Not just American. It’s poor people’s economy everywhere. American working class has more in common with working class in every other nation than American wealth class. The real division in the world is class division, everything else is distraction.
This exactly. There’s an inversion when having money is more convenient than having contacts and doing small favors, and that inversion turns people into lonely cunts.
Incredibly wealthy people also run their society based on favors and unspoken fees. The difference is, one of them could, under unusual but not impossible circumstances, help a friend and a guy move a fridge and share a pizza and beer. But nobody who’s not part of the incredible-wealth society can participate in its favors. And we all pay the fees.
I don’t see what about this that makes it a “working-class” thing? I thought it was common practice to help each other out in exchange for pizzas and beer in any part of society where people have friends? I see it primarily as an excuse to hang out while doing something together.
Whenever you can afford to pay to have a problem of yours solved, it’s often the most convenient way of solving it.
Anyone who makes their living by working, either for salary or hourly rate, is working class. Let’s just be on the same page about that.
A working class person basically survives by converting their time and energy to cash. So paying cash is also paying with your labour, indirectly and often inefficiently. It’s always a matter of “is it worth it”? Hiring movers for moving your entire home may be worth it, just one piece of furniture often isn’t.
A wealth-class person gets their income from what they own. Its “passive” from their point of view, the money just appears as profit or capital gains or whatever. It’s still a limited resource, but often way more available. Any kind of favours you do or ask for at this point is purely for fun/social purposes since hiring someone to move that sofa, or even just buying and having a new one delivered is way more convenient and time-efficient, since your money is not literally your time.
Anyone who makes their living by working, either for salary or hourly rate, is working class. Let’s just be on the same page about that.
Aha! That’s where you got me! I was thinking “working class” in the more classical sense, referring to typical lower-paying jobs. I work for a living, but I’m definitely closer to what is typically considered “middle-class” in the sense that I make enough money that I feel well-off, but not enough that I could buy a new sofa just because moving the old one is too much hassle.
Obligatory “Fuck the wealth-class”. “Passive income through ownership” is a convoluted way of saying “parasitic”.
Congratulations, you’re part of the working class. Your wealth comes from work you do with head and hand. The epstein class want you to think of yourself as middle class, so you’ll feel threatened by the working class. There is no middle class. They take, and we pay. That’s what class is.
I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying here, I still want to comment on
Middle class does not exist
I do think it’s a reasonable term to separate those that actually make a decent salary, are self-employed, own their own company (at which they work) together with others, etc. from the more clearly exploited workers that have far too few rights and are not compensated fairly.
I have no problem with selling my labour for money as long as I’m fairly compensated for it. Historically, the working class has not been.
I have no problem with selling my labour for money as long as I’m fairly compensated for it.
If you are working for a salary, you are never fairly compensated. If you received the value you actually produced, your boss can’t make a profit. Profit is only possible by a exploitation.
The intensity of said exploitation is a spectrum, there is a huge difference between having some savings and disposable income versus barely surviving. I also make a decently comfortable living as a software engineer but I’m still a crippling accident away from losing it all and depending on disability benefits.
While what you’re saying is typically true, it’s not inherently built into the system. I work in a company owned by two friends. They own the company because they took out loans with their houses as security in order to finance the lease of an office space, buying work stations, and hiring themselves and me. I work on the same stuff as them, for the same hours, and make the same salary as them.
If the company goes to shit, they have craploads of debt, while I don’t. We have a contract ensuring that I get a fair share of whatever comes in, including options to buy myself into the company at the same rate as what they initially invested once I can afford it. Nobody here is making excess money of others work. I have no reason to believe I’m being scammed.
Again, what you’re saying is true in 99+ % of cases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s nothing preventing a company from deciding that profits are split evenly among all employees (with the owners also acting as employees).
This is the only point I disagree with you. Your situation is extremely rare and exists because of the cool founders, and despite the economic system. There is nothing stopping them from exploiting new hires as the company grows. In fact, “free market” encourages cost cutting and aggressive competition.
Even if life is good for you at your income level, you’re still getting scammed to a (much smaller) extent. And the Epstein class use the money they scam off you, to control society. Money has this mathematical effect where it wants to accumulate in one place. It’s like a kind of economic gravity. Any inequality will magnify itself over time if it isn’t carefully controlled by government.
Social democrats think good enough regulation can preserve that very-slightly-inequal system forever. But I say that kind of setup is inherently unstable. Capitalism will always trend towards inequality over time. Instead of trying to control money and make it go against its nature, we should abolish money. A gift economy would be better.
I have a friend who’s done very well with the AI boom, he works for some startup, has for the past six or seven years. He moved into an apartment like 10 years ago, he was working for a pharma company, just building their servers I’ll say, because I don’t know what the fuck he does. When he moved into the apartment, he hit me up, I rounded up another friend or two, we took care of it.
He bought (had built) a new home about six or seven months ago. He did not call me to help him move. He’s moved beyond that, because to him, he doesn’t want to be involved. You don’t call someone to help you move and then not take part. For him, it’s a no-brainer to just pay to have it done. And that’s fine, and I just kinda wanted to give an example of this divide.
Not just American. It’s poor people’s economy everywhere. American working class has more in common with working class in every other nation than American wealth class. The real division in the world is class division, everything else is distraction.
This exactly. There’s an inversion when having money is more convenient than having contacts and doing small favors, and that inversion turns people into lonely cunts.
Incredibly wealthy people also run their society based on favors and unspoken fees. The difference is, one of them could, under unusual but not impossible circumstances, help a friend and a guy move a fridge and share a pizza and beer. But nobody who’s not part of the incredible-wealth society can participate in its favors. And we all pay the fees.
