In my readings in medieval philosophy and others
such readings, I’ve come across such writings where
the writer goes on for pages how he is such a worm and
how men are worthless and miserable and nothing without
god to the point of I am going, dude, have a little self respect,
if your entire self respect, your entire self worth is dependent on
someone else, even if its god, you got some real problems…
in reading these humbling yourself before god papers, you
almost get embarrassed for these people. a little humility
is not a bad thing, but 24/7 debasing yourself can’t be good…
until I figured out, that this race to the bottom is really ego
driven…god love humility and no one is more humble then
I am, so god loves me best…and that seems to be the
reasoning here…so even this act and it is an act, is one
of ego and an attempt to one up thy fellow neighbor…
and it is all predicated on assumptions… the assumption that
god actually exists, that god loves the humble, (and you have to ask
yourself why god demands people to be humble. what is wrong with a god
that is afraid of people who believe in their own self worth)and that
being humble is actually the path to god…a whole lot of assumptions there…
So Christians have there many, many assumptions, and we have the assumptions
of capitalist that this system is the best of all worlds when we have millions,
no, billions of people going hungry and lacking in basic necessities/resources while a few
have a whole lot of resources that billions don’t have…How is that fair and right?
So challenge yourself, what assumptions do you have?
Ask/tell people, we need to go the stars and they will
find a hundred reasons to say no…
Tell people, we need to end hunger/poverty and people will
find a hundred reasons to say no…
Say, we must work for peace as hard as we work for violence
and people will find a hundred reasons to say no…
Since when did no become more important than yes…
Tell people that Jesus was right and the answer is love
and people will find a hundred reasons to say no…
Tell people that we must work together and
people will find a hundred reasons to say no…
Tell people that capitalism is killing people as well as the earth
and people will find a hundred reasons to say no…
tell people the truth and people will
find a hundred reasons to say no…
Tell people they must reach the highest potential
they can reach and people will find a hundred reasons to say no…
It is not communist or liberals or conservatives or socialist or jews
or muslims who keep us on this hamster trail of never getting ahead,
it is the people for whom the only word that matters is no, that prevent
us from becoming who we are as a people. The only ones stopping us from
achieving greatness is the ones who say, no…
Are we going to let the ones who can only say no to determine who we are
and what we can accomplish or are we going to become people who
say, YES…
K: and missing the point… In a system that proclaims itself as the “freedom” system,
it is not free. You cannot go anywhere in the capitalist system and get paid what
you are worth…Every single company will and must short you, pay you less then
then you are worth, every single company on earth…As I live in the san Francisco
bay area, I watch the SF Giants all the time…(big baseball fan and always have been)
One of the best players in baseball is Buster Posey who plays catcher for the Giants,
he is paid roughly 18 million dollars this year… A whole lot of money… Now the Giants
wouldn’t pay him 18 million dollars a year if they didn’t make more than
18 million dollars on him…They can’t… So the giants might make a million or two
over 18 million dollars on his name, on his performance…by selling shirts with his
name on it or baseball bats with his name… one way to make money is to sell
merchandise with his name on it and by increase attendance with him…
There are a bunch of ways to create more than 18 million dollars by using
his name and likeness, so the giants can afford to pay him 18 million dollars
because he creates more than 18 million dollars worth of profits for the team…
No difference then me, just the amounts are different…but the principle
is the same… He creates profits for the team and they must pay him less than
the profits he creates…Now he might go to another team… but he can’t, he
is under contract to the Giants and cannot leave without the giants permission
unless he retires, that is the only exception. I could leave my job for another
that might pay more a few bucks but the basic problem still exists which
is I cannot be paid what I am worth because to do so will take away the
profit margin of the company which makes its billions of dollars of profit
on the difference between the effort I create and the money they pay me…
In corporate America you cannot escape this difference between the
creation of profits by shorting its employee’s… I cannot go anyplace
else… I have no freedom to go anywhere else, work anywhere else
without the creation of profits by having selling my efforts for less than
I created them…IN other words, I have no freedom to find work that
will pay me a fair amount for my efforts. I must take a job that will pay
me less then my efforts and that difference is profits…
phyllo: Tell Kropotkin that capitalism produces prosperity
and he will find a hundred reasons to say no…
K: and it doesn’t create prosperity…You have been fooled into thinking so…
You are certain that capitalism creates wealth and it only creates wealth
for the small few, the 1%, and any system that only creates wealth for
a small few isn’t a fair system, isn’t a honest system…We live in a democracy
in which a majority (50% plus one) decides who our leaders are…
and yet we live in a economic dictatorship and that seems to have
your approval…You believe in the yes of capitalism but the yes is
a lie…My job is to move people beyond yes or no, but to maybe
and doubt… Wisdom is found in the maybe and in doubt…
you are certain you have found wisdom whereas I am here to tell
you, only in doubt and the maybe is wisdom…for me, it is not about
the no, it is about what happens after the no that matters…
P: Tell Kropotkin that he is blindly biased
and he will find a hundred reasons to say no…
K: of course I am biased and so are you, all of us are biased.
