So when do we put a stop to this feodalist capitalist horror that is also destroying our planet now?
@janisf Capitalism can't be fixed by more capitalism. Labor movement is the only entity big enough that could change things. It has done it before.
Voting only slows things getting full fascist and corporate rule. It's what capitalism is meant to become and politics is just a brake for its progress.

@bhasic
Sudden change is what kills.

Look, my 90-year-old mom needs her Medicare, and Social Security. Fprgive me for being pro-system, but a whole lot of Americans are getting their basic needs met with it. I'm not OK with movements that threaten lives.

@janisf The state is socialist. School, library, army, healthcare, social security is socialsim. Capital wants to destroy those so it can profit from them.

@bhasic Yeah, well, Wall Street is communism. It's why they call it, "publicly owned." Insurance is socialism, just not managed by the state.

I'd bet you'll like this, if you haven't heard of it yet. I checked it out when my kiddo got a scholarship to UChicago. https://www.capitalisnt.com/

Also gotta say, Milton Freedman said capitalism would collapse under too much required taxation--and he wasn't talking about state taxes, he was talking about rent.

Capitalisn't

Is capitalism the engine of destruction or the engine of prosperity? On this podcast we talk about the ways capitalism isβ€”or more often isn’tβ€”working in our world today. Hosted by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bethany McLean and world renowned economics professor Luigi Zingales, we explain how capitalism can go wrong, and what we can do to fix it. Cover photo attributions: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/about/capitalisnt. If you would like to send us feedback, suggestions for guests we should bring on, or connect with Bethany and Luigi, please email: contact at capitalisnt dot com. If you like our show, we'd greatly appreciate you giving us a rating or a review. It helps other listeners find us too.

Capitalisn't
@janisf @bhasic
I'm unable to take anything you say seriously. Wall Street is not communism. That's not up for debate; that's just a fact.

@Radical_EgoCom @bhasic It is for anyone who can afford it. That's where Bernie Sanders got his, "Socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor" speech line.

Here: https://www.capitalisnt.com/

Get to know the system you're looking to burn down. You'll know where to light it.

What's not socialism or communism is Private Equity and privately owned businesses, and outside the Biggest 80 or so public corp,s is the bulk of cash flow.

Capitalisn't

Is capitalism the engine of destruction or the engine of prosperity? On this podcast we talk about the ways capitalism isβ€”or more often isn’tβ€”working in our world today. Hosted by Vanity Fair contributing editor, Bethany McLean and world renowned economics professor Luigi Zingales, we explain how capitalism can go wrong, and what we can do to fix it. Cover photo attributions: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/about/capitalisnt. If you would like to send us feedback, suggestions for guests we should bring on, or connect with Bethany and Luigi, please email: contact at capitalisnt dot com. If you like our show, we'd greatly appreciate you giving us a rating or a review. It helps other listeners find us too.

Capitalisn't
@janisf @bhasic
Well luckily socialist and communist movements aren't movements that threaten lives in that they would also ensure social security and medical care, and even more so because socialism/communism ensures these things as basic human rights available to everyone no matter what, unlike in capitalism.
@Radical_EgoCom @bhasic There's plenty of talk about violent revolution, and revolutionary change in a short period of time will leave the most vulnerable to take up the slack. The rest of us are working on state healthcare plans that wrest the good coverage away from employers, and more-available subsidized housing. I'd say those are solid incremental changes. And they are happening.
@janisf @bhasic
Well all socialists/communists don't advocate for violent revolution, and as far as I know most socialists/communists understand that a revolutionary transition won't take place in a short period of time and that it will be a very long process.
@Radical_EgoCom @janisf @bhasic yeah as far as strategy goes the only thing we need violence for is dealing with people who bring violence to us: the thing that will actually bring the old system down is simply offering people a better deal than it does (in a sense we do already but we don't have the participation required to do so effectively)

@jeremy_list @Radical_EgoCom @bhasic Bingo.

If you want traction, go to church. I'm pretty convinced you can see the logic behind that.

@jeremy_list @Radical_EgoCom @bhasic We wait until capitalism is offering enough people a s*y deal. I think we're mostly there. We just have to sell it.
What about those of us who can't (or manage not to) labor for a boss? "Labor" in my opinion is part of the problem. Recall the "General Trades Union" won the 10 hour day in the USA, and then everyone left the union, since they no longer had any problems with their labor. People made big changes happen, but they still thought it was fine to labor for a boss.

