this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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United States | News & Politics
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I wonder if there's a specific name for that dynamic by which the ruling class separates work from reward so that they can keep the reward of other people's work for themselves, then ends up conplaining that nobody wants to work any more.
Capitalism.
I was waiting for that one.
And no.
The same thing happens in state communism - in fact, it generally happens even faster, since the disconnect between work and reward is there from the start, and the party leaders are in such a perfect position to siphon off reward other people earned. They can do immediately what a capitalist system can only do after wealth has been concentrated and used to buy political power.
It comes with the establishment of a hierarchy by which some can arrange things such that they enjoy unearned privilege - it doesn't much matter specifically how that hierarchy is established or nominally justified, and "capitalism" is just one of them.
Yeah. Separation from the results of work is a fucking issue. I do wish the old philosophers on this would get a new English translation. "Alienation from labor" is a fucking mouthful.