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Oh, so the engineers who thought up and built the machine must own it, right? Right?
This isn’t exactly the most convincing argument against Rand’s philosophy - the workers didn’t invent the device and don’t work any harder than they did before. Their feeling of entitlement to the profit from it appears to be naked greed unsupported by any moral principle. Acting in one’s rational self-interest would include keeping them placated if they can credibly threaten violence, but their role as workers is completely irrelevant in that context.
the workers didn’t invent the device
Funny you talk about inventing devices when Rand’s utopia in Atlas Shrugged was dependent upon the invention of a machine which defied physics.
It’s also a comic strip.
This comic reminds me of a classic argument used for leftist policies, unrelated to ayn rand though. Under capitalism, technological advancements are harmful to the working class because companies are likely to keep pay and hours the same, and just scale up production and/or lay off surplus labor force.
Under a system where the workers own the means of production, those same advancements could go towards lowering the hours of the employees without lowering their pay, or if they decide to scale up production then it would mean more profit that the company could decide democratically what to do with, making it likely to result in pay increases for the workers. Point is it wouldn’t just go into the hands of the capitalist class, but rather stay under control of those who labored for it.
You’re missing a very important point here, which is that the workers are the ones whose labor is turned into profit. That means that if their work is able to generate more money, they are perfectly within their right to demand more, even if they don’t necessarily work any harder.
If I think that investing in capital and getting a return on my investment is a valid use of the money I earn but you do not, our disagreement is ideological rather than factual; who’s right and who’s wrong is a matter of opinion.
With that said, I do find it ironic that proponents of an ideology that has failed quite dramatically are accusing proponents of an ideology that has been quite successful of being insufficiently rational.
Well, I’m talking specifically in terms of the concept of rational self-interest here. It’s perfectly within reason for the workers to think they should be paid better, given that their labor is now worth more, and their interest of getting paid far outweighs the interest in a more profitable company. In the same way, it’s perfectly within reason for the manager to attempt to maximize the company’s profit, as it’s in their best interest to do so, since a company that makes more profits will (theoretically, of course) pay the manager better. It’s an obvious reason why workers have created unions since time immemorial, and the same reason why companies attempt to break unions. It’s a complex web of relationships between who owns and manages capital and who works and ultimately generates that capital, and there are many positions one can take, such as the one you hold, or mine.
I don’t disagree with you on this, but I guess we’re getting far from the topic of the comic. I’m not actually a big fan of Rand. (I did read Atlas Shrugged but I skipped the monologue.) I just don’t think the comic in the OP is a good criticism of it either in theory or in practice. It bugs me because I think exposure to ridiculous caricatures of “enemy” ideologies leads people to support their own ideology uncritically - after all, the others are so obviously wrong!
I fuckin HATE ayn rand, but those workers are being paid for their labor, they’re not slaves. If that labor provides a little profit or a lot of profit is up to good or bad business practices of the company they’re working for, and doesn’t need to be shared with them outright, unless it happens naturally as a result of supply/demand making their labor more valuable (because otherwise they’d just go somewhere else where they will be paid more).
The crux here is that for this to happen appropriately, we need to be living in an ideal world with appropriate laws, no corruption, exploitation, loopholes, bribing, lobbying, etc. and we do not currently live in that world, so the above is just theoretical.
Workers have to work to earn money. Owners have to own money to earn money. Workers and owners don’t play by the same rules. Because of that the same amount of effort and time results in a very different amount of money earned. It will always create tension and if not addressed by proper redistribution of wealth lead to large concentrations of wealth, and those always lead to violence. Humans have always been sensitive about relative wealth differences, and that not only goes for humans.
I’m not saying the employees are slaves at all. The point I’m making is that, if a company finds a way to make more money, then it’s only logical that the workers, whose work is the very reason the company is profitable, should at least get part of the profits, whether it’s through worker benefits, more pay, or anything else.
And this is the crux of the problem with randism (and modern capitalism).
Nothing forces companies to treat workers well which means the natural direction for money to flow is towards the owners of resources and not to the producers of them.
As time goes on and tech advances, the natural action of the owners is to reduce the number of workers they employ to maximize their own income.
If you don’t own things, the response is “tough shit”.
