• LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I know, but some might apply terms such that you would be describing the abolition of profit, rather than preserving one particular expression.

      • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor

            Correct.

            whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.

            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

            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.

            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.

            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.

            Correct.

            Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.

            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.

            • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              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.

              • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Unfortunately the reason my terminology seems unconventional is because people have moved away from convention.

                exploitation
                /ˌɛksplɔɪˈteɪʃn/
                noun

                1. the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.

                ‘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

                1. the action of making use of and benefiting from resources.

                ‘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

                • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

                  • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    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.