There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

«‹›6 »

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

if you're willing to accept that capitalist exploitation of low skill foreign labor can hurt low skill domestic laborers, then why wouldn't you also be willing to accept that capitalist exploitation of low skill immigrant labor could hurt low skill domestic laborers?

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 19:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 10:29

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Peel posted:

this is the sort of argument you don't need to rely on any more when people have investigated the thing in question directly

do you believe as well as vox that offshoring labor did not hurt american domestic workers, especially the unskilled?

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/24/14363148/trade-deals-nafta-wto-china-job-loss-trump

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 23:25

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

namesake posted:

Unless you can point to immigration having a particularly abnormal aspect to it then the left-wing response to it is 'solidarity, join your local unions to defend all our pay and conditions as we are all working class'. Ideally that would also be the response when they're foreign Labour but international unions haven't taken off as much as they're needed.

Your argument (in the United States at least) would be equivalent to saying "if you lived in a society that currently does not exist, then unskilled immigrant labor will not hurt unskilled laborers." That is little solace to unskilled american laborers.

A race to the bottom for labor in a particular occupation does hurt domestic laborers in that occupation.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 23:27

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

in a sane economic system, a bunch of immigrating workers wanting to generate wealth for your society would be an unequivocal good. capitalism is not sane.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 23:29

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Aeolius posted:

a dictatorship of the proletariat that has made major concessions to the bourgeoisie

lol

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 22:15

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Wheeee posted:

yea white collar office workers are totally receiving welfare from the capitalist class and are not in fact having their labour power exploited since as we all know in our modern financialized global economy someone digging ditches is totally generating more value for the capitalists than someone working an office

The excerpts from Sakai here have been illuminating, in that he's not really saying anything of value.

there are white collar workers who are heavily exploited and robbed of what they produce from the capitalist class

then there are those white collar workers who are paid very handsomely from the proceeds of surplus value to crack the whip and put a lid on resentment from below

white collar/blue collar is a really lovely class distinction

# ¿ May 10, 2018 17:54

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

most office work is probably necessary in the context of a hierarchical capitalist arrangement. you need them to maximize profits and to keep the system going. you need the vast army of supervisors to make sure workers aren't in the bathroom the entire day. you need the army of bureaucrats to deny insurance claims. you need the army of advertisers to flood the cityscape and airwaves with propaganda to sell your product. you need to pay the endowment to the university to have the economists propagandize your world view. you need the army of police you can call to club the heads of strikers. and so on and so forth

in a non-hierarchical work arrangement, you probably don't need the army of supervisors to crack the whip and so forth and get your factory workers to wear diapers on their shift. you're still gonna probably need people whose responsibility is to coordinate work across groups of people.

# ¿ May 10, 2018 18:33

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

also it's important to realize that if you don't need all this extra layer of cruft that is designed to keep the system of capitalism going, you could free up the labor that is occupied with sue-ing uganda because they want anti-smoking labeling on tobacco products and use it for something deemed socially necessary and productive in a more democratic fashion

we take babies and indoctrinate them in institutions of propaganda churning out obedient workers and we take some of the brightest of them and shovel them into the maw of private entities so they can figure out how to sell propaganda better in a search engine or how best to maximize the generation of fraudulent loans to people and sell them to suckers elsewhere

# ¿ May 10, 2018 18:55

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

There's no denying that the middle class performs necessary labor to facilitate business, but the question becomes does an office clerk really perform labor that's four or five times worth the labor of a line worker? At some point you're reaching a crest where you're being compensated well in excess of the value of your labor, if for nothing else than to maintain your loyalty and discretion. That's the social compact between the middle class and capital. The middle class is generously compensated for running the affairs of capital.

that depends on how you define middle class and line worker. for example, is a programmer a line worker and middle class? a surgeon? the designer of tools?

just being paid well doesn't mean you aren't being exploited of actually socially necessary and productive labor that you yourself produce

# ¿ May 10, 2018 19:12

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Well, the problem with that is how do you know you're being exploited if you don't see the books? Does a report have measurable value? Are managers really being exploited? Capitalists intentionally obfuscate the real value of labor by exploiting their control of information. This masks just how much earnings are socially determined in order to maintain the fiction of meritocracy.

