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#capitalism

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kuchinster@hub.hubzilla.de
kuchinster

About the murderous nature of capitalism

Image/photoSacred Cow wrote the following post Thu, 12 Dec 2024 01:27:39 +0100

"When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains."

#capitalism is #social #murder #Engels #quotation

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jalfro@diasp.eu
Gay Jesus

Cory Doctorow hits the nail on the head again

Many of my peers from the .ORG and .COM worlds went on to set up institutions – both companies and nonprofits – that have since grown to be critical pieces of internet infrastructure: classified ad platforms, online encyclopedias, CMSes and personal publishing services, critical free/open source projects, standards bodies, server-to-server utilities, and more.

These all started out as benevolent autocracies: personal projects started by people who pitched in to help their virtual neighbors with the new, digital problems we were all facing. These good people, with good impulses, did good: their projects filled an important need, and grew, and grew, and became structurally important to the digital world. What started off as "Our pal's project that we all pitch in on," became, "Our pal's important mission that we help with, but that also has paid staff and important stakeholders, which they oversee as 'benevolent dictator for life.'"

Which was fine. The people who kicked off these projects had nurtured them all the way from a napkin doodle to infrastructure. They understood them better than anyone else, had sacrificed much for them, and it made sense for them to be installed as stewards.

But what they did next, how they used their powers as "BFDLs," made a huge difference. Because we are all imperfect, we are all capable of rationalizing our way into bad choices, we are all riven with insecurities that can push us to do things we later regret. When our actions are checked – by our peers' social approval or approbation; by the need to keep our volunteers happy; by the possibility of a mass exodus of our users or a fork of our code – these imperfections are balanced by consequences.

Dictators aren't necessarily any more prone to these lapses in judgment than anyone else. Benevolent dictators actually exist, people who only retain power because they genuinely want to use that power for good. Those people aren't more likely to fly off the handle or talk themselves into bad places than you or me – but to be a dictator (benevolent or otherwise) is to exist without the consequences that prevent you from giving in to those impulses. Worse: if you are the dictator – again, benevolent or otherwise – of a big, structurally important company or nonprofit that millions of people rely on, the consequences of these lapses are extremely consequential.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/

#anarchism #autocracy #capitalism

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wazoox@diasp.eu
Emmanuel Florac

The Real Villains - by Caitlin Johnstone

#politics #capitalism #imperialism #war

billionaire corporationsβ€Šβ€”β€Šthe most profitable ones are far more abusive. They actively work to create more and more war, ecocide, exploitation and inequality, because these things increase their profits. They lobby governments for more wars and militarism around the world because they manufacture weapons of war. They lobby governments to shrink environmental regulations because they maximize their corporate profits by pillaging the earth and externalizing the costs of industry onto the biosphere we all depend on. They lobby governments for fewer worker protections because worker protections eat into profits. They lobby governments for exploitative trade agreements because globalization gives them a steady supply of cheap wage slaves with fewer workers’ rights. They lobby governments to privatize services and resources so that they can turn things people are already getting into coercive mechanisms of private profit extraction.

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-real-villains

The Real Villains

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

7sleepers@diasp.org
7sleepers

"But has Ms Swift earned the title of 'queen of capitalism'? Before the tour began, critics and fans lambasted her for expensive ticket prices. The face value of tickets started at $49 and went up to more than $899 in America. But secondary-market prices suggest Ms Swift could have charged even more. Resale tickets in America and Canada fetched an average of $839β€”more than the face value of some of the best seats." 🎢 πŸ’° πŸ€‘ #Music #Economics #Capitalism #TaylorSwift https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/12/06/taylor-swift-imperfect-capitalist

Taylor Swift, imperfect capitalist?

The pop star could have made even more money from her $2bn tour

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