Dissecting John Stossel's Anti-Communist Lies

[Red Front]

Capitalists are the essential ingredients

Without them there are no jobs for workers to fill

Mac fails to realize that it's the workers, who produce everything not capitalist parasites, who live off of them. The working class can form worker-cooperatives like these:

​

So we don't need capitalist leeches. They're unnecessary middlemen.

 

[LibertyKid]

Productive labor is labor that produces surplus value, which is the value of a product in excess of the cost of labor and materials required to produce it. This surplus value is appropriated by capitalists as profit. In this context, productive laborers are those who are directly involved in the production process and whose labor can be exploited to generate profit for the capitalist.

In your "Cost of Materials', does this include 'fixed costs', operating expenses, R&D, customer support, warranties, etc.,
Cost of labor is much more than just the wage paid to the laborer as well.

Profits have to be made. Some profits have to be invested back into the organization. I would imagine in your scenario, investors might be needed for up from capital that need returns paid. Or is investments no longer a thing in your ideology?

Are employees paid the same across the board regardless of experience, skills, educations, and production value?

How would one, with an idea, invention, or concept that brings value to the society start this business while reaping the benefits of their own idea and personal investment?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The USSR became the second largest economy in the world by 1970, despite all of the wars it had to fight to survive in its short life.

Doubtful.
Commies lie about everything.
At every level of government, they massively over reported their actual output.

You deny that, but most of scholarship agrees with those figures.

The same scholarship that thought East Germany had a higher GDP per capita than West Germany. LOL!

It wasn't "subsidies", because the assets of the USSR were comprised of the productive capacity and output of the Soviet worker.

Right. 100% government owned, no need for profits, and they were still crushed by the
messy, chaotic, non-centrally planned US economy.

In view of the circumstances the USSR's accomplishments were impressive

Enslaving half the European continent while crushing your own people
was very impressive. And then they were defeated by blue jeans, SDI and MTV.

 

[LibertyKid]

The "free loaders" are the capitalists who live off of other people's labor.

This type of rhetoric and hyperbole doesn't help you. Not all capitalists are free loaders in your sense. I myself have never once worked for a poor man. And the individual I work for now has built an excellent company. I am paid quite well for the services/labor I provide. I care not what he has and I don't have. He took a chance on a business and built one.

Point, and this goes for most people on this board, broad brushes leave out the details and context quite a bit.

 

[Mac-7]

Mac fails to realize that it's the workers, who produce everything not capitalist parasites, who live off of them. The working class can form worker-cooperatives like these:

​

So we don't need capitalist leeches. They're unnecessary middlemen.

Capitalism needs workers

but workers need capitalists to provide the jobs for workers to do

If you notice there are people all over the world willing to be workers for capitalists

 

[Mac-7]

Mac fails to realize that it's the workers, who produce everything not capitalist parasites, who live off of them. The working class can form worker-cooperatives like these:

​

So we don't need capitalist leeches. They're unnecessary middlemen.

If worker owned businesses are so wonderful you expect there to be more of them

But all of them are me-too enterprises where capitalism has already blazed the trail of innovation

 

[Red Front]

In your "Cost of Materials', does this include 'fixed costs', operating expenses, R&D, customer support, warranties, etc.,
Cost of labor is much more than just the wage paid to the laborer as well.

Profits have to be made. Some profits have to be invested back into the organization. I would imagine in your scenario, investors might be needed for up from capital that need returns paid. Or is investments no longer a thing in your ideology?

Are employees paid the same across the board regardless of experience, skills, educations, and production value?

How would one, with an idea, invention, or concept that brings value to the society start this business while reaping the benefits of their own idea and personal investment?

