Slashdot Mirror
'Americans Own Less Stuff, and That's Reason To Be Nervous' (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg's Tyler Cowen writes about "the erosion of personal ownership and what that will mean for our loyalties to traditional American concepts of capitalism and private property." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares the report: The main culprits for the change are software and the internet. For instance, Amazon's Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americans consume text. Fifteen years ago, people typically owned the books and magazines they were reading. Much less so now. If you look at the fine print, it turns out that you do not own the books on your Kindle. Amazon.com Inc. does. I do not consider this much of a practical problem. Although Amazon could obliterate the books on my Kindle, this has happened only in a very small number of cases, typically involving account abuse. Still, this licensing of e-books, instead of stacking books on a shelf, has altered our psychological sense of how we connect to what we read -- it is no longer truly "ours."
The change in our relationship with physical objects does not stop there. We used to buy DVDs or video cassettes; now viewers stream movies or TV shows with Netflix. Even the company's disc-mailing service is falling out of favor. Music lovers used to buy compact discs; now Spotify and YouTube are more commonly used to hear our favorite tunes. Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of training for future entrepreneurship. We're hardly at a point where American property has been abolished, but I am still nervous that we are finding ownership to be so inconvenient.
The change in our relationship with physical objects does not stop there. We used to buy DVDs or video cassettes; now viewers stream movies or TV shows with Netflix. Even the company's disc-mailing service is falling out of favor. Music lovers used to buy compact discs; now Spotify and YouTube are more commonly used to hear our favorite tunes. Each of these changes is beneficial, yet I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants, taught us how property rights and incentives operate, and was a kind of training for future entrepreneurship. We're hardly at a point where American property has been abolished, but I am still nervous that we are finding ownership to be so inconvenient.
What have Millennials killed this time?
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" I worry that Americans are, slowly but surely, losing their connection to the idea of private ownership. The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. "
Hardly. It made us into a bunch of hoarders.
I know I don't own my kindle books, I'm using Kindleunlimited for a couple of bucks a month and I read a book almost every day. (I'm retired) Much cheaper than buying them.
After my first kindle (I'm on my 6th) I donated almost 5000 books to a local library and now I got a full new room I can use.
I also got rid of my music tapes, my music cassettes, my music vinyl, my music CDs, my super8 films, my betamax, Video2000 and VHS tapes, my Laser-disks, DVDs and blurays,Ditto for my photo albums.
A small server does all that now.
Good riddance.
(C) Nelson Muntz
I'll keep my shelves full of books and my AR-15 to protect them.
Thank you, and drive through.
Adapt to your reality but be sure to make a statement as you go.
... the average american doesn't give two shits about tech. That is why videogames is such a clusterfuck of greed, corruption and outright fraud. Just look at the BS copyright laws. In a just world we'd be able to own and repair our own software we paid for. The reality is in tech land its lawless capitalism all the way, broken software and games all around because the average person is technologically ignorant and retarded while keeping feeding money to companies exploiting them (mmo's, steam, f2p games, etc).
If I don't burn fossil fuels acquire a book made of murdered trees processed with toxic chemicals, and instead transfer some bytes down a wire, I'm a bad American?
Yeah, right.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
The notion of "ownership" makes perfect sense for things like houses and cars. For books, DVDs, and other IP-based materials? Not so much.
I have a much smaller physical library than I used to, true.
I dumped almost all of my old magazines.
But I have a LOT more of the sort of gadgets that I used to have one of, at most. Multiple desktop computers, a couple of laptops, several tablets, a phone, and an array of VR gear.
Smaller number of things overall, but much more concentrated value, in general.
Americans haven’t “owned” anything in 2-3 generations. This trend is bad news for creditors and other bloodsuckers.
I read more books and listen to more music than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I call that an improvement, not a problem.
I still have boxes of old paper books and CDs. They don’t give me an iota of an extra stake in some high ideal of ownership in America.
Let's making voting a matter of property ownership. After all, if you have nothing to lose, you'll just take everything you want.
