Comments by "Wandering Existence" (@WanderingExistence) on "How Private Equity Consumed America" video.

Wage labor is renting yourself via "self ownership". Employment is literally renting another human being as if they're property. The employer-employee relationship is a very insidious dynamic. Employment is a rental contract, like if you rented capital (say, a chainsaw from Home Depot), you pay rent for the "time preference" (basically the cost of time) for a piece of property. Capitalism is based on a principle of self ownership, which sounds empowering, until you realize that most people don't own capital goods other than themselves, and must rent out the authority over themselves as pieces of "human capital". This is a process of dehumanization where human beings are valued for their return on investment as capital goods. This is why, at the very least, capitalism needs unions and safety nets (or abolishment), or else the system won't value people for their human value. Importantly we must also think about our sick, elderly, and disabled people, as they can't provide competitive economic return for the investor class to value. We must figure out a way to change this economic system if we wish to value each other.
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@markn866 You missed the part where the bargaining power is extremely differential. Those with more capital goods have more market leverage. They can take on more risk and they can defer opportunities... Like holding out on strikers that are trying to make a few cents more. Look at the Colorado Coalfield War, as if Rockefeller didn't have enough money to increase wages a bit. Capitalism is violent.
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@jmlinden7 I didn't forget that part. I just didn't think it was going to be totally functional to fit decades of economic information into one single comment that people would read 😜 But you are right, that's the problem with rentier capitalism. Or what is, in the finance realm, often called the "democratizing finance" is really no democracy at all. It's everybody renting each other and oppressing each other. This is precisely why capitalism doesn't offer freedom, it is simply freedom for those with the most wealth.
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@jmlinden7 Yes, and...? So you're saying that there are other ways to trade labor and possibly be less exploitative? That's my point. Although it doesn't go as far as I would like I was listening to NPR and heard about a book called The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy by Nick Romeo. Lots of socializing of capital, it doesn't necessarily mean trade has to end. I also have a high affinity for the Preston Model/ Cleveland Model.
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