What Does the World After Capitalism Look Like?
January 31, 2021 9:28 PM Subscribe
They might be right, but the first part comes across as super assumptive about the facts on the ground with zero supporting evidence. Again it might be the correct take, but making sweeping assumptions that aren't supportive don't help me come around to that pov.
posted by Carillon at 9:58 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 9:58 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
"This isn’t some kind of victory against capitalism. It’s average Americans treating each other like Wall St treats them — and everyone celebrating it thoughtlessly, because America is too conditioned and brainwashed to understand how toxic that really is, to ever really question the idea that maybe we should not have to exploit each other in order to live."
Like all articles about this, it's running on the assumption that somehow, some way, all these people actually expect a return, and not that they'll sit on the shares until they're literally worthless.
BlackRock (firm with $180B+ in assets under their management) owned ~10%, so they sat in their offices and made over two billion USD last week on their GME holdings.
This is why I personally didn't buy in, because it seemed like there had to be groups other than redditors in on this game. Which, like, duh, this is why it isn't exactly a victory over capitalism, but I think the celebration that is coming out of people isn't because poor people are "winning" anything, but rather that it just made some rich people hurt for a little while. It certainly sounds to me like a lot of the poor people invested in it basically view it as burning money anyway, just in this case that makes certain rich people unhappy.
"Some poor schlubs glued to stock market forums on Reddit trying to desperately earn a dime and finally learning the tricks of the hedge fund trade and then pumping and dumping stocks onto other poorer schlubs"
Of course this isn't Occupy Wall Street 2.0, but it IS a lot of dissatisfied Americans abusing the system to prove that the system is ripe for abuse, and we have been told for years that it isn't.
I don't know, do people really not understand how bad it is out there and that any news of rich people hurting, especially when you can spend a little bit of money to get involved in hurting them, feels fucking good, because fuck these god damned vampires.
Honestly though this sounds like so many jackholes who haven't even looked at the /r/wallstreetbets community or looked at the conversations and how many people are willing to literally piss away all this money just to hurt rich people. A fucking lot of them don't give one good god damn if they lose all they invested.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:21 PM on January 31, 2021 [38 favorites]
Like all articles about this, it's running on the assumption that somehow, some way, all these people actually expect a return, and not that they'll sit on the shares until they're literally worthless.
BlackRock (firm with $180B+ in assets under their management) owned ~10%, so they sat in their offices and made over two billion USD last week on their GME holdings.
This is why I personally didn't buy in, because it seemed like there had to be groups other than redditors in on this game. Which, like, duh, this is why it isn't exactly a victory over capitalism, but I think the celebration that is coming out of people isn't because poor people are "winning" anything, but rather that it just made some rich people hurt for a little while. It certainly sounds to me like a lot of the poor people invested in it basically view it as burning money anyway, just in this case that makes certain rich people unhappy.
"Some poor schlubs glued to stock market forums on Reddit trying to desperately earn a dime and finally learning the tricks of the hedge fund trade and then pumping and dumping stocks onto other poorer schlubs"
Of course this isn't Occupy Wall Street 2.0, but it IS a lot of dissatisfied Americans abusing the system to prove that the system is ripe for abuse, and we have been told for years that it isn't.
I don't know, do people really not understand how bad it is out there and that any news of rich people hurting, especially when you can spend a little bit of money to get involved in hurting them, feels fucking good, because fuck these god damned vampires.
Honestly though this sounds like so many jackholes who haven't even looked at the /r/wallstreetbets community or looked at the conversations and how many people are willing to literally piss away all this money just to hurt rich people. A fucking lot of them don't give one good god damn if they lose all they invested.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:21 PM on January 31, 2021 [38 favorites]
No, the Redditors aren’t actually selling their shares to some hedge fund guy. That’s not actually how short selling works anymore. All that happened is that the hedge fund guys have lost a bet, which wasn’t based in reality to begin with. Any vaguely professional and sane trader at a hedge fund would have covered their short long before the price rose this high, and the only people that are left buying into it at this price are poor schlubs who still think that there’s some kind of game to be played here.
this part especially is like, can you provide sources & unpack how short selling works nowadays for the schlub on the ground who's trying to make sense of all the rumors they're hearing in the context of a complex system that it's hard to understand (or even fact-check, if you're not familiar with it?)
like I'd love to see a link that's like "here's where you can see that short interest in a stock is down"
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:33 PM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
this part especially is like, can you provide sources & unpack how short selling works nowadays for the schlub on the ground who's trying to make sense of all the rumors they're hearing in the context of a complex system that it's hard to understand (or even fact-check, if you're not familiar with it?)
like I'd love to see a link that's like "here's where you can see that short interest in a stock is down"
posted by taquito sunrise at 10:33 PM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
Of course this isn't Occupy Wall Street 2.0, but it IS a lot of dissatisfied Americans abusing the system to prove that the system is ripe for abuse, and we have been told for years that it isn't.
