this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Nothing should be profitable except the work of the individual for that individual. Every dollar of corporate profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.
I suppose, though, most would not call profit the value created by one's own labor.
That's because we're used to profit being exploited from our labour rather than being the benefactor of our own value. Under capitalism profit goes to the slave owner, under socialism profit goes to the worker.
I know, but some might apply terms such that you would be describing the abolition of profit, rather than preserving one particular expression.
Sure, context matters. You'll hear me say 'Every dollar of profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.' until I'm blue in the face. But everyone understands (or at least I hope they do) that profit is a value beyond the cost of production and that should benefit the worker not the whip cracker should it exist at all.
According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor, whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.
To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.
Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.
Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.
Correct.
This falls short because it fails to examine how the customer is exploited by spending more than the product's value for access to the product.
Resources + Labour = Cost
Cost + Profit = Price
∴ Profit = Exploited value
Correct, capitalists have a deliberately belligerent view of total value assessment because it's not in their interest to share that value with the worker. And the workers are uneducated and rely on a capitalist system to survive so they simply don't know better.
Correct.
You don't need to abolish private property in a socialised system, just private exploitation.
Personal profit will always exist through the negotiation of one's value with their customer but the definitive separation between cost, price, and value dissappears because they become the same thing.
While I am not finding any reason for concern about actual concepts, I feel the terminology you are using generally would be regarded as unconventional. For example, exploitation is often understood as bound to private property, which is any relationship of private control but social utilization for the same resource or asset.
Unfortunately the reason my terminology seems unconventional is because people have moved away from convention.
exploitation
/ˌɛksplɔɪˈteɪʃn/
noun
'the exploitation of migrant workers'
synonyms: taking advantage, making use, abuse of, misuse, ill treatment, unfair treatment, bleeding dry, sucking dry, squeezing, wringing, manipulation, cheating, swindling, fleecing, victimization, enslavement, slavery, oppression, imposing on, preying on, playing on
'the Bronze Age saw exploitation of gold deposits'
synonyms: utilization, utilizing, use, making use of, putting to use, making the most of, capitalization on, cashing in on, milking
From a standpoint of economics, though, I feel most would understand exploitation as simply the difference in value for negotiated exchange due to a disparity in power, compared to for a relationship of full parity. In the relations of production, it is generally tied to private property, which produces the class disparity embodied in waged labor.
Sure, but that difference in value for negotiated exchange exists between any two negotiates. Whether it be worker and employer, or individual and customer.
The big one is between the existant resources and all life on earth, current and future, and that's an inevitably unsustainable difference in negotiable exchange.
Again, though, exploitation within the wage system is produced by the class antagonisms embodied in private property.
With private property abolished, and thereby the classes assimilated, everyone will enjoy equity in power.
In turn, as labor will become free of coercion, it will become free also of exploitation.
Not quite. Think beyond class antagonism as being between the owner and worker class, and retrofit it to consumer and existor classes.
As long as resources (existors) are finite exploitation exists because life's (consumers) consumption limits the potential for other consumer's consumption. Consumers inevitably must exploit existors for survival, our consumption is temporary and unsustainable, we will consume each other, entropy will claim us all.
Yes, I understand that goes a bit out of scope of base 'economics', but you're right in saying that doesn't mean we can't reach some semblance of inter-human exploitation free society, though that will be something for future generations to enjoy while it lasts.
Exploitation is understood as describing effects from social relationships.
Other terms, such as utilization and extraction, describe processes of humans interacting with inanimate matter, including ecological resources.
Here's the simplified scenario.
There is 100% of resource, I take it all, you have none. I have exploited your weakness and incapacity for survival. You die.
This is the selfish survival model.
There is 100% of resource, I take it all, you have none. I give you 50% of the resources despite exploiting your weakness and incapacity for survival. We both live.
This is the selfless survival model.
These are the two base conditions for the continuation of life.
The essence of your scenario is the protection of private property.
I identified as the overarching objective the abolition of private property.
Scarcity of natural resources is intractable, yet we still seek, for the social systems through which they are managed, those that best support our shared objectives.
But you can't abolish private property. I take ergo you cannot. Private ownership is inherent to the consumption of limited resources.
Private property is a social construct, and no more.
Some societies hold the construct, others lack it.
Interaction with the natural environment requires simply agency and activity, not any particular social construct or system.
Some system of management is required for members of society to benefit collectively from the same resources, but private property is not required.
No. Sorry.
Private property is not a concept that coherently describes the behaviors of rats.
Private property is a social construct that occurs in some but not all human societies.
Modern society, organized by the capitalist mode of production, produces the class disparity through private property.
Socialists seek the abolition of private property, and thereby, the eradication of the class disparity.
Re-read my edited comment.
Sharing is a general description of a robust, essentially universal, human behavior.
As a general tendency, it also appears within the behavior of many other species.
You have been invoking unconventional terminology, and now have descended essentially into incoherence.
If dictionary terminology is unconventional then yes, we have descended into incoherence.
No.
You're babbling.
You traveled from worker exploitation to amoebas.
Your incapacity to follow a demonstrative metaphore is not an issue of my capacity.
You are obstructing the workers' struggle with dishonest obfuscation.
You believe that because your understanding of my position is incomplete and you have chosen this as the point to switch from comprehension to belligerence.
I feel the structure of my engagement was balanced and measured, as you moved from irregular terminology to outright hokem.
What do you wish to achieve, by asserting that private property is ineradicable and also observed in rats?
Who else shares such beliefs or perspective?
I consider my statements to be objective fact communicated, to the best of my ability, accurately and specifically using socially agreed upon definitions as per the dictionary, ipso facto, I would argue that everyone who cares to genuinely understand and interpret what I've stated as intended would share this perspective given the capacity to comprehend it. Just as one understands gravity to the extent of their comprehension.
If you consider any of my terminology as irregular then I suggest you re-consume my existing comments with a dictionary on hand to assist your comprehension. Until you choose to meet me at a point of comprehension there is no point in further discussion, and asking disingenuous questions born of ignorance won't yield useful answers.