This is why so many businesses and investors are jizzing themselves over AI. The very thought of being about to fire people gives them a boner.
Totally true.
Nothing forces companies to treat workers well
Because the power of workers (via unions or simply a fair job market or labor regulations) has been systematically attacked since forever, because that is in the self-interest of corporations and their owners.
As corpos and rich fucks amass more power, it is easier for them to take power from workers. They can more easily crush existing unions and attempts at unionizing, change or hobble labor laws, meddle with the job market itself, and influence the government’s management of the economy.
So the trend is towards overpowered corporations and underpowered workers. We get to a point where workers don’t really have many options for better jobs, and they don’t have enough sway to raise the minimum wage for decades, let alone attain a more fair job market. Or implement regulations requiring better treatment.
That’s in addition to seeking ways to replace workers with technology, or increase their productivity.
Thing is, if most of us are unemployed because of automation, who’s buying the products and services enough to sustain these companies?
I think the point is “profit” is wage theft by definition to some. The workers generate profit, meaning they make someone else money they earned from their labor, and regardless of the structures or systems they’re a part of that make that profit possible they should be given that profit.
I think I agree that profit by default is wage theft but I can appreciate that if a system of capital and practices enable the profit past the individual workers wage that there should be some reward to that system. The problem is how that reward is distributed, which right now is poorly done in most places.
A company needs to make a profit to be able to continue operating though. If they can’t, then these people have no jobs at all.
Nowhere did I say the company shouldn’t make a profit. It’s only natural that companies would have significant expenses around material, jobs, offices, and all that stuff, and that’s fine. The problem arises when the company has a way to more efficiently make money, and, instead of doing things like reducing worker hours or increasing worker pay, it expects everyone to work the exact same amount and just pockets the money (not to mention when companies do things like firing a lot of their staff during a time of record profits).
Nowhere did I say the company shouldn’t make a profit. It’s only natural that companies would have significant expenses around material, jobs, offices, and all that stuff, and that’s fine
You’ve been spot on with your replies to this bootlicker so far, but none of the things you mentioned here come under “profits”, those are expenses.
It is the money that companies make after expenses that is the profit, and they are mostly able to make so much of it because they don’t pay their employees fairly for their labour, nor for any other value they produce for the owners of company, who do very little to no work, and are absolutely not entitled to the fruits of other peoples’ labour, no matter how tasty their boot might be.
They also maintain a system that means that employees don’t have the free choice capitalists love to wave around - if they don’t participate in this exploitative bullshit, they become homeless and starve, because our human rights, like our labour, have also been commodified so that a couple of thousand people can hoard all of the money and power that comes with it.
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R&D and the medical industry… Ughhhbhnbnngbhhhjh…
PUBLIC FUNDS DRUG DEVELOPMENT
Companies: Sorry, R&D is so expensive so I cant reduce the price of “you need 3 of these a day to live” lower then $600 a pill.
Don’t bring logic when you could have an anti-capitalism rant instead!
That’s not the argument being presented here. The point is that if one goes by rationality and self-interest instead of fairness or justice, then murder and theft are perfectly logical. If it is in the rational interest of the factory owner to not increase worker pay, then it is in the rational interest of the workers to murder her and steal her wealth.
Ayn Rand depended on the government welfare programs before she died. She didn’t even believe her own bullshit. Any Rand lovers hate when you bring this up because they don’t have a good excuse for it.
See below
Ayn Rand depended on the government welfare programs before she died. She didn’t even believe her own bullshit.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/
It is morally defensible for those who decry publicly-funded scholarships, Social Security benefits,
and unemployment insurance to turn around and accept them, Rand argued, because the government
had taken money from them by force (via taxes). There’s only one catch: the recipient must regard the
receipt of said benefits as restitution, not a social entitlement.
If she paid into Social Security and Medicare and paid taxes then what is the issue? The paragraph above states
that she did not believe her actions to be hypocrisy because she had paid taxes.
What is your deal? Why are you all over this thread defending Ayn Rand?
As a person who believes in government programs, I find the idea that you have to believe the right things in order to be worthy of receiving benefits abhorrent.
And of course they have an excuse for it: she paid taxes so it’s her money. They don’t hate it, they love it when you bring it up.
So: gross for the person making this argument, ineffective against someone who knows the least but about how she viewed it.
