Ferguson v. Bundy Ranch

[Project 429]

Le Pere Duchesne

Project 429

Memette

So in conclusion: Who CARES if he shoplifted cigars or not? Who CARES if he struck the officer first? Why are we debating this? Why was there property to be purchased in the first place? And what was the cop doing protecting an exploitative class of people to begin with?

Look, you put down a lot of s**t in that post so I'm going to save us both the time and cut straight to the end of your argument. Marxism is dead from the neck down and it will never rise again outside of academia because it's entirely contingent on a man's (who was comically terrible with money) misunderstanding of what purpose a market serves.

You have apples. I have a moneys. For a transaction between the two of us to occur there must be (and this is where Marx and Aristotle both faceplanted) mutual inverse subjective valuation of the capital being exchanged. This is the only condition in which a voluntary transaction occurs and thus every voluntary transaction is a betterment of society. This is why societies without a functional market fail.

I'm not really interested in going on about this for ten pages. There are better threads.

OK, this post is dumb. You don't get to criticise Marx, claiming he didn't understand 'what purpose a market serves' when even saying that shows that you don't understand the Marxist critique of political economy. s**t ain't about the 'purpose of markets' ( "muh ducats" ) but the critique of the categories in political economy and the explanation of capital as a social relationship. Even talking about a transaction as an exchange of capital is alien to Marxism, as for you it just means cash or value. For Marx capital is a social relationship of value vaporising itself.

Long story short, don't criticise s**t on the basis of it misunderstanding s**t when your own knowledge of what you are criticising is obviously empty. But this is a derail, and I'll stop here.

This would be great if I used capital and market interchangeably or had presumed he shared my definition of capital.

I don't understand why you think no one but other Marxists have read Marx. He's mandatory literature in entry level collegiate courses I've taken. His work has been in public domain for a very long time. It's actually easier for me to say you aren't knowledgeable about what you're criticizing. For example, your signature isn't even halfway right - critics of Marxism have described his "historically inevitable" society as dystopian for as long as the criticism has existed.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Memette

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

When a woman has no means to support herself and is forced to sell her body for sex, everybody condemns that as exploitation, but when the same woman is forced by that same hunger, that same rent, the same hungry children to sell her body... Cutting ham in a deli or picking mangoes or waiting tables... Somehow that's not not forced by circumstances. What's the difference between a pimp and a cafe owner besides legality and prestige? Both are able to make whatever money they make based on the labour of those who are compelled by the impersonal forces of property and the economy to sell their ability to perform work.

[l_Shamrock_l]

Le Pere Duchesne

Shamrock says that the difference between Bundy and Ferguson is that Bundy types were armed. This is an appealing argument, but very shallow.

1: why are the Ferguson blacks unarmed and the Bundy whites packing? Access to the cash, ID, and favour by local policy that dictate gun rights.

2: the historical response of the state to armed blacks. One word: MOVE. They bombed that s**t. Against Ferg they have tanks, aircraft, armed and armoured cops and paramilitaries.

3: Yes, the claim that whites are not killed by cops is a dumb simplification. But its less dumb than the idea that its anything close to equal, and at least is a response to the liberal claim that s**t is equal. We see that cops are willing to initiate the use of force, of overwhelming force, when they have a chance against blacks. An armed demonstration by blacks would constitute a threatened uprising and race war, or at least that's how the state would see it/spin it.

4: The possession of arms would do noting but provide the pretext 'they shot first'. Well, it would also mean a few cops get shot, and no tear there. But it would mean a massive and violent response from the police and national guard.

And all this would contribute to a further grinding down of wages and conditions for black workers, the garrisoning of black communities, and so on.

