Stocks should still be abolished, but billionaires first.
We should have a race to see which one we can get rid of first. Some nice healthy competition.
I trade stocks. I’m not a capitalist.
I don’t want to have to work, but I want there to not be billionaires even more. Tax wealth not work.
Maybe a useful distinction to be had between “capitalist class” and “enthusiasts for the capitalist system”
The word is used for both of those things.
AI Sloppaganda
Oh sweet. I’m petty bourgeoise!
Seriously this low effort slop graphic is cringe
It’s a fair point but is it wrong?
I don’t disagree with the overall message of the “pamphlet”, I take issue with its execution. It’s low quality, low effort media, created with the same technology that the ruling class is currently employing to steal from workers, cut their bargaining power, alienate them from their work and from each other, shirk legal and moral accountability, and destroy the environment.
That’s all valid criticism. Im happy to say I didn’t create it, and I would love to see better. I’m a bit inclined to delete the image, but I’d love to find an alternative.
Most that I can find are more outdated and tend to assume people know the meanings of the various terms. And the other one I added (down thread) is a little too fine-grained for my taste.
Its outdated and even in its time it didnt show important and big groups such as police, military and peasants.
i mean it’s words basically come from Capital, and some other texts…
Love the iconography.
waves from the trash can
So upper middle class professionals who live in fancy houses making 200k with lots of investments are just proletariat in this classification?
I feel like they have kinda different interests.
They may think they do due to years of brainwashing and propaganda. But labor is labor at the end of the day.
Yeah, I fall in that category, and even though I own a tiny fraction of various companies, I don’t control the means of production. I sell my labor. The fact that I get paid more for it doesn’t change that, and to those that do control the means of production, I am just as disposable. That’s why I have to save and invest; to give myself a way to support my family when that happens.
Maybe bougie petites? The stock market is way more accessible now compared to Marx’s time and by tying retirement to it (401Ks and similar) it really forces a lot of people to invest in the idea of capitalism.
The term is labor aristocracy
Honestly: yes.
There’s other classifications or sub-classifications particularly with regards to how much someone may benefit from capitalism and therefore where their interests might lie, but ultimately I think the bourgeoisie vs the proletariat is about how much influence they have over how society works.
Here’s another infographic which tries to cover that angle, no comment on how successful/ accurate it may be. Personally I think it divides people too much. (Source: Reddit, latestagecapitalism)
They are labor aristocracy
doctors, lawyers, tech bros, small business owners, drop shippers, celebrities: they are also petite-bourgeois.
Yes they are proletariat. In fact, there are a few billionaires that also fall into this group (I believe LeBron James). If you have to sell your labor, you are being exploited and a prole.
How do billionaires “have to” sell their labor?
In reality: they don’t.
In their minds: they fear losing that paycheck just like everyone else.
Billionaires that were labor originally still had to sell their labor at that time. I suspect some there may be some theory that argues that said billionaires are no longer working class when they cease working and are no longer dependent on their labor, but I am not sure how that’d differ from someone using their labor to get lucky in the stock market and retire early.
That also makes them no longer working class.
There is a big difference between a retiree and someone that never had to work.
Which part makes them no longer working class?
Not having to work for a living.
If you are a beggar you aren’t working class either, but obviously there are important distinctions.
Pretty sure as soon as you don’t have to sell your labor anymore to live a somewhat decent live*, you’re not working class anymore, independent of how that happens. Working class background or something.
* That’s a bit subjective of course, but at billionaires levels it’s pretty clear
Also if you’re not participating in shareholders meetings, proposing resolutions and voting on them, then you’re not even really owning the stock in any meaningful way. You’re just holding a virtual piece of paper hoping the number goes up.
Don’t know if they’re still doing it but a small IBM shareholder used to annually table a motion that all payments to political parties and individuals be explained, and the board kept recommending a “No” vote.
Why are those share holder meetings the important part of “owning the stock” to you? Aren’t people owing stock because they want dividends or because they expect the value to increase? Isnt profit them main motivation? With profit being reliant on workers and earth exploitation?
