Is the blatantly provocative status a friend of mine put up on Facebook earlier today.
This led, quite expectantly, into a long yet interesting debate with people supporting different sides getting involved. For the sake of personal privacy, no ones real names will be released; instead, I will be using their initials in order to differentiate who is saying what.
The debate is as follows:
J.M.: We don't.
V.A.: You're the most conceited person I know.
J.M.: I'll take it as a compliment :)
T.F.: The only actually way is if everyone participated at succeeding at this goal. If only a few people do it, they will be looked down on by society. If 95% of people do it, society will look down on the "consumerism mindset."
T.B.: The people who created it..
V.A.: Four Chicago economists.
T.B.: yeah, the material cycle , we need to eliminate the idea of ownership , because for the most part its not the good that we want its the use it provides if we had facilities that lent out goods for the use of that good we would be much more sustainable in Vancouver a company is taking car and multiple people lease a car and share it when they need it and they have found 1 car can fit the needs of 100 people comfortably.
J.M.: the idea of individual prosperity has been here forever.. it's the only thing that has been pushing us forward.. without it, we would still be hunting game and picking up weed. And consumeric mindset is merely a catalyst... and at this time, it's the only thing that keeps the system from collapsing... so yeah, think about that before you criticize..
P.K.: Eliminate individual prosperity and ownership? They tried. With horrible results.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union idealism counts for fuck all as far as history is concerned.
J.M.: Socialism/communism simply doesn't work.. It has been proven so many times.. Believing in it and promoting it is insane and irresponsible.
P.K.: Also saying the Chicago School is responsible for consumerism is utter bullshit. Capitalism has been around in one form or another for centuries. We are only seeing its most
current iteration: ownership and trade goes back before written history.
Me: Capitalism in its rawest form is not a terrible thing. Nor is communism, socialism, or any other kind of 'ism' (save for fascism or Nazism). The Chicago School didn't create capitalism.. it created disaster capitalism, in which you take advantage of the circumstances created out of a serious disaster and make it work towards your own personal gain, whether that means you individually, your organization/corporation, or private industry in general. For example.. in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a bunch of different corporations worked together to rebuild New Orleans in the image of 'free-market economics,' in which they privatized the entire school system as well as bought destroyed properties in order to sit on them until they were worth something again (whether that meant leaving them the way they were, or developing them into something feasibly marketable). The purely consumerist culture was created by a small clique of individuals following the Second World War; the first such example of disaster capitalism in which they took advantage of everyone's preoccupation with the post-war situation world-wide and created as well as implemented the early version of the consumer-driven culture we live in today.You two seem to assume that when someone is against capitalism or consumerism, and toys with the idea of abolishing ownership, that they are somehow automatically placed under the label of 'communist' or 'socialist.' You do this in order to polarize their arguments and render them 'invalid' inside of your head because both 'communism' and 'socialism' bring-up memories of people like Stalin and Soviet or Chinese atrocities. You do this so you can simply demonize your opposition. You don't open your mind to the ideas they lay down.Jakub, you especially seem to believe that the free-market economy is the one and only way to go. It is just as flawed as communism, socialism, the barter system, etc. etc. etc. because it is a HUMAN CONSTRUCT. All human constructs are blatantly flawed, as well as can and will disintegrate to the point where they become close to being blatantly evil. This is what has happened with every previous ideology, whether political or economic, and is the reason why there should always be new ideologies in the works which can be implemented as soon an old system, true and tried or not, becomes destructive and draining to the world and its people (or, an individual country and its people). Capitalism has gotten to this point where it is hurting people worldwide, both psychologically and physically, for countless different reasons. Communism started out fine and eventually got to that point as well. Hell, even Nazism was fine to begin with.. what a great economic boost Hitler was! But then all of a sudden, he and his ideology began to mentally and physically harm people, and needed to be discarded.
J.M.: The example you gave is heartbreaking, but i dont really see anything wrong with disaster capitalism and people who participate in it.. yes, some people get rich because they are smart and use their opportunities that are on the market... they do no harm to others, so what's the problem?Communism has been in my country for 41 years and it got us nowhere... I do believe in free economy and private ownership.. I don't know anout you, but I wouldn't want random strangers sleeping in 'my' bed... ;)And i don't know what you see as the beginning of communism, but the Big October Revolution certainly wasn't fine. It's not like communism should have ever been there for people in the first place.. Germany just wanted Russia out of the war and communism seemed like a harmless choice to them at that time... Then it got ironic, but that would be out of topic here :)
V.A.: "Disaster capitalism harms no one"........lol
J.M.: it's the disaster that hurts, not capitalism...and if you really find that amusing, throw in some arguments so that i can laugh with you..
Me: The problem with disaster capitalism is that it is blatantly taking advantage of others misfortunes; people who have little, and now probably have less as a result of this disaster. It sneaks its way in during times like these to force the afflicted to become completely dependent on them for their exclusive monetary benefit, not the benefit of the general public that needs this money in order to properly rebuild their communities or whatever it was that was destroyed.The other problem with disaster capitalism is that it's so profitable, that many corporations have, in the past, engineered disasters in order to take advantage of the circumstances arising out of their aftermath. For example; in 1980's Chile, I think it was, a socialist-leaning leader was fair and rightfully elected to office. He wished to nationalize the resource economy, and the foreign corporations which owned these resource outlets (obviously) very much disliked this idea, and they would lose valuable profit as a result. They then funded a military coup carried out by General Augusto Pinochet, who, after violently and destructively seizing control, not only allowed these private companies to keep their holdings, but gave them more due to the economic advice of the Chicago School economists that were acting as his economic consultants. People began to starve even more-so than before, the minimum wage was abolished, Pinochet's military dictatorship hunted down and murdered (or kidnapped) dissidents and others who disagreed with the way things had recently become, and the corporations that had started this all got exactly what wanted. The entire country become completely dependent on them due to their control of the countries vital resources, and an absolute killing in profits was made as a result.And I don't think a 'lack of ownership' in the way you're interpreting it would mean the abolition of personal boundaries. It would still be your bed, and it would still be quite strange if someone tried to sleep in it stating it was never your bed to begin with.And the violent birth of communism was only as a result of Tsarist resistance and the bourgeois class defending their position to the last breath, regardless of how futile it might have been. Communism did indeed improve the lives of the general populace for a short while following the end of the war economy. Short, as in 25 years or so. Then it disintegrated to the point that it did nothing BUT harm people. Capitalism is now reaching that point in its existence.
B.P.: look at communist china they had some capitalist regions and some communist regions it is purely on the leader and how they form the societies goals and ideologies with propaganda. really consumerism won't go away over night but cutting back and trying to promote different alternatives that won't harm our environment and third world countries is a good start and by going to university I realized that more than half the people here want to change that. So capitalism is harmful especially because the media tries to form this idea that what you own is who you are but really no one gives a shit. so i guess people are doing stuff to find alternative goods and products that are less harmful. Because a pure form of political ideology will never be reached. Man is flawed. That's all I gotta say. and J.M., you have no sense of how the poor live i suggest you go to a third world country and see the living conditions for yourself before you talk like a fucking no it all. that is all :)
Me: And P.K., just because the idea of "ownership and trade" goes back before written history does not mean that this was in any way, shape, or form capitalism. Capitalism sprouted from it, not it from capitalism. You interpret it in a way that suggests you believe it somehow supports free market economics and the way the system is designed today, and that is a blatant misinterpretation.
More material will be added when (and if) it appears.
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