> The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company
Yes, one does. One needs tech skills. Those are capital. (You agree with this since you say tech workers get more valuable with age and experience.) They're just not capital in the form of a large pot of cash that can be used to throw money at problems.
If that's the way to look at it, there is no proletariat in software engineering, just different scale bourgeoisie dealing with each other, and it sort of checks out.
There is still bargaining and possible bargaining power disbalance, but software engineering supply and demand are such that rates only went up for many years.
Skills are not capital in the communist vocabulary. Skills have an unlimited supply that can not be limited.
If you want to mind-bend people into believing skills are capital, then all the workers in the world are bona-fide capitalists, since they are using their skills to get paid.
> Skills are not capital in the communist vocabulary.
I have no interest in the communist vocabulary. Communism killed more than a hundred million people in the 20th century. I would hope we have figured out by now that communism doesn't work.
> all the workers in the world are bona-fide capitalists, since they are using their skills to get paid.
In the sense that most of their pay is return on capital, not "labor", yes, that is exactly right.
However, the extent to which workers realize this, and act accordingly, in order to maximize the return on the capital they own (their skills), varies extremely widely.
> Communism killed more than a hundred million people in the 20th century
Funny how that keeps being thrown out but nobody really has done a full accounting for the deaths due to rapacious capitalism. I've seen figures of 100 million to 150 million from two World Wars, colonial wars, anti-communist campaigns, repressions and mass killings, ethnic conflicts, and victims of famines or malnutrition. Some accounting says 20 million people die every year due to the effects of capitalism, such as starvation, lack of access to clean water, lack of access to shelter, lack of access to medicine, and unchecked disease. Remember when the pandemic wasn't over and businesses said everyone had to go back to work or the economy would break? Credible counts say there are 16 million empty homes in the US[1] and around half a million unhoused [2].
Good to hear, but it's still a huge stretch to call skills capital - what does any of us gain by redefining words in free conversation?
When arguing for or against communism (as is the theme of the article and thread) we need at least to have some common understanding of what a word means. "Capital" is generally understood as exclusive ownership.
> In the sense that most of their pay is return on capital, not "labor"
No, most workers earn their pay from labour. Applying your skills is still labour.
I think the pandemic was a happening that made more people than ever realize they can and should change their life course to better suit their needs. So many people are changing careers to get a better return on their skills and effort. There are whole industries now that are starting to have a hard time getting enough labour, because they can't find anybody willing to be exploited even short time. And sometimes that's not deliberately by the individual business owner, some sectors are just not lucrative enough to continue - unless they change profoundly.
> "Capital" is generally understood as exclusive ownership.
Sure, and you exclusively own your skills, so they meet this definition.
> Applying your skills is still labour.
The time you spend applying them is labor, yes.
The knowledge on your part of how to apply them to produce much more value in that time than a unskilled worker could produce, is capital. And the fact that you can get paid much more than an unskilled worker if you have that knowledge, and use it to be more productive, is return on capital.
> many people are changing careers to get a better return on their skills and effort.
I.e., return on their capital. Yes, exactly! They are realizing that the capital they own is worth more than they were being paid before, so they are changing careers to increase their return. Try doing that as an unskilled worker and see how far you get.
> Sure, and you exclusively own your skills, so they meet this definition.
You can never exclusively own skills. If somebody else achieves some skill or knowledge that I have, I cannot use the force of the government to stop him from having those. A capitalist can and will use the force of the government to stop others from using the things he has laid claim to: Land, natural resources, equipment. A capitalist can create capital out of thin air by making money, and use the force of the government to stop others from making money.
That's the difference that matters.
> Try doing that as an unskilled worker and see how far you get.
Right now I think it is mainly unskilled workers who are changing sectors, as they are the ones who can benefit most from it. If your job cannot get worse, there is no reason not to change. As for skilled workers, they have already climbed a few steps on the ladder.
> If somebody else achieves some skill or knowledge that I have, I cannot use the force of the government to stop him from having those.
That is true, but it's irrelevant here. When you use your skills to increase your productivity, it's your productivity that gets increased, not someone else's, even if they have similar skills. That is the sense of exclusive ownership that is relevant to this discussion.
> A capitalist can and will use the force of the government to stop others from using the things he has laid claim to
So can a non-capitalist. Anyone who is willing to use the government as a tool to further their own ends can. That is a much broader set of people than "capitalists".
> A capitalist can create capital out of thin air by making money
No, that's not what creates capital out of thin air. What creates capital out of thin air is creating something that increases productivity. Just "making money" does not do that. Money can of course help with creating something that increases productivity, but it can't be done just by making (or spending) money.
> and use the force of the government to stop others from making money.
Again, this is not a problem of capitalism, it's a problem of corruption: people using the government as a tool to further their own ends.
