Wells Tao
April 11 at 1:26 AM ·
https://taowells.blogspot.com/…/can-we-choose-is-there-choi…
17Jarad Bryant, Tina Zucchini and 15 others
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Active NowEliana Darroch being forced into a dynamic where you have to use the tokens of their game in order to have food and shelter doesnt make you a capitalist.
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Wells Tao yeah it does.
Eliana Darroch capitalist-ness is about accumulating wealth, not survival
Active NowEliana Darroch what do you think capitalism is?
Paul Gilbert Wells Tao It makes you a lower class of capitalist, obviously.
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Wells Tao Eliana Darroch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLwgCLHAz0Y
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Socialism That Can Compete and Beat CapitalismSocialism That Can Compete and Beat Capitalism
Greg Malcolm Wells Tao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz81W_kX8Tk
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'A Comedy of Values' - The Thing About...J.S.G. Boggs'A Comedy of Values' - The Thing About...J.S.G. Boggs
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Paul Gilbert we're all capitalists, but different classes within the capitalist system. For a start, some own the capital, others just their labour, and mixed in between, including a mix of consciousness and ideology. Obviously. Production, distribution and consumption exists under all modes of production (economic systems)
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Wells Tao Greg Malcolm yeah I remember Taika Waititi, bak in the day exhibiting something similar, I didn't go so I'm not sure
Max Kindler Vincent van Gogh
Wells Tao nope
Max Kindler Your definition of what a capitalist is, is skewed. The definition of a capitalist is, "a person who uses their wealth to invest in trade and industry for profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism." Simply living in a society in which capitalism exists does not make you a capitalist.
That being said, there is no single country that is out and out capitalist. The USA, which is touted as a capitalist economy, is actually a mixed economy and has elements of both capitalism and socialism.
Wells Tao Max Kindler https://l.facebook.com/l.php...
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Socialism That Can Compete and Beat CapitalismSocialism That Can Compete and Beat Capitalism
Max Kindler Yeah, I watched it in its entirety.. It takes nothing away from the previous statement. Your definition of a capitalist in your OP is off.
Furthermore, you can distinguish your economy from capitalism. It's a mixed economy with both capitalism and socialism elements. The more poignant question is how to distinguish the capitalist from the socialist in a mixed economy?
Wells Tao As I've said about twenty times now, by promoting your difference. No different to an organics cert. sticker or 'made in..'
Active NowTaka Tama Just throwing a spammer in the mix ...... are capital letters capitalist? Because letters are part of art. Letters themselves don’t know how to distinguish their economy. And yet with letters combined they can change an economy, demographic, personal psyche. JUST LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!! 😁😁😁😁
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Wells Tao yeah close, but no cigar. As upper case is not accurately a differentiating symbol as it is available to both capitalists and Socialists. But I do appreciate the attempt at humor. Fresh breeze!
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Caoimhe Macfehin Hypothetically, say I was an artist that survived by trading or gifting art, and was supported by a community which provided food/shelter/art supplies, and I never interacted directly with money.
Is it the case that I’m still a capitalist if the community that supports me is capitalist? Do I become a non-capitalist if that community becomes non-capitalist? Can you have self-contained non-capitalism? Or does a capitalist interaction anywhere in the supply chain render the whole world capitalist? I have no conclusions about this, just Curious about your buzz on this!
Wells Tao Thanks, I'll have a go, at each of your question marks:
1. For me it would be determined by how that community that supported you created its wealth. If it was socialist for example and promoted this difference from the invisible back drop of everyday late capitalism, then no I don't believe you would be a capitalist. Money, profit is not the enemy of a workers co-op that gets to vote on where and who profit is spent! Creating, images and institutions that are influencing a socialist presence in the world, like free schools, healthcare, etc etc. We vote in NZ democracy in an important way, on how to spend our collective collected wealth. This is Democratic Socialism. My issue is that this existing democratic economy has given away the playing field by producing such poor PR and allowing itself to be dominated by capitalists and capitalist values, like 'growth at any cost, etcetc".
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. For me it's not about eliminating capitalism. At all. It's about competing (and beating!) capitalism for profit. So self-isolation is not a goal. As you look around it's obvious Democratic Socialists know how to spend profit on others. In a way Rich individual Capitalists and their institutions appear do in half arsed random tiny spurts.
5. There are Socialist economies existing right now in the world that go to the neutral marketplace and make a buck. There is variety out there it's just the appearance of things that is totally dominated by a capitalist agenda that suits itself to soak the landscape in itself. How to have a democratic state economy that provides a level of freedom from the constraints of commercialization and not turn into an authority that can not listen and respond constructively to constructive criticism? Universities I feel have the responsibility to fully engage with this balancing of democratic power. Creativity, Reason, logic, evidence and due process, and a vividly played role as critic and conscience of broader society, capitalist and socialist communities.
I wondered about this, how can the 'self' employed be socialist? I ended up changing the parameters somewhat, and haven't looked back. What I realised is that no one exists on their own financially. That all people are in financial arrangements with some thing else. So it wasn't a case of individuals being 'free' 'self made' 'independent' and all the rest of the noble goals, capitalist hollowed out words blowing empty. What I seek to do is raise the appearance of this base relationship and instead of letting it default to invisible unsaid capitalism, claim the space, label myself, identify myself, my economy, my relationship as non capitalist. If I practice sharing my wealth equally, time, space and money with an other or others, if I practice consensus democracy on how to spend the profit generated between us, then we are socialists already. What's missing is the ability for another socialist to see us and be able to build a physical and mental connection of interlaced communities of socialist practicing non capitalists.
