The problem with this idea is that, while being obviously correct, it's a lot easier to become a landlord than to overthrow a worldwide economic system.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Flippanarchy
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When I was a kid, they drilled into me that I had to be nice and share. Entering adulthood was whiplash.
When I was a kid, they drilled into me that being academically successful will get you into the top schools, and get you the best jobs.
Cut to me now in my 30s, been job hunting for the past year after being laid off from my previous job for not meeting their standards three months after one of my parents died, and having the gall to try to set boundaries against doing installs back to back.
Grades don't mean shit if you don't have the following:
Interview skills (aka the ability to BS your way through an interview), Experience (sad that those who start working in high school are ahead of the game, when really kids shouldn't have to be put in situations to start work that early), Connections (it's not what you know, it's who you know)
Barely had any of these when I graduated from college and spent close to 6 months trying to find a job from there.
Yeah as a former straight A student, entering the workforce was a rough transition. Suddenly smarts and hard work are nearly irrelevant and it's all your ability to sell yourself, appease your bosses, etc. Turns out no one taught me these skills and in many cases taught me the opposite.
This reminds me of a few rules of acquisition.
111: Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them.
211: Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them.
It's so simple! Why didn't anyone else think of this?!
Yeah! Why don't we just switch to one of the other economic systems we've used in the past that was completely free of exploitation?
Wait...
Or end landlords and bosses
You can own a company with no employees other than yourself and only one house.
I am a financial/business advisor to a small law firm. They have the best secretarial/paralegal team in the county. They also pay the highest rates in the county, have damn good profit sharing and have for as long as I've advised them. I told them that it's what would happen. They didn't hire different people, just the folk there felt valued and (I didn't tell the lawyers this bit) probably like they owned the means they were producing. A little woah. But I like to think I made some good bosses out of them.
"Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation. We want to find a way to become the exploiters." -- Rom
"Suit yourself. But I don't see you exploiting anyone." -- Bashir
... And then Rom sets up the first Ferengi Workers Union, and wins.
Working isn’t necessarily being exploited though.
I have a great boss for a small company. Last year we got pay rises and a reduction in hours at the same time. Don’t feel I’m being exploited, it’s quite the opposite as works comes second to our health.
I’ve lost track of how much sick time I’ve had due to mental health etc. we are not giving targets or micromanaged or anything like that.
Under capitalism, it is almost by definition. Glad you're having a better time than the rest of us, but your personal anecdote is irrelevant to society at large.
You would not be employed if it wasn't profitable. Which also means the surplus value of your labor, above and beyond what you're being compensated for, is going to your employer. That's exploitation. It's mandatory in most employment under capitalist economics.
I understand the surplus value argument and I’m not dismissing it, within that framework you’re technically correct. But reducing all employment to exploitation by definition flattens a meaningful distinction between a worker being genuinely mistreated and one who isn’t.
My point wasn’t that capitalism is perfect or that my experience is universal. It was that employment isn’t inherently exploitative in the lived sense, conditions, power dynamics, and how surplus is distributed all matter. A framework that calls everything exploitation equally makes it harder to identify and fight actual exploitation where it’s causing real harm.
There is never going to be a 1:1 ratio between labour value and compensation. Even in a non-profit employee-owned cooperative, there will be external costs that will have to funded from somewhere.
It becomes exploitation when that ratio becomes disproportionate and the ownership starts extracting more than their fair share. Capitalism definitely does nothing to discourage this, but it's not a mandatoy feature.
Even in a non-profit employee-owned cooperative, there will be external costs that will have to [be] funded from somewhere.
That somewhere being reduced labor compensation no matter what, meaning the labor is just worth that much less. That doesn't entitle an "owner" to jack shit.
It becomes exploitation when that ratio becomes disproportionate and the ownership starts extracting more than their fair share.
Their fair share is nothing. A disproportionate ratio is any ratio greater than 0. No labor should be "owned" by anyone not performing it. There should not be "ownership" involved. Organizational leaders, sure. And they should also just be regular laborers, paid in the same manner.
It's funny that these posts are blocking my Mullvad ip
What do you mean?
Altogether all together.