Buying a hamburger, you are buying all the labor used to produce the feed for the cow, all the labor used to abuse the cow, all the labor used to kill the cow, all the labor used to ship the carcass, all the labor to process the carcass, all the labor to cook the carcass on-demand and serve it to you.
Buying a stock or any other form of fictitious capital, the only thing being ‘consumed’ is whatever fractional share of the computer chip being transacted on that is expended or depreciated during the transaction.
While both cost money, only the former expends labor-time. The point @shipwreck@hexbear.net is making is that most ultra-wealthy people’s consumption is in this second non-labor-consuming category. Although I wonder if that is really an accurate assessment.
That stock is bought with money which is the congealing of past labour from first world workers. First world workers are working harder to create unused stores of value as well as used value in the form of excess consumption.
No labor ever was embedded into the stock, and it’s freely exchanged without ever being consumed. It’s not an unused store of value because it exists in parallel to the capital it represents (which is amplified by speculation), but independent, which means the actual capital is then expended and generates profit separately. The value is still being generated and consumed in the commodity, the share just allows for capitalists to finance the production of said commodities in a more convenient way, and the price of share tracks the overall growth of the economy on average so no additional value is ever being created.
The stocks need a fractional reserve of commodities or labor to operate. When you have a stock whose price has become decoupled from labor input, we call that a bubble.
Buying a hamburger, you are buying all the labor used to produce the feed for the cow, all the labor used to abuse the cow, all the labor used to kill the cow, all the labor used to ship the carcass, all the labor to process the carcass, all the labor to cook the carcass on-demand and serve it to you.
Buying a stock or any other form of fictitious capital, the only thing being ‘consumed’ is whatever fractional share of the computer chip being transacted on that is expended or depreciated during the transaction.
While both cost money, only the former expends labor-time. The point @shipwreck@hexbear.net is making is that most ultra-wealthy people’s consumption is in this second non-labor-consuming category. Although I wonder if that is really an accurate assessment.
That stock is bought with money which is the congealing of past labour from first world workers. First world workers are working harder to create unused stores of value as well as used value in the form of excess consumption.
No labor ever was embedded into the stock, and it’s freely exchanged without ever being consumed. It’s not an unused store of value because it exists in parallel to the capital it represents (which is amplified by speculation), but independent, which means the actual capital is then expended and generates profit separately. The value is still being generated and consumed in the commodity, the share just allows for capitalists to finance the production of said commodities in a more convenient way, and the price of share tracks the overall growth of the economy on average so no additional value is ever being created.
The stocks need a fractional reserve of commodities or labor to operate. When you have a stock whose price has become decoupled from labor input, we call that a bubble.