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Caoimhe Macfehin Thank you that’s an awesome reply. I reckon I agree with all that, but I’ll have a mull and might ask some more questions if I think of any. Nice to get to the nuts and bolts of building a socialist community 🖖🏽
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Wells Tao thanks
Tony St George everyone is not an artist ,,,those people are making craft....like macrame and shell painting with tiny eyeballs
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Rachel Ovens Being creative is central to being human whether it is your garden your cooking humans have forgotten how creative they all are.
Kate Linzey 'don't be an artist... 'Art' is prime late-capitalism. You take primary (low value) material and do something to it to make it rare (trademark/signature/copyright) then sell it (or try to) to someone who'll bank it and sell it on for profit without paying capital gains... as good as real estate!
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Wells Tao I have no problem with the game, just who gets to claim the profit and what practice spreads its values.
Zarahn Southon Firstly, you need to distinguish how your argument - that every artist/ wage earner is a capitalist - any different from Ayn Rand and the libertarian right in their cynical move to bust unions. Also, speculating that labour power has a choice when faced with material conditions of scarcity and that these conditions can be transcended through free will alone is no different to the philosophy of maoist CPK.
Wells Tao 1.Even capitalist wage slaves want good pay and working conditions. Unions have proven to be an incredibly effective way to do this. But they still operate as a semblance of 'democracy' in capitalism as oppose to in a socialist economy. I don't seek to eliminate capitlaism, but to compete and beat C for socialist profit.
2.Well is welfare capitalist? We have a choice to join welfare or not, no transcendence necessary. But that of overcoming the fear and punishment inspired by capitalism's abuse of welfare, to control inflation.
Zarahn Southon 1. Wage slaves aren't capitalist, just as medieval peasants aren't feudalist or Russian 19th century serfs Tzarists. ‘Good pay and working conditions’ is only one aspect of Unionism in its contemporary form. The history of Unionism has been a workers struggle in largely experimenting with different forms of socialist, co-operatives and anarchist economies, and at times using value extracted within capitalist/State Capitalist systems, the latter have never been discussed as capitalist beginning with Peter Kropotkin through to more recently David Harvey.
2.You're arguing in bad faith by not addressing right libertarianism's similar argument that all workers are capitalist; self-interested individuals with freedom and liberty to choose. The underlying fact is scarcity (Bookchin 1971). Mutualist Kevin Carson in his critique of lassez faire capitalism and the state, defines scarcity(artificial scarcity) limits freedom, which I agree. Artificial scarcity is created under capitalism not by workers, the producers, the idle ie: those who make the goods/wage earners extract value for their time, or art intrinsic value, or value to those in need as opposed to capitalists that invest their wealth to extract profit from surplus value/dead labour to hoard and expand. It is the hoarding of surplus value that leads to artificial scarcity, as is evident all over the globe right now.
Wells Tao Zarahn Southon what a lot of info. Be great if you'd turn that effort into helping strengthen my arguments instead of pull possible tangents into the path. I appreciate your knowledge but you have totally failed to engage with what i have on the table.
Stephen Gallagher Is there a new way forward?
Wells Tao Worker Co-ops, and Relationship Co-ops. I wondered about this, how can the 'self' employed be socialist? No one exists on their own financially, even banks have relationships. That all people are in financial arrangements with some thing else. So it wasn't a case of individuals being 'free' 'self made' 'independent' and all the rest of the noble goals, capitalist hollowed out words blowing empty. What I seek to do is raise the appearance of this base relationship and instead of letting it default to invisible unsaid capitalism, claim the space, label myself, identify myself in my base economy, my personal relationship; as non capitalist. If I practice sharing my wealth equally, time, space and money with this other (or others) if I practice consensus democracy on how to spend the profit generated between us, then we are socialists already. What's missing is the ability for another socialist to see us and be able to build a physical and mental connection of interlaced communities of socialist practicing non capitalists.
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Nandor Tanczos There is a difference between living in a capitalist system and being a capitalist ie generating wealth through the appropriation of peoples labour. Just as lots of people in the USSR were not communists.
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Wells Tao yes. there is a difference but one supports the other in that they are not a different economic system
Wells Tao invisible/ silent complicitness gives capitalism consent to be the invisible/ silent backdrop of all transactions. When this is not true, there Are worker co-op's and socialist (economically) countries that are doing business at the market place, all the time.
Wells Tao Tui's lip balm is a workers co-op
Rachel Ovens Wells Tao aha capitalists masquerading as a co-op I knew it.
Rachel Ovens I think a universal wage would be a great leveller.
Wells Tao Rachel Ovens yeah, UBI sounds great but not at the expense of existing free social services. Milton Freeman, and Free Market Capitalism dreamed of UBI as a way of removing state services and monetizing it all. With UBI the poor have money and can be asked to pay. Watch how UBI pitches don't even mentions state services, ever. They are the target, UBI will blast them away.- tw
Roy McKenzie Try the aboriginal community
Indira Neville Susan te kahurangi - her work has become of 'value' in the market but that is the work of others. I think it's nothing to do with why and how she makes art.
Ditto Henry Darger.
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Wells Tao For me it is not about whether or not you'd like to not be a capitalist, it's about are you able to practice and promote an economy that is not capitalist
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