Yeah. I still have no idea what this dude is talking about. Sounds like something that wont matter in about 3 years to me.

I wish I played City of Heros / City of Villains in its prime..

All is going according to plan in the sense that the Democratic leadership are a mix of whores, idiots, and pussies. The Republican party has finally been gutted of any real ideology along with all but the most stupid of "moderates", their connection to reality is completely severed. Angry mobs are blatantly manipulated into incoherent class warfare against the poor.
ACORN is illustrative because they are an insignificant organization with relatively little money or power whose only mission is to help poor people. They've gotten a few million in grants and contracts here and there over the years from the federal government. What's their crime? They've hired some temps to register voters who instead of working filled out the forms with fake people. When caught they fired them. It happens all the time when you hire people to register voters or sign petitions. More recently is the video fiasco, a blatantly engineered hit piece.
Now congress has passed a law denying ACORN any future federal grants or contracts. With an overwhelming majority.

Meanwhile, companies have killed American soldiers through willful negligence and stolen billions in reconstruction funds (e.g. KBR) and what happens? Greedy sociopaths on Wall Street fuck up the economy and what happens? Insurance companies fuck up the health care system and what happens?
They all use some of the trillions of dollars they've looted from the government to pay dickholes like Dick Armey to wield the angry mob against the powerless.


It's probably the most explicit class warfare has ever been in America during the modern era. They've turned America's rich into a generally untouchable class who bear such a terrible burden what with all those taxes. America's poor into the a terrible underclass full of parasites stealing from the giant government programs they make us pay for. It's not about Republicans or Democrats, the angry mob may be a Republican product but they are just as much of a tool as Sen. Baucus, or Sen. Schumer, or Rahm and his blue dogs.

The much shorter answer:

If I were a fascist supervillain everything would be going according to plan because liberty and capitalism are both finally nearing destruction and nobody cares.

... I am so lost. Time to go read fantasy....

Libertarianism? Seriously, how is that the solution? Maoism couldn't produce a worst result. Although I guess post-Maoist state capitalism isn't too far from where we are at now, minus the rhetoric and dedication to progress. So sure, why not: Let's pull the final rotting teeth from the government and abandon liberal democracy and the Westphalian nation-state to corporate feudalism. At least we'll be free in theory.

I wasn't arguing that one organization is more corrupt than another, it's generally pretty obvious who is willing to do what and that even the righteously angered can be played. The problem is systemic, our popular culture is a product, our national discourse is a product. The quality varies depending on the manufacturer but ultimately it's a kind of totalitarianism, consumerist instead of Stalinist but that's really just a difference in aesthetic.

Re: Social justice and stupid rednecks. I really don't care what stupid rednecks believe as long as their stupidity is chosen and it's effects don't violate anyone elses rights. I think redneck culture is silly and is generally an ironic caricature that celebrates anti-intellectualism too much to recognize the irony or parody it is. These days rednecks seem to be so caught up in idiocy and self-pity that they generally think it's the libruls and fags who have made them into America's niggers. If the price of social justice is stupid rednecks recognizing they had won then you can sign me up for your revolution.

And as an aside to clarify my beliefs on financial inequality:
I'm not opposed to it necessarily. Theoretically, sure get rid of it. Money is a sign of poverty. But in the real world any form of market economy isn't going to distribute wealth evenly. As long as the system is fair, or has self-correcting systems of regulation that steer it back to fairness when it's distorted (i.e. effective prosecution of monopolies, limitations on "intellectual property", etc.) that's good enough for me until the day when market economies don't matter anymore. I'm not a very good Marxist but I think ultimately he was right:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

In case you missed it in the convoluted language or were distracted by Marx's status as our Emmanuel Goldstein:
We should make a world where we love our work and where the economy is so productive that scarcity is effectively eliminated. Once we have overcome the necessity of money financial inequality will end.

To bring that back to the previous topic, as long as the wealthy keep up their stupid class war we will probably never see the kind of progress necessary to get there. Productivity has shot up over the past several decades, the wealthy have become massively more wealthy and everyone else has gotten poorer. The government is largely dysfunctional except to funnel money to the wealthy (and to blow shit up of course). This isn't capitalism, and it sure as hell is not socialism.

Yes, supply and demand would no longer be the foundation of the economy. I think you are misunderstanding me a bit though, it's not that people stop working for money it's that money itself no longer has a purpose. You could pay someone a billion dollars an hour but it would be no different than paying them pennies because there is no longer a significant difference between them. Think of it this way:
Imagine you are a billionaire right now. You think, hey it would be cool to sail around the world next year on a giant yacht full of caviar and cocaine. So you call up a yacht building company and tell them hey I want a pimped out yacht please, then you hand the phone over to your lawyers to work out the details while you go do whatever you want. A year later you've got yourself a giant yacht full of caviar and cocaine. From your perspective money never entered the equation. There is basically nothing you could want that your billions can't provide, and without ever rising to the level where it represents a significant amount of money. In a world where a yacht is the equivalent of pocket change supply and demand aren't really applicable.

It may be that the constraints of human nature make a world in which money can be abolished impossible. If so you can add it to the encyclopedia of reasons why we should take control of human nature and escape the prison it sentences us to.





This is a strange example, you are thinking very narrowly. There is no possible way a system like that could work, people tend to be greedy assholes even when it is more efficient not to be. You've constructed a straw man parody of Soviet style consumerism. The only way this could work is if everyone had the productive capacity to create their own ipod on demand. That whole owning the means of production thing Marx went on about.




I think you are again considering things too narrowly and missing my point:
It is the necessity of money that signals poverty. Wealth means money is never a question. You don't have to concern yourself with it, you just call up the yacht maker and your yacht is produced.

