211–220 of 226 posts
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I would not want to swap positions with the 14th century peasant I'd go further than that. I would not want to swap positions with a 14th century monarch.
I would, FWIW.
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It could be possible theoretically if not the context of the article. "We are asked to imagine" and so on. But even if it were the case, the fact that the same idea was commonplace in the USSR means that it's not inherently connected to capitalism. And, obviously, I am still wondering why people decided it was about capitalism vs. Communism.
Suppose the article had said "One small step for man, one big step for mankind." You are responding with the equivalent of "What about womankind? There are female engineers at NASA. Isn't the moon landing a big step for women too? Neil Armstrong is clearly a misogynist." We can debate whether to replace "mankind" with a more gender-neutral term. But nobody would interpret Neil Armstrong as having a political agenda a…
How? Why? Where?
I am merely saying that since the opposing ideology makes the same statement, the claim that it's a "myth of capitalism" makes no sense.
The moon landing can actually provide a great example. Take the "moon landing hoax" conspiracies. One of the first counter-claims is, if it were really a hoax, wouldn't the Soviets shout about it from the rooftops?
In our example, claiming that the American workers work more than Medieval serfs would be an excellent point for the Soviet propaganda. But since they didn't, and since in my school, the capitalism (otherwise hated) was taught as a step forward, the reduction of working hours clearly isn't a "capitalism's enduring myth".
My main issue, like I said many times by now, is why bring -isms to the study in the first place? Publish the figures, bring more sources from all over the world, make conclusions, THEN try to explain why it emerged. But no, that's not what the article says.
Seriously, does the word "Communism" work like a magic incantation that makes people ignore everything else?
>> we are asked to imagine
> not by a cabal, but by "The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption".
Just read the article.
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> I don't know that I see the relevancy of the chores, though. Do they go away if you work longer hours? Yes, because you exchange work for money, and exchange that money for machines that do the chores for you. That's what the last 300 years have given us.
When the Industrial Revolution was starting that can't have been the trade-off anyone had in mind, because none of those things had been invented.
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It's not different at all. It's traveling somewhere afar without objective practical need. Going to music festivals is sort of like pilgrimage as well. But I definitely count it as vacation. People do classic pilgrimages and call that hiking vacation nowadays. Amateur sports events, especially multi-day stage ones, are totally like pilgrimage. You get together with people with common goal, do shit and hang out. I sur…
> It's not different at all. It's traveling somewhere afar without objective practical need. You are looking at this from the perspective of an atheist living in 2018 and not a deeply religious medieval peasant.
Even including religious component, I don't really see how it differs much from e.g. pilgrimaging to music festivals. I've done quite a bit of traveling where solo task was to see a specific artist. I do count that as vacation :)
What is your definition of vacation? What specifically stops pilgrimage from being a vacation?
> In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. I have serious doubts about this. Maybe someone could provide additional insight. I doubt all time not working the fields was "relaxing during long holidays". It would likely be spent on other chores. Food was likely not plentiful (when it is, population explo…
I would not want to swap positions with the 14th century peasant I'd go further than that. I would not want to swap positions with a 14th century monarch.
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> It's not different at all. It's traveling somewhere afar without objective practical need. You are looking at this from the perspective of an atheist living in 2018 and not a deeply religious medieval peasant.
Well, we still have religious people doing pilgrimages. Both christians and not. At least some of them sure do treat them as vacation. On top of that, plenty of people in medieval time were not that deeply religious. Even in clergy or among monks. Even including religious component, I don't really see how it differs much from e.g. pilgrimaging to music festivals. I've done quite a bit of traveling where solo task was…
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I don't think the concept of "unemployment" is meaningful when we're talking about pre-modern people living off the land.
When the land isn't producing (winter), and you're just living mostly off reserves, and you're not enjoying being pretty much trapped in a hut covered with snow, that counts as "unemployment". Sure isn't a "vacation".
You could also cross bodies of water over the ice much easier with cattle or heavy loads (like wood, big game meat etc).
The USA are abolishing themselves... > In Germany, an economic powerhouse, workers rank second to last in number of hours worked. Despite more time off, German workers are the eighth most productive in Europe, while the long-toiling Greeks rank 24 out of 25 in productivity. Work smart, not hard.
I happen to agree with you broadly. However, two data points to bring to the discussion. Germany's median net wealth per adult is below that of the US ($47,000 vs $56,000 for 2017). Given the US isn't renowned for how well its middle does these days, that implies something has gone wrong in Germany. Per the OECD figures, the US is the third most productive in terms of GDP per hour worked, at around $73 for 2017. Excl…
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People not working "enough" hours isn't a structural problem if they're producing enough. If your argument is just that "people will spend more hours at work if their incentives are aligned exactly to making them do that," then I don't disagree, but I also don't find it revelatory.
>then I don't disagree, but I also don't find it revelatory. Because it isn't. And yet we still have people who believe Marxism can work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Karl_Mar...
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Suppose the article had said "One small step for man, one big step for mankind." You are responding with the equivalent of "What about womankind? There are female engineers at NASA. Isn't the moon landing a big step for women too? Neil Armstrong is clearly a misogynist." We can debate whether to replace "mankind" with a more gender-neutral term. But nobody would interpret Neil Armstrong as having a political agenda a…
> However, you've concluded that because the author described a problem with capitalism but not the equivalent problem with communism, the author must be a marxist. How? Why? Where? I am merely saying that since the opposing ideology makes the same statement, the claim that it's a "myth of capitalism" makes no sense. The moon landing can actually provide a great example. Take the "moon landing hoax" conspiracies. One…
The article isn't bringing "-isms" or ideologies into the article. The article intended to contrast the Modern West's economic system [0] with the Feudal System. But you are interpreting the article to have contrasted Private Ownership with Public Ownership.
> the claim that it's a "myth of capitalism" makes no sense.
It makes sense under an interpretation you seem to have missed. Colloquially, "Capitalism" means different things under different contexts. Furthermore, it's possible to classify types of economies along boundaries other than Private Ownership vs Public Ownership. Analogously, there's more colors in the rainbow than just Red and Green. Attributing a property to Red doesn't necessarily attribute the opposite property to Green. Consider the possibility that your interpretation of the text was not the intended interpretation.
[0] which in reality is not a Free-Market Economy, but more accurately described as an Industrialized Mixed-Market Economy.