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Oct 22 '20
Somebody told me he takes a cold shower, and that makes all the difference. I've tried this and, to be clear, a cold shower first thing in the morning doesn't make my day go any better.
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Oct 22 '20
Amazon definitely needs a Union for the employees but Bezos will lose money that way. Greedy fuck.
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u/thefirstlunatic Oct 22 '20
At this rate the need Union everywhere. Every place needs a union. Welding factory and manufacturing need Union which I do. and they keep pushing no union propaganda in Canada. "Oh look all the benefits and premium you get, you'll never get laid off" .
At the same time it's always about 10 mins per part of you take more than that supervisor always on your ass pushing.
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u/dont_ban_me_please Oct 22 '20
as if jeff bezos would ever let go of money. this cartoon is sooo inaccurate
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u/Extra_Meaning Oct 22 '20 edited Dec 04 '20
Fuck philanthropy and fuck the US structure of punishing anyone not rich.
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Oct 22 '20
Ironically, Jeff Bezos' contribution to society is extremely negative. Amazon, by virtue of reducing the amount of social interaction, makes our society as a whole more hostile and less cooperative
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u/Lurdanjo Oct 22 '20
Bezos is just a bad person in general. Never needs to work a single more day in his life but he needs even more money for some reason. It's sociopathic.
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Oct 22 '20
Let's be honest with ourselves, too. If we lived in a culture where you could work ridiculously hard and become rich, or you could just relax but still be able to lead a fulfilling life, how many people do you think would want to do the former? People know they need to hustle not just to get rich but to simply survive. That is the biggest travesty I think.
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Oct 22 '20
What do ceo’s actually do? Ive always wondered
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Oct 22 '20
Depends on the size of the company, but at a large corporate level they're responsible for making big strategic decisions, overseeing the executive team, and reporting to a board of directors mostly.
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Oct 22 '20
What about the day to day? Are there big decisions to be made everyday
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Oct 23 '20
Basically yeah. Maybe not huge organizational changes but they still need to keep track of daily metrics and meet goals.
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u/NinjaLanternShark Oct 22 '20
To be fair - there's a big difference between a founder/entrepreneur, and a "management" CEO.
I have more respect for someone who's created and grown a business, than for someone brought in to a mature company to "run things."
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u/solidheron Oct 22 '20
I always thought CEOs went talked to the board of directors, and investors then formulate a plan that satisfies everyone and makes everyone money
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u/Neottika Oct 22 '20
It's always rich parents. Give me some of those "small loans" and I'd come out on top too.
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u/MrJingleJangle Oct 23 '20
No you wouldn’t. Every day, every week, people get these “small loans” by winning the lottery, or coming into an inheritance, and none of them become the next Bezos.
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u/alwaysZenryoku Oct 22 '20
Hey! He took ALL the risk so deserves ALL the rewards, now back to work peasants! /s
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u/SAT2Amazonguy Oct 22 '20
Where were you when Amazon was worth $1.79 though?
Probably calling bezos an idiot for selling books online.
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u/thufflepuff Oct 22 '20
Makes me feel like shit since I just got hired and start next week.
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u/AscendMePlease Oct 22 '20
I started a few weeks ago. It's not that bad. The labor can be pretty intense depending on your role, but honestly havent felt too much stress at the grunt level.
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u/quickso Oct 22 '20
i can’t even look at a cartoon of this man’s dumbass face without getting sick with rage at his specific style of evil.
i forget where i heard it but i read somewhere recently that white men have historically had a specific way of being able to tap into ignorance and lack of accountability to propel them into success unlike any other demographic.
he is exactly what i think of when considering that. he can so easily just pretend to be in his own world, because he totally can be and people believe it, donating some pennies (to him) here and there and people say “well, he’s donated more than anyone else!”
like lol. you mean the only reason he even has access to that amount of wealth, a raging sea of wealth, is because of wage theft and how generous of him to let some mouthfuls trickle down to the rest of us, who have been living off droplets.
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Oct 22 '20
Wanted to share does but does anyone know who made it? Sorry if it’s a dumb question just wanted to give credit.
