[pdonis]

Lost me in the first half. The whole capital vs. labor thing is a false dichotomy, particularly here where we're talking about highly skilled tech workers. Your skills are capital, and your pay for using those skills is mostly return on capital, not "labor cost".

The real dichotomy here is simple: it's between people who understand that they own capital and work to maximize their return on that capital, and people who don't.

[uoaei]

Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context. But it is important to remember these are embodied roles and not character traits. I.e., a laborer becomes a consumer when they leave their place of employment to drive to the grocery store.

[qualudeheart]

What about owner-operators? Truckers who own their own trucks are both laborers and capitalists.

[uoaei]

A truck is useless without a route. In the case of trucking, "the means of production" includes customer lead generation, driver dispatch, etc. Owning their truck only gives them the flexibility to switch employers more easily.

[ddoolin]

Agreed. But just as a thought experiment: what about a truck driver who owns their own trucking company, employs around a dozen other drivers, and also drives as one of its drivers?

I would guess, theoretically, this is impossible past a certain size of enterprise, but in the meantime I would imagine that they would be both. A capitalist laboring as part of their own means of production.

[thiagoharry]

If the trucker is the owner of the trucking company, he do not get his money because of the labour, but because of capital. He could even pay someone to run the business, and as the capital owner, he would keep receiving money and profits. Even if he thinks that it is fun to drive the company truck and work with this, it does not change the fact that his means of income is not labor, but capital. Compare with a regular truck driver that if does not work, gets no money.

[int_19h]

This thought experiment doesn't have to involve trucks: most small businesses involve owners working in some capacity, even if it's only managerial (but productive management is labor same as any other component that is required to produce the final product).

Thus, they're being a laborer when they perform productive work, and they're being a capitalist when they pocket the wealth that business as a whole (i.e. all employers collectively, rather than just themselves) have generated. And if they don't actually do the latter, there's no economic exploitation involved.

[uoaei]

You said it better than I. I don't think I made my point about "context" sufficiently clear above. A person's capital can be earning more capital at the same time as they are employed in productive work, but not in the same context. An owner of a small business may "pay themselves a salary" in accordance the salaries of their employees, but that doesn't make them "not a capitalist" at any point in time insofar as they own the company and employ people to work at that company who do not own it.

[pdonis]

> Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context.

Sure one can. One can be a "laborer" in the sense of spending one's working hours doing work for an employer instead of starting a startup or owning your own company, and also be a capitalist in that same context in the sense of using your skills as bargaining power with your employer to get the best return on the capital you own (in terms of your pay and benefits), and judging your employer's treatment of you on that basis.

The inconvenient part is that, in the context of working for an employer instead of starting a startup or owning your own company, you are almost guaranteed to not be getting the best return on the capital you own; you have given up some return on capital (often a significant amount) in exchange for not having to manage business risks by yourself. Which in turn means you are exposing yourself to the risk of your employer deciding to manage their business risks by laying you off. But that's not because you're "labor" instead of "capital"; it's because you made a risk tradeoff that came back and bit you.

[ddoolin]

Using one's skills as bargaining power does not make one a capitalist. That person is still a laborer, their skills are the means of production. Capitalists control the means of production, laborers are the means.

[pdonis]

The "labor" vs. "means of production" dichotomy is just as false and pernicious as the "labor" vs. "capital" dichotomy. "Means of production" are capital. That includes skills.

> Capitalists control the means of production

As far as machines in factories go, yes, the owners of the company own those, the workers do not (unless the company is a worker cooperative, those do exist).

As far as skills go, though, no, capitalists do not control those--the people who have the skills do. But they need to realize that their skills represent ownership of capital in order to make the best use of their control over them. Many, if not most, "workers" do not realize this--and hence they are at the mercy of the "capitalists" who do.

[MarkMarine]

> and also be a capitalist in that same context in the sense of using your skills as bargaining power with your employer to get the best return on the capital you own

This is not what being a capitalist is, in the context you're using it. Capitalist vs laborer is basically someone who doesn't work, but their money does vs someone who has to work. That's it.

Gets fuzzy when you start adding a 3rd group of people in there, the people who have to work (i.e. they don't have enough capital to generate the kind of income that puts them in the don't have to work crowd) but identity with the capitalists. They see themselves as removed from "laborers" and strive to be in the capitalist class, dress like them, act like them, talk like them. Marx would call them the petite bourgeoisie.

I understand what you're trying to explain, thinking about individual capital ownership or even using your skills as capital... but that just isn't what it is. Your skills only have value if you're using them. To labor and create things of value.