Capitalists also have access to this:

RANK	PARENT	SUBSIDY VALUE.	NUMBER OF AWARDS
1	Boeing	$15,136,286,466	946
2	Intel	$8,371,896,017	133
3	Ford Motor	$7,761,916,195	815
4	General Motors	$7,594,509,872	990
5	Micron Technology	$6,785,681,915	18
6	Alcoa	$5,798,600,778	160
7	X-Energy LLC	$5,661,511,202	17
8	General Atomics	$5,465,529,295	438
9	Cheniere Energy	$5,431,565,870	41
10	Amazon.com	$5,191,773,349	333
11	Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company)	$4,827,036,483	76
12	Sempra Energy	$3,835,098,001	53
13	Southern Company	$3,783,360,569	130
14	NRG Energy	$3,586,516,301	268
15	Venture Global LNG	$3,285,883,566	6
16	NextEra Energy	$3,003,823,754	117
17	Tesla Inc.	$2,836,366,619	116
18	Sasol	$2,836,049,845	72
19	Stellantis	$2,800,442,867	230
20	Volkswagen	$2,740,983,143	222
21	General Electric	$2,529,193,561	1,668
22	Nucor	$2,514,358,340	158
23	Walt Disney	$2,421,304,588	248
24	Brookfield Asset Management	$2,339,430,278	304
25	Toyota	$2,303,826,689	199
26	Iberdrola	$2,285,768,043	112
27	Summit Power	$2,240,568,236	8
28	Shell PLC	$2,184,517,527	141
29	Oracle	$2,167,890,528	88
30	Mubadala Investment Company	$2,124,035,097	62
31	Nike	$2,104,917,829	138
32	Hyundai Motor	$2,072,957,848	27
33	SCS Energy	$1,927,236,683	10
34	Archer Daniels Midland	$1,920,305,787	1,099
35	Exxon Mobil	$1,891,153,489	207
36	NuScale Power	$1,880,780,589	34
37	Berkshire Hathaway	$1,859,775,471	1,158
38	Nissan	$1,842,814,165	87
39	Alphabet Inc.	$1,832,565,977	116
40	Paramount Global	$1,751,801,882	317
41	Apple Inc.	$1,750,043,420	36
42	Comcast	$1,722,467,426	376
43	JPMorgan Chase	$1,663,890,873	1,129
44	Cleveland-Cliffs	$1,654,401,303	137
45	Energy Transfer	$1,634,074,422	106
46	Samsung	$1,586,310,806	70
47	PG&E Corp.	$1,568,027,901	27
48	IBM Corp.	$1,562,738,626	387
49	SkyWest	$1,550,492,958	683
50	Rivian Automotive Inc.	$1,532,854,012	3
51	OGE Energy	$1,427,570,182	15
52	Panasonic	$1,385,969,341	61
53	Raytheon Technologies	$1,322,899,721	952
54	Duke Energy	$1,318,084,164	69
55	Lockheed Martin	$1,302,847,415	337
56	Corning Inc.	$1,272,628,059	395
57	Northrop Grumman	$1,266,804,354	266
58	Vingroup	$1,254,000,000	1
59	Continental AG	$1,244,875,478	111
60	Vornado Realty Trust	$1,243,857,336	32
61	Microsoft	$1,153,690,869	103
62	Jefferies Financial Group	$1,120,662,497	18
63	Meta Platforms Inc.	$1,105,098,844	53
64	Dow Inc.	$1,091,152,544	686
65	Abengoa	$1,082,660,583	63
66	SK Holdings	$1,081,550,283	9
67	LG	$1,055,690,737	103
68	Valero Energy	$1,054,520,860	199
69	Exelon	$1,040,601,369	98
70	AES Corp.	$1,010,194,632	132
71	CF Industries	$982,271,715	129
72	Pyramid Companies	$966,050,097	91
73	EDF-Electricite de France	$940,247,983	65
74	Texas Instruments	$940,071,436	60
75	Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.	$900,000,000	1
76	Air Products & Chemicals	$897,651,105	248
77	Delta Air Lines	$876,412,623	14
78	Centene	$875,064,432	54
79	Bayer	$849,175,809	202
80	Honda	$846,026,154	91
81	Enterprise Products Partners	$826,988,371	83
82	Shin-Etsu Chemical	$826,062,285	104
83	SunEdison	$812,753,318	119
84	Apollo Global Management	$804,565,970	471
85	Goldman Sachs	$801,573,386	255
86	E.ON	$782,609,880	38
87	Wolfspeed Inc.	$773,681,732	88
88	Triple Five Worldwide	$748,000,000	4
89	EDP-Energias de Portugal	$733,674,868	14
90	Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.	$725,632,525	206
91	Gotion	$715,000,000	1
92	American Electric Power	$699,673,821	92
93	Bank of America	$698,760,073	919
94	Johnson Controls	$691,180,720	144
95	Related Companies	$687,200,000	1
96	Caithness Energy	$670,379,738	28
97	Hyannis Air Service Inc.	$667,928,778	296
98	Koch Industries	$662,557,530	486
99	Sagamore Development	$660,000,000	1

Governments often support companies in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly.

