• AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Why does reducing production costs reduce profits?

    If everyone in a company are equal owners, then how is that not collective ownership?

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Excellent question. Where do you believe prices come from? We can work from there.

      As for individually owned companies of single people, that’s just a bunch of sole proprietorships. I mean the whole of society should own the whole of Capital.

      • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Prices come from what people are willing to pay. Sure, in a distant future where there are super cheap and available robots to make everything with no human labor, everything is free. In the meantime, due to current ownership differences, if you are selling something and your cost of production decreases, but your prices stay the same, then your profits increase.

        Who do you imagine choosing what society wants? As of now, we are at a technological wall when it comes to provably fair voting systems. Nobody has invented one yet. Even something as simple as presidential elections are just trust based. Even if we had a hypothetical way for us to all vote on how all resources are used, people simply don’t have the time or interest to constantly be voting on every decision of resources.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Prices come from supply, demand, and value. Prices will naturally fall to Cost of Production where there is Competition. I suggest reading Wage Labor and Capital if you want a thorough explanation, prices don’t materialize out of mid-air.

          Society can choose what society wants. You can elect managers and government functions to allocate, manage, and distribute production.

          • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Those managers you are referring to are the current system. The way we elect who has the power is with our money. If you want Samsung to make choices about resources, you buy Samsung devices or stock. This is the fairest voting system we’ve managed to create.

            Thanks for the link. I agree with your assessment of where prices come from. Eventually, robots will drive the costs down to nothing.

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              That is not how our current system works, because you assume Samsung has no outsized agency and that people have a plethora of chocies.

              If you have any questions about WLaC, I can answer for you.

              • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                There may not be a plethora of really good tech companies to choose from, but we also have the choice to not vote for any of them. Fact of the matter is that people selfishly prefer to support these companies in their mission to get better and better than the competition, making their be fewer and fewer really good tech companies to choose from.

                What is WLaC?

                • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  5 months ago

                  Monopolization is not due to consumers, who must participate in the system, it is due to Capitalists accumulating.

                  It’s an abbreviation of Wage Labor and Capital.