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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?

New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.

Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":

Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.

But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.

This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.

Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:

Capitalism makes sense to the paranoid who don't understand the concept of sharing. Capitalism is the application of KFR (kidnap for ransom) to resources (and human beings as "human resources"):

  1. Usurp rights over resources (physical or intellectual, materials or people or property) by fiat and, if necessary, by fraud and/or force

  2. Kidnap (abduct) said resources (e.g., put them into captive situations with no alternative)

  3. Hold hostage

  4. Demand ransom

  5. Release upon payment

You'll recognize the capitalistic counterparts as:

  1. Title/Ownership
  2. Acquisition/procurement
  3. Storage/warehousing
  4. Pricing
  5. Sale

Capitalism is psychopathy with a makeover.

Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?

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  • -40

Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?

There isn't one. Well, technically, there is- central planning technically 'works' despite being shitty- but for all the effort people- and not dumb people at that- put into finding alternatives to private property they have consistently failed.

It's not that making mistakes with economic policy is bad(although it is). It's that the mistake has already been made and the results were bad.

No, there most definitely is one, and you're likely well familiar with it. Compartmentalization keeps it from occurring to you in this context.

Care to explain it?

I'm more interested in seeing how people deal with it (or avoid dealing with it, as the case may be). But let's try a collaboration. When I look for alternatives, I go for the jugular and think of as opposite as I can imagine. What's the opposite of deprivation?

Are you thinking of communal sharing?

What's the opposite of deprivation?

According to Merriam-Webster, it would be control, ownership, possession, gain, accumulation, and acquiring.

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