does work = slavery?

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i use the word in a broad, metaphorical sense, and from the viewpoint that while something is given back - money for labour - the value of the financial return is not equal, or even nearly so, to the value of the labour given. even slaves who were or are owned, in the commonest sense of the term, received something in return for their labour, but i think we can certainly consider the master/slave relationship as a parasitic one.


i must get ready for work , but i will return to your other points over the weekend when i have the chance.

That seems to me to be sloppy use of language. You have taken a credible argument regarding exploitation, and undermined it through hyperbole.

We can all agree that slavery is exploitive and coercive. We can all agree that employers take profit from the productivity of their workers. Let's be objective rather than inflammatory in our comparisons of the two.

yes this is true. but this is an external factor that still doesn't detract from the fact that your employer benefits at your expense, i.e. exploits you, by extracting the surplus value of your labour.




i don't feel that it is an idealistic notion at all. it is a very real issue affecting millions of people on a daily basis. the majority of people are quite literally struggling to survive.

as for your second point, i, in fact, work towards effecting real change in the lives of vulnerable people every day. to suggest i exist in an ivory tower couldn't be further from the truth. but even were this not the case, i don't see how it would preclude my discussing issues, ideological or otherwise, that i feel strongly about on an internet discussion forum.

fair enough, it may indeed have been a rather clumsy metaphor.

the penal state outlined:

http://libcom.org/library/renewed-impos ... resistance

So here's my question then.

An entrepreneur has taken money from investors (which might or might not include the entrepreneur, personally) for the purpose of starting a business.

The entrepreneur has used those investments to buy land, build a factory, and purchase machinery. So, how much is fair compensation to the investors for the use of their property (the investment money) from the surplus between what the workers in the factory produce and what they are paid?

Quit forcing your absurd mismatched theories down my throat and talk to me rather than give off these dimissive, imperious comments!
Today's wage worker is not a slave to any one rich person. Your view of not owning capital as somehow equalling slavery somehow makes you feel priviledged to spit irrelevant terms at me and ignore all context about the true condition of workers in the west. You are thinking in black and white.

Give me evidence.


You make a claim. You prove it by directing me to or quoting a source.


Why is visagrunt not stomping over this faulty use of the word penal already? Telling someone to search for a job isn't a punishment. Making sure that they are actually disabled isn't a punishment. They don't pertain to, constitute, prescribe or even subject punishment. It aint penal. I don't have any evidence of these supposed things anyway


The one where people who own no capital are somehow oppressed workers. People can earn hundreds of thousand without owning any form of production. Marx's theories are built on an oversimplified and fallacious concept of free-market enterprise that barely existed even in his day. You ever hear of the term Praxis? One needs a lot of praxis to make Marx's theories applicable.


First, you seem to be in complete denial about being wrong, which explains why you'd ever dare use the words in denial against me when I said quite clearly that unequal bargaining power isn't the point I am talking about.


No it isn't. it's you in denial now. Workers can't be paid a share according to their 'input' because first: Nobody would make any profit and all economic growth and progress would stall without saving. Second managers play an important part in organising labour that means that in the end they contribute more to the final profit than workers do. It is also an oblivious fantasy because it tries to equate worker's input with wages when in fact many things have input in both direct and indirect ways.


Now you're in denial again. I said self-management doesn't work. Committees are not innovative enough. Only some have the entrepreneurial skills to launch people up. People like to put others in charge in order to act as an interlocutor on their behalf. Also many just aren't interested.


HAHAHAHAHAH! In the UK? I don't think death from poverty is common in the UK at all. As in it never happens except in weird cases.


Show me and quote rather than whinge.


No, good that you have discussed something new, even if badly.

Seems you've gotten an obsession with trying to put me down. Mostly you have just deleted my comments from the text and accused me of having no context. You talk about various studies but never actually give me any. You accuse me of being in denial when it's clear that you are trying to avoid points I am making and at the end you tapered in to an agressive fantastical accusation about me saying that I hadn't found this interesting.


It's a sign of prosperity and furthermore trumps the belief that people live at subsistence level.


Because you say so.

ratgeb: the subsistence society.


http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/postsi/ratgeb01.html

go read the rest.

this is not relevant. because it is framed within the capitalist paradigm. a society in which people are not wage slaves cannot be built upon investment and accumulation of capital.

the fact that you are asking for evidence of this suggests that you do not live in the uk, or that you are upper or upper middle class and have no concept whatsoever of reality for working class and unemployed people in this country. this is government policy, and i was of the belief that it is also common knowledge. it has been all over the news. i work every day with vulnerable people whose already difficult lives are being made infinitely more difficult by this.

see here:

http://www.disabilityalliance.org/ibmigrate.htm

as claimants are migrated from incapacity benefit and income support to employment support allowance, they are sent to a mandatory tribunal, where the majority of them are being stripped of their disability related benefits and forced to go through lengthy and stressful appeals to have them reinstated.





i can't find where i posted this. what is it that i said people are talking about? i'll search google for you.