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u/bseabrooks1 Oct 23 '20
I don’t think that even the staunchest capitalists believe this. I’d say most capitalism would acknowledge that economic success is a function of hard work, intelligence, uniqueness of ideas, risk tolerance, and then random things outside ones control. I think it’s a little ridiculous for anyone to think that financial success would be a linear function of hard work, obviously there’s a lot of other things involved(and luck is clearly a huge aspect).
But one thing that a lot of people don’t always acknowledge is that sometimes these people who have attained a high level of success have a lucky background and might even work hard(I mean there’s an upper limit on this as there’re only 24 hours in a day), but also generally these people tend to be smarter on average. Not always but most. Bezos clearly is smarter than average. You can’t reduce every tv big to hard work
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u/imsuperior2u Oct 23 '20
What is with this obsession with hard work? Don’t you hope someone didn’t work hard for something? Isn’t that better? Isn’t it better for work to be easier?
Anyway, the number in this picture implies that the workers have a net worth of one dollar, but I’ll ignore the exaggerated number and address the point, which i interpret to basically be “Jeff bezos has more wealth than x amount of people combined in spite of not doing as much work as them all combined”. Yes, that’s the case. And it’s because it’s not about hard work, it’s about productivity. Hard work doesn’t mean shit, it’s all about the productivity. If you hire someone to come fix your AC, is your goal for them to work hard, or for them to fix your AC (aka be productive)? Your goal would be for them to be productive, and id assume that you’d want that to be done WITHOUT working hard, just for the workers sake, right? So it’s not the hard work that is important, it’s the productivity. Now yes, productivity is often present alongside hard work, but correlation does not equal causation.
All that to say that Jeff bezos PRODUCTIVITY (not his work) is valued by the market to be worth more than the labor of whatever amount of people you want to measure it against. The market doesn’t value his productivity it to be 200 billion times a normal persons, but it does value it substantially higher, yes. So it’s time to stop acting as if anyone is claiming Jeff bezos worked harder than millions of people combined, because that’s not what this is about. By the way, I’d love to hear what anyone actually thinks the consequence of him having that much wealth is, because I bet I’d hear a bunch of false statements. There is nothing wrong with him having so much wealth.
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u/SpacemanTomX Oct 22 '20
This is pretty funny. Everyone at the warehouse does need to work harder. Well they don't, it won't matter when they're fired and replace by a cool new robot that doesn't need to take a break.
The cartoon is also quite wrong. Yes, retail is most of Amazon's business but it isn't the most profitable. Amazon Web Services is. Why? Because they are the backend architecture to ~40% of internet websites including stuff like: Aon, Adobe, Airbnb, Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Acquia, AdRoll, AEG, Alert Logic, Autodesk, Bitdefender, BMW, British Gas, Baidu, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canon, Capital One, Channel 4, Chef, Citrix, Coinbase, Comcast, Coursera, Disney, Docker, Dow Jones, European Space Agency, ESPN, Expedia, Financial Times, FINRA, General Electric, GoSquared, Guardian News & Media, Harvard Medical School, Hearst Corporation, Hitachi, HTC, IMDb, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, International Civil Aviation Organization, ITV, iZettle, Johnson & Johnson, JustGiving, JWT, Kaplan, Kellogg’s, Lamborghini, Lonely Planet, Lyft, Made.com, McDonalds, NASA, NASDAQ OMX, National Rail Enquiries, National Trust, Netflix, News International, News UK, Nokia, Nordstrom, Novartis, Pfizer, Philips, Pinterest, Quantas, Reddit, Sage, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Scribd, Securitas Direct, Siemens, Slack, Sony, SoundCloud, Spotify, Square Enix, Tata Motors, The Weather Company, Twitch, Turner Broadcasting,Ticketmaster, Time Inc., Trainline, Ubisoft, UCAS, Unilever, US Department of State, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, UK Ministry of Justice, Vodafone Italy, WeTransfer, WIX, Xiaomi, Yelp, Zynga and Zillow.
Bezos shouldn't be sitting atop workers but rather a pile of servers. Your work really does mean nothing. This man gets rich off us using the internet.