This is the important part, to me. The more people talk about the sickness and rot of our current system, the more people talk about needing some radical change, this colours the zeitgeist and brings our civilisation towards reform. The specifics of this little stunt are not significant, the changing of consciousness is.
If I can live to see the end of global capitalism as our model for the world, that would be so great. The idea that this could happen is becoming more possible.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:45 PM on January 31, 2021 [27 favorites]
This is the important part, to me. The more people talk about the sickness and rot of our current system, the more people talk about needing some radical change, this colours the zeitgeist and brings our civilisation towards reform. The specifics of this little stunt are not significant, the changing of consciousness is.
If I can live to see the end of global capitalism as our model for the world, that would be so great. The idea that this could happen is becoming more possible.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:45 PM on January 31, 2021 [27 favorites]
History has many examples of industrial sabotage, where the workers interrupt production—could this not mark a historical turning point, even if not a true demonstration of class consciousness, in which at least it could be thought of as no longer mere workers and proletariat but rather actual capitalists (in an era of capitalist realism where each person feels forced and is alienated to become a mini-capitalist with their own stock portfolio in order to survive) themselves now staging a revolt against the apparatus of capitalism itself
posted by polymodus at 11:30 PM on January 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 11:30 PM on January 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
Sort of reminds me of some of the ideas in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry of the Future. One of the central plot points is, to put it very briefly, the bankers need to be convinced to save the planet and convert from capitalism to...this other thing. Think of the carbon tax to the millionth degree, on everything. Improve the environment? Here's your money. Expel carbon? Pay up. Of course, this is the environmental angle, but encompasses Wall St. as well.
posted by zardoz at 11:52 PM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 11:52 PM on January 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
rather that it just made some rich people hurt for a little while
Novice retail investors are literally called “dumb money” by people who know what they are doing, and I can’t emphasize this next part enough: there is absolutely nothing that brings more to a joy to a pro trader’s heart than a bunch of idiots who read one book or blog post who now think they “see the Matrix” or whatever entering the market. They are the dumbest of the dumb money, and they might as well mail their cash directly to the people who are going to take it from them, and save everyone the trouble.
I for one actually don’t care. I think even the phrase “Late Stage Capitalism” is kinda stupid. But if you do care, perhaps wonder who might benefit in game where one side believes they are winning, yet: “A fucking lot of them don't give one good god damn if they lose all they invested.“. Money lost in one place gets found in another.
posted by sideshow at 11:54 PM on January 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
Novice retail investors are literally called “dumb money” by people who know what they are doing, and I can’t emphasize this next part enough: there is absolutely nothing that brings more to a joy to a pro trader’s heart than a bunch of idiots who read one book or blog post who now think they “see the Matrix” or whatever entering the market. They are the dumbest of the dumb money, and they might as well mail their cash directly to the people who are going to take it from them, and save everyone the trouble.
I for one actually don’t care. I think even the phrase “Late Stage Capitalism” is kinda stupid. But if you do care, perhaps wonder who might benefit in game where one side believes they are winning, yet: “A fucking lot of them don't give one good god damn if they lose all they invested.“. Money lost in one place gets found in another.
posted by sideshow at 11:54 PM on January 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
Novice retail investors are literally called “dumb money” by people who know what they are doing
Next time my male family relatives and family friends (because it's always a male) tell me to learn to invest, I'll tell them that
posted by polymodus at 11:59 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
Next time my male family relatives and family friends (because it's always a male) tell me to learn to invest, I'll tell them that
posted by polymodus at 11:59 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
So I actually haven't been watching the details of the GameStop thing too closely. Are we sure that its catalyst was some kind of real, grassroots thing having to do with a new behavior of markets and all of the financialization economic characteristics this author is going on about and using for slavery analogies, rather than a deployment of the kind of capabilities used against the 2016 US elections and others?
