Early Retirement (2006)

Re:Early Retirement (2006) by daptaq on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @11:56AM (#28062540)

Unless your opposition to capitalism is based on idealistic notions of morality, you have to accept that it is the predominant mode of production that society involuntarily finds itself in. Marx was financed by Engels, a factory owner and capitalist, and if he had refused to do so on principle, he would have probably never gotten around to write any of his theory (regardless of what one things of it).

Money disassociates social relations under capitalism. You fear wanting to pay people to work for you, but they too just work for the money. There is nothing ethical or unethical about that, it is just how the structure of capitalism influences the production and reproduction of society.

You might want to study theory or history, engage in labour actions, teach, help the needy, etc. but the system doesn't privilege anyone unconditionally. To have the opportunities to do what you find important, you need the resources: education, money and also time.

So it is up to you, to live by the standards of an ideal society or to exploit the current circumstances as best you can.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Early Retirement (2006) by ok2938 on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @12:11PM (#28062719)

Yes, true - many societies are using this configuration for hundreds of years.

My issue is not based on morality, but on the fact that we as humans are capable of reflecting on our existence. And that each of our lives is determined by a large amount of luck.

I could be born smart, ill, rich, poor and so on. Does some accidental property give me more rights and opportunities than others? My western net worth would allow me to retire right now in many parts of the world - but did I earn this privilege? Of course not, it was pure accident.

My issue is that people take a huge amount of lucky accidents as a justification of all kinds of power grabs and entitlements. And capitalism just has the potential to magnify this effect - e.g. by letting the "smart" and "lucky" control the "less smart" and "less lucky" and call it all "natural" and without alternative.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Early Retirement (2006) by throwaway894345 on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @12:25PM (#28062932)

Virtually no one likes inequality, but we really really don't want mass poverty, starvation, disease, etc that accompany alternative systems. Capitalism is how we minimize for poverty by tolerating some acceptable degree of inequality (it's a tricky but necessary calibration endeavor).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Early Retirement (2006) by jaybe1234 on Thursday August 05, 2021 @09:52AM (#28073743)

Capitalism by it's nature is exploitative. You work for me and I pay you less than your labor is worth so I make a profit. It's a system built on greed and profit and is most certainly unethical.

The system privileges the top unconditionally. Think what you want, but let's not pretend that capitalism is an ethical system where the laborer isn't exploited.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Early Retirement (2006) by daptaq on Sunday August 08, 2021 @10:41AM (#28107055)

Exploitation is not an ethical question, it is necessary for societies that a discrepancy exists between the value of labour invested and the value of the return. Otherwise you'd have a society where only those who work would be rewarded, and the ill, the elderly and children would get nothing.

Capitalism doesn't require greed, in the abstract it is just a condition whereby some must sell their labour and others have to buy it. In practice, there are of course a number of issues when production revolved about value accumulation, and it breaks down when the reproduction of society on a material level becomes unprofitable.

Capitalism is the rule by Capital, the impersonal forces that emerge from the structures based on the wage-labour relation. Capitalists, insofar they still exist, are (well-treated) servants, but they have no autonomy and are not rulers. Some stand to gain more than others, naturally, but the need to moralize capitalism is the consequence of weak theory, not something inherent to the system.

[ Parent | on HN ]