this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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The common denominator is taxes. There is this unit circle visual that shows half of your work value taken from you directly by taxes, and prices are twice what they want to be (indirectly paying others taxes)... so an individual "feels" only 1/4 economic effectiveness, or 3/4 oppressed.
*Half of what is left after the CEO and shareholders take their cut. Taxes are a drop in the ocean compared to the excess labor value that is extracted before you even see a penny.
Yes, corporate overhead is quite real, but it is literally zero effect for the self-employed... so by your logic all would be or become so to be rich by avoiding a CEO altogether.
Are you seriously suggesting that all it should take to become rich is to do freelance work?
The way people actually get rich is by exploiting the labor of others. Freelance work is only practical in very specific niches, and even then you'll be forced to compete with conglomerates that have far greater resources.
Xia is failing to realize that the original post isn't about self owned businesses, so their point doesn't make sense in this context. Based on their other comments, they either don't understand how discussions, debates, or arguments work, or they're a troll, or they're overly saturated on capitalist propoganda.
If those are the only options then it is probably the last one, as I'm often not even sure what to call the unfamiliar positions I see others taking here, but it could be a bit of "can't debate" too as I find a tendency in myself to address the secondary or tertiary consequences of peoples arguments (assuming they are aware of [and already accept] the obvious primary consequences) which can be quite jarring and read like a string of non-sequitors, or like people arguing past each other.
I agree and do understand that the original post was not about self owned businesses, so I agree that it is a bit off topic here. I was only trying to point out the absurdity of the statement that "taxes are a drop in the ocean compared to [labor value theft]". As if that were true (or even a less-hyperbolic ratio of 1-to-99), then it would logically follow that freelance work would produce staggeringly higher yields, and we see that is not the case. The intent was an informal proof by contradiction, but that was not made clear.
I think it could also be shown by induction (as the more people/layers/intermediaries you add the more loss/expense is incurred) if you accept a profit motive and a steady state, but large businesses can and do temporarily sell products at a loss to kill competition in the short-term, so that would probably be less convincing.
Taxation doesn't take into account the fact that wages are stagnant, but corporations have posted record profits. Small businesses are impacted as well, due to the nature of supply chains, most people cannot create something from nothing.
I'd like to address something you said that is unrelated to economics. You said you address secondary or tertiary consequences of arguements. That doesn't seem like a non-sequitor or people arguing past eachother like some kind of verbal 4-D chess match, typed in this case. It seems to me that you're saying you assume what the other person might say, then you reply to that assumtion. Can you clarify?
Something akin to this?
I would generally agree that taxation as we normally use the term may not be adequate to describe this great squeezing effect, unless you stretch the definition of tax to include inflation too, as a hidden pervasive tax that is invisibly collecting value from everyone.
Supply chains have to start somewhere, and I tend to favor and think of bottom-up solutions very near people creating value from nothing to compete with the mega-corps (washing cars, mowing lawns, sewing, carpentry, metal-working, programming, gardening)... there is probably more business opportunities within the reach of the individual than we are trained to believe, and I wonder how much we automatically lose once we assume that we must be an employee.
Absolutely agree, it is way more disruptive than it could possibly be of strategic value, especially in verbal conversation. I would hazard to say it has never been useful outside of my family.
I'm sure I do that too, but to some degree one must make assumptions about what others are saying, as that is the nature of natural language communication.
An example would probably be best, but I skimmed over this thread's post and did not see an obvious example, so probably not in a time-effective manner... this aside might barely qualify (maybe when I mentioned this tendency I thought you were reacting to something not on this thread), or maybe my initial post could be an example (as I unconsciously skipped over the obvious answers of "inflation" and "greed" which are positions I knew others would consider and take, and therefor have little value in me harping on).