Why do some people keep trying to incite violence over and over again, day by day? It gets tiring, and we all know it's not going to happen, there's no revolution of that nature in the future. Most people want safety, stability, and prosperity.
Put the energy into trying to affect change by voting in the right people into office so they can affect the change for us.
And yeah, I know, that's a hard lift, but still, it's better for Humanity overall in the long run. Once you start violence, it rarely stops until everything is destroyed.
I think the main issue is that violence is being waged against 90%+ of the population in terms of division via media outlets, price gouging, wage reduction, removal of safety nets, busting unions, restricting how people can protest, police brutality, a system that blocks positive change, etc
All of this gets obscured because you aren't seeing billionaires directly killing people, but that is the outcome, hundreds of millions of people have suffered or died because of their actions.
At what point do we say enough is enough? When do we remind them that they should fear us?
At what point do we say enough is enough? When do we remind them that they should fear us?
You're absolutely right that the common man gets played constantly, to be controlled. I won't argue that point.
But advocating for violence so early in the process is just wrong, and it would just not happen.
People want safety, stability, and prosperity, and trying to get them to go against that to affect the change that you're advocating is just too much of an ask, and it's not right, as once humans go violent everything goes up in flames.
There are more things that can be done between doing nothing, and sparking a revolution, that haven't been tried yet.
Affect is usually a verb meaning "to produce an effect upon," as in "the weather affected his mood." Effect is usually a noun meaning "a change that results when something is done or happens," as in "computers have had a huge effect on our lives."
It's with an 'A'.
But I'll be sure to yell at my voice-to-text mode on your behalf, for getting it wrong in your eyes.
You'd have to use a different phrase, then. I think it's easier to just remember that "effect a change" starts with an E, but maybe that's just because I've seen it in print so many times.
I mean I showed you the literal dictionary definition. I'm not quite sure why you're still trying to bend things in the opposite direction. At this point I think we've discussed this enough.
My god so much of my young life was spent idolizing this hack.
It’s humiliating, and it damaged every relationship I had. I mean, naturally. Who the fuck am I that anyone who spends time with me would do so from their own rational self interest?
That’s not how love works and I wish I had seen that earlier in my life, because the only thing I’ve found that has any real value is the love of other people. Even if someone were to live by the “philosophy” of objectivism for self preservation, once everyone knows what a selfish twat you are, it’s a matter of time until you find that you NEED other people to survive.
Empathy has value. Altruism is a virtue. Those two sentences were all I needed. Not thousands of pages of nonsense that even the author couldn’t live by.
Yes. Exactly. Being self absorbed is against rational self interest.
I have needed so many people in my life, and they’ve needed me. Even when I absolutely did not want to be there, I did it anyway because they’d do it for me.
It’s been a long time since I read those books, probably more than 20 years now. I probably can’t remember 99% of what I read. I remember the hero worship, I remember that town that fell apart after the factory closed, little things.
I was primed to fall right into that shit. Young, questioning my religion (Appalachian Pentecostal. Like, deeeeeply engrained in everything I was), and from the poorest part of the country and ashamed of it. I seen the hypocrisy of the people around me, the preachers living off of offerings while everyone around me starved, knowing very few people who weren’t dirt poor and living with chickens in their houses (like the town that lost the factory).
I thought that maybe the thing that was holding me back was my altruism, because I wanted to rise above that mess.
Altruism is the only way that people forgotten by the world survive. I wouldn’t have made it without food stamps. I wouldn’t have made it without the people who crawled under the house to fix the sewage and never charged my mother a dime. It didn’t matter how smart I was, I wasn’t on an even playing field. It didn’t matter how much I wanted better things. I wasn’t on an even playing field. So many people are worse off than me, and they come from harder backgrounds than me. Meeting the right people is what it takes to get out of it.
Sorry for the wall of text. I mean, maybe I needed to take that shit so seriously to become a better person by damaging myself trying to be selfish. I feel like I would have been better off without it though.
I think social needs like fulfillment and happiness, pride that comes with seeing others succeed, the contentment that comes with deep love for others and receiving that in kind are all things we have evolved to share and receive and can be the end goal just as much as a means to an end. Sure, the evolutionary pressure that created that kind of social dependency may have been more practical and survival oriented in nature, however we are long past that at this point and I think it's fair to say humans need those things directly in order to be healthy now. Exactly the reason why NASA can't just send people up together without considering the social dynamics of that unit; even the most intelligent and motivated people will be unable to act in their own self interest without those social needs met properly.
