So: since we still talk about these small individuals who meet on Reddit and agree to "attack" a stock in order to make it increase in value (as has been done by the big names with the Tesla stock, for example), but since they are small then it is a scandal, I see that public opinion is still childish. And so, dear children, we have to make a speech, you and me. Let's talk about how capitalists are born.

So: the first thing is that capitalism no longer exists. I know you think that having money is enough to be a capitalist, but if it is true that capitalists own money, not everyone who owns money is capitalist. For example, Ashurbanipal owned money but was not a capitalist.

Capitalism is a recent phenomenon, described by Marx, which is born at a precise moment and dies at a precise moment. Money, which existed even before capitalism, continued to exist even after.

So, let's be clear on the terms: the term capitalism indicates:

1. an economy in which those who have cash can own a company without having founded it, without working internally (not even as a manager, because it appoints a CEO), without being in any way competent in what the company does. However, he shares the company's success as if the company goes badly, the shares drop in value and he loses.
2. the capitalist accumulates his cash by intercepting the difference between the cost of producing something and its price on the market. Building the car costs X, I sell it for X + 10, it remains in my hand 10. This "surplus value", which is simply the EBT, is the source of the profits. Also in this sense, the capitalist has a personal risk, because he has to make sure that the company earns and monitor that this happens: the money he risks is "his".

This thing was born with the first bags, in particular the English one. It didn't exist before, and it no longer exists today.

Question: Does capitalism still exist? Answer: no.

1. to finance themselves, companies issue bonds in addition to shares. This means that the financier can buy the bonds instead of the shares. Earnings equally in interest, but instead of 'partner becomes a banker. Not being a shareholder, he does not share the business risk. The bond must be paid whether the company goes well or fails. Shares, on the other hand, lose value if the company does badly, while bonds can grow in yield if the company does bad. In short, no business risk.
2. Since the end of Bretton Wood, the source of capital is no longer the fruit of "surplus value", but of money printed by central banks. Capital no longer arises as an added value, but as a central bank decision. Getting rich today does not mean creating a company that sells a lot with a good margin, but intercepting the money produced by the central bank . There is no more personal risk, the money is not his, and the central bank will buy his debts as "quantitative easing".

For example, Elon Musk is very good at intercepting this money. Whenever the central bank prints money, it gives it to the banks. (the citizen cannot ask central banks for money). The banks are wondering how to make them pay, they decide to grow the Tesla stock (they don't use Reddit, but they will have some system of their own to do the same thing) and they throw themselves on the Tesla stock. Result: Tesla produces 10 times fewer cars than Toyota, (counting only cars, without considering other sectors such as agriculture, trains, pumps and various machines, etc.) but apparently "worth more".

Same thing for the other Hi Tech titles, which grow not so much because they are good at making products (Facebook which after almost 20 still has security problems in the frontend, which is practically identical, is an example: google that has blackouts of hours, while the mobile phone network is on 24/7, is another), but because they are adept at intercepting money printed by the central bank.

And this is why all the wealth goes to very few people: the privileged people who can get wet in the rain of money from a central bank that prints money are very few: auctions are reserved for a very few, only banks can ask for loans from the central bank. null prices, etc.

Then these privileged few "invest" money that is not theirs in companies that inflate the value, and if it goes wrong the central bank will buy their debts in some QE operation. No personal risk, no business risk. No wonder they are getting richer and richer, and no wonder they got even richer during the pandemic, which forced the central bank to print "stimuli".

the difference between a rich and a poor today lies in the distance between their wallets and the central bank. A little like with degrees of separation: if they are one, two or three you are billionaires. If there are more, you are poor.

For example:

• Central bank -> Banks -> shares = 2 passes = wealth.
• Central bank -> Banks -> Venture capital -> Stocks = 3 steps = wealth.
• Central bank -> Banks -> Loan -> Investment -> work = 4 steps = working class.
• Central bank -> Central bank -> Banks -> Loan -> Investment -> procurement -> work = 5 steps -> misery

The last step is what is called the “gig economy” and tells you why the pizza delivery men are paid so little. It is important to understand one thing: even if there was a trade union demand or a class conscience, in the classic sense, it would be useless: the money available in the fourth step is still few.

the workers' socialist demand is useless: both the worker and the employer are between the fourth and fifth levels of separation from the central bank. The money isn't there.

This mechanism has almost nothing to do with anything we have called capitalism so far, yet it represents the vast majority of the wealth existing on the planet: and even on "existing" I would have to complain, given that the quantity of derivatives now exceeds by a factor 10 the Gross Domestic Product of the… planet. There are still companies that work doing things, of course, like Toyota or Renault or others, but they are classic companies, now marginal.

That said, it is obvious that we find ourselves in a situation where a privileged few, who have access to the first three steps in the chain, own all the money printed by the central bank.

