The last thing I want to hear is how great capitalism is - as told by someone that capitalism refers to as capital.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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"I don't wanna lose these chains! They're all that I have!"
I don't agree that capitalism is a good system, but I also agree that those who can work should work, because that's the only way society can function and get better.
If we were a hunter gatherer tribe and no one hunted or gathers we would die.
Just because we have cars and computers doesn't mean no one has to grow food or sell food or clean the water and build the houses.
lmao OP thinks this is some kind of eye opening epiphany or something. Workers know they're workers, what they need is the realization who represents them and who is the enemy.
what's wrong with being a worker? Who is this post making fun about?
This post is not making fun of workers. Too often we see workers identify with rich capitalists and see their own lack of capital as a personal failing. But once we recognize the difference between the two classes we can dispel ourselves of that notion.
Members of the working class sell their labor in order to gain money and buy the necessities of life. The ruling class buys labor in order to see a profit on the money they already have. Since capitalism compels the capitalist to make a profit, they must pay the worker a fraction of the value that the worker creates. (The business owner wants to stay in business and the shareholders demand every-increasing value.) Hence we should not consider ourselves capitalists: we are workers who are being exploited, as necessitated by the system.
In not sure this accurately portrays the message you want it to.
People thinking they're capitalists.
I mean, is "worker" considered a bad word?
By people who consider themselves upper class, yes
This makes more sense, thanks
So the post assumes only rich people are for capitalism?
No. It states that capitalist are the ones who own the means of production and just collect profits without any real input needed.
The worker therefore is someone who works for the capitalists and does not own these means thus they have to work for their money.
Doesnβt make sense anymore
The image clearly says "you have to work to life" and youβre saying the opposite
If you own a factory you don't need to work to live. You just collect the profits and are a capitalist.
If you work in said factory to make enough money to live you are a worker.
This meme says you should not be for capitalism if you are a worker.
Just like Capitalism
I think OP is operating under the idea that workers aren't voting for their own interests (or alternatively not holding a revolution) because they don't see themselves in one of two broad categories.
Elon Musk of course, dude works more hours than most of us. He even slept in tesla factory for quite some time
There are ideological capitalists and capital holders.
There are people who are capital holders who are ideologically left economically, some instances as far as full socialist.
There are people who hold little to no capital at all but believe capitalism is the best possible system.
As a percentage of their respective classes though, the later class traitor is unfortunately more common than the former class traitor.
I think we can be both. Most of our pensions depend on it for growth.
Might as well put it with the rich people money, because they rule everything and aren't about to let that shit sink in the long term...
You guys have pensions?
You can be both a capitalist and a worker...
Not only that, but being a capitalist doesn't necessarily you're giga rich, it just means you think favorably of capitalism as an economic system.
it just means you think favorably...
By that logic, a literal slave could be a capitalist so long as they believe in the efficacy and morality of capitalism. That doesn't even track the layperson usage of "capitalist".
It's as if words can have more than one meaning
Words have meaning based on usage. If I ask for a glass of water and you give me bleach, it won't really matter whether you think the two are synonymous--I'm still going to have a bad time. This is why I appealed to the layperson's usage in the comment above. Your definition of 'capitalist' certainly doesn't track any academic usage, but it also doesn't track the general usage of the term.
But now I'm stressing the terminological point too much which is really secondary to what the post is about. The goal is to note the fundamental difference between people who need to work for a living and people who can live on the profit from their investment & capital.
These are not mutually exclusive terms.
Definitions, especially definitions of political terms, vary a lot these days. But if we go by the leftist (and original) definition, the terms are definitely mutually exclusive.
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