it is penal. forcing someone with, for instance, long term, enduring, mental health problems, who might have problems even going out of the house, to sit in front of a doctor, who is answering multiple choice questions on a computer with no recourse to use his own discretionary judgement, with the view to sending the person a letter saying they do not qualify for disability related benefits, thus forcing them to go through a lengthy appeal process, all the while worrying about their ability to carry on in life, is indeed penal.

forcing young people who cannot find a job, because there are no jobs for them to find, to work for their benefit payments, which are relatively speaking far, far lower than minimum wage, is penal.

not allowing people who are out of work to have any sort of say whatsoever in the sort of work they are willing to undertake is penal.




the fact is that the vast majority of workers do not earn hundreds of thousands. and you clearly don't understand the word "praxis".


[/quote]

you were talking about rights, so unequal bargaining power is certainly something relevant to bring into the discussion.


your point of view is completely skewed towards capitalism. of course the point i am arguing won't equate with capitalist logic, since capitalism relies on wage slavery under the guise of choice.



innovative enough for what? we do not need "entrepreneurial skills". we need meaningful existence.


life expectancy for those living in the poorest area of glasgow is 25 years shorter than that of those living in the wealthiest.



why? did you present any evidence whatsoever that poor people live in bigger houses? your arguments are laughable.



i really don't know what you are talking about here at all. you haven't found what interesting? your arguments are nonsense, you are asking me to quote studies when i reply to your spurious claims that you have in no way backed up.



no it doesn't.

[/quote]

not at all. because they say so.

Of course it's relevant, because it is the world in which people currently work.

No amount of counting angels on pinheads will create a socialist utopia. But the intelligent, earnest work of socialists can effect positive change inside the capitalist paradigm.

peebo - let me ask you then; does capitalism make the most of a crap human condition or do you instead subscribe to the idea that capitalism is what makes us this way not the other way around?

Baseless speculation used in an ad hominem way.


This is disgusting! I'd like to see proof of this though. Also last time I checked this isn't opression of the proletariat like you have been going on about.


And now we work from an argument of choice reassembly. I doubt that all disabled people are this way at all and if any were I doubt they would be on disability benefit. I think they'd be in an institution. Furthermore you have to try and speculate about what might be going on in their lives to make a point.
And then you go and say that they don't qualify because you say so. I know about this. It's ATOS. Not every company is Atos. :/ And furthermore disabled people aren't the workers.


I dont understand Praxis because... because... Because you say so. Fantastic job. And I am saying that the communist conception of capitalism is based on a completely false premise.


That is a complete load of utopia. Whether it favours workers or managers or even the damned top brass bargaining power will always favour someone. I'd just prefer a good wage, a perk or two and no industrial strife thanks. Voicing your opinion is a right. protest is a right. Life is a right. Liberty is a right. That covers this already.


That is disgustingly self-centred and doesn't explain why I am wrong at all. It is just an ad hominem attack that is explained by using an ad hominem attack. Why don't you actually use reason about why you think I am wrong?




And innovation leads to a meaningful existence. You propose a system of wages that completely ignores the importance of management and entrepreneurs and try to use a pricing system that wont lead to profit, advancement and thus a meaningful existence.


That's probably partly down to poor diet from overeating for a start, and alcohol intake. No offence but poorer people tend to eat unhealthy food and drink more alcohol than the rich. Furthermore this isn't DEATH FROM STARVATION. You said people in minimum wage struggle to survive. Your argument has already died and you're trying to ignore it.


Two wrongs don't make a right. So what you say is crap even before I disprove it.

http://thebarrowboy.files.wordpress.com ... family.jpg
This is an east end family from 1912. An average one. As one can see the setting is more like a barn.
I live next door to crawley and in crawley I can see what is relative poverty. I tell you what. They look far from as bad as these people. These poor would have likely to have been able to get their own house. They might have lived with another family. They don't seem properly dressed. The man's face looks harassed. It's a sight to melt your heart. It also isn't the state of the British poor today. You tried to talk about overty today as if you were saying like it was yesterday. Wage slavery. That's complete rubbish. The poor have become less poor.


You can't read. I said arguing with you is interesting because it's different.


They're nonsense because you say so. So in denial again? Anyways I ask you to quote studies because you are making the points. Your only way of disproving was either to say that only a capitalist would think that, a remark I resent because I don't care about capitalism, I care about what works. Your other excuse basically amounted to two wrongs make a right.
Then what do you say? You say that I don't back up anything despite the fact that you only provided one link and that only said what was happening. In order to say it was cruel you had to invent some speculative fiction whereby you spoke about a person with all sorts of characteristics and issues that aren't necessary to be called disabled. Not that this has anything to do with the absurd labour theory of value. It's absurd to believe that manual labour is the only consideration with pricing. It's also a fiction.

Quote:

Eventually we'll advance to a point where we can hold the means of production will be able to be held in our hands and then boom! Socialist utopia. But it wont be a socialist utopia. It'll be a post-scarcity wonderland.