Shower thought: if everyone gives a % of their labour value to the government it’s called taxes and is evil communism. If everyone gives a % of their labour value to an individual it’s called capitalism and is glorious. How does that mental gymnastics work?
Propaganda is a strong and prosperous machine.
We are capitalist society working in feudalistic companies
No, we are workers exploited by capitalists.
Unless you are not selling your labour and instead living on the profit derived from the workers, you are not a capitalist.
It’s a very simple system laid out in Das Kapital and still taught in economics today (at least in the UK):
Aristocrats - people with wealth by virtue of controlling land
Capitalists - people who have wealth by virtue of having wealth (i.e. they can invest/speculate)
Worker (or Proletariat) - people who have to sell their labour to capitalists or aristocrats to survive
Lumpenproletariat - an underclass that has fallen out of society and resort to the black or grey market to survive
To follow up, let’s talk about the names of the system!
Absolute Monarchy: a system where an individual has absolute control of the means of production (often, though not always, via birth).
Feudalism: a system where the a wider, though still small, group of people, control the means of production based on land ownership (often, though not always, through an aristocratic class) (fun fact: the Magna Carta changed England from an absolute monarchy to a feudal state, it did not create any kind of democracy, as the myth often goes).
Capitalism: a system where those with money (i.e. capital) control the means of production. We are here.
Socialism: used interchangeably by both Marx and Lenin with communism (Lenin specifically states the “socialist” in USSR was aspirational, not literal). However, has now come to denote the “transition” period from Capitalism to communism where the workers control the means of production via what Lenin called a “vanguard party” or worker-controlled legislature
Communism: where the means of production are no longer controlled at all with no class divide, legislature, or private property (note: personal and private property are two different things; no one wants your toothbrush) based on the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
I just want to reach the dizzying heights of the proletariat.
Capitalists are the ruling class that own the means of production through private property and profit from workers’ labour, or otherwise have the vast wealth needed to have decisive influence on production.
Workers are not capitalists.
There are no workers in capitalism. And no classes.
Whatever helps you sleep at night
Here’s a better shower thought: the government exists to govern you, not to serve you. When you pay taxes, you fund new mansions for the ruling class. When you invest into the business instead, you create new jobs, new tech and your future.
Workers have unelected bosses dictating the majority of their waking lives. Most companies literally tell you what you can and cannot wear (dress code policy), when you can and cannot eat (designated breaks), and what you can and cannot say online (social media policies). All so they can control you to extract wealth and buy super yachts.
Look at the list of wealthiest US politicians. I cannot find a single one that didn’t make their money extracting it from workers or inheritance. Abuse of office happens; abuse of workers’ surplus is the standard.
There are no workers or other classes in capitalism.
Can you explain how you’ve come to that conclusion? It flies in the face of pretty much every sociologist for the last 200 years. Even Adam Smith, distinguished people by gentleman, farmer, and merchant with clear class distinctions between each, even if the term hadn’t entered into the mainstream use yet.
There are only those who provide goods and services and those who consume goods and services. And every person and company takes both roles in different contexts. That’s all.
I think you’re using a different definition of class to the standard. Once again, I want to point out you are disagreeing with pretty much EVERY major academic on this subject, including, but not limited to:
So I’m curious as to where you got this notion from? Even Adam Smith distinguished social strata.
These academics peddle their own agenda. The reality is that there can’t be classes in a capitalist society. That’s the whole point of capitalism.
I also present to you: the BBC trying to redefine (note, not remove) class in 2013: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2013/newsspec_5093/index.stm
Making money for doing less than nothing, just like when he was CEO!
It’s a sickening juxtaposition since Microsoft also laid off thousands of people this year too.
Assuming $100k salary per employee, the money Balmer didn’t need could have saved ten thousand jobs. That’s a disgusting amount of wealth. No sane person hordes that much money.
Is totally gonna trickle down, just you wait!
Wealth is not money.
:(
It’s not for doing nothing, it’s for doing things he already did. He got the stock as part of his compensation plan at Microsoft.
And a dividend of $0.75 per share is 0.2% interest at the current share price, he could get more in a savings account and 20x that in a CD or something. The dividend isn’t crazy high. He just had a shitload of their stock.
Executive compensation as a whole is a story, but Steve Ballmer is not doing anything particularly noteworthy.
It’s not for doing nothing, it’s for doing things he already did.
Yeah, I’m more interested in how much Steve Jobs daughter made last year. Money gets whitewashed into the next generation like royalty.
stock ownership need to have an expiration date. Sure he did work to reclaim the gains of these shares, but at a certain point these stocks need to be relinquished and shared among the real contributors of the company so they could also get a taste of their work. You can’t keep leeching off of people like this all the time, or whats the point of having kids and procreation overall ? Even 1 billion$ isn’t much to make a globe changing endeavour like space travel, but its too much that if he chose to keep having coke injected directly into his body for the rest of his life he would still have money left. The mere existence of this person is just a nuisance, like many anonymous others
Get my 401k outya mouth!
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the purpose of life is to maximize happiness and euphoria. have other suggestions in mind ?
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haha! though i didn’t bother thinking it up, still i dont mind being enlightened in that regard. I think anything that would ensure a constant supply of serotonin would be a good fit. But now you will have tolerance issues to deal with …
If someone introduces such bull crap you will lose your pension.
:/
Guess what!? I work a hell of a lot harder for a hell of a lot less. isn’t that strange?
he racks such wealth because he is a shareholder who leeches off of the effort of 1000s of people like you that do actual honest work.
I mean, that is how capitalism works. This is as true for any owner as it is for Balmer.
Doesn’t make it right. And we should highlight each and everyone by name. Don’t let them get away with hiding behind anonymization such as “shareholder”, “owner”, or “CEO”.
Fine, but what do you do about it? Under the current system he’s equally entitled to receive $1 billion from his ownership as any other owner is receiving $1, he just got lucky getting his because his company just so happened to become one of the biggest in the world.
I disagree with fatalism. Under the system of feudalism the lord had similar rights. America & France changed that in capitalist revolutions. Change is one of the only things we can say is inevitable. It takes time, determined people, and usually a catalyst event (such as rampant hunger and homelessness).
I would suggest reading “Capitalist Realism” by Sam Fisher for a good understanding that we have been led to believe that this system is the only real one, but it really isn’t. And it won’t be. We need to keep that in mind if we want to make a change.
You are a shareholder.
the rich are rich as they care not for the poor
Eat his ass
In a Justice way or in a Juicy way?
Lazy guy. I bet he spends some of that on drugs or alcohol.
