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"If you don't like capitalism, why do you own a computer/TV/phone/whatever??"
I can't be the only one that regularly gets these idiotic questions and be told to go live in a cave somewhere, or to go to Cuba or whatever.
Just wondering, do you ever get similar questions thrown at you when you begin to criticize capitalism? How do you personally respond to them?
Yes, the likes of "Why do you live in the U.S. if Cuba is so great" is like asking would you rather be rapist or rape-victim. And that's ignoring the confusion about the sort of regime Cuba lives under.
But when it comes to that specific question, there's usually massive confusion where computer or anything else come from. It's not capitalism in itself that produces these things or makes them possible, it's technology. Like it's not capitalism that created steam engine, but it's actually steam engine that made capitalism possible. And needless to say, technology is not exclusive to capitalism.
Furthermore, you can respond by saying that the computer, the Internet among many other things weren't invented within the structures of private capitalism, loosely speaking. It was developed by the government so it's actually you who should ask them why they are using computers and the Internet if they don't like the State...
"If you don't like slavery why do you wear clothes given to you by your master."
Always Curious J, BIXX, BolshevikBabe, Brandon's Impotent Rage, Buttscratcher, CaptainCool309, Comrade #138672, Comrade Jaraxxus, Danielle Ni Dhighe, DOOM, Homo Songun, Jimmie Higgins, Loony Le Fist, Nakidana, Oipriz, ola., RedWorker, Regicollis, Remus Bleys, Rugged Collectivist, Scheveningen, Sinister Intents, Tenka
"If you don't like feudalism why do you eat the bounty of the lord's fields!?" - the most annoying guy at the ren faire
I'm on some sickle-hammer shit
Collective Bruce Banner shit
FKA: #FF0000, AKA Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
#FF0000, Always Curious J, BIXX, BolshevikBabe, Brandon's Impotent Rage, Buttscratcher, Comrade Jaraxxus, Hit The North, Jimmie Higgins, Oipriz, ola., PC LOAD LETTER, Red Economist, RedMaterialist, RedWorker, Rugged Collectivist, Sinister Cultural Marxist, Sinister Intents, slum, The Intransigent Faction, The Jay
If you don't like worker's then who do you think made your TV and phone and car? Who mined the resources, etc?
People have been making things and producing things long before capitalism, but capitalism can't produce or make anything without workers. All the TVs and so on are built by workers, shipped by workers, made possible by human labor. As a socialist, I don't want people to have austerity (capitalism does that just fine) I want them to enjoy the fruits of our own labor - we should have better stuff, easier stuff, more useful stuff.
Capitalism doesn't do anything but concentrate wealth. Capitalists don't invent, they hire scientists to do research - they tell them what to research and if their research doesn't go to increasing profits, then that research ends or is shelved and they are sent to look into developing something else. Capitalists don't produce, they hire labor to turn the tech and research and raw materials from other workers into commodities.
When you get that you just say- why don't you build your own roads, send your own post, hire private fireman and policeman, provide your own electricity and tap water, test food and medicine on your own, get out of that cycle of dependency you socialistic parasite, if you're against "socialism" so much why do YOU use the cell phone, computer, internet, or digital cameras- those were all developed in the state sector, virtually all modern technological innovation came out of r&d cost of which was socialized.
The first step for people who believe consevative propaganda, I give them to read this: http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html
After they read it and get a little in touch with reality by accepting the facts given there, then we can talk further.
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
previously known as impossible
I hear this all the time. Typically I will bring up that rather than some mystical capitalism, it was workers who created the product. Not to mention it would be near impossible not to use something "made by capitalism", considering it is the dominant economic system of the day.. I also usually say something along the lines of, "if you were fighting a war, and you found a stockpile of the enemies weapons, would you leave them there based on principle? Or would you use them to fight the enemy? Exactly, you'd use them to fight the enemy" I can quite recall where I heard that, but I use it all the time.
Why did the bourgeois revolutionaries like Cromwell use feudalist-made weapons if he loved capitalism so much?
If you hate dictatorship so much, why do you wear clothes made in China?
Socialist Party of Outer Space
I own a computer so that I can work to destroy the capitalist class. Just as I would own a shovel to dig their graves.
"If you don't like communism, why do you like AK-47s (invented in the Soviet Union)?"
"We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass." Karl Marx
"there are worse jobs than this"
"look, if you want to have a discussion about this then let's have a discussion but saying a less-than-one-second phrase isn't really going to cut it just as an example if I stabbed you in the stomach right now I could say that there are probably worse stab wounds in the world but you can obviously immediately imagine why that isn't really an end-all statement"
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
By laughing out loud and ironically commenting on the fact that I'm not advocating asceticism and actually like stuff.
FKA LinksRadikal
“The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties – this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.” Friedrich Engels
"The proletariat is its struggle; and its struggles have to this day not led it beyond class society, but deeper into it." Friends of the Classless Society
"Your life is survived by your deeds" - Steve von Till
If you dislike something, why dont you move to a mountaintop and eat moss for the rest of your life where you can ignore everything until you dislike it so much you commit suicide?
or simplified
if you dislike something, why dont you commit suicide? because something will always exist
our main job is not to avoid stuff, but to change stuff. avoiding stuff can be done if they are not neccesary to complete a task or if they are so evil they have to be avoided. a pc will not exploit workers. or any other inanimate object for that matter.
eating meat is different. meat exploits animals directly. there are however slaughterhouses that dont do it as badly as others. i try to avoid eating meat and animal products all together, but im not perfect and i tend to fall into temptation of the occasional cheezburger, which im ashamed to admit. im still working on that.
WHAT in the hell are you doing at a renaissance fair to begin with!?
Totally ruined my day and derailed this thread I'll have you know.
Now go apologize to the OP so we can shut this down, you've done enough don't you think?
Brospierre-Albanian baseball was played with a frozen ball of shit and tree branch
"History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union."
Henry L. Stimson: U.S. Secretary of War
Take the word “fear” and the phrase “for what, it’s not going to change anything” out of your minds and take control of your future.
[I]Juan Jose Fernandez, Asturias
"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see"
I remember when I considered myself a libertarian hippie and I got questions like those. although I have never gotten these questions about my communist beliefs.
I think owning electronics puts up a big middle finger to rightists who say all communist countries outlaw the internet and phones.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Because I'm not a hermit and can't help but live in the system I was born into.
Plus, Candy Crush is fun.
“Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.”
― Vladimir Illich Lenin, leader of the proletariat.
Because it is useful.
You do not have to answer their flawed question completely, because it is based on false assumptions. This will probably provoke them into slowly revealing their hidden assumptions. Then you can destroy those false assumptions one by one. Do not go with something that has not been proven by them. Let them do the work.
☭ “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” - Karl Marx ☭
Communism is about sharing, not needless self-denial, and phones and computers can be used to make yourself heard. With that being said, I don't actually watch my family's TV, I see it as useless fluff verging on propaganda.
