The myth of the "job creator"

[Marxaveli]

As Marx once said, "the ruling ideas of society have ever been the ideas of its ruling class".

One of the dominant myths in capitalist society today is that somehow it is the business owner, entrepreneur or capitalists that create all the jobs in society...as if somehow they are omnipresent and can magically makes jobs appear, or even that somehow the things we need to do to make society run would cease to happen otherwise. And the scary thing is, many people believe this crap.

Obviously, we need some sort of strategy to counter myths like this (the LTV pretty much debunks the notion that capitalists are the job creators, but most people are rarely exposed to Marxist concepts in such a way....even in universities, most classes strip him of his revolutionary edge, and when they dont, they usually just focus on philosophical and historical components of his work - very rarely are they exposed to Marxian Economics). It is depressing to think about really, because it is myths like this that really show just how backwards American political culture really is. We have this small plutocratic class that does not create ANY value whatsoever, yet consumes it most of it, and manages to paint itself as some white knight in shining armor - when in reality they should be facing the guillotine or prison. They would be much more aptly named the "labor exploiters", but sloganeering of course is not going to change anything....anyways, I just kinda wanted to rant about this cause I heard some tool talking about this today and it irked me.

[helot]

It doesn't even make sense within the liberal paradigm, can easily claim thatconsumers are the job creators.

[tachosomoza]

Bourgeois propaganda and swill that many less informed, class conscious American workers swallow hook, line and sinker.

Capitalists are labor traders.

[Red_Banner]

The government acts like there are jobs and that there aren't enough qualified people.

But the thing is, in the US they want you to have several years of experience in any field, nowhere to start.

And most of these "help wanted" ads are just to make things look good.

They aren't serious about hiring.

They won't even call you nevermind interview you.

[Q]

What is needed is political education and we're in a bad position here as the left is so disunited and every group is replicating each others efforts, making us very ineffective in this (and many other) area(s).

What theoretical aspect would you like to discuss though? As it stands it fits better in /Learning.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If you can't speak too many words, a quick rebuttal is as follows: Without the labour supply or labour market the so-called “innovative entrepreneurs” who still need to hire for a profit cannot realize their innovations.

Basically, it's a rebuttal of economic idealism with economic materialism.

[Thirsty Crow]

One of the dominant myths in capitalist society today is that somehow it is the business owner, entrepreneur or capitalists that create all the jobs in society...as if somehow they are omnipresent and can magically makes jobs appear, or even that somehow the things we need to do to make society run would cease to happen otherwise. And the scary thing is, many people believe this crap.

This is not a myth. It's the harsh reality of life in capitalism, that owners of money capital in certain conditions create jobs (since the role of the state in direct job formation has been significantly dismantled).

And sure, without the breaking of capital's power, which means the active organization of social life on different bases, things needed to make society run would cease to happen. There's also the strike of capital, and phenomena such as capital flight.

And no, it is entirely incorrect to state that the theory of value debunks that "myth". It only accounts for the origin of total social surplus value - which is labor. It's entirely evident that money capital when used in a certain way first makes of people entrepreneurs, who are by definition job creators.


It doesn't even make sense within the liberal paradigm, can easily claim thatconsumers are the job creators.
No you can't since it is not the act of buying commodities for personal consumption that one engages in capitalist production.

What is needed here is debunking the myth that capital is essential for any kind of social life and production - that indeed it is synonymous with the very possibility of this. In other words, you'd have a hard task of presenting the potential of the organization of social production for need, as opposed to exchange value.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The government acts like there are jobs and that there aren't enough qualified people.

But the thing is, in the US they want you to have several years of experience in any field, nowhere to start.

And most of these "help wanted" ads are just to make things look good.

They aren't serious about hiring.

They won't even call you nevermind interview you.

Not related to the rest of the thread, but when people make job postings, they always ask for what they would consider their ideal person for that position. You should still apply anyway as the HR person in charge of hiring is well aware they will almost certainly never actually find that ideal employee. They're just aiming high.

