The luxury of the rich is maintained through the misery of the poor.
Forced scarcity is the the zero-sum nexus of consumerism and capitalism.
Live by example and give up your wealth instead of virtue signaling. Maybe others will then follow your example.
The left: “The rich become wealthy off the backs of the poorest. They use their control over workplaces and resources to accumulate profits, hiring workers (who lack access to viable workplaces and utilities of their own) to do all the labor necessary to create value. Acting like isolated acts of philanthropy will solve that fundamental injustice is like telling a cancer patient to wear more band-aids. It’s not about ‘giving more to the poor’; it’s about democratizing essential utilities at their source so that no human has to live in poverty or take orders from a boss or property-owner. Any ‘solution’ that avoids this aspect of the problem — including philanthropy and redistributive taxation — is a dead-end.”
Conservatives: “Uh, *scoffs*, why don’t you stop virtue signaling and give all your money to a few poor people then, cuck? *scoffs* That will solve global poverty and take attention away from the billionaires who have so much money they could literally end global poverty and still live comfortably. *scoffs* Cucks don’t understand basic economics. Economic justice would make the money sad ☹️”
Profit creates progress. Take away the profits and you do nothing but stifle progress. What you are actively crying for has been tried many times and has failed at every level. Your understanding of economics is based on feelings and not logic.
“I am incapable of conceptualizing a motive for the further development of my fellow man besides greed.”
riiiiiight, because it’s we’re clearly utilising technology to its maximum potential at the mom- oh wait no we’re not, the oil industry constantly kills progress is renewable energy tech because it’d threaten their profits. And cheap, easily-accessible medicine is suppressed by biotech companies because it’s better for them to create artificial scarcities. And almost all menial jobs could be eliminated with automation but it’s cheaper to make wage-slaves waste their lives doing it. Fuck outta here with that bullshit, man.
The whole “your understanding of (a human made science) is based on feelings and not logic” is so incredibly asinine ‘cause like, economics…. isn’t real, humans created it based around perceived commonalities in trading trends centuries ago and it as a social science could very much be changed
There is no logic to economics so like, sorry if I’d rather care about the well being of my fellow people instead of submitting to a fake understanding of human nature crafted by our corporate leaders
I know people who basically tell me that I, a minimum wage-paid, impoverished laborer, could help end poverty by being less materialistic. That always makes me so fucking mad because those of us who are poor, even if we do have eight pairs of shoes (most of them years old, jealously guarded, and well taken care of because who knows when I’ll be able to buy a new pair) instead of the one or two pairs we may technically need, are not the reason that another human doesn’t have any shoes. I’m as much a wage slave as anyone else on the bottom rung.
Stop asking poor people to live even more simply, as if that could fix inequality, and start dismantling capitalism. Lateral charity from one poor person to another does not change the economic system that made any of them poor.
Lateral charity from one poor person to another does not change the economic system that made any of them poor.
“Lateral charity from one poor person to another does not change the economic system that made any of them poor.”
This needs more notes.
This.
Also, capitalism is extraordinarily inefficient at producing progress because it encourages absurd levels of redundancy by making it a priority to do the exact same thing your competitor is doing. It means you’re doing the work 10 times over to advance half as far.
The only benefit we get from this kind of model is that it’s useful for improving efficiency on a very small scale, and even then it’s only useful if we control for capitalism’s need to define ‘efficient’ as ‘built on human suffering’.
And profit would only “create” progress if ALL of the profit went back into the business. But it doesn’t, it goes to the owner and shareholders, to fatten their wallets.
THIS!!!!!!!!
Capitalism has a vested interest in actively fighting against progress, because progress inevitably comes in the form of a competitor. See:
Horse buggies vs cars
soda companies vs recycling
tv vs vhs
fossil fuels vs green energy
drm vs torrents
patented medicines vs generics
There are likely thousands and thousands of examples of companies fighting against technologies and services that have made the lives of many easier. People who think capitalism creates progress will argue that the competition forces companies to innovate or die. But the reality is that companies have found cheaper ways to survive other than innovation, and in most cases, choose those options. Backroom lobbying, litigation, corporate espionage and take overs, etc. But basically, companies either fight against the progress of their competition or attempt to monopolize a market, at which point, they have literally no reason to create progress. And this is why regulations and public ownership of any resource people need to live is so critical.
Anxiety-prone-human 