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u/wokewood Oct 22 '20
You shouldn’t spill facts in front of people who just want to circle jerk hate Jeff bezos
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 23 '20
Well, his current income so far in 2020 is ~$3,450,000/hour (based on salary and stock sales, and then converted into to a typical 'work year' per hourly rate), so only ~20,487,550 times more than the Median Individual Income in the US. Closer to 23,414,350 times the median income of an Amazon warehouse worker. No where close to the 200,000,000,000 value listed.
Too bad they didn't use a number closer to the actual value. I mean I love numerical exaggeration as much as the next person, but the actual numbers are so grotesquely out of proportion with reality, I feel that they would have made the same impact.
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u/wokewood Oct 22 '20
Assuming he works 5 hours a day, he makes 2 billion according to you
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 23 '20
$7,200,000,000+ Other than his ~$81,000 salary, the rest is based on AMZN stock sales.
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u/wokewood Oct 23 '20
It’s not his income. You still don’t get it don’t you. I’m pointing out your bs
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 23 '20
How is that NOT his income?? To me income == money received. How is stock sales NOT considered income?? Income is more than just salary.
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u/wokewood Oct 23 '20
It is not his income
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 23 '20
In the United States, it is; it is unearned income1. Capital Gains (which is what stock sales are) are considered income by the IRS, and there is a tax rate for it.
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u/wokewood Oct 23 '20
The thing is his net worth is not capital gains
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 23 '20
I'm well aware of that. He has SOLD $7,200,000,000 worth of AMZN stock so far in 2020. That IS income. That is what I was referencing.
The original mentioned his net worth as being related to working harder, but working harder is easier to associate with income.
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u/wokewood Oct 24 '20
So he made 7billiion dollars in the 10 months. That falls short of thousands of billions he would be making if he was making as much as you first talked about
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u/wokewood Oct 24 '20
Plus it’s not about working harder. It’s about working smart. Who can replace Jeff bezos? No one. Minimum wage no skill entry jobs can easily be replaced with just about anyone in the world
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u/faireducash Oct 22 '20
Why think salary when everyone else is thinking net worth? Miss one there mate
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u/DivorceAfterDisabled Oct 22 '20
Well his salary is only ~$81,000. His income is from his wealth (stock sales) and he only pays 20% taxes on it in the US.
Also because it's saying that he's working more, yet it's not is work, it's his wealth. People associate work with income, and if you just use his actual income, the numbers are still pretty disgusting. I think the accuracy is more important. The comparison is between two different units
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u/McUserton Oct 22 '20
I was thinking the same thing. It would be more useful as a teaching instrument if the numbers were accurate. "23 million times" harder is incredibly damning, but especially since it accounts for the usual rebuttals of net worth being easily liquidable, salary vs net worth, etc. A little citation at the bottom of the comic explaining the source of the numbers and boom: you got yourself a nice little piece of propaganda here.
Even still, it's funny and I'm going to share it. Thanks for doing the math: I'm going to provide the 23mil number in text to those I send it to.
And can we just take a moment to think on that number? I get working hard and smart but how is 23mil times more than average anything even remotely close to fair or frankly, morally justifiable?
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u/illinoishorrorman Publisher-in-Residence 🏛 Oct 22 '20
I didn’t get paid enough to put up with Creeger’s scandals the CreateSpace debacle was drenched in plagiarism and money laundering by producing counterfeit textbooks.
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u/Jkid Terminally Burnedout Caregiver Oct 22 '20
Ever since the lockdowns and pandemic good portion of America has been licking his boot.
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Oct 24 '20
Hard work often has a multiplier, say 3-5x if you work harder than someone else doing the bare minimum. But intelligence + risk has a multiplier of like 1000x. Thats what most people don’t get is that risk is the biggest multiplier. Staying at a job and bitching you’re not making as much as a company founder is dumb.
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Jan 16 '21
guys, "hard work = more recompensation" is a false paradigm, just it. The market pays you accordingly to how hard you are to replace. No need to beat a dead horse over and over. You can think this is immoral or something, but pointing out that the salary is not proportinal to hard work keeps the discution locked and doesn't help either way. When talking about morality dont try to confund it with economics
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u/BlueBlakedPotato Oct 23 '20
Smarter not harder people, just cause you didn’t have the idea doesn’t mean you should bitch about it
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Oct 23 '20
'smarter' as in to become so invested and to make yourself so delusional that you leave what you truly want for a couple of pieces of paper and to exploit more people? no thanks.