But yes there are not many jobs available.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If you can't speak too many words, a quick rebuttal is as follows: Without the labour supply or labour market the so-called “innovative entrepreneurs” who still need to hire for a profit cannot realize their innovations.

Basically, it's a rebuttal of economic idealism with economic materialism.

I'm amazed how you turn even a simple sentence into something that is quite unfriendly and jargonistic, but you are indeed correct: without the workers nothing would be produced, without the capitalists there'd be no...

Finish the sentence in as socialist a way as possible. Go!

[Loony Le Fist]

We can clearly see that the wealthy and powerful are not the job creators. Compare corporate profits in the US over the last few years with jobs created. You will observe that the growth in jobs doesn't correlate with corporate profits. In fact, most recently they are inversely correlated. I have a graphic to share, however I cannot post links. But you could Google "corporate profit v. employment chart" and you can find it yourself.

Of course, this has been going on for a long time. Unemployment and underemployment were high under the previous Bush administration too, even after all the tax-cut concessions given by the combination of a Republican Congress and President. There is also an inverse correlation with wages and corporate profits going back a long time too. Marxist economic theory predicts these precise outcomes. Neoliberal pseudoscience and market fanaticism is mute on this topic. We were graciously provided with yet another stunning real-world confirmation of how capitalism leads to accumulation and concentration of wealth.

[Thirsty Crow]

I'm amazed how you turn even a simple sentence into something that is quite unfriendly and jargonistic, but you are indeed correct: without the workers nothing would be produced, without the capitalists there'd be no...

Finish the sentence in as socialist a way as possible. Go!
To be fair, I don't think DNZ's point is a tautology as you seem to be implying.

The notion of the innovative entrepreneur can be interpreted as those who sell the right to use of a patent; and indeed one of the ideological mystifications surrounding this crisis, at least here where I live, concerned the nearly demigod status of innovating individuals. Who are, as you, me and DNZ would agree, nothing without labor.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Interestingly the pace of innovation has clearly slowed as the cult of the entrepreneur has taken off. Mark Zuckerberg is no Westinghouse -- no matter what Mark Zuckerberg might think.

[argeiphontes]

I dislike the cult of the entrepreneur. Zuckerberg, Jobs, etc. Those people are standing on a totalitarian pyramid of exploitation and claiming all the glory for themselves. There's a difference between having ownership of a bunch of patents of things developed by your workers, and inventing things yourself.

[Kingfish]

http://files.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/tumblr_lxdsdoWqxT1qcrg731.jpg

The cult of successful entrepreneur will always be that tantalizing carrot on the end of the stick used to keep up hope and the myth of the meritocracy alive.

Whilst the fairness and necessity of it is a myth I dont think that capitalists being the primary job creators is. After all they do happen to control the necessary resources and capital.

[argeiphontes]

I'm not against "entrepreneurship" or initiative, I like to think I resemble such a person myself sometimes. But there should not be a cult of personality.

As for job creators, in a capitalist economy the creation of jobs is an interplay between market demand and capitalist desire to supply, so it's more complicated than just capitalists being job creators. They don't just create jobs out of thin air where there is no demand or desire to expand production. Demand is primary I would say. Look at this mega-recession. Low aggregate demand is where the proper blame lies.

[Sea]

The government acts like there are jobs and that there aren't enough qualified people.

But the thing is, in the US they want you to have several years of experience in any field, nowhere to start.

And most of these "help wanted" ads are just to make things look good.

They aren't serious about hiring.

They won't even call you nevermind interview you.Yeah, they actually kinda are. Look around you. Where do you think all their variable capital goes, the toilet? No.

They just don't want to hire too much -- they want the laws of supply of demand to be screwed in their favor.