We all develop ourselves as we age. I might be too harsh on myself, but my ethical errors are mine. Regardless of influences, only I have responsibility for my actions and failures.
They recognized they were being toxic and grew as a person. Pushing the blame off on some dead bitch seems unnecessary.
In case anyone didn't know, Ayn Rand idolized serial killer William Edward Hickman.
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)
I'm glad other people are aware of this. I used to post about her infatuation with that butcher every time I saw her name come up on Reddit. It makes me happy to see other people doing the same.
I mean, that's been an ongoing battle. It sure as hell wasn't going well in the 1920s and 1930s, then a bunch of shit happened to claw back rights and value for workers.
Some of those battles continue to be fought.
Those battles have not been going well for the last 40+ years as worker share of profits, power, and wealth disparity has been eroded pretty much every year.
But we have lots of bread and circuses so it's cool I guess.
In this comic, the owner is acting greedily to the point of heavily antagonizing their workers. Draconian exploitation of the workforce, reneging on previous agreements, and not adequately compensating them is irrational.
One of the fallacies with Rand's "moral objectivism" is the assumption that business owners will act rationally in their logical self interest in negotiations with their labor force and not out of spite, malice, sadism, racism, etc.
I was told by my first economics professor that if I could solve that problem, and eliminate the assumption of rationality, I'd be the richest man on earth over night.
It's a problem, they know it's a problem, they just don't have a better answer.
You can't even assume everyone can agree on the same definition of rational. If a business owner is a sadist they might value treating their employees like dirt more than the money they'd make if the business ran more efficiently. For a dickhead, rational self interest could mean forgoing profit to cause misery.
It would certainly help explain middle management's obsession with return-to-office policies in the face of all the evidence that WFH increases productivity.
Rational in the economics sense just means that people do things for a reason. We're not acting randomly, we believe that when we put money towards a thing that we are receiving something of value for it.
Any more specific than that and we're not talking about rationality in the economics sense any more. Rationality does not mean correct. Just with cause.
Add greed and self-interest to that list. Those leaders and owners like CEOs are beholden to investors and shareholders, and if they demand a return on their investment or the C-suite wants a raise, the workforce will be one of the places the value is extracted from.
Many people commenting here more than likely didnt read atlas shrugged - my take away is that the politicians and do nothings at the top are the problem, making poor decisions and never being accountable to them.
Not everything is black and white if you think she was just some capitalist tool to push an agenda do yourself a favor and read the book, if you still have that opinion good on you but at least you did your homework.
Come live in south America and see how the political class is rich. They are all left wing narco dictators. Ecuador, Cuba, Argentina, venezuela, el salvador... All in the hands of NARCO COMMUNISTS. really, come visit.
Ecuador is currently run by a pro-democracy president who was born in Florida. Argentina by an America-friendly Libertarian, Venezuela's leader is a leftist, and is still in power because he survived a US lead coup (Aka Operation Gideon, part of which involved economic attacks)... and Cuba isn't particularly known for it's cocaine trade.
You are not informed, u specifically said this because el. Salvador ecuador and Argentina are trying to escape communism. While their (new) presidents do their bests, many government and congress people vote for extreme left. Their HUGE number or government workers drains their funds.
You seem to lack an understanding of the history of US forced regime change in Latin America and the world.
Quite a lot of (in fact most of) the coups the US have conducted have been against legitimately elected leftwing governments... And sometimes with the aid of, if not for international business interests (dole bananas being the go to example, and the reason the term banana republic exists).
Also, whilst I'm sure that fairly ethical small business operators (perhaps like yourself) easily find cultural avenues to feel attacked regularly - I think you should try to be rational and think through these feelings when you come across topics like this.
For instance, is this comic supposed to be aimed at small business owners, or is it supposed to be a lampooning of Ayn Rand's philosophies? Judging from the style, it's from the brand (one could even call them a small business): "Philosophy Comics" - which might be a clue.
...most of society's woes are aimed at large corporate and political interests, and when confronted on a personal level, most people understand the necessity and community value of small business as being useful and good in society. It tends to be the more money-hungry, greedy, and heatless aspects of large scale global Capitalism and Corporatism that society and culture aims to criticize...
...hence the grey uniforms and drab setting in this comic. So I think you've had a knee jerk reaction here, and should be aware of it to in order to detach yourself from the kinds of global large scale Capitalism, and the history of Colonialist and Imperialist involvement that the Capitalist class have often been part of. Might make you feel better.
