This is a fundamental misstatement of what started this.
I said:
You chose to interpret “class warfare” as “seizure of all assets”. I meant we should encourage non-rich people to hate rich people, which has been my consistent message on this forum since it started. I think all this talk about rent-seeking and landlords is too abstract to be the best ammo for crafting that narrative of hate.
Also, you mentioned guillotines first in this current discussion (this thread plus the transition thread).
People can make food and sell it in most any economic system. There is no inherent connection to capitalism when it comes to preparing and selling food. For example:
A dude with a food cart can make hot dogs and sell them.
A family could own a taco shop and sell tacos.
A group of business partners without employees could prepare and sell food as well.
An employee owned sandwich shop can make and sell sammys.
None of those arrangements are examples of capitalism, or require capitalism, or are unique to capitalism.
Capitalism isn’t making things.
Capitalism isn’t selling, or otherwise trading, things.
Capitalism is certain kinds of hierarchical relationships between humans beings.
The ability of absentee owners to extract economic rent whether it be in regards to our housing or workplaces, etc; that relationship–that is capitalism. The class war that we are talking about stems from that relationship.
These are areas worth discussing as well. This thread is relatively new and short, so we haven’t touched on them here yet. However, sabo did touch on the IP aspect in the climate thread. You and/or clovis may have had him on ignore at that time though…
Considering that half of my monthly nut goes to paying for housing, I feel that this may not be correct. I don’t feel I’m unique in that respect either, many working people have 20-30%+ of their monthly income going towards rent.
My gut reaction is to not like your idea of encouraging hate, rather than educating our fellow humans to understand what is going on. I believe that people innately feel that something ain’t right, even if they can’t initially verbalize what exactly it is. I know that this quote resonated with people.
"They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.“ — Assata Shakur
I respect your perspective, so I’m open to hearing more about why you feel the way you do, or perhaps I’m just misunderstanding your point and we can find points of agreement.
I basically feel that people are stupid and trying to educate them won’t work. I think that the Democratic establishment operates under an Enlightenment-influenced assumption that human beings are naturally good and reasonable and the eDems wouldn’t be so bad if people were actually like that.
I guess there is not much room to continue since we don’t agree on the definition of capitalism.
That being said, I’m all for a major restructuring of several aspects of the current economic system. My point since the start is I’m interested in realistic and morally defensible restructuring. I have no interest in talk of guillotines, wholesale property seizure or as NBK wants further ramping up societal hatred between people based on irrelevant criteria.
Eat the rich is childish nonsense. Tax the ever living fuck out the rich is actual policy.
I even think micros idea of a net worth cap as possible but I can see a lot of difficulty in figuring out how to apply it.
I’m talking about how you build the political movement that allows for the accrual of enough power to make substantive policy changes. I actually don’t find policy wonkery that interesting. I am more interested in public opinion and how you go about changing it.
You guys would be wayyyyyyyyyyy more pissed about real estate if you saw developers/owners’ tax returns. Real estate income is essentially not taxed in this country.
Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals and businesses own the means of production. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market rather than through central planning.
The problem with all this, and I’ve tried to do something about this with my business, is that hardly anyone wants to be a partner or employee-own anything. Most people just want a job.
My man. The wholesale property seizure has already taken place. The titles on all the land in America traces back to violent wholesale property seizure. The capital accumulation of the 19th century was based on financing and insuring the business of slavery. Present day we have wealth inequality at levels that Louis the XVI would have been envious of. The status quo is morally indefensible.