this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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Can you explain?
On the hopes that you’re not just being sarcastic,
Socialism fundamentally works by creating a system that taxes those who have more than others and goes to those who have less than others. Theoretically this can work forever because the tax revenue is being spent on the betterment of the society and as long as the majority of people are giving more than they receive. The problems arise when people start to take more than they give. This can happen from a number of factors like someone who pays $15,000/year into the system but then takes $1,000,000 for cancer treatment or someone who can contribute chooses not to and still receives the benefits.
In relation to the last panel, they are saying that they are giving 85% of their labor value to their boss who doesn’t work. There’s multiple problems with this way of thinking. The first and most obvious one is the 85%, which is just an arbitrarily large number to make it feel scary. Second is the claim that the boss (and one can assume owner) doesn’t do any work. That’s obviously not true because 99.99% (I’m being dramatic) of owners work an equal or greater number of hours per week than the rest of the employees. And there’s also the fact that while needing to know how every aspect of the company operates the owner is the one who takes the biggest risks and has the most at stake so it makes sense that they make more than the new hire who has no work experience. Yes, you’ll have owners who take more than they “need” but you also have to remember that technically all costs of the company can and are taken out of the owners paycheck because the lower profit the company makes the lower the owners paycheck can be.
Hope this helps.
Not sarcastic, just a communist.
No, it doesn't. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution based on public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy, and the working classes in control of the state. The rest of this paragraph isn't worth responding to, because it's based on a false premise.
Capitalists fundamentally make profits by paying workers for less than the value their labor-power creates.
Nobody is saying owners do literally no labor, just that their obscene wealth comes from stealing from workers, not from their own labor. Otherwise their wages would be about the same as any other worker at that company.
The biggest risk a capitalist takes is in becoming a worker. Workers risk their livelihood.
Sure, but their paycheck is made up of stolen surplus value to begin with.
Hope this helps!
I do, actually! Did fairly well in my economics classes, though bourgeois economics is bullshit. I have read the first 2 volumes of Capital, so I'm still no expert but certainly not a beginner.
Lol, this just gets better and better. The person you're responding to and accusing of not understanding economics is someone who literally hosts the reading groups for books on economics, arguably the most definitive books on economics ever written, as well as scientific socialism and socioeconomic theory, who has read Kapital ~~multiple times~~, maintains the active reading list for multiple lemmy communities, and has doubtless read more about economics this year than you have read on any topic (from See Spot Run to Harry Potter), in your entire life. But you're telling him he doesn't understand basic economics.
Seriously, if you actually have any interest in pulling your head out of your ignorant ass and maybe growing the fuck up a little bit, go look at his reading course suggestions on economics, it's section 3, and get to reading. Twerp.
Wait, is this a bit and someone is actually playing the role of dipshit liberal know-it-all? This must be a bit and I fell for it.
Minor correction! Only read Volumes 1 and 2 of Capital, and only once each. Planning on revisiting them after I finish my current bug on dialectical materialism. But thanks for the defense!
Ah ok, my mistake. I saw you comment "Hey everyone, it’s time to come discuss Capital again!" on that reading group's first gathering for Volume 1 Chapter 1 and so assumed that meant it wasn't your "first rodeo."
I always meant that "again" as in "this week," haha. It was my first rodeo, and I wanted to use it to help push me to read it. A new person has run the Capital reading threads each year, for the past 3 years!
Mate I don't think you understand them. There's a reason economist either end up being hyper capitalists or communists