First International Gaia-Bank?
Oops... deflating my snark a bit, the author here is Umair Haque, who is a hoopy frood and who describes himself as a “mutt” and a “global orphan”. I like most of his writing I've been exposed to, but I'm not sure I agree with him here.
posted by XMLicious at 12:28 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
We need to create “banks” that we can make bank accounts for all things that live on planet earth in.
First International Gaia-Bank?
Oops... deflating my snark a bit, the author here is Umair Haque, who is a hoopy frood and who describes himself as a “mutt” and a “global orphan”. I like most of his writing I've been exposed to, but I'm not sure I agree with him here.
posted by XMLicious at 12:28 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
If they thought about 'investing' a little differently and started purchasing and holding certain industrial feedstocks, like whatever the critical chems are in say O-rings, then they would have real impact, GameStop seems fruitless as, like folk say upthread bigger players still make off this.
More effective to use the methodologies of Capitalism to destroy it
posted by unearthed at 1:11 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
More effective to use the methodologies of Capitalism to destroy it
posted by unearthed at 1:11 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ursula K. Le Guin and Abdullah Öcalan.
posted by gucci mane at 1:52 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by gucci mane at 1:52 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Money lost in one place gets found in another.
As my dear departed father often observed: the stock market is a way to move money from weak hands into strong hands.
posted by flabdablet at 2:08 AM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
As my dear departed father often observed: the stock market is a way to move money from weak hands into strong hands.
posted by flabdablet at 2:08 AM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
I liked this article. At least it proposes an idea to make things better.
The cynic in me thinks his proposed solution to our problems doesn't have a chance in hell to succeed but hey, the guy does more to address the problem than I do so that cynic in me can just shut up.
posted by Kosmob0t at 2:46 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
The cynic in me thinks his proposed solution to our problems doesn't have a chance in hell to succeed but hey, the guy does more to address the problem than I do so that cynic in me can just shut up.
posted by Kosmob0t at 2:46 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
Hearing the sound of millions of people learning that "capitalism" means "an economy controlled by whoever already has capital" not "free markets"posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:51 AM on February 1, 2021 [21 favorites]
Thanks. This is interesting. The idea that natural resources deserve to be maintained and reimbursed for the value they give us in a seems like a reasonable extension of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's writings on salvage accumulation and the idea capitalists are unable to make most of their resources, but are only able to translate non-capitalist processes and resources are into capitalist value. No doubt amplified, because I just finished reading her excellent book The Mushroom at the End of the World, which is appropriately subtitled "On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins".
posted by clockwork at 2:54 AM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clockwork at 2:54 AM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
The idea of an army of bankers and accountants and auditors to keep track of the natural world's monetary income strikes me as a huge field of red flags marking a missed point of such gobsmackingly epic proportions as to leave me filled with despair for the future of civilization as a project.
Seems to me that what civilizations must eventually rely on would have to be less your local redeployment of the B ark and more your taking seriously the knowledge and attitudes of all those indigenous civilizations that ex-European bankers and accountants and auditors and their associated armed enablers have been doing their best to busybody away to near extinction over the last few hundred years.
Humanity already knows how to live sustainably on this planet. All we need to do is stop burning down the fucking libraries and start listening to the people who can still read them because they are them.
posted by flabdablet at 3:16 AM on February 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
Seems to me that what civilizations must eventually rely on would have to be less your local redeployment of the B ark and more your taking seriously the knowledge and attitudes of all those indigenous civilizations that ex-European bankers and accountants and auditors and their associated armed enablers have been doing their best to busybody away to near extinction over the last few hundred years.
Humanity already knows how to live sustainably on this planet. All we need to do is stop burning down the fucking libraries and start listening to the people who can still read them because they are them.
posted by flabdablet at 3:16 AM on February 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
the author says the question of where the money will come from is a big concerning question, but the real question is where the money's going to go
he said the amazon, for example, but he really meant someone claiming to represent the amazon's interests - and who is to determine that person and what they shall do?
in the meantime, people are screwing up things by getting into the silver market and demanding delivery of what they buy, something the market isn't really set up to do with everybody - could it be the mother of all short squeezes?
if the end result is a smoking crater where wall st used to be, how is this going to benefit us? it won't
they're in this for revenge and that's worrying
posted by pyramid termite at 3:35 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
he said the amazon, for example, but he really meant someone claiming to represent the amazon's interests - and who is to determine that person and what they shall do?
in the meantime, people are screwing up things by getting into the silver market and demanding delivery of what they buy, something the market isn't really set up to do with everybody - could it be the mother of all short squeezes?
if the end result is a smoking crater where wall st used to be, how is this going to benefit us? it won't
they're in this for revenge and that's worrying
posted by pyramid termite at 3:35 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
they're in this for revenge and that's worrying
Yeah. Revenge against people whom they have no specific personal grudge against, only a (fully justified, naturally) resentment of the rentier class to which those people belong.
And as Umair Haque points out - points out first, before saying anything else - the people who benefit most from this attempt at revenge are inevitably going to be members of that very same class. A class that will, moreover, come out at the end of this thing having extracted even more money from those with much less than them.
I don't find it so much worrying as just plain sad.
posted by flabdablet at 3:47 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yeah. Revenge against people whom they have no specific personal grudge against, only a (fully justified, naturally) resentment of the rentier class to which those people belong.
And as Umair Haque points out - points out first, before saying anything else - the people who benefit most from this attempt at revenge are inevitably going to be members of that very same class. A class that will, moreover, come out at the end of this thing having extracted even more money from those with much less than them.
I don't find it so much worrying as just plain sad.
posted by flabdablet at 3:47 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
they're in this for revenge and that's worrying
Yeah. Revenge against people whom they have no specific personal grudge against, only a (fully justified, naturally) resentment of the rentier class to which those people belong.
I dig the idea of enough "revenge" to function like white-hat hacking.
But reading these statements makes me think there is a rampaging army of malicious investors out there trying to do an accelerationism on the stock market.
Is that the case? I mean, I've read all I can find about it...and that was never the sense I got. There is definitely a contingent out there cheering while Wall Street sweats, but I don't think anybody wants to crash the whole thing, much less has any real capacity to do so via short squeezing...right?
posted by saysthis at 4:32 AM on February 1, 2021
Yeah. Revenge against people whom they have no specific personal grudge against, only a (fully justified, naturally) resentment of the rentier class to which those people belong.
I dig the idea of enough "revenge" to function like white-hat hacking.
But reading these statements makes me think there is a rampaging army of malicious investors out there trying to do an accelerationism on the stock market.
Is that the case? I mean, I've read all I can find about it...and that was never the sense I got. There is definitely a contingent out there cheering while Wall Street sweats, but I don't think anybody wants to crash the whole thing, much less has any real capacity to do so via short squeezing...right?
posted by saysthis at 4:32 AM on February 1, 2021
BlackRock (firm with $180B+ in assets under their management) owned ~10%, so they sat in their offices and made over two billion USD last week on their GME holdings.
I just want to make sure we all get an accurate sense of scale how much money these firms manage for their clients. BlackRock doesn't have "just" $180B+ in assets under management. As of January 2021, they have $8.676 Trillion in AUM.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 5:40 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
I just want to make sure we all get an accurate sense of scale how much money these firms manage for their clients. BlackRock doesn't have "just" $180B+ in assets under management. As of January 2021, they have $8.676 Trillion in AUM.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 5:40 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
The idea of an army of bankers and accountants and auditors to keep track of the natural world's monetary income strikes me as a huge field of red flags marking a missed point of such gobsmackingly epic proportions as to leave me filled with despair for the future of civilization as a project.
Does it make you feel better if they're ecologists, field botanists, geomorphologists, data specialists and even the odd environmental chemist? Because there is an army of them, almost literally. Thousands, tens of thousands in the US alone. Habitat and ecosystem biology is full of discussion of Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), the "services" provided by various trophic levels, the "resources" provided by natural ecosystems. It's not an economic analysis as such, but more of a map of energy and nutrient flows.
Certain parts of US law puts a dollar value on this directly, Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) it's called. When some anthropogenic activity causes damage, like a large pollution event, mine tailings or an oil spill, this accountancy, done by that army of people gets turned into dollar values used to assess fines.
