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 threadGlyphMar 8
@jwcph you cannot present facts without framing them. framing is the choice of what to emphasize and what terms to use. c.f.: https://rwu.pressbooks.pub/thinkingrhetorically/chapter/framing/
Framing – Thinking Rhetorically: Writing for Professional and Public Audiences

We tend to think of the purpose of writing as simply transferring information or expressing our opinions.  We know, however, that exigencies affect how we…

Thinking Rhetorically: Writing for Professional and Public Audiences
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By Decency
@glyph Sure - but the framing is unrelated to their status as fact. You said you found the "framing" of separating capitalism & commerce unhelpful, but that's a lot like saying it's "framing" to distinguish between apples & coconuts, for example based on the fact that one is a fruit while the other is a nut, or their appearance or species, as if they're the same because they both grow on tree-like plants.
Mar 8 at 6:10pmWeb
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyMar 8
@glyph (you'll notice that I'm plenty critical of framing in my posting - it's not like I'm unaware of the potential problems of it or how it works)
Show threadGlyphMar 8
@jwcph to be clear, the issue I have with the framing is not to separate "capitalism" and "commerce" (those are indeed separate concepts, and I draw that distinction frequently enough myself) but rather to attempt to present capitalism as monolithic. capitalism is a cluster concept which is both poorly socially defined (a lot of people think that "capitalism" and "democracy" are synonyms, as opposed to "communism" which is a synonym for "authoritarianism") and also poorly theoretically defined
Show threadGlyphMar 8

@jwcph just working off wikipedia, in capitalism we've got:

- private property
- profit motive
- capital accumulation
- competitive markets
- commodification
- wage labor
- emphasis on economic growth

various systems mix all these properties to differing degrees to achieve vastly different outcomes, and some of the worst outcomes of "capitalism" occur when one of them is removed (the "competitive" in "competitive markets" is a major annoyance to oligarchs, for example)

Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyMar 8
@glyph We agree enough that I don't think it matters much if we disagree a little 😁
Show threadGlyphMar 8
@jwcph 👍
Show threadGlyphMar 8
@jwcph tbh I am posting about this and not other more pressingly consequential issues because I am attempting to manifest the type of disagreement I want in my life. imagine the world we could have if most political disagreement were good-faith discussion about technique and strategy among sincere people who DIDN’T want their neighbors to die
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyMar 9
@glyph Imagine that... 💛