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this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Don't conflate the concept of currency with the concept of capitalism.
One is a tool to enable abstraction of trading the value generated by labor, whereas the other is a system of exploiting labor to concentrate wealth to a minority class.
We can eat the rich via wholesale transfer of their value as currency to a democratic cooperative that uses it to fund a better society.
Maybe that's an idealist's view, but isn't it better than the current reality, Where we let schmucks like Bezos have little yachts to take them to their bigger yachts to their mega platinum plated ultra yachts, while a good portion of his employees aren't given sufficient break time and end up pissing in empty bottles in trucks on the side of the road.
Why do you assume I do conflate the two. Currency in a capitalist society does exactly what I said and is the reality for the vast majority of people the world over. We aren't talking about the abstract here.
And We can't actually. Not without either changing the value (diminishing it), or tanking economies. Is it better for tomorrow's dollar to be worth a quarter what it is today? A tenth? Because the commodities we use currency to buy will hold or increase their value. A slice of bread and some bananas will cost what they cost and the money won't be enough to buy them anymore. We are already seeing that without that money in circulation.
Eating the rich will not stop that fallout. Also. Who distributes that wealth? Why do you trust them? What makes them qualified to do so? And how are you planning to have that wealth distributed? A coop fund that doles out UBI? Like. I want to be realistic about the problems we're facing here. Focusing on the mega yachts and BS and being angry about that isn't constructive.
You're conflating the two concepts by asserting the value of money (currency) will be somehow diminished, if the system and mechanisms designed to concentrate it into the hands of the individuals (capitalism) were dismantled.
Why are you so certain that converting a company like Amazon from Private ownership to employee owned would necessarily tank the economy?
Focusing on making apologies for the system, saying "it's hard," and tearing down alternatives because "ItS jUsT nOt ReAlIsTiC" is neoliberal and not constructive either.
No. I am saying that if and when we get around to dismantling those systems to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few, we will see real world consequences for those actions because money/currency only has value if we agree it does.
We have seen the devaluing of different currencies world wide and the effect on the people using them before. Value remains the same in commodities which are necessary.
You insist I'm trying to make excuses for the rich or for the system. What I am saying is that if done incorrectly we will see fallout that will detrimentally affect us.
First and foremost because people are not educated in economics, the nature of currency, or the systems they are rooting to dismantle.
Second because it will take a concerted effort from the majority to make this happen at all, and most of the people in this thread can't even see past "eat the rich" which will not get the result we want.
Can you stop assuming I'm just making excuses for like 5 seconds and consider the rest of the comments in this thread and others like it? If we are dismantling the financial economic systems that make up our capitalist society we are gonna need to have our ducks in a row and nobody even agrees on what that looks like.
This right here is why people always manage to take advantage of socialist or communist society. Because people don't want to actually learn what it means and what the pitfalls other societies that have tried it have run into. There's always gonna be someone trying to take advantage. There's always gonna be selfish people.
What alternatives did you recommend? Because none have been brought to me in this thread. I have brought up several ideas that can work in concert, but I think they would fail if done one by one.
Nobody suggested to me that we should "convert Amazon to private ownership" but even if they had, nobody has explained how we do that. Have you got a plan?