• Just prefacing this by saying I am not making a funny ironic post at all, I am dead serious.

    Am I wrong in thinking even the highest paid sportsmen are part of the proletariat? They are effectively using their bodies for their employers to generate capital, in some cases having to risk their lives (boxing, rugby, NFL, extreme sports), whilst those employers effectively do nothing but manage the capital these athletes generate and get the majority of the money. Yes many athletes are multimilionairres, but they are the people that make effectivelty most of the money for the multi-billion pound (or dollar or euro) businesses to function.

    • anaesidemus [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      You are not wrong, and they don’t really own the means of production. The owners still make the most money if there is money to be had. Any pushback from the players about exhaustion due to ever increasing amount of games is met with cries of overpaid primadonnas.

      Players in lower leagues are often exploited financially. Especially if foreign.

    • Selkie@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      Hard to keep in mind sometimes, but yeah lot of actors and athletes are well off but unless they got their own brands or companies they are still workers

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It gets complicated by the fact the really famous ones get a lot of money from liscencing their likeness and things like that, which is clearly bourgeois, especially when it’s for like a 2k game or something and the model being made doesn’t need their labor input at all.

      But generally we can call them labor aristocrats in the sense that the super rich ones are definitely paid in part out of the labor value of other workers.