Forum Post: If you don't like Capitalism - don't participate
Posted 11 years ago on Sept. 12, 2013, 10:35 a.m. EST by Stew
(-51)
from Newark, NJ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Not hard to do, just stop working for someone else. How hard is it for anyone to go to work for themselves? I guess it all depends on their job skills.
Anyone who works as a craftsman in the trades can go out and work for themselves. Anyone who is involved with computer programming can go out and work for themselves.
So that's the key - get into a field of work where you can work for yourself otherwise you will still be obligated to work for others.
Participating in the capitalist economy is mandatory (where I live at least, which is NYC) because it's the only way to gain access to the means of survival, e.g. food, bedroom, health care.
Ok. In return for ''Hold Fast'' on your thread before, a favour for a favour : http://vimeo.com/68334467 .
pax ...
True, you can't escape capitalism. The good news is the world is not black and white. We can still promote anarchy inside this system to a degree, until we have complete control. I started a company with some friends which is based on anarchic principles. We are 10. We make decisions together. We share all profits. We keep enough to live decently, not rich, and give anything extra to help the poor. All of us could have gotten well paying jobs and lived like rich folks, but we care too much about anarcho-communism for that. We decide to practice the concepts as much as we can inside our capitalist system. Money is one thing, it's needed to live, but doing what you truly believe in is also important. I wouldn't be happy if I couldn't practice anarcho-communism at all. I'm much happier spreading the wealth than keeping it all for myself. In the end, you don't need that much money to live an acceptable life. Most people have more than they need and they still complain. Capitalism and our consumption based market fools us into thinking we need to buy all kinds of things we don't really need.
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Ok so I can buy uncooked vegetables for less money, once a week in various locations, during the growing season.
Where do I cook it? Where do I get bread? Where do I get a couple grand each month to pay for housing expenses? What happens when I need to get x-rays and cat scans to see if I have cancer?
Wheatgrass is your answer, Jart.
You won't get cancer while your diet is wheatgrass.
Why the fuck you'd wanna live in NY is not for me to say, but if you must, then find a squat, or do some more occupying in a tent.
Agreed because of the proliferation of corporations in this country, we are all in need of them to survive at this point. All I am saying is my observation from going between both worlds is, that in NYC (maybe not as much in Manhattan as the outer-boroughs), that you have more chance to support local businesses than people in the 'burbs where there are far fewer independently-owned, good delicatessens, bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, ethnic food stores and year round vege stores.... and even summer/fall farmer's markets are fewer and further between here. I mean there's people in the 'burbs who don't really know what a delicatessen is, and think that Dominoes and Pizza Hut make good pizza! Imagine that!
People from the suburbs tend to be severely lacking in their fashion, cuisine, physical health, and get little exposure to other cultures. Suburbia is a dreary corporate capitalist traffic jam. A sheltered breeding ground that creates the material conditions for the republican mindset.
Based on your interest in products that don't suck, I advise you to move somewhere along the L Train like Bushwick, Williamsburg, or East Village. You'll fit in and it's where I live.
WHO - ME ???
I resemble that qualifier. {:-])
I consider your first paragraph as extremely well written, and confess it's true and I've been guilty of proliferating the issues you mention. Hindset is 20/20 but my primary thoughts were concerning raising my children, now 30 and 16 yrs old. If people like you are quickly able to see negative results from people with good intentions, your wisdom should be sought. The republican mindset of not being aware is generally true but should be irrelevant to our ultimate goal.
Everyone cant move to somewhere along the L Train, but we desire them to be as enlightened. The people that already live along the L Train should focus on being receptive to others. The goal is solidarity, along with love one another.
No no you don't get enlightened living along the L. You just get cool shops and are surrounded by beautiful young people. Oh and my favorite part is that the last stop on the L is the Google office.
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You couldn't find that quote because it was John Rocker and he was talking about the 7 train.
That was my first reaction....John Rocker. I'd like for Catelonia to define the "small town mind", as well as elaborate on how New Dorkers are "enlightened". It seldom pays to paint with a huge brush.
I love NYC and wouldn't live anywhere else, but there are plenty of of idiots here. When the John Rocker thing happend, a lifelong New Yorker said to me "I guess those people from Texas aren't that smart." When I told him Rocker was actually from GA, he asked "Well, what state is Texas in?". It takes all kinds.
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you will need someone to pay for your work
a capitalist would own the means of production. so no
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money is barter bit someone has all the money
see above
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tools, land, facilities . . .
resources
It's NOT a question of just working for oneself. Modern High-Finance ; Low Ethics Crapitalism is utterly broken. For well over three decades now, the so called “free market” has been elevated to the status of a secular religion in the US, with the 'Capitalist Market' as its god and socialism as its devil. This period, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has seen the total wholesale dismantling of the actual productive base of the US economy, at the cost of many millions of jobs and the living standards of the American working class and forget about the hubris and conceits of ''middle class'' ... if you work or need to do so in order to pay your bills, then you're 'working class' !
In the name of the supposed infallibility of the ''Free Market'', the operations of big businesses have been deregulated, removing all legal restraints on corporate profit-making and fuelling the accumulation of ever more obscene levels of wealth in the hands of a financial oligarchy. A vast process of social plunder has occurred, in which the real wealth of the country is now being redistributed from the bottom to the very top because there ain't no 'Trickle Down' these days as anyone who can think and breathe at the same time can clearly see the true nature of modern, financialised 'Hoover Up Crapitalism' !!
