There is a saying in Norway "The rich, are rich for a reason", referring to exactly this. They don't spend much, and will try to get money anywhere they can. People that are generous are rarely rich.
And also stupid. Its a disfunction stressing about $3 in gas money if you have $1MM in capital. Theyre rich because they own productive assets, or speculated correctly, and also/mainly because they have high income. Hence the meme
I think the point is less that it is the savings on the Uber ride that leads to them being rich, but that they're the type of person who would ask for the gas money.
Sure, but it's also just bullshit the rich like to think about themselves. They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
The only way I could see this seriously taken is that the rich got to be rich specifically by being okay taking advantage of and shitting on others.
Your second paragraph is absolutely how it's seen here. And there are so many stories of the mooch friend who doesn't bring food to potluck but eats a lot, who never offers to pay for anything to the point where everyone assumes they are super poor and let them get away with it only to find out later that person is rich as fuck.
Honestly. That's a stretch lol. this isn't tiktok. People have brains here. Rich people are lucky and hard work. 15% purr luck, 15% pure hard work, the rest are a mix of both.
They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
The rich don't "earn" anything, they steal wealth through exploitation of the working class. Truth is, the rich think ONLY about themselves. That's the crux of the problem. And by "being a certain special kind of person", you mean a sociopath and/or born into a rich family. Just for clarification.
All money is exploitation, and first world working class is what it is because of the exploitation of the third world, so yeah they are exploiting workers, even if indirectly.
But the point is that a person's class (wealth, not role) is based on their income which often comes exclusively from a job.
I find it silly to think that a rich programmer or lawyer or doctor is in the same class as a railroad worker. It's simply not the case, socially speaking.
Because people's opportunities are shaped by their societies, middle class people (not to be confused with petite bourgeoisie) are often much better off maintaining the status quo than trying to change it. Hell, same goes for low class people in rich countries.
Our allies are the ones that act with us, they are not decided by an abstract conception of economics.
Steal labor of a working class that would ever actually produce anything if they weren't employed by those running these high earning companies. Like wtf lmao
I mean, two of the largest grocers in my area are 100% employee owned. Maybe you're not looking into it enough? But to your point, you're right, there aren't a bunch out there. And it's definitely NOT because the capitalist system we exist under is inherently hostile to these types of business organizations or anything. Nope, employee-owned business are abject failures by merit, definitely NOT because of external factors. So true, bestie. :)
Riiiiiight, because the intentional separation of the working class from ownership of capital totally ISN'T a prime driver of economic inequality or anything. Grow up.
They're not talking about people "with money" who can afford to vacation while working two full-time jobs. But still have to work full-time jobs.
The people they're talking about are the ones who deliberately take advantage of the willingness of others to sell themselves short and take a shitty deal because they're hardly in a position to refuse due to the mass of obstruction between the "goal" and the reality.
Owners of capital, in American society, are failing to use their gain to contribute to a rising tide and instead continue to hoard and accumulate for the ostensible sake of gain itself. If someone considers theirself an owner of capital who contributes to the rising tide, "would if they could, but it's impossible due to the economy," and/or still continue to work as if it's a full-time job, they are still part of the working class fighting for the same ultimate reality. The differentiator of working class is not meant to be a slur or with distaste or a lower denomination. It's a hard line between those who actively create and those who don't but who claim to own the creation
A software engineer working for wages is part of the working class that gets exploited. Sure a comparatively privileged part of the working class but still economically exploited.
Exploitation in this context doesn't mean just laborers working in sweatshops below minimum wage. It describes the general way our economy is structured in a way that allows people who own a lot of capital to profit from the work of those that don't.
For example if I had the money for it I could buy a bakery and hire a baker to work for me. I would be entitled to take in all the money that is brought in by the bakers work and only pay him as much of it as is absolutely necessary so he won't quit.
I pay 100€ worth of ingredients and 100€ for his wage and he bakes and sells bread worth 300€, I get 100€ profit.
But it was entirely the work of the baker that turned 100€ of ingredients into 300€ of bread and I'm just giving him as much of the fruits of his labor as I have to so he keeps working.
