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submitted 1 year ago by Urist@lemmy.ml to c/socialism@lemmy.ml

The bourgeoisie in my country have pushed the euphemism of "working capital" as something that needs protection from wealth tax. By inseparably connecting capital with jobs, they push the narrative that you cannot tax wealth without removing jobs and consequently hurting the working class. They paid for research groups to prove this connection, but what their research actually showed was that wealth tax creates jobs due to incentivizing keeping profits within the companies they own. The audacity to think owning the means of production is a privilege they should enjoy special treatment to keep is beyond me, but even so, this type of rhetoric keeps gaining ground.

What is the propaganda they are pushing on you, and how can socialist policies prevail if reason loses to made up words changing the narrative?

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[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 1 year ago

The entire managing class peddles euphemisms for a living, and has done so for generations.

My favorite remains “Human Resources”.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago
[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Not quite sure I understand the connotations of this one fully. Could you explain it a little for me?

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

I see the common reference to working people as "consumers" as emphasizing their role as passive recipients of goods and services who serve primarily to put money into the capitalist system. To call people consumers de-emphasizes and obscures these same people's role as the producers of value, suggesting that value is produced elsewhere.

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Got to love how they are abusing the power asymmetry and still make it out to be that the system is implemented to help us.

[-] LoveSausage@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

The Swedish word for employer used to be arbetsköpare , ie work buyer

Today they rebranded it to arbetsgivare , or work giver. Fucking disgusting. And no one even think about it. Pointing it out is sometime an aha moment for some. Linguistics is a fuckin warzone.

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

On our side of the border "arbeidsgjevar" has been in use as far as I remember. I like "arbeidskjøpar" better too and will use it exclusively from now on. Thanks :)

[-] LoveSausage@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Actually seems I had wrong on the history here , both have been used from the start.

[-] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

"Work giver" is fucking rich. For most of my life, porky has been limiting jobs and just outright refusing to hire anyone leaving so many people in a generation locked out of living all together because porky got so arbitrarily picky one day and never stopped.

[-] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

The Finnish word also translates to ”work giver”, and it's probably a direct borrowing from Swedish.

Not as bad as the Finnish word for landlord translating to ”rent giver”, though.

[-] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Human" as a deceptive descriptor for dehumanizing concepts, practices, or framing of people. "Human resources" is the most common version of that but it doesn't stop there. When some rich asshole talks about "human" this and "human" that or how they want "fellow humans" to "be better humans" or whatever it's pretty much always a thin creepy mask over some surveillance state shit or social manipulation.

Reddit had that "remember the human" slogan while normalizing and making excuses for all sorts of cryptofascist shit on that site, including thinly-veiled targeted harassment campaigns trying to drive vulnerable people into self-harm, and all of that was declared to be "not against the rules" and therefore permissible.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

That's an excellent question and there are so many. The most recent and prevalent has to be "la valeur travail", the work value or the work virtue I guess are closest -but it really is untranslatable because it is deliberately so fuzzy. The bourgeoisie is trying hard to turn it into a sort of national and personal pride, to sugarcoat labor until people are begging to be let in on it.

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I think there is always something ominous about talking of grand qualities the populace should embody. Trying to spin wanting better work conditions and fair compensation to some kind of ungrateful immoral thing is equally bad.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Exactly, it is delegitimizing so people forget their worth

[-] nicolasfields@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Here in Mexico is very common for employers to ask us to "ponernos la camiseta" (put on the team jersey). I believe this has football connotations, but I thinks it means the same as taking one for the team. It is mostly used when the employer, manager, sr manager, etc. requests us to do more than we are paid for, e.g. to work longer hours, work on weekends, take on two people jobs, etc.

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Always a team/family until you ask for a raise instead of them taking out extra profit.

"Grindset"

Yeah you're living life up with your eighty hour week at two minimum wage jobs bro

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Imagine grinding anything other than the bones of billionaires.

[-] BennyHill500@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

well quiet quitting is the new hotness.

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

If they want me to perform above monkey level, they need to provide more than peanuts.

[-] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Middle class" as a way to pretend that workers, petit bourgeoisie, managers and small capitalists are one homogenous group.

[-] Japan_50@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

What do you mean by petite bourgeoisie and small capitalist? Thanks :)

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

From Wikipedia:

Although members of the petite bourgeoisie can buy the labor of others, they typically work alongside their employees, unlike the haute bourgeoisie.

Essentially they are small business owners who employ a few people. Although an owner of a small shop with a few employees does not exclusively sell their labor power for survival, they also do not really own the means of production. As a class they usually identify with the higher bourgeoisie class, but they are not playing on the same level field.

[-] Japan_50@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Very interesting, thank you :)

[-] kureta@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I hate the word "content" and the title "content creator". It emphasizes the platform/publisher as the actual product and implies anything on it is just interchangeable, vague filling. Is Steven King a content creator for Simon & Schuste?

How about "day job"? Gotta have one or you'll starve on the street, can't do anything unproductive with your day!

[-] Urist@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Productivity and human worth is obviously dependent on someone being able to extract surplus value in form of a "day job". /s

this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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