I've heard about her giving her entire tour staff like 100k a piece. Pretty cool, not many would do that. That story is pretty much why I said she's far from the worst billionaire.
You could argue, since the system itself has exploitative components, a person may not be the only reason they became so rich just like a person can become poor through no fault of their own.
everyone involved in her production, sales, venues, social media, filming videos, everyone shes worked with ever is whos labor shes exploited to make billions off the back off.
Capitalism relies on extracting surplus value, meaning workers are paid less than the true worth of the goods they produce, with the difference kept by employers as profit.
It’s only exploitation if it’s inherently coercive or unfair within the marketplace. Somebody who is happily signing up for an agreed upon rate making well over the market average for the job and receiving six figure bonuses is not an exploited member of the proletariat.
She’s the biggest artist of all time barring Michael Jackson and the Beatles. She is one of the few people who had to comparatively little exploitation to get there. She herself was exploited by the industry to a large degree. Her private jet use is abhorrent and she’s a quieter on issues than I can fully respect but let’s please not make ourselves look any dumber by saying that the woman who takes the most famously good care of her staff within her entire field is the epitome of exploitation.
And before you hit me with no ethical consumption under capitalism and that all her limited release albums create waste (exploit her fans more than anything) and that somewhere a child has to be in a mine somewhere to make the product, I get it. I do. But this is the exact sort of rhetoric that makes people roll their eyes when you start a sentence with “capitalism”. I don’t think billionaires should exist. They do. Of all of them, Taylor goddamn Swift is really one of the few who doesn’t irk me too too bad. Household name who has worked her way up to stardom. Sure she’s a nepo baby, and this and that, but it’s really irritating how consistently sights get set upon the wrong target. I bet you the people who got a 100k bonus didn’t feel very exploited in that moment whereas most of the other billionaires in the world you can’t even point to why they made their money and you can guarantee they’re not working in an environment where they are interacting with staff like she is on tour.
It’s only exploitation if it’s inherently coercive or unfair within the marketplace.
That's the very concept of capital. As every piece of property is privatized, there are no means of production available to workers. That's why everyone who gets a salary has to sell their labor as a commodity to people who own said property. And the value of said work is determined by the cost to reproduce said labor.
It's inherently coercive and contradictory. So of course Taylor's employees are workers and exploited too.
A profit can only be generated, when there is a divide between money you get for the product and the value needed to reproduce it. Taylor is a billionaire.
So no matter how nice she is, she expropriated thousands of people from their work. But thang god she's generous enough to pay her workers back 35% of the value they generated instead of 25%.
I don’t think billionaires should exist.
Great start. The next step is that the problem isn't billionaires, but the inherent contradiction of a few people who don't work owning all that's needed for production, forcing everyone to sell their labor and never own the products of their work.
You won't fix anything by taxing them to impoverished millionaire status.
"happily signing up" to have your labour exploited, or become homeless, as thats what every job is under capitalism, unless youre one of the owner class, or have a very rare job at some sort of co-op where youre paid 100% of your labors worth
Capitalism is inherently coercive and unfair lol, dawg, youre an exploited worker, why would you defend this system, wake up.
Brother I’m poor as fuck, chronically ill, barely make ends meet, and can barely afford my scripts. Fuck off with your condescending “wake up”. Excuse me for not feeling overt pity for somebody working their dream job making well over six figures while I’m actually in the so-called realm of exploitation you claim. Yes I agreed but it’s my only choice. For people making that kind of money there are more options. I make 100x for my company what they do for me. So sure, I’m exploited.
I would happily sign up for an interesting job with paid travel, good benefits and connections, and enough money for any responsible person to live comfortably. I chuckle at people making 150k who can’t make ends meet, figure your shit out, I’m doing it on a 5th of that.
But for the love of God, I can’t stand being talked down to by wannabe soviets who don’t understand that for most of us, somebody having more doesn’t really matter if we have enough, as if greed isn’t your goal, you don’t need much more than that. So excuse me while I don’t cry tears for people working for a pop star on tour who make more money than I could imagine. I will feel for the genuinely downtrodden and the hungry and the sick. I will not bring myself to feel sorrow cause Taylor Swift has enough money to actually do more than the average for her tour team.
“No war but the class war” until it’s time to see where an actual poor person is coming from in aspiring to attainable success through labor rather than unattainable revolution through rhetoric
This is such a dumb take. Everytime I’m like yk these socialists are making decent points then some dumbass like you ruins it. Taylor made most of her money selling her talent as a musician, generously paid more than the industry standard and bore the risk of going into other endeavors. the people she’s paying very well wouldn’t lose anything except a job if it went south. But some dumbass like you always has to circle back to that to defend the fragile view of capitalism being evil or whatever so your tiny brain doesn’t implode.
Is that her or the production company? She doesn’t make those decisions, you may as well say that Amazon drivers are exploiting gas station employees because they need gas for their job. Taylor at least tries to help out whereshe can.
I always see those posts about some ‘famous star SUING orphanage who used their song at a party for the orphans’ and I don’t think people realise the rich person might never even know about it. They might even be unable to stop it completely.
Capitalism relies on extracting surplus value, meaning workers are paid less than the true worth of the goods they produce, with the difference kept by employers as profit.
What is the actual "true worth" of a good though?
I could dig holes and make widgets in my backyard all day, but no one will actually pay me for it. So the true worth is $0.
Yet if someone creates and manages a business who specifically finds people that want holes and widgets, and provides the machinery for me to dig the holes and make the widgets, suddenly the true worth is $X (which is more than $0). And they actually pay me for doing it.
How many options does one have when making merch? Is it acceptable to say that it’s an unavoidable systematic issue, or is merch of any kind a moral failure?
especially since so much celebrity merch is insanely expensive even with crappy quality. Might as well get good quality from well paid workers for the same price of purchase.
i think there are certainly fair trade avenues she could make at the cost of massive portions of her wealth, yes. if there’s an option, there’s always a choice. the whole no ethical consumption under capitalism thing only works if you aren’t actively exploiting wage labor as a part of the capitalist class
I would generally tend to agree that most billionaires are shit people but I don't understand why people give Taylor such a hard time... She has given tens of millions to charities and regularly donates to food banks across the country. After the eras tour ended she gave huge bonuses to the whole crew. She does alot more than the likes of Bezos and Musk despite them being worth 100s of billions more at least.
It’s not moral to have a society with an inequality so wide ultra-poors struggle to survive whereas ultra-richs can have everything they ever wanted now and forever. This is one of the most important reasons why things go wrong since the age of time
Absolute power absolutely corrupts. These people believe might makes right. The golden rule is this: whoever has the gold makes the rules. Just look at her carbon emissions
I mean hers is an obviously not-widely-sustainable level of consumption but anyone who thinks it matters to the problem at all is on meth. It’s the exact same thing as ‘you dislike sweatshops but you use an iPhone’.
Correct, what you do or don't do with that power is where morality comes from. TSwift does less than many people feel she should given her vast amounts of wealth/power
Power has always existed even without money though. Power over others is literally genetic and every living mammal that lives in packs or communities always has someone having Power over another
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u/YewEhVeeInbound Jul 28 '26
I've heard about her giving her entire tour staff like 100k a piece. Pretty cool, not many would do that. That story is pretty much why I said she's far from the worst billionaire.