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If you're feeling left out it's probably because you defend billionaires who would mince you into fertilizer
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Are you though?
Do you own the means of production and employ people to operate it, paying them a fraction of the value their labor produces?
Are you able to live comfortably without working for the foreseeable future? Do you exert outsized control over municipal, regional and state government far beyond your “vote” if you live in a place that claims to be a democracy? Does that control come from your power over the means of production that you control?
Supporting a society controlled by the people described above does not make you a capitalist, being one of the people described above does.
The dictionaries say otherwise. But sure, if "capitalist" just means a person thats very succesful and uses their power for the bad, then they are obviously not good to society but that doesnt make the system of capitalism any worse...
I don’t think you’re being disingenuous here and English is a crazy language, so here’s the definition google came up with:
In the sentence
The word capitalist is a noun.
But even if you were to pull up a dictionary definition of the word that says otherwise, in the context of the economic and political system of capitalism there’s three hundred years of writing that define capitalists under capitalism as various groups of bourgeoisie.
I think we can dispense with petty arguments over the dictionary definitions of words given what we’re discussing. If it will make you feel better I can refer to capitalists as flying purple people eaters.
Alright, Im fine with that definition, thanks for clarifying that.
However, if I invest part of my money (eg. into stocks or ETFs) as you do if you want to start saving money, that would make me a capitalist, wouldnt it? Your previous comment kind of made it seem like all capitalists are evil and rich af...
I think if we just go by that dictionary definition, you being a wealthy person who invests in trade and industry to make a profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism would by definition make you “rich af” and would align your interests against those of the people whose labor allows trade and industrial production.
The people whose labor allows trade and industrial production want to get the highest pay and best living conditions possible, you, as a wealthy investor in the concerns that employ and pay them want the most profit possible. The raw materials of trade and production are fixed quantities so any profit must come from paying the worker less than their labor produces.
Does that make you evil? I don’t know.
You used the example of an etf and I wanna talk about stock and securities trading briefly. A person with enough money can invest it in the market in such a way that it causes huge changes and can basically write their own ticket. Small time (retail, if you’re familiar with the lingo) investors take on quite a bit more risk and while they might hope their bag goes up or down they don’t generally have any control or say over what happens to laborers or industries and certainly not any power to control markets.
There’s an argument to be made that the move to replace pensions with invested retirement funds was explicitly intended to align retail investors and working people with the interests of the very capitalists who needed them to accept lower wages and reduced benefits, but this tea…
I do take issue with using dictionary definitions though, because they tend to be truncated and devoid of the background and context that allow for understanding and use of words in conversation or correspondence. This one, for example doesn’t explain what the principles of capitalism are, only that they must exist because capitalists are people who invest according to them. This definition doesn’t even describe capitalists as a class, which is fundamental to understanding the overwhelming majority of ink spilled in the last few centuries about them and the system they are in control of!
Im not wealthy by any means, though the wealth cant be the deciding factor, can it?
If Im a student with a savings plan (one where you put aside money every month and invest it [not sure if thats the correct Engkish term]) so it grows over time, am I a capitalist in your opinion?
The finished product is worth more than what their labour produces, otherwise they could just sell the product themselves. Because the organization, strategy, marketing and the needed capital for all of that are values in itself.
A quick question about that trading example, as far as I know market manipulation is illegal so using that to your advantage wouldnt worky right?
According to the goofy dictionary definition were working with, wealth is a requirement.
That definition doesn’t talk about the relationship between wealth and extracted profits because getting to the bottom of that relationship ultimately ties the two together. There’s no space to explain that if you own productive capital, you’re by definition wealthy.
If we wanted to examine your retail investment portfolio under a broader definition, you could possibly be considered the most petit-ist of bourgeoise under some circumstances, but generally if you have to work for a wage or are expecting to have to work for a wage once your education is over then you’re not a capitalist. Participating in the securities market doesn’t change your relationship to the means of production.
If you made your living as a securities trader, that might be a different story.
I’m not sure what you’re saying about the labor and selling it themselves, but the organization, strategy and marketing are all labor that went into the production of the goods. The capital in the form of facilities and equipment are fixed costs like the raw materials used in production, so any profit from the sale is necessarily coming out of the value of the labor.
Good to know that market manipulation is illegal, surely there’s no examples of markets being manipulated in our recent memory!