1) Missouri law states that anybody can purchase a firearm. The only laws denying legal right to own a firearm are for those who are mentally unfit or are a convicted felon. Implying that they were denied their right to purchase a firearm based entirely on their race or place of residence assumes that racism is still being systematically deployed despite all of the laws, lawyers and special interest groups that exist solely to enforce such laws. Implying that the people are unable to receive proper identification is an existential fallacy: Unless their residency is illegal, the ability to receive proper identification exists. It is entirely up to the individual to make the effort. If they choose not to then it is not the fact it's difficult, it's the fact they simply chose not to. "Access to cash" is the only credible argument here, and I even managed to save up some cash over the course of several months to buy myself a firearm. So that too is a fallacy.

2) The people who opposed the Bundy Ranch protesters were paramilitary. Those aren't tanks, they are Armored Personnel Carriers. Armor can be breached and overrun. And armored personnel? The armor doesn't stop kinetic force. A bullet, though the lethality diminished, still hurts and can still cause serious damage. Unless you think they are going to call in airstrikes and just start blowing s**t up with wild abandon like they are doing in the Middle East the idea that an armed populace is simply outmatched is ridiculous.

3) Based on history alone, the police are willing to initiate the use of force under the circumstance that they are not themselves facing a considerable threat. It's easy to use tear gas and rubber bullets and maybe even pepper spray some people who are already on their knees in handcuffs if there are no repercussions. If they had to worry about which window someone was going to lodge a 5.56 in their head from they'd likely at least show some resrtaint.

4) This assumes that people are intentionally looking for a war. Considering the wars going on the Middle East and that almost all of the military equipment being used in Ferguson is hand-me-down I don't think big businesses that would normally profit from war are going to bother too much.

[l_Shamrock_l]

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

"Based off of greed" is a massive stretch. The people who partook in the Bundy Ranch protests believed Bundy was being wrongly persecuted and looked on it as ridiculous government oppression over... Cattle (Seriously, Cattle? Did they just give up on busting those Meth Labs and Human/Arms traffickers out there and just choose to pick on someone for something so tedious?). They stood up for one another for dozens of reasons, many of which were a distrust of the government and what they saw as government bullying.

The Ferguson riots were violent from the start as a reaction to a cop shooting someone after that someone had actually attacked the cop. Initially thought of as "A white cop shooting a black teenager", people used that as if it was somehow a reasonable excuse to escalate the issue. After the initial riots cleared, peaceful protests sprung up, which again began to turn violent as rubber bullets were needlessly deployed to put peaceful protesters down and the media was turned away. Groups such The New Black Panthers (An admitted Black Supremacy group) egged protesters on, looting, violence, vandalism, etc. ensues and for some reason the police are being looked on as the bad guys despite it being the people themselves whom are actually the problem. Regardless of who was in the wrong at the beginning of the ordeal, the people themselves have been at fault ever since. The media, as well as people, were saying the police were being needlessly violent using tear gas and several other tools for crowd-control but neglect that the people were throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting at police.

I hardly see how the two are even remotely comparable.

The two reflect a huge difference in how police respond to protesters. White people aiming their weapons at law enforcement? Try to bargain with them and back off. Black peaceful protesters and journalists in McDonalds? Bash their faces in, tear gas, and gun them with rubber bullets. Then say that even the groups of protesters that weren't looting were. All darkies are the same when they're angry, right? Another thing. Capitalists try to moralize their exploitative behavior by complaining about Brown's "robbing" *cough shoplifting* of a small business owner and looting...... despite the fact businesses exploit workers by nature. Money itself sustains human exploitation by design, and businesses are complicit with that, even if it is in order to survive. So you have another thing coming if you think everyone cares that he shoplifted someone who exploits other human beings for profit, or that he assaulted an officer who in theory is supposed to protect private property. Black people have been peacefully protesting since the 60s and prior, and this situation has STILL never been resolved. Peaceful protests offer absolutely no consequence to lawmakers who don't care about doing anything. No one has a suggestion for what other alternatives protesters have, but everyone wants to whine about looting. At least looting raises alarm because the capitalists law makers in power will be more coerced to react due to a disregard of their property ownership values. What many anti looting individuals are subtly insisting is that they "ask" for police reform, repeating the same useless strategies that isn't a threat to lawmakers, thereby wallowing in their own suppression because it is "wrong" to lash out at property owners who suppress them. This concept of "wrongness" is based on a moral design biased in favor of property ownership.

