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Rich people need more money to end suffering. (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
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https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/10/survey-31percent-of-millionaires-say-they-are-part-of-the-middle-class.html

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[–] 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

That's serious sophistry. Someone with $100,000,000 is substantially closer in wealth to a homeless person than a billionaire if you view wealth as a crass matter of net worth, but the fact of the matter is that someone that rich is functionally closer to the low-end billionaires in that they generally own their own means of production and have a great deal of security if they choose to fold and fuck off. There are lots of millionaires who have like 1 - 2 million and are, like, recent retirees or thereabout who do have more in common with you and I, but let's not use them to smuggle in fuckers who own entire towns.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's a good distinction I hadn't considered, but I don't think I'm against anyone owning their own means of production. I applaud them even, so long as they don't conspire to keep others down.

    Millionaires do exploit the working class with their relative wealth, but the exploitation level is almost nothing in comparison to sheer levels of open corruption and wealth warfare employed by the 1%.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    The thing is that the value of the commodities -- what the means of production produce -- is other people not having them, i.e. it is market value rather than use value to the bourgeois, and therein a vehicle for the extraction of labor value from workers.

    I have no interest in moralizing about anyone, what I am saying is that it puts the owners of these establishments, land, etc. in an antagonistic relationship with workers, i.e. they have material interests that are broadly opposed to that of workers and incentive to undermine labor power in favor of power for the owning class, to which both they and those billionaires belong.

    You can find an Engels here and there, but the most obvious and direct implications of their conditions make the bourgeoisie as a class, even the smaller members, the enemy of workers.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Ratios are probably more appropriate. Let's say we use $100,000 as a reference point. Is a millionaire closer to $100k or to a billion? Subtracting says $100k, and taking ratios also says $100k, because $1M/$100k = 10 < 1000 = $1B/$1M. That's fine, as we agree that excluding people who've just paid off a house isn't the move. Repeating with $100M, subtracting says $100k, but ratios say $1B, as $1B/$100M = 10 < 1000 = $100M/$100k. So ratios align those folks roughly appropriately.

    Of course, just using different math can't undo all the problems stemming from using net worth as a class proxy.

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