> Right now I think it is mainly unskilled workers who are changing sectors, as they are the ones who can benefit most from it.
I don't think this is true. Skilled workers are far more likely to be underpaid as compared to the productivity they are capable of.
> As for skilled workers, they have already climbed a few steps on the ladder.
I don't think this is true either. Skilled workers very often are not able to climb on the ladder, because their skills are not being recognized or compensated properly as compared to other skills that ladder climbers have, like schmoozing and taking credit for other people's work. And once they recognize this, they are far more likely to be both willing to and capable of finding a better job that compensates them better for the skills they have.
The logic that attributes those deaths to "capitalism" is lot more sketchy than the obvious fact that the deaths I attributed to communism were directly due to the actions of governments who explicitly declared themselves to be communists and who directly took the actions that resulted in the deaths with the explicit purpose of advancing communism. "Capitalism" isn't even a single philosophy, let alone one with an explicit manifesto that all the governments who killed all those people in the name of communism explicitly said they were following.
The wars, purging campaigns, African slave trade and colonial wars were all made by governments that were (and declared themselves) capitalists and that did actions with the explicit purpose of advancing profits for their dominant classes. Several ethnic conflicts also were provoked by them. I do not think that we have so much difference here.
The problem is that it is normalized in western ideology to consider any death in communist countries as death by communism and any death in capitalist countries as explained by several other factors that do not relate with capitalism.
> "Capitalism" isn't even a single philosophy,
But I can say the same for communism. Or any other concept: there always will be differences in interpretations. And capitalists do not need an explicit manifesto because they are already the hegemonic power. They already succeeded in their past revolutions to give power to the bourgeoisie. The ideals for what they fought in the past are already normalized in the society.
Communism and capitalism are allies, and frankly two sides of the same coin. Marx repeatedly makes it clear in his communistic manifesto, that a society first needs to become capitalist in order to break down traditions and family, before it is ready for a communist revolution. He states that communists should side with capitalists against traditional society, and then get rid off the capitalists after that. Smart capitalist politicians switch coats and become loyal party functionaries when that happens, corporate leaders keep their nice jobs and report to the party instead of to the shareholders. Bankers remain untouchable in both systems.
Just the fact that people think the world is left/right, socialist/capitalist proves that these two allied ideologies have been extremely successful in the last century.
I suspect the point was more that those who write articles like this one are borrowing heavily from communist ideas. If you aren't a communist, there's a good chance that you don't think that skills are capital and the rebuttal was along those lines.
> If you aren't a communist, there's a good chance that you don't think that skills are capital
The post I responded to (GGP of this one) said "skills are not capital in the communist vocabulary". Did you mean that if you are a communist, there's a good chance you don't think that skills are capital?
No. My limited experience with the hard left at university is that those who call themselves communists today typically mean, "I'm against bad things like exploitation, I am for the weak against the strong, I am on the side of good. There are simple solutions to our problems." This can be summed up in Marx's axiomatic statement, "to each as he needs; from each as he can."
It would have likely have been more accurate to say, "in the language of Marx skills are not capital." It would probably be more accurate for my comment to have been, "if you don't have the propensity to call yourself a communist you probably don't worry about whether or not skills are capital." This is because for me the common feature amongst communists (in a free society) is their belief in simple solutions, and unwillingness to engage with their unintended side effects.
> Communism killed more than a hundred million people in the 20th century.
Well, capitalism also killed hundred million people in the same century following the same logic... Modern capitalism and institutions also came from bloody revolutions, created a world order with colonialism in XIX century, produced wars to dispute such colonies and global power in XX century and did a lot of bloodshed also in XX century because it was afraid of losing power to socialism. If we use this logic, we cannot discuss any philosophy or social theory, probably all them produced several deaths.
Yes, they are. The people who own and run Google and Facebook and Amazon didn't magically get "capital" from nowhere. They used their skills, and turned those skills into huge amounts of money. In other words, they understood what capital they owned, and acted to maximize their return on that capital.
If you insist on refusing to view your own skills as capital, you're just giving up the chance to maximize (or at least improve) your return on that capital.
I get what you're saying, you're using the 'human capital' social science-y definition.
I don't really get why you're using that definition, though. Was the person you responded to not clear as to what he meant by capital, so you misunderstood and thought it was human capital? Or did you just want to derail into a semantic discussion?
Skills are the ability to meet spec quicker than someone who has to learn as they go. Sounds like potential energy to me. Since capital acts like potential energy, it follows that skills are capital.
If I invest $100 dollars in very safe investments today, what will it be worth in 50 years? Now, invest in your skills for 50 years, what's that going to be worth?
Yes, one does. One needs tech skills. Those are capital. (You agree with this since you say tech workers get more valuable with age and experience.) They're just not capital in the form of a large pot of cash that can be used to throw money at problems.