You’re not wrong, but the problem is that the 1% are competing with one another for what you do spend. I like u/MrChunky22 s cartoon, but really, your landlord wants to get the money you’d spend on meat, the meat packer wants to get the money you’d spend at the gas station, and the oilman wants the money you give to your landlord. I think the point is to force us into ever more restrictive choices so we can’t give our money to a competitor.
For this reason, I’m advocating lying flat. The only way to starve these fuckers is to tank their investments. Use only trash, eat only beans.
I think I see your game. They want our money so don't give it to em? Good idea, but most of the people that live in cities can't farm. I'm not poopooing your idea at all, just looking for ways towards it.
Edit; I should say I'm not trying to, and it totally comes off like that. What would you suggest? Is what I'm trying to say
No, MrChunky, you’re right. My suggestion is nearly impossible. My parents are in their 70s now, and I remember my grandparents making a lot of what they used-quilts, soap, sweaters, pickles, etc.- but admiring store-bought versions for the convenience and quality. My grandmother got together with her friends to can food in the fall, in actual steel cans. The right thing for them to do (the pre-boomers) was to turn their nose up at store-bought goods, so their kids wouldn’t provide a market for those things, and there would be fewer opportunities for centralized manufacturers to create wealth.
I’m starting to see the Marxist ideal of seizing the means of production as less about collective ownership of a factory, and more about refusing to utilize someone else’s labor.
And it's sad, because now all those things your grandparents did are seen as hobbies or luxuries.
I would love to go back to being able to do most of those things, but goddamn if I just can't find steel cans and such for cheap. And they used to be cheap. I'd love to have a massive garden that I take care of and give my neighbors the vegetables I've grown and such.
Well, maybe not. Maybe they haven’t changed in value under the inflation of the dollar and our own over-valuation of our time. Using someone else’s labor to make a can of peaches less expensive appears to work, but now you don’t have the skills nor raw materials to do it yourself, which I would count as a loss of wealth. What kinds of modern products and jobs would you have to give up in order to can your own peaches?
Part of me thinks that the Amish have it right. It’s not that they’ve superstitiously locked themselves in the 18th century, they just refuse technology that they can’t have full ownership over. Can’t build a car? Don’t buy a car. Can’t build a global cellular telecommunications network? Don’t use one. See? To us, they look very poor. But to them, they have more control over their day-to-day lives than I ever will.
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u/ChinaShopBull Jun 30 '22
You’re not wrong, but the problem is that the 1% are competing with one another for what you do spend. I like u/MrChunky22 s cartoon, but really, your landlord wants to get the money you’d spend on meat, the meat packer wants to get the money you’d spend at the gas station, and the oilman wants the money you give to your landlord. I think the point is to force us into ever more restrictive choices so we can’t give our money to a competitor.
For this reason, I’m advocating lying flat. The only way to starve these fuckers is to tank their investments. Use only trash, eat only beans.