Notices by RD (rd4anarchy@kolektiva.social), page 3

@AlexanderKingsbury @Radical_EgoCom @ciggysmokebringer @HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake @gerrymcgovern @gnutelephony @whatzaname

>>And there's not really a more effective way to concentrate power than to collectivize things by law; someone still has to be in charge.<<

Most of the folks you've been conversing with here have no desire or intention at all to "collectivize things by law". Anarchists are opposed to state and rule of law.

>>Private ownership of the means of production ALLOWS for such concentrations, but does not demand it.<<

Allowing it is all it takes actually, it doesn't have to demand it. But the competitive nature of capitalism (which is actually a competition to transcend competition) does demand it.

@AlexanderKingsbury @Radical_EgoCom @ciggysmokebringer @HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake @gerrymcgovern @gnutelephony @whatzaname

So it arises naturally from human nature? How do you propose to change that?

Also, I'm wondering where this perfect ancap vision of capitalism came from since it has never existed in the real world 🤷♂️

@AlexanderKingsbury @Radical_EgoCom @ciggysmokebringer @HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake @gerrymcgovern @gnutelephony @whatzaname

Your assertion has been disproved, starting with Enclosure, and everything that followed.

@AlexanderKingsbury @neonsnake @whatzaname @gerrymcgovern

>>Part of that is owning property you don't occupy or use. Part of ownership of something is excluding others from using it if they don't satisfy your demands for using it.<<

Yes, this is a key distinction of capitalism and why it is not some "natural" default.

This key characteristic disproves your assertion that capitalism can exist without state.

There has never been, and cannot be, capitalism without state.

When we suggest that capitalism must be eliminated, someone always wants to know:

"What will you replace it with?"

If you have a cancerous tumor removed, do you think you need to replace it with something?

If you have a parasite sucking your life away, you remove it. You don't replace it with something else.

If you are a slave, you need freedom, not a new master.

Someone always asks:

"What is *your* solution?"

As if it's up to *me*. Like they can't imagine a world where people work things out together instead of following some leader's proprietary "solution". As if there has to be *one* solution for everyone. As if there even has to be "a solution".

As if capitalism was ever a solution to anything.

Solution to what?

The "problem" of being human beings?

#capitalism #anarchism

@aral

"...for we are the People of the Book."

That's some scary shit right there. Not something I'd be proud of.

It occurs to me that when someone says that #capitalism is just "human nature", they are actually saying that indigenous people all over the world are or were less than human.

Something that is an inevitable result of human nature should have arisen independently in many times and places, if all these peoples were human.

But what we see is that it arose from a relatively very small subset of people in a certain region at a particular time.

It had to be exported to the rest of the world and implemented *against great resistance*.

If capitalism is human nature this should not have been necessary. It would have been eagerly embraced. So obviously these other people must be more like domesticated animals that must be managed for their own good.

@0v1 @aral

"There is such thing as ethical capitalism."

No, there is not. Just as there is no ethical version of slavery.

#capitalism stands on multiple violations of human freedom and self-determination. It is built on a foundation of violence, oppression, racism, theft, exclusion, colonialism, extraction, coercion, exploitation.

There is *no baby* in the putrid bathwater of capitalism. Throw it out!

@0v1 @aral

You think that being forced to engage in production of things for exchange on the market (to enrich someone else) in order not to starve is a good thing?

I was talking to a relative yesterday, a christian who was telling me how amazingly blessed they were because they had a need of something that was too expensive new and too difficult to find used and in good shape.

But God hooked them up with someone in their church community who had this thing, no longer needed it, was happy to give it to my relative for free.

They cited another example of being blessed like this when a friend noticed a need they had and found someone in the community who was willing to pay for it for them.

They became quite emotional describing how "blessed" they were.

I wanted so much to tell them:

That wasn't "God" at all, that's communism!
Or as anarchists would call it: Mutual Aid.
This is not God, this is something deeply, essentially, and definitively *human*.

#blessing #communism #MutualAid #anarchism

@garbados

Very well put!