That is not the point, we are biased but how do you move beyond the
bias is the question. I moved beyond the bias by looking past
the yes and the no…If there is one thing I believe in is this,
I believe in the maybe and doubt…That would be a short
concise explanation of my beliefs. Doubt and maybe…
P: Tell Kropotkin that conservatives and republicans are not evil
and he will find a hundred reasons to say no…
K: of course they are evil and they are not evil… As Nietzsche pointed
out good and evil are simply social constructs… good and evil only exist
because we have arbitrarily decided what is good and evil based on our
needs and wants… good and evil doesn’t exist in the universe. we
have created good and evil from choices made and needs to be
met…
You have pretty clearly failed to understand what I have said…
As I have repeated it and repeated it, I assume the failure lies with you.
Do you want to find the truth? Begin with doubt and the maybe, not
yes and no…
I didn’t miss the point. I understand it completely.
You want to get money out of a transaction but you don’t want the other party to make a profit in the process. Your concept of fairness is that you get a benefit but they only break-even at best. They don’t get paid for their efforts.
Let me explain value, in a transaction, with this example :
You have a chicken and you want to sell it. You think that it’s worth $8.
Someone offers you $10 and you agree to sell it for that price. You’re happy because you got $2 more than you think that the chicken is worth.
Now consider the buyer’s point of view. He buys the chicken for $10 because he thinks that it is worth $12. He is happy because he thinks that he got good deal by getting a $12 chicken for only $10.
Here you have a win-win situation where both buyer and seller walk away satisfied.
Along comes PK and he thinks that the seller was ripped off because he could have gotten $12 for the chicken. But that’s a win-lose transaction … sure, the seller gets an extra $2 so he is happy but the buyer doesn’t get a bargain - he gets a $12 chicken for $12. Is that fair? Or is it more fair that both parties profit from the transaction?
I understand that everything that you say ‘yes’ to, is considered good and that if someone disagrees and says ‘no’ then you see them as being or having a problem.
Let me quote you:
If you look at yourself, PK, then you will see yourself as saying ‘no’ to a great number of things.
Therefore, one must conclude that saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is not the problem. The problem must be elsewhere.
‘My chicken is worth $8 but Walmart is making me sell it to them for $7.’
If you really think that your chicken is worth $8, then don’t sell it for $7.
But is it really worth $8? You don’t get to decide this unilaterally. If you go into the marketplace and the best offer is $7, then the chicken is worth $7, in spite of what you think. You can try fattening it up and selling it at a later date when you might get a better price. You can keep it and remain convinced that it’s really worth $8. Or you can sell it for $7.
phyllo: I didn’t miss the point. I understand it completely.
You want to get money out of a transaction but you don’t want the other party to make a profit in the process. Your concept of fairness is that you get a benefit but they only break-even at best. They don’t get paid for their efforts.
K: It is a deeper issue than this…
Let me explain value, in a transaction, with this example :
You have a chicken and you want to sell it. You think that it’s worth $8.
Someone offers you $10 and you agree to sell it for that price. You’re happy because you got $2 more than you think that the chicken is worth.
Now consider the buyer’s point of view. He buys the chicken for $10 because he thinks that it is worth $12. He is happy because he thinks that he got good deal by getting a $12 chicken for only $10.
K: You are talking about a different aspect of capitalism…A single transaction
between two people, an aspect which has going on for thousands of years…
and certainly nothing like what I am talking about.
P: Here you have a win-win situation where both buyer and seller walk away satisfied.
Along comes PK and he thinks that the seller was ripped off because he could have gotten $12 for the chicken. But that’s a win-lose transaction … sure, the seller gets an extra $2 so he is happy but the buyer doesn’t get a bargain - he gets a $12 chicken for $12. Is that fair? Or is it more fair that both parties profit from the transaction?
[/quote]
K: again, small scale personal capitalism is not what I am talking about, apples
and oranges type of thing…
I always look to the big picture…
The big picture is simply this…
It is not about chickens and small personal transactions,
it is about our understanding what our economic systems
creates…I am employed at X dollars an hour and I must create
over that amount for the company to employ me… So if I create
$10 of effort and the company turns around and sells that effort for
$15 dollars, I help turn a profit of $5 dollars an hour. Profit which is created
by my work, my efforts. Now let us say, I fail to create at least $10 dollars
worth of profits, say my efforts only create $5 of sales… The company is
not going to keep me because I am not making a profit… I will be fired.
When you talk about chickens and personal transactions, it fails to
understand the larger, macro understanding of capitalism.
The priority is not about me, it is about maintaining the profits.
(I speak about me, because it is easier to understand what I am talking
about by telling a story about me, it is a stylistic choice which aids in understanding
what I am talking about)
so what has value in this situation, me or profits? From a company standpoint,
I have no other value than to create profit… If I fail to create profit, I have no value.