Gritty down 3-0 right now though, needs a miracle
Minor correction dear friend. The first number is wins. 0-3
Yeah, I definitely don’t make a significant portion of my income from investments…
I got tree fiddy in stocks and all my income is dividends and royalties. Sheeeeiiit
I trade stocks, I hate billionaires. We’re all deeply contrarian animals if you examine things using only absolutes.
edit: I should make a post about this somewhere, but you can really directly correlate the pantheon of ancient greece to the stock market. Corporations are immortal entites that are not subject to human law. Stock prices have inflated far beyond the value of their goods and services and instead represent belief in that company. it’s a bit discouraging, I guess is why I wouldn’t post about it.
Actually yeah it does. If your stock pays dividend you are getting a share of the workers labour.
If you have a… Fuck I’m tired. ESOP? It’s that it? Employee Stock owner plan? That pays dividends. How do we split the hair on that camel?
Whats your complaint? Stocks are a way to make ownership available to workers.
Complaint?
I dont know what you mean by “how do we split the hair on that camel” so I just assumed you were complaining about stocks.
splitting hairs is a euphemism for pedantry and i like animal metaphors. one of my mentors always used an animal idiom instead of a regular saying when he could.
deleted by creator
Gritty has no soul. Believe not his lies.
If you own stocks you actually share some material interests with billionaires. You have to actually choose to act against parts your own interests when you support thr end of capitalism. So in part, you might have class solidarity with billionaires. And lets be real, in many rich countries exactly that is a problem.
you’re petite-bourgeious!
What does participating in the system we’ve been forced into have anything to do with class solidarity with the billionaires?
You are not forced to participate in rent seeking.
the people who take joy and think they can “win” in this system are pretending (knowingly or not) and that is emboldening the billionaire owning class by squandering the opportunity to realize you’re not going to win and should be eating the rich instead.
Yeah nah, I am not joining the rent seeking class just because some meme says so.
Actually, can someone help me figure this out? Like should individuals be investing in other things that aren’t stocks to loosen the grip of capital ever so slightly. Like for example, should I be investing with a local credit union or something like that? Should I not be investing at all? Baby anarchist just trying to learn, thank you 😊
Actually, yes. I’d argue that if you invest in bond you fundamentally undermine some of the worst aspects of capitalism. By definition bonds are still a sort of capital; however, a lot of the short-term-ism is motivated by stock speculation, so I’d argue they’re significantly better from a moral perspective. High Yield bonds make quite a lot of money and while they’re “riskier” than normal bonds they’re far safer than any stock.
It’s also worth noting that bonds aren’t as popular as stocks because when you recommend bonds to other people you’re sorta in a worse investment position. Sure the bond value goes up when they buy, but the money in bonds is from the dividends not the bond itself, so if you invest in bonds and tell other people to invest in bonds it becomes harder to buy more bonds when it comes time for re-investment. Moreover, if everyone invests in bonds there bond yields are likely to go down as there is more money to barrow. Also you pay more taxes because corruption.
You could stop trying to “invest”. Like instead of hoping for numbers that go up, you could offer local collectives interest-free loan or in general just give money to community organizations that would be helpful to you in situations were you would have relied on investments.
offer local collectives interest-free loan
Or buy bonds in companies (including co-operatives) that you think are ran in a morally acceptable ways.
I mean call me a capitalist pig, but I think investing can be a crucial funding mechanism for science, journalism, coding, or any public good / innovation that doesn’t necessarily make a direct profit. Like right now science is falling apart because it was overly reliant on government funding and Trump has done a really good job of halting that. Even ignoring the salaries, science is expensive. Like $100/day just for supplies to run a single lab plus a couple 3k purchases every month. Public donations just aren’t a realistic funding mechanism for that.
I think young scientists like myself should be putting the bulk of our salaries into personal research endowments (Yeah, like FIRE). Like, it’s giving up on retirement and home ownership, but I’m not willing to give up my research. Heck, even with that plan there are serious problems with how to fund equipment or rent lab space unless I come into a lot of money… Sorry, I think I’m spiraling into despair.
My point is that we need independent funding mechanisms. Like, yes tenure has shown that not every scientists will keep working without being on a financial treadmill, but if a scientist proves willing to sacrifice their personal finances for their research goals having a larger organization like a university match their investment with “matcher” research-endowments seems reasonable, and those funds might work if they start as donations that are then invested as endowments (after you prevent admin from taking a huge bite out of it).