The big difference in licensing content comes when the licensee passes away. Had he have books or records or cds, all those would go to his/her children, stay with the family or hit the second hand market. All this is not happening with licenses collected for decades. All the value of the collection just diminishes.
You still have to own the device on which you read the book, or watched the video. Except if you're both poor and dumb and rent it by the month.
Although now that I think about it people are leasing cars more, which is not really ownership. And buying expensive houses with large mortgages which is basically renting (read your mortgage contract - they own you). I would argue those are more relevant to property ownership than garbage consumer devices.
... and that is capitalism’s fault, not an attack on capitalism. Capitalism wants most people owning nothing and being beholden to the property-owning elites.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
NOTICE: ACTION REQUIRED
Americans aren't filling their homes with crappy books they might have read once and will never read again. This is a warning that capitalism and freedom are at risk of disappearing!
My ebooks are epubs stored on two RAID hard disks. I do not bother with kindles, my ereader is a cybook muse HD. They cannot erase my stuff. My music and videos are also files on my hard disc. I still have some classical books on real shelves. I took the habit of favouring digital books while growing up in Europe's tiny apartments.
My steam library is licensed stuff that could disappear, though. My GOG games are "mine" but i could end up with incompatibilities with a too recent Linux distro and have my stuff unplayable. Although with all those emulators and retro computing stuff you never know.
To each his own. I like my way of managing my digital assets. If you prefer other methods, more power for you. :)
Americans have less to spend and naturally gravitate towards less expensive to purchase stuff.
It is far better buying movies, music, TV shows, and books online and access them via streaming than buying physical copies and paying for storage and any specialty playback devices. It is incredibly wasteful not to do that.
Good god, when I think of all the wastefulness that generations between WWII and now have done, it boggles my mind to think America was as much of a high standing in the world as it did. Buying cars every four years, houses every ten, TVs, DVD players, PC's, and a feckton of other stuff would have been as equally shocking to great great grandparents for it's wastefulness as it is to the younger generation of today.
How the hell did everyone get so damn spoiled!?!?!?
I stream music too. But I still buy music from bands I REALLY like.
Only now because I do not do that as often, It means I can spend a lot more for some wildly packaged music, or a really cool experience with the band.
Buying less doesn't mean the remaining things you do buy are treasured less; it is the opposite in fact, you treasure the remaining things you buy more.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There’s this place called a “library” which let’s you take out books for weeks at a time. Apparently the author never heard of it.
I do have a Kindle. But I don’t often buy books, since that “library” place actually lets me check out Kindle books same as printed ones. Plus there are programs like “Kindle Unlimited” which will let you borrow lots of stuff too.
There are very few books I want to read more than once... but those I do buy - and, when I buy a Kindle book, the first thing I do is strip the DRM off of it and save a backup copy.
Same thing with movies... there aren’t that many I want to ever see more than once. Those few that I do, I purchase (and rip a DRM-free copy so I can stream them from my media box).
Besides, the DVD/videocassette argument doesn’t really support the author’s premise. For most of the time movies have been around, people did not own them... that’s only the past few decades.
#DeleteChrome
less stuff!? people park their $25k cars out in the elements and load up garages with junk... they're building storage facilities all over the place where i live... what is this article writer smoking and how can i get some?
all your base are still belong to us.
Property ownership becomes a burden when you buy things that don't last as long as they should.
Have gnu, will travel.
Most rent, lease, subscribe because its what they can afford and they want lots of stuff. If you had to actually buy CD's or a car or a home you would be broke. Yeah we have access to more stuff as long as we keeping making those payments.
If you live through a major disaster, you will end up loosing throwing away (due to damage) almost all 'stuff'.
It is then when you realize you do not need to replace most 'stuff'.
If climate change really kicks-in, it will be good to be able to move-travel 'light'.
There is this thing called p2p. Also, it is not stealing if you still have your item, it is merely a copy.
If I feel I no longer have the need to have this stuff, i delete it. It does not end on some ladfill and you can't burn my copy like it was in the past, simply because you don't have access.
