this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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This isn't exactly the most convincing argument against Rand's philosophy - the workers didn't invent the device and don't work any harder than they did before. Their feeling of entitlement to the profit from it appears to be naked greed unsupported by any moral principle. Acting in one's rational self-interest would include keeping them placated if they can credibly threaten violence, but their role as workers is completely irrelevant in that context.
You're missing a very important point here, which is that the workers are the ones whose labor is turned into profit. That means that if their work is able to generate more money, they are perfectly within their right to demand more, even if they don't necessarily work any harder.
If I think that investing in capital and getting a return on my investment is a valid use of the money I earn but you do not, our disagreement is ideological rather than factual; who's right and who's wrong is a matter of opinion.
With that said, I do find it ironic that proponents of an ideology that has failed quite dramatically are accusing proponents of an ideology that has been quite successful of being insufficiently rational.
Well, I'm talking specifically in terms of the concept of rational self-interest here. It's perfectly within reason for the workers to think they should be paid better, given that their labor is now worth more, and their interest of getting paid far outweighs the interest in a more profitable company. In the same way, it's perfectly within reason for the manager to attempt to maximize the company's profit, as it's in their best interest to do so, since a company that makes more profits will (theoretically, of course) pay the manager better. It's an obvious reason why workers have created unions since time immemorial, and the same reason why companies attempt to break unions. It's a complex web of relationships between who owns and manages capital and who works and ultimately generates that capital, and there are many positions one can take, such as the one you hold, or mine.
I don't disagree with you on this, but I guess we're getting far from the topic of the comic. I'm not actually a big fan of Rand. (I did read Atlas Shrugged but I skipped the monologue.) I just don't think the comic in the OP is a good criticism of it either in theory or in practice. It bugs me because I think exposure to ridiculous caricatures of "enemy" ideologies leads people to support their own ideology uncritically - after all, the others are so obviously wrong!
The workers are factually responsible for using up the inputs to produce the output. Imputing the positive and negative product, which together make up the whole product, to the employer is a denial of that basic fact. The whole product's value is the profit.
It is possible to have investment in capital and getting return on investment in an economy consisting exclusively of worker coops.
Not all anti-capitalists are communists
I fuckin HATE ayn rand, but those workers are being paid for their labor, they're not slaves. If that labor provides a little profit or a lot of profit is up to good or bad business practices of the company they're working for, and doesn't need to be shared with them outright, unless it happens naturally as a result of supply/demand making their labor more valuable (because otherwise they'd just go somewhere else where they will be paid more).
The crux here is that for this to happen appropriately, we need to be living in an ideal world with appropriate laws, no corruption, exploitation, loopholes, bribing, lobbying, etc. and we do not currently live in that world, so the above is just theoretical.
I'm not saying the employees are slaves at all. The point I'm making is that, if a company finds a way to make more money, then it's only logical that the workers, whose work is the very reason the company is profitable, should at least get part of the profits, whether it's through worker benefits, more pay, or anything else.
And this is the crux of the problem with randism (and modern capitalism).
Nothing forces companies to treat workers well which means the natural direction for money to flow is towards the owners of resources and not to the producers of them.
As time goes on and tech advances, the natural action of the owners is to reduce the number of workers they employ to maximize their own income.
If you don't own things, the response is "tough shit".
This is why so many businesses and investors are jizzing themselves over AI. The very thought of being about to fire people gives them a boner.
Totally true.
Because the power of workers (via unions or simply a fair job market or labor regulations) has been systematically attacked since forever, because that is in the self-interest of corporations and their owners.
As corpos and rich fucks amass more power, it is easier for them to take power from workers. They can more easily crush existing unions and attempts at unionizing, change or hobble labor laws, meddle with the job market itself, and influence the government's management of the economy.
So the trend is towards overpowered corporations and underpowered workers. We get to a point where workers don't really have many options for better jobs, and they don't have enough sway to raise the minimum wage for decades, let alone attain a more fair job market. Or implement regulations requiring better treatment.
That's in addition to seeking ways to replace workers with technology, or increase their productivity.
Thing is, if most of us are unemployed because of automation, who's buying the products and services enough to sustain these companies?
Workers have to work to earn money. Owners have to own money to earn money. Workers and owners don't play by the same rules. Because of that the same amount of effort and time results in a very different amount of money earned. It will always create tension and if not addressed by proper redistribution of wealth lead to large concentrations of wealth, and those always lead to violence. Humans have always been sensitive about relative wealth differences, and that not only goes for humans.