That compromise with the capitalists let them stay in power, and the capitalists used that power to undermine the labor movement, and erode away the freedoms we earned. A labor movement today would face mechanisms in place to prevent a labor movement from ever happening again. People had strong communities back then, societies, families, even churches, and those are all gone now, replaced with television and paranoid doctrine that our children are in terrible danger, and we must never trust strangers. Why don't we tell each other to welcome strangers, and get to know them? Even the architecture of the roadways, it all functions to keep us isolated and alone, just in case we get the idea to join together again like in the 1930's.

So, I think a movement could do some good, but if we look at it through the narrow lens of "labor," we'll always labor for bosses. Maybe it's time we stop being workers, and start being people again.
@janisf Remember when Elon Musk was supposed to save the world? There was even a Simpsons episode telling how great world saver he is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musk_Who_Fell_to_Earth
The Musk Who Fell to Earth - Wikipedia

@janisf Billionaires won't save us. Future technology won't save us. EV's wont save us. Mars is inhabitable, we can't move there. Moving there would be worse than staying in Earth, if it was possible.
Stop eating meat and dairy, stop overconsuming, stop doing bullshit jobs, stop doing work that only makes things worse, change car to bicycle, planes to trains, hang oil executives and billionaires. That will save the Earth and humanity.

@bhasic

√ Vegan
√ Spent $1512 so far this year, $500 of that medical, mostly food
√ Work at an art studio
√ Can't bike to three of my doctors, or my kid, bought electric, used.
√ Have infiltrated the rich by going to the right church--you can , too. Yes, it makes me squirm, but they don't deserve to be drawn & quartered. Public shame is working on some of them.

Threatening billionaires will only make them build new bunkers in more secret places.

Your personal life choices are great, but other people are killing the planet with "natural gas" and mercury, and no restriction on your own lifestyle will affect that. That's why they want you focusing on eating vegetables, and not organizing, just to warn you. That stuff you're doing is still good to do.

Anyway we don't have to threaten billionaires. They'll still feel threatened, because they're complete nutcases, but any accusation of threats doesn't need to be anything but a paranoid lie. What we have to do (one way or the other) is take away their power and capital. Their loans canceled, their investments voided, and their extra property and rentals repossessed, and given to the people who used to be beholden to the wealthy. They have to be on an equal stage with the rest of us, or we'll be giving them the means to return everything to tyranny again.

I don't know how to deal with all the police who brutally murder anyone who tries that, but I suppose they would have to be part of the solution too, if a solution exists.

CC: @[email protected]

@cy @bhasic You act up and fill their news feed with protests pointing out what shitheads they're being. You teach their children how to spot and call out bullshit. Then you tax them, having carefully laid out the impact it will have. And daddy won't be able to say no to his sweet little girl. Trust me on this. I used to sell wedding dresses. Not the cheap ones.

They pay the police, and they pay the people who write what the police are supposed to do.

The problem is they pay the police and the lawmakers though. That's why you can't tax them. You just can't. They always get out of it.

And you really think they aren't being shitheads on purpose? Only thing protesting does is give them an excuse to sic their pet cops on you, and claim you're forcing them to militarize even more with your "rioting" and "drugs."

CC: @[email protected]

@cy
Biden indicated early in his term said that taxes for the rich are effectively voluntary. With mobility, your place of citizenship is voluntary. So coercively taxing people will drive them away.

No, you don't up & tax them. You talk to them by whatever means you can find and sell them on the idea of a better America. It helps if it's an investment, but there are plenty of philanthropic options, too.

@bhasic

@bhasic I forgot two: I shop at food co-ops and bank at a credit union. I highy recommend both.
@bhasic If you want to string up Oil Execs, just elect Biden again. That's why they're funding Trump, despite the Cheney clan. (Dang, I'd love to hear an interview with Dick about now.)
There is much less of these kind of anti-capitalist comics from USA than from Cananda. Probably because in USA capitalists owned all the media and capitalists massacred resistance. USA remains inequal with billionaires, poor, sick and homeless. Canada is a better place to live. Surprising, because USA was meant to be land of opportunities and freedom, Canada was UK's colony. Canada was more progressive and better for its people.