Capitalism makes sure all deed are done with maximum misery. Sell as high as possible. Buy as low as possible. Haggle until you tire. Work until you can no more. Those are the affordances of the system. To enjoy yourself and the time you’re given on this earth needs resistance. You need to resist. You need to resist the temptation to exploit yourself and your fellow humans. Resist and enjoy what little time you have left.
@kensanata
Actually, I think that happens only if your goal is to maximize your profits.
If you have a certain level of money, at which you can say "that's enough, I don't need more", then the game changes.
Now it matters how much you value your free time. Is an hour your free time worth more than earning additional 5$ ? 10$ ? 100$ ?
@Wolf480pl I agree absolutely. I think that is part of the resistance. Put sadly I have enough friends that say they would like to work less but they don’t not because they need the money but because they want the money. And many spend quite some time looking for the best deal, which sucks a tiny bit of life from them – and makes sure the vendors aren’t enjoying themselves too much, either. Sure, the market is very efficient. But it’s members are also unhappy.
@kensanata
what do you mean by "vendors enjoying themselves" ? I thought they were faceless corporations o.O
@Wolf480pl Not necessarily, right? Surely there most be something you are willing to pay somebody else to do for you. I don't want to go back to a gift economy. 😀
@kensanata @Wolf480pl a distinction I learned recently - what makes a transaction capitalist is not the exchange, but rather, the presence of a third party extracting surplus from it. If I bake bread and sell it to you, all's well. If I work for a company baking bread, and the company sells the bread to you, that's rather different. Early mercantile bourg and modern monopoly-capital bourg are worlds apart in this respect.
@lupine
what if I bake a bread, and sell it to @kensanata , who buys lots of breads from all over the place, and then you come to him and pick my bread from all the breads he has, and buy it from him, at a price higher than he paid me?
@Wolf480pl @kensanata depends on whether the aggregator is getting rich from the process of aggregation. One would generally assume so, but there are various groups who do this kind of thing on a charitable basis - soup kitchens, for instance.
@lupine @kensanata let's assume the aggregator makes a living from the aggregation, but doesn't accumulate an increasing wealth.
@Wolf480pl @kensanata quite possibly fine (from the obvious starting point of "all capitalism is evil and must be destroyed" :p)
One assumes that they're not trying to negotiate exclusivity agreements with the bakers, for instance, so I can choose between lowest price and greatest convenience
One also assumes that "make a living" doesn't involve gold-coated chicken wings, a savings account, purchasing property, investing in business assets, etc.
@Wolf480pl @kensanata personal epiphany, so bear with
Markets predate capitalism and quite possibly will post-date it as well. A defence of markets is not a defence of capitalism, and markets do not justify capitalism.
Capitalism concentrates power in the hands of a few people who may use it for good or ill. We could achieve the same goods or ills without the concentration in all sorts of decentralized ways.
I don't really know what to do with this new information, but I am glad I have it.
@lupine @kensanata
I think any situation where someone becomes rich as fuck because of their position on the market is actually caused by a market failure (i.e. not enough competition). But that may be only a part of it. And I don't know enough about markets to do any kind of formal reasoning about them :/
@lupine @kensanata
If you go to a big electronics supermarket, it'll be expensive, and they won't have what you want, instead they'll have what you should want according to them.
If you go to a small shop, it'll be more expensive, and they probably still won't have what you want, unless they're very specialized. Despite how awful the supermarket is, the small shop still can't compete.
@Wolf480pl @kensanata in theory, markets drive profits down to ~0 via competition. Capitalists want lots of profit, and it's a *lot* easier to destroy/buy out existing competition and prevent new competitors from emerging than it is to innovate. I've yet to read "Monopoly Capital", but I expect it expands on this theme significantly.
@lupine @kensanata
so, IOW, capitalism == market failure as a service^Wfeature?
@Wolf480pl @kensanata I wouldn't say no to that ^^
I'm still pretty skeptical about markets in general - certainly for stuff in surplus, I prefer a requisition model - but decoupling them from capitalism in my mind seems to be very helpful.
@lupine @kensanata
There's a Polish auction site, kinda like e-bay, where people and bussinesses from all over the country sell their stuff. New and used products, in supply quantities from 1 to 100000, sold by regular people, 2-people companies, and huge shops alike. All competing with their price, quality, and reliability on a common ground.
It feels like the good side of capitalism. But it's very rare. I know of no other place like that. Everywhere else, it's monopolies or oligopolies.