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> This attribution of a value system, e.g. consumerism or profit-seeking, to capitalism, is misguided It's not. Capitalism is not exempt from the common sense

> This attribution of a value system, e.g. consumerism or profit-seeking, to capitalism, is misguided It's not. Capitalism is not exempt from the common sense notion of "You reap what you sow", and the history of Capitalism proves this indisputably. > and a way for certain ideological camps to pathologize and stigmatize human freedom. The economic sphere of capitalism isn't free at all. It's firmly authoritarian. Most people today have no other choice than to sell their labour and thus their freedom for most of their lives to someone lucky enough to be wealthier than them. That's a very poor standard of "freedom". Sure, it can certainly get worse, but this wasn't the freedom that people dreamt of 100 years ago and beyond.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>It's not. Capitalism is not exempt from the common sense notion of "You reap what you sow", and the history of Capitalism proves this indisputably. You're making a lot of unsubstantiated assertions that are in the realm of conspiracy theory. >>The economic sphere of capitalism isn't free at all. It's firmly authoritarian. Most people today have no other choice than to sell their labour and thus their freedom for most of their lives to someone lucky enough to be wealthier than them. Nothing you wrote substantiates your first assertion that "The economic sphere of capitalism isn't free at all. It's firmly authoritarian." As for being forced, by the prospect of starvation, to work: as Frédéric Bastiat wrote 170 years ago.. "Man recoils from trouble, from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppressors should be detested and resisted - they can hardly be called absurd." Someone wealthier offering a higher wage than the other options available to a person, and a person consequently choosing to work for them, is not authoritarianism. What your argument is based on is inflammatory appeals to emotion, that upon even mimimal examimations, are revealed as totally without substance.
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  > You're making a lot of unsubstantiated assertions that are in the realm of conspiracy theory. Care to say what? > Someone wealthier offering a higher wage than the other options available to a person, and a person consequently choosing to work for them, is not authoritarianism. No, that's literally choosing between the least bad authoritarian entity available for oneself. > What your argument is based on is inflammatory appeals to emotion It is? So let's push democracy into the economic sphere as well since according to you there would be no difference. One worker, one vote.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    >>No, that's literally choosing between the least bad authoritarian entity available for oneself. You're misdefining "authoritarian". Nothing I described in that example is authoritarian. >>So let's push democracy into the economic sphere as well since according to you there would be no difference. You're free to manage your own property however you wish.
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      > You're misdefining "authoritarian" No, the economic sphere is strictly top-down authoritarian where workers is in a dependency situation wrt to their boss. The pandemic has made that abundantly clear. > You're free to manage your own property however you wish. Only if you actually have property to begin with, which most don't by no fault of their own. And what a few do have, by no merit of their own.
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        >>No, the economic sphere is strictly top-down authoritarian where workers is in a dependency situation wrt to their boss. It's a voluntarily assumed dependency. Your incoherent moral argument would suggest that something the worker wants - a job to be offered to them - is harming them, and that this offer that the worker chooses over other options - is an act of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism implies non-consensual interactions. People being forced by nature to work in order to feed themselves is not 'non-consensual' in any legal or social sense, and the people offering them jobs in this environment are not authoritarians as a result. A top-down hierarchical structure also does not define authoritarianism. What's authoritarian is the state preventing people from trading their labor for income, to enforce the incoherent moral principles of socialist ideology. >>Only if you actually have property to begin with, which most don't by no fault of their own. And what a few do have, by no merit of their own. That doesn't give you a right to rob others of their property.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

>>It's not. Capitalism is not exempt from the common sense notion of "You reap what you sow", and the history of Capitalism proves this indisputably. You're making a lot of unsubstantiated assertions that are in the realm of conspiracy theory. >>The economic sphere of capitalism isn't free at all. It's firmly authoritarian. Most people today have no other choice than to sell their labour and thus their freedom for most of their lives to someone lucky enough to be wealthier than them. Nothing you wrote substantiates your first assertion that "The economic sphere of capitalism isn't free at all. It's firmly authoritarian." As for being forced, by the prospect of starvation, to work: as Frédéric Bastiat wrote 170 years ago.. "Man recoils from trouble, from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppressors should be detested and resisted - they can hardly be called absurd." Someone wealthier offering a higher wage than the other options available to a person, and a person consequently choosing to work for them, is not authoritarianism. What your argument is based on is inflammatory appeals to emotion, that upon even mimimal examimations, are revealed as totally without substance.

cloudfifty 5y ago
> You're making a lot of unsubstantiated assertions that are in the realm of conspiracy theory. Care to say what? > Someone wealthier offering a higher wage than the other options available to a person, and a person consequently choosing to work for them, is not authoritarianism. No, that's literally choosing between the least bad authoritarian entity available for oneself. > What your argument is based on is inflammatory appeals to emotion It is? So let's push democracy into the economic sphere as well since according to you there would be no difference. One worker, one vote.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  >>No, that's literally choosing between the least bad authoritarian entity available for oneself. You're misdefining "authoritarian". Nothing I described in that example is authoritarian. >>So let's push democracy into the economic sphere as well since according to you there would be no difference. You're free to manage your own property however you wish.
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    > You're misdefining "authoritarian" No, the economic sphere is strictly top-down authoritarian where workers is in a dependency situation wrt to their boss. The pandemic has made that abundantly clear. > You're free to manage your own property however you wish. Only if you actually have property to begin with, which most don't by no fault of their own. And what a few do have, by no merit of their own.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      >>No, the economic sphere is strictly top-down authoritarian where workers is in a dependency situation wrt to their boss. It's a voluntarily assumed dependency. Your incoherent moral argument would suggest that something the worker wants - a job to be offered to them - is harming them, and that this offer that the worker chooses over other options - is an act of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism implies non-consensual interactions. People being forced by nature to work in order to feed themselves is not 'non-consensual' in any legal or social sense, and the people offering them jobs in this environment are not authoritarians as a result. A top-down hierarchical structure also does not define authoritarianism. What's authoritarian is the state preventing people from trading their labor for income, to enforce the incoherent moral principles of socialist ideology. >>Only if you actually have property to begin with, which most don't by no fault of their own. And what a few do have, by no merit of their own. That doesn't give you a right to rob others of their property.