Working from the bottom up: If a group does not provide reliable labor, they're not going to be offered the chance to provide labor at all. I don't give a rat's ass if your union has every rockstar welder in the world, if I can't depend on you to not pull them out from under me, I'm going to go with less skilled people who aren't greedy, entitled shitheads. And I'm going to pay them more than your union rates and treat them damned well to make sure they never join you.
...but many of the gains attributed to capitalism are simply due to electricity and antibiotics...
Which were developed under which economic system again? Yeah, sorry, if it's a capitalist advance, we get the credit for it and everything we've developed on top of or because of it. We further get a bit of credit for everything anyone has done with them.
See, the main problem you're having here is you're gauging the wealth of the working class both foolishly and immorally. Wealth should always be gauged like to like. Which is to say, how are the poor of $nation doing today compared the poor of N years ago. Every aspect of wealth should be taken into account. "can you afford healthcare better or worse than N years ago" must go hand in hand with "is healthcare better or worse than N years ago". Nutrition arguments must take "how many people are starving compared to N years ago" into account. Housing issues must take into account "how many people do you share your dwelling with and how many was the average N years ago". Gauging their wealth compared to the rich is not only irrelevant (since wealth is not zero-sum and never has been) but can also only be logically rooted in envy.
So, we should be grateful that we get 1.1 rations compared to last years 1.0
Capitalists are simple pirates, stealing ideas, pillaging resources, raping the women, and enslaving the males to create an exceptional nation, who later "legitimize" themselves with banners and medallions, marching music, and of course atom bombs. Their simple motto being *whatever abuse the market will bear*
We invent things out of need. Capitalism gives you pet rocks and Vegas
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
So, we should be grateful that we get 1.1 rations compared to last years 1.0
By that, you're signaling that you're not interested in a reasonable answer. Well, that goes both ways. I doubt there's anyone here who cares what you think a "ration" is. Capitalism delivers the things we really want, not just basics like food, clothing, and shelter, but also education, empowerment, etc.
Capitalists are simple pirates, stealing ideas, pillaging resources, raping the women, and enslaving the males to create an exceptional nation, who later "legitimize" themselves with banners and medallions, marching music, and of course atom bombs. Their simple motto being *whatever abuse the market will bear*
That was so retarded. We get the dumbest policy when one is more concerned about who is raping the women (war on (some) drugs being another fine example in action), than just stopping the raping.
We invent things out of need. Capitalism gives you pet rocks and Vegas
So naturally, we need a blighted, dysfunctional economic system to generate the necessary levels of need. Or you could just realize that we also invent things out of want. We don't need to create fake need.
It needs no further defense. You're just playing the part of the black knight. "Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow bastard! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
I accept your abject surrender. The trash talk groveling is appreciated. If at some future point you wish to take up arms again and bring something useful to this discussion, then I will welcome it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @07:23PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @07:23PM (#1112395)
since wealth is not zero-sum and never has been)
This is of course true, but somehow the liberal left has been able to frame the narrative in the press for so long that many of the liberal lefties now firmly believe that wealth is a zero sum game. That on order for "wealthy person X" to gain a dollar of wealth, that same dollar has to be taken away from some less wealthy person. Fusty for one seems to labor under this false belief that wealth is zero sum.
But wealth does not work that way at all. Wealthy person X can gain a dollar of wealth with zero impact on the wealth of a less wealth person.
What the folks who operate under the false belief that wealth is zero sum overlook, ignore, or simply don't understand (I don't know which, hopefully it is the 'don't understand') is that wealth is itself a wealth multiplier. Once one has accumulated some base wealth level, then ones wealth begins to create new wealth at a rate that outstrips one's ability to labor for the same wealth addition.
The problem comes in at the low levels one is at during the ramp up period, it looks like a "why do I bother" situation because the wealth multiplying effect is small enough that the extra wealth generated seems insignificant. Where they overlook up (or ignore, or don't understand) is the time value of compound interest (general sense, not "bank account interest"). Those small gains during the early years, which seem insignificant at first, are merely setting the stage for later in time when the gains have compounded (along with additional savings to the wealth store) to the point that the gains from the wealth begin to outstrip by a wide margin the gains from laboring.