Crazy, how this technology works, right?
Thank you.
Thanks for suggesting emotions for me to feel. I will feel those emotions....NOW. Ah, validation, comformity.
My emotions are synchronized with the collective.
I WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING WITHOUT YOUR GUIDANCE THANK YOU
Should we have panicked about the library, DVD rentals, rent a power tool, rent a car, the bus, and fm radio too? So dumb
This has only ever described one type of person : the worst kind.
The hoarders. The greed. The ones that want to live in 20 mansions.
The pricks that live at the top that rape the planet of its resources.
Fuck the "American Dream". It's the thing wrong with the world. It's the thing currently ruining it.
Uncontrolled Capitalism is NOT a good thing. Not on a limited planet-only species. Not even close. It's the worst thing for it. It's almost guaranteed to lead to war and potentially even wiping the species out, even when they are fully capable of understanding that fact. (see the current political climate)
The only stable society is part capital and part socialist. This is why the few countries that run on such a model FROM THE START, like most of the Nordic countries, are the most stable and happiest, generally the best financials and so on.
Get fucked, capitalism nerds. Money was only ever created to make barter easier. It was never supposed to run the world. The majority of the planet still live by this model today. Barter, or barter with pseudo currencies or "local" currencies which aren't traded globally. And this isn't poor little third world disasters, I mean the majority of the planet. The poor places are resource poor, the traders and local currency users aren't.
Hilariously enough, the quality of life for the capital-driven world is quite low compared to the ones that don't live by global, fiat currencies. In actual fact, it's usually the countries with the highest GDP / PPP that have the worst qualities for life over every index of life other than "opportunity" and access to goods. Oh wait, gotta rack of a lifetime of debt to access half of it. lmao
The financial world is a fucking mess. Take yourself out of it. Grow your own food. It's trivial.
From there, the rest is easy. A stable footing that gets you fed is all you need to escape the absolute SHITSHOW that is the current world.
Considering money costs an arm and a leg in high-GDP countries, even RAW food, I highly recommend it for your own sake. There's about a billion Youtube tutorials on how to do it properly, pick one.
You'll never live to see the day where Capitalism, Socialism or Communism will be the only system in use. All of them are flawed. ALL of them.
All you need to do is look at America to see that fact. It's got one of the biggest social states on the planet, all because the capital side RUINED the economy with its run-away shitshow of a "race to the bottom".
Now everything is expensive because nobody can buy anything, more than half the fucking country is on permanent welfare for the foreseeable future and half the country is on the verge of legit civil war.
America: the worst idea in human history, or the worst idea in human history?
this article is a good example of the brain damage that results from americans' ideological conflation of personal possessions with private property
Middle class folks who own house and decent cars and have nice furniture in their homes probably can't relate to this, but a few books, records and some cheap Jewelry is pretty much the extent of the property most poor folks can accumulate. Having a large chunk of that become ephemeral may very well have consequences. Imagine having 20-30% of your populace feeling like they don't own anything. Conservative ideology generally comes from having something to lose. Lower income people are often very conservative as a result. Taking that away could change that political dynamic...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I own my stuff! Or, well, I have a personally accessible copy of the data available locally and/or in personal cloud storage.
I of course didn't acquire these in, horror of horrors, traditional capitalist means and methods! I'm sure that makes me some sort of commie, and not the good commie like the Nazis say the Russians are now (didn't the Nazis have a treaty with them last time too?). Oh no, I'm an anti-corporate commie! That's the worst kind of all. But hey, I can access my data without paying an eternal corporate rent for it, so that's good with me.
I still buy physical books.
I still buy all music on physical CD. (comes with free digital edition, even better)
If I want to own anime, I buy it on Bluray. (I really need to buy a bluray player).
I stopped buying movies, maybe 1 a year if I really want to own it.
I do buy Video games on steam instead of physical copy, but the only games really worth owning are the great AAA games.
Capitalism doesn't "want" anything.