Here's an interesting thread with great examples of this:

https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/111025312476874870

"I'm sympathetic to anarchist ideals, I really am! I want to understand them better. We need to organize together. But I just think that most people are too stupid."

🤦♂️

@pyperkub @HeavenlyPossum @pluralistic

It's quite simple really: if it involves a state, it's not socialism or communism.

If it involves a state existing from, let's say around 1900 or so on, it's either a private capitalist state (like the US, or even "Nordic Socialist" states) or state capitalism (like USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, etc).

Hope this is helpful.

@pixelpusher220 @SallyStrange

No excuse. The info is right there, you need to sort it out better.

Most of the muddying actually comes from defenders of capitalism who have only superficial understanding, if even that much.

Understand first of all that the word capitalism itself was originally coined by critics of the system. It was always a bad thing, but the word has been rehabilitated by some.

You know there are people here who can help you see the true defining characteristics of capitalism if you are willing to examine things.

@SallyStrange @mmclark @pixelpusher220

The private ownership thing gets emphasized a lot, especially in dictionary examples, but I've come to think it is not really essential at all; not a defining feature of capitalism.

Consider the following description of capitalism from the book "State Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management" by Adam Buick and John Crump:

"We shall suggest that, apart from being a class society, capitalism has the following six essential characteristics:

1. Generalised commodity production, nearly all wealth being produced for sale on a market.

2. The investment of capital in production with a view to obtaining a monetary profit.

3. The exploitation of wage labour, the source of profit being the unpaid labour of the producers.

4. The regulation of production by the market via a competitive struggle for profits.

5. The accumulation of capital out of profits, leading to the expansion and development of the forces of production.

6. A single world economy."

The focus of this short book is to argue (very successfully IMO) that individual private ownership is not a defining feature of capitalism and that countries such as China, The Soviet Union (this was published in 1986), Cuba, Vietnam, etc, though they may identify as "socialist" and are called "communist" by many are in fact simply another form of capitalism called "state capitalism".

In the process of making this argument, this book also became an excellent general reference for understanding what capitalism really is, how capitalist economics work, what socialism really is and isn't, and plenty of fascinating and clarifying historic context.

free PDF:
https://files.libcom.org/files/State%20Capitalism.pdf

@ech @SallyStrange @mmclark @pixelpusher220

Different people will look at this from different directions and explain it different ways, ranging from very basic, simple mathematical formulas about surplus value like your example (Richard Wolff gives a good example of this), to more philosophical understandings of the concepts we use to justify these social structures at all.

There is validity to the economic perspective, but I prefer not to validate economic theory much because I think it's mostly a religious phenomenon.

If you ask @HeavenlyPossum, they might tell you that what's really happening is that people are renting the right to labor for someone else. Why would anyone do that? That's a good question to explore.

I like to think of a fantasy scenario (extraterrestrial virus? lol) where everyone just keeps doing what they do but somehow capital is removed from the picture and money suddenly becomes meaningless. Functionally, everything still works. We can take care of each other.

Is coercion really the only way we can function?

Or have we just been scammed?

@ech @SallyStrange @mmclark @pixelpusher220 @HeavenlyPossum

Oh shit, never mind, I thought you were asking in good faith.

Should I be telling you to fuck off?

@skarmory @BendingUnit @Existentialcrisis86 @HeavenlyPossum

We don't need a system, in terms of an artificial entity that has authority over us. This is the big con of the ages, that we need to be managed for our own good by someone else.

We did not establish this system willingly and consciously to do this to ourselves, contrary to just-so stories we've been told. It was forced upon us by those who benefit from being in control of the system.

This should become clearer and clearer to you as the days go on...

...unless you are really fully invested in the lie, then you will become a worse and worse person until the you today wouldn't even recognize yourself in the future.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you really just have a lot to learn still and that you don't really want to become a full-on fascist.

@inthehands

Good thread!
For extra credit, here's more about school:

https://chez-risk.in/2023/04/05/why-are-children-forced-to-study-mathematics-at-gunpoint/