But it takes a long time to get there by laboring for income to then save that income to build a self-multiplying wealth pile. And, meanwhile, the folks accumulating this wealth pile have to forgo much of the downfall of most, the rampant consumer spending to "keep up with the Jones" that goes on nearly everywhere. Most laborers waste so much of their income on the latest gadgets, clothes, etc., that in the end they never have anything left to build that wealth pile which will itself grow in the future. Plus for some that do try, they then get frustrated with the small gains in the beginning, and give up too early before the real multiplicative advance kicks in.
This is much of the teachings of the FIRE movement [wikipedia.org]. It is quite possible, even with moderate jobs, if one avoids the crass consumerism so rampant today, for a good number of people to make themselves wealthy (where wealthy is defined as "don't have to worry about loosing their job" or "can work the job they love which makes less vs. the job they hate which makes more money").
Much of wealth is what you make of it. If you join the crass consumerism buy the latest shiny object treadmill, you'll be non-wealthy forever, due to your own choice. But if you don't join that treadmill, a huge number of you can become wealthy, it just takes time and determination.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:40AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:40AM (#1112702)
Forcing people to participate in the capitalist system through top-down economic manipulation is a form of coercion no less serious than people being forced to work in communist regimes or as slaves as was common before the modern era. Arguing that changing the semantics changes the situation is intellectually dishonest and lazy.
Forcing people to participate in the capitalist system through top-down economic manipulation is a form of coercion no less serious than people being forced to work in communist regimes or as slaves as was common before the modern era.
Depends on the force and what "participation" means. I don't see any current capitalist systems, including that of China qualifying as having forced participation on the scale of mass slavery. I doubt you do either.
Arguing that changing the semantics changes the situation is intellectually dishonest and lazy.
Indeed. But who is doing that? I'd say the poster who equates "participation in capitalism" to slavery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @05:13PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday February 15 2021, @05:13PM (#1113199)
Adam Smith wrote a book that had some really good excuses for promoting policies the aristocrats favored, like forcing the unruly peasants into factories to increase their personal wealth, which is why they call the system capitalism. Peasants were forced out of their self sufficient villages and traditional lifestyle through seizure of common land, conscription, and other evils, leaving no option but to work at the whim of others, be killed, or starve. This system worked fine during colonial expansion, as malcontents could leave/be shipped and actually go somewhere else. Nowadays, capitalism limps along in a bubble-daze, only avoiding widespread revolt by using world reserve currency status to print money without inflation. China has adopted an approach something like "communism with mercantilist zones", and communists agree 100% with capitalists that Work is Very Important (because if you don't do it for them, they might have to stop being parasites).
Even if we were to accept your spin of history as fact, we still have the problem that you're describing England of the late 18th through mid 19th centuries. It's more than a century past that expiration date. Times changed, toots.
Nowadays, capitalism limps along in a bubble-daze, only avoiding widespread revolt by using world reserve currency status to print money without inflation. China has adopted an approach something like "communism with mercantilist zones", and communists agree 100% with capitalists that Work is Very Important (because if you don't do it for them, they might have to stop being parasites).
And helping humanity elevate itself out of poverty and ignorance. You will find no better lever for that.
You remind me of a story about a guy who got stopped for rolling through a stop sign. Guy complains to the cop, "C'mon, man, I slowed down." With that the cop grabs the guy through the window and pulls him out of the car and starts wailing on him, saying with each punch, "Do, you, want, me, to, slow, down, or, do, you, want, me, to, stop?"
For slavery 2.0, we have the prison system
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
The one real criticism I have of your thought here is that capitalism has several different meanings, and I don't think you (or most libertarian types) distinguish them clearly. When you conflate them, even otherwise good logic becomes clearly unreliable.
The capitalist ideal, important to much libertarian thought, is still an ideal. Not an actual thing that exists, or ever existed.
The "capitalist" reality of today, the neo-liberal world order, has virtually no real connection to that ideal. And never really did - it was only interested in promoting ideas that would tend to prevent rebellion. But at least that lead to some good things along the way.
Increasingly, however, that neo-liberal state-capitalist system doesn't even seem to want to be associated with anything so reactionary and right-wing as a free market, even in theory.
Yet they can still profit from confusion.
-- If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
Has to be, otherwise nobody can use the "debt" as a pretext for social austerity. The capitalist's *work or starve* ethic goes right out the window. "Money doesn't grow on trees" they always tell you. The hell it doesn't...
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
Has to be, otherwise nobody can use the "debt" as a pretext for social austerity.
That's a non sequitur. Social austerity happens because some idiot government borrows too much for non-investment, something which does shit to improve the government's ability to pay back that debt (that is, isn't wealth creation in any sense) or the quality of the society. It's usually a mixture of partially unsupported entitlement spending and corruption.
If they had dialed that back, they could continue on without the disruption of austerity. It has nothing to do with wealth or its non-zero sum nature since no wealth creation was ever part of the process, but rather a straight-forward taking of wealth from future generations to pass on to cronies and some portion of the present generation.
That's your mistake. But having said that, I recommend trying something new. When you assert something, give a reasoned argument to back that assertion. It's more work than just shitposting quips, but IMHO more rewarding too.
When you assert something, give a reasoned argument to back that assertion.
They stand well enough without any further waste of time arguing about it. Always take the direct route. But, if you got nothing else to do but to be obtuse, knock yourself out, I'm always open to a cheap laugh
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
You can waste even less time by shutting the fuck up and letting the grownups talk. Here, taking the time to reason means you've thought about what you are writing. Merely asserting stuff means you haven't. It's never a waste of time to think or to present a coherent support for what you believe.
Here, your reluctance to reason just signals some combination of ignorance and mendacity. You're just noise.
It's never a waste of time to think or to present a coherent support for what you believe.
It is with you, since you always hand wave off anything that contradicts your conditioned preconceptions. The simple fundamental assertion is plenty good enough for any non-biased observer. You exhibit rote learning more than knowledge.
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
Oh, you proven yourself to me plenty of times. It's just like talking to any other primitive tribal democrat or republican. Can't ever take a clown seriously
-- La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @06:44PM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @06:44PM (#1112382)
form communes under a corporate charter to collectively build an unassailable base industry which can support them should they face retaliation for workplace organizing or political efforts, or somehow find themselves at the whim of the "job market". With multi-generational effort, whole communities could deprive capitalists of their labor at the drop of a hat.
Hmm... Did you not just effectively reinvent the labor union above?
Maybe the one subtle difference from traditional labor unions is your suggestion that the union members support one-another in times of strike/job loss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:24PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:24PM (#1112434)
Maybe the one subtle difference from traditional labor unions is your suggestion that the union members support one-another in times of strike/job loss.
The general strike was a core precept of anarcho-syndicalism.
"Maybe the one subtle difference from traditional labor unions is your suggestion that the union members support one-another in times of strike/job loss."
No, that IS the traditional labor union. The corrupt AFL-CIO style unions of today are the late arrivals, or counterfeits depending on your view.
-- If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:19PM
(4 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:19PM (#1112407)
With multi-generational effort, whole communities could deprive capitalists of their labor at the drop of a hat.
Absent some form of country wide protectionism (which the liberal side also eschews), all that your "community" that "deprive[s] capitalists of their labor at the drop of a hat" will accomplish is those same capitalists moving all the jobs to some other third world country (China, India, Pakistan) where the labor pool is huge, and the labor pool will work 14 hour days for the equivalent of one hour's pay for your community workers in their home country.
And once the jobs have moved to China, India, Pakistan, etc., you are left with a Detroit. No jobs, no tax base, no way for the "commune" to support itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:46PM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:46PM (#1112418)
But that is just it. The "self-sufficient" commune with a plot of land somewhere, that demands $25/hr from the capitalist or they will deprive that same capitalist of their labor at the drop of a hat, is only profitable to the capitalist if the capitalist is unable to simply swing half-way around the world to China/India/Pakistan and hire an equivalent number of workers for $0.10/day.
Commune workers at $25/hour vs. Chinese workers at $0.10/day means that the commune is a loss equation, is not profitable to any capitalist, and no capitalist will come with those loss margins.
The only way the commune workers get hired is if the government of the country containing the commune forces the jobs to be kept in the country (i.e., protectionism).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:55PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:55PM (#1112421)
Making the capitalist suffer doesn't matter, personal freedom does. The capitalists will still come to /sell/, and access to goods is all that matters.
