The American dream didn't die.
That makes it sound like a natural event.
Like it was inevitable.
Here's the truth:
It was fucking murdered.
By greedy, unchecked corporations, bought and paid for politicians, and every coked-up asshole on Wall Street.
Inventions and creative work don't spontaneously turn into money. You have to either sell the rights for a lot of money or set up production and distribution channels.
Either way it takes a lot of pre-existing wealth and a partner in the position to exploit others.
Okay. If you'd like to share the details then i'll be willing to concede that invention and creative work can make one wealthy without exploitation.
@Pineywoozle The way this sounds to me is you could have chosen to become wealthy by exploiting people, but you chose to be an artist and forgo wealth.
As for your cousin—i have no idea how a VPN really works, but i understand it's not just some software. It requires significant physical infrastructure for transmitting data, the sort that could in principle get built and run without exploitation but in practice is not.
Good for you and your cousin, but i don't consider this much of a disproof.
@Pineywoozle Such is the perverse beauty of capitalism, that the exploiter can fool themselves that they're not exploitative.
We can disagree endlessly about whether “good” (according to whom?) wages are a sufficient condition for non-exploitation. But in the end, the issue seems to me a lack of consensus, rather than a lack of nuance as you have been saying.
JA Westenberg
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote
Fabio G.