[QatzelOk]

March 14, 2008

How do you free your life from capitalism?

Dear Ms. Communicate,
As an anti-capitalist feminist, I try to avoid as much as possible participation in the economic system. But, how do you free yourself from the chains of capitalism and globalization in a world that's dictated by economic gain? I try to spend a single day not using anything made in China, but it's impossible!

- Concerned Anti-Capitalist

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Dear Concerned,

You've asked a definitive question for the engaged First-Worlder. Wanting to live an ethical and non-exploitative life as an anti-capitalist begins by understanding the role of money in your life. This can be divided into two categories: 1. How money/capital is spent by you, and 2. How money/capital comes into your life.

It is highly unlikely that you, or any or us, can completely disengage from the system and not benefit from any exploited labour at all, either here in Canada or overseas. That said, it doesn’t mean you just give up and go shop at Old Vany or McDonald's though. Happy mediums, people!

I suggest that you live your life as ethically as possible, and reduce your engagement in the global capital cesspool as much as you can. This can involve any of the following.

Outgoing:

• Have less stuff, and accumulate less stuff.

• Give your stuff away that you aren't using. "Stuff" includes clothes, books, shoes, anything old and broken that you're going to fix "someday," anything you haven't used for over a year.

• Don't buy new, ever.

• Buy used

• Share

• Reduce, reuse, recycle. Especially the first two!

• Pay off all your debt as soon as possible.

• Don't use a credit card, ever.

• Don't go into debt, ever.

• Shop at independent proprietors/businesses as much as possible. Remove your spending dollar from chains like Malwart, Cramazon/Crapters, Crudson's Bayou, Sneers, Canadian Tired, etc.

Incoming:

Unfortunately, any paid work that you participate in will engage the capitalist machinery in some way. Here are some suggestions that don't involve working at places like advertising agencies, government bureaucracies or medium- and large-corporations.

• Develop skills for jobs that don't directly engage the capitalist machinery.

• Find paid work at NGOs, non-profits, starting your own business venture or working for a sole-proprietor.

• Work for organizations like the public school board, universities, colleges, trade schools, hospitals, community health organizations, community legal organizations.

.

Of course I recognize that changing a career simply in order to not engage the capitalist machinery is pretty serious, and is not possible for most of us. It’s worth it to ponder why that is, though.

I understand too that this is a huge topic that we don’t have space for here. Perhaps a conversation on the babble discussion board is called for.

- Ms. Communicate

Some good advice on how to de-capitalismize your life. Stopping your contribution to these sick power clusters is the first step. But obviously not the last.

[Dan]

I got an idea. If you hate capitalism so much why don't you leave all the things it has given you.

Go find a plot of land in the ass-end of nowhere, buy an ox and a couple chickens. Build yourself (using hand tools) a cottage with a wood burning stove, then chop yourself some firewood. Gain food by farming (with hand tools, no power tools, no chemical fertilizers/pesticides, no machinery, etc) and hunting with a bow and arrow (maybe a flintlock). And provide for yourself. Put your money where your mouth is; or accept capitalism for all it has given you.

[QatzelOk]

buy an ox and a couple chickens

I'm a vegetarian.

Build yourself (using hand tools) a cottage with a wood burning stove

Why not rent from a cooperative, and heat with electricity provided by a state corporation?

no chemical fertilizers/pesticides

Capitalism gave us poisons to spray on our soil and food?

hunting with a bow and arrow

Capitalism gave us guns? What am I supposed to be hunting with those tools? Tofu?

[NYYS]

I love idiots like the people in the quote. Like they're going to accomplish anything but making themselves miserable.


Study hard, find a job you like that pays well, invest in the stock market, make wise financial decisions in regards to debt and spending. Bam. Be better off than any moronic "anti-capitalist" could ever hope to be.

[Rancid]

I follow a lot of those, not for anti-capitalists reasons though.

anyway

this one:

Work for organizations like the public school board, universities, colleges, trade schools, hospitals, community health organizations, community legal organizations.

Other than the community health, and community legal groups. All the others are involved in the capitalistic system. ESPECIALLY universities, and public school systems.

[Nets]

As an anti-capitalist feminist

Oh man she must be lovely on a date.