And a Rand quote in response to Marx is amusing, you could of at least busted out von Mises or Hayek.



You are very concerned with who gets what and when it seems. This is a very good example though, you ask if there is anything to stop the painter from living his life as he chooses. Nothing can stop him, in a world where money has lost its necessity servitude will be impossible. You seem to recognize that by asking who can force him to work; the painter doesn't paint because he wants to, he paints because he is a slave.



I know, those godamned poor people living like animals in the Sherwood ghetto, shooting their little arrows to steal our food. So uppity.
Really, I don't think many people besides the wealthy have any sort of class consciousness these days. The vast majority of Americans are convinced they are middle class even as they sink further into debt. The poorest for whom poverty is undeniable are the most powerless people in our society. A million poor people have less power to wage class warfare than a single millionaire. America is a nation of peasants who imagine they are kings.

I think you may still be misunderstanding or not thinking this through... once money can be eliminated the person being employed is there because they chose to be, not because they are compelled to. They don't need to be paid because there is nothing possible they can't already have. You are still thinking in terms of money and the hierarchy of power it creates.



Absolutely. Everyone on earth should have a yacht full of caviar and cocaine, it's practically a human right! Seriously though, I think you might be catching on. Our productive capacity would have to be such that yachts full of caviar and cocaine are like the ketchup packets they give away at fast food restaurants. "Do I have enough ketchup for my fries? Nah, let's grab a few more just in case". You don't even think about it, they are economically insignificant.
With wealth so abundant what use is money?




Relative to the human population the number of those so wealthy is very low. So is the number of people for whom a cigarette is too valuable to give away to anyone who asks for one. Meanwhile, if I go turn a knob in the other room I've got hot or cold water, in the kitchen I've got more food than some people eat in an entire year and it's climate controlled to not spoil. The wealth necessary to produce the modern American household is astronomical relative to just a few generations ago. We live better than the richest people on earth once lived. Progress!




Those teats wouldn't have milk if it weren't for us crying babies. That is a really fucked up metaphor! Anyways, we've been over this one before I think. If it's any consolation the productive capacity necessary to eliminate money would also eliminate taxes.



$250,000 a year is less than pocket change relative to what I've described. Here in reality, yeah it's not a lot of money some places. In others it's an inconceivable amount of money (you should read about how the post-invasion Afghans reacted to tens of millions of CIA cash floating around, talk about hyperinflation!). I'm not sure what your point is though? The value of money varies geographically... and...?
Also, I don't recall painting a picture in which everyone who makes $250K or above is a capitalist pig. It's enough money to be rich in many places, enough to be poor in a few. I do think it's a good threshold for the beginning of real taxation in a progressive tax system. It'd be more fair if $250K was based off relative buying power AND pegged to inflation. This is America though, we don't really do rational or fair.




It's the price of our half-assed civilization. I've never disagreed that taxes are theft. The government feeds on money, taxes are at best like stealing food from a fat person to feed a starving one. It's wrong to steal but it can be justified by the necessity. Obviously it would be nicer if the fat person would offer up a bit of their food because they know it is the right thing to do, but the odds are they got fat because they love to eat. Governments are just as sociopathic as corporations, they just get there a different way.




You are still misunderstanding me, I'm not even sure if there really is such a thing as universal good will. If there was then I imagine we wouldn't have to wait for capitalism to devour itself. In my experience most people are barely even self-aware and seemingly feral. Trusting in the good will of humanity is not something I think I've ever advocated.



Why indeed? Stress and unpleasant things are rarely the sort of thing most people would choose if they were free.



It would have to be capable of producing anything anyone wanted at any moment, even for those who hate all work.



And if he doesn't voluntarily milk the caviar he no longer has money and thus his life is destroyed: work or die. What kind of a choice is that? Just because you can't see the whip doesn't mean you are not a slave. (Never in my life did I imagine the phrase "milk the caviar" could be appropriate for a discussion of postcapitalist economics. epic win!)



The world is so wealthy it's yachts full of caviar and cocaine for anyone who wants one. There could not be producers and consumers, everyone would have to "own the means of production". Every individual would have to be able to command the resources required to produce anything they desire. Every consumer would effectively provide their own incentive to produce. Supply and demand confined to an economy of one.



You are still thinking too much in the terms of a world where money is necessary. Imagine society without the logic of money imposed on it. Could Black Friday even exist? The concept that everything was free would become normalized until having things was like having air. You don't even notice it, the idea of paying for it is absurd. How could you even pay for it when it's everywhere? As far as trash collection goes, hopefully production can be made so efficient that trash no longer exists. If not, build some fucking robots or something. Or find someone who really loves picking up trash and see if they may want to clone themselves into an army of happy collectors of trash. There are a lot of choices available that don't require forced labor.



Sorry dude, you're not in the union so no breaks. Now get back to work before I start docking your pay.



Orly? Have you looked outside recently? Pretty much all of American society is configured to funnel wealth straight up. Worker efficiency is turned into more wealth for the wealthy. The Treasury is a Goldman Sachs branch office. The media is almost exclusively a medium for perpetuating a self-destructive consumer culture. A handful of ACORN workers in a blatantly edited hit piece consume the national discourse (along with American Idol, or whatever celebrity scandal BS is going on, or fucking Hannah Montanta, etc.) while the health insurance industry turns health care reform into even more of an oligopoly, all those assholes on Wall St. get their big bonuses for scoring more corporate welfare, etc. Blackwater gunned down 17 civilians in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, where the fuck is the law denying them government money? They're still collecting it.



It's interesting that you see class conflict as always being waged by the poor. They must really suck at it.



Democracy empowers the poor to wage class warfare? I guess that helps explain why American democracy is mythologized instead of practiced...