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So this is obviously a silly comic, but I wanted to put out another viewpoint. Just because you want cool new thing doesn’t mean you approve or want capitalism. You can still want everyone to have the opportunity to be able to experience the cool new thing. Consumption isn’t necessarily bad, overconsumption I’d say is. Idk maybe I’m a bit wrong, but I don’t see any reason to beat yourself up for having wants or desires.
Id argue there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Trace a supply and sales chain far enough, and somewhere there is abuse.
90% of the time when I see that phrase, people are using it to say it's pointless to boycot a particularly bad company
Oh I haven't heard that pairing, that's awful. Boycotts are not pointless. They don't really address root causes, ofc, but they're something.
You should watch The Good Place if you haven't. They definitely explore that thought and it's an outstanding show in general.
I agree with you, but to be clear, you aren't saying it's not okay to have things you want right?
The wording of your post made me think you were refuting that argument.
Im saying we are all actively participating in abuse when when buy what we want. It depends how you internalize that fact as to whether its OK or not.
Capitalism says make the new thing, then make versions as cheaply and as lavishly as possible as the market saturates and profit margins decrease, skim as much profit as possible for the owner class by exploiting workers and consumers until the bottom falls out, then declare bankruptcy, fire all of your employees, sell the business to a liquidator, and repeat.
An intentional civilization would make the new thing, then use the abundance of profit from interest to design improved versions of the thing, eventually scaling down production to a niche market of artisan products run by people with a passion for the work, and releasing all of the information into the open source market so that individuals can make their own modifications. No exploitation, no inequality, all the benefits of capitalism's infrastructure.
CONSOOOOOOM
yeah, i bought a Fairphone. sure, it automatically generates e-waste and was pretty pricy, but i hope to use it for at least 5 years. that makes it worth it to me.
Im waiting for my Pixel to die first, but I definitely am looking at the Fairphone. Id buy it now, but i cant justify just tossing my current phone
consumerism != capitalism
Capitalism is the allowing of control over companies to be bought and sold without the consent of their workers.
Consumerism is using cheap marketing tactics to sell cheap garbage to people who don't know any better, and is mostly the result of not requiring companies to pay for the waste they create.
Either of these could easily exist without the other.
Stop defining everything you don't like about the economy as capitalism.
Also things having a pricetag != Capitalism and doing/getting something that grants brief reprieve from the nonsense also!= Capitalism.
This meme is just rephrasing "you criticize society yet participate in it."
You criticize slavory bur refuse to leave, smh. /s
What I like about this comic is that it depicts the lure of 'cool new thing' as a party, with someone notifying about it. Why even care about 'cool new thing'? Largely it's because of the 'fear of missing out'; a product as a shared experience with your peers, where not having that same experience may distance you from them and make you more of an outsider. For me, I've found that what seems like wanting something for its own sake often masks this underlying dynamic, like I will only start wanting it after people I like mention it positively, and things no one mentions positively I will just be less interested in regardless of whether they should be up my alley. That doesn't make you a sheep, it's just how humans work.
This dynamic is intentionally manufactured, and some of it is fake (it's not actually popular or relevant you just got tricked by an ad), but some of it is real. So then the mistake is in seeing consumerism as an individual struggle of self-deprivation, when it's really a shared cultural battle; what it comes down to is supporting the people around you in non-consumerism.
Here are some tangible ways I think we can do that:
If your friends don't have adblock, get them on adblock
Support pirate culture
Support and practice DIY
Support open source, reject closed ecosystems
Potlucks instead of takeout
Any other ideas?
Ugh, Cool New Thing? Lame. Who remembers Weird Old Thing?
I love weird old thing!
Unfortunately, I'm also a sucker for cool new retro remake of weird old thing...
Right, because capitalism is only about consumption and also only capitalism provides cool new things.
I don't understand how people find it so difficult to just stop spending their money on shit they don't need. You have to treat yourself occasionally, but I'll never understand those who anyways have to buy the newest thing.
My car is over ten years old. I still use a Pixel 4. I don't own any fancy clothes, new consoles, TV's, etc. and I'm perfectly happy. I run my own business and put money aside, ensuring I'm not going to go hungry if shit hits the fan, which is always a very real possibility. The last nice thing I bought myself was a gaming laptop, and that was just to replace my old one which got me through a good 5 years of use.