[pdonis]

> Your skills only have value if you're using them.

Yes. That's true of everyone, including those that you are calling "capitalists". But that being true, and a person knowing that it's true and acting accordingly, are two very different things.

> Capitalist vs laborer is basically someone who doesn't work, but their money does vs someone who has to work.

If you think that Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, etc., don't work, you are egregiously mistaken. They work very, very hard. They just don't work at the same things that low level tech workers do. That's because they understand, as many, if not most, low level tech workers apparently do not, that the best use of their work--their labor, the hours they put in doing whatever it is they do--is to maximize the return on their capital. So they optimize their work towards that goal. Whereas most low level tech workers don't even think in those terms--and that is why they are at the mercy of the "capitalists" who do.

(The usual economist's term for a person who doesn't work, but "lets their money work", is "rentier", and the associated behavior--getting into a position where one can have a steady reliable income without having to work--is called "rent seeking". There is certainly an element of that in the way many rich people act, but I don't think it's the primary issue in the context of this discussion.)

The real argument for those "capitalists" being overpaid is not that they don't work, but that most of the work they are doing is not actually creating wealth; it's just transferring wealth from others to themselves. But that has nothing whatever to do with them being "capitalists" instead of "laborers" and "laborers" being underpaid. It has to do with our entire system of social incentives being screwed up because for decades now we have increasingly allowed short-term viewpoints to undermine the long-term stability of our social institutions. "Class warfare" rhetoric, in fact, is one of the ways that has been done.

[MarkMarine]

You're standing up a bunch of straw men to argue with here.

I didn't say half of what you're asserting, just trying to clear up the definitions of some terms you were getting wrong in the context that you were using them in. If you want to talk about this, which is essentially Marxist theory, and then argue against it... some familiarity with the source material would be good to acquire.

[pdonis]

> You're standing up a bunch of straw men to argue with here.

I'm not sure what you're basing that on since I'm responding to things you explicitly said.

> If you want to talk about this, which is essentially Marxist theory

I have no idea what you are basing that on. The only thing I said that was at all related to Marxist theory was my reference to "class warfare"; yes, Marxist theory was one of the culprits in using class warfare rhetoric to obscure economic realities. Which is why countries that tried to run themselves according to Marxist theory were abject failures that killed many millions of their own people, either through incompetence or through deliberate "can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs" logic.

[jakeinspace]

I believe the usual usage is:

capitalist (noun): filthy rich monopoly man

capitalist (adj.): pro capitalism

[p0pcult]

You really don't understand what a capitalist is, do you? Fortunately, I have enlisted ChatGPT to help you!

p0pcult: Explain what Karl Marx would tell a five year old a capitalist is

ChatGPT: Karl Marx would tell a five year old that a capitalist is someone who owns a business and makes money by hiring people to work for them and selling the things they make for a profit. The capitalist gets rich, while the workers who make the things only get paid for their time and effort. This is what Karl Marx calls "exploitation."

p0pcult: What is a capitalist?

ChatGPT: Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, such as factories and businesses, are owned and controlled by private individuals for the purpose of generating profits. In a capitalist system, goods and services are produced and distributed in a market economy, and prices are determined by supply and demand. The goal of a capitalist is to accumulate wealth and capital through ownership and investment in businesses. [Emphasis mine]

Capitalists acquire wealth, passively, by owning things.

[pdonis]

> This is what Karl Marx calls "exploitation."

Karl Marx himself knew he was peddling bullshit; he once told Engels, "I have of course so worded my proposition as to be right either way."

The real tragedy is that several generations of intellectuals swallowed his bullshit hook, line, and sinker, and in the 20th century well north of a hundred million people died as a result. I would hope we have figured out by now that that philosophy doesn't work.

> Capitalists acquire wealth, passively, by owning things.

Then by that definition, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc. are not capitalists, because they created things, they didn't just passively sit there and acquire ownership of things that already existed.

(Btw, even ChatGPT appears to get this since, in the very passage you italicized, it talks about "investment".)

[p0pcult]

Yes, he told Engels that in reference to some military maneuvers he suggested the English take, when he was writing as a war correspondent.[1] Not his economic works.

Please, do yourself a favor: stop digging. The hole is only getting deeper.

[1] https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/l...

[pdonis]

If you seriously believe that remark described a rhetorical strategy that Marx only used in that one particular context, I think you are the one who needs to stop digging. But obviously we're not going to come to agreement, so I'll bow out at this point.