1. Subsidies
2. Contracts
3. Loans and Guarantees
4. Tax Breaks/Incentives
5. Grants
6. Regulatory Support
7. Infrastructure Development
8. Research and Development
9. Training and Workforce Development
10. Protectionist Measures

Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one. All productive enterprises should be owned collectively by the people who work them. All of the leadership within a worker-cooperative, should be elected or appointed by elected leadership, hence accountable to everyone, from the elected leadership to the workers under their management.

Workers produce everything in this world, and capitalists in our opinion, are unnecessary middlemen, who exploit workers for surplus value. Capitalist production is for profit, not to meet anyone's needs. The sooner we transition to a non-profit, high-tech, marketless, worker-run system of production, the better. It's amazing, how people who supposedly are such lovers of freedom, can be so oblivious, if not indifferent to the fact that under capitalism, people spend much of their waking hours in an absolute dictatorship. You're told what to do, when to do it, and if you don't like the conditions under which you are doing what you're doing, then there's the door. No one has much of a say in how the workplace is run.

People are commodified in a labor market, and objectified as part of the means of production. Your purpose is to produce profits for your employer, who Adam Smith, the father of industrial capitalism, called "masters" in his book the "Wealth Of Nations". In the 19th century, and into the early 20th century, waged labor was considered not that much better than slavery or serfdom. It was sometimes referred to as "wage-slavery". Employees are wage-slaves, at the mercy of their capitalist masters.

 

[LibertyKid]

Capitalists also have access to this:

RANK	PARENT	SUBSIDY VALUE.	NUMBER OF AWARDS
1	Boeing	$15,136,286,466	946
2	Intel	$8,371,896,017	133
3	Ford Motor	$7,761,916,195	815
4	General Motors	$7,594,509,872	990
5	Micron Technology	$6,785,681,915	18
6	Alcoa	$5,798,600,778	160
7	X-Energy LLC	$5,661,511,202	17
8	General Atomics	$5,465,529,295	438
9	Cheniere Energy	$5,431,565,870	41
10	Amazon.com	$5,191,773,349	333
11	Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company)	$4,827,036,483	76
12	Sempra Energy	$3,835,098,001	53
13	Southern Company	$3,783,360,569	130
14	NRG Energy	$3,586,516,301	268
15	Venture Global LNG	$3,285,883,566	6
16	NextEra Energy	$3,003,823,754	117
17	Tesla Inc.	$2,836,366,619	116
18	Sasol	$2,836,049,845	72
19	Stellantis	$2,800,442,867	230
20	Volkswagen	$2,740,983,143	222
21	General Electric	$2,529,193,561	1,668
22	Nucor	$2,514,358,340	158
23	Walt Disney	$2,421,304,588	248
24	Brookfield Asset Management	$2,339,430,278	304
25	Toyota	$2,303,826,689	199
26	Iberdrola	$2,285,768,043	112
27	Summit Power	$2,240,568,236	8
28	Shell PLC	$2,184,517,527	141
29	Oracle	$2,167,890,528	88
30	Mubadala Investment Company	$2,124,035,097	62
31	Nike	$2,104,917,829	138
32	Hyundai Motor	$2,072,957,848	27
33	SCS Energy	$1,927,236,683	10
34	Archer Daniels Midland	$1,920,305,787	1,099
35	Exxon Mobil	$1,891,153,489	207
36	NuScale Power	$1,880,780,589	34
37	Berkshire Hathaway	$1,859,775,471	1,158
38	Nissan	$1,842,814,165	87
39	Alphabet Inc.	$1,832,565,977	116
40	Paramount Global	$1,751,801,882	317
41	Apple Inc.	$1,750,043,420	36
42	Comcast	$1,722,467,426	376
43	JPMorgan Chase	$1,663,890,873	1,129
44	Cleveland-Cliffs	$1,654,401,303	137
45	Energy Transfer	$1,634,074,422	106
46	Samsung	$1,586,310,806	70
47	PG&E Corp.	$1,568,027,901	27
48	IBM Corp.	$1,562,738,626	387
49	SkyWest	$1,550,492,958	683
50	Rivian Automotive Inc.	$1,532,854,012	3
51	OGE Energy	$1,427,570,182	15
52	Panasonic	$1,385,969,341	61
53	Raytheon Technologies	$1,322,899,721	952
54	Duke Energy	$1,318,084,164	69
55	Lockheed Martin	$1,302,847,415	337
56	Corning Inc.	$1,272,628,059	395
57	Northrop Grumman	$1,266,804,354	266
58	Vingroup	$1,254,000,000	1
59	Continental AG	$1,244,875,478	111
60	Vornado Realty Trust	$1,243,857,336	32
61	Microsoft	$1,153,690,869	103
62	Jefferies Financial Group	$1,120,662,497	18
63	Meta Platforms Inc.	$1,105,098,844	53
64	Dow Inc.	$1,091,152,544	686
65	Abengoa	$1,082,660,583	63
66	SK Holdings	$1,081,550,283	9
67	LG	$1,055,690,737	103
68	Valero Energy	$1,054,520,860	199
69	Exelon	$1,040,601,369	98
70	AES Corp.	$1,010,194,632	132
71	CF Industries	$982,271,715	129
72	Pyramid Companies	$966,050,097	91
73	EDF-Electricite de France	$940,247,983	65
74	Texas Instruments	$940,071,436	60
75	Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.	$900,000,000	1
76	Air Products & Chemicals	$897,651,105	248
77	Delta Air Lines	$876,412,623	14
78	Centene	$875,064,432	54
79	Bayer	$849,175,809	202
80	Honda	$846,026,154	91
81	Enterprise Products Partners	$826,988,371	83
82	Shin-Etsu Chemical	$826,062,285	104
83	SunEdison	$812,753,318	119
84	Apollo Global Management	$804,565,970	471
85	Goldman Sachs	$801,573,386	255
86	E.ON	$782,609,880	38
87	Wolfspeed Inc.	$773,681,732	88
88	Triple Five Worldwide	$748,000,000	4
89	EDP-Energias de Portugal	$733,674,868	14
90	Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.	$725,632,525	206
91	Gotion	$715,000,000	1
92	American Electric Power	$699,673,821	92
93	Bank of America	$698,760,073	919
94	Johnson Controls	$691,180,720	144
95	Related Companies	$687,200,000	1
96	Caithness Energy	$670,379,738	28
97	Hyannis Air Service Inc.	$667,928,778	296
98	Koch Industries	$662,557,530	486
99	Sagamore Development	$660,000,000	1

Governments often support companies in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly.

1. Subsidies
2. Contracts
3. Loans and Guarantees
4. Tax Breaks/Incentives
5. Grants
6. Regulatory Support
7. Infrastructure Development
8. Research and Development
9. Training and Workforce Development
10. Protectionist Measures

Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one. All productive enterprises should be owned collectively by the people who work them. All of the leadership within a worker-cooperative, should be elected or appointed by elected leadership, hence accountable to everyone, from the elected leadership to the workers under their management.

Workers produce everything in this world, and capitalists in our opinion, are unnecessary middlemen, who exploit workers for surplus value. Capitalist production is for profit, not to meet anyone's needs. The sooner we transition to a non-profit, high-tech, marketless, worker-run system of production, the better. It's amazing, how people who supposedly are such lovers of freedom, can be so oblivious, if not indifferent to the fact that under capitalism, people spend much of their waking hours in an absolute dictatorship. You're told what to do, when to do it, and if you don't like the conditions under which you are doing what you're doing, then there's the door. No one has much of a say in how the workplace is run.