No, I understand that history. But the extreme left influenced by ruzzia venezuela China Cuba has taken over many countries. Some fight back now, like El Salvador, Ecuador and argentina.
I don't think that's the case, also neither Putin's Russia nor Xi's China are governed from "the extreme left". Both leaders are classically Authoritarian traditionalist conservatives. Hence the mistreatment of gays in Russia, and China's laws against boy bands being too effeminate (both of which are examples of culturally conservative positions).
In fact, I'm sure many people here see how this comic can even apply to the mistreatment of factory workers toiling under the economic abuses in China and Russia, so again, your criticisms and comments aren't lining up with the depictions and intent of the comic, nor with the political state/history of the world.
Tell me, what do you thunk happened with twenty years of kirchenian politics? Sold the entire country to China? They went bankrupt SEVEN TIMES. for oevr a decade, the INFLATION PER YEAR WAS OVER 100%.
Milei is a moron for supporting Trump, he probably does NOT know exactly what Trump stands for. Milei is also way too religious for my liking, women's rights and so on are horrible old fashioned shit (like trump).
But yes, what he is doing YESTERDAY 1 MARCH (the may accords he announced and more) is actually 100% focussed in ending corruption. At least for now he's doing exactly what he should, economically and anti corruption and reorganizing the state departments. Don't forget they went bankrupt 7 seven times last few years and have had over a decade of ANNUAL inflation each single year over 100%....
And bad loans from china by corrupt extreme left wing (narco) communists is exactly what you and I can agree on that is the REAL problem in argentina. After they fix they I hope he thinks again before making abortions illegal etc
But in south America they have been robbed blind by communists getting 11.5% loans from China for failed projects. IN DOZENS OF LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES!
Yeah, it's all China's fault and totally not the imperial power who exploited South America for decades, foisted murderous fascist regimes onto it and funded genocidal death squads over there who murdered millions.
Indeed it is the fault of them!
Your sarcasm about what happened over two decades ago, does not mean they the lady twenty years isn't EXACTLY how you describe : China and venezuela and farc and so on, abusing the entire continent.
Hey fellow white supremacist mass-murder enthusiast! I'm on your side here! As I said... it’s all China’s fault and totally not the imperial power who exploited South America for decades, foisted murderous fascist regimes onto it and funded genocidal death squads over there who murdered millions.
I am moderate, I hate trump.
I would vote for left wing in developed countries WITH WORKING ESTABLISHED INSTITUTIONS (northern Europe).
I would however NEVER vote left in undeveloped countries, not because of ideology, but because it's too easy to be infiltrated by farc Cuba venezuela narco sinaloa ruzzian Chinese political pressure etc. They really fucked up MOST South American countries in the LAST TWENTY YEARS.
You mean... like Pinochet? Best moderate in the world - according to white supremacist fascist sympathizers trying to pretend they're not white supremacist fascist sympathizers!
Please don't stop now, white supremacist fascists sympathizer - oops, I meant to say, "moderate."
Why would you ever mention pinochet? Nobody ever said anything about his dictatorship here...
He wasn't the one making argentina bankrupt SEVEN times in one década AND over 100% INFLATION EACH YEAR FOR A DECADE! that's the extreme left killing the economy of an entire country.
Ahhh, of course, of course, fascist comrade - I shouldn't mention fascist dictators like Pinochet to you just out of the blue like that... we wouldn't want you walking around in public with an erection now, would we?
Good man, but be aware there are highly organized groups here on lemmy that specifically try to make BAD things sound GOOD (from both extreme left, extreme right and extreme dictatorships).
Unfortunately, if you are not aware or up to date on politics of a dozen countries in an entire continent, you may be swayed by their numbers and intensity.
Try and find a moderate, even scientific or economic, explanation and it's much more likely to resemble the thruth as just reading the highly upvoted comments here, which many times are not factual, but IF and when they are, they are probably presented without context and specifically chosen (cherry picked) to 'prove' a point.
Yes, the Cia and fruit companies did coups in the 19** south america. But more recently, it's been looted by narco dictators. Not just one country, all of them... Extreme right isn't the solution but it is a REACTION and south Americans are NOT racist so the worse part of the extreme right isn't even present there.