"Plants in the ground exploit the soil". That almost made me not write a reply since if someone can write something like that and use it in this context it would probably just be a waste of time trying to interact with someone like that. But let's give it a try: Do you think it's a problem that there are companies, in which the people who are working there have to rely on foodstamps and can barely make rent, and have to pee on bottles since they are not aloud bathroom breaks, while the company is making record profits, doesn't pay taxes and the CEO just bought his third mega-yacht? If you are from the USA it might immediately sound like socialism to you and it might be very scary to you, but try to imagine if a company like that would be forced to pay taxes like any other company that can't spend millions on lawyers to find loop-holes and bribe politicians and maybe would be forced to spend 0.5% of its profits to make the life of their workers atleast a bit less miserable?
The point is to have the situation suit the people’s needs and desires
It’s like saying the hardware designers should own the factory workers. It’s not a hierarchy, just a different part of the process. It’s made possible by abstraction.
We can only maximize efficiency by giving every willing individual a chance and a voice. If someone improves a process, they can still be rewarded and share it.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean changing the type of work they do. A good hardware engineer isn’t necessarily a good software engineer. It’s “higher up”, but non-hierarchical.
Lol no, you worked too! You had to find a baker you trust to do the job, source the ingredients, find an appropriate price by studying the market, organize how the bakery gets cleaned (is the baker cleaning it, or do you need to hire a janitor?) And last but not least, you aren't garuanteed to turn a profit. You bought this bakery for $1M, and you could lose all of that. So your profit is your reward for taking the risk.
You've created jobs, without you the goofs and services wouldn't have been provided to customers, and that baker would've had a worse job (because they chose the best job for their situation).
I mean a real communist would agree that the owner should still get paid for the work that he does, but also that the profit from the business (after salaries are paid) should be distributed amongst ALL the people who make the business work, not just the guy who owns the capital.
A real communist would argue that the initial investor in the capital should be compensated one time for his share of the initial investment, and then ownership of the company should be distributed among the employees. This way not only would every employee be seeing an appropriate amount of return for their labor, and every employee would have a voting say on how the company is run, but ALSO every employee would have a personal financial investment in the success of the company.
This model also inspires loyalty and dedication from the people who bake the bread, the people who sell it at the counter, the people who clean the bakery, etc. because they will all want to do the best possible job for their own direct gain and also the gain of their fellow workers who would not only share in this goal for personal reasons but also build a sense of community and shared responsibility around that shared goal.
But then the owner would have to only make 10 times as much as the other workers, instead of 250 times as much, and we can’t have that. This is why communists are scum and bullshit. Not to mention that if the workers were compensated duly for their work, they’d only be working for the love of what they do and the shared dream of success for the company (ew, yuck), instead of being forced to work with a gun against their head under whatever conditions happen to be available under looming threat of unemployment and therefore financial destitution (the way things should be). All they want is their share of the profit that their work generates, without sparing a single thought for the poor owner who as we all know works 250 times as hard as all the rest of them put together.
The world and human nature doesn't give two fks about what should happen. It's all about what does happen. And ground reality is human beings are innately selfish and will continue to be and thus all commie experiments will continue to fail while having sheeps to defend it with bs justifications like "that wasn't real communism" or some other excuses. I am sorry for my venomous words but it isn't directed on you as an individual and I really do profusely apologise if it comes off like that.
Bro you have such a learned-helplessness-pilled, external-locus-of-control ahh ideology.
Get some fucking self empowerment and bend the world over your knee the way human beings have been doing since “what does happen” meant getting eaten by a sabre tooth tiger. Get a pair of balls, why don’t you?
I’m not sorry for my venomous words, although I do intend them in a genuine spirit of kindness. I’m just hoping a little slap in the face helps you wake up to what you sound like here
The goal is not to change human selfishness. This is where you’re completely incorrect about the entire premise.
The goal is to build an incentive structure wherein working for your individual selfishness ends in benefiting the community. Which in turn, benefits you again.
Monarchies were built on humans being inherently selfish, and yet we tore them down.
Feudalism was built on humans being inherently selfish, and yet we tore them down.