Personally I don't think race is actually an issue. If you look at the two events there is one very important detail that is being overlooked: The Bundy Ranch protesters were armed. The Ferguson protesters are not.

There is a huge balance in power that plays a very important role. If there is a likely chance of a deadly encounter then chances are they are not going to risk a confrontation. If those chances don't exist, as in Ferguson, then the police have all the power to do as they please. They are not meeting the kind of resistance that would force them to change their approach.

As far as laws favoring the rich, I can agree. It doesn't exactly provide a reason to excuse what the rioters are protesters are doing though nor is every business owner there by any means "rich". Another problem is... How exactly do you respond to mass violence like this?

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Project 429

Le Pere Duchesne

Project 429

Memette

So in conclusion: Who CARES if he shoplifted cigars or not? Who CARES if he struck the officer first? Why are we debating this? Why was there property to be purchased in the first place? And what was the cop doing protecting an exploitative class of people to begin with?

Look, you put down a lot of s**t in that post so I'm going to save us both the time and cut straight to the end of your argument. Marxism is dead from the neck down and it will never rise again outside of academia because it's entirely contingent on a man's (who was comically terrible with money) misunderstanding of what purpose a market serves.

You have apples. I have a moneys. For a transaction between the two of us to occur there must be (and this is where Marx and Aristotle both faceplanted) mutual inverse subjective valuation of the capital being exchanged. This is the only condition in which a voluntary transaction occurs and thus every voluntary transaction is a betterment of society. This is why societies without a functional market fail.

I'm not really interested in going on about this for ten pages. There are better threads.

OK, this post is dumb. You don't get to criticise Marx, claiming he didn't understand 'what purpose a market serves' when even saying that shows that you don't understand the Marxist critique of political economy. s**t ain't about the 'purpose of markets' ( "muh ducats" ) but the critique of the categories in political economy and the explanation of capital as a social relationship. Even talking about a transaction as an exchange of capital is alien to Marxism, as for you it just means cash or value. For Marx capital is a social relationship of value vaporising itself.

Long story short, don't criticise s**t on the basis of it misunderstanding s**t when your own knowledge of what you are criticising is obviously empty. But this is a derail, and I'll stop here.

This would be great if I used capital and market interchangeably or had presumed he shared my definition of capital.

I don't understand why you think no one but other Marxists have read Marx. He's mandatory literature in entry level collegiate courses I've taken. His work has been in public domain for a very long time. It's actually easier for me to say you aren't knowledgeable about what you're criticizing. For example, your signature isn't even halfway right - critics of Marxism have described his "historically inevitable" society as dystopian for as long as the criticism has existed.

'Don't understand why you think no one but other Marxists have read Marx'
Didn't say that. I said you don't know what you are criticising.

'If I said capital and market interchangeably'
Again, didn't say that.

'Presumed he shared my definition of capital'
You criticised his view of markets by posing your own in contrast. The implication was that market exchange is beneficial, contrary to Marx's implied view of market exploitation. the further implication is a shared set of definitions.

'You aren't knowledgeable about what you're criticising'
Bro I'm criticising one post of yours and your demonstrated familiarity with Marx. Stop trying to make s**t up.

'For example'
My sig is irrelevant to your post, and to what you bring up to discredit it.

[Memette]

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

"Based off of greed" is a massive stretch. The people who partook in the Bundy Ranch protests believed Bundy was being wrongly persecuted and looked on it as ridiculous government oppression over... Cattle (Seriously, Cattle? Did they just give up on busting those Meth Labs and Human/Arms traffickers out there and just choose to pick on someone for something so tedious?). They stood up for one another for dozens of reasons, many of which were a distrust of the government and what they saw as government bullying.

