there are people out there who have much less wealth than you. To those people a car and a phone are both items they will never own.

Some parts of the world dont have electricity easily available.
Your mini fridge at that point is just a cupboard.

We have just been over this.
Poor is a relative term. If your in America poor is a very different experience than monaco, or Burindi.

What the fuck makes you think there would be "rival" machine shops in a society without money and without capitalist competition for custom?

What would the sabotaging party gain from this? Are you just making up ridiculous hypotheticals now?

The human ego.

And? So does that mean they're measuring poverty wrong? Because refrigerators?

For a non American you're really fucking ignorant about poverty.

You're frustrating as hell.

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the whole fridge thing just shows you how these retards think
they're gonna cry crocoile tears about some chinese guy living in a shack but when the time comes they're gonna fuck that chinese guy harder and harder to squeeze every living buck out of him and into their pockets
on the other hand they're gonna squeeze their own poor because they have a fridge and a phone so aren't really poor, they're the emerging lower-than-low-middle-class and they have to be incentivized into working and achieving success by getting screwed more and more
these people are worthless and hopeless, no moral or economic argument is gonna sway them cause their morals are dead and buried with their childhood and their economic well-being is always better with more rather than less exploitation

I was just backing up the point that poverty is a relative term.
People seem to agree with that.

...

It's fucking measurable.

you were playing wordgames like you slimy fucks always do

Corret. Its measured relative to the other people in your country.

Hence why you can technically be in poverty in a rich country and have more luxuries and resources than a middle class person in a poor country.

And poverty remains a problem so what the fuck is your point. You're dancing around the point that brought us here, you can' claim growing poverty means these people are all "losers who can't work properly". Or, muh privileged phone owners. Comparing it to owning a Rolls Royce is fucking lunacy.

It's a systemic fucking issue to unfettered Capitalism.

"muh human nature"-tier non-argument aside,

The point that brought us here was that Americans dont know much about poverty.
That was meant to be an insult to me I think but Im not American so I agreed with them instead of taking offense.
And now we are off on a huge tangent.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

No, the point was what you said,

Is an intelligence insultingly stupid justification of this "winners and losers" philosophy of how humans should operate and organize, it has nothing to do with fucking how people get into poverty in the first place.

You're the one who went off on what poverty actually was, saying "people who own a phone aren't in poverty", when that's factually bullshit.

We're arguing because you answered queries related to your asinine statement with more bullshit.

Enterntainment. Some people just want to watch the world burn.
youtube.com/watch?v=s6kAEcG7mmg

Personal disputes / revenge. Someone might want to get back at someone in their work enviroment. Anyone who has worked anywhere for a reasonable amount of time will have seen this.

Obviously these are much less likely than genuine accidents. Which is my main problem with this idea.

Read back in the thread.
I actually said that people in poverty in much poorer countries would be insulted by the American standard of poverty. Not that it isnt techincally poverty.

Poverty is a relative term that is defined by how poor you are in your own country. Not how poor you are globally.

Plenty of people in poorer countries in poverty have smart phones. It's not 2008 anymore.

The American standard of poverty is honestly fucking disgusting, you're totally ignorant of everything about this country. This isn't fucking some villa in Denmark.

Watch something like Dark Days to get a good idea what fucking poverty is. What homelessness is.

It's literally the only chance mankind has of surviving a possible environmental apocalypse of its own creation. There's no guarantee of socialism's success at this, mind, but capitalism's chance of success is exactly zero. You think Porky developed a sudden interest in Martian colonization out of sheer coincidence?

You forgot to mention "White male" and "Trump supporter." at the start Holla Forums.

I guess the real problem I have is the definition of poverty in the US.

In 2015 the threshold for poverty in the US is about 12 thousand dollars per year for a single person.
That is more than the average wage in half the countries in the world.
It must be insulting to hear that if your in one of the poorer half of the countries in the world.

In America, with all its costs, like health insurance etc.

It's really not that fucking much, it's pennies

I guess if you dont have access to a hospital it would save on the old insurance bill.

You're right, if I fracture my leg I shouldn't expect coverage because it costs thousands and I can't get up to drive my car instead of wait for an ambulance because that would cost more money

I'm saved

Just break your arm or something instead of your leg silly.

Globally 400 million people dont have access to any kind of health services. They must be saving tonnes of money. Maybe leftypol can organize a charity drive in the third world and get them to help pay for American health insurance policies with all the money they are saving.

The problem is people are in poverty you fucking idiot. This is why people got on your case, you said they were "losers", basically, and phrased it as a non issue.

You only care about poverty when its all optics, you really don't give a shit when it comes to American poverty, and I'd respect you more if you came out and said I don't care about the homelessness epidemic.

Instead of beating around what you said, and why you said it. In relation to what we're talking about, which is the growing gulfs between rich and poor going into the future.

Well part of the problem is, globally or nationally, authorities love to redefine the meaning of terms like "poverty", "absolute poverty" and "misery". Check the links in this thread for example:

If we take the average cost of food per month per a household with the average of 2.5 people in it, that's $550, $6,600 or so a year. Let's be generous, since we're going off a yearly wage of $12,000 for a single person, and assume there's only one person in our hypothetical household and half that - $3,300 a year.

Rent? Let's say we're in Wichita, which had the cheapest apartments I could find with a quick search. $470 per month - $5,640 a year. Now, these are no doubt not the cheapest out there, but even so they're cheaper than most that I found, and that's still almost half of your income on housing alone.