"real" value of labor is always going to be an opinionated and necessarily political decision. however, under a market economic system of valuation (with all its flaws), software programmers, musicians, tool-designers or whatever are necessarily exploited by a capitalist because they would never be hired by a capitalist unless they were exploited

it would be opinion on whether or not the programmer or musician is living off exploiting the labor of the farmer or whatever in such a system, but I think that's a question that's really not very interesting or worth thinking about when there are far larger problems

# ¿ May 10, 2018 19:46

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUGpApcvGiU&t=5601s

# ¿ May 10, 2018 19:47

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

well yah that's why I was wondering about what you meant by "middle class" and "line worker" since a lot of people dump direct commodity/service producers into the bucket of middle class

I would agree by your definition of middle class that there is definitely a class distinction between the necessary workers of commodity production and those who may not be necessary that in capitalism serve other supervisory or whatever roles.

# ¿ May 10, 2018 20:07

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

richard wolff makes the distinction using the words productive workers (those producing commodities) and non-productive workers (those not producing commodities) under capitalism

non-productive workers would be supervisors, managers, clerks, salesmen, policemen, professors, lawyers, etc.

however in this distinction, I think salesmen and clerks and even police have a lot more in common with the commodity producer than the supervisor and manager workers

# ¿ May 10, 2018 20:14

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

ive conferred with my boyfriend and tesla employees are definitely free not to sign the new labor contracts denying them class action legal rights

# ¿ May 22, 2018 05:01

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

noble democrats certainly would not be bush-like warhawks i screech as obama continues bush's wars of aggression and starts new ones and the entire liberal press hoots and hollers for all of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNfucKAftB0

# ¿ May 31, 2018 03:09

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Larry Parrish posted:

i generally think the people who want to abolish money and wages and stuff are masturbatory navel gazers. money and even limited markets are an easy way to handle resource distribution between individuals or small groups for the foreseeable future. unless one of you utopian communists sees a way around scarcity without inventing clean fusion power and a space elevator. that said the way forward from capitalism is decommodifying everything it takes to achieve a decent living. we will always have limited luxuries and personally I think the best way to distribute that is a market economy instead of like, rationing them out as equitably as possible. So even if we aren't paying for houses and healthcare and food and stuff out of our wages, how do you handle people who want cigarettes still? How do you handle people who want to go camping or on road trips. I guess some of the insane tankies online think there just shouldn't be anything that isn't provided to everyone equally but the truth is people want different things, and I'm ok with people getting my share of caviar or whatever

You can do equitable distribution and production for some necessities and markets for others (e.g. caviar). The case for abolishing markets for housing, healthcare, and food is overwhelming.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:13

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Also keep in mind the US literally did implement rationing during WWII instead of letting market logic dictate how much milk your family gets, because market logic for distribution in this situation would have atrocious results.

These atrocious market results are happening right now IRL in the US for housing and healthcare.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:21

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Ruzihm posted:

Love to make caviar factory workers compete for wages when an alternative exists for other workers

I'm not saying markets are good. I'm saying that for someone that thinks markets are necessary, you can more easily convince them that we should at least abolish markets for necessities and you can still preserve markets for other things. Thinking you can only have markets and not-markets is a false dichotomy.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:22

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

what if you have at least one idiot fucker that demands dominion over the entire universe and anything outside of that

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:26

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

also I think you have different definitions of demand

one definition of demand is desires that can be met based upon sustainable [or at least realistic and plausible] production

the other definition of demand is just any fantasy outside of any realistic conception of production that an idiot fucker can imagine

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:28

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

the neoclassical academic definition of demand is of course the idiot hellfucker definition of how much money someone has to spend based of course on their inherent capacity of wanting something by being willing to work "hard" for that money to afford it

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:31

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Ruzihm posted:

Labor power is a necessity so I'm curious how that market can be abolished while wages are still being paid

lets say the state completely nationalizes healthcare, food, housing and their labor allocation and distribution completely devoid of market distribution

the state can just create money for the workers involved in these enterprises that they can use in the market for caviar with caviar producers

note that I personally think markets suck, but you can certainly imagine a mixed market and non-market economy

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:34

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Karl Barks posted:

you don't have to imagine it, it's called china

and also note you can still have state capitalism if the workers and consumers in the enterprise do not democratically decide how to run that enterprise

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 16:37

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

If you desire something but wouldn�t put even a penny towards getting it I would suggest you don�t actually want it.

this is what neoliberals say when they justify denying the homeless food and housing btw

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 17:47

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

maybe ya'll should define the word "demand" b/c you guys are arguing over totally different meanings

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 17:48

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Ruzihm posted:

Advertising doesn't exist to increase aggregate demand, but to increase comparative demand of one particular set of commodities. This is why ads can simply disparage the competition and work just fine.