The Ferguson riots were violent from the start as a reaction to a cop shooting someone after that someone had actually attacked the cop. Initially thought of as "A white cop shooting a black teenager", people used that as if it was somehow a reasonable excuse to escalate the issue. After the initial riots cleared, peaceful protests sprung up, which again began to turn violent as rubber bullets were needlessly deployed to put peaceful protesters down and the media was turned away. Groups such The New Black Panthers (An admitted Black Supremacy group) egged protesters on, looting, violence, vandalism, etc. ensues and for some reason the police are being looked on as the bad guys despite it being the people themselves whom are actually the problem. Regardless of who was in the wrong at the beginning of the ordeal, the people themselves have been at fault ever since. The media, as well as people, were saying the police were being needlessly violent using tear gas and several other tools for crowd-control but neglect that the people were throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting at police.

I hardly see how the two are even remotely comparable.

The two reflect a huge difference in how police respond to protesters. White people aiming their weapons at law enforcement? Try to bargain with them and back off. Black peaceful protesters and journalists in McDonalds? Bash their faces in, tear gas, and gun them with rubber bullets. Then say that even the groups of protesters that weren't looting were. All darkies are the same when they're angry, right? Another thing. Capitalists try to moralize their exploitative behavior by complaining about Brown's "robbing" *cough shoplifting* of a small business owner and looting...... despite the fact businesses exploit workers by nature. Money itself sustains human exploitation by design, and businesses are complicit with that, even if it is in order to survive. So you have another thing coming if you think everyone cares that he shoplifted someone who exploits other human beings for profit, or that he assaulted an officer who in theory is supposed to protect private property. Black people have been peacefully protesting since the 60s and prior, and this situation has STILL never been resolved. Peaceful protests offer absolutely no consequence to lawmakers who don't care about doing anything. No one has a suggestion for what other alternatives protesters have, but everyone wants to whine about looting. At least looting raises alarm because the capitalists law makers in power will be more coerced to react due to a disregard of their property ownership values. What many anti looting individuals are subtly insisting is that they "ask" for police reform, repeating the same useless strategies that isn't a threat to lawmakers, thereby wallowing in their own suppression because it is "wrong" to lash out at property owners who suppress them. This concept of "wrongness" is based on a moral design biased in favor of property ownership.

Personally I don't think race is actually an issue. If you look at the two events there is one very important detail that is being overlooked: The Bundy Ranch protesters were armed. The Ferguson protesters are not.

There is a huge balance in power that plays a very important role. If there is a likely chance of a deadly encounter then chances are they are not going to risk a confrontation. If those chances don't exist, as in Ferguson, then the police have all the power to do as they please. They are not meeting the kind of resistance that would force them to change their approach.

As far as laws favoring the rich, I can agree. It doesn't exactly provide a reason to excuse what the rioters are protesters are doing though nor is every business owner there by any means "rich". Another problem is... How exactly do you respond to mass violence like this?

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

He's slowly starting to get it.

[l_Shamrock_l]

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

"Based off of greed" is a massive stretch. The people who partook in the Bundy Ranch protests believed Bundy was being wrongly persecuted and looked on it as ridiculous government oppression over... Cattle (Seriously, Cattle? Did they just give up on busting those Meth Labs and Human/Arms traffickers out there and just choose to pick on someone for something so tedious?). They stood up for one another for dozens of reasons, many of which were a distrust of the government and what they saw as government bullying.