Making the capitalist suffer doesn't matter, personal freedom does. The capitalists will still come to /sell/, and access to goods is all that matters.
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. Cargo cult systems fail spectacularly when the cargo doesn't come.
The "capitalist" system is often credited with gains in standard of living across the world, exploitation and competition creating a cycle that promotes development through market forces. This is not entirely false, but many of the gains attributed to capitalism are simply due to electricity and antibiotics, and the lower classes of rich countries still toil yet have little wealth. Unfortunately, top-down control of markets and financial forces provides ample room for manipulation, corruption, and regulatory capture, which disrupt any beneficial workings of the capitalist machine.
The "not entirely false" part here is that capitalist systems are amazing success stories due to those gains (including as TMB noted electricity and antibiotics). And "manipulation, corruption, and regulatory capture" is not unique to capitalist systems. You will have to account for those problems in every economic system, including yours. One really important question you should be asking is does your system provide those gains or better with less of those costs? I doubt it will.
Also t
Marxist communism is also a failure. It appeals to bourgeois academics because it promotes the view that the common people must be led by a revolutionary class, and it invariably fails due to authoritarian inflexibility and reactionary tendencies.
Anarchism provides a viable model, but it's failures lie in the inability to resist the might of centralized power structures. The ideologies are slandered or go nearly unmentioned in the mainstream, and the centralized control of global communication networks makes serious international organization tricky to do without getting squashed before there's any chance of growth.
No, the ridiculousness has started. Marxist communism has genuinely failed. Capitalism merely has problems, but is still succeeding. Anarchism doesn't provide a viable model. And dealing with centralized power structures is one of those universal problems that is not lessened by communal structures (which already concentrate a good deal of power at the community level by definition).
However, current neoliberal capitalism still provides sufficient tools for revolutionists to fight silently against it. Disciplined members of the working class should focus on hoarding whatever wealth they can obtain through their labors, and form communes under a corporate charter to collectively build an unassailable base industry which can support them should they face retaliation for workplace organizing or political efforts, or somehow find themselves at the whim of the "job market". With multi-generational effort, whole communities could deprive capitalists of their labor at the drop of a hat. This would be an incredibly difficult operation, and "legalizing" things is unfortunate, but there's not much practical way to work towards true freedom for all humanity...
Things are already as legal as necessary. Just do it. Don't whine about laws and regulations you don't need. And it's great advice to accumulate wealth. I suggest investment not "hoarding". If your religious beliefs preclude you from investing in the greater economy, then just invest in yourselves (say education, capital purchases, infrastructure construction, etc). It's not rocket surgery.
Finally, there are plenty of commune-type structures in the capitalist world already. In addition to genuine communes, we have universities, co-ops, stuff like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:57AM
(7 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:57AM (#1112706)
I think you're reading far too much into what I wrote, and constructing a strawman. Free market theory is not what I disagree with, but the nature of the state in capitalist societies, which promotes anti-free-market activities (as seen through the whole history of capitalism). I'm not whining about laws and regulations, but making an argument that anarchists should exploit the tools of the state to fight against it, rather than rejecting participation in the state on grounds of ideology.
Free market theory is not what I disagree with, but the nature of the state in capitalist societies, which promotes anti-free-market activities (as seen through the whole history of capitalism).
You're just saying that the state is a non-capitalist force in capitalist societies. We all already knew that. I don't see the point of blaming capitalist systems for the deliberate breaking of capitalist systems. Meanwhile Marxist systems are broken by design. People slack when there's no incentive to work hard and keep their heads down when having an opinion can get you punished as some sort of reactionary. And they naturally devolve to top down centralization because it's a group-oriented belief system with bigger groups naturally having priority over smaller groups.
I'm not whining about laws and regulations, but making an argument that anarchists should exploit the tools of the state to fight against it, rather than rejecting participation in the state on grounds of ideology.
I'm fine with that. I just noted that capitalism already has the means baked in to do what you want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @05:32PM
(5 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday February 15 2021, @05:32PM (#1113212)
It's not the incentive that makes people work! It's freedom! People work hard when they choose to work, they slack when they are pressured to do things they don't want to for survival.
