But you're not taking a portion of their wages. The wages are based on their labor, not yours. Your wages would be based on your labor. Again, you're overthinking it.
The raw materials for the factory have some value. Your labor adds value. You get paid the value your labor adds, after the materials are paid for. The person who makes something in that factory makes the money their labor adds. You don't have to account for the cost of the factory and the materials in the labor value. You can treat them as gratis.
Even in capitalism, what you're talking about isn't correct. When you buy a hamburger at McDonald's, you're not paying for the barn that housed the cows. That cost was subsumed at a different level and by a different entity. You're not literally paying for that. Sure, you could try to track the money/cost like that but it's not very helpful because the business doesn't work like that.
Ok, but what about if I rent out the machines instead of selling them? Eventually, I'll have made enough machines that I can kick back and live off that passive income, right? At that point, aren't I bourgeoisie, by definition?
Same problem. I just replied with a longer form answer on your other post. If that doesn't clear it up, reply to this.
I'm not sure what you're asking here though. Renting doesn't change the relationship to labor. It doesn't change that surplus value was created. And renting doesn't mean you would have produced enough factories to kick back. If the factory factory produces all the factories that are needed, then the company would shut down as there's nobody to buy factories. Under a centrally planned economy, the state would tell the company to make something other than factories.
If you're talking about post-scarcity, that's a very different question. If you're talking about what happens when machines make everything and nobody has to work, that's something else. What I thought we were talking about was strictly about labor existing. If we have complete automation of production, and humans don't have to work or make anything themselves, then there would have to be some other means of meeting basic needs. Like a UBI. Or something post-commerce. It would be really hard to imagine how that works. Though that kind of thing is the goal. People's needs are met and they can spend their time doing what they want.
No, I'm not talking about post-scarcity, and I'm also not talking about the demand for factories running out. I'm saying, me and my 9 coworkers have built 10 factories, and we decide to split it up so that we all get one each. I'm now a factory owner. I find someone who wants to manage a factory and I agree to rent it out to them. They hire a bunch of workers to work in my factory, and I use the rent I'm getting to cover my living expenses, and maybe even get some extra to reinvest. My profit now comes solely from the fact that I own a MoP where other people do all the work, and if that doesn't make me a bourgeoisie then I don't know what would.
Let me take a step back here: under a socialist system, can I still be a factory owner who profits solely from the fact that I own the factory, without working in it? If so, then when we look a system where there are privately owned factories and such, then what can we look at to determine whether that system is socialist or capitalist?
I mean yeah once you're an owner, the we'd take your money. You don't get to keep the surplus value of your workers.
The factory would be owned by the company and the company would be owned by the workers. You could be a factory "owner" in the sense of the highest manager. But you likely wouldn't own the building. You would get a cut for what you help produce, but it wouldn't be a CEO amount of money. Bill Gates probably doesn't own the main Microsoft building, it belongs to Microsoft. MS is a corporate entity that has legal powers to own property like a human. And then MS is owned by Bill Gates and shareholders. Under socialism, all the workers would be the majority shareholders. No one person owns the building. A lot of basic socialism doesn't function differently than capitalism. The only real thing that changes is who's ultimately in charge and who gets the surplus value of labor.
Like all human categories, not everything fits exactly. It may be possible to have some system where private owners retain property but also workers have as much/more say than them about their property. It doesn't seem likely. It seems like you would need to abolish private property (not personal property!) or have the state just own all the factories and still let people own private homes and stuff.
But if the factory owner owns the building, and tries to rent it out, it's in his financial interest to keep capitalism intact. He wouldn't be able to make as much money under socialism. So that's why it's unlikely that owners would just be cool with letting workers take most of the money and do what they want with the buildings. But we are entering an age where new forms of organization is possible through technology. So idk. The likely thing would be that we transition and the relationship between owner/worker is abstracted even more than under capitalism.
But you're not taking a portion of their wages. The wages are based on their labor, not yours. Your wages would be based on your labor. Again, you're overthinking it.
The raw materials for the factory have some value. Your labor adds value. You get paid the value your labor adds, after the materials are paid for. The person who makes something in that factory makes the money their labor adds. You don't have to account for the cost of the factory and the materials in the labor value. You can treat them as gratis.
Even in capitalism, what you're talking about isn't correct. When you buy a hamburger at McDonald's, you're not paying for the barn that housed the cows. That cost was subsumed at a different level and by a different entity. You're not literally paying for that. Sure, you could try to track the money/cost like that but it's not very helpful because the business doesn't work like that.
Ok, but what about if I rent out the machines instead of selling them? Eventually, I'll have made enough machines that I can kick back and live off that passive income, right? At that point, aren't I bourgeoisie, by definition?
Same problem. I just replied with a longer form answer on your other post. If that doesn't clear it up, reply to this.
I'm not sure what you're asking here though. Renting doesn't change the relationship to labor. It doesn't change that surplus value was created. And renting doesn't mean you would have produced enough factories to kick back. If the factory factory produces all the factories that are needed, then the company would shut down as there's nobody to buy factories. Under a centrally planned economy, the state would tell the company to make something other than factories.
If you're talking about post-scarcity, that's a very different question. If you're talking about what happens when machines make everything and nobody has to work, that's something else. What I thought we were talking about was strictly about labor existing. If we have complete automation of production, and humans don't have to work or make anything themselves, then there would have to be some other means of meeting basic needs. Like a UBI. Or something post-commerce. It would be really hard to imagine how that works. Though that kind of thing is the goal. People's needs are met and they can spend their time doing what they want.
No, I'm not talking about post-scarcity, and I'm also not talking about the demand for factories running out. I'm saying, me and my 9 coworkers have built 10 factories, and we decide to split it up so that we all get one each. I'm now a factory owner. I find someone who wants to manage a factory and I agree to rent it out to them. They hire a bunch of workers to work in my factory, and I use the rent I'm getting to cover my living expenses, and maybe even get some extra to reinvest. My profit now comes solely from the fact that I own a MoP where other people do all the work, and if that doesn't make me a bourgeoisie then I don't know what would.
Let me take a step back here: under a socialist system, can I still be a factory owner who profits solely from the fact that I own the factory, without working in it? If so, then when we look a system where there are privately owned factories and such, then what can we look at to determine whether that system is socialist or capitalist?
I mean yeah once you're an owner, the we'd take your money. You don't get to keep the surplus value of your workers.
The factory would be owned by the company and the company would be owned by the workers. You could be a factory "owner" in the sense of the highest manager. But you likely wouldn't own the building. You would get a cut for what you help produce, but it wouldn't be a CEO amount of money. Bill Gates probably doesn't own the main Microsoft building, it belongs to Microsoft. MS is a corporate entity that has legal powers to own property like a human. And then MS is owned by Bill Gates and shareholders. Under socialism, all the workers would be the majority shareholders. No one person owns the building. A lot of basic socialism doesn't function differently than capitalism. The only real thing that changes is who's ultimately in charge and who gets the surplus value of labor.
Like all human categories, not everything fits exactly. It may be possible to have some system where private owners retain property but also workers have as much/more say than them about their property. It doesn't seem likely. It seems like you would need to abolish private property (not personal property!) or have the state just own all the factories and still let people own private homes and stuff.
But if the factory owner owns the building, and tries to rent it out, it's in his financial interest to keep capitalism intact. He wouldn't be able to make as much money under socialism. So that's why it's unlikely that owners would just be cool with letting workers take most of the money and do what they want with the buildings. But we are entering an age where new forms of organization is possible through technology. So idk. The likely thing would be that we transition and the relationship between owner/worker is abstracted even more than under capitalism.