People are commodified in a labor market, and objectified as part of the means of production. Your purpose is to produce profits for your employer, who Adam Smith, the father of industrial capitalism, called "masters" in his book the "Wealth Of Nations". In the 19th century, and into the early 20th century, waged labor was considered not that much better than slavery or serfdom. It was sometimes referred to as "wage-slavery". Employees are wage-slaves, at the mercy of their capitalist masters.

You didn't answer my questions...

 

[Red Front]

Capitalism needs workers

but workers need capitalists to provide the jobs for workers to do

If you notice there are people all over the world willing to be workers for capitalists

You ignored the fact that workers can form worker cooperatives, yet capitalists need wage-labor to have a marketplace. Without workers getting paid wages, there are no paying customers. Paying consumers pay for what they consume with their wages. Those same workers can own the means of production or productive enterprise, without a capitalist parasite. Currently the system is rigged against the funding of worker-cooperatives. Banks won't give you a loan and the SBA (Small Business Administration), won't help you start a worker-owned, democratically run cooperative.

The totalitarian power dynamic that exists today, between capitalist employers and their employees can be eliminated, even within capitalism. However, like a broken record I will continue emphasizing the point. When advanced automation replaced a significant % of waged labor, that's the end of capitalism. Without wages, there's no market, hence no capitalism, Technology inevitably leads to a non-profit system of mass production, Another name for that is socialism. Socialism is the path or process that leads to high-communism in the future.

Humanity began with primitive communism (low-tech):

​

And humanity ends with high communism (high-tech):

 

[Red Front]

You didn't answer my questions...

Limit your question to one or two sentences.

 

[Mac-7]

You ignored the fact that workers can form worker cooperatives, yet capitalists need wage-labor to have a marketplace. Without workers getting paid wages, there are no paying customers. Paying consumers pay for what they consume with their wages. Those same workers can own the means of production or productive enterprise, without a capitalist parasite. Currently the system is rigged against the funding of worker-cooperatives. Banks won't give you a loan and the SBA (Small Business Administration), won't help you start a worker-owned, democratically run cooperative.

The totalitarian power dynamic that exists today, between capitalist employers and their employees can be eliminated, even within capitalism. However, like a broken record I will continue emphasizing the point. When advanced automation replaced a significant % of waged labor, that's the end of capitalism. Without wages, there's no market, hence no capitalism, Technology inevitably leads to a non-profit system of mass production, Another name for that is socialism. Socialism is the path or process that leads to high-communism in the future.

Humanity began with primitive communism (low-tech):

View attachment 818924

View attachment 818925

View attachment 818926

View attachment 818928​

And humanity ends with high communism (high-tech):

View attachment 818929

View attachment 818930

View attachment 818932


View attachment 818933


View attachment 818934

View attachment 818935

View attachment 818936


View attachment 818937​

Workers can create companies providing goods or services after an entrepreneur shows them the way

Worker owned companies have s limited place in the economy

Thats one reason why there are so few of them

 

[Red Front]

Doubtful.
Commies lie about everything.
At every level of government, they massively over reported their actual output.

You deny that, but most of scholarship agrees with those figures.

The same scholarship that thought East Germany had a higher GDP per capita than West Germany. LOL!

It wasn't "subsidies", because the assets of the USSR were comprised of the productive capacity and output of the Soviet worker.

Right. 100% government owned, no need for profits, and they were still crushed by the
messy, chaotic, non-centrally planned US economy.

In view of the circumstances the USSR's accomplishments were impressive

Enslaving half the European continent while crushing your own people
was very impressive. And then they were defeated by blue jeans, SDI and MTV.

Ignore reality and create your own, is Todd's way of critiquing the Soviet experiment and socialism in general.

