Beehaw's community for socialists, communists, anarchists, and non-authoritarian leftists (this means anti-capitalists) of all stripes. A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you're nice about it.
Non-socialists are welcome to come to learn, though it's hard to get to in-depth discussions if the community is constantly fighting over the basics. We ask that non-socialists please be respectful and try not to turn this into a "left vs right" debate forum by asking leading questions or by trying to draw others into a fight.
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Did he do the market research, R&D, design, patent application, QA, machine tooling, material resourcing, QC, marketing, sales, technical support, administration, transportation... all on his own too or did he just pull a lever on a machine?
My money's on something closer to the latter. This is a terrible reflection on production and labour costs.
No, it's a fine reflection of production and labor costs.
It's a poor representation of development costs and total costs for a product. No doubt a part of the picture is missing, because it's not like he's producing the thing then it goes right on to store shelves and people buy it up by the truckload right from where he works. Any reasonable person should be able to surmise that he shouldn't earn so much that he can buy 3000 of them from one hour of labor where he produces 3000 of them... There's packaging (even if they're just hucked into a box, it's still a package), material costs, the development costs not only of the part, but of the machinery to make the part, transportation of the raw material and finished product, sales, marketing, management, and losses from defective, malformed or otherwise unsellable units that need to be disposed of or recycled.
Every part of that costs money and there's probably a bunch of stuff I've left out, meanwhile, the image does not even remotely discuss any of it, but with everything that's made, it's generally understood that he's not going to make 3000 things worth of money per hour.
That's not the point and it never was.
The point is there is a 1000 fold difference in what he makes vs what he's making; and it doesn't take a lot of brainpower to realize that he's not being compensated fairly for his efforts in creating those.... Things. Wtf are they anyways? ... Doesn't matter, he should make more per unit than 1/1000th the selling price.
Bluntly, that's pretty obvious to me and IMO, that's obvious to the majority of people who see this. Pointing out that he didn't pay for the R&D is a strawman argument at best.
I agree completely with the sentiment, but I have to disagree with one part: "Any reasonable person should be able to surmise..."
If we take "reasonable" to mean "average" then you are dead wrong. It's been my experience that most people have no clue at all about supply chains or how products make it to them. If they buy a thing at a store for $50, they believe that the store has made $50. Retail is a terrible place to be.
I'm sorry for your retail experience.
I've been there, I know what you mean.
But in this context, I really don't mean average. The average person is hardly reasonable.
He probably is underpayed, but that image does not make any reasonable argument to issue. It illustrates labor division if anything at all. If I am the last one on the assembly line of Ford, wondering why I can't afford ten cars an hour is just idiotic.
Again, he probably is underpaid, and people are probably making too money from his work, but that doesn't make that image make sense.
But he's not making a car, at all. That example doesn't really work.
In the image post, the item he's making appears to be so simple that it's unlikely that more than one person needs to work on making the part, meanwhile, relating to large complex consumer goods like a passenger vehicle, #1 they produce far fewer of them per hour, per production line, and several people are involved....
Which is slightly different scaling.
The beauty of the example that was originally provided is that it's a one-man job. He's responsible for creating them - all by himself.... So his contribution, directly results in 3k of that item per hour, alone. This, IMO, very clearly shows how underpaid he is for his work. While he gets 100% of the revenue of 0.1% of his output as compensation, the other 99.9% of revenue is material, R&D, sales, transport, and (probably the largest share is) profit..... To stockholders.... Who did nothing in the process of the creation of the product being sold, and reap the benefits of this workers high level of productivity.
Therein lies the point. The vast majority of the revenue generated from his work is going to people who didn't have anything to do with the production process.
I don't think any reasonable person would say he should be paid 1:1 for it, but certainly more than 1000:1. Maybe 100:1? Or something? IDK. I'd have to look at the full picture to see what makes sense, something that his management should be doing, but they're clearly more interested in maximizing profits, rather than supporting their employees.
I get your point, and I might agree, but again: That image doesn't make that point. It this was a cooperative where all profits are share equally, it would look the same. Maybe he could afford 4 or 5, big deal. Point remains, he thinks he makes the things, whatever they are, but he doesn't. He does one step in a huge chain of steps. The materials, the machine, the logistics, the R&D. You even acknowledge it, but you boil it down to only the stockholders. Which, again, do profit, and, again, that's a thing one might discuss. But you make it sound like that's the main issue here, when it's not. Margins are not that high.
Exactly, the fact that most commenters on a Socialist board don’t get this is troubling.
It isn't immediately obvious to libs that want healthcare though. They much prefer blindly defending a process they have only one data point on.
At the end of day, even if you assume this is the most efficiently run business in existence with everyone being fairly and equitably compensated for their skill, time, risk, and effort, he would still be owed 4 instead simply by elimination of the capitalist's unearned share.
None of what you said, made any sense to me. Your sentence structure sucks, you seem to be using new and unheard of short hand for common words that don't need to be shortened, and you seem to be taking a political stance on something that's not inherently a political issue.
So I say good day to you sir.
How is the distribution of wealth not a political issue? Do you consider yourself a socialist?
How many laborers are involved in the entire chain until he can buy this piece?
Idk about this one.
Good point, there's probably 999 other people working on those same exact pieces.
And who's paying for the materials, and who made the machines that make these, etc etc.
This is a great example of a line of thought which I think is addressed in concept by this classic.
With manufacturing we have up front costs like the cost to design the product itself and the tools needed to make that product. These upfront costs are eventually going to be neutralized if revenues are greater than expenses. Once that's established there are the various ongoing expenses such as materials, energy, and labor. From what little I know of manufacturing bicycle or motorcycle parts, 1/3000 of someone's hour at let's say $30/hr, a little piece of what I assume to be steel, the energy cost, and more abstract costs like the maintenance the system will also need, the cost to make a single one of these is going to be well below $2.42 which is about a third of minimum possible wage in the US.
All of the above factors into the price of a product far less than the economics of perceived value which the largest companies can have massive influence in defining for the market. When a CEO is being paid about 400 times more than the average worker on the line which isn't even to speak of what happens to the actual profit of the business, that's when the disparity being pointed out in the picture becomes relevant. This is especially given that unsold inventory is dumped rather than distributed because they don't want to undermine the dollar value of their product by reducing it or giving it away for free.
Likely many more than 999 other people.
Another oldie but goodie: I, Pencil (https://youtu.be/IYO3tOqDISE?si=Lmw71tIKdZ86cjUn)
It's hard to do anything nowadays without the contribution of millions of people.
Doesn't mean they're all compensated fairly; most are not, but it's hard to tell who does and who doesn't from a single wage to end product cost difference.
"Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I post memes on company time."
You joke, but (TMI warning) I'm doing what the real song says right now.
💩
Literally me posting this
The fuck are they??
IIRC from the original post they're bushings for motorcycle or bicycle suspensions
Ah, yes. The bushings. For the motorised cycles or the bicycles on suspension. Provides robust, dynamic performance.
Bloke in the pic looks like he wears them in his ears
I don't get it. Would you mind explaining what you mean?
You mean you don't use them daily? Cmon get with it. /s
ACME Thingies. The most relatable something used by beings.
I keep staring at it, but can't figure out what it's supposed to be.
It's a widget!
You know, how in the olden days people started farming so a few could feed the whole village while the rest produced other neccessaries?