There’s tons of things that suck about Rand, so let’s find something other than being a hypocrite about her being a hypocrite.
If you’ve ever read atlas shrugged and not rolled your eyes or went, “god this is insufferable” then you might be a Republican lol.
This isn’t the most convincing argument because in a healthy society the things the workers demand will happen naturally.
Yet, if you go assuming those things aren’t happening, it means the society is not healthy, and will improve dramatically by following the procedure on the last panel.
The obvious ramping up of production and half the workers getting new tasks to create even more wealth isn’t depicted.
Except they should get to act in their own self-interest, also. If they cannot, what’s keeping them from that; who has more power?
Rational self-interest of the owner demands fair and just compensation and consideration for their labor force. What’s illustrated here is the owner conflating rational self-interest with naked avarice and greed.
The sad thing is that not a single “proletariat revolution” produced better or even similar result that democratic capitalism produced in the West. Granted, Rand is to the far right economically of the modern Western society, but still…
Leftists can’t meme
And apparently conservatives can’t tell the difference between a meme and a comic strip despite being in c/comicstrips.
Turned from 0 to French real fucking quick
Buddy, it’s been 99 to fucking French since 1980.
Taking advantage of an underclass then having that underclass threaten to guillotine you… Seems like it just went from French to French… Whole scenario is French.
Taking advantage of an underclass
Nah this is just normal
I don’t know the way things are going here in the United States I think it might be time to start rolling out the guillotines.
It’s worth pointing out that the guillotine was primarily used to terrorize the poor commoners, not nobles (who had already fled the country by that point.)
Also many leaders of the revolution were capitalists bourgeois who found it unfair that nobles had more power than them by birth right. Analphabetic people with close to no news access didn’t care that much about politics. Some far left fantasy that French revolution was led by peasants against capitalist is really ironic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeois_revolution
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For example, https://theconversation.com/the-french-revolution-executed-royals-and-nobles-yes-but-most-people-killed-were-commoners-200455 which cites this book https://www.amazon.com/Incidence-Terror-During-French-Revolution/dp/0844612111 (unavailable online as far as I can tell.)
I’d also highly recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast series on the French Revolution.
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It’s hardly a controversial position that the Reign of Terror had virtually nothing to do with the nobility or monarchy, both of which had been abolished by that point; and everything to do with the suppression of political dissent by means of state terror.
The lesson of the Reign of Terror is not “kill the rich”. It’s not even “kill your enemies”. It’s “normalizing political violence will inevitably, maybe literally, blow up in your face.” People who equate the guillotine and Reign of Terror with successful political violence, or even successful economic and political reform, are not just wrong but dangerously wrong, and need to corrected.
In this comic, the owner is acting greedily to the point of heavily antagonizing their workers. Draconian exploitation of the workforce, reneging on previous agreements, and not adequately compensating them is irrational.
One of the fallacies with Rand’s “moral objectivism” is the assumption that business owners will act rationally in their logical self interest in negotiations with their labor force and not out of spite, malice, sadism, racism, etc.
Add greed and self-interest to that list. Those leaders and owners like CEOs are beholden to investors and shareholders, and if they demand a return on their investment or the C-suite wants a raise, the workforce will be one of the places the value is extracted from.
One of the problems with economic theory in general is assuming rational actors.
I was told by my first economics professor that if I could solve that problem, and eliminate the assumption of rationality, I’d be the richest man on earth over night.
It’s a problem, they know it’s a problem, they just don’t have a better answer.
You can’t even assume everyone can agree on the same definition of rational. If a business owner is a sadist they might value treating their employees like dirt more than the money they’d make if the business ran more efficiently. For a dickhead, rational self interest could mean forgoing profit to cause misery.
Rational in the economics sense just means that people do things for a reason. We’re not acting randomly, we believe that when we put money towards a thing that we are receiving something of value for it.
Any more specific than that and we’re not talking about rationality in the economics sense any more. Rationality does not mean correct. Just with cause.
…they might value treating their employees like dirt more than the money they’d make it the business ran more efficiently.
This sounds like the metric for hiring middle-management if anything.
It would certainly help explain middle management’s obsession with return-to-office policies in the face of all the evidence that WFH increases productivity.