The Soviet Union's status as the second-largest economy in the last few decades of its existence, is well-documented. Here are some references and details about sources that make mention of the Soviet GDP being the second largest:

1. World Bank & International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports: Both of these institutions periodically release data on the world economies. Although their online archives may not go back to the height of the Soviet Union, their historical publications would confirm the Soviet Union's economic position.
2. CIA's "The World Factbook" (various editions): This annual publication of the Central Intelligence Agency has regularly updated information about countries, including economic data. During the Cold War, the CIA extensively tracked the Soviet economy.
3. "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy: This book gives a historical overview of the economic and military aspects of major world powers, including the Soviet Union.
4. "A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations: On Power, Involvement, and Their Correlates" by Amitai Etzioni: This is one of many academic books that touch upon the Soviet Union's economic size in relation to other global powers.
5. Economic journals and articles: Various economic studies and journals from the mid-to-late 20th century would have analyzed global GDP rankings. You'd likely find references to the Soviet Union's economic position in articles from that era.
6. Historical newspaper archives: Major newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian frequently reported on the global economy and would have had articles and op-eds discussing the Soviet Union's economic standing.
7. UN National Accounts Main Aggregates Database: The United Nations Statistics Division has databases that track GDP and other national aggregates historically for member nations.

There was a period after World War II when East Germany's economy showed strong growth. With the help of the Soviet Union and the nationalization of major industries, East Germany became one of the most industrialized countries in the Eastern Bloc. However, by the 1970s and 1980s, West Germany's economy had surpassed East Germany's in absolute terms and especially in GDP per capita. This was evident in living standards, technological advancements, and other socioeconomic indicators. Therefore, if Western scholars ever overestimated East German GDP relative to West Germany, it was likely a temporary misjudgment and not a permanent misunderstanding. This has nothing to do with the USSR being the second largest economy in the world.

Todd doesn't specify who supposedly misread the data about the East and West German economies.

• Different Data Sets: The assessment of the Soviet economy is based on a vast amount of data, not just comparisons with Western economies. It takes into account the USSR's vast territories, its natural resources, industrial output, population, etc.
• Consensus Across Diverse Institutions: Various Western and international organizations independently arrived at the consensus regarding the Soviet Union's economic position. It's improbable that all these institutions were collectively wrong about such a significant issue.
• Historical Context: Making a judgment about one country based on the potentially misjudged economic assessment of another is not valid. Even if one or a group of Western scholars were mistaken about East Germany (which they rectified later), it doesn't mean they were wrong about the Soviet Union. You're just unable to think rationally Todd.

In essence, even if there were actually some inaccuracies in economic assessments at times, the overwhelming consensus and data confirm the Soviet Union's position as the second-largest economy for a significant portion of the 20th century.

Moreover, with respect to your stupid statement about supposed "subsidies" in socialism. In a socialist, marketless, non-profit system, it's understood that all value is derived from human labor. The government's assets, in such a system, are fundamentally a result of the productive output of its workers. Thus, any redistribution of these assets isn't a "subsidy" given to businesses, but a reallocation of resources that were produced by and for the workers in the first place. So like like always, you're just confused Todd.

Anyways, no post of mine responding to your capitalist claptrap is complete without me rubbing the fact in your face that advanced automation and artificial intelligence, make socialism the inevitable successor of your beloved capitalism.

---

 

[Red Front]

Workers can create companies providing goods or services after an entrepreneur shows them the way

Worker owned companies have s limited place in the economy

Thats one reason why there are so few of them

The reason they're not that many of them, is because most working class Americans don't even know about worker-owned cooperatives and as I mentioned earlier, the system makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible for workers to start such a business together. Banks, nor the US government support such a business model. You can believe otherwise, if you want. You can also believe the moon is made of Swiss cheese.

 

[LibertyKid]

Limit your question to one or two sentences.

I'll just copy and paste my previous quesitons:

Profits have to be made. Some profits have to be invested back into the organization. I would imagine in your scenario, investors might be needed for up from capital that need returns paid. Or is investments no longer a thing in your ideology?

Are employees paid the same across the board regardless of experience, skills, educations, and production value?