But one thing is also obvious:

if the class struggle against capitalism consisted in appropriating the means of production, the class struggle today consists in climbing the chain that leads to the central bank (ideally, to take it over).

And I'm not the one saying it. The disparity would cease, of course, if the money were given by the central bank to the people, according to the concept of Helicopter Money coined by Milton Friedman, and re-proposed by Bernanke during the crisis. The term is back in vogue precisely because in the world of finance they are aware of the fact that the system of distribution of stimuli enriches a certain number of landowners, but does not benefit ordinary people.

But this, in fact, is not capitalism: it is an entirely new world, where the old theories (including Marxism) no longer give sensible or useful answers, and it is necessary to ask new questions and give new answers.

Let's go now with the Reddit bettors. This is class struggle 2.0. And it is because, as we have said, the class struggle consists in climbing the chain and decreasing the degrees of separation with the central bank.

The shortcut is technological: platforms such as RobinHood have created small shortcuts that allow the common citizen to reach the third degree of separation, the stock market, where there is still a lot of wealth.

Let's be clear, the crack already existed before, only it was sectarian: when the American citizen retires with a 401K fund, which is linked to the stock market, he is drawing on the weighted average value of the shares (the index) and therefore it has already reached the third level of separation.

A breach that allowed the citizen to drink at the third level of separation from the central bank has already existed, but only after the "payment" of a life of work. Only that it was a breach reserved for those who had worked very hard and had paid the offering to a pension fund.

Platforms like RobinHood, on the other hand, make a slightly wider gap. In the sense that you don't necessarily have to have worked 40 years, paying a tax to a pension fund, to get to benefit from the stock market. You just need the money.

RobinHood, however, has limits: the regulator does not want the citizen to break into the third degree of separation, and has set a limit. Companies like robinhood make you buy stock at X, and make money at Y when you leave. But what if the CEO takes the money instead of buying stock and runs away, in the time between X and Y? Then there is a limit: the company must be able to return the money to the citizen, and therefore must have cash that correspond to the amount of money invested between X and Y. In reverse: it cannot invest, between X and Y , more than the liquid he has available. If RobinHood has cash for, say, $ 4 billion, between time X and time Y he can't buy you more than 4 billion shares.

For this reason, and not for obscure plots, he had to stop buying. This does not mean that this system does NOT favor the grown-ups: it does favor them. But it's not Robin Hood's fault: capital gains laws have been around for decades. Contact the legislator if you want to change them.

But let's go back to the bomb: yes, in the new world this is class struggle. Ordinary people are using technology to benefit from the rain of money from the central bank, money that is lost after the third degree of separation.

They have opened a small breach in the wall that separates them from paradise where the rain of central bank money arrives copiously.

Now we need to close the circle: where does that invested money come from? It's simple: in the past months of the epidemic there have been stimuli from central banks. (yes, on Reddit there are also Europeans, and many!) who gave cash in the hands of those who had the company closed.

Now, if you think of those who received "refreshments", have the company closed (that is, they have no expenses), have the state that pays the layoffs to employees (they do not have to pay salaries) and has no tax bills to pay ( blocked) as happened in Germany to those who received 75% of the turnover during the lockdown, find some good money in their pockets, and are at home with nothing to do.

If this person has access to Reddit, he can invest that money printed by the central bank in these operations, and make some big bucks.

And so, this happens: central bank money (the few that come to citizens in the form of aid) is being used to enter the central bank's golden shower paradise (LOL!), And get more money.

If this is not class struggle 2.0, tell me what it is. Although a minimum of liquidity is required to enter, it looks more like a French revolution of the third estate. But it's only a matter of time, and the fourth estate will make itself heard, if necessary in debt.

Obviously the big money collectors of the central bank (in fact I would use "collecting" instead of "capitalism" to define this economic system) complain. For several reasons.

• central bank money that the "big guys" wanted to keep go to the citizens.
• most of the players are European: the stimuli have reached the common man more in Europe than in the USA.

Most of the players on Reddit are, in fact, Europeans. People who in Germany have had refreshments for 75% of their expenses, layoffs and with the company closed do not pay taxes. People who had a small hotel, fired employees who were in minijobs (they have subsidies so much), and now they have the hotel closed to make dust, and they get their nice hundred thousand in cash without expenses. And now play on Reddit. But in the US the stimulus money has NEVER reached the citizens' pockets. So the US system is losing money to Europe. And this is very gnawing.

But back to us, the point is simple:

1. capitalism has been replaced by a system that I would call "collecting" or "incectivism", because it collects (or buys) money that the central bank prints.
2. in this system, it is the degrees of separation from the central bank that determine who is rich and who is not.
3. the class struggle is about breaking down the barriers that keep the common citizen out of the river of central bank money.
4. fintech technology is the key tool for this fight.

having said that, I have nothing more to add.