[ryanwaggoner]

Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class.

Nonsense. Most people don’t think their labor is stolen or find extreme injustice in getting paid for their labor. You need to get outside your bubble.

[makotech222]

I think you are in the bubble. How much of the world do you think gets paid fairly for their labor? The First-World conditions of America and Europe are buoyed by the dystopic conditions of labor in the Third-World. And these conditions are very visibly creeping into middle class America as well.

[ryanwaggoner]

Compare global poverty (especially in developing economies) today to 50 years ago and tell me again about the dystopia the average human is living in because of capitalism.

If I was going to be reborn in a random country, I’d sure rather it be in 2017 than 1967, and I feel optimistic that 2067 will be much better still.

[makotech222]

Sure here's the comparison data: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta...

And my favorite part:

"For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:

    Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
    Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
    Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
    Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.Source 29"

TL;DR: Capitalism is unsustainable. We need a new system.

[ryanwaggoner]

Doesn't seem like the highest-quality source and I'm pretty skeptical of their conclusions, but regardless:

Your TLDR doesn't make much sense. So we're making less progress for the last 20 years (but still making progress) therefore capitalism is unsustainable and we should replace it with the same tired system that's been tried over and over again for the last century without even a hint of success?

OK.

[badpun]

Large amounts of global inequality are because, to the very recent times, most of the people in the world lived under communism, which kept them in poverty (often extreme). The rest of the world was lucky to enjoy massive increase of standards of living thanks to capitalism, which created a chasm. Only now, as capitalism has spread to most countries, the global inequality is decreasing (see ex. increasing wages in China and stagnant wages in US).

[dmichulke]

To elaborate: it's not stolen if you previously signed a contract that the employer can have it.

Otherwise every trade would be theft right?

[ryanwaggoner]

Hardcore socialists apparently think that’s true. After all, if the other person wants it, they must be taking advantage of me! They all operate from a fixed pie / scarcity mentality, and must have missed the basic economics class where you learn that parties can trade where ALL end up better off than if you didn’t.

[lfischer]

Of course, but it’s hard to argue that because a trade is advantageous to you, you cannot attempt to create the conditions where it’s even more advantageous. And in negotiations, you should strengthen your BATNA (best alternative to no agreement) and that of the other party’s. So you could see class struggle as a strategy to improve the starting positions in a negotiation, if that makes you happier :-)

[andrepd]

A mugger doesn't steal from me, if I hand my wallet to him, right?

Analogously to how this is theft because of the threat of violence, so it can be argued that it is also theft/extortion due to the threat of leaving you and your family homeless and starving if you don't take my offer right now.

[ryanwaggoner]

There’s a market for labor too, so it’s not like most people have only the choice of one employer’s offer or starvation. And no one is arguing that we shouldn’t have a social safety net of any kind to improve the BATNA of employees.