Let's have a class thread! It'll be fun!

[ymu]

That assumes the footballer (or anyone else on high wages) is worth those wages. As for the footballer example, I'd say it was idiots like me that buy season tickets (or fake fans with subscriptions to Sky Sports) that are the ones exploited by the footballer earning those high wages (which would be the same for anyone else earning high wages - they are exploiting those on lower wages below them to supplement their worth)

Exactly what I said originally. But he can only extract that via an employer. He's useless on his own.

It's the same model as dealing. People who are hooked will pay you anything they have to. If you have enough money/power to invest in cornering a route from Columbia all for yourself, your investment will pay back a million times over.

Which is why rich oligarchs are 'losing' money on football. They're not. They're trying to buy up so much talent that no one else can compete. Stitch up the market for trophies, and they'll get it back with interest. The reason some of them aren't doing as well at this game as they'd expected, is that team games aren't about buying up the talent. Hoist by their own inability to see anything except in the simplest capitalist terms - this costs the most so this is the best. Fuck team spirit, demoralisingly different rewards within a single team, pre-existing talent being bought in when you have (had) a superb youth team that now has very little reason to think they have a chance on the main squad.

I cannot understand football fans. I saw Milan play Parma in the San Siro towards the end of a very exciting season, with a lot to play for for both teams, in the late 1990s. We paid £8 each for tickets a few rows back behind one of the goals (into which they obediently scored all three goals). I couldn't recognise any of the players from a distance, but my boss was giving a running commentary, clearly in awe at what he was watching.

Fuck's sake. A one year home-games-only boycott of any clubs that price out someone on minimum wage would solve the problem forever more. Is the drug that fucking addicting that you'll just keep paying what they ask and do fuck all about it? Even when it means that it cripples the England team. for lack of British left-footers in the Premiership. That is beyond dumb.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hmmm. Nice tone.

But I'll respond anyway. Football is an atypcial example of course because football isn't just about money, it is also about prestige and glory. But many football clubs pay their players far more than they could ever justify in terms of 'extraction of value', often paying a wage bill that exceeds their entire takings from all sources. The odd billionaire sinks money into his plaything, raising the stakes for everyone, and clubs sink further and further into debt as they try to gain promotion/avoid relegation. Football is a massively popular game that millions of people are prepared to pay to watch, yet the game is in a perpetual state of financial crisis - for one reason: because the players are in an extreme position of leverage.

 

[ymu]

a footballers wages reflect his exchange value more than his labour value

In English please. This is a thread for people who want to inspire others to revolution, not for people who want to minimise the size of their revolutionary army by using Marxist jargon that turns anyone off, unless they already belong to a Trot group or used to until they got forced out by terminal boredom and didactic lecturing taking precedence over any kind of action.

I would not have expected to have to tell you this, Dotty.

 

[ymu]

Oh ffs!

I've just seen the arcane discussion you fucking Trots are trolling my thread with.

If you cannot explain it in ordinary terms that any person who's never heard of Marx let alone Trotsky can get, fuck off this thread.

And I'm calling in Fridgemagnet if you ignore this request.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I assume that last post was ironic.

You started a thread about class. What did you expect?

 

[ymu]

Hmmm. Nice tone.

But I'll respond anyway. Football is an atypcial example of course because football isn't just about money, it is also about prestige and glory. But many football clubs pay their players far more than they could ever justify in terms of 'extraction of value', often paying a wage bill that exceeds their entire takings from all sources. The odd billionaire sinks money into his plaything, raising the stakes for everyone, and clubs sink further and further into debt as they try to gain promotion/avoid relegation. Football is a massively popular game that millions of people are prepared to pay to watch, yet the game is in a perpetual state of financial crisis - for one reason: because the players are in an extreme position of leverage.

Fair nuff.

Wrong.

I think.

My analysis of that is just above your post.

