• The whole mechanism behind capitalism is that workers are payed less than they produce, hence they produce surplus value, the graph you provide, I do not see how it is linked to this discussion. Essentialy every worker is having their surplus value stolen

        • Yes they do, if a service worker was not there, there would be a loss of value, their labor produces value. I can also prove they produce surplus value, as there are service industries, that employ people, and that we rely on, and would consider essential, and yet the companies they work for still make a profit, the profit has to come from somewhere, that somewhere is from the surplus value of the labor, that is stolen from the worker.

            • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I am not going to argue that the most exploited, and therefor the people with the most suplus labor stolen are the workers from the global south, however I do think it is ridiculous to say that no surplus value is created, as if that where the case, no profit could be made. No capitalist is going to hire someone for more than they can exploit them for.

              Again none of what I am saying is ment to imply or say that the amount of exploitation or surplus labor being generated by the worker in the global north even compares to the worker in the global south, I would be foolish and, incorrect to try to say they are anywhere near equivalent. I am also not saying that the Global North worker does not benefit from unequal exchange, because again, that would be a grossly untrue statement.

              Also I have not read much Walter Rodney, would you mind sending me the theory that says this, it genuinely sounds like an interesting read.

                • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  What year is that from? That first paragraph is… needing of a lot more explanation than provided here.

                  All the explanations there for the reason Africa is how it is are obviously true. No one reasonable debates that.

                  The beginning though… he is saying services are overmanned? Gonna need some stats on that one. Civil servants? Too many of them? Dunno about that one either. (Of course yes to cops, but I consider them not the same things).

                  I kind of want to read that book, but it seems pretty surface level flawed to assume waiters and such don’t produce value. The burden to convince me of that is so high because it’s very clear that they DO produce value. Restaurant purchases supplies for $10. A cook cooks the meal. The waiter serves it, etc. and whatever. They charge $50 for it. The waiter gets paid like fucking $3/hr (from the employer- a tip is provided outside the transaction), the cook gets whatever the fuck $20/hr (but produces multiple meals). Cleaning staff get shafted at min wage $7/hr. You can break out spreadsheets and all that shit and you’re gonna find in the end that waiter is being exploited. Saying they aren’t because the exploitation done to provide the food to cook or to build the restaurant or whatever else is being untruthful, imo. You can simultaneously say first world workers are exploited less and in less bad ways. Does anyone disagree with that? But also acknowledge exploitation is happening.

                  I dunno. I get where people are coming from, but you need to be truthful at least. The implication or assertion that service workers aren’t exploited in the US/EU or whatever is silly. It isn’t true, and acting as if it is only further divides an already completely divided world proletarian. I don’t see the logic here unless the end statement is doing the meme of “infinite genocide of the first world.” In which case, ok, shoot me now. But don’t try to convince me a waiter doesn’t produce value.

                  Also some of that is doing the meme of “socialism is when no nice things.” Like whiskey is a luxury that everyone should have the option of having. I guess if the comparison is “people are starving and others drink poison” ok, fair enough, but that worker drinking whiskey isn’t the problem… it’s the capitalists exploiting him directly and the even higher up capitalists exploiting the people across the globe. The more I think about that piece the more I see the repeated memes in it. Perhaps it’s the age of it showing, I don’t know, but goddamn. Saying service workers don’t produce value and no one should drink whiskey is bold.

    • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Not addressing your claim but I think we should avoid using Statista as a direct source. They require you to pay to get access to their full reports and often obfuscate the original sources of their data. They are up there with numbeo on “worst shit recommended by google.” I am not sure if I agree with the claim, but I’m not acquainted enough with that to actually discuss that part properly.

        • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Usually for things like that Statista gets it straight from the Bureau of Labour Statistics, so that could be an easier to audit source. I guess this specific one might be easier to find in the Bureau of Economic Analysis. I’m not very acquainted with economy metrics in particular for the USA, but I guess that and other websites like ourworldindata and even the world bank have some public info on their methodology and sources, even if their conclusions are heavily skewed. Often just going to wikipedia’s “Economics of <Country>” can give you a pretty good initial source. Though it doesn’t really matter that much in this case because like the other user my disagreement is more over whether salespeople generate surplus value rather than the data itself, but I thought it was more important to warn about that specific source there for the future.

          My bad experiences with them mostly come from looking into demographics because they’ll just outright rip off local government statistics institutes and force you to at least make an account just to get the source beyond their pretty graph. It gets weirder with ethnography because they just bludgeon the data until it fits their USA-based frameworks. Shit like calling skin colour in Brazil “ethnicity”.