No. The amount of stock you can afford, the influence you have over the company, and the amount of benefit from owning stock is negligible compared to actual bourgeois.
Saying that you own the company by buying shares from robinhood is like saying America is democratic because you get to vote.
I believe doing what you can to keep yourself afloat and release yourself to be able to radicalize and organize those around you is an important goal. We can fall prey to ultra leftism and stunt our own progress by trying to maintain “purity”, and be “exploitation free.”
It’s a matter of scale. You can be a small time landlord and it would be nowhere near as bad as a large property management conglomerate. You’re still not safe. Same for investing. Study theory, make praxis, and don’t fall into opportunism.
I’m leaving this up, I misread the question lol you’d be the petitest of bourgeois! Lol extra points if you find a way to reinvest your dividends and complete the M-C-M cycle. Hahaha
What is M-C-M?
Money -> Commodity -> (more) Money If this is your primary means of making money, you are a captialist.
Commodity (often labor) -> Money -> Commodity (stuff you need to live) If this is your means of making money primarily, you are proletariet.
How did you manage to condense the first part of Capital into 2 sentences lol
Money to commodity to (more) money, which is a simplification of capital accumulation, as described in capital vol 1
Also, are you saying that one can be a landlord while also being a communist?
You could even own a factory… Lol
And at the same time write the most important communist piece in history!
But wouldn’t owning factories make you a class traitor?
The person I was aiming at is Engels, who came from a factory owning family. He did not technically completely own a factory (without going into too much details) but he was still born in a bourgeoisie family and profited off the labor of others. You could call Engels a class traitor for this but he still wrote some of the most important communist theory out there. Sometimes it’s not that black and white.
But wouldn’t that make someone a class traitor?
Yes?
I meant that isn’t being a communist factory owner immoral?
Being a class traitor in the Marxist sense is understood to be good if they are betraying the Bourgeoisie. The position on the Left in general is siding with the Proletariet (workers) against the Bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production)
Don’t horde money in stocks. Invest in your community or in yourself.
No but using Robinhood is not a good idea because they screw you on your purchases and lend your shares out without your knowledge or your concentration because, like all brokers in the US, you do not own the rights to those shares. All you are actually buying is an IOU from Robinhood for that stock. If you are going to buy stock you should do so with the companies transfer agent, not through a broker. By utilizing a transfer agent your shares will be in your actual name and cannot be used by brokers to short sell the stock and devalue it.
Honestly if you are in the US you should really just avoid the stock market as much as you can. It is a ponzie scheme invented by the oligarchy to steal wealth from the working class. That has always been how it is used and it’s only gotten more intricate in how they can fuck you over the years. Check out the movie “The Big Short” and it’s just the tip of the iceberg on how fucked the US stock market is.
What’s Robinhood?
A stock trading app
In that case, it depends. Someone who can consider putting ‘spare’ money into stocks like this are probably some variant of labour aristocrat before they get started.
I will say, though, to be extremely careful. If I were to use such an app (I wouldn’t), I would expect to lose everything I put into it. I’ve seen adverts for this kind of thing and adverts for ‘training’ to use them and they are predatory af. Do not go into it unless you are willing to lose money. I’m sure someone will come along and say, ‘it’s not a scam’, etc, but that wouldn’t change my view.
It is a scam and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re essentially gambling.
To start, you’ll need some background in micro/macroeconomics and geopolitics, know how to read financial statements, and how to build/manage a portfolio based on risk tolerance. It also helps a lot to know a bit of programming to speed up analysis. I’d estimate that you need around 8 years of experience studying, backtesting and following the market before you can manage a fund successfully.
Alternatively you can just put it all into an index fund.
So, generally, learn how to do it yourself, or put it into an index fund. Everything else is a scam / gambling.
This sounds like great advice to me.
There are probably unexpected legal uncertainties, too. Like is the app a broker, trustee, agent? What are the implications? Does/When does title pass? Who’s responsable for insurance? Etc, etc. I’m sure these kinds of apps have some ‘straightforward’ way of dealing with all this. Straightforward until a trader with $1m+ is caught up in bankruptcy case, owing $2m+ to others and everyone with a possible interest starts competing to say the stocks are theirs. That won’t really be an issue for small-time traders, because unless they get a lawyer, they’re likely at the mercy of whether the app says is the law.
To answer your questions, the app is a broker. The app buys from a kind of holdings firm run by banks, and holds it in your stead. So you never actually own the stock. The transfer from banks to RH takes a couple days. There’s material that details the structure of electronic brokers like these but it’s been a while since I reviewed it.
There is no insurance so you’ve got to purchase it yourself. Generally speaking you are responsible for your losses. Your best bet is to diversify and size your positions to manage risk.
Also, you can open an account that doesn’t allow you to use leverage to trade. So you can’t lose more than you invest. If you want to open a TFSA then this is mandatory.
The value of stocks is disconnected from the book value of the company. So if there is a bankruptcy case and the stock is delisted, then their price just goes to zero. For example, look at the price history of Sears. The writing was on the wall for at least a year before it was delisted.
However you’re right in that the app will do shady things like prevent you from only buying a stock, but allow selling, as was the case for GME. Or if you’ve bought YNDX, then it would be violating sanctions to hold it. But they’ve also forbid trading so you can’t sell it, so you keep getting emails telling you that you’re holding forbidden securities and that you need to sell but you can’t. Etc.
Thanks for the detail :)
No, I don’t have a better answer than that, but no I don’t think so
you owning some stock doesn’t have to define your politics. many revolutionaries and Marxists benefitted from capitalism and privilege. downtroded, illiterate people in abject poverty won’t develop revolutionary theory, organise an international movement, restructure the economy, and so on.
this question only matters in terms of class. what are class interests of workers in the West with spare funds to invest in stocks and spare time to spend on social media. what are their allegiances, their revolutionary potential. those are valid questions if you are looking to build a movement with them.
i can’t recommend Zak Cope’s “Divided world, divided class” strong enough if you’re interested in Western labour class dynamics.