It's not the incentive that makes people work! It's freedom! People work hard when they choose to work, they slack when they are pressured to do things they don't want to for survival.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @06:30PM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday February 15 2021, @06:30PM (#1113235)
No, money is not why most people choose to work. Social status by joining an organization maybe, interest or enjoyment in craft, necessity, rivalry maybe, but the incentive is very obviously not why people choose to work, or they would not seek out fields which are known to have low wages and high competition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2021, @02:11AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday February 16 2021, @02:11AM (#1113426)
Yes, Marxist ideology is authoritarian and illiberal. The freedom of liberal societies allows a far larger portion of the population to "choose" to work, but the incentives only matter to those who never had a choice of whether or not to work on the first place. I am very doubtful that capitalism as currently implemented can lift the floor to encompass the whole population rather than the top 25-50% or so it currently does.
I am very doubtful that capitalism as currently implemented can lift the floor to encompass the whole population rather than the top 25-50% or so it currently does.
It's more like 90-95%. I grant that there's a population who simply can't help themselves for whatever reasons - medical or mental illness mostly. Everyone else has been helped even if they don't save a dime.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 13 2021, @05:59PM (36 children)
Working from the bottom up: If a group does not provide reliable labor, they're not going to be offered the chance to provide labor at all. I don't give a rat's ass if your union has every rockstar welder in the world, if I can't depend on you to not pull them out from under me, I'm going to go with less skilled people who aren't greedy, entitled shitheads. And I'm going to pay them more than your union rates and treat them damned well to make sure they never join you.
Which were developed under which economic system again? Yeah, sorry, if it's a capitalist advance, we get the credit for it and everything we've developed on top of or because of it. We further get a bit of credit for everything anyone has done with them.
See, the main problem you're having here is you're gauging the wealth of the working class both foolishly and immorally. Wealth should always be gauged like to like. Which is to say, how are the poor of $nation doing today compared the poor of N years ago. Every aspect of wealth should be taken into account. "can you afford healthcare better or worse than N years ago" must go hand in hand with "is healthcare better or worse than N years ago". Nutrition arguments must take "how many people are starving compared to N years ago" into account. Housing issues must take into account "how many people do you share your dwelling with and how many was the average N years ago". Gauging their wealth compared to the rich is not only irrelevant (since wealth is not zero-sum and never has been) but can also only be logically rooted in envy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 13 2021, @06:51PM (8 children)
So, we should be grateful that we get 1.1 rations compared to last years 1.0
Capitalists are simple pirates, stealing ideas, pillaging resources, raping the women, and enslaving the males to create an exceptional nation, who later "legitimize" themselves with banners and medallions, marching music, and of course atom bombs. Their simple motto being *whatever abuse the market will bear*
We invent things out of need. Capitalism gives you pet rocks and Vegas
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:19PM (7 children)
By that, you're signaling that you're not interested in a reasonable answer. Well, that goes both ways. I doubt there's anyone here who cares what you think a "ration" is. Capitalism delivers the things we really want, not just basics like food, clothing, and shelter, but also education, empowerment, etc.
That was so retarded. We get the dumbest policy when one is more concerned about who is raping the women (war on (some) drugs being another fine example in action), than just stopping the raping.
So naturally, we need a blighted, dysfunctional economic system to generate the necessary levels of need. Or you could just realize that we also invent things out of want. We don't need to create fake need.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:29PM (6 children)
:-) That's funny. I didn't realize the post was so well targeted...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:49PM (5 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 13 2021, @10:23PM (4 children)
Careful! You're revealing personal issues again!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @10:38PM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 13 2021, @10:49PM (2 children)
It needs no further defense. You're just playing the part of the black knight. "Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow bastard! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2021, @01:15AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2021, @05:48AM
It's not actually appreciated to be honest. But I understand that form has to be observed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @07:23PM (1 child)
This is of course true, but somehow the liberal left has been able to frame the narrative in the press for so long that many of the liberal lefties now firmly believe that wealth is a zero sum game. That on order for "wealthy person X" to gain a dollar of wealth, that same dollar has to be taken away from some less wealthy person. Fusty for one seems to labor under this false belief that wealth is zero sum.
But wealth does not work that way at all. Wealthy person X can gain a dollar of wealth with zero impact on the wealth of a less wealth person.