The Ferguson riots were violent from the start as a reaction to a cop shooting someone after that someone had actually attacked the cop. Initially thought of as "A white cop shooting a black teenager", people used that as if it was somehow a reasonable excuse to escalate the issue. After the initial riots cleared, peaceful protests sprung up, which again began to turn violent as rubber bullets were needlessly deployed to put peaceful protesters down and the media was turned away. Groups such The New Black Panthers (An admitted Black Supremacy group) egged protesters on, looting, violence, vandalism, etc. ensues and for some reason the police are being looked on as the bad guys despite it being the people themselves whom are actually the problem. Regardless of who was in the wrong at the beginning of the ordeal, the people themselves have been at fault ever since. The media, as well as people, were saying the police were being needlessly violent using tear gas and several other tools for crowd-control but neglect that the people were throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting at police.

I hardly see how the two are even remotely comparable.

The two reflect a huge difference in how police respond to protesters. White people aiming their weapons at law enforcement? Try to bargain with them and back off. Black peaceful protesters and journalists in McDonalds? Bash their faces in, tear gas, and gun them with rubber bullets. Then say that even the groups of protesters that weren't looting were. All darkies are the same when they're angry, right? Another thing. Capitalists try to moralize their exploitative behavior by complaining about Brown's "robbing" *cough shoplifting* of a small business owner and looting...... despite the fact businesses exploit workers by nature. Money itself sustains human exploitation by design, and businesses are complicit with that, even if it is in order to survive. So you have another thing coming if you think everyone cares that he shoplifted someone who exploits other human beings for profit, or that he assaulted an officer who in theory is supposed to protect private property. Black people have been peacefully protesting since the 60s and prior, and this situation has STILL never been resolved. Peaceful protests offer absolutely no consequence to lawmakers who don't care about doing anything. No one has a suggestion for what other alternatives protesters have, but everyone wants to whine about looting. At least looting raises alarm because the capitalists law makers in power will be more coerced to react due to a disregard of their property ownership values. What many anti looting individuals are subtly insisting is that they "ask" for police reform, repeating the same useless strategies that isn't a threat to lawmakers, thereby wallowing in their own suppression because it is "wrong" to lash out at property owners who suppress them. This concept of "wrongness" is based on a moral design biased in favor of property ownership.

Personally I don't think race is actually an issue. If you look at the two events there is one very important detail that is being overlooked: The Bundy Ranch protesters were armed. The Ferguson protesters are not.

There is a huge balance in power that plays a very important role. If there is a likely chance of a deadly encounter then chances are they are not going to risk a confrontation. If those chances don't exist, as in Ferguson, then the police have all the power to do as they please. They are not meeting the kind of resistance that would force them to change their approach.

As far as laws favoring the rich, I can agree. It doesn't exactly provide a reason to excuse what the rioters are protesters are doing though nor is every business owner there by any means "rich". Another problem is... How exactly do you respond to mass violence like this?

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

He's slowly starting to get it.

Well since I actually understand why an economy is necessary, I'm going to only partially agree with you on some points while maintaining this image I have of you screaming about the perks of communism despite its failure to compete. But since you had to throw in the snide douchebaggery, you only get 1 star instead of 3.

[Memette]

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Memette

l_Shamrock_l

Personally I don't think race is actually an issue. If you look at the two events there is one very important detail that is being overlooked: The Bundy Ranch protesters were armed. The Ferguson protesters are not.

There is a huge balance in power that plays a very important role. If there is a likely chance of a deadly encounter then chances are they are not going to risk a confrontation. If those chances don't exist, as in Ferguson, then the police have all the power to do as they please. They are not meeting the kind of resistance that would force them to change their approach.

As far as laws favoring the rich, I can agree. It doesn't exactly provide a reason to excuse what the rioters are protesters are doing though nor is every business owner there by any means "rich". Another problem is... How exactly do you respond to mass violence like this?

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

He's slowly starting to get it.

Well since I actually understand why an economy is necessary, I'm going to only partially agree with you on some points while maintaining this image I have of you screaming about the perks of communism despite its failure to compete. But since you had to throw in the snide douchebaggery, you only get 1 star instead of 3.

I'm not trying to be douchey I just want you to take a moment to actually think about it because you were on to something.

Quote:

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

It's not simply about the price. The choice to participate in the economy in and of itself is a pretense.

Quote:

while maintaining this image I have of you screaming about the perks of communism despite its failure to compete.

I don't advocate for communism because although I agree with some of its rhetoric, I'm not going to fully endorse something I don't fully understand. I do know however, that the economy is exploitation. You trying to deflect the reality of that by saying "communism failed to compete" doesn't really change that.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

l_Shamrock_l

"Exploitation" assumes that the people themselves are not agreeing to work for the price they earn. What you're saying sounds like the very existence of an economy is a terrible thing.

If people own nothing but personal effects, and have no way to make money but to sell their very ability to work, then they don't have much choice at all. Forced to choose between a bunch of jobs which pay not much at all, 'choice' in the abstract, idealistic sense is something that doesn't really exist. The common response to this is that people can get an education and therefore aim for a better job. This objection misses the point that those 'better jobs' are themselves limited, and getting an education just puts supply pressure on wages. There is the further claim that if everyone is better educated then that creates more industries and desires to be fulfilled. This is a red herring, however, because 1: there are always jobs that are cheaper to fill with people than increased mechanisation, and 2: because those new industries and needs are a long term prospect and don't put food on the table tonight. The final response is that someone has to do those jobs, and so the people who aren't able to compete in the job market will have to do them. Ignoring the mythology of meritocracy, that is an admission that 'choice' just has to be denied to some people and its their own fault for not being good enough.

Now, moving on from that, I don't know what Memette means by exploitation, so I'm not speaking for her in any way here. The marxist understanding of exploitation is the fact that a worker is paid an amount roughly corresponding to the amount needed to support and reproduce that workers, both on a daily, individual level, and on a generational level, i.e., kids. The thing is, that this cost of reproduction is less than the value created by the worker. Like, duh, if a worker costs $500 to maintain per week, but is producing only $500 then the business can't pay rent, let alone make a profit and expand. So nobody can really deny this. But that is exactly what Marxists mean by exploitation: that the labour power of a worker has a higher value than the reproduction of that labour power, and is paid accordingly.

A worker 'agrees' to this exploitation, yes. Only because they have no other way of supporting themself. As above in this post and here.

The idea that the worker needs the economy depends on the idea that it isn't workers who make value in this economy, and the idea that nothing else is possible. Nevertheless, even saying that nothing else is possible, and that value comes from somewhere else, we see that in bad economic times factories, shops, businesses close and workers are thrown out of work. In good economic times, some businesses close, others shed workers as their expanding capital enables them to do more with less labour. Either way 'the economy' does not benefit workers. 'The economy' exists for the expansion of capital.

THIS IS ALL OFF TOPIC SO STOP TALKING ABOUT THE ECONOMY COZ ITS TRIGGERING MAH SPRGZ AND I HAVE TO REPLY KTHX

[Memette]

Le Pere Duchesne

Memette

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

When a woman has no means to support herself and is forced to sell her body for sex, everybody condemns that as exploitation, but when the same woman is forced by that same hunger, that same rent, the same hungry children to sell her body... Cutting ham in a deli or picking mangoes or waiting tables... Somehow that's not not forced by circumstances. What's the difference between a pimp and a cafe owner besides legality and prestige? Both are able to make whatever money they make based on the labour of those who are compelled by the impersonal forces of property and the economy to sell their ability to perform work.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I do think both are exploitation, really. Or were you trying to add to what I was saying?? Confused.

[Le Pere Duchesne]

Memette

Le Pere Duchesne

Memette

It doesn't matter if business owners are rich or not, they are still complicit in exploiting workers for profit, and so they are naturally going to see common ground with the exploitative behavior of the larger, richer property owners that exploit workers on a larger scale. They are going to be complicit with laws meant to protect property and further marginalize workers. And really, it's still exploitation even if its on a smaller scale. You are still coercing people to work in exchange for money that is quintessential to their survival. So it kind of does excuse what the rioters and protesters are doing because business owners will exploit workers regardless if they're incredibly rich or not. They will align themselves with the upper classes when the question of provisions designed to protect property ownership emerges.

