Comment on Spooooookyyyyy Scaaaaaaaarrryyyy
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago… Both of them though?
One based on investments, the other based on being unable to work. From each according to their abilities and all that.
Not that it’s a bad thing. To some degree we already do it in most sane capitalist countries too.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
“To each according to their need” doesn’t necessarily mean pay, you could just provide housing and food directly to people who can’t otherwise afford it. Passive income necessarily requires exploitation and accounts for neither need nor ability.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Housing and food is essentially pay too, in a way.
What I’m saying is that there are people who get to live off others’ work in that system too. It’s just a much more just system, because we’re basing it off who can vs who can’t work, rather than who has money vs who doesn’t.
You could also make the case that passive income doesn’t necessarily require exploitation. One could work 80 hour weeks for 20 years with the goal of retiring earlier. In effect, that person is doing their future work in advance, and then in one way or another, earns income off it. If you just kept the extra money as cash, it would inflate away.
However, such “fair” passive income wouldn’t be 8-10% a year in growth like you can currently get passively long term, it would be in line with inflation, to make it so that your 80 hours of work today are still worth 80 hours of work in 20 years.
I would argue that government bonds (in an actually ethical government, not something like the US…) are pretty close to exploitation-free passive income under the capitalist system. The rate is not high and the government uses it to fund social programs, infrastructure, etc. In return, the extra work you did to make more money, retains its value over time.
Of course this is not how people are getting rich. This is a theoretical way under the capitalist system to get SOME passive income to help you retire with more comfort than the state pension. Unfortunately, since exploitation IS allowed and is much more profitable, this is not actually what most people are doing for passive income.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Housing and food are viewed that way in our capitalist society specifically because it reinforces the idea that the poor deserve to be homeless and starving, this view is actively reinforced in our media, I see no reason to do anything other than attack it. Saving for the future is not passive income. If it pays interest someone somewhere is getting fucked for it.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Housing and food require someone else’s labor to produce if you don’t do it on your own, hence receiving it for free is still a type of pay. Not unlike disability benefits, social housing, etc.
You can’t save for the future long term without some kind of interest because all your money loses its value. So you can lend it to your government for social programs, or you can lend it out to companies and communities looking to finance solar panels (e.g through solcor), or you can invest it in a REIT buying up residential housing en masse. Up to you if you see those as equally abusive or not
Hawanja@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah but in real life communist countries are as explotative as capitalist ones.
It’s almost like all countries are based on the rich exploiting the poor or something.
mattyroses@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Capital has always been formed by exploitation - you cannot have a surplus without paying workers less than they create, it’s an accounting relationship.
That said, the amount of income disparity in “communist” countries has generally been much less than capitalist ones.
As far as oppression, it depends how you define that. But if you want to look at the amount of incarceration (a good measure), the US not only is greater than any socialist nation’s average, but even the worst of the Stalinist Great Purge. And this ignores just how cruel capitalism is in the global south to make those profits.
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Hawanja@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The only thing I disagree with is this.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
According to who exactly?
Hawanja@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The people who live(d) there.
Alloi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
there are no communist countries in the world. and there never has been. communism has never been achieved anywhere.
what you are referring to are authoritarian state capitalist societies. they may be communist/socialist in name, just not in praxis.
Hawanja@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Thanks! Tell that to all the people defending China and the USSR please.