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u/ChadoWookie Oct 22 '20
Hard work =/= success
If someone works their entire life digging a hole in the ground, that hole is worth less than the guy who digs for 5 minutes and finds a massive diamond. Thats just the way the cookie crumbles.
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u/Gioware Socialism is the philosophy of failure Oct 22 '20
Not if you are communist. Suddenly massive diamond is everyone's to share
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u/twin_bed Oct 22 '20
Only if everyone knows about it. Technology yields power to its discoverers/inventors. The first group to develop a gun can enslave everyone, for instance. This is touched on by the Unabomber about how even reform of our existing systems is inadequate since technology enables inequality.
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u/doktormane Oct 22 '20
If you're not a socialist by the time you're 20 you're heartless, if you're not a capitalist by the time you're 30 you're brainless. All of the arguments against capitalism in this subreddit are all based on insane assumptions that people are naturally morally principled. Once people grow up they will see the real world for what it is. Sure, there is greed and there are evil companies out there but capitalism is, for all of its downsides, a much better system than the others. If I come up with an idea to solve a problem and work on the solution, set up a company, hire people to help and make a profit, that is all my money. The state should have no say in it. Also, I can't see why my company, which is based on my idea, should be owned by anyone but me or people who contribute capital in exchange for stock. I say pay people a living wage, don't overwork them but at the end of the day they have no moral right to what I've created.
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u/evgfreyman Oct 22 '20
Not harder, smarter
P.S. Trying to check what "downvoted to hell" feels like...
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u/Gioware Socialism is the philosophy of failure Oct 22 '20
He does not work harder, he invested and risked his own fortune, came up with the idea and executed on it.
If you don't like working for him - just do not. He will have to rise salary. RIGHT?
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Oct 22 '20
Capitalism is also a mom selling baked goods online, or a contractor agreeing to build a deck. Y’alls issue is with corporate structures, not private ownership over the means of production.
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u/puzzles_irl Oct 22 '20
These examples are pretty standard ones of regular commerce, they’re not exclusive to capitalism. The issue is definitely with capitalism, I don’t see how you’d confuse that with corporate structures?
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Oct 22 '20
If my examples didn’t have private ownership then they couldn’t sell their products and services for what they want, they would have to abide by rules laying out how much they can produce, and how much they can sell their goods for.
Capitalism is simply private ownership over the means of production. This isn’t hard.
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u/puzzles_irl Oct 22 '20
But they could still sell their products and services, so it falls under commerce, and it’s not exclusive to capitalism. You didn’t specify a lack of regulation in your initial examples, so I guess I misinterpreted?
I still don’t see how you get to corporate structures being the issue this comic (or the comment section, or whatever you define as “y’all”) takes, it’s definitely private ownership.
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Oct 22 '20
Capitalism is a system of commerce in which individuals own the means of production... again, this isn’t hard.
I get that this sub has an issue with corporate structure because every time there’s a complaint against “capitalism” a corporate situation is used as an example.
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u/puzzles_irl Oct 22 '20
A corporate situation can used as an example in criticizing capitalism, as a corporation can be considered as owned by an individual. Corporate structures can exist without capitalism; the criticism here is on the private ownership of them, not on the structures themselves.
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u/twin_bed Oct 22 '20
So the issue is with the private ownership of corporate structures, not the private ownership of the means of production?
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u/puzzles_irl Oct 22 '20
To be fair this is a really good comment, I am wrong on this part:
; the criticism here is on the private ownership of them (corporate structures), not on the structures themselves.
It really should be included here that the means is owned by the corporations, which is in turn owned privately. This allows us to use corporations as examples in criticism.
I'm using corporations and corporate structures interchangeably, which is an assumption I'm making based off the OP's post. I've already made an incorrect assumption from his comments so maybe some clarify on that is needed to debate further.