My identity is a creator of profits and that is my value to society… Do I have
any other value? I say yes and society says no…
Now, who I am doesn’t matter to the company, only my creation of profits
has value to the company, who I am doesn’t matter in any way shape or form to
the company because my only value is creating profits…
And we reach the point aspect of my presentation, which is this
placing profits over human values is Nihilism, pure and simple…
Nihilism is the negation of human values… It doesn’t matter how smart
I am or how much I love or any other value I may have because it doesn’t
matter to the corporation…My only value is the creation of profit to the
company…Any other value is unneeded and unnecessary, this is the
negation of human values, Nihilism.
What corporate America does is practice Nihilism on a large and
unprecedented scale… they don’t value humans or their values,
the modern corporation values profit over humans and their values.
Examples abound of how corporations have killed people in large scale
attempts to create greater and greater profits…Profits over people is
Nihilism, there is no way around this…it has nothing to do with
the price of chickens and how individuals may sell their chickens.
It has everything to do with the current modern, world wide
corporate nihilism…that has poison man, the environment,
the sea, land, and air that we breath and live on and drink,
and more importantly has poison our soul… Turned it dark
and mean and hateful because we are fighting against each
other for some small and I mean small piece of the pie…’
while we fight for our very small share of the pie, the 1% own
95% of the pie…and our efforts which is stolen by the 1%
to create their share of the pie… We work and they reap the
rewards of our work, of our efforts…Every single day at work,
creates piles of money for them, not us and that is the nihilism
the modern age…We have no value except to create the massive
wealth of the 1% through our efforts and work…It is profits which
has value, not the human being which created that profits, who is
me and millions of other human beings…Your chickens doesn’t talk
for me or for those millions of human beings whose lives is being
destroyed in the name of profits.
You wrote about ‘the system’ and how you can’t escape it :
Now you are making a distinction ‘corporations’ and ‘mom-and-pop companies’. Go work for a small company, if you think that the underlying process and principles are different.
In reality, you are selling your labor for money and Walmart is buying your labor. And the exact same thing is happening if you work at MomAndPopMart.
It’s the same as selling and buying a chicken. :-"
But you didn’t get millions of dollars and you’re resentful.
That’s extremely liberating for you as an individual. You do a simple exchange of labor for money and that’s the end of it. The company does not care what you do beyond that. You can be a complete asshole, an alcoholic, into satanism and bestiality and the company does not care. If they valued you then they could expect some kind of ‘correct’ conduct from you. In that case, you would have a relationship which did not end when you sold one hour of your time to them for X dollars. Big Brother corporation would have an interest in what you do, what you are, in your ‘free’ time.
IOW, you have the freedom to be anything without company interference ( as long as you show up for work).
K: I have worked for a mom and pop operation, 17 years worth…
and I have worked for very large corporations like Marriot and my
current corporation, top 3 in their field for what they do…
You say scale doesn’t matter and yet scale does matter…
a transaction like selling a chicken for 10 bucks isn’t working
for 40 years while barely surviving and then retirement
isn’t even really a choice… My retirement will be in that
time between my heart attack and the time I hit the floor… dead.
Mom and pop operations have existed since time began and
they didn’t create the Nihilism that exists today.
You have no value unless you create profit which
denies human values which is nihilism.
Selling chickens doesn’t change this basic idea…
I am more than the creation of profit…
I am human and that has value beyond the creation of profits…
P: That’s extremely liberating for you as an individual. You do a simple exchange of labor for money and that’s the end of it. The company does not care what you do beyond that. You can be a complete asshole, an alcoholic, into satanism and bestiality and the company does not care. If they valued you then they could expect some kind of ‘correct’ conduct from you. In that case, you would have a relationship which did not end when you sold one hour of your time to them for X dollars. Big Brother corporation would have an interest in what you do, what you are, in your ‘free’ time.
K: You really don’t work for a company do you? At one point, we were required to smile,
no matter what happened, we had to have a smile on our face. If we didn’t smile at
all times, we were written up for it. The company does track what you do on your off time,
for example, people have been fired for writing up bad things about the company on social media…
and if you are arrested on your off time for DUI, the company can fire you… anything done
on off hours can and will damage your standing with the company…The company does care because those actions might, MIGHT, effect the only thing they care about which is profits and anything that might damage profits are investigated and personal actions done on personal time are
considered fireable offences…Which is why cases like this are always in the courts…
P: IOW, you have the freedom to be anything without company interference ( as long as you show up for work).
K: and if you worked for a company, you would know better…
And you want more of that kind of relationship rather than less.
I’ve worked for companies, so has my wife and so have my kids. My daughter signed a contract that says she can’t even say that she works for the company on Facebook. So what?
I once refused to sign a contract with a non-competition clause … I got hired anyways.
Don’t pretend that you have some secret knowledge about capitalism. :-"
