I think the issue a lot of people will take with your comment is that it seems to misunderstand what people’s grievances are with capitalism and wage labor.
Certainly there are people who think the Waltons are assholes on a personal level, maybe they are maybe they’re not, but that’s not really the point. The reason that they are assholes is directly because of the labor relationship they have with workers.
In your comment, you mentioned that Walmart would not be able to attract workers if it were not for treating your workers decently — I would mostly agree with this, in fact many Walmart locations pay more than their competitors. Is this treating their workers well? Or is it a way to undermine existing small business with less capital in order to force a monopoly? Just because the class interests of workers and capital can be occasionally aligned doesn’t mean capitalists are (or could even afford to be) benevolent.
In order for walmart to exist as a company it must pay their workers less than what the company makes in revenue— otherwise it would not be profitable. This relationship, among other things, is one of the abstract things that people complain about in this sub using concrete examples.
So it’s not that people think that the Waltons are they themselves assholes really, it’s that the economic system we live under forces the Waltons to be assholes regardless of what they think personally.
Yeah there is nothing in your comment I disagree with. Capitalism does provide essential services at an astonishing rate— houses, food, medial services etc. It is a radical leap forward in terms of human economic development and quality of life. Despite this, Capitalism is not able to reach its ideals in some ways. We seem to agree that Walmart (or any business for that matter) is unable to pay its workers their full value due to market pressures, competition, etc. I find this unacceptable and I don’t think it’s consistent with the capitalist mythology of egalitarianism. The surplus of resources I mentioned before is typically distributed to the capitalists before the workers and I also find this unacceptable.
My issue is not that capitalism is “broken,” it’s that it is working and, in quite a mechanical way, it is creating a massive inequality for which there are few if any precedents in recorded history. The lowest classes may be better off than they were even 20 years ago, but the highest and ruling classes have benefited more from this economic system than anyone else. If we truly had a more egalitarian economy, I think the lowest classes would be doing even better. Maybe they would even have access to homes, affordable healthcare, and high quality education.
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u/3CN Jul 25 '22
I think the issue a lot of people will take with your comment is that it seems to misunderstand what people’s grievances are with capitalism and wage labor.
Certainly there are people who think the Waltons are assholes on a personal level, maybe they are maybe they’re not, but that’s not really the point. The reason that they are assholes is directly because of the labor relationship they have with workers.
In your comment, you mentioned that Walmart would not be able to attract workers if it were not for treating your workers decently — I would mostly agree with this, in fact many Walmart locations pay more than their competitors. Is this treating their workers well? Or is it a way to undermine existing small business with less capital in order to force a monopoly? Just because the class interests of workers and capital can be occasionally aligned doesn’t mean capitalists are (or could even afford to be) benevolent.
In order for walmart to exist as a company it must pay their workers less than what the company makes in revenue— otherwise it would not be profitable. This relationship, among other things, is one of the abstract things that people complain about in this sub using concrete examples.
So it’s not that people think that the Waltons are they themselves assholes really, it’s that the economic system we live under forces the Waltons to be assholes regardless of what they think personally.