Assholes who claim to be capitalists (but are mostly crony-capitalists) want this.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
First, having lots of stuff isn't necessarily healthy. I've had the family members that could have probably beaten any two exhibits on Hoarders combined with a large farmhouse, barn, and multiple sheds reduced to tiny crawlspaces and all sorts of safety and health hazards. They don't just hurt themselves doing that.
Second, we shouldn't glamorize minimalism which relies on having great families, great jobs, trust funds, and social networks to work. Pretentious yoga types, don't preach. It's not minimalism if you're just externalizing privilege.
Third, we need to challenge assumptions that participation in public life, and that one's value as a citizen, is based on the amount of property owed. Every time I see someone acting like Voter ID needs to be tightened and that somehow, it's racist to think that minorities are less able to navigate this has failed to reckon with how much of our documentation has to do with property owned and services used, and they're already penalized there even before you deal with places like Alabama that selectively shut down DMV's in majority-black counties. There's a rank classism and racism intersecting here.
Finally: we need to differentiate between private and personal property. We are taught to think of private property as a personal effect, whereas, there's a difference. Do you make direct personal use of it? Do you need it to live with dignity? Or is it leverage to boss others around? Absentee private property is a sort of dictatorship. Privatizing a county or state's water supply is not the same thing as making sure the government doesn't come and take away your toothbrush. When people talk about private property in the USA, it's not going to mean the same thing for the people lining up to reprise the role of the feudal lords as it does for those sinking to the level of peasants, and unfortunately, there's a lot done to deliberately confuse listeners on this issue.
That's how, in the name of keeping private property safe for alleged persons, we've actually been giving corporations to gouge actual people of almost every real necessity and dispossess them. The 1%, in the meantime, trades in gold-plated sports cars. They are *not* hurting.
1. The company that did provide something us is closed for ever. ...
2. There is a out of Internet connection.
3. Internet is disappeared.
4. The online product is end of existence because of the company.
5.
So, backup some things that will be obsolete for ages.
Where's the actual article? The link in the headline has nothing to do with the quoted text. All the articles listed are just about Chinese economic activity.
If you scroll down, the article under discussion is linked to here.
How about some actual moderation, slashdot...?
"Crony capitalism" is a misnomer. Nobody has to give favorable treatment to their cronies for property-owners to exploit non-property-owners. That's just capitalism. That's what capitalism is: a market distorted in favor of those who own capital.
What you call "crony capitalism" is just capitalism. What you call "capitalism" is just a free market. A free market where capital is widely distributed in a decentralized way, not held by one class of people to the exploitation of another, is market socialism. "Socialism" doesn't mean everything is controlled by the state, it means capital is owned by the people. Widespread individual ownership by many people still counts; it doesn't have to (and shouldn't) be collective ownership through the state.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
no if we could get rid of clothes all together.!! betazoids unite!!!
well put.. no shit sherlock. library books we checked out.. read them and returned them.. knowledge gained.. books are heavy too. i use to have 3000+ and moving was a pain, but it looked good. finally donated them all to the library and now have only a few..
movies and music... yep... all on a hard drive or nearly streaming service.. yes, hard drives , many many.. between 4-5 2TBs of stuff. very small and easy to replace and backup.. many times over..
and another one by JD... mtn287
You seem to be the first commenter to notice that. Guess no-one prior wanted to read the article?
Amazon still sells books you know. Your choice.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view...
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
The type of property that this refers to, is real property. The clothes on your back don't give you a stake, the ground beneath your feet does. This is why some feel those that only rent their home should not have the right to vote.
Its getting harder to own things for two reasons:
1. Companies would rather rent/license things than sell them to you.
2. Everything costs more compared to income, so everything needs financing. It comes down to what you can afford per month.
In case you haven't noticed, incomes have not kept up with inflation. When you have less income you buy less stuff. This isn't rocket science.
Here ya go:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view...
I tried to read it, but the author’s attention span seemed to wander somewhere along the way... plus he doesn’t do a very good job of developing his thesis even when he is on-topic. When he started pulling gmail into the story, I decided that was far enough.
