Forgive my ignorance. But what does the Black Flag reference mean?
What is your argument against capitalism?
Maybe I define it too simply or loosely. But to me capitalism is just simply voluntary trading. Trading my time and skill for stuff I need. Or a piece of paper which I can trade for stuff I need.
If you are decrying the corruption, the waste, the consumerism, the programming the usury and the like. I join you. My dream is a demanding public that insists, by means of choosing where they spend their money, on companies being transparent, socially conscious and environmentally responsible. The only way that is going to happen is if people understand that they, because of their numbers have the power to insist upon it.
I don't really have any hope that the masses of people will wake up and insist that businesses behave. But that's probably a lot more likely than that they wake up and understand that they don't need rulers.
But what are you suggesting is the solution?
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The black flag is typically carried by the anarcho-communists.
Wage slavery is my argument against crapitalism.
My suggestion is to keep working, but stop paying.
I got cut short,...
Money is an illusion created to benefit those that create the illusion.
Wouldn't you rather live in a world where we loved each other and didn't withold food from each other because we got to pay the light bill?
Imagine if anything you wanted was supplied to you free of charge, what would you be inspired to give back to the world in return?
Would you go to where the work is being done and chip in?
Crapitalism acrues to the rich, my proposal spreads it around a little more.
Think of the bankster's $500 trillion, divide it by seven billion.
Think you could have more crap with that distribution?
Maybe you could have more leisure instead.
Whatever.
We workers already make all the goods, why are we buying them back from the people that do nothing but lord their ill gotten power over us?
As far as I know no one "created" money, it was a natural and useful economic innovation which allowed for the division-of-labor.
You make it seem like an either/or thing--as if we can either work for money or love each other (how am I supposed to love strangers I don't even know?), which is a false dichotomy.
Nothing is 'free'.
How do you define "work"? I once talked to a 'communist' (a useless university intellectual living fat, at least in part, off of tax-dollars provided by people who work in the 'crapitalist' system, LOL) who claimed that the 'workers' were being 'exploited' by capitalism and the profit motive, and I asked him to tell me, in the situation of a grocery-store chain/corporation, who was the "exploiter" and who the "exploitee"...it was fun to see him wrap himself into a pretzel trying to draw the line between the two! Maybe you can do better?
Communists seem to have no clue about economic incentives and how humans respond to them...and when I look at welfare recipients who get 'free' shit, I don't exactly see them out there trying to make the world a better place...when I look at 'free' schools I don't see excellence...when I look at every human attempt to create a communist utopia I see the 10's of MILLIONS of bodies piled up by the likes of the USSR, East Bloc, Red China, and N. Korea (but I suppose these aren't examples of 'real' communism)...I see lots of 'communists' (i.e., spoiled Westerners living lives of capitalist-provided comfort) online, but very few working communes in real life where people work for each other simply out of brotherly love...
What I do see is a lot of people whining about how awful capitalism is while benefiting from the fruits of it, and a lot of jealousy directed at people whom society deems are worth more relative to the 'communists' in the West who are better off than 90% of the rest of the world.
If I own a mechanic shop and if I expect it to survive I have to make triple what the mechanic gets paid from the mechanic's labor.
If I do nothing else this is what has to happen in a successful business.
If I extrapolate to corporations and thousands of shareholders who do nothing but get paid from the value that the worker creates but doesn't get paid in wages have I made the exploitation more clear to you?
By following crapitalistic models we get what we have.
Extreme poverty outside the gated communities.
Starving children outside full warehouses.
War, because there are trillions to be made.
$10 an hour because the rocafellas need to accumulate another quadrillion dollars.
I could go on, but I prefer to build the future and not be controlled by the past.
The distribution system that is Walmart/target/Costco can be used to distribute goods whether those goods are accounted for in crapitalust paradise or a worker paradise.
Which do you prefer?
Free stuff or wage slavery?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
I would love to live in a world where I could have as much electricity as I wanted without having to pay for it. I'm getting the biggest kick out of using a Harbor Freight 45 watt solar power kit to run a small boat fridge to keep my beer cold. I had to pay for it, but it works without relying on the grid. Whoopee!
But seriously. How could we have everything we wanted free of charge in the world we live in today without having an institution like a government to take by force from some to distribute to others. That makes it immoral doesn't it?
I really respect Jacques Fresco. I like a lot of visions that the Venus project describes. What I like most about it is that it is proposed to be completely voluntary. I like science. And I hope a day comes that I can trust it and those who make money doing it. Sadly, today it's difficult to know which scientists to trust and which ones are simply authoritarian, politicians in disguise.
I love the Star Trek model where money doesn't exist. I hope someday we get there. But meanwhile, back here on earth. We might best spend our time trying to get the corruption of government out of capitalism and try a truly free market for a change.
You can't reform crapitalism, at it's very core is enslavement of the have nots by the haves.
We can flip the switch on any day with a little prior planning.
Everybody that worked today goes to work tomorrow.
If you didn't work today then go with somebody that did.
If you can't work, then don't.
If you won't work look out crossing the street.
It is really that simple.
Here is book that can give you more details.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/624/624-h/624-h.htm
I hope you take the time.