So this system doesn't seem to crazy to me. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the policy implications or his implementation, but this is close to what's already done to count the cost of the "externalities" of industrial activity on the natural world.
posted by bonehead at 5:45 AM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
Does it make you feel better if they're ecologists, field botanists, geomorphologists, data specialists and even the odd environmental chemist? Because there is an army of them, almost literally. Thousands, tens of thousands in the US alone. Habitat and ecosystem biology is full of discussion of Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), the "services" provided by various trophic levels, the "resources" provided by natural ecosystems. It's not an economic analysis as such, but more of a map of energy and nutrient flows.
Certain parts of US law puts a dollar value on this directly, Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) it's called. When some anthropogenic activity causes damage, like a large pollution event, mine tailings or an oil spill, this accountancy, done by that army of people gets turned into dollar values used to assess fines.
So this system doesn't seem to crazy to me. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the policy implications or his implementation, but this is close to what's already done to count the cost of the "externalities" of industrial activity on the natural world.
posted by bonehead at 5:45 AM on February 1, 2021 [9 favorites]
I actually find his plan comforting. It's fucking HARD to visualize a post-Capitalist world that doesn't get there via Mad Max. The sort of small-scale mutual interest anarcho-collectives are not sufficient to transition a global power system to something more equalitarian. Like, if you burn down the banks, you're going to have to fight the bankers and their armies.
Yes, transforming the banks will involve a certain amount of corruption and realism. Rich folks will probably have to transition over generations from having 100 yachts to 50 to 10 to 5 to 1 to zero. But transforming the banks seems like a doable prospect rather than a declaration of war. If we get in a war with the rich, yes there's a lot more of us, but they just hire people to kill us.
I'm just hoping for Star Trek instead of Cloud Atlas, and any ideas that can get us there. Great post.
posted by rikschell at 6:17 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yes, transforming the banks will involve a certain amount of corruption and realism. Rich folks will probably have to transition over generations from having 100 yachts to 50 to 10 to 5 to 1 to zero. But transforming the banks seems like a doable prospect rather than a declaration of war. If we get in a war with the rich, yes there's a lot more of us, but they just hire people to kill us.
I'm just hoping for Star Trek instead of Cloud Atlas, and any ideas that can get us there. Great post.
posted by rikschell at 6:17 AM on February 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
There are a lot of different opinions that relate to GameStop
1. Capitalism is bad (Anarchists, Communists)
2. Capitalism is good but joint-stock companies are bad. (Adam Smith)
3. Capitalism and joint stock companies are good, derivatives trading is bad because it destabilises capitalism (Some liberals)
4. Capitalism, joint stock companies and derivatives are all good (WP).
The redditors seem to be a mix of 3s with 4s who just want their piece of the pie. I think it's a mistake to see this as an upswelling of support for 1.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:22 AM on February 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
1. Capitalism is bad (Anarchists, Communists)
2. Capitalism is good but joint-stock companies are bad. (Adam Smith)
3. Capitalism and joint stock companies are good, derivatives trading is bad because it destabilises capitalism (Some liberals)
4. Capitalism, joint stock companies and derivatives are all good (WP).
The redditors seem to be a mix of 3s with 4s who just want their piece of the pie. I think it's a mistake to see this as an upswelling of support for 1.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:22 AM on February 1, 2021 [8 favorites]
"The average American dies broke" links to an article saying that most people die with some debt - such as a positive credit card balance. If I have $10 million in the bank and a $1000 credit card balance, I am not broke.
Call me naive, but facts matter.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:25 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
Call me naive, but facts matter.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:25 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm just hoping for Star Trek instead of Cloud Atlas, and any ideas that can get us there. Great post.
I'm totally with you on the gist of your point, but I feel like I should point out that even Star Trek only got automated gay luxury space communism after things went completely to shit on Earth. (Extra special bonus: we're only five years away from that fictitious hellscape!)
posted by Mayor West at 8:53 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm totally with you on the gist of your point, but I feel like I should point out that even Star Trek only got automated gay luxury space communism after things went completely to shit on Earth. (Extra special bonus: we're only five years away from that fictitious hellscape!)
posted by Mayor West at 8:53 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
"The average American dies broke" links to an article saying that most people die with some debt- such as a positive credit card balance. If I have $10 million in the bank and a $1000 credit card balance, I am not broke.
Another reason to distrust that particular article is that it presents average debts and not median debts. Because a tiny fraction of elder Americans is so horrifyingly wealthy (with ill-gotten gains IMO), their debts may dwarf the median, which would more accurately describe the situation of most aging Americans.
However, to many Americans (elder and not), an amount of debt much less than the $62k average would still be sufficient to cause significant hardship, especially when compared to the median household income of $61,372 for all ages in the same year (2017) .
posted by el gran combo at 9:18 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Another reason to distrust that particular article is that it presents average debts and not median debts. Because a tiny fraction of elder Americans is so horrifyingly wealthy (with ill-gotten gains IMO), their debts may dwarf the median, which would more accurately describe the situation of most aging Americans.
However, to many Americans (elder and not), an amount of debt much less than the $62k average would still be sufficient to cause significant hardship, especially when compared to the median household income of $61,372 for all ages in the same year (2017) .
posted by el gran combo at 9:18 AM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mayor West, I guess I missed that lore, I thought we were past the worst of things with the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. And it's only officially been automated GAY luxury space communism for a few years now. Star Trek is always aspirational.
posted by rikschell at 9:19 AM on February 1, 2021
posted by rikschell at 9:19 AM on February 1, 2021
This is one of those 'oh, they were so close, but they missed the point entirely' cases, isn't it?
They took the idea of 'maybe we can save Lake Baikal by giving it legal personhood and some really aggressive litigators to protect its interests', and managed to turn that into...
somehow 'My name is the Lorax and I broker structured tax abatements for the Trees Sovereign Wealth Fund' is Post - Capitalism? Not more Neoliberal Shitfuckery?
But!! the choice to write an article about saving the world from Capitalism by opening a brokerage account for Marsupials International, Inc., and financializing The Ganges
[a hint: it's about securing a future for your children, not securitizing the future of your children]
and then wrapping it up with a "Did I just blow your mind?! Aren't you just seething with rage at my idealism?" has put a big smile on my face this morning. I can't help putting a voice on it that's a mix of Rik from the Young Ones' impotent whinging and Austin Powers' Do I make you horny, baby? and I keep making myself giggle.
Therefore, thanks for the article!
posted by bartleby at 10:36 AM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
They took the idea of 'maybe we can save Lake Baikal by giving it legal personhood and some really aggressive litigators to protect its interests', and managed to turn that into...
somehow 'My name is the Lorax and I broker structured tax abatements for the Trees Sovereign Wealth Fund' is Post - Capitalism? Not more Neoliberal Shitfuckery?
But!! the choice to write an article about saving the world from Capitalism by opening a brokerage account for Marsupials International, Inc., and financializing The Ganges
[a hint: it's about securing a future for your children, not securitizing the future of your children]
and then wrapping it up with a "Did I just blow your mind?! Aren't you just seething with rage at my idealism?" has put a big smile on my face this morning. I can't help putting a voice on it that's a mix of Rik from the Young Ones' impotent whinging and Austin Powers' Do I make you horny, baby? and I keep making myself giggle.
Therefore, thanks for the article!
posted by bartleby at 10:36 AM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
I thought Chomsky and Wolff have said that Adam Smith and other philosophers of that time were more critical of capitalism than people today realize, Smith in particular criticized many things about capitalism and Marx credited Smith for providing early sophisticated insights about the problems of capital that laid the groundwork for later Marx's own critique of capital.
posted by polymodus at 3:12 PM on February 1, 2021
posted by polymodus at 3:12 PM on February 1, 2021
I have some respect for the GameStop deadenders who went into this clear-eyed, in the spirit of spite and nihlism, to expose the rottenenness at the core of the system, etc., but I'm teaching high school economics, and from my view on the ground, my current impression is that if that's the goal, it's kinda backfiring. This week all my classes wanted to talk about GameStop - I rarely see my students this engaged. And not in the sense of, "let's stick it to Wall Street", more in the sense of "Could we do this too?"/"Could we get rich this way?".
So I spent a good deal of time explaining how risky this particular scheme is, and how extremly likely it is that retail investors will get hurt eventually, but then my students just wanted to talk about other stocks and investment opportunities. This current episode is really not doing anything to put them off the whole affair, on the contrary, it's giving them all kinds of ideas.