#DeleteChrome
Go out and buy books, buy CDs and DVDs, buy the very things the author complains you no longer own.
Yes, your OS isn't yours, and your phone is welded shut (as are Macs in general), but there is nothing stopping someone from going out and buying a physical product.
But instead of doing this there will be those who will whine about the loss ownership.
I think it's sad that we're stepping away from giving kids the books we had when we were young.
Yeah, there may be digital copies. But having a physical copy with your parent's name imprinted in them by your grandparents will be something sorely missed.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Americans, in particular, younger Americans, own less stuff because they are poorer. And they are poorer because half a century of progressive politics has transferred the wealth they should have been earning into the hands of crony capitalists, political elites, and government employees.
Unfortunately, many younger Americans still believe that the answer to the government destroying their futures is to vote for more government and more taxes. Fortunately, more and more seem to be figuring out what's actually going on.
We own lots of physical books. Frequently we can get a book for $15 at Costco but the ebook is the full retail price of $25. Why wouldn't you buy the physical version? Then you have the option of keeping it if you want to read it again, or lending it to someone, or giving it to a second hand book sale (which is a common charity). All you can do with an ebook is delete it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I like to own things; but I like to have space too. For example, all my films, music, movies, TV shows, etc. are all digital. This doesn't mean I subscribe to the streaming or Prime racket. Ownership, in my definition means I have a format that I can play on any device. So, therefore I only buy things that fit that description. If you have a proprietary format then I wont buy it. For example, I will not use steam (I deleted the account years ago) and instead just use GOG now. I used to own an SNES; but I just bought an SNES mini and put all my ROMs on it. I also had about 20-25 games on a 3DS; I just hacked the 3DS and ripped as backup and installed them and sold the games. I have no interest in having things "sitting" around. But, I have no interest in purchasing formats that are DRM infested either; I'd much rather buy the physical and convert to a re-usable digital format; as this saves space.
I also have no interest in owning a house or a car. But, I do own a car with great resentment; I barely use it, but am legally forced into paying for insurance that is $100 for shit coverage. I simply do not buy into this scheme; would much rather Uber everywhere or have public transit that does not suck. A house? Don't need, I'd rather buy a 100 sq/ft apt with a bad and a power hookup and live in that.
You can, if you choose, still own books, movies, and music. The choice to rent instead of own doesn't obviate the possibility of ownership.
There was a time when an editor would read Tyler Cowen's article and says "Son, this is stupid shit and I am not going to publish it". If there is anything worth lamenting, it is the passing of the era when editors would act as useful filters. Now, any idiot can spew bullshit on the web, and many idiots do.
Since when did you think you "owned" anything of significant value? Try not paying your ad valorem (property) taxes on your house or business and see how long you get to keep it. Try not paying your usage taxes (registration) on your vehicle and you better own a good pair of shoes. Even holding onto cash has an inherent "tax" associated with it (inflationary devaluation) until you're willing to recycle it through society.
No, Americans stopped "owning" stuff starting around the mid 1800's. We 'rent' it from society (government). http://econweb.umd.edu/~wallis/MyPapers/PTFinal.pdf
This latest iteration of personal property ownership abstraction is, to me, the next natural phase of the maturation of our economy.
No. If there isn't collective ownership through the state, then it is not socialism, by definition.
...it's Fash the Nation!
I had videogame consoles that did work but don't work due to non-working capacitors (the electrolyte is vaporized). So i did trash them.
I had old TV (for consoles, for example, 320x200) until become black screen. Also i did trash it.
I had many things until zero. The electronic devices are not reliable for years.
no possessions. I wonder if you can.
Alex Jones has been kicked off of many platforms, over a dozen, all within a week. Clearly, this man can't be allowed to participate in digital discussions. All licenses granted to him on his Kindle should be cancelled, all subscription services cancelled as well. People who say things that are provably incorrect, or just that we disagree with, shouldn't be able to rent anything, unless the renter supports what he is saying.