Why do some people keep trying to incite violence over and over again, day by day? It gets tiring, and we all know it’s not going to happen, there’s no revolution of that nature in the future. Most people want safety, stability, and prosperity.
Put the energy into trying to affect change by voting in the right people into office so they can affect the change for us.
And yeah, I know, that’s a hard lift, but still, it’s better for Humanity overall in the long run. Once you start violence, it rarely stops until everything is destroyed.
I think the main issue is that violence is being waged against 90%+ of the population in terms of division via media outlets, price gouging, wage reduction, removal of safety nets, busting unions, restricting how people can protest, police brutality, a system that blocks positive change, etc
All of this gets obscured because you aren’t seeing billionaires directly killing people, but that is the outcome, hundreds of millions of people have suffered or died because of their actions.
At what point do we say enough is enough? When do we remind them that they should fear us?
At what point do we say enough is enough? When do we remind them that they should fear us?
You’re absolutely right that the common man gets played constantly, to be controlled. I won’t argue that point.
But advocating for violence so early in the process is just wrong, and it would just not happen.
People want safety, stability, and prosperity, and trying to get them to go against that to affect the change that you’re advocating is just too much of an ask, and it’s not right, as once humans go violent everything goes up in flames.
There are more things that can be done between doing nothing, and sparking a revolution, that haven’t been tried yet.
This is a funny comic. The person it’s “inciting violence” against, Ayn Rand, has been dead for 42 years.
Put the energy into trying to affect change
That’s effect change. It starts with an E.
Put the energy into trying to affect change
That’s effect change. It starts with an E.
From Merriam Webster dictionary…
Affect is usually a verb meaning “to produce an effect upon,” as in “the weather affected his mood.” Effect is usually a noun meaning “a change that results when something is done or happens,” as in “computers have had a huge effect on our lives.”
It’s with an ‘A’.
But I’ll be sure to yell at my voice-to-text mode on your behalf, for getting it wrong in your eyes.
Keep reading.
From your source:
There are, however, a few relatively uncommon exceptions, and these are worth knowing about.
Effect can be a verb. As a verb, effect generally means “to cause to come into being” or “accomplish.”
the strike effected change within the company
A Few Rare Exceptions
I’ll go with the version that’s a verb most of the time, and is not the exception to the rule.
You’d have to use a different phrase, then. I think it’s easier to just remember that “effect a change” starts with an E, but maybe that’s just because I’ve seen it in print so many times.
I mean I showed you the literal dictionary definition. I’m not quite sure why you’re still trying to bend things in the opposite direction. At this point I think we’ve discussed this enough.
And I showed you how you were wrong in your own source, and you’re still arguing.
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In case anyone didn’t know, Ayn Rand idolized serial killer William Edward Hickman.
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand’s beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation – Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street – on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”
This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.” (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ favorite book – he even requires his clerks to read it.)
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/ayn-rand-became-big-admirer-sadistic-serial-killer-william-hickman/
Well that makes a depressing amount of sense.
I’m glad other people are aware of this. I used to post about her infatuation with that butcher every time I saw her name come up on Reddit. It makes me happy to see other people doing the same.
I understand why Ayn Rand is in this comic, but she never financed a damn thing. She was working class herself and on welfare at the end of her life.
So, on top of everything else, she was a hypocrite, but she was not a capitalist, despite her obvious longing to be one.
I don’t think Rand longed to be a capitalist… but it really does seem as if she longed to be owned by one.
and on welfare at the end of her life.
You are just repeating what others have stated online without looking into this claim yourself.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/
She took Social Security and Medicare benefits. She also paid into those. She also paid taxes.
It is morally defensible for those who decry publicly-funded scholarships, Social Security benefits,
and unemployment insurance to turn around and accept them, Rand argued, because the government
had taken money from them by force (via taxes). There’s only one catch: the recipient must regard the
receipt of said benefits as restitution, not a social entitlement.
If she paid into Social Security and Medicare and paid taxes then what is the issue? The paragraph above states
that she did not believe her actions to be hypocrisy because she had paid taxes.
There’s only one catch: the recipient must regard the receipt of said benefits as restitution, not a social entitlement.
Oh, so magic thought games change the nature of reality. Got it!
