GlyphMar 8
I would never describe myself as a "capitalist" but I do kinda understand the structure and function of markets a little bit, and it's sometimes frustrating chatting with leftists whose entire experience of markets has been watching the enormous trash-fire of post-2008 dysfunctional crime-based capitalism destroy the possibility of them ever owning a home. Like if you really liked trains but lived in a town where 3/4 of the population had been killed by a chemical supply train derailment
Show threadGlyphMar 8

"We should have better public transit!"

"Transit, what do you mean?"

"Like… you know… trains"

"Trains? Those machines that kill your entire family in wracking pain with clouds of poison from a realm beyond nightmares? Why do you want more of those?"

"Yeah but not like that"

Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyMar 8

@glyph I have to disagree with that comparison. Trains can be useful - capitalism cannot.

I'm perfectly serious & I do understand this shit; anything useful that looks like it's thanks to capitalism is actually thanks to commerce, i.e. the market & not only is capitalism fundamentally not the market - it's anti-market.

Well-regulated commerce can be extremely useful & it's therefore important to un-conflate it from capitalism. The latter has to go for the former to work properly.

Show threadGlyphMar 8
@jwcph while I am sure we agree on large swathes of policy, ultimately I don’t feel like this frame is very helpful. “capitalism” is just what we call it when the market (or, for that matter, the state) does things we don’t like. “commerce” is what we call it when it does things we do like.
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyMar 8

@glyph This isn't framing or opinion or special pleading - it's fact.

Capitalism = ownership (of the means of value creation).
Commerce = market.
Capitalism = consolidation.
Commerce = trade.

They've been conflated so long most people think it's all the same thing; so did I - but it really, REALLY isn't.

This is also evident in that you can totally have one without the other. Of course capitalism without commerce is robbery & exploitation, but it can happen.

Show threadEnergetic NovaMar 8

@jwcph @glyph

So… intellectual property is capitalism.

The internet is capitalism… we own the means of production on the internet…

Show threadMu
@Energetic_Nova @jwcph @glyph what do you think you own?
Mar 8 at 10:05amWeb