Heike MatthiesenSep 5, 2023
Nae

I don't know who needs to hear this but

The postal service exists to deliver letters and parcels to people
Not to make money for shareholders

The transport system exists to move people to where they need to go
Not to make money for shareholders

The water, gas, and electricity supplies exist to provide people vital utilities
Not to make money for shareholders

The healthcare system exists to ensure (and that's ENsure, not INsure) the health of the population
Not to make money for shareholders

Shareholders in vital public services are a vampiric drain on those services

Capitalism is a disease

Oct 13, 2022 at 7:10pmWeb
Show threadNaeOct 13, 2022
So when people say 'the Royal Mail needs to modernise because it's not making enough money' you should hear a massive tick whining that the body it is a parasite upon is not producing enough blood
Show threadNaeOct 13, 2022
The solution to the Royal Mail's problems is not to starve the workers who are the body and organs of the postal service. It is to cut off the parasite.
Show threadNaeOct 13, 2022
The parasites have burrowed deep into our public services over the past few decades. The capitalist parasites must be surgically removed, and then our public services must be given the vital care they need.
Show threadNaeOct 15, 2022

Been pointed out to me that it is not of benefit to use the overly emotive and fear inducing language of disease and parasitism, that to do this is a tactic beneath us, one also used by the fash.
Perhaps I would have been better to say that capitalism is exploitative and privatises profit while nationalising losses.
Also it's non-consensual- we're forced to take part in the exploitation in order to live anything but a wood hermit life.

Another world is possible Ⓐ

Show threadNaeOct 15, 2022
And ending capitalism before it strips the world of the bounty it has left (a bounty that belongs to all creatures, not just the wealthiest of the humans), before it further depletes our ecodiversity, and further pollutes the air and water, and further changes the climate, is as time critical as it can get.
Show threadevil Ariadne is on Kitsu now!Nov 14, 2023
@fuchsiashock i will be shocked if it will be ended in my lifespan because none of us has taken the steps to do so
Show threadAlexander Hamizdat 🌹Jan 14, 2023
@fuchsiashock but capitalism is parasitic. and it is causing malaise.
Show threadPoor 'PossumJan 14, 2023
@fuchsiashock Nah, fuck that. Agitation is a core step to getting people to take action. You don't get that by softening your language. Let them squirm with how uncomfortably gross this whole scheme is.
Show threadDavid S (inactive)Jan 14, 2023

@fuchsiashock I'm amazed that people are still fans of capitalism considering its been bailed out by socialism twice in the last 15 years.

Also fans of capitalism are surprisingly accepting of socialising the costs of roads (which not everyone contributes to wearing out) but not railways

Show threadPrimoJan 15, 2023
@fuchsiashock also: living as a wood hermit may be criminalized.
Show threadEdvin MalinovskisSep 5, 2023
@fuchsiashock as someone that is often annoyed by overly emotive language I think that the parasite analogy here is a actually a very good fit 🤷🏻‍♂️
Show threadmupan 📚Nov 14, 2023
@fuchsiashock We couldn't live a wood hermit life if not in a desert where there is currently no capitalist interest, far away from our home.
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock when I was younger utilities were in public ownership and the Post Office and British Telecom were the same public sector organisation - although telecoms in particular was barely affordable and there were delays to service provision, this was more due to technology not having advanced and govts diverting the revenue from telephone bills to other purposes (such as Cold War defences) rather than reinvesting in networks for the people to use >>
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock OTOH I don't remember my parents complaining that much about electricity and gas bills (these services were at least affordable and reliable), and it was within the finances of a teenager with only a part time weekend job to regularly get the train to London from where I lived in SE England, and as a young adult I didn't even need a car (whereas today the cost to take the privatised trains is more than driving to London or SE England)
Show threadMostlyTatoJan 14, 2023
@fuchsiashock
Removed, crushed, set on fire, then the ashes buried at a crossroads so they can never rear their vampiric heads again.
Show threadPolychrome Sep 3, 2023
@fuchsiashock you have shareholders on the post office? That's crazy, which country is this?
Show threadCharles ☭ is now tooting from queer.partyOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock What, like summarily declaring all my misplaced stamps to be invalid isn't enough of a fucking windfall.
Show threadRiley S. FaelanJan 14, 2023

@fuchsiashock: Incidentally, Royal Mail, the only mail service in the world that doesn't specify its UK affinity on its stamps because it was the first public mail service, has a lot of history around this very concept. Googlewords: Uniform Penny Post and Universal Postal Service.