I think everyone understands that people are dicked over and have to participate in the system as it is. However, if you’re going to be the poster child for why meat is murder or how god is fake or how public assistance is evil, it’s also not unfair for people to think you’re a hypocrite if they find you eating a turkey leg, preaching in church or taking public assistance.
She was hypocritical because she thought Medicare and Social Security shouldn’t exist. And was extremely vocal about it. Yet she took them anyhow.
Also, those programs aren’t some kind of retirement savings plan. The money you pay into Social Security today gets paid out to those who are receiving it today. The first people to ever receive Social Security and Medicare never paid a dime into it because it didn’t exist while they were in the workforce.
We need to stop thinking about how the taxes we pay in directly benefits us. Taxes pay to keep our government and society functioning on an even keel. It isn’t a pay in and get your kicks out system. And when people like Ayn Rand go about criticizing it as if it’s a travesty that they had to pay taxes so that other people can live comfortable lives they are showing what kind of self serving fanatics they are.
Usually the gist of existentialcomics (great comic btw if you haven’t read it) is taking well-known philosophers from humanity’s history and pitting them against each other to play with ideas and crack philosophical jokes. With that in mind Ayn Rand’s and her book “Atlas Shrugged” is presented as a philosophy, which may clear up why she is here.
Yeah, I’m familiar with them myself, I’m just saying in this case Ayn Rand is doubling as both the philosopher and the person with money, and in real life she was only a wannabe.
A fair point that more people should know
To be fair the owning class are even bigger welfare queens
Socialism for me, lasseiz-fare capitalism for thee.
The are the only welfare queens.
That’s every working class capitalist behaviour I’ve ever met. The average family guy with 4 kids barely able to make ends meet but god forbid if you ever make a disparaging point against Elon musk as if he’s in the same category out there fighting the good fight for the average working joe.
Blind hypocrisy seems to be a necessity in capitalism ideals.
I think people do not understand where Ayn Rand was coming from. She came from the Soviet Union, a highly collectivist society. Everyone is expected to conform and be all the same economically. Then she got sick of it, emigrated and formed her own Iam14butthisisdeep philosophy. Unfortunately, some rich American asshats saw that her ideas have self-serving utility to justify their ultra-capitalist beliefs and privileges and continue exploitation, and then spread her nonsensical “objectivist” ideas around. Not many people actually believe the philosophy, although we unconsciously apply this especially with middle class NIMBYISM.
“Oh, poor homeless people. I hope they could be housed. But I will elect a politician who will not build social housing because it will bring down the value of my property.”
“I support mitigating climate change. But I do not want windfarms nearby. They are eye sores.”
She came from the Soviet Union, a highly collectivist society.
The USSR wasn’t a collectivist society - it was a centalized one. There’s a vast difference. Nobody calls the US military “collectivist,” do they now?
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Centralised but everyone is expected to value the group over the individual. The property in the Soviet Union belongs to the people albeit managed by the state. Therefore, collectivist.
Centralisation does not mean either just means individualism or collectivism.
Centralised but
So you are now claiming that centralization isn’t inherently collectivist?
The property in the Soviet Union belongs to the people albeit managed by the state.
So you are now claiming nothing in the Soviet Union was nationalized?
You can be centralised but not collectivist. See the theory of anarcho-capitalism.
I’m guessing you’re operating from different sensibility of political philosophy. Define collectivism then we can talk.
See the theory of anarcho-capitalism.
I saw it… and just looking at it made it fall apart like an upside-down house of cards in a whirlwind. Strange… this seems to happen every time anyone looks at (so-called) “anarcho-capitalism” a bit too closely. Have you had better luck with it, perhaps?
Anarcho-capitalism doesn’t work, yes. What’s your point?
Have you any luck yet trying to answer me how would you define collectivism?
Then she got sick of it, emigrated and formed her own Iam14butthisisdeep philosophy.
No, you’re being disingenuous. She formulated her philosophy moral objectivism from her experiences as a child.
This is what happened (from her wikipedia):
Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg in what was then the Russian Empire. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan). She was 12 when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted her family’s lives. Her father’s pharmacy was nationalized, and the family fled to the city of Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating high school there in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then named), where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.
When Russian universities were opened to women after the revolution, Rand was among the first to enroll at Petrograd State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. She was one of many bourgeois students purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many purged students, including Rand, were reinstated. She completed her studies at the renamed Leningrad State University in October 1924. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri; it became her first published work. By this time, she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, and she adopted the first name Ayn (pronounced /aɪn/).
In late 1925 Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago. She arrived in New York City on February 19, 1926. Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives learning English before leaving for Hollywood, California.
In Hollywood a chance meeting with director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film The King of Kings and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she met the aspiring actor Frank O’Connor; they married on April 15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on March 3, 1931. She tried to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they could not obtain permission to emigrate.
Where is your objection? She formed her philosophy after experiencing a collectivist dystopia. Her family’s business was nationalised. That is part and parcel of such extreme collectivist socio-economics and thus enamoured by hyperindividualist extreme counterpart.
Dystopia in her experience. The peasants going to uni would have had a different perspective.
Her family’s business was nationalised.
Lol! The US nationalizes stuff all the damn time - Obama essentially nationalized the auto industry after the 2008 crash (right before handing it back to the billionaire parasites after their debt had been shouldered by the US people).
Yet I don’t see anybody calling the US “collectivist.”
How much of US economy is nationalised compared to the Soviet Union?
she was just mad that her privileges were distributed fairly for once
I mean, lots of people with terrible and damaging ideas came from backgrounds that explain their terrible and damaging ideas. She doesn’t get a pass because the USSR was corrupt, nor does she get a pass because western capitalist society is also corrupt.
She came to the West and made it more corrupt with her half-baked ideas by amplifying the excessive use of individualist values.
I’m just a dumbass redneck, but we call it selfishness around here.
Also, in that reality, in panel 5 Rand’s private paramilitary security team would show up and start clubbing the workers.
In the real reality, Rand would borrow the state’s police and/or national guard, just as it has historically happened.
The state always has the final say. In a liberal democracy all we can do is vote, campaign & support the best (or least worst) people to make these decisions.
And that’s why wages didn’t increase for workers as a result of industrialization. People are just as poor now as they were before! /s
I mean, that’s been an ongoing battle. It sure as hell wasn’t going well in the 1920s and 1930s, then a bunch of shit happened to claw back rights and value for workers.
Some of those battles continue to be fought.
Those battles have not been going well for the last 40+ years as worker share of profits, power, and wealth disparity has been eroded pretty much every year.
But we have lots of bread and circuses so it’s cool I guess.
They are kind of starting to forget about the bread part of Bread and Circus lately though
The funny part is how we rationalize exploiting thousands and often millions of people… Some of whom work to the point of death
But everyone goes nuts if we threaten violence against those who make our lives miserable.
The funny part is how you blame businesses, but every time a government or nonprofit tries the same, SALARIES ARE NOT PAID (on time or at all).
CENTRAL PLANNING IS WORSE AS B2B COMPETITION.
Fck off zurdos de m
Did you know there exists other options like co-ops?
Doesn’t work.
Doesn’t work.
[citation needed]
Sure… Name ONE (1) example, then?
that’s not how this works.
YOU made the claim, YOU back it up.
I’m not doing your homework for you.
Hahaha hahahha I can name top 500 businesses. You name just one functioning coop?
Could you elaborate on exactly what it is you’re talking about?
My bet is that they’re an Argentinian who voted for Milei and is currently coping
There’s always some bootlicker just waiting to pop out of the bush.
And they ALWAYS have a self-important username. “JustMy2c” that nobody asked for.
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
I don’t understand why people in the US fall for that take. Socialism did take root in the US - that’s the whole reason they had to invent police and alphabet organisations to crush it.
My man, I’m Finnish.
I’m Finnish.
Sooo… you have less of an excuse.
Exactly.
But in south America they have been robbed blind by communists getting 11.5% loans from China for failed projects. IN DOZENS OF LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES!
South America was robbed blind by Europe and North America.
Yeah, it’s all China’s fault and totally not the imperial power who exploited South America for decades, foisted murderous fascist regimes onto it and funded genocidal death squads over there who murdered millions.
Boo. Fucking. Hoo.
One, non-profits are worse by design, being both a tax write-off and deliberately exploitative entities, and two, any government that goes it has to work against number of international interests, each of which probably gets more income than many country’s economy. Companies are centrally planned by their CEO and board of directors, your statement makes no sense. The only difference is in what they are willing to do and were they are willing to go, where the real difference is not having to give a shit about your workers or consumers.
I work in a non profit healthcare company and the first part of your statement is bullshit. No comment on the rest of it though but non profit can work just fine.
They work worse and act as an excuse not to offer universal care, so I disagree. Talk to these guys about just how good non-profit healthcare is … https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/orlando/profile/hospital/adventhealth-0733-160528155/customer-reviews
Basically, as bad as healthcare, but they can get tax-free incentives. Good luck for the diamond in the rough you claim to belong to, but it’s far, far, far from the norm and it comes with hidden costs.
Universal healthcare can’t be for-profit btw
Of course it isn’t, I’m not arguing for for-profit universal healthcare, where did you get that impression? I’m arguing against non-profits being used as tax-free launderers without any real benefits that also seem to want to get their low level workers to work for free while the CEOs cash in a nice salary.
Has anyone ever told you the world is bigger than the US? Because it is, and I’m from there. That’s why healthcare isn’t a problem no matter what type of company I work in (if I even work). So maybe working non-profit in the US is unfair, but it is just as working for a normal organisation here in Europe.
Sorry, bud, I have universal healthcare in Europe. Nice try. No need for “non-profit (tax-subsidized private) healthcare”, at least not at the citizen level of the country I’m at where we do get it. The only one who seems stuck in the US bubble is you & company. But if you want, there are plenty of sites for European non-profits too, feel free to provide an specific example as I am able to do instead of moving from vague to vague and I’ll take your claim more seriously than what a bunch of meaningless Internet points gives it.
I’m sorry but your comment confuses me a bit. You specifically link to a US based article, and mention how bad non-profit organisations are. One of the things you mention as being bad about it (and why it doesn’t work) is because you don’t get healthcare.
Then I mention that this is not true for at least some other regions of the world, and I know that from personal experience, but now your saying I’m wrong? Or do you want me to share where I work?
I must just be misunderstanding your comment for sure, so please elaborate what you mean.
Fuck Milton Friedman.
List of “non-working” non-profits: FSF, KDE e.v., Linux Foundation, Agora and Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Take your choice between mainstream non-relevance, free reusable software projects for large enterprises with small or next to nothing labor costs, political fronts, while also being far from the norm of how non-profits are used. You used the term “non-working”, not me, but it’s quite apt. If FSF and the Linux Foundation are worth anything, is because of the trust one can place in their central leadership, but their licenses get ignored all the time internationally and no amount of lawyers and money can overcome that. Even in regards to Ukranian and anti-Putin support, most of it is coming from the mainstream because that’s where the people are, crumbs don’t make an argument.
That’s an extensive list of every 501©3 in the largest economy in the US. California has strong workers protections compared to the rest of the nation. If they don’t pay your salary, withhold your salary, or even fire you without your final pay in hand, they owe triple in damages. Nonprofit corporations, and Co-Ops, are the only corporations that should exist, as they are the only ones not legally beholden to shareholders profits first.
We will execute corporations in a heartbeat if they decide to FAFO out here.
The problem about guillotines is that they seldomly are applied where it matters, just were it sells.
One of my favorite songs from my favorite band. For those who haven’t heard them, Kiss Me, Son of God and One More Parade (which is a cover of an old song, like Istanbul (not Constantinople)) are both great as well
Too be fair though, Hugo Boss designed some very sharp uniforms.
No he didn’t. Hugo Boss only used death camp slave labor to sew it together in his factory.
Two SS officers (Walter something and someone) designed the uniforms.
NOW DO THIS WITH EXTREME LEFT NARCO DICTATORS IN SOUTH AMERICA AND WITH EXTREME RIGHT MAGA IDIOTS IN US AND WITH CARREER POLITICIANS EVER WHERE.
NOT BUSINESS OWNERS. they arnt as bad as you think…
You seem to lack an understanding of the history of US forced regime change in Latin America and the world.
Quite a lot of (in fact most of) the coups the US have conducted have been against legitimately elected leftwing governments… And sometimes with the aid of, if not for international business interests (dole bananas being the go to example, and the reason the term banana republic exists).
Also, whilst I’m sure that fairly ethical small business operators (perhaps like yourself) easily find cultural avenues to feel attacked regularly - I think you should try to be rational and think through these feelings when you come across topics like this.
For instance, is this comic supposed to be aimed at small business owners, or is it supposed to be a lampooning of Ayn Rand’s philosophies? Judging from the style, it’s from the brand (one could even call them a small business): “Philosophy Comics” - which might be a clue.
…most of society’s woes are aimed at large corporate and political interests, and when confronted on a personal level, most people understand the necessity and community value of small business as being useful and good in society. It tends to be the more money-hungry, greedy, and heatless aspects of large scale global Capitalism and Corporatism that society and culture aims to criticize…
…hence the grey uniforms and drab setting in this comic. So I think you’ve had a knee jerk reaction here, and should be aware of it to in order to detach yourself from the kinds of global large scale Capitalism, and the history of Colonialist and Imperialist involvement that the Capitalist class have often been part of. Might make you feel better.
No, I understand that history. But the extreme left influenced by ruzzia venezuela China Cuba has taken over many countries. Some fight back now, like El Salvador, Ecuador and argentina.
You clearly have no idea what is going on in Argentina.
Owww I know a LOT.
Tell me, what do you thunk happened with twenty years of kirchenian politics? Sold the entire country to China? They went bankrupt SEVEN TIMES. for oevr a decade, the INFLATION PER YEAR WAS OVER 100%.
DUDE.
And Argentina is fighting back by voting Trump’s dog cloning friend? Argentina’s problem is not China, it’s corruption and incompetence.
Milei is a moron for supporting Trump, he probably does NOT know exactly what Trump stands for. Milei is also way too religious for my liking, women’s rights and so on are horrible old fashioned shit (like trump).
But yes, what he is doing YESTERDAY 1 MARCH (the may accords he announced and more) is actually 100% focussed in ending corruption. At least for now he’s doing exactly what he should, economically and anti corruption and reorganizing the state departments. Don’t forget they went bankrupt 7 seven times last few years and have had over a decade of ANNUAL inflation each single year over 100%…
And bad loans from china by corrupt extreme left wing (narco) communists is exactly what you and I can agree on that is the REAL problem in argentina. After they fix they I hope he thinks again before making abortions illegal etc
Milei fires a bunch of people right after Christmas, the guy is comically selfish and has no one’s wellbeing in mind.
He also supports Trump, people connected to the last military dictatorship and is pretty much against anything progressive.
I don’t think that’s the case, also neither Putin’s Russia nor Xi’s China are governed from “the extreme left”. Both leaders are classically Authoritarian traditionalist conservatives. Hence the mistreatment of gays in Russia, and China’s laws against boy bands being too effeminate (both of which are examples of culturally conservative positions).
In fact, I’m sure many people here see how this comic can even apply to the mistreatment of factory workers toiling under the economic abuses in China and Russia, so again, your criticisms and comments aren’t lining up with the depictions and intent of the comic, nor with the political state/history of the world.
Lick that corporate boot some more, 8 think you missed a spot
Come live in south America and see how the political class is rich. They are all left wing narco dictators. Ecuador, Cuba, Argentina, venezuela, el salvador… All in the hands of NARCO COMMUNISTS. really, come visit.
Ecuador is currently run by a pro-democracy president who was born in Florida. Argentina by an America-friendly Libertarian, Venezuela’s leader is a leftist, and is still in power because he survived a US lead coup (Aka Operation Gideon, part of which involved economic attacks)… and Cuba isn’t particularly known for it’s cocaine trade.
Also, you should look into the CIA whistle blower Gary Webb, who discusses US involvement in the cocaine trade at length.
You’re quite lacking in solid, verifiable facts in your comments.
You are not informed, u specifically said this because el. Salvador ecuador and Argentina are trying to escape communism. While their (new) presidents do their bests, many government and congress people vote for extreme left. Their HUGE number or government workers drains their funds.
YOU ARE uninformed. I actually live here…
I was expecting him to lay off half of them.
shrugs
Nooooo! The earth! What have you done?!
Ackshually, Atlas is carrying the sky, not the world
… I’m sorry, I was feeling like being an annoying pedant today.
Him?
