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0 pointsrandomdata2y ago0 comments

> In what world do you think the people who own everything don't also have all the power?

A world where "Realize capital has no market value without labor to work it" is true cannot see power reset in the hands of those with capital as it asserts that capital has no value without labour, which means that labour holds all the power.

I don't know what world that was meant to refer to. It did not specify, nor was it it written by me in order to specify now. You may have accidentally pressed the wrong reply button?

> You cannot decouple ownership from politics.

That may be true, but the concept of ownership doesn't come from capitalism. Socialism, for example, also describes ownership. You cannot couple ownership with capitalism.

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Turskarama2y ago· 2 in thread

> A world where "Realize capital has no market value without labor to work it" is true cannot see power reset in the hands of those with capital as it asserts that capital has no value without labour, which means that labour holds all the power.

Yes and no, the capitalist needs the labour for their capital to be worth anything, but likewise the Labor needs the tools the capitalist owns to multiply the value of their labour. Since capital gives control of the state (indirectly) the state tends to also support capital which then has a monopoly on violence and can coerce labor through means that the labour itself doesn't have. Historically this has come about in the police engaging in union busting (an example of how capital is power).

randomdataOP2y ago

> but likewise the Labor needs the tools the capitalist owns to multiply the value of their labour

Labour doesn't need to multiply its labour, though. Labour remains valuable no matter what.

> Since capital gives control of the state (indirectly)

The state is just people. In a world where capital is worthless without labour, I assume that labour makes up the majority of the population – why would a small group of people sitting on capital that does nothing and is worthless have more power than the majority of the populace who actually bring value to the table?

> which then has a monopoly on violence

In a world where capital is worthless without labour, who, exactly, is going to enact that violence? You need labour to bring the violence...

Turskarama2y ago

> Labour remains valuable no matter what.

Maybe, but for a somewhat tortured example: if you're a programmer with domain knowledge of a specific application then your value there might be worth $150k a year. If that's taken away from you and you have to learn a new domain then your value might be only $80k per year. If even a computer to work on is taken away from you then your labor is only worth minimum wage.

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