RE: Not All Labour Is Valuable
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Have you read David Graeber's book, "Bullshit Jobs?" I'm curious because I've noticed a lot of your posts echo his ideas, but you seem to approach very different conclusions.
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Yes, I have you caught me, absolutely guilty; his book was such an eye-opener for me because believe me, I drank the kool-aid. I was very much a company man, working my ass off thinking I am creating value. Giving long hours to move up the ladder, but I did feel something didn't feel right, and then this book landed in my lap, and it changed my mind forever.
Have you read "Debt" or "On Flying Cars" yet? To be blunt, I think a lot of roles the "rich" fill are about as "bullshit" in our economy as anyone else, but from your posts it seems like you aim toward riches as a means of solution.
No I have not read those, but I'll add them to the list. I would agree with you there, picking up 2 and 20 for moving cash around isn't really valuable work. If you gave a ham sandwich a stock portfolio in the last 40 years in the current environment they would still be making money that's how far removed we are from value.
I wouldn't say riches are the solution, I'd say purchasing power is the solution. There will always be rich and poor, we cannot account for how people spend their purchasing power but as long as they can retain it without it being debased, we keep the Gini coefficient in check which has been a pretty good indicator of a healthy society
Oh, thanks for clarifying! I'm not sure I agree that there will always be rich and poor - I think we're seeing that if we look at actual value, in the world, what's "rich" and what's "poor..." get a lot muddier, and change a lot more day-to-day. COVID came and suddenly the "rich" people around me couldn't wipe their own butt anymore, since stores were out of supplies and even banks were low on cash, if you wanted to use dollar bills to get the job done. Meanwhile, the knowledge of which plants could serve the role, where they grew abundantly around our town, suddenly made a group of "poor" people, the only ones in the community with clean butts!
Part of what intrigues me about crypto is how the fungibility, plus liquidity, might help us move our sense of value around to what's more appropriate for today, more quickly, than older financial instruments allowed. In a way, I think I'm agreeing that purchasing power is the solution - but rather than existing as its own thing, I view purchasing power only as a reaction to the state of the world. (The actual world, not what goes inside the minds of bankers.)
Under it all, I think we're expressing a very similar fundamental goal: "Stop letting petty human forces manipulate any person's wealth." It's just what that'd let flourish that we seem to have some difference of opinion on.
(Of Fly Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit is good, and fairly short, and free online. As I look around Hive these past few weeks, I wonder if this isn't where the flying cars are.)
We've had rich and poor since Cave men days. I doubt it's going to change, especially in this society where we're so used to consuming and not producing.
Yeah, I get the richer you are, the more removed you are from daily toils, but let's not pretend that all middle class and poor people are self-sufficient and have a boot on their throats; they choose a lot of the problems that keep them down too.
I like the idea of crypto and people making their own currencies or doing whatever agrees with them as a community that I have no issue with, but what it currently is being used for is a lot of shit. Most of the altcoins in the top 100 are seen as investable, but they're all cash grabs. I still see a lot of it as a smaller casino of the greater financial casino.
Yes, I agree, we're all standing on different sides of the same issue and coming in with different solutions. I don't know what the right answer for everyone is, I think we all have to pick our preferred solution, for me that's Bitcoin
This idea you keep floating that all humans share the same history just isn't true, though, and to be blunt, is just a white supremacist myth. (Specifically, it's descended from the theory of social Darwinism, which was a political theory created to advocate for the genocide of African and Pacific peoples in the 19th century and became the foundation for eugenics. It also served as part of the foundation for Marx's historical materialism.) A lot of what you're presenting here is, tbh. A unified history, in which classism has always been present, isn't accurate to the combined history of human people. As you continue exploring new means of economic organization, I'd really encourage you to step outside the myths that show you how your society /is/. Your society is such a small, small part of the Earth, and has proven itself utterly incapable of dealing with any problem except the ones it creates for itself.
I am not really tied to my race of which I composite several, I don't care much for it as a debate either I hope you understand, living in apartheid I've had enough race issues for a lifetime.
I can't do anything about cultures, people nor animals purged from the planet of which we've lost many during humans existance, I can only talk about the existing forces and my observations.
I understand and respect that you don't want to debate racism. Neither do I: I want to share how you are expressing anti-Indigenous beliefs. Since you aren't Indigenous, there's really no debate to be had. I hope you can appreciate that this isn't necessarily an easy conversation for me to bring up, since you're basically claiming that parts of who I am don't exist.
My people are not "lost" or "purged": we exist. That Indigenous people don't exist, or are irrelevant or disconnected from the world, is a part of the myth that Western culture tells. I mean, you introduced me to another Native person here on Hive. We clearly exist. :P We have entire nations engaged in work that provides for ourselves and works with other communities and societies. And our communities, while influenced by the West, aren't Western. That's what I'm trying to say: it's a bit offensive for you to talk about my culture like it never existed, is some ancient anomaly, or is irrelevant. There are Native economists, physicists, astronomers, and their Native culture has a major affect on their work. You can't do anything for what is lost, that's true. I'm talking about acknowledging what hasn't been. I'd really encourage you to re-examine that stories that you know as history.
From a rhetorical perspective, I hope you don't mind me saying that it's a bit funny, you say you don't care much for racism as a debate, but from my perspective, you're the one who brought racial supremacy into it and all I'm doing is pointing it out! Your perspective on history, which clearly influences how you argue economics, seems derived from the arguments made by 19th-century Europeans who were debating whether or not non-Europeans were actually people.
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.I have to read this book too
Would love to get your take on it, I think you will love it
I have put it on my list!