Humans will take more than they need of what’s free, if there’s a way to turn it into profit for them. If profit is allowed to be a way to secure power and control, there will always be be a desire to hoard for oneself.
Capitalism rewards hoarding and profiting, and also rewards making the in group as small as possible.
Other factors can cause hoarding as well to be clear, such as fear of scarcity/needs not being met.
If you’re not allowed to do profit then who would do trade and why? Nobody likes working in retail, nobody likes being a plumber. Markets can and should compensate and reward people fairly, the problem is some people are allowed to take too much, and even small profit can be made at the expense of others, will you have an investigative unit that decides when people have used enough water?
If you’re not allowed to do profit then who would do trade and why?
Because one can’t possibly own or learn everything so you’ll have to trade some thing you have for something you want. Skills, food, stuff, art, tools, music.
And while we’re at it, since it’s difficult to get everything you need in exchange for something they need, it would help to have a universal token of agreed upon value for us all to trade with. /s
I love working in retail. I was a contract analyst for some years (very boring, highly paid and painstaking insurance work), now I work in a bakery as a barista, and I’m dragging my feet about finishing my masters because I don’t really want to stop working there.
Sometimes people are shitty, but it’s clear work that doesn’t stress me out at home and I’m glad to provide my community with bread.
I can’t really imagine plumbers hate being plumbers- it’s work that they train years for, with very transferable skills if they wanted to switch to anything else along the way. Do you have any evidence that plumbers hate their jobs?
As others have pointed out, profit is not the reason for trade, and profit is not the reason for currency to exist.
Understand that you are coming from a place of having grown up under capitalism and anytime you questioned it, or anytime you saw it questioned, those were the responses. “Of COURSE we need to profit! Why would LITERALLY ANYONE do LITERALLY ANYTHING without profit? We’d all still be cave people like those DAMN DIRTY COMMIES”
But my brother in Christ, you’ve never profited before! The owner class profits. The owners get to take all the wealth generated by the workers, and fucking keep it for their own power! It’s that simple. We don’t get it, they do. The profit we generate for them doesn’t protect us. It doesn’t enrich us. They can take away our wages at anytime, they can manipulate their markets and often gamble with our nest eggs. They set up systems where they can rob us of any money we did not allow to remain under their control (civil forfeiture), they allow us access to the illusion of wealth in exchange for all of wages for the rest of our lives. And they don’t even take good care of us to do it.
It’s all a scam brother, whether or not it’s a good system doesn’t matter if it’s allowed to be captured and manipulated. It’s a trap, don’t be a sucker.
Humans will take more than they need of what’s free, if there’s a way to turn it into profit for them. If profit is allowed to be a way to secure power and control, there will always be be a desire to hoard for oneself.
Capitalism rewards hoarding and profiting, and also rewards making the in group as small as possible.
Other factors can cause hoarding as well to be clear, such as fear of scarcity/needs not being met.
This is an excellent insight.
If you’re not allowed to do profit then who would do trade and why? Nobody likes working in retail, nobody likes being a plumber. Markets can and should compensate and reward people fairly, the problem is some people are allowed to take too much, and even small profit can be made at the expense of others, will you have an investigative unit that decides when people have used enough water?
Because one can’t possibly own or learn everything so you’ll have to trade some thing you have for something you want. Skills, food, stuff, art, tools, music.
Are you arguing against a medium of exchange? Bartering is just less efficient trading.
A medium of exchange is entirely unrelated to profit that bartering still enables.
And while we’re at it, since it’s difficult to get everything you need in exchange for something they need, it would help to have a universal token of agreed upon value for us all to trade with. /s
And your point here being…?
Are you implying that currency is a product of capitalism or that currency only exists under capitalist societies?
Lol, I’m no historian but I almost sure that currency has existed in basically all big societies way before capitalism was a thing…
Removed by mod
It was implied by the parent comment they were responding to when it brought up trading non-monetary things. Is the lack of reading comprehension (here & here) willful?
Yes, capitalism is when money exists. Good point.
I love working in retail. I was a contract analyst for some years (very boring, highly paid and painstaking insurance work), now I work in a bakery as a barista, and I’m dragging my feet about finishing my masters because I don’t really want to stop working there.
Sometimes people are shitty, but it’s clear work that doesn’t stress me out at home and I’m glad to provide my community with bread.
I can’t really imagine plumbers hate being plumbers- it’s work that they train years for, with very transferable skills if they wanted to switch to anything else along the way. Do you have any evidence that plumbers hate their jobs?
As others have pointed out, profit is not the reason for trade, and profit is not the reason for currency to exist.
Understand that you are coming from a place of having grown up under capitalism and anytime you questioned it, or anytime you saw it questioned, those were the responses. “Of COURSE we need to profit! Why would LITERALLY ANYONE do LITERALLY ANYTHING without profit? We’d all still be cave people like those DAMN DIRTY COMMIES”
But my brother in Christ, you’ve never profited before! The owner class profits. The owners get to take all the wealth generated by the workers, and fucking keep it for their own power! It’s that simple. We don’t get it, they do. The profit we generate for them doesn’t protect us. It doesn’t enrich us. They can take away our wages at anytime, they can manipulate their markets and often gamble with our nest eggs. They set up systems where they can rob us of any money we did not allow to remain under their control (civil forfeiture), they allow us access to the illusion of wealth in exchange for all of wages for the rest of our lives. And they don’t even take good care of us to do it.
It’s all a scam brother, whether or not it’s a good system doesn’t matter if it’s allowed to be captured and manipulated. It’s a trap, don’t be a sucker.