advertising does increase aggregate demand. consumers will go out and buy more stuff instead of "saving" their money. consumers will also increase (short-term) aggregate demand by going into debt in order to buy more stuff until the point where debt servicing eats up all of the demand and destroys the aggregate demand.

advertising does increase comparative demand too, of course.

edit: note that the definition of demand I am using here is the idiot hellfucker definition of spending money

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 17:51

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Ruzihm posted:

If I am going to spend X money now, save Y now and spend Y+Z money later, how is advertising making me spend X+Y money now and never spending Z (and maybe having to reduce my future spending even more due to debt & interest) increasing my expected expenditures?

working americans used to actually save money instead of redlining themselves living paycheck to paycheck

they would actually keep that money and end up not spending it. now they go into massive credit card debt

this behavior ranges from poor people to couples making six figures

# ¿ Jun 16, 2018 02:57

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Wheeee posted:

working americans used to be able to afford to save money, now they redline themselves living paycheque to paycheque to cover frivolous things like groceries, housing, and transportation

households with well above the median income are redlining themselves with stupid bullshit like diamond rings, amazon echoes, juiceros, every single new iphone release, etc.

advertisement leads to these consumers redlining themselves and increasing aggregate demand

# ¿ Jun 16, 2018 04:55

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

ok sure but my main point is that advertisement does increase aggregate demand where demand is defined as consumer spending

# ¿ Jun 16, 2018 05:39

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Kindest Forums User posted:

Maybe that selfish judge could wait two years before dipping. Lazy mrllebials

kennedy was appointed by reagan lol

# ¿ Jun 28, 2018 01:33

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

there's a pretty good sci-fi story in a recent analog about the climate going to hell, and idiocracy-like climate-change deniers establishing an authoritarian regime in america that blames the problem on weather satellites. the story is from the perspective of technicians who have been forcibly conscripted into operating satellite-killing weapons to hunt down the remaining weather satellites and destroy them.

"we've got another one of those weather-manipulating thingies! destroy it!!! or else!!!"

pretty bleak but the technicians fool the morons in charge of the program by destroying old junk military satellites and by using various electronic warfare tricks like "masking" the real ones.

i feel compelled to remind everyone that idiocracy was bad and also we're already led by idiocracy-like climate-change-deniers

# ¿ Jun 29, 2018 03:20

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

when these people propose a balanced budget amendment, are they poo poo-for-brains kool aid drinkers that don't understand you need to deficit spend to sustain the economy or do they plan to make up for it with central bank shenanigans

# ¿ Jul 1, 2018 04:02

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

also don't mistake balanced budget bullshit for just a republican platform

the nancy pelosis of the world want it too lol

# ¿ Jul 1, 2018 04:09

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

talking about debt to GDP ratios implies that the debt is paid by taxes. this isn't the case. the debt is paid by just creating money out of thin air

if the US actually did try to "pay off" the debt by either cutting spending or raising taxes significantly on consumers, the economy would enter a great depression. taxing rich people might be okay because they aren't using their excess money for productive activity anyways

the debt is simply an expression of how much money the federal government has created in the private sector through fiscal spending

# ¿ Jul 1, 2018 12:40

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

HorrificExistence posted:

I love debating ppl on reddit

capitalism works as long as we build a Dyson swarm!

if there's one type of economic system that can keep masses of people in crushing poverty just barely above subsistence level even though there's a literal dyson sphere, it's capitalism

rudatron posted:

The rate of profit for anything is space is so marginal, compared to scamming people back on earth, with poo poo like bitcoins. Hence why millions of graphics cards are being burned out doing the equivalent to calculating digits of pie to win a coupon, but we don't have a moon base.

imagine the god energy of a dyson sphere being harnessed for bitcoins

# ¿ Jul 2, 2018 11:50

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

lol does trump not realize there's already an entire machine for covertly couping governments that obama extremely likely used

# ¿ Jul 4, 2018 08:47

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

it turns out when you think socialism just means reform capitalism, you have no class consciousness

# ¿ Jul 5, 2018 22:41

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Karl Barks posted:

Bernie was the first to explicitly say he was socialist (tho arguably he is not, I know),

the perfidious bernie sanders has a public position and a private position

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 17:22

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

im the chinese billionaire communist

ama

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 23:14

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 10:29

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

as a chinese billionaire communist, i can assure you that communism is good. very good

# ¿ Jul 17, 2018 23:20

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

«‹›6 »