• axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Liberal economics responding to Marxism is always some hypothetical like “Ok imagine you’re thirsty in the desert, but you only have two cows and your neighbor opens a flower shop.”

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      “Enough with your real world evidence. Let’s try a hypothetical I made up whole-cloth” isn’t really the intellectual zinger they think it is.

    • Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      “How am I raising cows in the desert?”

      “What? That’s not important.”

      “Couldn’t I just ask the flower shop owner for water? You kinda need an excess of water to run a flower shop… Also how are they running a flower shop in the des…”

      “SHUT UP!”

      • CthulhusIntern [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        “That’s not relevant.”

        “So wait, what parts ARE relevant? Only the parts which, devoid of any context or any prior material condition, support your world view, but any reasonable outside conditions which would cause your point to collapse are irrelevant?”

        “Yes, exactly. Now you’re getting it.”

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    This reminds me of the unironic ancap comic about three guys being stuck on an island. The communist guy screeches because he’s unable to do anything. The two capitalist guys trade a coconut with each other back and forth until they make enough money to…. Build a boat? And leave sail off the island.

    • Советский Союз@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      no the communist builds a boat or shelter or w/e, the capitalists accumulate BJs by trading coconuts, the communist uses the protein from all the loads to build an entire civilization, the capitalists take credit for it, then the communist eats the puny capitalist and invents space travel.

    • CthulhusIntern [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      Reminds me of that joke where two economists go walking in the woods, they see dog shit, one tells the other he will pay him $100 to eat the dog shit, which he does. Then they see more dog shit, the other tells the first one he will pay him $100 to eat the dog shit, which he does. Then one says “wait, we both just ate dog shit, I gave you $100, you gave me $100. We just ate dog shit for nothing?” Then the other says “we did something though. We increased the GDP of our country by $200.”

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      Where did the sail even come from? Like was it an actual sail? Please it tell me it was, because all it does is confirm anarcho-capitalists are completely delusional to the point their entire ideology revolves around magical thinking.

      At least we have centuries of theory to pull from.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    If you have a piece of paper with a dead President on it, people will just bring you stuff.

    This is why capitalism is good.

    But also, look out for inflation! That’s a bad thing that happens when too much money exists!

  • sovietknuckles [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1awj4iq/this_is_why_socialism_is_poverty/?sort=top&limit=500

    The top comment:

    Those dollars that an individual possesses is a sign that they have already given back to society more than what they have asked for in return. That is what those dollars that they have are. They are IOUs given to them by society telling them that they have given more that what society has asked of them in return. So those IOUS are society telling them that if they want more stuff just hand those dollars ( IOUs ) over and we will give you more things

    The billions that individual producers like Musk, Bezos, as so forth , have are billions more that they provided to society that they did not ask for in return

    So when you look at this logically, when you see an accumulation of dollars by those who acquire them through VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE( Taxation does not count as that is done by force ( ask Wesley Snipes ) then what that shows is that the individual has given more value to society then what that individual asked for in return

    This is why profit/private sector is moral and is efficient in addressing the needs of the people and taxation/government sector is immoral and fails to address the needs of the people

    • BountifulEggnog [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      I hate the whole “voluntary exchange” thing. Like really, taxes are the only example of a non voluntary exchange? I can think of at least one more 🤔 ::: spoiler spoiler Like maybe you’re dying of thirst in the desert. :::

      It works okay for non essentials, but with how many essentials people need, it breaks down so quickly. Rent, transportation, food, healthcare, utilities, you just have no choice on.

      • if you charged too much for water while I was dying in the desert, I would simply save my dollars in an interest bearing account and die from dehydration. in enough time, the trust of my dessicated husk would be able to buy your water factory and send private security forces to decapitate you.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        Core to libertarianism is the idea that consent is a sort of ritual, rather than a real concept with any depth. A contract formally stating agreement is all that’s required to authorize anything in their minds, regardless of the terms or whether it was coerced through unequal power or under the threat of violence or death. And once that formal ritual of agreement is made, they believe it’s irrevocable as well.

        It’s at once cynically predatory and completely idealistic to an absolutely childish degree. There’s a reason libertarianism and fascism are right beside each other, differentiated only by whether the libertine treat lad has been scratched yet or not.

        • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          And once that formal ritual of agreement is made, they believe it’s irrevocable as well.

          Which is hilarious because the businesses they fetishize engage in strategic defaults on debts all the time.

          There’s a reason libertarianism and fascism are right beside each other, differentiated only by whether the libertine treat lad has been scratched yet or not.

          It’s the same end goal, a society where democracy has been subjugated out of existence and the state has been subsumed to the private sector. The former just thinks it can be done without politics while the latter isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty.

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          This puts a lot of libertarian stuff I never understood into perspective. There’s that really terrible book The God of the Machine that used to be a libertarian Bible. I don’t remember much, but I recall an example of the first individualists were Christians who didn’t consent to Roman law. I never quite got how that was supposed to be libertarian, but now I get it.

          It’s all magic words to them. “I do not consent” is a magic phrase that’s supposed to confer cosmic power onto them. If you don’t respect the words, then you’ve committed an act of aggression regardless of the context of the situation. This explains sovereign citizens too.

        • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          Core to libertarianism is the idea that consent is a sort of ritual, rather than a real concept with any depth. A contract formally stating agreement is all that’s required to authorize anything in their minds, regardless of the terms or whether it was coerced through unequal power or under the threat of violence or death. And once that formal ritual of agreement is made, they believe it’s irrevocable as well.

          Cargo cult social relations.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        A guy came to my front door and said “I have the paper that says I own this house! Give me money!”

        And I said, “Are you the government?”

        And he said, “No.”

        So I said, “That’s fine, here is the money.”

        But then another guy came by and said the same thing, and I was, like “Where does the paper that says you own the thing even come from?”

        And, ladies and gentlemen, you are not even going to believe the answer.

  • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    lol, they skipped the prequel panel where the reason the person is dying of thirst is that the capitalist forcibly extracted and horded all the water so they can sell a freely accessible public good for $100 a bottle (looking at you Nestle)

  • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netM
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    9 months ago

    I wonder why these anecdotes are always about hypotheticals and never about socialist projects that actually currently exist. Must be nothing.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      nah, they’ve been vaccinated against that. if you tell them that real actual china has built a million times more bottled water factories than capitalist usa, they’ll say that china is finished, it’s built a ton of unprofitable water infrastructure and haha they’re so stupid. see, communism doesnt work.

      see their cope about the trains.

  • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    Important distinction, the person in the first picture does not have $100 so the third panel will not give them any water.

    Although admitting that capitalism is based on gouging people for the necessities of life is more honest than usual for them.