04-14-2021, 01:21 PM
(04-14-2021, 01:30 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(04-13-2021, 05:46 PM)Einzige Wrote:(04-13-2021, 02:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(04-12-2021, 11:35 PM)Einzige Wrote:True, it's nothing more than an alternative means that's being used by the left to achieve the same result. I'll give you credit, you don't mince words and you're more honorable and a bit smarter than the typical Democratic minded Progressive these days. So, what are you going to be doing during the cultural war that's coming soon. Are you going to be living like a renegade Indian while we're settling our obvious differences with the Democratic party? You're right, the only thing the Democrats and us have in common is that we are both directly related to capitalism, currently related to the same country and we are humans. The Democrats think they're God like but in reality, they're just humans among humans.(04-12-2021, 09:54 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I think you should go big and impose 60$. You won't have much of an economy left but whatever, that's beside the point.
The fact of the matter is that wage labor and money are almost entirely arbitrary. Why do cooks make ten an hour? Why not fifty, or fifteen, or five hundred? If adjusted radically upwards l, would not everything else adjust itself according to the "natural laws of the market" given time?
But this isn't an argument for increasing the minimum wage. It's an argument for the abolition of wage labor.
There's th Left-Wing Of Capital, i.e. Democrats (even very liberal ones like Sanders etc.), and the Revolutionary Left. And the two want entirely different things, even if a lot of the rhetoric sounds superficially similar.
I don't want a minimum wage hike, not necessarily because I am concerned with prices (there is very little evidence that controlled minimum wage increases correlate to price inflation) but because it reinforces wage labor, which is a social relationship with a definite history (e.g. most Egyptians, Roman's etc. did not work for wages as we understand them except when they worked for the State in various capacities) and therefore a definite end.
Money, again, is illusory. This is why e.g. I can go to a place like Laos or Vietnam, rent a very modest (<100k) American house out here while I'm gone, and live an upper middle class life - why will $700 a month get me a hovel in the U.S. and a normal middle class life (except for some high end consumer electronics or cars, neither of which I care about) in Hanoi? I can literally pay for all my needs and a good few wants from one low end rental property here, whereas I'd need to own dozens in Vietnam or Indinwsia to finance a life here. Why is money valued differently in different places if it expresses timeless universals? Is being in Vietnam really that much worse than being in America? No, almost certainly not, unless you are bourgeois and have business interests here.
Because money is not real. It is a social abstraction. You'd probably agree to the extent that fiat money is a thing - to which I would remind you that money was backed by all kinds of shit before the implementation of the gold standard in the nineteenth century.
The Democrats etc. are not about to abolish it. They just want the illusion of money to appear a little more pleasant.
I don't really care if the Democrats continue (ugly metaphor redacted) and continue increasing poverty levels and creating more issues for themselves. I've already written them off along with a group of Republicans. (expletive deleted) them. I think America should break with DC, establish a new American capitol and basically leave them behind to deal with all the (nonsense) that they don't want to do anything about that might upset someone with money they need for a campaign or some ditz living in Hollywood. I'm sure Vietnam would be fine for someone like you. You're already a communist believer and you'd prefer to live in a communist country. It wouldn't hurt to give it a shot if the Vietnam government approves of you and allows you to enter their country.
1. Conservatives used to be firm believers in minimal government until they discovered how well Big Government could serve them with sweetheart deals and the enforcement of monopolistic pricing. The political choice has become between a welfare state and crony capitalism.
2. Moving the seat of government elsewhere -- St. Louis, Missouri would be a suitably centralized location -- would simply move what you see as the pathologies of Big Government to another city. The political culture must change to achieve your vision of a "Real America". It is not changing rapidly as you want it to change.
3. Political campaigns aren't cheap these days. Would you prefer public financing of campaigns? I'd like to see some of the most expensive and least informative means of campaigning (smear ads in 30-second spots) to vanish. If pols could get votes by debasing the music that their opponents listen to, then they would make those ads.
4. Yes, yes... I know that Einzige can be naïve about money. People do not work or start business for money; they work for what they can get with it. Money makes exchange easier/
5. It is easy to despise economic elites who believe that the only legitimate reason for the existence of any person not already filthy rich is to make themselves even more filthy rich while barely surviving. Such creates maximal profits and elite gain. Donald Trump exemplifies that personality and agenda.
6. Much about what people complain about is a cover for something else. Much that people dislike about their lot is the rat race. The hour-long commute, crowded parking lots, telemarketing pitches, work that has no relation to personal character, and being heavily and hopelessly in debt can all be miserable. If one still has these but the system becomes 'socialist', would Einzige be happy?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.