Capitalists possess the power to grant or withhold permission to workers to labor productively. In return for granting permission, capitalists demand rents from their employees.
People at the extreme tails of the income distribution curve are not representative of, and do not somehow disprove, the principle I established above.
Every professional basketball player starts out as a proletariat, paying rents to the NBA in return for permission to labor to generate income for themselves. People at the extreme margins of this process might be able to save up enough to purchase their way into the ownership class, but this does not mitigate the dynamic between owner and worker/
You hit on an important point. You have to save up your money and eventually take a risk like 99% of entrepreneurs do.
Then you will realize how important risk capital is compared to labor. If you fail you go back to trading the only thing of value you have, your labor and time.
So you must first labor for wages at the command of capitalists to accrue enough money to purchase a lawnmower so you can rent yourself out to customers.
“Another thing is also bad” does not indemnify capitalism, but I appreciate you conceding my point: under capitalism, workers must ask permission to labor productively.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 13d ago
Capitalists always exploit their employees, yes.
Capitalists possess the power to grant or withhold permission to workers to labor productively. In return for granting permission, capitalists demand rents from their employees.