The Illusion of Freedom Under the Market System

[anticap]

Cooney rides again! It's been a while since his last video. This is one of his best, IMO. (I assume I'm not the only one here who follows him on YouTube.)

"Manufacturing Consent (http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/manufacturing-consent/)" (Don't miss the bracketed text and the footnotes, which were omitted from the videos.)

I'm posting this here because it exposes the mythical "freedom" advanced by capitalist/"free"-market/propertarian ideologues, so I figured it'd be fun to watch those critters scurry around and attempt to respond to it. :tt2:

[trivas7]

Cooney rides again! It's been a while since his last video. This is one of his best, IMO. (I assume I'm not the only one here who follows him on YouTube.)

Cooney is a wonder popularizer; I enjoy his videos immensely.

In terms of the title of the OP the case can be made that materialism is incompatible w/ any freedom at all. One more reason to reject it.

[anticap]

Cooney is a wonder popularizer; I enjoy his videos immensely.

In terms of the title of the OP the case can be made that materialism is incompatible w/ any freedom at all. One more reason to reject it.

Yeah, it's not easy to boil this stuff down to 10-20 minutes to make it accessible to anyone, but he usually manages it.

I don't know if consumerism (I'm assuming that's what you meant by "materialism") is the problem per se (although I happen not to like it, personally, and do my best to reject it). I think it's more the fact that we tend to attribute our actions, and the products of our actions, to capital. We're alienated from our own activity and view it as something outside ourselves that we must purchase from capitalists, even though it was ours all along.

Anyway, I guess the lack of rebuttals means that our resident capitalist/"free"-market/propertarian ideologues concede that their conception of "freedom" is a sham.

[Conquer or Die]

Cooney is a wonder popularizer; I enjoy his videos immensely.

In terms of the title of the OP the case can be made that materialism is incompatible w/ any freedom at all. One more reason to reject it.

The Austrian finds fault with global warming in this way; one might say that human beings producing oxygen is also an unnatural slavery. It is, after all, ideas that power the world and not material relations.

[Muzk]

In terms of the title of the OP the case can be made that materialism is incompatible w/ any freedom at all.
Cough, materialism is what brought me to communism, and a pretty awesome thing everyone should understand. Materialism has nothing to do with material such as property : ) Got the wrong word? :D

Also, there can never be freedom under capitalism - in one thing those economy experts were right - people are greedy. Shows how for them only the bourgeoise are people.

[trivas7]

[...] It is, after all, ideas that power the world and not material relations.
Show me a material relation that doesn't ultimately reduce to an idea in someone's head and I would take you seriously.

[AnthArmo]

Show me a material relation that doesn't ultimately reduce to an idea in someone's head and I would take you seriously.

Show me an idea in someone's head that doesn't ultimately reduce to a material relation and I'll take you seriously :cool: