this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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So I say somewhere else that one shouldn’t bother with this comic because its assumptions are flawed, but let’s point out exactly how because otherwise Marxists will live in the flawed understanding that their pov is unchallenged or inherently correct.
— the alien assumes for some magical reason a property cannot be owned, specifically a factory. A factory is not a natural product of the world, there’s not tree growing factories. Someone put in an investment to create it, and the work they allocate in that factory is a recoupment of that factory building investment.
— the workers obey “pieces” of paper because that’s what society decided is civilized behavior. The alternative is one where a factory owner decides to kill people for trying to take what’s theirs, or the workers decide to kill the factory owner to take over. Either way, there is violence and bloodshed.
Marxist believe, for whatever magical reasons, that the violence will stop once they seize the means of production. But why should it? Why wouldn’t another subgroup of Marxists constantly want to challenge the committees who want to run that specific factory? The answer is that without a rule or agreement (piece of paper), various groups will constantly try to seize what they think should be theirs.
— the alien believes that agreeing to work with someone is slavery. Here I have two things to say: 1) for someone who doesn’t want to work, then any kind of work will appear to be slavery, and that’s not a a capitalism problem, that’s a self actualization problem for some people. 2) in reasonable economies, people have choices for places to work, or unions which ensure that employers cannot abuse them, or laws which ensure protections.
The fact is simply this, whenever two people interact, they will have disagreements. We make laws to not kill each other over those disagreements. If you want to experience what it’s like living in an authoritarian state, try living in china or Vietnam. Rule of law means little or nothing in such places, whereas in democracies you can still get some recourse via the courts, or via regulations. Have kleptocrats and oligarchs ruined democracies, yes definitely.
— being a larger class doesn’t necessarily mean anything in violent conflict. I think any philosophy which relies on violent conflict to achieve its goals is tacitly admitting that it cannot win the hearts and minds of people via ideas alone.
Edit to say, I have a busy day ahead so I wont be responding lol, but doesn’t mean I agree or don’t want to challenge this vapid Marxist pov
And once more: lol @ downvoters constantly butthurt that their Marxist pov is challenged
Not only that, it insists on this 1800s argument/fantasy about factory workers. In an age and economy where 70% of people work in the services sector.
I seized my means of production. Or rather, bought them on Amazon. Same for lawyers, accountants, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, cleaning people, photographers, gardeners, painters...
It insists nothing of the sort. It makes no difference whether one labors for manufacturing industry wages or service industry wages. Either way one is proletariat, selling one’s labor to the bourgeoisie for survival.
Congratulations, you are now petit bourgeois.
As are large swaths of the population. Or can be.
I was a freelancer and went back to "selling my labor" because the accounting, customer management, marketing, etc overhead were not worth the money or the stress. I could go back anytime but prefer work/life balance and stability. Am I proletariat now?
Yes, you are proletariat now. I too have vacillated between proletariat and petit bourgeois over the years, sometimes an employee, sometimes a freelancer, and sometimes a business owner with employees. Class isn’t a measure of income or a vibe, it’s one’s relationship to capital.
Fair enough. But I also get RSUs as compensation so I own a (tiny) part of the company. And a bunch of others via ETF. So I'm part bourgeois!
I just fail to see this "we must seize the means of production" Motto being applicable to current (western) capitist countries. Plenty of people can do that just by giving their notice and registering an LLC (or SL, or GmbH, or whatever your local equivalent is).
And not only highly educated elites (which arguably in the US is quite discriminatory, in Europe we have free higher education) but plenty of working class jobs can do it.
You want to seize the means of production? Put the pitchfork down, fill form 123abc and godspeed.