US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

how many deprssions must we endure before we figure out to how improve capitalism?

all of them!

who "endured" this depression? the only people with a real say in our political landscape are still posting record profits

lol Al & Shakey A+ exchange, would lol again

btw I've been listening to music that elevates my spirit for the past hour-plus and I now wish all health to all people of good will politicians or otherwise

dunno about you but I'm still enduring it.

so should I bump the poll thread where I asked for suggestions on which luxury car I should buy or would that be tacky

looking to make a decision in the next 8 weeks and I am curious re: others' opinions/experiences

i have no experience but ive listened to lots of rap songs

Get an Escalade. I drive an Explorer. Gas guzzlers, keep guzzlin'.

I recommend:
http://www.worldofmonopoly.com/fansite/images/tokens/monopoly_token_car.png

so does the popular phrase "late capitalism" not refer to its latter days but the fact that it is never on time?

lol

http://cdn2.holytaco.com/wp-content/uploads/donald_trump_combover.jpg

capitalism takes forever to get its hair just right before it goes out for the evening

I'm gonna make a big confession: I have no idea what you all mean when you reify "capitalism" that way. I can talk that way for jokes but I have no idea what we're talking about, beyond having a system of money & people buying & selling things using that money. If that's all we're talking about, then what are the alternatives? I guess like bartering, or a worldwide gold standard, or something? I get totally confused when people talk about "what's after capitalism". I think this is because I am a dumbass, but I want to understand.

I was hoping I wouldn't need money anymore while Dan's driving me around in his luxury car.

feudalism yo

agrarian communalism

important to remember that 'capitalism' doesn't mean 'the things I don't like about our current, only-partially-capitalistic economic system'.

anarchosyndicalism

absolute freedom and power for aerosmith, indentured servitude for everyone else

sorry I'm in a bad mood today, heavy shit happening

like I think I am a capitalist? that is, I like distribution of labor & being able to save my labor using money, & the variety of the marketplace, etc. I get that local / state / fed gov gives all kinds of bs tax incentives to massive corporations & that US corporations treat people like shit...but I guess I think it's awfully dorm-room-y bullshit to say "capitalism is the problem" b/c tbf I don't want to have to work on a farm b/c it's hot & smelly & pretty hard work! but I'm happy to pay someone else to do those shitty jobs if that's what they'd rather do with their time...I don't think that all makes me Michael Milken but I dunno.

lol u must be a blue dog

If you'd like a command economy, allow me to propose my candidacy for benevelolent despot.

a benevelolent despot, is that like a dictator that does standup

"a funny thing is going to happen to you on the way to the labor camp"

LOL

If my despotism is truly benevolent, there most certainly won't be any stand-up. More like Dick Cavett, sit down drollery.

My labor camps will consist of madatory karaoke until wills are broken.

SIGN ME UP

Euler, bartering and a gold standard aren't incompatible with 'capitalism', which mostly just refers to property rights/who controls the 'means of production'. and that strict definition is sorta useless in 2011 when we all work in the service sector. every country in the world has its own mixed economic system that and using sweeping terms like 'capitalism' to describe them is lazy/pointless. I mean people here who support unions are not 'anti-capitalist', they're supporting an institution within 'capitalism'.

Yeah, it may not be very sexy, compared w/1848 or 1870, but mostly we're just arguing about arcane details in mixed economies, even in China and Vietnam. The real anti-capitalism or anti-modern-economy is probably the kelptocracy 'models' of Africa or the Balkans or Russia - these are the economies that least serve the common good.

SIGN ME UP

Would you like maple syrup or sriracha w/ your gruel?

both plz

Thesis, antithesis.... synthesis!

and here I've been subsisting on bark and water like a sap

absolute freedom and power for aerosmith, indentured servitude for everyone else

finally a man with a clear political vision I can support. Shakey for alderman!

and here I've been subsisting on bark and water like a sap

Tbf, your cover of 'Hey Ya' was an embarrassment to the proletariat.

im anti-capitalist! i reject the enlightenment notion of the undivided subject, and the politico-economic systems that stand upon it!!!

can we erase today's posts itt?

why do you hate laughter

to max: this is the kind of dorm-room-y thing I was talking about; like, I know what "the enlightenment notion of the undivided subject" means (I teach classes on this stuff) & yet I don't really see what that has to do with my wanting to make some cash teaching a class rather than picking cucumbers, or to get paid in cash rather than in cucumbers. I was just teaching the Genealogy of Morality Book I last week, where Nietzsche talks about how "the subject" is an illusion, & it's like, yeah, that's cool, but it's just impossibly hard for me to know what that means in practice...I guess because my ~background~ is Enlightenment, but it's not like the Chinese don't want to get paid b/c they have a different conception of the self.

where are these people who 'want' to pick cucumbers?

Euler you are basically arguing with rage against the machine lyrics - I wouldn't overthink this

ha well i was kind of making a joke, i dont really know either. i suppose one place to start would be question of contracts, which are (i think) necessary for free exchange of cucumbers and class-teaching and cash and so forth? and this requires (right?) a free undivided subject who can enter into said contract? i dont know i decided not to go to grad school

I have often felt this desire to pick cucumbers. Fortunately, it has always abated after picking fewer then ten. Usually just two or three are enough.

i think we all need to get high to have this conversation unfortunately

im also not a scholar of china or chinese thought or of the enlightenment or really of anything but wouldnt the argument be that capitalism and the post-enlightenment western notion of self go hand-in-hand and that chinese bros desire to get paid only insofar as said chinese bros have also taken on the idea of the subject? (not to mention that what does it mean for a chinese dude/dudette to 'want' to 'get' 'paid' and for what reasons and does 'getting' 'paid' even mean the same thing to "us" as it does to "the chinese" &c &c more quote marks)

I thought the localist anarcho-whatthefuckist view was that we should return to a life of the soil instead of the crippling reliance on technology which distances ourselves from...eh, I don't get it, but I though cucumbers were part of it.

they are, so are long walks in the woods

wait is this lesbian porn now