It turns out no one owns their own home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
One important aspect of ownership of a physical book is that it cannot be centrally altered or deleted. Since today even children's books are altered to fit some political agenda of the day, there is value in owning a copy of information that if just stored by some cloud service, can disappear any day.
You idiot, boutique farming will never feed the world. The hippies figured that out 50 years ago. It's too much work, also
It probably reflects just more of a transition of one sector of capitalism to another.
But in the long run, I'm thinking owning less stuff per capita can only be good for the planet. Though less so for the people trying to sell that stuff.
You can attempt to redefine things (presumably to suit your own preconceived notions) as much as you like, but it doesn't mean sh*t.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The extremely interesting thing is when people reply to my comment, and their replies ALSO show that they did not fully comprehend my reply, when they include information that I already included...
This helps me realize that not everyone should have a voice that is listened to. Many people do not actually read, or if they do, understand. Their voices are used for sound a fury, signifying nothing.
The problem is I don't want any central authority deciding whom has a voice, and whom does not.
Welcome to the United States.
Are you fat?
Free marketeers love the term "crony capitalism" because whenever the worst excesses of their bankrupt amoral philosophy rears it's ugly head they have a scapegoat to point at.
They loudly claim that all the evil results of encouraging control of an economy (and thus, inevitably a society) to flow to people with the most stuff is a result of some unanticipated, impossible-to-account for factor rather than the obvious result of applying a theoretical model to a world it does not match. Capitalism works perfectly, if only the world and human beings could just changed to accommodate it.
until the powers that be de-platform your books or games. Not unlike the wave of things that got banned for showing a confederate flag or more recently Alex Jones. If you think that it can't happen to you or that you will always be on the right side of history you're at least taking a chance. Or you're a complete sheeple who goes whichever way the wind blows and has no principles in which case you're more likely correct. Just remember though that hysterias can go both right and left and both sides do terrible things.
> We used to buy DVDs or video cassettes; now
> viewers stream movies or TV shows with Netflix.
> Music lovers used to buy compact discs; now Spotify
> and YouTube are more commonly used to hear our
> favorite tunes.
The erosion of property rights, and the elimination of the notion of personal ownership of media you've bought, isn't dying from lack of interest. It's been under assault for decades by powerful corporate thugs like Hillary Rosen, Lars Ulrich, and Jack Valenti. That lot has already bought laws, such as the DMCA, to the effect that, even if you've bought and brought home the physical property itself; it's not *really* yours to do with as you please without the RIAA/Metallica/MPAA being able to veto you.
What's going in here is simply the current generation adapting to the times. If you don't truly own what you buy, why pay full purchase price at all, when you can get the vast majority of the benefits for $10/month to Apple or Spotify? I honestly can't remember the last time I actually bought a CD. And I had a collection in the high hundreds by the end of the '90s.
Imagine all the people...
This isn't a study, and the author has offered up zero evidence other than "spotify and Netflix exists, and people stream things". It's just the authors personal opinion based on his own lifestyle choices.
So I offer a challenge. How do he know people own less stuff? Yes, people stream things now. Does the fall in DVD ownership hollow out the fact that "stuff" is just cheaper now? How many old game systems to people have? How many computing devices do people own? How about clothes and "fast fashion"? Believe it or not, there was a time when NOBODY owned a DVD, or a VHS tape, or a CD, or a tape! Boy, it must have been rough, since obviously nobody owned anything back in the 1960s/1970s.
I hear back before you could own movies.. you had to rely on a service that provided them. They charged you a few dollars to rent a seat at a theater for the length of a movie. Refreshments were available like soda, popcorn and candy. And if you wanted to pause the thing and go to the bathroom, you couldn't! These "theater owners" controlled what movies were playing. And if you didn't like it, tough luck! How terrible! Things weren't in your control!
Also, you couldn't own TV shows. They made you show up at a certain time and you had to actually watch the show THEN! You couldn't record it, or skip over the commercials! Sure.. you owned the TV, but what if the TV Networks (the REAL owners of your TV) didn't provide you anything you wanted to watch? Well then your big expensive TV became worthless!