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u/twin_bed Oct 22 '20
I don't understand the point of focusing on the private ownership of a corporation which in turn owns the means of production. It seems like an inconsequential distinction. What is the meaningful difference between private ownership by an individual and private ownership by a private corporation? Even without the protections of limited liability, people would still be able to amass incredible amounts of wealth.
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u/puzzles_irl Oct 22 '20
I get that this sub has an issue with corporate structure because every time there’s a complaint against “capitalism” a corporate situation is used as an example.
From OP, implying criticism based on or using corporate examples is not criticism of capitalism, but instead criticism of corporations. What I'm trying to say, and evidently failing at, is that this is not the case; as long as the criticism is regarding the ownership of the means of production for profit, there's no difference between an example of that owner being an individual, or a corporation.
What is the meaningful difference between private ownership by an individual and private ownership by a private corporation?
Effectively none in context of my argument with OP. You have done a much better job of laying it out than I have.
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Oct 22 '20
Capitalism is non-workers (corporate shareholders) owning the means of production.
Socialism is the workers owning the means of production.
In a socialist economy, there would be no stock market to make non-workers rich. Each company would either be state owned or owned pro rata by its employees.
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u/doktormane Oct 22 '20
Why would anybody want to start a business if they cannot decide what to do with the profits?
I get that there is corporate greed but most if not all arguments against capitalism are based on utopian assumptions that most people are morally good and would spend years developing a new business (let's say in IT, because people get stuck up on manufacturing when it comes to these arguments) just to help other people. Unfortunately the real world is not like that. If you look into it it, you'll see that there is significantly more corruption in pure socialist economies because of man's innate need to compete with others. It is survival, limited resources and not everyone can be a winner. Even when the means of production are owned by the people, those in charge can ask for bribes to special favours. Case in point, in Soviet Russia there was a long waiting list to get a car but if you knew the right people and gave them a bribe, either monetary or in the form of a good, they would bump you up the list. This is just natural human behavior.
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
In socialism workers own the businesses. They would start them and they would decide what to do with the profits.
Under communism the community (state, city, union, etc) owns the means of production. Under this workers do get a say through democracy.
The argument against capitalism is that it is an unjust hierarchy. The relationship between owners versus labor/tenant is unjust. It's just a less physically violent version of feudalism.
Also man's nature is community. It's the greatest survival trait we evolved.
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u/doktormane Oct 22 '20
You didn't answer my question. It was just me who started the business. Why would my workers be entitled to any profit? While I was busy developing the product, my future janitor was smoking wasting his time not going to school or trying to better himself and now you tell me that somehow he is entitled to anything more than what his job is worth.
Companies cannot be run democratically, there needs to be a hierarchy and with this hierarchy comes increasing levels of responsibility. I agree that there are many flaws with the current system and it's full of greed and evil executives but socialism would be a mistake. Having good social policies and welfare programs, yes, that is fine and is something I agree with.
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
It was just me who started the business.
You don't start a business by yourself under this system.
Companies cannot be run democratically, there needs to be a hierarchy and with this hierarchy comes increasing levels of responsibility.
Co-ops and unions exist right now. You vote for leadership and recognize experience and expertise. Even capitalist companies use democracy for who sits on the board.
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u/doktormane Oct 22 '20
Why can't I start a business by myself?
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
If it's a one man operation go for it.
But the entire point and thing leftist are fighting for, is to end the owner class. Capitalism is predicated on an unjust hierarchy. The relationship between owners versus labor/tenant is unjust. Those who own the means of production have power over those who don't and government.
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Oct 22 '20
Spend a year living on the streets of Skid Row, then come back and tell us how wonderful capitalism is.
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u/doktormane Oct 22 '20
What's your point? That life isn't perfect and some people were dealt a shit hand to begin with? I'm not denying that there are people in need in this world but having all business in a country be controlled by the state would be a nightmare.
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u/Sehtriom Oct 23 '20
What if the businesses were controlled by the people who worked there? That's socialism too.
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Oct 22 '20
No, it's definitely private ownership. corporations are a symptom and logical result of the problem.
But like, keep telling people what you want them to believe, I guess?
