• HardlightCereal@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody needs you to do anything. Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.

    • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s incorrect, it’s a system where you die if nobody wants you to do anything, which is a much lower threshold to clear given how many things can be delegated.

      Like, you can make a living making art, which is not necessary but definitely something people want, if you’re good at it.

        • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lol no it’s not, and I say it as an avid consumer of several different artforms.

          Also, even then, you don’t need a specific artist to make it for you, you can make art too.

          The fact that art thrives in mercantilist and capitalist societies is a testament to the fact that want, and not need, drives the market.

        • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s my point. You don’t need furry art to survive, nobody needs furry artists to make furry art, but people with surplus want them to, and that makes them thrive in a capitalist society.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody wealthy needs you to do anything.

      Unpaid labour is still labour, and there are unfortunately billions of people living, and dying, in poverty who do an endless stream of labour for other people and their community, from caring for children, elderly, and disabled people, to cooking and cleaning, and providing a whole range of other physical, mental, and emotional support.

      Them not being compensated for it is the feature of capitalism, not the need for labour itself, which leads nicely to

      Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.

      Actually, no, it isn’t. Humans are interdependent and need each other to function as a society (even on the most a-social level - you’re unlikely to be producing your own food, power, water supply, buildings, building materials, and so on, you need others to live, and at different points in life others will almost certainly need you in different ways). That’s exactly why a hyper individualistic society like capitalism encourages leads to the kind of dystopia we have now.

      https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I think you’re defining “compensation” a bit too narrowly. Just because people are doing work of some kind in their community and not getting monetary wages for it doesn’t mean they aren’t being compensated. All human interaction is in some sense a transaction, it might just be more amorphous and unquantifiable than x many dollars. Friendships are trades. If a friendship isn’t worthwhile for people, they generally end the friendship, even though most people wouldn’t dream of assigning a dollar amount of value to a friendship.

        • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          And I think you’re missing the fact that we’re talking about surviving under capitalism, and that you can’t buy food and shelter with friendship 🙄

          • rchive@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Of course you can. Lol. Stay-at-home moms and dads are doing this exact thing. Older parents who live with their kids are, too. They’re probably doing something like labor in addition to just being in some kind of human relationship, but they are effectively getting paid for friendship. It would be hard to put an exact dollar amount to this, and most people including myself wouldn’t really want to write an invoice for every hug they give or minute of conversation they’re partner to, but since all human interaction is effectively a transaction that is informally what’s happening.

    • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you are part of a tribe and contribute nothing anyone else needs, you’ll soon be left to fend for yourself alone, which is a quick death sentence in nature.

      • mrcleanup@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Tribal societies valued different things. If they were measuring just based on economical value and “productivity” then tribal societies would have a reputation of having no elders, because they would have all been forced out.

        • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I wasn’t talking about economical value or productivity, but contribution.
          Elders contribute a link to the tribe’s past, knowledge that lies beyond the young members’ lifespans, an endless supply of stories, and so on…