I don’t see what about this that makes it a “working-class” thing? I thought it was common practice to help each other out in exchange for pizzas and beer in any part of society where people have friends? I see it primarily as an excuse to hang out while doing something together.
Whenever you can afford to pay to have a problem of yours solved, it’s often the most convenient way of solving it.
Anyone who makes their living by working, either for salary or hourly rate, is working class. Let’s just be on the same page about that.
A working class person basically survives by converting their time and energy to cash. So paying cash is also paying with your labour, indirectly and often inefficiently. It’s always a matter of “is it worth it”? Hiring movers for moving your entire home may be worth it, just one piece of furniture often isn’t.
A wealth-class person gets their income from what they own. Its “passive” from their point of view, the money just appears as profit or capital gains or whatever. It’s still a limited resource, but often way more available. Any kind of favours you do or ask for at this point is purely for fun/social purposes since hiring someone to move that sofa, or even just buying and having a new one delivered is way more convenient and time-efficient, since your money is not literally your time.
Aha! That’s where you got me! I was thinking “working class” in the more classical sense, referring to typical lower-paying jobs. I work for a living, but I’m definitely closer to what is typically considered “middle-class” in the sense that I make enough money that I feel well-off, but not enough that I could buy a new sofa just because moving the old one is too much hassle.
Obligatory “Fuck the wealth-class”. “Passive income through ownership” is a convoluted way of saying “parasitic”.
Congratulations, you’re part of the working class. Your wealth comes from work you do with head and hand. The epstein class want you to think of yourself as middle class, so you’ll feel threatened by the working class. There is no middle class. They take, and we pay. That’s what class is.
There’s an Spanish song about that: El vals del obrero (the worker’s waltz)
(Translated with Reverso. Sorry for the possible mistakes)
Proud to be (Proud to be)
Among the proletariat (Among the proletariat)
It’s hard to make ends meet
And have to sweat and sweat
To earn our bread
And this is my place, these are my people
We are workers, the preferred class
Therefore, proletarian brother, with pride
I sing you this song, we are the revolution
Yes, sir! , the revolution
Yes, sir! , Yes, sir! we are the revolution
Your enemy is the master
Yes, sir! , Yes, sir! we are the revolution
Long live the
I’m sick to death of leeches
Those who steal my dignity
My life is consumed by enduring this routine
Who drowns me more every day
Happy businessman, more calluses in my hands
My kidneys are going to burst
I don’t have a fucking buck, but I’m still paying in
To your welfare state
Up!
In this democracy, there is a lot of smart money to be made
Squeezing our social class
They don’t give a fuck if you have fourteen children
And grandma can’t be operated on
We are the workers, the basis of this game
In which he always loses the same pringao
A well thought out game, in which we are kept quiet
And they fuck you if you don’t want to play (Up!)
I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying here, I still want to comment on
I do think it’s a reasonable term to separate those that actually make a decent salary, are self-employed, own their own company (at which they work) together with others, etc. from the more clearly exploited workers that have far too few rights and are not compensated fairly.
I have no problem with selling my labour for money as long as I’m fairly compensated for it. Historically, the working class has not been.
If you are working for a salary, you are never fairly compensated. If you received the value you actually produced, your boss can’t make a profit. Profit is only possible by a exploitation.
The intensity of said exploitation is a spectrum, there is a huge difference between having some savings and disposable income versus barely surviving. I also make a decently comfortable living as a software engineer but I’m still a crippling accident away from losing it all and depending on disability benefits.
While what you’re saying is typically true, it’s not inherently built into the system. I work in a company owned by two friends. They own the company because they took out loans with their houses as security in order to finance the lease of an office space, buying work stations, and hiring themselves and me. I work on the same stuff as them, for the same hours, and make the same salary as them.
If the company goes to shit, they have craploads of debt, while I don’t. We have a contract ensuring that I get a fair share of whatever comes in, including options to buy myself into the company at the same rate as what they initially invested once I can afford it. Nobody here is making excess money of others work. I have no reason to believe I’m being scammed.
Again, what you’re saying is true in 99+ % of cases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s nothing preventing a company from deciding that profits are split evenly among all employees (with the owners also acting as employees).
This is the only point I disagree with you. Your situation is extremely rare and exists because of the cool founders, and despite the economic system. There is nothing stopping them from exploiting new hires as the company grows. In fact, “free market” encourages cost cutting and aggressive competition.
Even if life is good for you at your income level, you’re still getting scammed to a (much smaller) extent. And the Epstein class use the money they scam off you, to control society. Money has this mathematical effect where it wants to accumulate in one place. It’s like a kind of economic gravity. Any inequality will magnify itself over time if it isn’t carefully controlled by government.
Social democrats think good enough regulation can preserve that very-slightly-inequal system forever. But I say that kind of setup is inherently unstable. Capitalism will always trend towards inequality over time. Instead of trying to control money and make it go against its nature, we should abolish money. A gift economy would be better.
I have a friend who’s done very well with the AI boom, he works for some startup, has for the past six or seven years. He moved into an apartment like 10 years ago, he was working for a pharma company, just building their servers I’ll say, because I don’t know what the fuck he does. When he moved into the apartment, he hit me up, I rounded up another friend or two, we took care of it.
He bought (had built) a new home about six or seven months ago. He did not call me to help him move. He’s moved beyond that, because to him, he doesn’t want to be involved. You don’t call someone to help you move and then not take part. For him, it’s a no-brainer to just pay to have it done. And that’s fine, and I just kinda wanted to give an example of this divide.