• ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlBanned from community
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    1 month ago

    Haha, it’s usually worse than that. Especially if you do manual labor and don’t have a union. Friend of mine was receiving 6% of the value of his labor after we calculated it.

    • MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I wish I made 6% of the value of my labor. My power plant has $1M+ days sometimes and there’s only 30 of us running it. I make good money, but not $30k/day good. A couple months ago when we saw sustained deep freeze temperatures for like a week straight, we saw $5M+ days.

      We also work crazy hours for those situations. Last week I pulled 72, and the next couple weeks will be 84 hours. But at least they ordered pizza for us.

      • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        When they make that much money, why don’t they hire another 30 or 60 people so everyone can have a normal 32h work week? Are the employee benefits really that good that it’s worth it? I hope they are much more than just pizza. Why would you let yourself be exploited by them, on such an insane level that you are willing to work almost triple work weeks? They are stealing your life while having the financial luxury to just hire more. Have you talked to your union? Work to live, don’t live to work mate.

        • MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Lol there isn’t a union here and my coworkers are too brainwashed to understand that a union would benefit them.

          I would love for a Danish company to headhunt me and yank me over to Denmark. I don’t think that’s gonna happen though.

          • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 month ago

            In my country (the Netherlands) there is help for expats to settle. Getting a job, house, etc. There’s even a tax cut for expats if you have a specialized job. Denmark might have something similar, I’m not sure. Their language is a pain to learn though (not like my language is fun lol). But like the Dutch the Danish are very good with English, especially in cities. Getting a job while only speaking English is not a problem. Denmark is a beautiful and amazing country, with amazing people. But we have bitterballen.

      • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlBanned from community
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        1 month ago

        Sheesh, if that doesn’t radicalize someone idk what does. Granted in your case a lot of that value comes from the constant capital of the plant itself but still, it is likely you make less than 6% yeah. My friends was easy to calculate because constant capital was relatively negligable.

    • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      That’s exactly it. Sure taxes take 40%, but capitalists take 100-1000% of your salary, and last I checked they don’t build roads and schools.

      • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlBanned from community
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        1 month ago

        Okay so I was gonna respond sooner but I was super baked and unable to answer this when I saw it last night.

        You should read Wage Labour and Capital by Marx for some added context, it is short.

        Basically the value of a commodity is calculate by c + v + s. c being constant capital (the value of the means of production that has been degraded to create the commodity, hard to calculate without good info), v is the amount of paid labor (variable capital), and s being surplus value is the unpaid labor.

        To calculate the value of your labor all you need to know is the constant capital used to produce whatever commodity you produce and the value of said commodity. By including your wage as v you can calculate the surplus value and then compare them to see what share of the value you produce you actually recieve.

        It gets harder when you aren’t directly producing commodities which my friend was.

        • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          I did the same using GDP. About 10 years ago the numbers were like this in Canada: the average income was $56k the average tax burden is $7k and the GDP per WORKER was $90k. It’s so funny to watch people complain about the $7k the hobby takes to build society when you ignore the $44k in profit you generate for the rich.

          The beauty of the stepped back approach is that because all wages are included and all economic output is captured you don’t need to solve for c, it’s included in wages and surplus value.

          The machinery of capital is built on a large pile of labor + stolen surplus value all the way down to the raw material. So it’s all captured with the above.

          • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlBanned from community
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            1 month ago

            Haha, you should try using the median income to adjust for outlier skewing. Also while it is true that constant capital becomes variable capital if you follow the production chain you should keep in mind that much of this production is done in the imperial periphery (and therefore not necessarily reflected in GDP per capita). Their exploitation is directly responsible for the purchasing power of our wages, in a way an hour of our labor purchases many many hours of theirs. If you are going to eliminate constant capital through the means suggested in your process, then you need to include the wages of workers of the periphery (often below the value of their labor power) in your average.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 month ago

        The owner of the construction company is being paid for the work that their employees do. All of that money, after expenses, does not go to the people who did the actual construction.

      • Proles_Uprising_Now@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        If a private school makes 100 million a year in profit and pays you, the only employee 6 million that would be 6 percent of your value. I think.

      • Axolotl@feddit.it
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        1 month ago

        6% is not pretty good, it’s like if i make a cake and i can only eat 6% of it, dammit! i made it, lemme me eat at least half, then i can leave you whatever you want

        • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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          1 month ago

          Consider that many people in a business don’t provide any direct positive labor value, such as a business owner not doing any direct work that makes money

          • Axolotl@feddit.it
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            1 month ago

            Yep, that’s why i ask for half, the other half will be split between them; I’d actually want a higher number but sadly we are in capitalism