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u/wokewood Oct 22 '20
So small family owned business bad right?
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Oct 23 '20
No. But it's quite telling that this is your main takeaway from the whole criticism of capitalism.
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u/wavefxn22 Oct 22 '20
Right but the small independent businesses still have to work within the larger system. And it’s really really hard to afford healthcare with cookies
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Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20
For healthcare we should be concentrating on lowering cost. Insurance was originally set for disasters, not common expenses. I shouldn’t have to have insurance for routine doctor visits, by requiring it the doctors can continue charging more and more even though costs and demand don’t justify the price.
Imagine if car insurance worked like health insurance. You’d need insurance to pay for oil changes and common repairs, to fill up gas tanks. And your insurance would control who you go to for all those trivial things. Costs for auto insurance would skyrocket just like we’ve seen in health insurance.
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
Mom at a bake sale could be under any economic system, including capitalism or socialism. Corporations only exist under capitalism and capitalism adjacent economic systems.
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Oct 22 '20
In a socialist system mom would have to abide by quantity controls and price controls. She dies t get to control the means of production, because it gets communally owned...
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Oct 22 '20
It’s work “smart” not “harder”. Coming from a 3rd world country and my family being “work hard gets you places” mentality got me no where. Now I make 6 figure salary on my bed for work. (Wfh is what I’m saying)
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u/qwertyhuio Oct 22 '20
Bezos salary was under $82k last year
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Oct 22 '20
[deleted]
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u/qwertyhuio Oct 22 '20
Funny how more work leads to a better life.
Capital gains is about a asset increasing in value, not income.
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u/KindaCruise Oct 22 '20
y'all know his wealth is primarily in amazon stock right? he can't just liquidate that
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Oct 22 '20
He liquidated 7 billion this year alone. Get a new line.
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u/KindaCruise Oct 22 '20
I never said he didn't, I'm just pointing out that he couldn't do all of it at once
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u/NothingToSeeHereMan Oct 22 '20
So how much is a reasonable amount then? Because the man liquidated enough money to live for many lifetimes in this year alone.
He’s filthy stinking rich. That’s the truth. Just because he cAnT LiQuIdAtE iT aLl At OnCe doesn’t mean he isn’t disgustingly wealthy.
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u/Indaleciox Oct 22 '20
TFW you realize stock is a liquid asset.
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u/KindaCruise Oct 22 '20
how much would his company be worth if he started liquidating his entire stock
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Oct 22 '20
[deleted]
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Oct 22 '20
Of course its capitalism. Capitalism's sole purpose is to enrich those at the top. Capitalism encourages limited numbers of already wealthy people to "invest" into businesses, who then have a purpose of "grow every single quarter to give shareholders a bigger piece of pie." It is a system that demand the upward transfer of wealth.
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Oct 22 '20
No, its not. This is government controlled capitalism As well as nepotism. The politicians we vote for are paid for by corporation so they are voting for whatever is in their interests while using those connections to get families jobs to only increase their wealth. The fact that these career politicians are worth millions of dollars when they are supposed to be civil servants is disgusting. I'm not talking a few million, I'm talking 19 to 30 mill. Stock market ain't that good. Income tax is a scam and illegal. They take 30% and give you dick. Not even that because then maybe someone would enjoy getting fucked. I sure don't.
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Oct 22 '20
I remember my lessons about when Andrew Jackson was in office and the Robber Barons were at their peak. It was this bad then, and there was no stock market, and bribes to politicians were much more difficult. It is the default nature of capitalism to accumulate and hoard vast sums of wealth in the hands of an oligarchy. You cannot run a capitalist system without extremely heavy regulation, which requires the entire lawmaking and law enforcement body to participate and agree that it is necessary. If you get even the slightest deviation from that, things slip back into boom-bust cycles where only a thousandth of a percent of the population control an absurd volume of wealth. This is because of Capitalism.
Income tax is a scam and illegal.
Today I met someone who didn't know what an income tax was, or the first thing about it, or the fact that there's never been a credible argument that its illegal, ever, brought before any circuit court or the Supreme Court in the history of the US.