And I'm feeling kinda weird about it. Because on the one hand sure, sure I'm thrilled that they're showing interest in my subject! Students actually coming to you "Can we talk about this in class?" and it's a topic that's even on the curriculum - how great is that?
But on the other hand, this topic is always tricky for me, because I have to be very careful to keep my personal opinion out of the lessons as much as possible, firstly, because I don't want my students to feel indoctrinated, and secondly, because my personal opinion on this matter somewhat undermines me as a teacher.
I'm supposed to teach financial literacy, and, regardless of any feelings I might have about the merits of capitalism, I think that's a useful thing to do. As long as that's the system we have, it's a good thing to give kids the means to navigate it. I don't want my students to become the dumb money. But sometimes I wonder whether the way I teach this topic might be desigend to discourage them too much from investing in the stock market (I don't have any sleepless nights over it, because it's clearly not working anyway; they're, as I said, very much not discouraged).
But the horrible truth is that in my heart of hearts I don't really believe that success on the stock market is very much about financial literacy. In my heart of hearts I believe there's basically no art to it whatsoever as long as you have so much money that you can invest a good chunk of it without ever actually needing to turn it into cash particularly urgently, so you can diversify your portfolio and just sit out any drama. And if you don't have that sort of money (which applies to the majority of my students; this is not a fancy private school or something), it's mostly gambling. Which can work out well enough, I guess, if you somehow manage to mostly gamble with other people's money, but of course that's not the direction I want to steer my students in. Because I don't want them to become the smart money either, who takes advantage of the rubes. But in a way it's not for me to make that decision for them, and I can't anway, and that's probably for the better.
posted by sohalt at 1:20 AM on February 2, 2021 [9 favorites]
So I spent a good deal of time explaining how risky this particular scheme is, and how extremly likely it is that retail investors will get hurt eventually, but then my students just wanted to talk about other stocks and investment opportunities. This current episode is really not doing anything to put them off the whole affair, on the contrary, it's giving them all kinds of ideas.
And I'm feeling kinda weird about it. Because on the one hand sure, sure I'm thrilled that they're showing interest in my subject! Students actually coming to you "Can we talk about this in class?" and it's a topic that's even on the curriculum - how great is that?
But on the other hand, this topic is always tricky for me, because I have to be very careful to keep my personal opinion out of the lessons as much as possible, firstly, because I don't want my students to feel indoctrinated, and secondly, because my personal opinion on this matter somewhat undermines me as a teacher.
I'm supposed to teach financial literacy, and, regardless of any feelings I might have about the merits of capitalism, I think that's a useful thing to do. As long as that's the system we have, it's a good thing to give kids the means to navigate it. I don't want my students to become the dumb money. But sometimes I wonder whether the way I teach this topic might be desigend to discourage them too much from investing in the stock market (I don't have any sleepless nights over it, because it's clearly not working anyway; they're, as I said, very much not discouraged).
But the horrible truth is that in my heart of hearts I don't really believe that success on the stock market is very much about financial literacy. In my heart of hearts I believe there's basically no art to it whatsoever as long as you have so much money that you can invest a good chunk of it without ever actually needing to turn it into cash particularly urgently, so you can diversify your portfolio and just sit out any drama. And if you don't have that sort of money (which applies to the majority of my students; this is not a fancy private school or something), it's mostly gambling. Which can work out well enough, I guess, if you somehow manage to mostly gamble with other people's money, but of course that's not the direction I want to steer my students in. Because I don't want them to become the smart money either, who takes advantage of the rubes. But in a way it's not for me to make that decision for them, and I can't anway, and that's probably for the better.
posted by sohalt at 1:20 AM on February 2, 2021 [9 favorites]
In my heart of hearts I believe there's basically no art to it whatsoever as long as you have so much money that you can invest a good chunk of it without ever actually needing to turn it into cash particularly urgently, so you can diversify your portfolio and just sit out any drama.
I mean isn't that the message in both of Thomas Piketty's books? So if you put a few chapters of those in the syllabus, it's not indoctrination...
posted by polymodus at 11:15 PM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean isn't that the message in both of Thomas Piketty's books? So if you put a few chapters of those in the syllabus, it's not indoctrination...
posted by polymodus at 11:15 PM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Think about that when you read these “Is this Occupy Wall Street 2.0???” type articles.
posted by sideshow at 9:43 PM on January 31, 2021 [23 favorites]