• 6 Posts
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Joined 15 days ago
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Cake day: May 5th, 2026

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  • Retirees live off deferred compensation from their own labor in the form of savings, pensions, social security, etc. Capitalists live off returns generated by other people’s labor. The distinction isn’t whether you work, it’s where the income comes from.

    And if retirees were actually ‘rich’ by your logic, elderly poverty wouldn’t be rising as benefits get gutted. People are committing petty crime in their 70s to survive. Poverty and crime are intrinsically linked, even against the belief that as age increases, the level of crime committed will decrease. That’s not a rich class, that’s a working class that got squeezed their whole lives and arrived at retirement without enough buffer.

    The actual capitalist class never has that problem because their wealth compounds regardless of policy. Conflating ‘not working’ with ‘owning capital’ is exactly the meritocracy myth my previous comment was describing. It obscures who actually extracts value from whom.

    This video was very informative on the retirement situation in America imo. When in reality, most of that “retirement money” is for people that would never need it given their vast wealth.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRLxcx79OvE


  • godsammitdam@lemmy.ziptome_irl@lemmy.worldMe_irl
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    15 hours ago

    The simplest way to classify “rich” is capitalist class. Those that no longer perform labor. Instead, their wealth passively generates wealth that sustains their lifestyle. There’s no set, defined number. Someone who is “rich” does not need to work and affords luxury.

    Which, this is only facilitated via an exploited working class that are not fairly compensated for the labor that they perform and the profits of said labor is traded back and forth amongst said capitalists. Hence why the rich are a parasite class. Socialism for the wealthy and slavery for the workers.

    Basic fundamentals of capitalism. Meritocracy is the myth that allows it to function similar to how a religious mandate provided legitimacy to a monarch.






  • According to the wealthy, the phrase tax the rich is akin to terrorism. And/or a racial slur.

    Hence why property damage, and even sitting in trees to prevent construction, can have charges of terrorism added, but denying insurance claims that result in death are rewarded.

    Violence is only against the state or wealthy, never by the state or wealthy, according to the state or wealthy.







  • You’re right. And that’s why more of us need to contribute and spread the word of projects to support them.

    Honestly, FOSS is our last bastion against this consumerist hellscape. I’m working on learning to build my own discord-like front end on matrix specifically for gaming. But I’m just one guy. We’ve all gotta pick where we place our effort and support those around us similarly.

    Vaultwarden taking over bitwarden, should they shut doen as open source, I think would be entirely worthy. But it might need more people to either help vaultwarden or maintain it on their own, you’re right.

    To me, seeing and learning about all of these projects gives me hope. All of these people and communities working to build things out of passion and dedication, because they care and want to provide value to others. No profit motive necessary. We just need to be there to support them as we’ve tied capital to our survival currently.