How Profit Makes You Poorer
Capitalist math doesn't add up
Earlier this year, our tub was leaking.
I asked on our townās Facebook group if anyone could recommend a good plumber.
Several neighbors recommended a new plumber, a friendly, young, ex-military man.
He did a great job at a reasonable price.
Fast-forward six months.
Our sink started leaking last week.
I messaged him.
Heād since expanded his business and said one of his employees would be around to do the repair.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I knew what was coming.
And sure enoughā¦
Once the employee finished the work, he showed me the billā¦
For more than $200.
Do I even need to tell you that the work was far more shoddy?
Thatās shareholder capitalism in a nutshell.
You pay for the actual worker to do the workā¦
ā¦but you also pay their boss.
Just because.
The non-worker added zero additional value to the transaction.
In fact, because the actual worker has less incentive to do a great jobāāābecause theyāre not getting the full value of the value they createāāāyou as the customer end up with inferior work.
The common unthinking pushback to anyone who speaks out against this insane economic model is: āBut who will invest?!ā
Silly.
Are you telling me no one would create and sell goods and services if shareholders didnāt exist?
Thatās literally what my plumber did, before he started exploiting others.
Itās what people did for all of human history.
Itās the same with landlord capitalism.
People used to pay a builder to build them a home.
Now, renters have to pay builders for temporary homesā¦ via landlords who flay massive profits off them every single month.
The common unthinking pushback to anyone who speaks out against this immoral economic model is: āBut who will buy houses?!ā
Wild.
Are you telling me no one would buy houses if landlords didnāt exist to buy them all?
Again, theyāre ignoring the billions of people in human history who bought or built homes without the āneedā for an extractive rent-seeking land-lorder to insinuate themselves into the process.
Thereās a word for people who extract profit without actually doing work:
Parasites.
Workers are being cannibalized by vampiric shareholders via interest, dividends, capital gains, and rents, despite not creating and contributing new usable wealth for others.
Capitalists insist capitalism is all about efficiency.
But theyāre lying.
Capitalism is all about maximizing returns to shareholders.
Not maximizing value to customers.
In other words:
Capitalist profit is the ultimate inefficiency.
Why should humanity have to pay extra layers of profit and payment to non-contributors just because?
Would you ratherā¦
Pay $5 for a loaf of bread, paid directly to the baker?
Pay $4 for a loaf of bread, with a shareholder getting $0.50 profit and the actual baker making $1.50 less than he or she deserves?
Sadly, this is the trap that capitalist shareholders have pushed humanity into.
Itās just pure exploitative extraction from the actual workers.
Would you ratherā¦
Pay $1,000/month for a permanent home, paid directly to the builder?
Pay $2,500/month for a temporary home, paid to a landlord.
The more landlords that exist, the higher shelter prices soar.
Profiteers make life more expensive for consumers.
Capitalism-worshippers donāt get it
Either they donāt get itā¦
ā¦or theyāre blinded to it (by self or Mammon)ā¦
ā¦or they absolutely do get it, and just donāt care.
But three undeniable facts remain.
Donāt miss this:
The market price is the highest price capitalists can charge.
The market wage is the lowest price capitalists can pay.
The profit margin between these two numbers is compounded by capitalists to bid up and buy up assets, so they have more power to raise prices and suppress wages.
Do you get it?
Do you see where this is going?
How do you think this ends?
Thatās right:
Capitalism is the snake that devours the world and then eats itself.
Itās just colonization by another name.
No wonder democratic rights and collective bargaining rapidly follow capitalismāāātheyāre the only shields against the onslaught.
Without growing democratic rights and ever-strengthening collective bargaining power, thereās no way for the majority to have any chance of survival.
Sadly, weāre too late.
The top 10% already own over 70% of global assets and have indebted the world to themselves to the tune of over $300 trillion and counting.
This will compound until a few hundred people control everything and all soon-to-be-ten-billion-of-us are gig-work rent-slaves.
Or even 1 person if they create a hyperintelligent AI and somehow find a way to control it.
The point is this:
Capitalists wonāt save us from the inevitable conclusion of capitalism.
It will take a revolution or a revival.