Under Capitalism Nobody Is Paid What They are Worth

[The Berean]

OF COURSE THEY DO!

What part of this are you not getting?

The point of automation under capitalism is not to make life easier for the workers. It's to maximize revenue by decreasing labor costs. If you have an automated factory, you are still going to need workers. You're just going to need less of them, and you're going to try to maximize the revenues generated by the workers that you still have.

And you really believe under socialism factory workers will have easier lives? What i am getting is that you do not really understand how factories work and what really motivates people. People are primarily motivated by self interest. You seem to be under some odd delusion that under socialism people will be treated better. History completely refutes that idea.

I'm amazed you quoted Joseph Gobbells. He was the Ministry of Propaganda for the Nazi's. I wouldn't take anything he says about anything seriously or at face value.

 

[Traditio]

And you really believe under socialism factory workers will have easier lives? What i am getting is that you do not really understand how factories work and what really motivates people. People are primarily motivated by self interest. You seem to be under some odd delusion that under socialism people will be treated better. History completely refutes that idea.

I agree with you on this fundamental point: self-interest is a powerful motivation. That's why I'm not a capitalist. The interests of the bourgeoisie and the interests of the proletariat are diametrically opposite. Under capitalism, it is the interests of the bourgeoisie that win out. Under socialism, the self-interest of the working class is what prevails.

If you're a capitalist and you do not own the means of production, then you are a...hm...

What are you? Right wingers had a certain term for left wingers back in 2016. I can't seem to remember what it was...

What do you call someone who sells out his own interests for the interests of someone else?

Also, does history refute the idea that in capitalist societies, workers are treated worse? In Soviet Russia, people had a right to a job.

Do people in the US?

I'm amazed you quoted Joseph Gobbells. He was the Ministry of Propaganda for the Nazi's. I wouldn't take anything he says about anything seriously or at face value.

Before the night of long knives, Joseph Goebells talked sense. Presumably because he was ideologically aligned with the Strasser brothers.

 

[The Berean]

I agree with you on this fundamental point: self-interest is a powerful motivation. That's why I'm not a capitalist. The interests of the bourgeoisie and the interests of the proletariat are diametrically opposite. Under capitalism, it is the interests of the bourgeoisie that win out. Under socialism, the self-interest of the working class is what prevails.

And every socialist system ever implemented has utterly failed. I'm reminded of Che Guevara who tried to change an entire society and immerse it in Marxism. It was an utter failure.


Economic vision and the "New Man"

"Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity."

— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba[

At this stage, Guevara acquired the additional position of Finance Minister, as well as President of the National Bank. These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as the "virtual czar" of the Cuban economy. As a consequence of his position at the head of the central bank, it became Guevara's duty to sign the Cuban currency, which per custom bore his signature. Instead of using his full name, he signed the bills solely "Che".It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about. Guevara's long time friend Ricardo Rojo later remarked that "the day he signed Che on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred."


Guevara meeting with French existentialist philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at his office in Havana, March 1960. Sartre later wrote that Che was "the most complete human being of our time". In addition to Spanish, Guevara was fluent in French.

In an effort to eliminate social inequalities, Guevara and Cuba's new leadership had moved to swiftly transform the political and economic base of the country through nationalizing factories, banks, and businesses, while attempting to ensure affordable housing, healthcare, and employment for all Cubans. In order for a genuine transformation of consciousness to take root, it was believed that such structural changes had to be accompanied by a conversion in people's social relations and values. Believing that the attitudes in Cuba towards race, women, individualism, and manual labor were the product of the island's outdated past, all individuals were urged to view each other as equals and take on the values of what Guevara termed "el Hombre Nuevo" (the New Man).[155] Guevara hoped his "new man" to be ultimately "selfless and cooperative, obedient and hard working, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist". To accomplish this, Guevara emphasized the tenets of Marxism–Leninism, and wanted to use the state to emphasize qualities such as egalitarianism and self-sacrifice, at the same time as "unity, equality, and freedom" became the new maxims. Guevara's first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nationwide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a "contest among wolves" where "one can only win at the cost of others" and thus desired to see the creation of a "new man and woman". Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not "worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction" if it ends up encouraging "greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit". A primary goal of Guevara's thus became to reform "individual consciousness" and values to produce better workers and citizens. In his view, Cuba's "new man" would be able to overcome the "egotism" and "selfishness" that he loathed and discerned was uniquely characteristic of individuals in capitalist societies. To promote this concept of a "new man", the government also created a series of party-dominated institutions and mechanisms on all levels of society, which included organizations such as labor groups, youth leagues, women's groups, community centers, and houses of culture to promote state-sponsored art, music, and literature. In congruence with this, all educational, mass media, and artistic community based facilities were nationalized and utilized to instill the government's official socialist ideology. In describing this new method of "development", Guevara stated:

There is a great difference between free-enterprise development and revolutionary development. In one of them, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, the friends of the government, the best wheeler-dealers. In the other, wealth is the people's patrimony.

A further integral part of fostering a sense of "unity between the individual and the mass", Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara "led by example", working "endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane" on his day off. He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run. Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara's new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut. Guevara unapologetically defended his personal philosophy towards motivation and work, stating:

"This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility."

In the face of a loss of commercial connections with Western states, Guevara tried to replace them with closer commercial relationships with Eastern Bloc states, visiting a number of Marxist states and signing trade agreements with them. At the end of 1960 he visited Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Hungary and East Germany and signed, for instance, a trade agreement in East Berlin on 17 December 1960. Such agreements helped Cuba's economy to a certain degree but also had the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met Tamara Bunke (later known as "Tania"), who was assigned as his interpreter, and who joined him years later, and was killed with him in Bolivia.

Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara's economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful, and accompanied a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism. In a meeting with French economist Rene Dumont, Guevara blamed the inadequacy of the Agrarian Reform Law enacted by the Cuban government in 1959, which turned large plantations into farm co-operatives or split up land amongst peasants. In Guevara's opinion, this situation continued to promote a "heightened sense of individual ownership" in which workers could not see the positive social benefits of their labor, leading them to instead seek individual material gain as before. Decades later, Che's former deputy Ernesto Betancourt, the director of Radio Martí, an early ally turned Castro-critic, accused Guevara of being "ignorant of the most elementary economic principles." In reference to the collective failings of Guevara's vision, reporter I. F. Stone w ho interviewed Guevara twice during this time, remarked that he was "Galahad not Robespierre", while opining that "in a sense he was, like some early saint, taking refuge in the desert. Only there could the purity of the faith be safeguarded from the unregenerate revisionism of human nature".

Che was not unintelligent. But he had zero understanding of human nature.

If you're a capitalist and you do not own the means of production, then you are a...hm...

Are referring to me personally?

What are you? Right wingers had a certain term for left wingers back in 2016. I can't seem to remember what it was...

I do not recall.

What do you call someone who sells out his own interests for the interests of someone else?

Hmmm..I'm not sure.

Also, does history refute the idea that in capitalist societies, workers are treated worse? In Soviet Russia, people had a right to a job.

And yes just about every Soviet citizen lived in poverty and had to wait in long lines for food ans toilet paper.

 

[Traditio]