I think the point is "profit" is wage theft by definition to some. The workers generate profit, meaning they make someone else money they earned from their labor, and regardless of the structures or systems they're a part of that make that profit possible they should be given that profit.
I think I agree that profit by default is wage theft but I can appreciate that if a system of capital and practices enable the profit past the individual workers wage that there should be some reward to that system. The problem is how that reward is distributed, which right now is poorly done in most places.
A company needs to make a profit to be able to continue operating though. If they can't, then these people have no jobs at all.
Nowhere did I say the company shouldn't make a profit. It's only natural that companies would have significant expenses around material, jobs, offices, and all that stuff, and that's fine. The problem arises when the company has a way to more efficiently make money, and, instead of doing things like reducing worker hours or increasing worker pay, it expects everyone to work the exact same amount and just pockets the money (not to mention when companies do things like firing a lot of their staff during a time of record profits).
You've been spot on with your replies to this bootlicker so far, but none of the things you mentioned here come under "profits", those are expenses.
It is the money that companies make after expenses that is the profit, and they are mostly able to make so much of it because they don't pay their employees fairly for their labour, nor for any other value they produce for the owners of company, who do very little to no work, and are absolutely not entitled to the fruits of other peoples' labour, no matter how tasty their boot might be.
They also maintain a system that means that employees don't have the free choice capitalists love to wave around - if they don't participate in this exploitative bullshit, they become homeless and starve, because our human rights, like our labour, have also been commodified so that a couple of thousand people can hoard all of the money and power that comes with it.
R&D and the medical industry.... Ughhhbhnbnngbhhhjh.....
PUBLIC FUNDS DRUG DEVELOPMENT
Companies: Sorry, R&D is so expensive so I cant reduce the price of "you need 3 of these a day to live" lower then $600 a pill.
Ayn Rand depended on the government welfare programs before she died. She didn't even believe her own bullshit. Any Rand lovers hate when you bring this up because they don't have a good excuse for it.
See below
If you've ever read atlas shrugged and not rolled your eyes or went, "god this is insufferable" then you might be a Republican lol.
As a person who believes in government programs, I find the idea that you have to believe the right things in order to be worthy of receiving benefits abhorrent.
And of course they have an excuse for it: she paid taxes so it's her money. They don't hate it, they love it when you bring it up.
So: gross for the person making this argument, ineffective against someone who knows the least but about how she viewed it.
There's tons of things that suck about Rand, so let's find something other than being a hypocrite about her being a hypocrite.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/
It is morally defensible for those who decry publicly-funded scholarships, Social Security benefits,
and unemployment insurance to turn around and accept them, Rand argued, because the government
had taken money from them by force (via taxes). There's only one catch: the recipient must regard the
receipt of said benefits as restitution, not a social entitlement.
If she paid into Social Security and Medicare and paid taxes then what is the issue? The paragraph above states
that she did not believe her actions to be hypocrisy because she had paid taxes.
What is your deal? Why are you all over this thread defending Ayn Rand?
This comic reminds me of a classic argument used for leftist policies, unrelated to ayn rand though. Under capitalism, technological advancements are harmful to the working class because companies are likely to keep pay and hours the same, and just scale up production and/or lay off surplus labor force.
Under a system where the workers own the means of production, those same advancements could go towards lowering the hours of the employees without lowering their pay, or if they decide to scale up production then it would mean more profit that the company could decide democratically what to do with, making it likely to result in pay increases for the workers. Point is it wouldn't just go into the hands of the capitalist class, but rather stay under control of those who labored for it.
The obvious ramping up of production and half the workers getting new tasks to create even more wealth isn't depicted.
This isn't the most convincing argument because in a healthy society the things the workers demand will happen naturally.
Yet, if you go assuming those things aren't happening, it means the society is not healthy, and will improve dramatically by following the procedure on the last panel.
It's also a comic strip.
Except they should get to act in their own self-interest, also. If they cannot, what's keeping them from that; who has more power?
Funny you talk about inventing devices when Rand's utopia in Atlas Shrugged was dependent upon the invention of a machine which defied physics.
That's not the argument being presented here. The point is that if one goes by rationality and self-interest instead of fairness or justice, then murder and theft are perfectly logical. If it is in the rational interest of the factory owner to not increase worker pay, then it is in the rational interest of the workers to murder her and steal her wealth.
Don't bring logic when you could have an anti-capitalism rant instead!