[Thirsty Crow]

Yeah, they actually kinda are. Look around you. Where do you think all their variable capital goes, the toilet? No.It mostly stays in the banking sector, providing means for financial operations, bearing interest for productive enterprises (i.e. non-financial ones). Or it is even deployed as money capital within a specialized department of a nominally productive corporation.


They just don't want to hire too much -- they want the laws of supply of demand to be screwed in their favor.
Laws of supply of demand...that sounds like a real theoretical innovation.
But surely you mean supply and demand. And you're wrong. The reason that enterprises are not hiring isn't that they want the reserve army of unemployed to grow ridiculously, but that they see the expansion of production - which is the basic condition of increased hiring - as unprofitable. And they're right.

[Loony Le Fist]

Interestingly the pace of innovation has clearly slowed as the cult of the entrepreneur has taken off. Mark Zuckerberg is no Westinghouse -- no matter what Mark Zuckerberg might think.

I too agree that the cult that surrounds the entrepreneur is far more grand than the entrepreneurs themselves. While I agree that Westinghouse provided more value for society than Zuckerberg in terms of innovation, he too was part of the subjugating capitalist structure.

The cult is the carrot to keep everyone running the track, in pursuit of false promises and dreams. However, this is not to say there isn't a ray of hope. More than ever people are rejecting capitalism. But this mistrust must be channeled into action.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm amazed how you turn even a simple sentence into something that is quite unfriendly and jargonistic, but you are indeed correct: without the workers nothing would be produced, without the capitalists there'd be no...

Finish the sentence in as socialist a way as possible. Go!

I beg your pardon? :confused:

"Labour supply" and "labour market" are only jargon to the extent of introductory economics terminology. "Realize" comes more from finance (selling something vs. still holding it), but again at an introductory level. That's before what LinksRadikal posted.

Your statement reeks too much of an agitational bent and echoes industrial agitation back then, while mine as usual errs on the side of education and modernized language.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know if this exact terminology resonates much beyond the right-wing in the US who would believe anything positive about business anyway. The more general (ideologically connected) problem is that in the neoliberal era, considertive or liberal municiple and regional and national governments have reduced a lot of Keynsian-era jobs programs and whatnot and have taken up the "fiscal responcibility" stance of basically speed-ups and job cut-backs for workers in government agencies and services. So all "job-creation" rehtoric by (generally liberal) municiple governments has been focused on a race to the bottom in giveaways to companies in the name of "attracting investment". With programs being cut-back or loaded off to NGOs then in society is really is the companies who "create jobs" because government is either cutting services or selling off the potentially profitable ones.

But in this bad economy, I think a simple rehtorical thing to do is to turn the catchphrase on it's head and call them: "Job destroyers" and "Job Condition, um, worseners(?)". This reflects the state of things in the US where "job creation" has meant the creation of lower-paid jobs with worse conditions. Capitalism does create jobs - most people (in the US anyway) hate their jobs... let's give credit where credit is due: capitalist create jobs with horrible conditions that suit the needs of profits, not good services/products let alone a good life for those employed by those jobs.

If we say they aren't "job creators" it seems to me that the practical implication would be to support alternative job creators which can really only be capitalist governments (which isn't counterposed IMO like the libertarians might claim - government investment and jobs still help the capitalist system ultimately) while the capitalist system remains in place.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If we say they aren't "job creators" it seems to me that the practical implication would be to support alternative job creators which can really only be capitalist governments (which isn't counterposed IMO like the libertarians might claim - government investment and jobs still help the capitalist system ultimately) while the capitalist system remains in place.

Jimmie, "Big Government" is the only real job creator in modern society, anyway. Whether it's due to having in fact larger and more redundant civil bureaucracies than "socialist bureaucracies" historically (the example of Putin's government being larger payroll-wise than the Soviet government historically, and another example of Condie Rice writing in a foreign affairs book that Soviet bureaucracies could not afford to have the kind of redundant government agencies that plague modern Western societies), or whether it's the traditional Bastard Keynesian argument for public works programs, or whether it's the post-Keynesian argument for a massive job guarantee / employer-of-last resort program, that's the reality.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I beg your pardon? :confused:

"Labour supply" and "labour market" are only jargon to the extent of introductory economics terminology. "Realize" comes more from finance (selling something vs. still holding it), but again at an introductory level. That's before what LinksRadikal posted.

