on the fairness of western capitalism

[shorelinetrance]

so i was having a little debate, (although i wouldn't give him that much credit, his polemic skills were less than sub par:lol:), between an online acquaintance of mine on the fairness of capitalism, just to put it into perspective hes very well off, private school gets everything handed to him etc etc.

now he said that if a person from the working class works his way up he deserves his wealth, i said thats fine, he won the capitalist lottery, he successfully worked his way up to the "top", but what about the working class who cannot works its way up, because obviously the ruling class doesn't want said person to work his way up, because if everyone had a "fair" chance to work his way up their would not be a ruling class.

i'm just trying to grasp this a little more, can anyone elaborate more on the fairness, or the lack thereof in capitalism?

[Psy]

so i was having a little debate, (although i wouldn't give him that much credit, his polemic skills were less than sub par:lol:), between an online acquaintance of mine on the fairness of capitalism, just to put it into perspective hes very well off, private school gets everything handed to him etc etc.

now he said that if a person from the working class works his way up he deserves his wealth, i said thats fine, he won the capitalist lottery, he successfully worked his way up to the "top", but what about the working class who cannot works its way up, because obviously the ruling class doesn't want said person to work his way up, because if everyone had a "fair" chance to work his way up their would not be a ruling class.

i'm just trying to grasp this a little more, can anyone elaborate more on the fairness, or the lack thereof in capitalism?
The people with more skills don't float to the top in capitalism, instead you have a class system, where you have a owning class that gets ahead through exploiting the skills of the working class. Take a look at Atari, that is the perfect example of capitalism fucking everything up. Nolan Bushnell (petite-bourgeoisie) sold Atari to Warner Communication in 1976 and the suits from Warner Communications didn't even try to hide the fact they just wanted exploit the talent of Atari and didn't give a dam about the workers at Atari, going as far as even preventing programmers getting credit (as Warner Communications saw them not as artist but just wage slaves to exploit).

[shorelinetrance]

The people with more skills don't float to the top in capitalism, instead you have a class system, where you have a owning class that gets ahead through exploiting the skills of the working class. Take a look at Atari, that is the perfect example of capitalism fucking everything up. Nolan Bushnell (petite-bourgeoisie) sold Atari to Warner Communication in 1976 and the suits from Warner Communications didn't even try to hide the fact they just wanted exploit the talent of Atari and didn't give a dam about the workers at Atari, going as far as even preventing programmers getting credit (as Warner Communications saw them not as artist but just wage slaves to exploit).

oh alright, thanks for the answer.

but with that said, don't people in western capitalism have a better chance of getting to the "top" through exploiting the workers through wage slavery, compared to industrial capitalism say in china, I'm beginning to think western capitalism is a lot more fair, I'm using the term fair very loosely of course, i'm certainly not defending capitalism by any means though, i mean almost everyone has a free education available to them, although the kids with bourgeoisie parents can afford to send them too private schools, thus giving them better opportunities, which is not equal at all.

anyways, i'm just trying to learn by asking questions, the best way to learn.:cool:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Social mobility in the United States has actually been documented.

Children born to low-income parents have less than a 1% chance at being in the top 5% at the peak of their career. Likewise, someone born to medium-income parents only has about a 1.8% chance. If this is considered social mobility, I'm a freight train. People born to parents in the top 5% have a 22% chance of staying there, with about double that likelihood of remaining in the top 6-10%.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html

Be aware that the top 5% constitutes anything from a few hundred thousand all the way up to multi-billions.

[Psy]

GeneCosta is right. Even though the American Dream give the image that petitie-bourgeoisie grow up to be part of the American ruling class, in reality since the end of the long boom most of the American petite-bourgeoisie end up being proletriat. The capital of the petite-bourgeoisie gets assimilated into the capital of the bourgeoisie till the petite-bourgeoisie can no longer afford owning mean of production and have to hand over their mean of production to the bourgeoisie.

[BIG BROTHER]

Workers in first world countries are like house slaves.

Workers in third world countries i.e. neo-colonies, are field slaves.

One slave may have it better than the other one, but he's still a slave.

[Psy]

Workers in first world countries are like house slaves.

Workers in third world countries i.e. neo-colonies, are field slaves.

One slave may have it better than the other one, but he's still a slave.
Lets not forget the gains of the first world workers came during the long boom, now the bourgeoisie is facing a contracting market and has no choice but to squeeze more surplus value out of labor. So the gains of the workers in the first world is at now at great risk.

[BIG BROTHER]

Lets not forget the gains of the first world workers came during the long boom, now the bourgeoisie is facing a contracting market and has no choice but to squeeze more surplus value out of labor. So the gains of the workers in the first world is at now at great risk.

I woldn't say at great risk, but yeah with the economy going down, it will eventualy hurt first world workers even more.

[rampantuprising]

just throwing it out there...but what will it take for the workers of the US to realize that in a sense there are basically human money laundering machines? and why for so long have they just laid down and accepted it?

[Psy]

just throwing it out there...but what will it take for the workers of the US to realize that in a sense there are basically human money laundering machines? and why for so long have they just laid down and accepted it?
They are far more then money laundering machines, even now if US workers went on a large general strike US society would grind to a halt as they are the engine of industrial society.

[BIG BROTHER]

just throwing it out there...but what will it take for the workers of the US to realize that in a sense there are basically human money laundering machines? and why for so long have they just laid down and accepted it?

As long as they have i-pods and the hope of being that 1.5% that makes it to the top, they'll probably continue asleep.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

In order for capitalism to be "fair" in the sense in which you use the word, it is not sufficient for all people to have some small chance of getting rich - all people would need to have the exact SAME statistical chance of getting rich. Which is obviously not the case.

To say that any chance at all is sufficient to make the system "fair" is to say that anything other than the most rigid caste system is "fair." Even some forms of slavery would could as "fair" in that case, since it was sometimes possible (albeit highly unlikely) for slaves to win their freedom and become wealthy.

[rampantuprising]

so why is it then that the working class of the US doesnt attempt such a strike? wouldnt that then be the first step of upheaving a capitalist state?

[BIG BROTHER]

In my humble opinion it would be because of the lack of class consiosnes.(sorry for the horrible misslpell) there are groups of working class persons who do see something wrong, but they don't know what to do, and end up doing stuff like supporting the Democrats, ralling against immigrants, etc.

[shorelinetrance]

so why is it then that the working class of the US doesnt attempt such a strike? wouldnt that then be the first step of upheaving a capitalist state?

usually when i ask people, they just say "thats just the way it is, we can't change it", which is obviously not the case, nothing is concrete.

[mikelepore]

he said that if a person from the working class works his way up he deserves his wealth

A capitalist-minded person will automaticlaly accept it as a given that we have to have a pyramid-shaped society with just a few spaces at the top, and, given that assumption, the only consideration is whether the people who got there are the same people who deserved it.

A socialist realizes that it isn't a God-given rule that we must choose to have a pyramid-shaped society with just a few available spaces at the top. If we decide not to continue to operate such a hierarchy in the first place, then the question of whether the people who got there are the most deserving ones is a question that will drop away.