- Capitalism and Alternatives -

answered questions

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on April 15, 1999 at 11:34:32:

In Reply to: Unanswered questions posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on April 14, 1999 at 16:50:48:

: Unless you are completely self-sufficient, no-one will necessarily demand that something that you offer in return, and even if others DID demand what you offered

No they simply may not have any use for it at all.

: no-one will necessarily guarantee you subsistence in return for what you offered. Why should others promise you subsistence in return for your labor, if they can keep you begging, and retain you as their servant?

If there was only one unavoidable 'employer', for instance in a totalitarian state they could. In every otehr situation there is choice.

: Why would people change their views of each other after several generations. Agricultural society has existed for ten thousand years, and people are still "beasts of burden," so why should this change? Of course, the capitalist world offers dignity, wages, etc. to "beasts of burden" -- this doesn't make them any less "beasts of burden"...

It does remove the harness. That the oppressed workers can become business owners (and some both at once), that social mobility is possible (I didnt say easy) is in opposition to the notion that a slave society still exists (in the feudal or totalitarian sense)

: This above opinion would however explain why you think of yourself as a utopian, yet you've offered no suggestion so far as to what should be done to end racism, sexism, or slum-poverty.

Racism an sexism is the result of thinking about other people in a collective way, and ignoring individual characteristics in favor of the tribal mindset. Slum poverty has so many causes each would need to be resolved. Infact because its source is so diverse its easily lept upon by many as 'proof' of the evils of capitalism.

: This is precisely what the IWW has advocated. Are you planning to join them?

They never do and never will unite in the way suggested, because they compete with eachother. The dont compete because theyve been engineered into doing so by some mysterious force of capitalism. They compete because its in their interests to do so. Likewise the instigators if new wealth, the creators, will not unite for the same reasons.

Neither 'side' has to worry over that one.


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