>> Everyone seems to be averting their eyes from the fact that capitalism as a system seems to require underpaid or slave labor to keep things affordable to the general public so that it works out … Is there a way to have capitalism without relying on exploitation?
Fair, #progressiveTaxation is what's missing.
4+ decades of #Reagan #TrickleDown economic policies is what brought us here.
Problem is not #Capitalism but unbridled #laissezFaire. Govt is not optional.
@rameshgupta @slashdottir @DaveFlater
"Fair progressive taxation" does not eliminate capitalist exploitation. Capitalist exploitation comes from the private ownership of the means of production, where the owners extract surplus value from workers to gain profit, which is the prime motivator in capitalism, which inevitably causes low wages and poverty for the workers while the private owners benefit from the workers labor. 1/2
@rameshgupta @slashdottir @DaveFlater
Capitalism is the problem. No amount of taxation will eliminate this as long as the capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production exists. Capitalism has to go if capitalist exploitation is to be eliminated, and socialism must replace it in order to give workers power over their labor and their lives. 2/2
>> Capitalism is the problem. No amount of taxation will eliminate this as long as the capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production exists… where the owners extract surplus value from workers…
If there is no surplus value, economies stagnate, shrink, and collapse. The goal is to tax the surplus in a way to discourage the surplus from being concentrated in a few dozen hands. That does not require govt control means of production
@rameshgupta @slashdottir @DaveFlater
This plan is unrealistic. The ruling bourgeois class has the power to influence politicians and legislation. They won't allow any reforms that would actually take significant amounts of power away from them to be passed. It's a pipedream to think that the bourgeois ruling class will just sit by and let laws be passed that will take their power away and not use that power to maintain their power like they always have. 1/2
@rameshgupta @slashdottir @DaveFlater
If capitalists' power is what is to be taken away, then capitalism, the system that allots them that power, must be abolished and replaced with a system where power is shared collectively, i.e., socialism. 2/2