And sorry, but what you said is essentially impossible under capitalism. Impossibly rich men waste lots of money on playthings, yes, but they're that rich because they know how to turn everything they do into profit, one way or another. If they'd bought up Bourne Sunday Regulars and tried it, I'd believe your story. Buying up a brand name like Chelsea? They're buying the brand.

 

[ymu]

I assume that last post was ironic.

You started a thread about class. What did you expect?

Try reading the OP again?

 

[DownwardDog]

so technically he's middle class or even working class? i suppose you're right though. it's all very complicated.

the footballer, once he has been injured, also has very little powe and influence unless he's somehow managed to get himself on the board of directors of a large corporation, which is probably unlikely.

That can happen to anyone who's part of the moneyed elite. How much power does Jeff Skilling have now?

 

[DownwardDog]

Fair nuff.

Wrong.

I think.

My analysis of that is just above your post.

And sorry, but what you said is essentially impossible under capitalism. Impossibly rich men waste lots of money on playthings, yes, but they're that rich because they know how to turn everything they do into profit, one way or another. If they'd bought up Bourne Sunday Regulars and tried it, I'd believe your story. Buying up a brand name like Chelsea? They're buying the brand.

They can still lose a shit load of money doing it. See Leeds United. Rio Ferdinand extracted a fucking ton of reverse surplus value from that organisation.

 

[DownwardDog]

Invest? That's the problem with you types, you see everything as about what you can make out of it. For me, its the best way to make sure my family has a roof over their heads.

That's irrelevant. You said you gained no benefit from having a mortgage, I was just pointing out that you get a massive tax free benefit from it. If it troubles you then sell the house for what you paid for it in real terms when you move.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd say it's more akin to a form of potlatch - spending in order to attain prestige. The race to build ever-taller skyscrapers is a similar phenomenon - it makes little rational economic sense.

 

[frogwoman]

That can happen to anyone who's part of the moneyed elite. How much power does Jeff Skilling have now?

Or maddoff ...

 

[Winot]

Power is the ability to get what you want.

I wonder whether, in this context, you might modify this to "Power is the ability to get whatever you want." After all, you have said yourself that you have got what you want, in terms of your lifestyle.

 

[revlon]

That breaks down with the footballer example because clubs lose money due to the amounts they have to pay their footballers. Effectively the footballer is extracting a surplus from his employer, not the other way round, due to his position of extreme leverage.

While I think Marxist analysis is very useful, I also think it is flawed - working out exactly how you are being exploited, if at all, when you are on good wages is hard to do. It may well be the case, effectively, that the exact reverse is true - that the capitalist company makes money despite having to pay you your enormous fee, which may, as is the case with football, require unpopular measures such as increasing ticket prices. Football is hugely popular in the UK - the main reason clubs go bust is the huge wages they have to pay. If anything the players are exploiting their clubs, not the other way round.

Also, I do think we should be aware that Marx was writing 150 years ago about a far more rigid society than the one we have now, in which there were really quite clear dividing lines between classes. New kinds of economic relationships have developed since then - the capitalism of today is a capitalism that has been marked amongst other things very deeply by social democracy. The Fordian idea that you have to pay your workers enough so that they can buy your goods is another idea that I would say must be borne in mind when critiquing Marxism. And I think you have to critique Marxism. Otherwise you come out with some very odd conclusions such as the one above!

i'd say top flight footballers would be classed as self-employed surely (especially given the bosman ruling), under contract for a fix period of time.

The difficulty here is what commodity is being produced and is the relationship the footballer has in the production of that commodity the same as the groundsman, the person who washes the kit, the electrician who ensures the floodlights are working, the coach driver, the waiters who serve the halftime bubbly to the private boxes, the programme seller and the turnstile operator etc.

If there is anything in marx that covers the whole entertainment industry (same for stadium selling rock bands, hollywood filmstars) then someone should point us in that direction - i'm none the wiser.