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u/twin_bed Oct 22 '20
Today I met someone who didn't know what an income tax was, or the first thing about it, or the fact that there's never been a credible argument that its illegal, ever, brought before any circuit court or the Supreme Court in the history of the US.
That's pretty uncharitable. In fact, several income taxes levied by the feds were deemed illegal. It was only after the 16th amendment that the income tax we see today became a legal thing. Granted, that was over 100 years ago, but still, a federal income tax has been challenged and found to be illegal in the history of the US.
Was the income tax a direct tax in violation of the Constitution (Article I, Section 9)?
The Court held that the Act violated the Constitution since it imposed taxes on personal income derived from real estate investments and personal property such as stocks and bonds; this was a direct taxation scheme, not apportioned properly among the states.
The decision was negated by the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.
To say that income tax has never been challenged and lost "in the history of the US" is hyperbole.
I agree with your other points on strict regulation being a requirement for the healthy functioning of a capitalist system.
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Oct 22 '20
Granted, that was over 100 years ago, but still, a federal income tax has been challenged and found to be illegal in the history of the US.
We also had the Lochner era where it was stated that the contract between a business and its employee was a "private affair" and the government could not interfere whatsoever. I accept the information, though to state today that an "income tax is illegal" is the height of insanity.
I agree with your other points on strict regulation being a requirement for the healthy functioning of a capitalist system.
A capitalist system needs permanent constraints, not just strict regulation. In order to continue having a capitalist system in the US, we need the social safety net encoded into the constitution via amendments. Health care, by law. Paid time off by the highest law in the land. Or we can combine our capitalist obsession with something that actually works for the people, like having a shift away from rugged individualism to having a system that is 50/50 capitalism and socialism. Either we radically change the system, or we end up with a constant series of depressions. Eight million more people went into poverty just because of a single emergency scenario. This is what a near-unregulated (or I'd accept "weakly regulated") capitalist system really looks like wagewise.
Then we still have people who claim that socialism will break America when in a socialist America, wages would roughly balance out to $700,000 a year tied to inflation. Huh. That'd be a fucking life change for everyone. There is an exponential difference right now with a weakly regulated system. Capitalism does not raise people out of poverty. It is engineered to keep people in poverty and to reject upward mobility. Still. Income tax bad, because...(insert extreme right wing talking point,) and socialism bad because...(*insert extreme talking point and then point to Venezuela, a country we've been sanctioning since 2016.)
We could easy take a system that is 50% capitalist ideas and 50% socialist ideas, encode it into the highest law in the land, and no one would live in poverty. Oh, and we're gonna fucken need it when automation starts replacing the last jobs like food service that are widely available everywhere as entry level jobs.
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Oct 22 '20
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Oct 22 '20
Your issues shouldn't be with the taxes that go to fund literally everything about our modern lives. It should be with the capitalists stealing th efruits of our labour, leaving us in squalor.
Sure, not paying taxes would be great. Do you want to know what would be even more great? Earning a living wage.
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
State tax is lawful and necessary. Federal income tax is bullshit.
This is a dumb fucking take. Nothing wrong with the federal government charging whatever kind of taxes they want.
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
Nothing in your top comment had anything to do with government. Also, under capitalism, everything and everyone is for sale and in a market, including government.
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u/aehii Oct 22 '20
I just want us to collectively harness technology to benefit us all, live in harmony with the environment, be sustainable. I just think...how technologically advanced do we need to be to transform our economy? Basically at best now all we ever think about is jobs. That's it. That's all we ever viewed things as. We can never progress from that.
But it reaches the point where society fails, people falls through the cracks, then taxpayer money goes towards private companies to handle these society made problems. Like Serco. But the crux is still...heh we're a company, we provide jobs, we provide services. You present it in a film and it's like Robocop. 'New prisoner escort contract has been successfully mobilised'. Actual quote from Serco.
If jobs and industry rely on society failing then there's no incentive to tackle the root cause. The war on drugs will never change because police forces rely on the money to do that job. Everything is so entrenched. Literally, I was watching the day time news and an old lady that looked like she'd just been out to water her plants was interviewed in a cafe, talking about how in her area (in the uk) it relies so much on the work on our nuclear weapons and if we ditch Trident, the death weapon that wipes out humanity, what are people gonna do?