Your statement reeks too much of an agitational bent and echoes industrial agitation back then, while mine as usual errs on the side of education and modernized language.

And how many ordinary people take introductory economics (i.e. 1st year university) courses? Not that many.

My statement reeks of simplicity and being to-the-point, yours reeks of having your head up your arse, although I don't disagree with the point you are trying to make, just the language you use makes it more difficult to interpret that it needs to be.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And how many ordinary people take introductory economics (i.e. 1st year university) courses? Not that many.

Introductory economics has been taught not just in first-year university, but also in high school, for quite some time now. What a difference a decade makes!

[Remus Bleys]

Introductory economics has been taught not just in first-year university, but also in high school, for quite some time now. What a difference a decade makes!
I don't know anyone who takes it.
And if they did, if it was high school, they wouldn't pay attention enough to take it.

Be more simple.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Introductory economics has been taught not just in first-year university, but also in high school, for quite some time now. What a difference a decade makes!

Where?

Here, Economics/Business are options that can be taken, but most people don't. And even if there's a trend towards that in recent years, most people over a certain age won't have come into contact with economics concepts, so your language will still be inaccessible.

[Klaatu]

No one actually "creates jobs." Rather, they appear on their own, from a need.

As an analogy, weeds will appear in my garden. They need no help from me!
And weeds will be there, appearing time and again, despite my best efforts to control them.

That is what capitalism really is, weeds in the garden, so to speak. That is, weeds do not
need any "help" from the gardener, for they will generate spontaneously, much like the sun
rises in the morning. (consider the massive government tax breaks given to capitalists in
order to help "create jobs;" is this really necessary? Our tax money trickling upward?)

Considering the weeds in my own garden, guess what I do with them?

[Zalor]

I'm amazed how you turn even a simple sentence into something that is quite unfriendly and jargonistic


just the language you use makes it more difficult to interpret that it needs to be.

While excessive use of jargon could get tedious, I don't think that his sentence was difficult to understand. "Labor supply" and "labor market" seem pretty self explanatory to me. Also, people can easily look up any unfamiliar phrases by googling them. That's what I did for a while, (still do sometimes), and now I feel pretty comfortable participating in most economic conversations despite never having taken a course in my life (still in high school). Although, there was this one time a economics professor was speaking to me about something and he lost me pretty fast. He tried explaining some complex theory that would allow the government to essentially create money without causing inflation, or something like that.

[Remus Bleys]

While excessive use of jargon could get tedious, I don't think that his sentence was difficult to understand. "Labor supply" and "labor market" seem pretty self explanatory to me. Also, people can easily look up any unfamiliar phrases by googling them. That's what I did for a while, (still do sometimes), and now I feel pretty comfortable participating in most economic conversations despite never having taken a course in my life (still in high school). Although, there was this one time a economics professor was speaking to me about something and he lost me pretty fast. He tried explaining some complex theory that would allow the government to essentially create money without causing inflation, or something like that.
google isn't applicable in irl situations. You say that to someone irl, they are gonna look at you as some smartass looking down on them.

At least, thats how I would take it.

[Thirsty Crow]

google isn't applicable in irl situations. You say that to someone irl, they are gonna look at you as some smartass looking down on them.

At least, thats how I would take it.
Jesus, I'd say that labor market, a notion that is constantly peddled in mass media, it's fucking everywhere, would at least be familiar as a term. Apart from that, you can actually explian, in a down to earth manner, what you mean.

And this time has come. I feel the need to defend DNZ against what I think are baseless accusations of "jargon"...in the Theory thread, of all places.