How would one, with an idea, invention, or concept that brings value to the society start this business while reaping the benefits of their own idea and personal investment?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Capitalists also have access to this:

RANK	PARENT	SUBSIDY VALUE.	NUMBER OF AWARDS
1	Boeing	$15,136,286,466	946
2	Intel	$8,371,896,017	133
3	Ford Motor	$7,761,916,195	815
4	General Motors	$7,594,509,872	990
5	Micron Technology	$6,785,681,915	18
6	Alcoa	$5,798,600,778	160
7	X-Energy LLC	$5,661,511,202	17
8	General Atomics	$5,465,529,295	438
9	Cheniere Energy	$5,431,565,870	41
10	Amazon.com	$5,191,773,349	333
11	Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company)	$4,827,036,483	76
12	Sempra Energy	$3,835,098,001	53
13	Southern Company	$3,783,360,569	130
14	NRG Energy	$3,586,516,301	268
15	Venture Global LNG	$3,285,883,566	6
16	NextEra Energy	$3,003,823,754	117
17	Tesla Inc.	$2,836,366,619	116
18	Sasol	$2,836,049,845	72
19	Stellantis	$2,800,442,867	230
20	Volkswagen	$2,740,983,143	222
21	General Electric	$2,529,193,561	1,668
22	Nucor	$2,514,358,340	158
23	Walt Disney	$2,421,304,588	248
24	Brookfield Asset Management	$2,339,430,278	304
25	Toyota	$2,303,826,689	199
26	Iberdrola	$2,285,768,043	112
27	Summit Power	$2,240,568,236	8
28	Shell PLC	$2,184,517,527	141
29	Oracle	$2,167,890,528	88
30	Mubadala Investment Company	$2,124,035,097	62
31	Nike	$2,104,917,829	138
32	Hyundai Motor	$2,072,957,848	27
33	SCS Energy	$1,927,236,683	10
34	Archer Daniels Midland	$1,920,305,787	1,099
35	Exxon Mobil	$1,891,153,489	207
36	NuScale Power	$1,880,780,589	34
37	Berkshire Hathaway	$1,859,775,471	1,158
38	Nissan	$1,842,814,165	87
39	Alphabet Inc.	$1,832,565,977	116
40	Paramount Global	$1,751,801,882	317
41	Apple Inc.	$1,750,043,420	36
42	Comcast	$1,722,467,426	376
43	JPMorgan Chase	$1,663,890,873	1,129
44	Cleveland-Cliffs	$1,654,401,303	137
45	Energy Transfer	$1,634,074,422	106
46	Samsung	$1,586,310,806	70
47	PG&E Corp.	$1,568,027,901	27
48	IBM Corp.	$1,562,738,626	387
49	SkyWest	$1,550,492,958	683
50	Rivian Automotive Inc.	$1,532,854,012	3
51	OGE Energy	$1,427,570,182	15
52	Panasonic	$1,385,969,341	61
53	Raytheon Technologies	$1,322,899,721	952
54	Duke Energy	$1,318,084,164	69
55	Lockheed Martin	$1,302,847,415	337
56	Corning Inc.	$1,272,628,059	395
57	Northrop Grumman	$1,266,804,354	266
58	Vingroup	$1,254,000,000	1
59	Continental AG	$1,244,875,478	111
60	Vornado Realty Trust	$1,243,857,336	32
61	Microsoft	$1,153,690,869	103
62	Jefferies Financial Group	$1,120,662,497	18
63	Meta Platforms Inc.	$1,105,098,844	53
64	Dow Inc.	$1,091,152,544	686
65	Abengoa	$1,082,660,583	63
66	SK Holdings	$1,081,550,283	9
67	LG	$1,055,690,737	103
68	Valero Energy	$1,054,520,860	199
69	Exelon	$1,040,601,369	98
70	AES Corp.	$1,010,194,632	132
71	CF Industries	$982,271,715	129
72	Pyramid Companies	$966,050,097	91
73	EDF-Electricite de France	$940,247,983	65
74	Texas Instruments	$940,071,436	60
75	Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.	$900,000,000	1
76	Air Products & Chemicals	$897,651,105	248
77	Delta Air Lines	$876,412,623	14
78	Centene	$875,064,432	54
79	Bayer	$849,175,809	202
80	Honda	$846,026,154	91
81	Enterprise Products Partners	$826,988,371	83
82	Shin-Etsu Chemical	$826,062,285	104
83	SunEdison	$812,753,318	119
84	Apollo Global Management	$804,565,970	471
85	Goldman Sachs	$801,573,386	255
86	E.ON	$782,609,880	38
87	Wolfspeed Inc.	$773,681,732	88
88	Triple Five Worldwide	$748,000,000	4
89	EDP-Energias de Portugal	$733,674,868	14
90	Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.	$725,632,525	206
91	Gotion	$715,000,000	1
92	American Electric Power	$699,673,821	92
93	Bank of America	$698,760,073	919
94	Johnson Controls	$691,180,720	144
95	Related Companies	$687,200,000	1
96	Caithness Energy	$670,379,738	28
97	Hyannis Air Service Inc.	$667,928,778	296
98	Koch Industries	$662,557,530	486
99	Sagamore Development	$660,000,000	1