When a woman has no means to support herself and is forced to sell her body for sex, everybody condemns that as exploitation, but when the same woman is forced by that same hunger, that same rent, the same hungry children to sell her body... Cutting ham in a deli or picking mangoes or waiting tables... Somehow that's not not forced by circumstances. What's the difference between a pimp and a cafe owner besides legality and prestige? Both are able to make whatever money they make based on the labour of those who are compelled by the impersonal forces of property and the economy to sell their ability to perform work.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I do think both are exploitation, really. Or were you trying to add to what I was saying?? Confused.

I was adding to it

[Project 429]

Le Pere Duchesne

Project 429

Le Pere Duchesne

Project 429

Memette

So in conclusion: Who CARES if he shoplifted cigars or not? Who CARES if he struck the officer first? Why are we debating this? Why was there property to be purchased in the first place? And what was the cop doing protecting an exploitative class of people to begin with?

Look, you put down a lot of s**t in that post so I'm going to save us both the time and cut straight to the end of your argument. Marxism is dead from the neck down and it will never rise again outside of academia because it's entirely contingent on a man's (who was comically terrible with money) misunderstanding of what purpose a market serves.

You have apples. I have a moneys. For a transaction between the two of us to occur there must be (and this is where Marx and Aristotle both faceplanted) mutual inverse subjective valuation of the capital being exchanged. This is the only condition in which a voluntary transaction occurs and thus every voluntary transaction is a betterment of society. This is why societies without a functional market fail.

I'm not really interested in going on about this for ten pages. There are better threads.

OK, this post is dumb. You don't get to criticise Marx, claiming he didn't understand 'what purpose a market serves' when even saying that shows that you don't understand the Marxist critique of political economy. s**t ain't about the 'purpose of markets' ( "muh ducats" ) but the critique of the categories in political economy and the explanation of capital as a social relationship. Even talking about a transaction as an exchange of capital is alien to Marxism, as for you it just means cash or value. For Marx capital is a social relationship of value vaporising itself.

Long story short, don't criticise s**t on the basis of it misunderstanding s**t when your own knowledge of what you are criticising is obviously empty. But this is a derail, and I'll stop here.

This would be great if I used capital and market interchangeably or had presumed he shared my definition of capital.

I don't understand why you think no one but other Marxists have read Marx. He's mandatory literature in entry level collegiate courses I've taken. His work has been in public domain for a very long time. It's actually easier for me to say you aren't knowledgeable about what you're criticizing. For example, your signature isn't even halfway right - critics of Marxism have described his "historically inevitable" society as dystopian for as long as the criticism has existed.

'Don't understand why you think no one but other Marxists have read Marx'
Didn't say that. I said you don't know what you are criticising.

'If I said capital and market interchangeably'
Again, didn't say that.

'Presumed he shared my definition of capital'
You criticised his view of markets by posing your own in contrast. The implication was that market exchange is beneficial, contrary to Marx's implied view of market exploitation. the further implication is a shared set of definitions.

'You aren't knowledgeable about what you're criticising'
Bro I'm criticising one post of yours and your demonstrated familiarity with Marx. Stop trying to make s**t up.

'For example'
My sig is irrelevant to your post, and to what you bring up to discredit it.

Is this really how you're going to spend your time? You're insisting the difference between criticizing markets and criticizing capital. That's a pointless place for you to draw a line in the sand. By criticizing his notion of capital I'm by extension criticizing his understanding of a market and by extension criticizing his understanding of human interaction.

For the record your signature was not irrelevant to the post for reasons I explained when I brought it up.