What the folks who operate under the false belief that wealth is zero sum overlook, ignore, or simply don't understand (I don't know which, hopefully it is the 'don't understand') is that wealth is itself a wealth multiplier. Once one has accumulated some base wealth level, then ones wealth begins to create new wealth at a rate that outstrips one's ability to labor for the same wealth addition.
The problem comes in at the low levels one is at during the ramp up period, it looks like a "why do I bother" situation because the wealth multiplying effect is small enough that the extra wealth generated seems insignificant. Where they overlook up (or ignore, or don't understand) is the time value of compound interest (general sense, not "bank account interest"). Those small gains during the early years, which seem insignificant at first, are merely setting the stage for later in time when the gains have compounded (along with additional savings to the wealth store) to the point that the gains from the wealth begin to outstrip by a wide margin the gains from laboring.
But it takes a long time to get there by laboring for income to then save that income to build a self-multiplying wealth pile. And, meanwhile, the folks accumulating this wealth pile have to forgo much of the downfall of most, the rampant consumer spending to "keep up with the Jones" that goes on nearly everywhere. Most laborers waste so much of their income on the latest gadgets, clothes, etc., that in the end they never have anything left to build that wealth pile which will itself grow in the future. Plus for some that do try, they then get frustrated with the small gains in the beginning, and give up too early before the real multiplicative advance kicks in.
This is much of the teachings of the FIRE movement [wikipedia.org]. It is quite possible, even with moderate jobs, if one avoids the crass consumerism so rampant today, for a good number of people to make themselves wealthy (where wealthy is defined as "don't have to worry about loosing their job" or "can work the job they love which makes less vs. the job they hate which makes more money").
Much of wealth is what you make of it. If you join the crass consumerism buy the latest shiny object treadmill, you'll be non-wealthy forever, due to your own choice. But if you don't join that treadmill, a huge number of you can become wealthy, it just takes time and determination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15 2021, @06:55PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:13PM (7 children)
When wealth includes ALL land and taxation exists, https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2005.3,2020.3 [federalreserve.gov] is no coincidence. Capitalism as a socioeconomic system is just slavery with less beatings.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:45PM (6 children)
It also has vastly less real slavery than slavery does. If you want to be treated as a grown up, you'll have to acknowledge reality.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:40AM (3 children)
Forcing people to participate in the capitalist system through top-down economic manipulation is a form of coercion no less serious than people being forced to work in communist regimes or as slaves as was common before the modern era. Arguing that changing the semantics changes the situation is intellectually dishonest and lazy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @03:41PM (2 children)
Depends on the force and what "participation" means. I don't see any current capitalist systems, including that of China qualifying as having forced participation on the scale of mass slavery. I doubt you do either.
Indeed. But who is doing that? I'd say the poster who equates "participation in capitalism" to slavery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @05:13PM (1 child)
Adam Smith wrote a book that had some really good excuses for promoting policies the aristocrats favored, like forcing the unruly peasants into factories to increase their personal wealth, which is why they call the system capitalism. Peasants were forced out of their self sufficient villages and traditional lifestyle through seizure of common land, conscription, and other evils, leaving no option but to work at the whim of others, be killed, or starve. This system worked fine during colonial expansion, as malcontents could leave/be shipped and actually go somewhere else. Nowadays, capitalism limps along in a bubble-daze, only avoiding widespread revolt by using world reserve currency status to print money without inflation. China has adopted an approach something like "communism with mercantilist zones", and communists agree 100% with capitalists that Work is Very Important (because if you don't do it for them, they might have to stop being parasites).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @05:49PM
Even if we were to accept your spin of history as fact, we still have the problem that you're describing England of the late 18th through mid 19th centuries. It's more than a century past that expiration date. Times changed, toots.
And helping humanity elevate itself out of poverty and ignorance. You will find no better lever for that.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 14 2021, @04:25PM (1 child)
Ah cool, so a little slavery is ok...
You remind me of a story about a guy who got stopped for rolling through a stop sign. Guy complains to the cop, "C'mon, man, I slowed down." With that the cop grabs the guy through the window and pulls him out of the car and starts wailing on him, saying with each punch, "Do, you, want, me, to, slow, down, or, do, you, want, me, to, stop?"
For slavery 2.0, we have the prison system
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @03:43PM
No. A little slavery is just acknowledging the reality of "human trafficking". That there actually is some fire to that particular smoke.