Governments often support companies in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly.

1. Subsidies
2. Contracts
3. Loans and Guarantees
4. Tax Breaks/Incentives
5. Grants
6. Regulatory Support
7. Infrastructure Development
8. Research and Development
9. Training and Workforce Development
10. Protectionist Measures

Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one. All productive enterprises should be owned collectively by the people who work them. All of the leadership within a worker-cooperative, should be elected or appointed by elected leadership, hence accountable to everyone, from the elected leadership to the workers under their management.

Workers produce everything in this world, and capitalists in our opinion, are unnecessary middlemen, who exploit workers for surplus value. Capitalist production is for profit, not to meet anyone's needs. The sooner we transition to a non-profit, high-tech, marketless, worker-run system of production, the better. It's amazing, how people who supposedly are such lovers of freedom, can be so oblivious, if not indifferent to the fact that under capitalism, people spend much of their waking hours in an absolute dictatorship. You're told what to do, when to do it, and if you don't like the conditions under which you are doing what you're doing, then there's the door. No one has much of a say in how the workplace is run.

People are commodified in a labor market, and objectified as part of the means of production. Your purpose is to produce profits for your employer, who Adam Smith, the father of industrial capitalism, called "masters" in his book the "Wealth Of Nations". In the 19th century, and into the early 20th century, waged labor was considered not that much better than slavery or serfdom. It was sometimes referred to as "wage-slavery". Employees are wage-slaves, at the mercy of their capitalist masters.

Capitalists also have access to this:

Communists didn't have access to that? Were they morons?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The Soviet Union's status as the second-largest economy in the last few decades of its existence, is well-documented.

Soviet lies are well documented.
I'd be shocked if Soviet GDP was half of what the IMF claimed.

 

[Red Front]

Soviet lies are well documented.
I'd be shocked if Soviet GDP was half of what the IMF claimed.

 

[Red Front]

Capitalists also have access to this:

Communists didn't have access to that? Were they morons?

Allocating resources to the people who produced them, to maintain and increase production, is not the same as the government providing subsidies to capitalists who can't compete in the marketplace and didn't produce shit, because they're parasites living off of other people's labor. Are you now saying that your beloved free market capitalism doesn't work without public funds? In socialism the public produces the assets or resources, allowing its government to manage it for them. You're admitting capitalists can't stay in business based upon what they sell in the marketplace, they need public funds to stay in business. You don't get it, but that's fine, because others will.

You know what Todd? Advanced automation technology and artificial intelligence = the end of capitalism and the beginning of the socialist age. Isn't that wonderful?

 

[Red Front]

I'll just copy and paste my previous quesitons:

Profits have to be made. Some profits have to be invested back into the organization. I would imagine in your scenario, investors might be needed for up from capital that need returns paid. Or is investments no longer a thing in your ideology?

Are employees paid the same across the board regardless of experience, skills, educations, and production value?

How would one, with an idea, invention, or concept that brings value to the society start this business while reaping the benefits of their own idea and personal investment?

Don't post me a long ass freaking question with five lines, that's all over the place. Make it concise. Two lines, you can't do that?

 

[Mac-7]

The reason they're not that many of them, is because most working class Americans don't even know about worker-owned cooperatives and as I mentioned earlier, the system makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible for workers to start such a business together. Banks, nor the US government support such a business model. You can believe otherwise, if you want. You can also believe the moon is made of Swiss cheese.

Its not easy for individuals to start a budiness either

You seem to want everything handed to workers with no effort from them