JA WestenbergMar 7, 2024

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.

Show thread@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNoteMar 9, 2024
@forthy42 You can also get extremely wealthy from inventing something or writing or creating art, none of which requires exploitation. All of which are required for a healthy society. Capitalism needs regulated but it’s dishonest & simplistic to reduce it like you just did & it dilutes your legitimate argument. There are also still very real class & race barriers in every country, some worse than here, that are as exclusionary as capitalism, that also need to be overcome. @Daojoan
Show threadFabio G.Mar 9, 2024

@Pineywoozle

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.

@forthy42

Show thread@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNoteMar 9, 2024
@magitweeter Nope. I’ve personaly seen it done thru hard work and sacrifice. No big wealth, no exploitive distribution. Your ideas are simplistic, jingoistic BS. Selling isn’t automatically exploitive neither is production. @forthy42
Show threadFabio G.Mar 9, 2024

@Pineywoozle

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.

Show thread@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNoteMar 9, 2024
@magitweeter I’m an artist, I create beautiful jewelry, if my goal was wealth , there are 1,000s of stores that would purchase them thru direct contact. I choose to focus on creation rather than spending my time contacting more than I do & then having to employ workers to supply them. My cousin, worked hard, bootstrapped a company & invented some VPN software, paid his employees well to produce copies, millions of which were sold at a reasonable price. No exploitation, no wealth funding.
Show threadFabio G.Mar 9, 2024

@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.

Show thread@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNoteMar 9, 2024
@magitweeter Selling a piece of jewelry I created that I would then have reproduced by a worker who is paid a good wage isn’t exploitation. It’d be me being compensated for choosing to run a production company rather than focusing the majority of my time being creative. And if you payed attention when you read what I wrote you would know that my cousin specifically made sure his product wasn’t manufactured in an exploitive way. His employees were well paid added note he now helps other creators.
Show threadJ Lou
@Pineywoozle @magitweeter The workers in the firm are co-responsible with you for using up the inputs to produce the jewelry. The basic tenet of justice is that legal responsibility should be assigned in accordance with de facto responsibility. However, you get sole legal ownership of the produced jewelry and sole legal liability for the used-up inputs. This violates the basic tenet of justice. The only way to satisfy this tenet is to structure the firm as a worker coop
Mar 11, 2024 at 11:56pmWeb