Insurance? Assuming you even have it, and then making the bigger assumption that it's employer sponsored, that's about $3,695 for a single person.

So that's… $12,635 and we're $635 over our $12,000 budget, so something has to go. But what? Logically it's most likely going to be health insurance, so have fun if you're injured. Comfortable American poverty sure is great! But I guess you're just meant to be a loser, so you probably deserve it haha!

I'm not American, so this analysis may be flawed, and if any Americans have a better appraisal of the situation I'd welcome it - but this assertion that Western poverty is somehow comfortable and that these people should be grateful that it's not some other kind of poverty is fucking immaterial because they're literally LIVING that poverty with nothing to compare it to.

And now you suddenly care about these people?

No that picture you painted reminds me strongly of when I was working for minimum wage in San Diego. I had about 100 bucks to spare at the end of the month but that was only because Medical covered my health insurance costs because I was so goddamn broke. Plus I had help from my family to get a car, without that I probably wouldn't have been able to get to work reliably. A friend of mine in North Carolina was in a similar position but since they didn't expand medicare he just couldn't afford health insurance. Was a real bitch when his depression picked up again and he couldn't even afford the cost of therapy, much less medication.

I didnt mean to sound unsmypathetic. That might be my or your autism.
If a baby is born without a working heart I might say its one of lifes losers. It lost in life. I dont mean it like haha that baby is a loser I just mean it as a statement of fact about the hand it was dealt in life.

I dont know about the US homelessness epidemic. In my country, homelessness is basically a result of mental illness. And almost exclusively affects men.
My complaint was specifically about the poverty level. The number they ended up with and how its defined.

Coming from someone who has no idea how this country works it sounds ridiculous. Most things you have to do in order to survive eat up that $12,000.

Yeah that is kinda what I was trying to say and failing.
We need to have definitions for poverty and then super poverty.

Like are you worrying about paying your bill for your smart phone?
Are you worried about your medical insurance bill?
Or are you worrying about the fact that your children are so malnourished they get cataracts at age 14 and die in their late twenties?
Or are you worrying about whether the water you are going to drink is going to kill you and your family?

Cool story, bro

Looking at the this thread there's actually plenty of reasons but personally idc if you join us or don't.
Not everything is going to be in the interests of everyone. If this current system is serving your interests then you might as well support it but the numbers in the "content" camp dwindle every day. Soon enough you'll be in a minority and things will change whether you like it or not. And if people like me get their way there will be no mercy for people like you.

Your're either confused or really retarded, I'm going to assume the former and explain nicely how private property and surplus extraction works. Say I have a machine that produces an average quality widget in about 1 hour of average labour time. I ask my employee to work on it for 8 hours a day and thus he would produce an average of 8 widgets per day. I give him a fixed wage of $20 an hour. The material cost of the widget is $40 and maintenance of the machine is $10. Now mathematically the value of the widget should be $70. But if I'm selling it in the market I may earn less or more than that, most likely the latter if I'm a good little capitalist. If I sell a widget for $100 I keep the surplus of $30 even though all I did was was own the machine and used my already accumulated capital to buy the resources. My earnings came from two things. First was the transfer of wealth from the buyer to me and the second was the extraction of the surplus from my employee (profit = exchanged money - cost of production 100-70=30). I made $30 per sale while the worker only got a fixed wage of $20 even though he was the one who did all the labour of production. Now in larger companies most of the labour is done by the employees including the extraction of resources, the maintenance of the machines and even the final selling but the capitalist gets to keep all their surplus because because of private ownership. This is one of the primary reasons we are opposed to private ownership. There are other reasons but I think you should at least understand this one.

…You reply to the wrong post there?

Whoops meant for

I make 85k doing the same thing and have seen co workers inventions stolen from them that made their employers millions, precarious af employment, and a constant push for increased hours and productivity for less pay. You think because you have an apartment you're not getting screwed hahahaha.
Have fun growing old and hitting the rampant ageism in IT, and you're to not going to be able to take it out on minorities and women coworkers like brogrammers of old. You going to turn 40 one day just like everyone else and forced to train your younger replacement because he thinks he's not getting screwed because he can afford his own bunk in the Google barracks and has his own entertainment system.

Then I agree wholeheartedly. I feel that, if there were a big enough leftist think-tank or research institute or whatever, it should work on better ways to measure living standards, not just materially but psychollogicaly where possible.

Honestly, I think that ye olde powers that be could make such indicators, but they just plain don't do it because it would be counter-productive to "the system".

First, simply because the more reliable the indicator, the less they can fudge the numbers.

Second, because the current indicators were created with a bias in their favor in the first place. You know HDI, arguably the most widely used measure for living standards? It's calculated from exactly 3 primary stats: life expectancy, education level and income per capita. That's it. Levels of anomie, such as suicide and divorce rates? Nope. Subjective happiness, like satisfaction with job and hopes for the future? Nope. Quality of urban environment? Participation in community? Political representation? Stress related to debt? Nope, nope, nope, nope. In other words, HDI is nearly useless, but the powers that be liked it for a simple reason: the income per capita heavily skewed results in favor of capitalist countries. As a rule, commie economies achieved more with a given budget than a capitalist country on the same tier.

Third, because, well, if they can't massage all those numbers, it makes it much clearer how shit the world is.

Is that a fan I see? Talk about luxury. Come back to me when you have an example of REAL poverty.

It doesn't benefit you, it benefits the rest of us by putting a bullet in your head.

You can take it or leave it. It's up to you which side you want to be on when the time comes, bucko.