it’s literally insane the extent to which capitalism in the imperial core has devolved into having to actively convince capitalists to exploit you. because getting exploited is basically the only way to attend a food and a housing and a not fucking dying of exposure/the pigs. it genuinely makes no logical sense even by capitalist economic standards. yes reserve army of labor, yes exploitation of the proletariat, etc. but still. at the end of the day, they make no profit from me unless they get to exploit my labor time right?
they make no profit from me unless they get to exploit my labor time right?
It’s such an obscene lopsided relationship, the potential employee with no social / government support for basic costs of living in capitalist hell, taking entire classes in high school or community college, or vocational rehab programs dedicated to tweaking their résumé for fucking job-specific keywords and learning iNtErVieW SkILLs for a chance of being noticed by HR drones sifting through digital stacks of desperate laborers’ applications.
I’ve never found the stones to speak so directly about “why I want to work here” (or my favorite “WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU?!”) at any interview, because all these employers and their liberal HR acolytes who’ve never had a hard time in their lives are on hair triggers looking for the slightest fucking reason to toss your application in the trash and send you an automated rejection e-mail.
I get what you are saying, but your confusion comes from a misinterpretation of theory. They can make ‘profit’ without your labor, them holding land and speculative value assets can technically generate ‘profit’ for them if the market is scarce in those resources and demand is high, as they go up in valuation. What they cannot get from you is socially-productive labor, a.k.a. the labor that recreates society in such a way that speculative values can be actualized. However the problem is that the market for socially-productive labor ‘for the capitalist’ is satisfied by the labor market, they are always trying to shear the sheep, not kill it. The issue that we run into is that eventually the most profitable thing to do is only invest in finite goods, and all else is left to the wayside to rot and fester until those nessecery goods and services become commodities as well.
to be clear, i understand this. it’s more just that from the perspective of anyone but the capitalist, it seems nonsensical. obviously the most profitable thing to do is keep a reserve army of labor and marx talks about that.
it’s literally insane the extent to which capitalism in the imperial core has devolved into having to actively convince capitalists to exploit you. because getting exploited is basically the only way to attend a food and a housing and a not fucking dying of exposure/the pigs. it genuinely makes no logical sense even by capitalist economic standards. yes reserve army of labor, yes exploitation of the proletariat, etc. but still. at the end of the day, they make no profit from me unless they get to exploit my labor time right?
They want to exploit you but they want to be extra sure they can exploit you with the minimum amount of effort, training etc.
min-maxxing
It’s such an obscene lopsided relationship, the potential employee with no social / government support for basic costs of living in capitalist hell, taking entire classes in high school or community college, or vocational rehab programs dedicated to tweaking their résumé for fucking job-specific keywords and learning iNtErVieW SkILLs for a chance of being noticed by HR drones sifting through digital stacks of desperate laborers’ applications.
I’ve never found the stones to speak so directly about “why I want to work here” (or my favorite “WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU?!”) at any interview, because all these employers and their liberal HR acolytes who’ve never had a hard time in their lives are on hair triggers looking for the slightest fucking reason to toss your application in the trash and send you an automated rejection e-mail.
When a wolf eats the sheep, both are salivating
I get what you are saying, but your confusion comes from a misinterpretation of theory. They can make ‘profit’ without your labor, them holding land and speculative value assets can technically generate ‘profit’ for them if the market is scarce in those resources and demand is high, as they go up in valuation. What they cannot get from you is socially-productive labor, a.k.a. the labor that recreates society in such a way that speculative values can be actualized. However the problem is that the market for socially-productive labor ‘for the capitalist’ is satisfied by the labor market, they are always trying to shear the sheep, not kill it. The issue that we run into is that eventually the most profitable thing to do is only invest in finite goods, and all else is left to the wayside to rot and fester until those nessecery goods and services become commodities as well.
to be clear, i understand this. it’s more just that from the perspective of anyone but the capitalist, it seems nonsensical. obviously the most profitable thing to do is keep a reserve army of labor and marx talks about that.