By its very nature, The Parasitism of American Crapitalism has generated corruption and criminality on an unprecedented scale. Wall Street CEOs have awarded themselves tens of millions and even billions in 'compensation', in an utterly irrational and socially destructive squandering of social resources for the benefit of purely private greed. Public squalor & poor infrastructure in the face of private opulence !!!
This entire financial system must be taken out of private hands and nationalized in the form of a public utility under the democratic control of the working class, with provisions taken to safeguard the holdings of small depositors and share-holders. It must now be subordinated to the social needs of the people & dedicated to developing and expanding the productive forces in order to eliminate the current poverty and unemployment and vastly improve the actual living standards and cultural level of the entire population.
The bottom line is, one can't properly critique or commend ''Capitalism'' without insight into money and money creation. I could go on and on and bore you, but I'll kick back and roll a 'medicinal one' now and instead link to these three short videos & two other links :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IH-XKQpOI ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqvU83sqhPE ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM ;
http://publicbankinginstitute.org/ and also please consider :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34748.htm .
For a wider and more in depth analysis of modern capitalism and the 'system' it has generated and for glimpses at solutions, I very strongly recommend the longer 'vimeo' link, I've copied to jart on this thread.
radix omnium malorum est cupiditas ...
everyone here writes so well these days
''Crises Both Local and Global'', by Lawrence Davidson :
I also recommend this to you Matt : http://vimeo.com/68334467 .
pax ...
The first link takes every possible valid point and puts it as clear as possible, concisely Excellent! Looking forward to the rest of them. Thanks!
Capitalism and War are now inextricably linked like never before and Washington is the critical nexus. For a brief insight into the behind the scenes machinations, please see :
''There is nothing new about the notion of political corruption in Washington. What is new - and actually quite astounding - is how big, how ugly, and, yes, how outright corrupt it has all become, especially when it comes to the amount of money passed between politicians and lobbyists every day. What was once done behind closed doors, thanks to a sense of shame, is now regarded as legitimate, if not respectable.'' Solidarity K & and on the flip side and more in keeping with the OP, also consider :
''How Economic Inequality Harms Societies'', (TED Video) : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36224.htm & see :
"The Untouchables - How the Obama Administration Protected Wall Street from Prosecutions" : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/ .
fiat lux ; fiat pax ; fiat justitia ...
Um........
Fine.
I'll do it.
Even when you are self employed, you are still participating in capitalism. The whole stop participating in capitalism did not end.
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
You confuse politics and economics.
Working for yourself instead of for others is about politics. It's about refusing hierarchy and flying solo in anarchic fashion. It does nothing to get you out of capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system that affects the whole populace, i.e. its affects are not just at the individual level. It's about who controls the means of production and what that entails. When the means of production is privatized - like it still would be even if you worked for yourself - it means the #1 priority is making a profit. Socialism and communism is when the means of production is controlled by everybody. That means that the 1# priority is not profit, but it's the benefit of everybody. Take hospital care as an example. Our neighbor up north has a social system. The priority is to give care to every canadian, it's not to make profit. Every canadian owns the health care system. In US, it's privatized, meaning the priority is profit.
You can't escape an economic system which affects every single transaction in the whole country from the very small to the very large.
Your analysis of the problem is cursory. I suggest you read more about capitalism, socialism, and communism and how these various economic systems affect the societies which use them.
Sounds a little mixed up but that's how I roll. Being an entrepreneur means participating. Being a consumer today means participating.
Careful, some people here think anyone who mows a lawn for money is in the 1%.
How well do you know Richard Wolff? Do you like the idea of WSDEs and workplace democracy?
Have you familiarized yourself with the way of the near future? Machines will automate and jobs will be extremely scarce. There will be no way to put money into hands of consumers, other than by handouts.
The finite world is reaching limits everywhere. Natural and man made systems (the economy) are coincidentally collapsing... catastrophically.
The new world order will be our baby or theirs.
We can turn the tables and take it back, there is still time.
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Actually, it is the point that you presented. You either flat out do not know (unlikely) or you wanted one big circle jerk.
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Economies of scale.
No. I didn't give you what you wanted. I answered you. You just don't like it. It doesn't jibe with your right wing teathuglican agenda.
How much will you pay me for this string of beads I made?
I'll take Manhattan...................:)
Personally, I think a capitalist is anyone who capitalizes on something, not necessarily money and means of production. I think there is responsible and irresponsible capitalism.
We are experiencing the most brutal of capitalisms. It creates hookers, who capitalize on corrupt minds. Pimps capitalize off them.
Ladybugs capitalize on aphid infestations.
Capitalize is synonymous with "hungrily feed", or to extract as much value as possible from an exploitable source.
Capitalism is a system set up so we can do just that, but it has a virus: the corporation.
It's just a stepping stone in our evolution as a species. Currency is characteristic of a phase we could not avoid. it will pass as labour is inevitably mechanized and money can not be earned or spent.
Better prepare for this. Better not deny it. Stuck people choose to ignore it, and have no control over it, so essentially play for the other side with less significance than a pawn.