When post is run by a government, one important side effect is, it can operate indefinitely at moderate direct loss because the availability of a good quality postal service is such a bonus to the economy at large that the increased tax revenues from the improved infrastructure will still outweigh the nominal loss. If any.

Show threadキャリーJan 14, 2023

@fuchsiashock A focus on efficiency for efficiency’s sake rather than for profit can make public services better than private options.

People tend to push back against public services because they have been told that the government is always wasteful and less efficient than market-based solutions.

Mail services should modernize not because they are unprofitable but because it is better for their citizens.

Show threadCalligrafaeOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock The entire South African government needs to hear this
Show threadTalya (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️✡️Oct 13, 2022
@welshpixie @fuchsiashock every government needs to hear this
Show threadCalligrafaeOct 13, 2022
@Yuvalne @fuchsiashock I was thinking that after I sent it XD
Show threadduncanOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock in the US we don't ask literally any other government service to generate a profit, idk why one would expect them to (other than big-government-fearmongering)
Show threadjan mute suwi lon poka sinaOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock and houses and apartments exist to house people, but to make money for landlords
Show threadConsoleWitchOct 13, 2022
@fuchsiashock this
Show threadRev. Bussy Body of The Church of America MLM and Shooting ClubOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock a brain fed with facts and logic instead of self-serving parasite creation myths and magical thinking should easily come to the inference that, if an institution were serving a public good in good faith, it would almost by definition be incapable of operating at a profit
Show threadPhilOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock yea I legitimately had this come up in a conversation a few months ago. They were going on about trains losing money and therefore needing to be overhauled, and they didn't really have a coherent comeback to "yea that's called 'spending tax money on things we need' and it's intentional"
Show threadJosh CarlsonOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock Here in the US, we've actually got court precedents that say investor-owned utilities are *entitled* to make a profit. It's such an absolute mess.
Show threadjlapoutreOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock this!
Show threadBike EnbyOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock Fuck Thatcher o'clock hu?
Show threadNaeOct 14, 2022
@MxCraven *gestures to wall clock where every hour says 'fuck thatcher'*
Show threadopal hartOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock only fairly recently have i been able to divorce the ideas of "free market" and capitalism, especially corporatism (which i was always against), and it's been really useful because i can take the good ideals of "capitalism" like ease of trade and do away with the complex systems that only exist to serve themselves
Show threadopal hartOct 14, 2022
@fuchsiashock i think for many people on the fence but not sold on economic systems such as communism or socialism, that's important to hear
Show thread@francksOct 15, 2022
@fuchsiashock +1 et puis pareil pour l'éducation, pour les télécommunications, pour les séjours en pleine nature, les cours de chant et d'histoire, les contes pour enfants, et tant d'autres choses #moiprésident. Par contre, les infos télévisées et radiophoniques des canaux non indépendants ça devrait être payant trèèèès très cher.
Mais, mais tout ceci serait un autre monde, n'est-ce pas ?
Show threadNaeOct 15, 2022
@francks un autre monde est possible
Show threadMatěj Cepl 🇪🇺 🇨🇿 🇺🇦Oct 15, 2022
@fuchsiashock You are all welcome to move to Russia or North Korea (perhaps Vietnam, Cuba, or China).
Show threadNaeOct 15, 2022
@mcepl No thank you, I'd rather improve the place I live. But I suspect your suggestion was not made in good faith.
Show threadCHECK PINNED IF YOU FOLLOW MENov 24, 2022
@mcepl @fuchsiashock imagine thinking Russia is communist...lol