[QatzelOk]

make wise financial decisions in regards to debt and spending

That's excellent advice, YankSux. Why not just say, "Be wise with your money" and "be smart with the stock market."

Is there anyone who intentionally "invests stupidly?"

And what about being wise with the other aspects of your life as well? You know - your emotional well being and spiritual health? Should you just completely ignore these parts of your self? Is that really wise?

Oh man she must be lovely on a date.

Because that's all that women are for, right?

[Unperson-K]

• Have less stuff, and accumulate less stuff.

• Give your stuff away that you aren't using. "Stuff" includes clothes, books, shoes, anything old and broken that you're going to fix "someday," anything you haven't used for over a year.

• Don't buy new, ever.

• Buy used

• Share

• Reduce, reuse, recycle. Especially the first two!

• Pay off all your debt as soon as possible.

• Don't use a credit card, ever.

• Don't go into debt, ever.

Quite bizarrely, most of this advice seems to fit with the definition of 'the spirit of capitalism' that Max Weber provided. Rather than being anti-capitalist, this woman is merely perpetuating the morality of bourgeois utilitarianism that ultimately holds up capitalism and its moribund forms.

[Dan]

I'm a vegetarian.

You don't eat the ox or the chickens. The ox is to pull your plow so you can till the earth. The chickens are for their eggs.

Why not rent from a cooperative, and heat with electricity provided by a state corporation?

Sounds very capitalistic to me. Besides the creation of the components encessary for the development of electricity and the electrical grid were very much driven by capitalism and corporations including GE and Westinghouse. It would be hypocritical for an anti-capitalist to enjoy something developed by corporations.

Capitalism gave us poisons to spray on our soil and food?

Yes. They are very helpful poisons, without which you'd probably be dead.

Capitalism gave us guns?

Sure did. Capitalism and patents were rife throughout the historical development of firearms, such as the Colt

What am I supposed to be hunting with those tools? Tofu?

Deer, rabbits, etc. Although, if you're a vegetarian you should probably stick to farming.

The point remains; all you anti-capitalists live on the marvelous technologies developed through capitalism, economic competition/freedom, patents, and corporations, then rant about how evil these are.

Y'all should either stop biting the hand that feeds you, or go primitivist like your ideology would suggest. Then I'd at least get the laugh of watchin' y'all starve as you fail at farming and hunting.

[Abood]

I got an idea. If you hate capitalism so much why don't you leave all the things it has given you.

Economic systems don't "give" things; people do.

The car was brought to you by workers, not any system.

[QatzelOk]

Sounds very capitalistic to me.

Well, if everything is capitalism, then you are both right.

But then again, if everything is capitalism, then it's a useless term so let's stick to only some things being capitalism, while others are not.

Not spending money is pretty non-capitalist because it prevents your labor from becoming someone else's surplus labor (labor usury).

Consumerism is capitalism's finest hour - its shining apex. It is at this stage where the consumer internalizes the dialectic and fights with himself for liberation via consumption, rather than liberation from consumption.

Save yourself from capitalism. By eating away at its core, you can eventually destroy it before it destroys you.

Look at what it's already done to our language. Everything means "capitalism" now because of a century of spin and advertising and war propaganda.

[NYYS]

You don't eat the ox or the chickens. The ox is to pull your plow so you can till the earth. The chickens are for their eggs.

bahahahahah... I missed this the first time through. No wonder Qatz hates capitalism, he can't figure out why people don't destroy the things that produce.

That's excellent advice, YankSux. Why not just say, "Be wise with your money" and "be smart with the stock market."

Is there anyone who intentionally "invests stupidly?"

No one intentionally does it, but some people unintentionally do. Which is why you either figure out what you're doing or you don't do it at all.

If someone is terrible at driving whose fault is it when they run a stop sign and get in an accident? The transit system or the driver?

Should you just completely ignore these parts of your self? Is that really wise?

Beats me. Not that it has anything to do with this thread.

I follow a lot of those, not for anti-capitalists reasons though.

I thought this too as I was reading it. It's not all bad advice. Don't go into debt? Best advice you can give.

[Dan]

Economic systems don't "give" things; people do.

True and false.

People invent and distribute things yes, but they only spread their inventions if there is a personal motive to, and many inventions could only have come about through corporate-type R&D.

