Post B43U8UQlHcIIOoHdYG by glyph@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by glyph@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B43U8QM0RM75ku1maG by glyph@mastodon.social
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       I would never describe myself as a "capitalist" but I do kinda understand the structure and function of markets a little bit, and it's sometimes frustrating chatting with leftists whose entire experience of markets has been watching the enormous trash-fire of post-2008 dysfunctional crime-based capitalism destroy the possibility of them ever owning a home. Like if you really liked trains but lived in a town where 3/4 of the population had been killed by a chemical supply train derailment
       
 (DIR) Post #B43U8RxyRg4ukwncP2 by glyph@mastodon.social
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       "We should have better public transit!""Transit, what do you mean?""Like… you know… trains""Trains? Those machines that kill your entire family in wracking pain with clouds of poison from a realm beyond nightmares? Why do you want more of those?""Yeah but not like that"
       
 (DIR) Post #B43U8UQlHcIIOoHdYG by glyph@mastodon.social
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       hard to ask someone whose whole body is covered in chemical burn scars to just imagine, for a moment, a train carrying a *different* thing, like maybe some people going to have a good time at a restaurant downtown, instead of the caustic hellfire that they see every time they close their eyes
       
 (DIR) Post #B43U8Wgmt0IlP5nSoC by glyph@mastodon.social
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       and yet… the fact remains… this town really _could_ use a subway
       
 (DIR) Post #B43U8XXFjwGk1oLMaO by glyph@mastodon.social
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       for those of you stuck on the word “capitalism” here rather than the experience I was trying to relate, you can have the same experience with “leftism” (communism, socialism, or even just any policy vaguely left of center) by trying to have a conversation with an emigrant from a repressive communist regime, i.e. any survivor of the cultural revolution, an experience I have also had, albeit less frequently
       
 (DIR) Post #B43U8Zsb1YWvIaLR8C by glyph@mastodon.social
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       “we should really increase the marginal corporate tax rate to account for the broad array of unadjudicated externalities that profit-seeking inherently inflicts““they killed my brother in the street for teaching physics”“I’m … sorry? I am not sure what that has to do with tax policy.”“It’s a slippery slope! They beat me so badly my left arm is a centimeter shorter than my right, to this day”
       
 (DIR) Post #B45YAV2AnahcyyurFA by darius@friend.camp
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       @glyph something David Harvey pointed out years ago that stuck with me: Capitalism is about 500 years old. Markets are much older than that. Markets are a prerequisite for capitalism but you can have markets without capital-c Capitalism