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Help me dunk on my friend
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Don’t be too harsh he’s a cool dude, but he unfortunately has some capitalism good musk good sentiments that I’ve been trying to dismantle for some time now and i thought I’d ask for help with this.
Or you can just dunk.
You really need to start from square one, because this dude is misunderstanding the most basics of material reality.
The 1% don't make money through their own hard work, they make it through other people's hard work. Value is created by labor, and the only people performing that labor are the workers, not corporate executives like CEOs and other suits. All the "profits" going to executives and shareholders are therefore value stolen from the workers.
Some of this might be hard to get through depending on how young and naive they are. I've worked both manual labor jobs, and jobs where I've interacted with administrative/executive types daily, so I've got firsthand experience with how much the latter are worthless dipshits and ghouls. Rejecting capitalism is easy when you actually see how the sausage is made from start to finish. But if this dude's experience is limited to watching the west wing or whatever while they work a cushy desk job, then they're probably going to base their ideology off of the typical "unskilled labor" propaganda that permeates western society.
If he's open to it, get him to watch some labor theory of value 101 videos. Here's a decent one. But, if he really believes in his heart that people like Bezos are somehow "more deserving" of their wealth than Amazon delivery drivers who are working so intensely that they have to piss in bottles, then I don't think it's worth your energy trying to convince him of basic humanity. Personally, I would just bully such a person until they feel enough shame to do some introspection, or avoid me so I don't have to deal with their bullshit. (I'm going to be honest, anyone who says "us humans are not equal, we don't deserve what we have" is not worth your energy imo, but good luck anyways if you consider them enough of a friend to try and deprogram them.)
Some other angles to come at:
Remind him that when we're talking about the "1%", we're talking about people with this much money. And explain that even people with far less can still maintain their capital if they invest it in a business or rental properties. For every person who loses their inheritance or lottery winnings, there's many multiple other dipshit landlords and small business owners that manage to survive, not through any sort of special skill or competence, but merely through the means of owning capital. Which they either inherited and/or built through exploiting others. (See: surplus labor)
Make him watch Wyatt Ingram Koch draw preschool-level shirt designs while drinking champagne on yachts. If he still believes in a meritocracy after this, just bully him relentlessly for thinking Wyatt Koch is more deserving of his money than literally any random person on the street.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: