Educating My Friends

[NeoSigurd]

Hey guys i've noticed that a lot of people I know, are A) republicans, and B) fed up with the power concentration. I've been trying to figure out a way to get them to understand what socialism is and how bad capitalism is but I just can't get past that right wing mind block. Any ideas?

[The Idler]

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[Kornilios Sunshine]

Tell them that capitalism is the reason why there is poverty , why people steal, why there are so many drug dealers. Tell them also that capitalism is the system where the workers don't have any right, and that the word is dominated from the richies,therefore poverty is increased.Capitalism though can be destroyed by socialism where the workers have the power to control and everyone is in a normal economic state.Oh and capitalism is for the losers,thanks to socialism/communism the first man was sent in space.:D

[Rafiq]

Why do you think it's important that your friends become Communists? Do you think that will make a difference... At all?

[Revolution starts with U]

Start a business, employ them, and make far more money than them while they do all the work.
Nothing changes minds like a hands-on look at the world :D

[Judicator]

Start a business, employ them, and make far more money than them while they do all the work.
Nothing changes minds like a hands-on look at the world :D

Until the business fails and you're penniless while they walk away with their accumulated wages.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Until the business fails and you're penniless while they walk away with their accumulated wages.Your workers don't have to pay rent or any living expenses?

[Judicator]

Your workers don't have to pay rent or any living expenses?

Not to the business owner.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Not to the business owner.Well then they hardly walk away with accumulated wealth - no more than slaves walked away with accumulated cotton after the civil war.

[aworldsman]

Do they want to be persuaded? If not, no amount of sound logic will convert them. I feel like people discover the merits of anarchy or communism when they're ready to. Like teaching a student, they will embrace their own discoveries much more readily than your impositions. I think the key lies in gently introducing them to an environment that facilitates discovery. Whether that's a social, intellectual, or physical environment is up to you.

With this in mind, I would say introduce your friends - without verbalizing your intent - to movies like Reds, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, V for Vendetta, Fight Club, or if they seem eager to learn, some documentaries like Manufacturing Consent or Theory and Practice with Zinn and Chomsky. Movies are easier to digest than books. Invite them to participate in conversation; approach them as your peers and not as your subjects. If they feel like subjects they'll act just as you're acting towards the State - naturally resistant to external control.

Just plant the seeds, you know?

[Judicator]

Well then they hardly walk away with accumulated wealth - no more than slaves walked away with accumulated cotton after the civil war.

They walk away from the transaction with the business owner with their accumulated wealth. What they subsequently spend the money on is a separate question.

Slaves never had legal possession of the cotton. Wage workers legally possess their wages.

[Jimmie Higgins]

They walk away from the transaction with the business owner with their accumulated wealth. What they subsequently spend the money on is a separate question.Only in a land of abstraction where people get free rent. But I can see how you'd be confused, capitalism looks like it works out on paper... but is just a failure in practice.

And workers generally don't have accumulated wealth, the wealth their labor produces is taken by the employer to do with how they wish in exchange the laborer receives a wage. Little of this wage is "accumulated" as the high level of personal debt and 30 years of stagnating wages that caused that personal debt, show. In the 1990s Clinton and Greenspan told workers that the way to recapture some of their accumulated wealth was to re-finance their homes. Good job "miracle economists".:mad:

[Judicator]

Only in a land of abstraction where people get free rent. But I can see how you'd be confused, capitalism looks like it works out on paper... but is just a failure in practice.

No, in reality you don't pay rent to your employer. In reality the fate of his business is separate from the fate of your assets. When the business goes broke, you walk away and get another job. It isn't always easy but it happens eventually.


And workers generally don't have accumulated wealth, the wealth their labor produces is taken by the employer to do with how they wish in exchange the laborer receives a wage. Little of this wage is "accumulated" as the high level of personal debt and 30 years of stagnating wages that caused that personal debt, show. In the 1990s Clinton and Greenspan told workers that the way to recapture some of their accumulated wealth was to re-finance their homes. Good job "miracle economists".

The median US household has $120,000 in net worth, quite a bit of accumulated wealth.

[Jimmie Higgins]

No, in reality you don't pay rent to your employer. In reality the fate of his business is separate from the fate of your assets. When the business goes broke, you walk away and get another job. It isn't always easy but it happens eventually.Yes, if you were a slave and the slave-master lost the plantation, you'd get to walk away to another slave owner. The slave owner takes all the risk by buying your labor.


