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The problem with socialism
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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I get that it's a meme but 85% is delusional. If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.
*online leftists coping and seething after food and housing don't just magically spring forth from the earth when you abolish rent-seeking
If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.
Well yeah, I do actually believe we will work significantly less because many jobs are bullshit, useless and only serve capital. That, and all the over production that ends up in landfills and the ocean because the line must go up.
(Btw I spent yesterday testing sewage samples and I'd do it for free if I didn't need money to survive so miss me with any 'how would we convince people to do gross work' bullshit)
Why not say 99% if you're just pulling a number out of your ass.
Overproducing food is fundamentally good and there is not that much overproduction of other goods. Clothing sure but that is not a massive percent of global labor.
If socialism is that much more efficient than capitalism why is every socialist country not absolutely flourishing with 1 socialist worker reaping the same benefits as almost 7 capitalist workers?
if 'people will work for the joy of work' was a reliable way to run an economy wouldn't you see capitalists who aren't reliant on wage labor choosing to work? You don't because economies function by the norm not the exception and most people would rather relax and maybe make art than voluntarily do a shitty job that has an abstract benefit to society.
I didn't put any numbers in my reply
See, once I started working a "Real Job" I saw just how much surplus value was stolen, and turned to Marxist theory to make cohesive sense of it. 85% isn't an over-estimation, especially if we factor in imperialism. Workers in the imperial core are paid more and exploited less than workers in the periphery.
We will probably all work 30-40 hours a week for the next great length of time even in socialism, but with far greater societal guarantees and a less predatory system of distribution.
The top 10% of households hold 67% of all wealth. If we assume that every worker produces roughly the same value, that implies ⅔ of value produced by the average worker is being taken.
Of course, 33% is not 15%, but I'd say it's roughly in the ballpark. And in certain cases, there are definitely workers who are exploited to that level.
Wealth is not income. You can't derive the rate of exploitation from wealth inequality.
I mean lol again. Especially if you need to stretch as far as the top 10%. Doctors, surgeons, electricians, linemen, plumbers, veterinarians, dentists, engineers, etc are all going to be producing more than double the value of your average retail worker.
The only way to create wealth is via work, e.g., income. It's not a perfect measure, I concede, since wealth is static and can accumulate over time. However, I think we can still use it as a rough estimation of stolen income over time.
However, this source claims there is a 70% gap between wages and produced value. That roughly matches the number I gave.
That is not what that data is or says.
158 is not 30% of 285 for starters.
~~Total wages paid are a bit over half of gdp. 55% is notably quite a bit more than 15%.~~ Think I had gdp from a different year than wages, still closer to accurate than 85%
*the fact that somebody completely misreading a graph and claiming it as a source is getting upvoted is about to turn me into a liberal out of embarrassment. Like damn, I guess there was negative exploitation in 1970. Neoliberals might be evil but at least they usually appreciate nuance and factuality more than ideological improv. The online left can never settle for reality, everything has to be embellished. Every injustice has to be 'yes, and'ed until society would actually fluorish under a new golden age where we all work 10 seconds per week if you just got rid of landlords.
literally feelings over facts.