There is a lot more nuance but there is SOOOO MUCH proof that all of the left wing president's of a whole list of countries have taken money from corruption in gov project and drugs.
You are trying to ignore the last twenty years by referring to the time before it. But it is very clear there are bad things going on since the 2000s that are being fixed now by criminally investigating EXTREME LEFT NARCO DICTATORS & their enablers
But of course I will ignore the fact that the CIA and it's right-wing puppet regimes created the narco-trafficking cartels that we know and love today! See how I'm helping you?
I'll even go above and beyond for my fellow fascist sympathizers and ignore how the right-wing US "War On Drugs" literally created the markets that these right-wing narco-dictatorships thrive on to this very day!
Come on... am I not helpful? Where is my Iron Cross?
Hm you are trying to be quite funny. Maybe try a bit less?
I am in no way talking about before the 2000.
I am talking only about recent history and about almost All countries in South America. They have been cheated by their leaders. Which is obviously what always happens in communism.
I don't understand why people in the US fall for that take. Socialism did take root in the US - that's the whole reason they had to invent police and alphabet organisations to crush it.
It's a ~famous quote. Do you think a quote reflects my personal views on something? Should I perhaps go about and edit quotes to my liking?
Secondly, "take root" is ofc metaphorical, and we could argue the semantics of what constitutes "taking root". It's clear that at the very least if it took root, it lost to some degree to another thing that took root (like a corporate kleptocracy) and while no-country is perfect clearly the countries with much better social programs has had this metaphorical plant of socialism bloom a bit more.
Should I perhaps go about and edit quotes to my liking?
No. Just pick ones that actually stand up to scrutiny. I guess you don't know where the term "redneck" (as it's used in the US, of course) actually comes from, do you?
It’s clear that at the very least if it took root, it lost to some degree
Absolutely not. It was actively destroyed. Do you really think they invented internal political police organisations like the FBI to "fight crime"?
Absolutely not. It was actively destroyed. Do you really think they invented internal political police organisations like the FBI to "fight crime"?
You seem to be having issues with metaphors.
Who honestly gets that pissed off at a quote? I guess a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
When someone says "let them eat cake" do you actually jump in with "actually there's a lot of diabetics in the US population and type II diabetes is a known national issue, so actually they shouldn't be eating cake, they should eat at moist wholegrain if they eat any bread, you see wholegrain actually keeps your blood glucose steadier for longer. And she never even said it, that's a mistranslation! "
Or would you perhaps understand there's a specific thing that's relayed though that meme?
" dO YoU rEAlLy tHiNk fBi fights crime? wHaT aN iDIoT1!! tHeYrE a GoVeRNmeNt cOnSPiRaCY aGaInST sOciAlIsm, noT aCTuAL lAw eNfORcEmEnT"
Appealing to my (alleged) lack of understanding of metaphors does not change the fact that you - unironically - attempted to explain history using a quote that can be easily disproven.
Or would you perhaps understand there’s a specific thing that’s relayed though that meme?
So are you or are you not cogniscent of the fact that your silly quote misrepresents history?
It doesn't even misrepresent history. Socialism having been purposefully suppressed by some isn't mutually exclusive with the sentiment of the quote.
The existence of the red scares doesn't mean that the people that were influenced by them actually weren't. Which is essentially your argument.
Since you want to be that anal and asinine about this, tell me, what qualifies as "taking root" in a society? Oh and I demand clear metrics based on the SI-system. How deep are the roots? How thick? What's the strain?
Perhaps it's hard for you to understand, but socialism is a political ideology and an economic system. Not a vascular plant.
It’s rare to see someone duck and dive as much as you are doing… but it takes all kinds, I guess.
It's rare to see someone going "this you" (several times, I might add) without any elaboration whatsoever, and then trying to talk about "dodging" things.
Like why oh why would you ignore my question about what qualifies as "taking root"? Hmm? How exactly do you go about measuring that? (At this point you'll realise you're just a contrarian kid who doesn't even possess the vocabulary to talk about the thing he's challenging, but you'll never admit it, even to yourself.)
How does one measure "taking root"? Oh I know, by actually seeing how far into the pot the roots have dug. So what precisely are the roots in a non-tangible political movement? Can't answer? Because you know how silly it is?
Thirdly, your entire argument is "no, that's not the reason socialism didn't take off in America, the reason is that it was forcibly suppressed so everyone just gave up on it and there's no-one deluding themselves that they'll make it big one day and that's why they should support policies that help the rich and be against proper welfare".
