This does helpfully get at the reason I think “fully automated luxury gay space communism,” as fun as it is to say, is such a red herring.

There is no arbitrary point of abundance at which we can automatically throw off the shackles of capitalism, because there’s just so much stuff that we can all live in comfort and aren’t held hostage by capitalists’ control over production and access to material amenities.

Because we already produce so much fucking stuff! It’s everywhere! There’s so much of it that we end up throwing a lot of it away and now there’s a gigantic garbage patch in the Pacific bigger than whole countries! And still these freaks are excited about being able to compel workers to expand their productivity a hundred times over.

*It will never be enough for them.* Their appetite is infinitely insatiable. There will never be some natural point at which we can say “that’s enough, we can ignore them now.”

Surpluses and scarcity and abundance are all social artifacts. We create and define them together. There is no natural cut-off. We’re going to have to do the hard work of throwing off these parasites ourselves.

@HeavenlyPossum I think it's worth riffing on this a bit more too...

Single payer healthcare is supported by the majority of Americans. Which party do I vote for to get that?

A sizable minority wants UBI. Which party can I vote for to get that?

The vast majority of Americans want to see banks be held accountable rather than bailed out, who can I vote for to see that? Can I vote for a party that won't send troops to break up protests against banks straight up robbing Americans twice?

The majority of Americans have wanted to see the drug war end for like... Decades. Which party would one vote for to see that happen?

Which party, exactly, would one vote for that would not force people back to work during a pandemic? Which one is that again?

Speaking of forcing people back to work, is there a party that would make return to office mandates unenforceable? I bet that has a fuck load of popular support, but where are those politicians looking to leverage that support? Which party do I vote for again?

Oh hey, which party do I vote for to bar senators from holding stock in the companies they write legislation for? This is super popular. If this is a democracy, then any issue with even a basic level of popular support would definitely have *someone* willing express the idea. Which party do I vote for?

Which party do I vote for to, at the absolute minimum, bar members of Congress from owning stock in companies that benefit from war?

Which party do I vote for to bar politicians from becoming lobbyists and vice versa? Which party is it again?

Which party do I vote for to not send troops to support oil companies suppress people protesting to keep their water safe to drink?

#Vote #election2024