The median US household has $120,000 in net worth, quite a bit of accumulated wealth.
Yes accumulated, but where... not in the bottom 25% of wage-earners who have 0 net worth, or the next quintile who have not much more:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/MedianNetWorth2007.png/800px-MedianNetWorth2007.png

[Judicator]

Yes, if you were a slave and the slave-master lost the plantation, you'd get to walk away to another slave owner. The slave owner takes all the risk by buying your labor.

You people love the slavery analogies (wage slavery lol, so antiquated).

The slave owner does take on all of the risk related to the finances of the plantation, but what's your point?


Yes accumulated, but where... not in the bottom 25% of wage-earners who have 0 net worth, or the next quintile who have not much more:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/MedianNetWorth2007.png/800px-MedianNetWorth2007.png

So back to the original question, whether or not the majority of workers have accumulated wages...looks like they do! 60% have at least 72k, 80% have at least 33k.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The slave owner does take on all of the risk related to the finances of the plantation, but what's your point?That you can apologize for a shitty arrangement and system, but it doesn't actually mean that that system is a good one.

Slave owners always complained about how much money they spent feeding and housing their slaves (and how well the slaves were treated in return) and this is what capitalists (and their apologists) do today.


So back to the original question, whether or not the majority of workers have accumulated wages...looks like they do! 60% have at least 72k, 80% have at least 33k.Everything I've ever read puts median income in the US at a little less than 50%... so I have no idea where you are getting your numbers from for net income.

http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/median-income-housheold.jpg

About 50% of people in LA rent and so since the lowest one-bedroom is generously $1000, someone making the median income is spending 1/4 of their wages on rent. In reality, they are probably making less money and may be paying more in rent. People live paycheck to paycheck as it is and lack of healthcare and unemployment protections or medicare only makes that situation worse and will lead to higher mortality rates for the poor and decreased life-expectancy.

[Judicator]

That you can apologize for a shitty arrangement and system, but it doesn't actually mean that that system is a good one.

Slave owners always complained about how much money they spent feeding and housing their slaves (and how well the slaves were treated in return) and this is what capitalists (and their apologists) do today.


Who is apologizing? What's "shitty" about the wage laborer not going bankrupt when the business does? What's "shitty" about the wage laborer having a low wage, if his skills are nearly worthless in the marketplace? If you sell something for what it's worth, this is a good deal, not a shitty one. Perhaps its shitty that you have little to offer, but that is a separate question.



Everything I've ever read puts median income in the US at a little less than 50%... so I have no idea where you are getting your numbers from for net income.


Lol why did you think we were talking about net income, those are accumulated wage numbers.



About 50% of people in LA rent and so since the lowest one-bedroom is generously $1000, someone making the median income is spending 1/4 of their wages on rent. In reality, they are probably making less money and may be paying more in rent. People live paycheck to paycheck as it is and lack of healthcare and unemployment protections or medicare only makes that situation worse and will lead to higher mortality rates for the poor and decreased life-expectancy.


$1000/month rent? Looks like it's time to get the fuck out of LA. You can live in a nice neighborhood in Chicago for that, and a decent neighborhood for like $550/month, and in a remote one (1 hour commute, probably an upgrade from LA) for probably $300/month.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Until the business fails and you're penniless while they walk away with their accumulated wages.

Bawwwwwwwwww WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE OPPRESSORS?

[Judicator]

Bawwwwwwwwww WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE OPPRESSORS?

Those oppressive shopkeepers hiring a high school student to run the cash register. Really they should insist he put up $150,000 and buy half of the business, leaving him in a tough spot if he wants to move on to other things.

[RGacky3]

They walk away from the transaction with the business owner with their accumulated wealth. What they subsequently spend the money on is a separate question.

Slaves never had legal possession of the cotton. Wage workers legally possess their wages.

What actually happens is the Capitalist (usually the CEO), will give himself a huge bonus, sack the workforce, bankrupt the company, so that its not on him, float down with a golden parachute and leave the workers on the street, while he has his goldne parachute to do something else with, (usually he's on other corporations boards as well).

The funny thing about neo-classical economics is how utopian it is, yet they claim socialists are utopian, they analyse capitalism without ever actually looking at what really happens.