Probably paraphrased poorly, so why don't you specify your argument. You know, unless you're a contrarian kid and literally have none. ;)
That's because you are rarely gifted in the "can't-see-the-bloody-obvious" department.
Like why oh why would you ignore my question about what qualifies as “taking root”?
Again... this you?
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Who brought this piss-poor excuse of quote to a discussion about history? Me or you?
You want your quote to (somehow) not be fallacious? You describe what the term "take root" means - and do so in a way that (somehow) disqualifies the vast and well-documented history of socialist movements in US history.
so why don’t you specify your argument.
I'm not the one with the shit-take, Clyde - you are.
Is "this you" some sort of cro-magnon speak for "was this authored by you"?
Because I very clearly said in my first reply to you that it's a well known quote from John Steinbeck? And you can find it plastered everywhere even if you google even just a part of the quote? You missed all that? You're unaware of the quote?
Life must be hard when you don't understand metaphors, huh? Or perhaps you do in fact understand it, but you're now pretending not to, because it was pointed out how moronic it is of you to start criticising the "historical accuracy" of a fucking metaphor.
For someone who keeps going on about something being "fallacious" (you're using the word wrong, I really hope this isn't your first language haha), you sure seem to be dodging a lot of the questions asking you to describe what actually is "fallacious" about the quote (you mean "erroneous", not "fallacious", even though I'm sure you don't understand the difference ahaha).
But try, please. I'd like to hear more about your take on the issue. So America uses "socialism" as a curse word because of the red scares, yeah? That's why "socialism never took root"? So those people who are brainwashed to think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires instead of part of the proletariat, they don't actually think like that, because.... socialism was forcefully suppressed?
Please, do enlighten me, since you still seem having trouble making an argument in the first place. :)
One, non-profits are worse by design, being both a tax write-off and deliberately exploitative entities, and two, any government that goes it has to work against number of international interests, each of which probably gets more income than many country's economy. Companies are centrally planned by their CEO and board of directors, your statement makes no sense. The only difference is in what they are willing to do and were they are willing to go, where the real difference is not having to give a shit about your workers or consumers.
I work in a non profit healthcare company and the first part of your statement is bullshit. No comment on the rest of it though but non profit can work just fine.
Basically, as bad as healthcare, but they can get tax-free incentives. Good luck for the diamond in the rough you claim to belong to, but it's far, far, far from the norm and it comes with hidden costs.
Has anyone ever told you the world is bigger than the US? Because it is, and I'm from there. That's why healthcare isn't a problem no matter what type of company I work in (if I even work). So maybe working non-profit in the US is unfair, but it is just as working for a normal organisation here in Europe.
Sorry, bud, I have universal healthcare in Europe. Nice try. No need for "non-profit (tax-subsidized private) healthcare", at least not at the citizen level of the country I'm at where we do get it. The only one who seems stuck in the US bubble is you & company. But if you want, there are plenty of sites for European non-profits too, feel free to provide an specific example as I am able to do instead of moving from vague to vague and I'll take your claim more seriously than what a bunch of meaningless Internet points gives it.
I'm sorry but your comment confuses me a bit. You specifically link to a US based article, and mention how bad non-profit organisations are. One of the things you mention as being bad about it (and why it doesn't work) is because you don't get healthcare.
Then I mention that this is not true for at least some other regions of the world, and I know that from personal experience, but now your saying I'm wrong? Or do you want me to share where I work?
I must just be misunderstanding your comment for sure, so please elaborate what you mean.
I linked to the first example I could find, which didn't take very long, and then you are playing yourself by claiming I said things I never said "One of the things you mention as being bad about it (and why it doesn’t work) is because you don’t get healthcare" I get plenty of healthcare because I live in a country with universal healthcare. It's the shitty ones that don't have it that usually have to deal with the concept of "non-profit" healthcare, which rapidly becomes stained by the for the for-profit industry surrounding it.
Meanwhile, you provide zero examples, and continue providing zero examples, even though I'm giving you the liberty to provide any, even those that have nothing to do with your work, because of how likely I consider the task of providing the counter-evidence to any example you can provide me.
