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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/34730043

For instance I know some lawyers and insurance CEOs who built the company themselves and run an ethical business model but because of innovation have made a ton of money. One lawyer has made a name for himself only defending those who have been hurt my big corporations and their life is ruined. The other made an insurance model that helps these hurt people invest their court winnings into annuities to guarantee they’re financially taken care of for life. These are not billionaires but both companies have won for their clients/work with hundreds of millions if not billions.

How can one clearly define someone like Musk or Bezos as bourgeois whereas these hard working individuals who came from nothing and build a huge business actually from nothing and help people?

Hoping for a non-black and white answer. My local MLM group declares everyone evil who isn’t their exact ideology. It doesn’t make sense to apply this thinking when someone whose become rich through helping people isn’t the same as someone whose has taken advantage of people for generations.

Edit: getting downvoted to hell when I am asking a question sure isn't welcoming.

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[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You're still framing Marxism as a moral judgement on which kinds of labor are acceptable within the boundaries of Capitalism, to which I ask, what does this moral judgement accomplish? I can personally think it's cool to protect the little people against big corporations, but that's not in the realm of Marxism. Marxism is a tool, a tool for understanding the world around us and how we can best change it. Moralism and ethics are for courts and legal systems to hash out, Marxism is for liberating the working class.

It can be fun to watch the likes of Bezos and Musk clown on themselves and to watch them stumble and fall, and we don't need Marxism to tell us that that's okay. They are terrible people, and we know that with or without Marxism. Marxism isn't a cult of poverty either, it generally isn't better to be poor in Socialism than rich in Capitalism as a proletarian (not always true, though, as Capitalism continues to decay and crumble the safety of a Socialist system can outweigh having better access to commodities in Imperialist countries), and to reject wealth does not make one "noble." Dialectical Materialism is a toolbox and a magnifying glass, not a pair of legal scales to weigh one person's sins against the other.

The best answer to your question is to reject it, essentially.

[-] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago

Thanks for clearly reframing my question Cowbee :) not just saying this doesn’t matter for Marxist thought but why.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago

No problem! Again, I don't want to absolve Capitalists from terrible behavior, just want to reframe your thinking about Marxism in general.

[-] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

Well you succeeded :)

this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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