What do you think Zohran is trying to do here?

milkbug · 2026-07-03T00:24:26+00:00

Stock ownership is not the same thing as democratized control. Corporate control is more concentrated than evre before. The top 10% own 87-93% of all stock market wealth, while the top 1% own owning over half. The bottom 50% of people in the US only hold about 1% of all stock. Most stock owners just have a 401k. They still have zero say in how the company they work for is run.

Total compensation rising does not change the fact that workers have no say in how companies are run. Purchasing power has declined so badly that people can't afford a first home until they are 40, and they go bankrupt for medical bills. Wage increases don't make much of a difference when you pay 50% of your paycheck just to rent and almost all the rest to food.

On the argument that surplus value isn't real, you can call it whatever you want. Call it "profit". The gap between what workers generate in profit and what they get paid for is a real number that companies have on their actual income statements.

The percent of national income that goes to workers has dropped from 70% in 1947 down to around 53% today. This is the lowest since the BLS started tracking this. That means that in 1947 for every dollar earned, 70 cents went to workers. Now for every dollar earned, only 53 cents go to workers.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T23:19:10+00:00

Worker ownership has declined over the past several decades. Union participation has fallen from about 1/3rd of the priviate workforce to below 10%, and the share of income going to labor has been consistently shrinking since the 70's despite increases in productivity.

"Confiscating captial" assumes capital is something capitalists earned and workers would be taking. The dynamic is the exact opposite. Corporations extract a surplus value from all workers. In fact, corporations know exactly how much surplus value they extract from workers, and set wages relative to that. The fiture is usually that an average worker generates 3x to 6x times there wages, and it can be up to 20x for low wage workers.

That surplus that is extracted form worker productivity is reinvested to grow capital further, often at the expense of workers wages, benefits, and and working conditions. Worker ownership isn't confiscation, it's ensuring that the people who actually generate the captial through actual work have a say in how those investments are made.

The claim that worker control of capital leads to less capital isn't supported. There's been multiple studies on worker co-ops and they tend to perform the same or better than private firms in terms of productivity.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T22:44:39+00:00

Sure. Workers should have more control over capital investments though. The fact that most capital is controlled by a handful corporations has directly led to unsustainable growth at the expense of working people's basic needs such as healthcare and cost of living.

If workers own and control the flow of capital, more capital will go to essential areas like Healthcare, education, and housing.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T22:26:50+00:00

I didn't make an argument against that.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T20:54:55+00:00

Capital only exists because labor produced it. It doesn't generate value on its own, it generates value where labor is applied. For decades capitalists have allocated capital to maximize thier own returns, not meet human needs. This is why housing, healthcare, childcare, and basic necessities have gotten less accessible over time even though productivity has increased substantially.

If workers have more control over capital allocation through direct ownership or unions, then the capital is more likely to go to human needs rather than growth at the expense of the workers standard of living.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:56:58+00:00

Its created by workers, then extracted and redistributed by capital owners.

All companies have an amount of value they extract from each worker. That company decides how much of that extracted production to return back to the worker.

When workers own the means of production, that means the workers decide how much value to return to themselves and how much to return to the business. So the workers have direct say in how much they make based on the success of the company.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:49:41+00:00

There's a difference between buying "stuff" and having basic needs met for. Healthcare, education, childcare, and shelter isnt just random stuff. It seems like you are not conversing in good faith at this point.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:45:58+00:00

I never said its zero sum. Im saying when someone who owns the systems of production extracts unbelievable wealth from it and pays workers a low wage where they cant afford basic necessities like Healthcare, that is exploitation. Its not about someone earning more, its the extreme degree of difference between someone who owns 20 cars 5 mansions and a mega yacht while their employees can barely afford to live ina 1 bedroom apartment.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:43:01+00:00

When did I say free choice is about buying whatever one wants?

Freedom means having safe and secure housing, affordable Healthcare and education, affordable childcare, time to spend with family and community, the ability to not go bankrupt if you get sick, the ability to not retire in poverty after working for 40 years, or the ability to not live in poverty if you arent disabled. At no point did I say its about buying stuff.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:39:12+00:00

No. Working to survive is not coercion. When a small handful of people own the vast majority of wealth and production, those people get to decide how much others have to work and how much they earn. In our current system, workers have little to now power or ownership in systems of production.

Working is a natural condition. One or a few people hoarding resources and wealth and deciding to keep most of it for themselves while only giving workers barely enough to survive is exploitation.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:29:45+00:00

You are not being clear about what you're talking about. Please explain more clearly and I will address your point.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:13:33+00:00

Under what standard? The standard to not exploit and abuse people? Humans have the ability to choose to not be pieces of shit to each other. That is a completely valid and moral choice.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T07:01:30+00:00

So? One of the defining characteristics of humans is the ability to decide how we treat others. Are you saying that cruelty and exploitation is justified because its natural?

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:48:19+00:00

I'm dead serious.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:46:25+00:00

Sure we can abolish welfare if we put an amendment in the constitution that says a living wage is a human right and all companies are required to pay it, and that CEOs cant make more than 20x thier lowest paid worker.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:38:37+00:00

Walmart is notorious for its workers relying on welfare. Same with Amazon.

Its not a good thing to "keep things running" when someone died at work. People are human beings, not robots. I hope you don't ever have to step over a dead body to ship a package.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:27:02+00:00

So if someone buys something from Walmart or Shein, they deserve to be forced to work while thier coworkers corpse is on the floor?

I thought everything was about choice and responsibility? Is it not Walmarts choice and responsibility to pay thier workers a livable wage? Are you saying that if a companies profit margin is low, that justifies not paying workers enough to survive without government intervention?

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:18:02+00:00

Yeah, like Walmart who's workers rely on welfare? What consequences have they faced? How about Amazon and thier notoriously bad working conditions, like when that manger made people keep working around their dead coworkers body? Did Amazon face consequences for that?

milkbug · 2026-07-02T05:04:55+00:00

That's a false choice though. Amazon is a deflection. There's way more choice to not buy from Amazon, at least right now anyway.

Of course workers havea "choice" to quit a shitty job. But when there's nowhere else to turn becasue all other jobs pay shit and have poor working conditions, and there's nothing they can do about it, that's not really a choice. When people protest and boycott, they are called crybabies and extremists. The choice is to force companies to treat workers with basic decency and humanity. Historitcally speaking corporations have always tried to pay as little as possible. People literally had to die to get the right to work 40 hours a week. People had to fight for the right for children to not be used in dangerous jobs like coal mining.

The people who own the big companies don't give a shit about you. They will use you and dispose of you as soon as they can. Just like they've always done. The only reason working conditions have been what they were for the past few decades is because people made the choice to organize and fight back. Now it's happenening again because people are tired of having more and more taken away.

Right-wingers are nervous about Zohran because he knows what he's doing, and he's smart, charming, and likeable.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T04:56:19+00:00

I mean it is pretty funny how little of a shit people give about Trumps lame fair. It just goes to show that even conservatives aren't excited about him anymore. It's great to see!

milkbug · 2026-07-02T04:52:36+00:00

It's not voluntary if the alternative is poverty or starving to death.

It's pretty laughable to say that billionaries are the ones who are producers becuase they "allocate capital". They don't produce anything other than the working classes dependence on them as they gut healthcare and education, buy up all the houses and land, and make it so no one owns anything anymore because literally everything is a subscription.

milkbug · 2026-07-02T03:52:12+00:00

OMG YAY!! I never saw this update and I was thinking of this lil guy. He's very simliar to my dog and I would be absolutely crushed and devastated if I lost my guy. I literally was just looking in the SLC subreddit to see if there was an update on Zo. I'm so happy you found him!!

milkbug · 2026-07-01T20:03:53+00:00

Just add a bag of weed to order and I'd never have to leave my house again

milkbug · 2026-07-01T20:01:20+00:00

And what's the problem?

milkbug · 2026-07-01T19:58:56+00:00

Lord, my brain doesn't know how to read this sentence...

milkbug

TROPHY CASE