Yeah, sorry bud, you are going to have to participate and not just nitpick every example with whatever you consider the weakest part of it while you continue making unsupported premises. Maybe your upvote/downvote circlejerk can provide one if you are so afraid to, but I'm not going to assume that any example mentioned is that of where you work. If you really work in any industry, non-profit or otherwise, you should have plenty of examples from collaborating and competing entities at the very least.
non-profits are worse by design, being both a tax write-off and deliberately exploitative entities
They work worse and act as an excuse not to offer universal care
I have universal healthcare
You keep going on about me providing proof but you are the one making a bold statement. You disprove the one example you provide because that's clearly caused by the healthcare situation in general in that country.
So how do you expect me to provide proof of healthy and normal non-profit companies not being evil? That's no news, there's no article saying "company is ethical and normal".
You claim that non-profit companies are exploitative by design, but any proof you provide will always be anecdotal. I told you from personal experience that I have seen multiple that are just fine. My proof will also always be anecdotal. But I'm not the one making a claim about the entire system of non-profit organisations, I'm saying that although it might sometimes be exploitative, I know it's not always from personal experience.
As you're generalising the entire system of non-profit organisations, the burden of proof is on you.
You keep coming back to the circlejerk, but i do genuinely want to understand what you want me to provide. If I'm wrong, I want to know why so I can learn from it and that's not sarcasm.
get plenty of healthcare because I live in a country with universal healthcare. It's the shitty ones that don't have it that usually have to deal with the concept of "non-profit" healthcare, which rapidly becomes stained by the for the for-profit industry surrounding it.
This is my entire point though, it's not shitty by design, it's the situation around it that can create a toxic environment that promotes abuse. You stated initially that non-profits are worse by design and exploitative, and all I'm saying is that this is not true in the entire world.
To emphasize what I mean, you state "it's all shit" and then go on to say "but only in a country with shit healthcare". This is exactly what I'm trying to say.
Of course it isn't, I'm not arguing for for-profit universal healthcare, where did you get that impression? I'm arguing against non-profits being used as tax-free launderers without any real benefits that also seem to want to get their low level workers to work for free while the CEOs cash in a nice salary.
Take your choice between mainstream non-relevance, free reusable software projects for large enterprises with small or next to nothing labor costs, political fronts, while also being far from the norm of how non-profits are used. You used the term "non-working", not me, but it's quite apt. If FSF and the Linux Foundation are worth anything, is because of the trust one can place in their central leadership, but their licenses get ignored all the time internationally and no amount of lawyers and money can overcome that. Even in regards to Ukranian and anti-Putin support, most of it is coming from the mainstream because that's where the people are, crumbs don't make an argument.
That's an extensive list of every 501(c)3 in the largest economy in the US. California has strong workers protections compared to the rest of the nation. If they don't pay your salary, withhold your salary, or even fire you without your final pay in hand, they owe triple in damages. Nonprofit corporations, and Co-Ops, are the only corporations that should exist, as they are the only ones not legally beholden to shareholders profits first.
We will execute corporations in a heartbeat if they decide to FAFO out here.
Yes, actually, BECAUSE THEY DO ALL OVER THE WORLD. In fact, worker-owned cooperative businesses are MORE common in the third world than they are in the "developed" world - mostly farming coops like the one I linked first, but business, banking, and all sorts of cooperatives are VERY common even in economically-depressed areas.
I can go on, but just search "[insert country name] coops" and you'll find some, almost guaranteed.
Most coops start from workers in other sectors, or with other income streams combining their money together and using those funds to start their cooperative, or workers in a company will buy out or convert their company into a worker-owned cooperative. They all share in profit from the cooperative, the revenue is held by an elected treasurer, the management and directorial staff, if any, are voted upon by workers, and workers vote and have an active voice in how the proceeds are spent to better the cooperative. This is INCREDIBLY common the world over, and in some places, these types of businesses have existed before capitalism was spread there.
The sad thing is that not a single “proletariat revolution” produced better or even similar result that democratic capitalism produced in the West. Granted, Rand is to the far right economically of the modern Western society, but still…
Usually the gist of existentialcomics (great comic btw if you haven't read it) is taking well-known philosophers from humanity's history and pitting them against each other to play with ideas and crack philosophical jokes. With that in mind Ayn Rand's and her book "Atlas Shrugged" is presented as a philosophy, which may clear up why she is here.
Yeah, I'm familiar with them myself, I'm just saying in this case Ayn Rand is doubling as both the philosopher and the person with money, and in real life she was only a wannabe.
I think everyone understands that people are dicked over and have to participate in the system as it is. However, if you’re going to be the poster child for why meat is murder or how god is fake or how public assistance is evil, it’s also not unfair for people to think you’re a hypocrite if they find you eating a turkey leg, preaching in church or taking public assistance.