People need to start being happy with less. It's really, really easy to do, and you'll likely find yourself feeling happier not giving a fuck about the New Thing... or maybe I'm just getting older and my priorities have changed.
EDIT: I should note that this is aimed at people who complain about having money issues, but who go out and spend it on things they don't need and then blame anything but their own actions. If your dopamine hits come from buying stuff, and you're all good with that, more power to you.
Your feel good drug is alcohol, for others it's buying the last new thing that gives them a dopamine rush.
Hold on, I have to buy the latest iphone to post my latest screed.
Average hexbear and lemmygrad user.
"Yo, Apple released the next iPhone"
wait...they still release new phones? i thought they just kept selling the iphone 8 with different names
it's all the same phone since the 11, but this time they added usb-c (because the were forced to).
gosh apple is so innovative. they truly pioneered this new technology
I don't really understand why people buy new phones these days. To browse lemmy faster?
We've really hit the wall of deminishing returns. Its not like the old days where there are markedly huge performance gains between generations
The problem with blanket attacks on capitalism is that it ignores the fact that the US became an economic superpower under capitalism, and we built the strongest middle class in history under capitalism WHEN WE MIXED IN SOCIALIST PROGRAMS.
BASIC economics shows that BY FAR capitalism is the most efficient way to generate wealth.
It sounds profoundly ignorant to be against that system.
Instead, we should be talking about what to do with the wealth it generates.
Bernie Sanders "Democratic socialism" is actually "capitalist socialism". It leaves in place all the profit incentives and machinery of innovation and production, but then it redistributes wealth away from the hoarders at the top, and gives it back to the workers who generated it.
This is a much more compelling system to fight for than just a blanket "capitalism bad!" argument.
The US became an economic superpower because all of the others had to rebuild from rubble after WW2.
Also by draining wealth from poorer countries. Banana Republics in Central America. The constant pro-american coups in South America. The plantations of Liberia that used essentially slave labor to harvest rubber.
Socialism is an economic idea diametrically opposed to capitalism in one key point: private property.
Social programs are not socialist. The government is not socialism.
Modern governments are tools directly descendent from the capitalist bourgeoisie revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are tools of the capitalist class.
Social programs are appeasements to the proletariat class so they don’t revolt and destroy the government/capitalist class.
Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is (among other things) the private ownership of the means of production.
By the way, when socialists/communists say “private property”, they mean “private property of the means of production”. So “abolish private property” is to collectivise the means of production amongst the workers. Not to share toothbrushes.
Social programs are not socialism. It's often up to the socialists to put enough pressure on the system to get social programs implemented, but that's because liberals are completely devoid of compassion.
Is the generation of wealth really the end goal, though?
On top of that, yes I agree that there are various declinations and modifications of capitalism. And yes, democratic socialism is still a version of capitalism, but one where the harshest edges of capitalism have been significantly smoothed over. Looking at Europe, they are also under capitalism, but implemented significant socialist policies, and the problems there are less extreme than in US. And still, this meme would apply.
Is wealth really the one thing we should be capitalism thankful for? I wouldn't argue that it helped make so many advancements in so many fields in such a short time, but from my understanding, wealth isn’t really something that helps living a better life. Wealth is more a by-product of hoarding. Like if someone would hold the monopoly over something like housing, they would have immense wealth. If all houses were to be distributed, so that in this theoretical village everyone would have a house, this would still lower the overall wealth of the village. First of all the houses would be priced more competitively and secondly no one would be in desperate need of a house and thus wouldn’t buy houses at an impractical price. I would agree with you that throwing away all lessons learned from capitalism is a bad idea, but wealth isn’t it.
I'm so bitter at this point (and broke), that I refuse to spend almost any money. Let these assholes choke on their own products.
Open-source provides cool things all the time. For example, allowing that some prefer KDE (totally valid preference), I personally feel like Gnome is the greatest desktop environment humanity has ever created and every six months it keeps getting better still.
I spent 5 years gaming like a penny pincher on an old faithful ps4, buying games only on sale years after their release. Finally gave out and splurged so I could play ps5-only Baldur's Gate 3 on release date (do the math on the total bill there). I don't mind it. By all means let the industry learn that producing a Baldur's Gate 3 is how you make a lot of money.