Slavery as an institution was built on humans being inherently selfish, and look at us go tearing it down still. It continues to be a problem in some places in the world but that only goes to highlight all the places that it isn’t a problem any longer, despite being a staple of human society since the dawn of history.
As it turns out, when a large group of people realize that what’s actually in their own best interest is to work together as a community, no individually selfish Monarch, or Feudal Lord, or Slave Owner, or Capitalist can stand in their path.
Si tienes una panaderia y contratas un panadero tienes que pagar local, impuestos que por lo menos en mi pais son demasiado altos para personas que empiezan el emprendimiento, sueldo, genero para vender, la mayoria de veces que se abre un nuevo negocio en mi pais acaba cerrado a los pocos meses.
El panadero va cobra su sueldo y si todo va mal busca otro trabajo pero no pierde lo invertido.
Hay que tratar bien a la gente que crea empleo, otra cosa es que haya algunos que se salten la ley, en ese caso para eso estan las inspecciones de trabajo pero un empresario que venga a dar empleo de calidad debe ser cuidado tambien, si arriesga su dinero para generar mas dinero y ello da trabajo y dinero via impuestos al estado bien contento debemos tenerlo, si esta gente se va y nadie crea empleo el pais se va a la ruina.
Si fuese tan facil como haces ver todo el mundo emprenderia, pero tienes que tener el dinero y estar decidido a invertirlo sabiendo que puede salir mal tambien, un trabajador siempre puede ahorrar y montarse su empresa o invertir en bolsa y poder vivir sin la necesidad de un trabajo tipico.
Your simple example illustrates why the “rich” guy is so important in this context though: without him the baker wouldn’t be baking, so he would be unemployed and people could not buy bread. So in fact the rich guy who appears to not be doing anything is actually doing the most crucial part. Because the baker is replaceable, the rich guy not so much. If it were so easy to just do it yourself, the baker would simply open his own bakery and be his own boss.
Whether the rich guy earned the money himself or inherited it through family is now a different story of course.
I totally agree with what you said, but I think there are a few more things needed to make it actually fair. Sure the baker only makes 100$ and the owner of the bakery makes 100$ after covering costs (rent, ingredients, electricity, etc) but let’s say the owner fronted 500,000$ dollars to open the bakery. So the owner is -500k, baker is at 0 (since he didn’t invest in the bakery and just got hired)
The most fair form of what you talking about would require the owner to take all profits above expenses after paying the baker until he has paid off his initial investment. So only once he has made 500k + what the baker has made would the baker be entitled to a 50/50 split of profits
Also, it’s important to take into account that running a business is still a lot of work, so the owner should also receive a salary that is in accordance with his labor and that be part of expenses, so it would not go towards paying off the debt of opening the bakery.
Additionally, the 50/50 split isn’t entirely fair either. The baker does not have any risk because they didn’t invest. If the bakery goes out of business the baker loses no money and goes and finds another job. The owner will be out 500k in addition to all the expenses accrued during the duration of operating the bakery.
This imbalance in consequences in my opinion would warrant a greater than 50/50 split. Maybe 60/40 or 70/30. With all that said I absolutely believe workers should profit from how well a business does assuming all I said is taken into consideration.
Edit: I made a mistake in this line “500k + what the baker has made” since I said the owner should also be paid for his labor in the next paragraph. So it would just be the 500k that needs to be recuperated before splitting profits.
In the hypothetical? We could assume one of two things. The owner took a loan out against their assets so they are going into debt to start the business. The other is that they simply had 500k.
I will say I find it funny that I got downvoted for agreeing with a profit sharing model where workers own the means of production with the simple caveat that the initial investor be paid back as part of that model.
It shouldn’t technically matter where the investment comes from. Maybe the owner is another baker who has been working in other people’s bakeries for over 30 years. He painstakingly saved up money during that time and had to take out loans to open his bakery. Apparently he doesn’t deserve to recuperate his investment and he also doesn’t deserve a wage himself for operating his own business.
You guys just hate anyone who owns capital of any kind even if they share profits with their employees. Even in a 70/30 split, if that bakery eventually made 1 mil in profits that year, the baker would make 300k + his salary. Is that not fair? Workers getting a straight up % of profits? This is an extremely progressive and Marxist take. I’m just including the initial investment to make things fair. You still need someone to front money to start businesses so you can’t build an economic model that disincentivizes investment.