She was hypocritical because she thought Medicare and Social Security shouldn't exist. And was extremely vocal about it. Yet she took them anyhow.
Also, those programs aren't some kind of retirement savings plan. The money you pay into Social Security today gets paid out to those who are receiving it today. The first people to ever receive Social Security and Medicare never paid a dime into it because it didn't exist while they were in the workforce.
We need to stop thinking about how the taxes we pay in directly benefits us. Taxes pay to keep our government and society functioning on an even keel. It isn't a pay in and get your kicks out system. And when people like Ayn Rand go about criticizing it as if it's a travesty that they had to pay taxes so that other people can live comfortable lives they are showing what kind of self serving fanatics they are.
The state always has the final say.
In a liberal democracy all we can do is vote, campaign & support the best (or least worst) people to make these decisions.
I think people do not understand where Ayn Rand was coming from. She came from the Soviet Union, a highly collectivist society. Everyone is expected to conform and be all the same economically. Then she got sick of it, emigrated and formed her own Iam14butthisisdeep philosophy. Unfortunately, some rich American asshats saw that her ideas have self-serving utility to justify their ultra-capitalist beliefs and privileges and continue exploitation, and then spread her nonsensical "objectivist" ideas around. Not many people actually believe the philosophy, although we unconsciously apply this especially with middle class NIMBYISM.
"Oh, poor homeless people. I hope they could be housed. But I will elect a politician who will not build social housing because it will bring down the value of my property."
"I support mitigating climate change. But I do not want windfarms nearby. They are eye sores."
I mean, lots of people with terrible and damaging ideas came from backgrounds that explain their terrible and damaging ideas. She doesn't get a pass because the USSR was corrupt, nor does she get a pass because western capitalist society is also corrupt.
Then she got sick of it, emigrated and formed her own Iam14butthisisdeep philosophy.
No, you're being disingenuous. She formulated her philosophy moral objectivism from her experiences as a child.
This is what happened (from her wikipedia):
Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg in what was then the Russian Empire. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan). She was 12 when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted her family's lives. Her father's pharmacy was nationalized, and the family fled to the city of Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating high school there in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then named), where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.
When Russian universities were opened to women after the revolution, Rand was among the first to enroll at Petrograd State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. She was one of many bourgeois students purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many purged students, including Rand, were reinstated. She completed her studies at the renamed Leningrad State University in October 1924. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri; it became her first published work. By this time, she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, and she adopted the first name Ayn (pronounced /aɪn/).
Where is your objection? She formed her philosophy after experiencing a collectivist dystopia. Her family's business was nationalised. That is part and parcel of such extreme collectivist socio-economics and thus enamoured by hyperindividualist extreme counterpart.
Lol! The US nationalizes stuff all the damn time - Obama essentially nationalized the auto industry after the 2008 crash (right before handing it back to the billionaire parasites after their debt had been shouldered by the US people).
Yet I don't see anybody calling the US "collectivist."
The military can be argued "collectivist". I've never been in the military but many vets say that in the bootcamp they pretty much remove the personality out of you so that you think with the team and follow chain of command. And often, teams are punished based on the mistakes of one person in the group.
It's because they handed it back, so everyone can see we are obviously an individualist kleptocracy. The US government should have imminent domained automakers instead of giving them billions of dollars in loans and then forgiving a good chunk of the loan.
Wealthy investors siphon as much money from the system as they can. Then, when there is the slightest economic turmoil, the government gives them billions or trillions in handouts. Why aren't they required to reinvest the windfall from their previous years into their own companies when they fail? That math doesn't add up.
Centralised but everyone is expected to value the group over the individual. The property in the Soviet Union belongs to the people albeit managed by the state. Therefore, collectivist.
Centralisation does not mean either just means individualism or collectivism.
I saw it... and just looking at it made it fall apart like an upside-down house of cards in a whirlwind. Strange... this seems to happen every time anyone looks at (so-called) "anarcho-capitalism" a bit too closely. Have you had better luck with it, perhaps?
That’s every working class capitalist behaviour I’ve ever met. The average family guy with 4 kids barely able to make ends meet but god forbid if you ever make a disparaging point against Elon musk as if he’s in the same category out there fighting the good fight for the average working joe.
Blind hypocrisy seems to be a necessity in capitalism ideals.
