this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
76 points (88.8% liked)
Memes
52595 readers
617 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, correct, money is power in capitalism. However, power is only sought as a means to aquire more money. Power that undermines ones own profits, such as what OP describes in their other post (that they linked), is not realistic and teeters more into conspiracy theory territory.
Said it yourself, "power [is a] means to acquire more money." And the way society has been structured means we, the workers and consumers, are the product - we are the money (arguably always have been).
As such, it honestly makes sense to establish more and more layers of control, not only as a means of reinforcing and securing their positions (it's harder to fight against Fascism if you can't even call it Fascism, for instance), but also to wrangle the cattle, as it were.
I mean, if you'd be making your money off of rearing cows, you wouldn't want them rebelling in any way. Complicates the road to profit.
Control can help facilitate making more money, but not always. Slavery was horribly inefficient for industrial work, for example, so the industrialists in the Statesian north went to war with the slaver agriculturalists in the south to expand the supply of wage laborers. Wage laborers are under less direct control, but are more willing to do complicated work, as they don't have an assured existence.
Power is the means to the end, the end being profit. It isn't the other way around.
In non-monetary historical societies, the rulers still sought power.
They still sought power to obtain more material posessions and luxury goods. Power is a tool, not an end.
Why does someone with €20 billion strive to get €30 billion? Will that get them nicer food or a softer bed?
Because capitalism is a control system that selects for those that are most profitable. If you don't grow, you die.
You're making a distinction between
How would we empirically tell which is happening?
By determining how the base mode of production prioritizes them. It doesn't matter what an individual prefers, ie we could say Musk as an individual seeks power, but in doing so has to satisfy the laws of capitalism and achieve higher and higher profits to maintain it. Musk isn't primary, the system he has to abide by is. Capitalists aren't the masters of capitalism, as Roderic Day says they are the high priests of capital that best abide its laws, ie the pursuit of profit.
Didn't you know all that capis want is a big number? They're basically harmless little redditors trying to get a high karma score that's all.
No, they aren't "harmless" either. It isn't about "getting a high score." Capitalism is based on profits and selects for those that are most profitable, there's no such thing as an "ethical capitalism" because even if a capitalist decided individually to stop pursuing profits above all else, others would overtake them and the "ethical" capitalist would go under.
Of course there's no ethical capitalist, nor are capitalists arithmomaniacs obsessed with gaining money the sake of gaining money. Money is an expression of power, money itself is not the goal it's the power.
Capitalism is a material, existing system that does not care about power. All it cares about is whoever best achieves profits in the system. As there is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall, absolute profits must be raised by rapid and continuous expansion. Power is merely a tool for that purpose, a capitalist that doesn't manipulate the state to its own ends, etc fails to outcompete. In capitalism, even if the action is abhorant, if it's profitable, it will be done.
By putting notions of power above profit, you utterly confuse the driving aspect of economies based on circulation of commodities and reproduction on an expanded scale, ie capitalism. It doesn't matter if the capitalists has everything they want as an individual, if they choose to stop pursuing profits, they sink and new capitalists that are willing to continue will take their place, because capitalists are a class, and not just a group of individuals alone.