 

[butchersapron]

i'd say top flight footballers would be classed as self-employed surely (especially given the bosman ruling), under contract for a fix period of time.

The difficulty here is what commodity is being produced and is the relationship the footballer has in the production of that commodity the same as the groundsman, the person who washes the kit, the electrician who ensures the floodlights are working, the coach driver, the waiters who serve the halftime bubbly to the private boxes, the programme seller and the turnstile operator etc.

If there is anything in marx that covers the whole entertainment industry (same for stadium selling rock bands, hollywood filmstars) then someone should point us in that direction - i'm none the wiser.

There is - it's called monopoly rent. This thread is shit

 

[ymu]

That's irrelevant. You said you gained no benefit from having a mortgage, I was just pointing out that you get a massive tax free benefit from it. If it troubles you then sell the house for what you paid for it in real terms when you move.

He also gets the benefit of a mortgage that does not go up with inflation. It doesn't take long for homeowners to be paying pitifully small sums for their mortgage simply because rents have doubled in ten years.

But to get there, you have to be able to sort out the first few years ... and that's where the not actually rich enough to own a property but has no choice because rents are so high sort of person falls down. I bought in 1997. My mum got destroyed in the crash of the late 1980s/early 1990s (she had only just recovered when 2008 came along and took her pension with it). I became obsessed with working out what the fuck happened. I didn't buy because I knew it was as low as the market was gonna get, I bought because rent on a one bed flat within cycling distance of work was £550 and a nicer flat the same distance out cost me £280/month in a mortgage. But I knew it was as low as the market would get.

Trouble is ... I couldn't even afford that. I was still £10k in debt from the no-fees and full grant days of university education in this country. When the boiler broke down, we had no heating or hot water for two years because there was no way to replace it. It only did get replaced because my family found out and clubbed together to send the plumbers round. They ended up putting a new toilet in because ours was not looking like it would remain water tight for very long.

We eventually sold it because we had no way of paying for anything unless we did.

And that's how you rich cocking fuckers steal money from us - by turning the essentials of life into fucking investment vehicles and dragging poor people money into it to sustain your insanely stupid bubbles because none of you irresponsible sociopaths will jump off just in case there's more money to be made.

Rockefeller heard an elevator boy boasting about his own portfolio of shares one day in 1929, and saved his fortune by taking it out of the stock market immediately ion the grounds that if an elevator boy's savings were required to keep it intact, there was one helluva big bubble about to burst.

That's why - after Thatcher and Reagan had started dismantling the safeguards 1929 brought about - we got right to buy, easier credit, "tell Sid" and the other massive privatisations where it was all fluffy and good because shares were being sold to the public, PEPs were discredited so we got ISAs instead. Give us your money people - the stock market is full to busting and we need your cash to make it burst so that we can catch all the money that rains down on us when that happens.

Jeffrey Archer even used that story as a bouncing off point for a novel about an elevator boy who became obscenely rich ... class-traitor, propaganda tool of the elite cunty fucking Archer of a scumbag.

The fundamental evil of neoliberalism is that it's real backers - the masters, not the lackeys - know perfectly well that it causes lower growth and bigger, wilder, more frequent boom and bust. That is exactly how they take all our money. They need our economy to be deliberately fucked up in order to make themselves richer.

Get that message out, and we will never have a Tory government again. But good luck getting a media outlet to print it.

 

[Blagsta]

That's irrelevant. You said you gained no benefit from having a mortgage, I was just pointing out that you get a massive tax free benefit from it. If it troubles you then sell the house for what you paid for it in real terms when you move.

Sorry, what tax free benefit?

 

[revlon]

There is - it's called monopoly rent. This thread is shit

which i imagine covers loftus road and gigg lane.

 

[butchersapron]

Yep - it covers the normal of exploitation and brand stuff.

 

[DownwardDog]

Sorry, what tax free benefit?

You avoid tax on the capital growth of your asset (the house).