Again, even if your allegation were true, it's a whole lot less people than when actual slavery existed.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday February 14 2021, @01:02AM
The capitalist ideal, important to much libertarian thought, is still an ideal. Not an actual thing that exists, or ever existed.
The "capitalist" reality of today, the neo-liberal world order, has virtually no real connection to that ideal. And never really did - it was only interested in promoting ideas that would tend to prevent rebellion. But at least that lead to some good things along the way.
Increasingly, however, that neo-liberal state-capitalist system doesn't even seem to want to be associated with anything so reactionary and right-wing as a free market, even in theory.
Yet they can still profit from confusion.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 14 2021, @09:17PM (15 children)
Has to be, otherwise nobody can use the "debt" as a pretext for social austerity. The capitalist's *work or starve* ethic goes right out the window. "Money doesn't grow on trees" they always tell you. The hell it doesn't...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @03:49PM (14 children)
That's a non sequitur. Social austerity happens because some idiot government borrows too much for non-investment, something which does shit to improve the government's ability to pay back that debt (that is, isn't wealth creation in any sense) or the quality of the society. It's usually a mixture of partially unsupported entitlement spending and corruption.
If they had dialed that back, they could continue on without the disruption of austerity. It has nothing to do with wealth or its non-zero sum nature since no wealth creation was ever part of the process, but rather a straight-forward taking of wealth from future generations to pass on to cronies and some portion of the present generation.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 15 2021, @04:43PM (13 children)
That's all bullshit. It's the usury that does the damage. Interest is theft
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @05:43PM (12 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 15 2021, @06:37PM (11 children)
And you are wrong. Usury is the corruption, and theft. The only unqualified entitlements to lift are your QE trillions going to Wall Street
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @08:02PM (10 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 15 2021, @09:31PM (9 children)
:-) Not from you! Life's too short to undo it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @01:02AM (8 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 16 2021, @01:25AM (7 children)
They stand well enough without any further waste of time arguing about it. Always take the direct route. But, if you got nothing else to do but to be obtuse, knock yourself out, I'm always open to a cheap laugh
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @01:59PM (6 children)
Here, your reluctance to reason just signals some combination of ignorance and mendacity. You're just noise.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 16 2021, @03:39PM (1 child)
Ahhh, a last gasp zumi quote, this is when you're at your best, reflexively flailing about when you have nothing. TNX
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @10:06PM
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 16 2021, @03:50PM (3 children)
Oh, and furthermore:
It is with you, since you always hand wave off anything that contradicts your conditioned preconceptions. The simple fundamental assertion is plenty good enough for any non-biased observer. You exhibit rote learning more than knowledge.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @06:23PM (2 children)
You already stated you don't do that no matter what. So you never had an opportunity to find out.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 16 2021, @06:44PM (1 child)
Oh, you proven yourself to me plenty of times. It's just like talking to any other primitive tribal democrat or republican. Can't ever take a clown seriously
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @09:51PM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @06:44PM (2 children)
Hmm... Did you not just effectively reinvent the labor union above?
Maybe the one subtle difference from traditional labor unions is your suggestion that the union members support one-another in times of strike/job loss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:24PM
The general strike was a core precept of anarcho-syndicalism.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday February 14 2021, @12:43AM
No, that IS the traditional labor union. The corrupt AFL-CIO style unions of today are the late arrivals, or counterfeits depending on your view.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:19PM (4 children)
Absent some form of country wide protectionism (which the liberal side also eschews), all that your "community" that "deprive[s] capitalists of their labor at the drop of a hat" will accomplish is those same capitalists moving all the jobs to some other third world country (China, India, Pakistan) where the labor pool is huge, and the labor pool will work 14 hour days for the equivalent of one hour's pay for your community workers in their home country.
And once the jobs have moved to China, India, Pakistan, etc., you are left with a Detroit. No jobs, no tax base, no way for the "commune" to support itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:29PM (3 children)
Self-sufficiency only requires land. The capitalists will come if there is money to be made.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:46PM (2 children)
But that is just it. The "self-sufficient" commune with a plot of land somewhere, that demands $25/hr from the capitalist or they will deprive that same capitalist of their labor at the drop of a hat, is only profitable to the capitalist if the capitalist is unable to simply swing half-way around the world to China/India/Pakistan and hire an equivalent number of workers for $0.10/day.