As well, the capitalist system has creation a good combination of corporations, patents, and economic incentives to best maximize technological progress.

While the system didn't invent these things; it was essential for creating the situation in which they would be invented and more importantly, once invented, would have been distributed.

Well, if everything is capitalism, then you are both right.

I said nothing of the sort. I said the idiot who wrote the letter to the editor, Ms. Communicate, and other idiots who think as she does should follow their beliefs and abandon those things created because of the capitalist system and live outside the capitalist system in primitivism, instead of being hypocritical about it.

Save yourself from capitalism. By eating away at its core, you can eventually destroy it before it destroys you.

Then you can prevent a heart attack by destroying your heart before it destroys you.

[Noelnada]

Save yourself from capitalism. By eating away at its core, you can eventually destroy it before it destroys you.

Look at what it's already done to our language. Everything means "capitalism" now because of a century of spin and advertising and war propaganda.

I would object that "capitalism" does not really exist in real life and live only in the minds of few individuals promoting a selfish, short-sighted vision of life and its purpose.

[QatzelOk]

I agree, Noel.

If someone is terrible at driving whose fault is it when they run a stop sign and get in an accident? The transit system or the driver?

Well, considering that car accidents kill far more Americans than terrorism or gun crime put together, I'm going to suggest that it is the system. These 40,000 deaths per year are systemic.

You can't really decide NOT to be in an accident. The road transit system we have guarantees 40,000 deaths in the US.

Thanks for inadvertantly answering your own question in a way that reinforces the point I was trying to make about the stock market being a casino of economic instability that encourages cheating which leads to poverty and violence.

[NYYS]

Well, considering that car accidents kill far more Americans than terrorism or gun crime put together, I'm going to suggest that it is the system. These 40,000 deaths per year are systemic.

So if I go out tonight, get hammered, and blast through an intersection any deaths caused are the fault of the system?

If I'm adjusting the radio and swipe a couple pedestrians that's the system's fault?

Thanks for inadvertantly answering your own question in a way that reinforces the point I was trying to make about the stock market being a casino of economic instability that encourages cheating which leads to poverty and violence.

The stock market averages 10-12% return on principle investments. Any casino giving out that kind of money would be in some serious fucking trouble.

[Dan]

So if I go out tonight, get hammered, and blast through an intersection any deaths caused are the fault of the system?

If I'm adjusting the radio and swipe a couple pedestrians that's the system's fault?

Now you're getting it.

One of the prime unspoken tenants of New Leftism, such as the type Qatz holds to, is that people are not responsible for their own actions (barring of course whites, males, Americans, British, "Israelis", Christians, and the rich who are responsible for everything bad). Everything is the "system's" fault (and by extension the previous mentioned groups who created the "system").

To actually acknowledge personal responsibility exists they would have to acknowledge that they are part of the problem, which they would then have to fix, and this would require actual effort, rather than just blaming the "system". They would also not be able to credibly attack the above-mentioned groups for all the world's ills. And that just wouldn't do.

[Rancid]

encourages cheating which leads to poverty and violence.

How does the stock market encourage this?

please expand.

[QatzelOk]

So if I go out tonight, get hammered, and blast through an intersection any deaths caused are the fault of the system?

In 70% of all fatal traffic accidents, alcohol is NOT a factor. Though the auto industry certainly wants you to blame someone else's product on all the death. Other drivers are the easiest group to blame because they are dispersed and come from every background.

Our traffic system guarantees 40,000 dead Americans every year. More than Al Qaida and the Taliban could ever dream of killing. And all you have to say to this, YankSux, is that "it's those bad drivers, not the good ones."

Yeah, and the people dying from cigarettes simply don't know how to smoke properly.

How does the stock market encourage this?

All gambling encourages brinksmanship. And when the entire stockholder community takes a loss (a depression) they are usually strongly motivated to destroy whatever it takes to get back some of their investment.

Look it up.

You guys can't free yourselves from capitalism because it is your religion, not just your economic system. You look at 40,000 dead bodies in car accidents, and your first response is to defend the car companies, and accuse other drivers of being inadequate. Few slaves were ever so cooperative with their owners.

[Rancid]

capitalism because it is your religion

The corporation is the God we offer blood sacrifices to then?