 

[ymu]

I wonder whether, in this context, you might modify this to "Power is the ability to get whatever you want." After all, you have said yourself that you have got what you want, in terms of your lifestyle.

Semantics. I can get what I want - but only because I have the power to earn kabbes-esque money. I can make idiotic decisions on a whim because my skills are in demand. Fuck me over at work, and I walk out with zero notice. I always have at least 5 weeks holiday stored up, so it ain't gonna cause me any problems.

I've done that the last three jobs in a row - which is, umm. the only three 'graduate' jobs I have ever had. I've never had to claim benefits and I've always had some double-pay overlap on holiday notice and new job pay. My second job almost certainly gave me the job because they thought walking out on a multi-national HQed in Monaco without any notice was very, very . Third job was readvertised on my email just after I flounced on a Friday lunchtime. I'd spoken to the guy on the phone about it before. He said why didn't you apply! Can you get here on Monday? I was offered the job before I got home from the interview. When I walked out on the third job by yet more abusive administrators and a mediocre HoD, the people I worked with just took me on as a consultant. When they were told they couldn't, management were informed that there wasn't anyone else to do my job. They ended up having to pay me twice as much to do half as much, and if I didn't fancy the job ... gimme summat else, eh?

I still work with every great scientist I ever worked for (and none of the mediocre ones). The evil administrators are still chasing me beyond the grave of my 9-5 employment days, but they can't touch me because I am now self-employed and they don't get to say who the best person to do the job is. They just have to pay me so much more that I don't have to work full-time any more.

And I will never, ever have to be someone's boss.

Power is the ability to get what you want.

 

[revlon]

Yep - it covers the normal of exploitation and brand stuff.

okay i've got vineyards, mines, shopping centres, picasso and david harvey.

This assumes the top flight footballer is a commodity (as opposed to a worker).

 

[butchersapron]

And?

A worker is a commodity. That's the whole point.

 

[love detective]

Yep - it covers the normal of exploitation and brand stuff.

quit talking about marxist garbage you insane trot - this thread is for inspiring revolution and negating the minimising of the revolutionary army (and also making a moral virtue out of wage labour by the looks of it)

 

[TruXta]

Fightfightfightfight!

 

[revlon]

And?

A worker is a commodity. That's the whole point.

his labour power is the commodity.

 

[butchersapron]

his labour power is the commodity.

Yes, it's embodied in 'him'.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, it's embodied in 'him'.

Yep, that works. A good way of looking at it. However, does that not mean that anyone with a saleable skill is somewhere on the 'monopoly rent' spectrum?

I don't think this thread is shit, fwiw.

 

[ymu]

quit talking about marxist garbage you insane trot - this thread is for inspiring revolution and negating the minimising of the revolutionary army (and also making a moral virtue out of wage labour by the looks of it)

You were doing so well until the brackets. I cannot for the life of me see where I have said anything like that in this thread. Where did it come from? Or is it just the standard "I'm only having a revolution if all the revolutionaries agree", selfish individualism, defeatist wank?

10% of the population on the streets is the minimum you need to get it started. I'm not going to sit around excluding people because I prefer intellectual wanking to actual change. And I have always, and will always, oppose any revolutionary movement which thinks turning up at the victory lap with what happens next orders for the people wot won it for us is vital.

So fuck off the thread unless you want to engage constructively with it. I took a Trot on a revolutionary birthday night out last night, leave my thread alone for 18 hours, and it turns to shit with the fucking intellectuals playing the fucking biscuit game and expecting the masses to eat it at the end.

Fuck off.

 

[ymu]

Yep, that works. A good way of looking at it. However, does that not mean that anyone with a saleable skill is somewhere on the 'monopoly rent' spectrum?

I don't think this thread is shit, fwiw.

You mean, you agree with what butchers said, but not with me when I said the same thing in the OP?

Nice one. Thanks. A-fucking-again.