Commune workers at $25/hour vs. Chinese workers at $0.10/day means that the commune is a loss equation, is not profitable to any capitalist, and no capitalist will come with those loss margins.
The only way the commune workers get hired is if the government of the country containing the commune forces the jobs to be kept in the country (i.e., protectionism).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2021, @08:55PM (1 child)
Making the capitalist suffer doesn't matter, personal freedom does. The capitalists will still come to /sell/, and access to goods is all that matters.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:43PM
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. Cargo cult systems fail spectacularly when the cargo doesn't come.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:40PM (8 children)
The "not entirely false" part here is that capitalist systems are amazing success stories due to those gains (including as TMB noted electricity and antibiotics). And "manipulation, corruption, and regulatory capture" is not unique to capitalist systems. You will have to account for those problems in every economic system, including yours. One really important question you should be asking is does your system provide those gains or better with less of those costs? I doubt it will.
Also t
No, the ridiculousness has started. Marxist communism has genuinely failed. Capitalism merely has problems, but is still succeeding. Anarchism doesn't provide a viable model. And dealing with centralized power structures is one of those universal problems that is not lessened by communal structures (which already concentrate a good deal of power at the community level by definition).
Things are already as legal as necessary. Just do it. Don't whine about laws and regulations you don't need. And it's great advice to accumulate wealth. I suggest investment not "hoarding". If your religious beliefs preclude you from investing in the greater economy, then just invest in yourselves (say education, capital purchases, infrastructure construction, etc). It's not rocket surgery.
Finally, there are plenty of commune-type structures in the capitalist world already. In addition to genuine communes, we have universities, co-ops, stuff like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @07:57AM (7 children)
I think you're reading far too much into what I wrote, and constructing a strawman. Free market theory is not what I disagree with, but the nature of the state in capitalist societies, which promotes anti-free-market activities (as seen through the whole history of capitalism). I'm not whining about laws and regulations, but making an argument that anarchists should exploit the tools of the state to fight against it, rather than rejecting participation in the state on grounds of ideology.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @04:33PM (6 children)
You're just saying that the state is a non-capitalist force in capitalist societies. We all already knew that. I don't see the point of blaming capitalist systems for the deliberate breaking of capitalist systems. Meanwhile Marxist systems are broken by design. People slack when there's no incentive to work hard and keep their heads down when having an opinion can get you punished as some sort of reactionary. And they naturally devolve to top down centralization because it's a group-oriented belief system with bigger groups naturally having priority over smaller groups.
I'm fine with that. I just noted that capitalism already has the means baked in to do what you want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @05:32PM (5 children)
It's not the incentive that makes people work! It's freedom! People work hard when they choose to work, they slack when they are pressured to do things they don't want to for survival.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @05:45PM (4 children)
Why do people choose to work? Incentive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2021, @06:30PM (3 children)
No, money is not why most people choose to work. Social status by joining an organization maybe, interest or enjoyment in craft, necessity, rivalry maybe, but the incentive is very obviously not why people choose to work, or they would not seek out fields which are known to have low wages and high competition.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2021, @07:59PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2021, @02:11AM (1 child)
Yes, Marxist ideology is authoritarian and illiberal. The freedom of liberal societies allows a far larger portion of the population to "choose" to work, but the incentives only matter to those who never had a choice of whether or not to work on the first place. I am very doubtful that capitalism as currently implemented can lift the floor to encompass the whole population rather than the top 25-50% or so it currently does.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2021, @10:09PM
It's more like 90-95%. I grant that there's a population who simply can't help themselves for whatever reasons - medical or mental illness mostly. Everyone else has been helped even if they don't save a dime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2021, @03:55AM (1 child)
OK, so if the workers band together, and...
... accumulate capital ...
... then apply it to establishing an application, in the form of an enterprise ...
... in which they participate as labour ...
... basically, a co-op.
OK, swell. You can establish a co-op within a capitalist ruleset, and you can provide payment to members in kind, as well as in cash.
Remind me what's new about this? And why should your neo-kibbutz take over the world when others haven't?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2021, @05:52AM
Because they haven't done it right. And have been held back by laws somehow. And it's an incredibly difficult operation.