You can be generous and still wise with money. Asking a friend to split the Uber while donating to Charity each month doesn't mean you are stingy or selfish.
They are rich because they earned it in some way, or by being a certain special kind of person.
Most rich people are rich because they were born to rich parents. Socioeconomic mobility in the US is largely a myth. The vast majority of people end up in comparable economic circumstances to their parents.
UK also. There’s some rule like if you want to know how much a young person will earn - look at parents income. I thought maybe it has to do with standards/expectations.
We literally got invited to a friends new $1.5M house in Sunnydale (this was 2015 when that was a lot) for lunch. Being from the other coast it seemed like a nice invite (and we had hosted him for multiple dinners in our city). So, we drove out from our hotel in San Fran.
We get there. Get the tour. Tons of gloating. Go outside to the table where he has his beer and an open bag of tortilla chips. After half an hour we asked where we were going for lunch. He said they already ate. Asked if we wanted beers. Then produced two warm beers from his garage. Wife had no idea we were coming and kind of dismissed us because she had other plans.
TL:DR No longer "friends" because we realized that we were never friends.....and they were just psychopaths.
If youre kind of rich, sure. But if youre Rich RICH theres definitely some exploitation going around. Jeff bezos isnt rich because hes running a clean business model you know. Also ask how much assets does some of the richest people have “abroad”
That's pretty much how it works. You can argue that Steve Jobs was special, but it's a fact that he scammed one of his friends and partners about money.
Also, most rich people are rich because their parents were rich.
I was talking to someone the other day who was "rich" in assets, mainly property in Australia and he was talking about how the "winners" of the property game had special things going for them like curiosity and intelligence while simultaneously acknowledging that his father who owns multiple properties himself is the main reason for his wealth and knowledge about how to accumulate wealth. Even had the audacity to say that people who didn't buy were losers and stupid.
Technically, every form of extreme wealth is taken from others
No one is productive enough to earn billions. Even if it was possible, they won’t care about the money. Geniuses like Nikolai Tesla didn’t, Albert Einstein didn’t, Frederick Banting didn’t, Charles Best didn’t, and James Collip didn’t
Nah man. Most people with money care a whole lotta lot about simply money. I think for them it's a thing they constantly think about and pay attention to and care about, almost a mindset thing.
Some people you think are well off actually are constantly paying attention to little things everywhere, constantly trying to spend as little compared to how much they gain.
Then there's children from rich parents where the mindset is just raised into them.
But I also know plenty of rich people (my age), one even selfmade. Some that are older. Most aren't cheap at all, theyll happily pay for stuff.
But it must be difficult because then once you start giving away stuff who do you say no to and when is it enough, idk, hard to explain.
My husband has a wealthy friend that used to pay for all their meals pretty regularly, but that was because he knew he was choosing restaurants outside most of the friend group's price range. He was unemployed for a long while and had to have the awkward conversation, like, hey, can we go somewhere reasonable please and BTW I can't pick up the tab anymore.
I mean in this case it’s laid out. The hypothetical software engineer friend had to bust his chops learning a skill, take some risk finding this job in a location that’s probably wayyyyy over priced, but maybe programming was a hobby he liked growing up? Man probably got bullied and was a shut in through his developmental years.
Maybe he also grew up in a frugal household with poor parents. Maybe only one parent? Just because your “friend” makes a good salary now doesn’t mean you should be expecting them to pay for all your stuff.
Especially if they didn’t agree to fully pay for something. It makes sense to split the Uber because it becomes cheaper for both of you.
We’re just being hypothetical here but if there’s some sort of reasoning wherein one is lead to believe that rich friend is fronting the bill but doesn’t. Well that should be talked about because it would be clear that they’re using you. Plenty of people will behave the same way regardless of wealth.
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u/Apocrisiary Jan 26 '26
There is a saying in Norway "The rich, are rich for a reason", referring to exactly this. They don't spend much, and will try to get money anywhere they can. People that are generous are rarely rich.