I disagree with all parts of that sentence; certainly all after the comma, but also the "won" depends on the form of capitalism.
Capitalism is the observation that the natural choices in a market can be useful despite greed; that emergent behaviour of greedy actors can be beneficial to all.
Laissez-faire capitalism took that to an extreme, and then the Great Depression happened and the USA looked much like the USSR did when the latter collapsed and then changed the rules without changing the name.
Communism, at least in certain forms, removes private property rights; but it also, when first devised, was a massive increase in personal rights relative to the global norms of the time, recognising things like the equality of women — e.g. that wives shouldn't be treated as the property of husbands, the Communist Manifesto was published about 45 years before New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote — and the need to educate all children.
Some of the things Communism called for became normalised before the Great Depression, and Post-Great-Depression capitalism has seen them become part of the global definition of civilisation.
But, in recent years, capitalism is also shifting away from personal property and ownership into various permanent rental (and other non-ownership) scenarios: subscription software, Uber, Netflix, etc.
You can have free markets and private property without capitalism. You can have capitalism without "free" markets or private property.
Capitalism simply means that the fruits of the labor are not enjoyed by the workers but by those owning the capital.
How is my salary not the fruit of my labor? We can quibble (as many people have over the centuries) which division of profits between labor and capital is "fair", but stating a modern laborer is not getting anything out of their labor is quite false. Not as much as they want, sure, but it's not zero.
The ways of shifting the balance between groups have also been known for centuries as well btw. Organization of labor into unions on the side of labor, various ways of divide-and-conquer on the side of capital.
Workers who make luxury goods are rarely in a position where they could afford to buy them, even if they saved.
Assembly lines have optimised away the satisfaction and achievement of building something. Tightening the same screw for 12 hours is nothing other than an attack on the psyche. The same is happening in construction, skilled trades that people took pride in have been chopped up and optimised to the point that the guy that hangs the drywall often isn't able to skim it.
I take issue with a system that relies on the constant threat of homelessness and hunger purely to the benefit of those who face no such worries. A system that weaponises that threat to force many to.
The thought of technological progress and automation should bring joy, we imagine that it means people needing to work less, improving their quality of life. The reality has been swathes of people left in poverty while the rich get richer.
Consider the impact and ethics of replacing cleaning staff with foreign workers who are themselves training their AI replacement[0]. The idea of automating this is fantastic when considered independently of our economic system but issues quickly arise when put in context.
How does it affect the people currently doing the job, who now have to compete with workers being paid far less than the cost of living in their own country?
Which country's minimum wage laws should apply?
What are the ramifications of having those workers train their own AI replacements?
Who ultimately benefits from all of this? Does the reduced demand for labour lead to a better work life balance for the wider society, or does it simply make a few people ever more wealthy while creating destitution for the majority?
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-05-30/ai-rob...
In many cases the net benefit of working a job is negative, because many places pay below the cost of living. That’s why so many people are running two or three jobs now, in the states.
It's still a problem when people can't earn enough to get buy, just a different problem.
> lots of benefits
should be
> loss of benefits
Capitalism is a system where the people doing the work are not the ones deciding over the fruits of their labor. This decision is instead made by the entity that owns the means of production.
EDIT: WOW what a dishonest way to completely edit your post, and way to escalate this completely. A modern employee is in no way comparable to a slave, especially not the kind of employee likely to visit HN.
What an elitist attitude.
H1B visas are a modern form of forced labor you might be able to find some shred of empathy for, but I kind of doubt it.
The US could do a lot better when it comes to worker rights, don't get me wrong. But comparing a H1B worker to an actual slave has a very misguided vision to what slavery is, and how it continues to impact people around the world today.
The Slave reference is not as inappropriate as you might think. The vast majority of people living in our modern capitalist systems are no more free to chose their employer than a a Slave in ancient societies or a Serf in medieval ones. They are bound by their respective circumstances and have little negotiation power.
I'm happy that you are in a privileged position with more than enough negotiation power. It still doesn't change the fact that you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but you are left to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor by your employer.
I'm curious; why do you think that there's a "capitalist" - that has enough resources to build a factory and buy the machines and the tools - and "laborers" in the first place?
Where did you get this definition?
> Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
>Capitalism simply means that the fruits of the labor are not enjoyed by the workers but by those owning the capital.
Side note: Even in US which is supposedly capitalist, nothing is set in stone that says that the owner shall not share the profits with his laborers. The fact that many corporations do not choose to share their profit that is a different subject.