• mayo_cider [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    26·
    7 days ago

    Back in my university days as an RA one of my favorite hobbies was printing full color posters and dnd maps with my employee badge

    I also have a nice collection of usb and display cables and keyboards if I ever need a spare

  • woodenghost [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    6 days ago

    Is the point here, that “first world labor” has no or almost no constant capital(i.e. means of production)? If that was true it would actually have the highest rate of exploitation, since it would be made up almost entirely of variable capital, like a sweatshop. That’s obviously the opposite of what the creator of the meme wanted to say, so it doesn’t make sense.

    In reality, labor in the imperial core has a higher than average organic composition of capital with lots of constant capital. Naively, one would think, that this would lead to lower profits, since value only comes from human labor. But if their business was less profitable than average, capitalists would just move their capital. And they do. They move capital out of those sectors. This lowers production and raises prices above values, until profits equalize. In a globalized market, this leads to equalization of the rate of profit on a global scale. But for profits to be (approximately) equal, that additional value for “first world” capitalists has to come from somewhere. It comes from the rest of the world, where prices for exports are lowered in turn below their value. This means, that capitalists from countries with a lower organic composition of capital (like Bangladesh) subsidize capitalists in countries with a high organic composition of capital (like Germany). Some of those profits might be passed on to a labor aristocracy, if labor is organized enough to demand it.

    This is why China is shifting to high tech production and this is why the US is raging against that.

    Also, when Marx considers average socially necessary labor time, he doesn’t mean necessary in a hypothetical ideal communist society, but necessary for the actual, contradictory, capitalist society to reproduce itself. Lots of office labor seems pointless and soul crushing, but don’t think you can get rid of it within capitalism. Idealists might think so, but we know better. You can’t. It’s necessary for this sick system to go on. Capitalists who invest in seemingly “pointless” labor react to pressure from contradictions they have no way of resolving within capitalism.