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After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

theanarchistlibrary.org

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Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#31

Post by freeflight »

difosfor wrote: post #28
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist. Anarchism can be capitalist or communism. Anarcho-communism for example. In a proper free market, the telephone poles would have 50 wires, most of which wouldn't be functioning. Afterall, how would anyone provide you internet? Without government regulation any startup has to put their own wires up. This leads to rats nests of wires. Tons of expensive wires…

I don't see what communism has to do with everyone needing to be employed full time. That's just what they made of it in the USSR etc. > Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

I concur, there's nothing "communistic" about the idea of full employment, if anything it strikes me as something rather capitalistic in its nature: Full employment would mean there's an oversupply of labor, which means labor would be dirt cheap and easily replaceable.

That would be the dream for anybody trying to exploit others labor for their own gains, something that's generally seen as a very capitalistic mindset.

The USSR attempting to have full employment was yet another misplaced attempt at trying to "Beat the capitalistic West at their own game".

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#32

Post by wallacoloo »

> This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it.

yeah, sure, just completely ignore the $2T cryptocurrency industry that’s objectively a response to govt’s handling of 2008 (read Satoshi’s genesis block)?

i’m not really sure what the author’s trying to push for though: that we all don’t go back to working for rich people? well sure, but the valuable part is showing us how to do that…

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#33

Post by jdub »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #15
q-base wrote: post #3

I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read.

The one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabb…

Please do not suggest that one of the greatest minds of our era should have adopted the writing style of one of the greatest nitwits of our era.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#34

Post by sleepysysadmin »

q-base wrote: post #16
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I had somehow missed that he died. What a shame. He wrote one of the most interesting, fascinating and influential books I have ever read. Which one might I ask? Bullshit jobs is pretty big, but debt: the first 5000 years is quite good.

Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.

>Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.

The interesting things are everything Graeber missed. Which fair, he's an anthropologist and not an economist. Interestingly, none of which really contradicts him.

When Jeff Bezos is worth billions, does he really? He doesn't have actual $, he has an abstract # derived from owning stocks in amazon. But how did you even get there? It's fundamentally debt. Every $ he is worth is the debt someone else has. Society owes him for his contribution. He created something that people love to use. Therefore he will be rewarded for that.

The caveat is that he does not get interest for this debt. He's not holding mortgages or whatever. So inflation is the mechanism in which he gets poorer. He is forgiving that debt like Graeber explains it worked in the olden days. However, he obviously is still operating and continuing to earn, so his worth goes up.

Flipside, if you are someone who holds mortgages, you earn the interest. You're not forgiving debt, so long as inflation is lower than the interest rate. Like right now, the market has bond rates well below inflation. The people holding debt are forgiving the debt. Which are often retirement funds and what have you because they are legally required to buy those.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

In the USA, even the 30 year bonds are negative. Whoever holds your debt is forgiving your debt in those percentages. Other countries like Germany have negative interest rates, they have to forgive the debt even faster. Why is this? This is the time when baby boomers are retiring. Germany obviously didn't do well in WW2 and it's going to impact them more.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#35

Post by chasd00 »

smitty1e wrote: post #9

> At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over Our governments seem to move from crisis to crisis, though the cart/horse roles are ambiguous here.

Yes, if you can keep the people living in fear with the belief their government is the only answer then they will beg for subjugation.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#36

Post by throw0101a »

dragonelite wrote: post #19
q-base wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.

It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. And how political money really is, like a king can say from now one 1 gold coin equals 11 silver coins etc. Another one is the book "And forgive them their debts" by Michael Hudson talking about ancient debt jubilee in the middle east. If i'm not mistaken one of the sources for debt: the first 5000 years book.

> It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be.

You may be interested in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein (of NPR's Planet Money).

* https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up...

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#37

Post by sleepysysadmin »

difosfor wrote: post #28
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist. Anarchism can be capitalist or communism. Anarcho-communism for example. In a proper free market, the telephone poles would have 50 wires, most of which wouldn't be functioning. Afterall, how would anyone provide you internet? Without government regulation any startup has to put their own wires up. This leads to rats nests of wires. Tons of expensive wires…

I don't see what communism has to do with everyone needing to be employed full time. That's just what they made of it in the USSR etc. > Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

>I don't see what communism has to do with everyone needing to be employed full time. That's just what they made of it in the USSR etc.

Like your definition says:

and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

That equates to everyone working. There's very few exceptions, usually like you lack arms and legs or something extreme to allow you not to work.

Afterall, how do you stop 'You work, I'll be at home collecting UBI and watching TV.'

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#38

Post by cies »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #20
lordwarnut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.

>I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist. Anarchism can be capitalist or communism. Anarcho-communism for example. In a proper free market, the telephone poles would have 50 wires, most of which wouldn't be functioning. Afterall, how would anyone provide you internet? Without government regulation any startup has to put their own wires up. This leads to rats nests of wires. Tons of expensive wires…

> Anarchism can be capitalist

Nope. That'd be neo-feudalism, as the super rich will be our defacto oppressive over lords. Anarchism is against oppression.

There are market anarchists, they like markets but in no case they like unlimited wealth accumulation.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#39

Post by soared »

Meh. I’ve seen a lot of these short essays about how after the pandemic we either should not or simply will not return to the status quo. It doesn’t really do anything to say “the economy doesn’t work” in 5 paragraphs and then say nothing else.

Yes, lots of poor people are getting screwed. Some jobs don’t pay well despite the higher moral standing of directly assisting others. The environment looks pretty bad. But you can’t just say “rich people bad. New economy plz”.

This essay is basically r/im14andthisisdeep

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#40

Post by sam_lowry_ »

jdub wrote: post #33
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabb…

Please do not suggest that one of the greatest minds of our era should have adopted the writing style of one of the greatest nitwits of our era.

First off, @pg actually started Hacker News and was instrumental to its long-term success.

Second, @pg 10 years ago is not @pg today. People change, and while his latest essays many not be exceptional neither in style nor in content, texts like "What You'll Wish You'd Known" and "What You Can't Say" have been highly influential well outside SV or even US.

P.S funnily, shortly after "What You'll Wish You'd Known" I saw a viral video of Joanne Rowling saying the same thing @pg was barred from saying at a commencement address: Stay Upwind.

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