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0 pointsnamelessoracle4y ago0 comments

My analogy is to look at your computer.

Screws are essential, but you can probably go without a few and if one breaks you will just throw it away and get another one.

A graphics card is expensive, and the computer might still work in some core ways without it! Yet that you might try to get repaired and go through an annoying RGA process to get a new one.

Which type of worker is the screw and which one is the graphics card?

Phrased another way. All workers sell their labor, but some people are effectively capital by themselves. A factory buys a piece of capital (the machine that creates the product) and the laborer.

The hospital hires a doctor who is both the piece of capital and the laborer. It makes sense that there is a higher price tag when a person is also the the machine that makes the product.

That capitalists value people and treat them nicer when they are also basically a piece of capital makes perfect sense.

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karmakurtisaani4y ago

The analogy is ok if you only consider the capitalist's point of view. Screws don't need health care not do they have children that have to pay for college.

If you want to also consider the worker's point of view, you need think of things like cost of living vs salary and unionizing. Computer part analogies are much too naive for that.

namelessoracleOP4y ago

I dont think there's anything at all naive by realizing that the capitalists perspective on you is just like how they view a part of a machine they own, and they will treat you according to how you would treat a piece of machine based on how expensive / difficult to replace you/it are.

Sense you seemed to miss the point. Capitalists dont care about you. The dirty secret though is that communists/socialists view you as a cog in a machine too. Every large system will.

karmakurtisaani4y ago

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I got the impression that you were arguing for the "capitalist" viewpoint rather than just characterizing it, as that opinion seems to be somewhat popular here. My mistake if that was not the case.

For the record, my intention was to contrast that to the antiwork sentiment, and how it is understandable, if not a direct consequence, starting from the "capitalist" model of thinking about work.

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0 pointsnamelessoracle4y ago0 comments

My analogy is to look at your computer.

Screws are essential, but you can probably go without a few and if one breaks you will just throw it away and get another one.

A graphics card is expensive, and the computer might still work in some core ways without it! Yet that you might try to get repaired and go through an annoying RGA process to get a new one.

Which type of worker is the screw and which one is the graphics card?

Phrased another way. All workers sell their labor, but some people are effectively capital by themselves. A factory buys a piece of capital (the machine that creates the product) and the laborer.

The hospital hires a doctor who is both the piece of capital and the laborer. It makes sense that there is a higher price tag when a person is also the the machine that makes the product.

That capitalists value people and treat them nicer when they are also basically a piece of capital makes perfect sense.

0 comments

karmakurtisaani4y ago

The analogy is ok if you only consider the capitalist's point of view. Screws don't need health care not do they have children that have to pay for college.

If you want to also consider the worker's point of view, you need think of things like cost of living vs salary and unionizing. Computer part analogies are much too naive for that.

namelessoracleOP4y ago

Sense you seemed to miss the point. Capitalists dont care about you. The dirty secret though is that communists/socialists view you as a cog in a machine too. Every large system will.

karmakurtisaani4y ago

For the record, my intention was to contrast that to the antiwork sentiment, and how it is understandable, if not a direct consequence, starting from the "capitalist" model of thinking about work.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse