• ohlaph@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Farming shouldn’t be profitable. It should be considered a service.

    • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Nothing should be profitable except the work of the individual for that individual. Every dollar of corporate profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.

        • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s because we’re used to profit being exploited from our labour rather than being the benefactor of our own value. Under capitalism profit goes to the slave owner, under socialism profit goes to the worker.

          • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I know, but some might apply terms such that you would be describing the abolition of profit, rather than preserving one particular expression.

            • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Sure, context matters. You’ll hear me say ‘Every dollar of profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.’ until I’m blue in the face. But everyone understands (or at least I hope they do) that profit is a value beyond the cost of production and that should benefit the worker not the whip cracker should it exist at all.

              • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor, whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.

                To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.

                Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.

                Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.

                • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor

                  Correct.

                  whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.

                  This falls short because it fails to examine how the customer is exploited by spending more than the product’s value for access to the product.

                  Resources + Labour = Cost
                  Cost + Profit = Price
                  ∴ Profit = Exploited value

                  To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.

                  Correct, capitalists have a deliberately belligerent view of total value assessment because it’s not in their interest to share that value with the worker. And the workers are uneducated and rely on a capitalist system to survive so they simply don’t know better.

                  Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.

                  Correct.

                  Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.

                  You don’t need to abolish private property in a socialised system, just private exploitation.

                  Personal profit will always exist through the negotiation of one’s value with their customer but the definitive separation between cost, price, and value dissappears because they become the same thing.

                  • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    While I am not finding any reason for concern about actual concepts, I feel the terminology you are using generally would be regarded as unconventional. For example, exploitation is often understood as bound to private property, which is any relationship of private control but social utilization for the same resource or asset.