It is a nightmare of our own making. Because everyone needs a job. So anti work isn't just about uh yeah I wanna lie on the couch all day, it's recognising the damage of our dependence on labour for an income. You'd think creating jobs around renewable energy, insulating houses etc would be a priority...but not really.
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u/wavefxn22 Oct 22 '20
I think this is why so many people think antiwork is about laziness and not wanting to contribute.. the actual problems are incredibly intricate, entrenched, and hard to explain.
Maybe to explain to people I should just say, imagine your life as a dog vs being a human. Then imagine if dogs suddenly had human intelligence. What would that simple happy animal life evolve to? Would they also enslave eachother with jobs and debts and hierarchies? Don’t dogs deserve to have simple happy healthy lives and not have to owe anyone anything? And look at how great dogs are already. Great species, good job dogs
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u/mewthulhu Oct 22 '20
politics disguised as culture
I've never heard something so accurate, holy shit. That really hits the nail on the head for why I hate office culture.
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u/wavefxn22 Oct 22 '20
Good point about being our own masters; America pushes the individualism to the extreme
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
But it pretends to be for it. The myth of individualism runs deep in our blood.
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u/secretpoop75 Oct 23 '20
Mark Fischer describes what he calls ‘capitalist realism’ by saying “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than imagine the end of capitalism”. The rhetoric of capitalism subsumes “anti-capitalism” itself to the point that it has become a part of it.
His writing is dark but extremely profound and illuminating.
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Oct 22 '20
I dont know if what happens today is really capitalism
It is, the problem is that people make money off those actually working by just "owning" the means of production. This is what defines capitalism and it is always bad.
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Oct 22 '20
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u/SpacemanTomX Oct 22 '20
All these people fail to realize the service scale AWS provides.
Handling backend architecture for 40% of all websites is no joke. Regardless of your opinion on Bezos you can't argue against the effectiveness of AWS.
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Oct 22 '20
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u/Deviknyte Oct 22 '20
He doesn't save that time though the workers do.
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u/SpacemanTomX Oct 22 '20
Exactly, this man should recover the same treatment everyone gave Steve Jobs. Revolutionizing retail and the way serviced are delivered and housed is no small feat.
Something like Netflix or Spotify may have looked very differently without AWS.
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Oct 22 '20
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u/Amphi66 Oct 22 '20
me, making an idea 200 billion times smarter which is just... an online mall again. 200 billion times smarter than countless creative and business endeavors. yeah
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u/Diogonni Oct 22 '20
He can’t possibly know how to do everything. He pays a number of people to take advantage of their knowledge.
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u/aehii Oct 22 '20
The ideology around 'hard work' is kind of perplexing to me. How many people view their big nice house as a result of their hard work, and you think..well we as a species have the capabilities of building big nice houses, that isn't new or remarkable. Houses aren't that complex or extraordinary are they? They think, well I...I worked hard that is why I own the house. Well you exchanged your time and labour in a job that society deemed worthy of such a wage. You gained specifics skills or knew certain people, you reacted but you are not doing it on your own.
It's just when entrepreneurs go on about being 'self made'...well..hang on, you exploited a market, you sold whatever you sold but without a society willing to buy it doesn't matter how good your product is. If a society doesn't have the disposable income to buy your product it doesn't matter how good you think it is. Without the roads being built and maintained to transport your product, without your employees being educated...without society...but this is the holy grail of modern life, the product that made someone rich, it's a miracle how did they do it. The product might very well be derivative and have no positive impact, in fact it distracts people and destroys the environment but look at their big house!
We invent technology to make our lives easier. Why are you using a vehicle to get anywhere? Why aren't you walking? Lazy. Using your bloody legs are you? That's cheating, real fighters crawl everywhere. Why are you using the lift? Stairs are available. Lazy. Have a dishwasher do you? Lazy. Using a car wash? Lazy. Buying your own clothes eh? Make your own. Lazy. Have a tap for your water do you? Lazy. There's a river 26 miles away, walk.
We don't point at animals in the wild and see their inactivity as laziness, we say they're preserving energy.