You didn't own a copy of a movie, CD or book.
You owned a piece of plastic or a bundle of paper, and were granted a limited license to the content.
In a lot of places it's still technically illegal to media-shift your CD so you can listen to it with your MP3 player.
"big media" got the best of both worlds. They charge you for a licence to listen to a song. They charge you again when you buy a new CD because your old one got scratched - you don't get a rebate because you already own a licence. They charge you again when you want to buy it in another media format - it still costs the same as the CD, despite no physical media. They charge you again when you want to stream it from someone else - they're not even paying for the bandwidth.
Americans own less information, be it books, music or software. Heck, Americans have given up rights to their own information, tacitly trading it for services, like use of email and social media. Or to companies like Equifax, which our politicians allowed to happen.
But physical objects? Kitchen knives, cars, houses, desks - that non-information stuff I think is harder to force a lease on. But if companies can figure out a way to force consumers to lease physical objects, that will happen too.
bullets on the other hand...
Naked I came into this world. I surely can't take anything with me.
In the physical world, you can wrap you hand around something to "contain" it. But the concept of "own" doesn't have any concrete meaning.
So, this shift is no big deal. It is just a shift in the legal landscape. We are eliminating one illusion and substituting another. Big deal.
Everything is temporary anyway.
"... and that is capitalismâ(TM)s fault," Capitalism is just being able to privately control the means of production, nothing more or less. So how can it be to blame for anything other than being able to privately control the means of production (not even who controls it etc). You must be meaning the market, but that is just the aggregation of each person's individual choices, it makes no decisions at all. So given your comment makes no sense (see above) what is it that you mean? "not an attack on capitalism. Capitalism wants most people owning nothing" As per the above Capitalism wants nothing, so your statement is stupid. "and being beholden to the property-owning elites." How? Your argument makes no sense no matter what your subject is, unless it is government...
As the other commenter said, your definitions have nothing to do with any standard use of these terms and everything to do with your personal screed.
What they're calling "crony capitalism" is not just capitalism; indeed it may be said not to be capitalist at all. The entire point of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which launched capitalism as an economic policy, was to oppose mercantilism - the system where the government granted special rights and benefits to particular companies to attempt to increase the government's power - by pointing out that such favors were not only unethical but also tended to impoverish the nation. From every problem with IP law (Eldred v Ashcroft, the patent mess, etc) to the closed-door 'tax incentive' discussions between cities and large corporations, there are a thousand ways in which people who sit on corporate boards or Chambers of Commerce or legislative bodies purport to support capitalism but actually work against a legally level playing field.
Rent is not a market distortion. Your ideal of socialism and your notions of class are a century out of date as well as far removed from reality.
The closest thing to what you're calling "market socialism" is called distributivism. Many bright people have thought about the problems of centralization but no one has found a practicable or just way to put real correctives into practice.
"If you look at the fine print, it turns out that you do not own the books on your Kindle. Amazon.com Inc. does. I do not consider this much of a practical problem. Although Amazon could obliterate the books on my Kindle, ..."
Good thing my Kindle is constant Airplane mode and I haven't set it up to connect to any wifi hotspots. Also, all my stuff was bought/obtained separate from Amazon and side-loaded, so if Amazon were to obliterate the books on my Kindle they'd be legally in pretty deep shit*.
Having said that, yea, at least a few companies put various disclaimers in their contracts/ToS that argue that even though you "buy" something you don't really "own" something. All I can say is that if I "buy" something, I "possess" it and I don't give a fuck what some contract tries to disclaim.
If it's something that has some language and is connected to the internet where said company can enforce things unilaterally with no recourse, I don't do business with them either directly or at all. For example, my entire Steam library was bought outside of Steam. If they tried to claim ToS apply and rescind access, see above of in legally pretty deep shit*.
So far, at least, no company has been brazen enough to go that far.
* I'm under no delusion that I alone could fight such behemoths, but it's pretty guaranteed that if it happens to me it's going to happen to hundreds or thousands of people, minimal. That speaks class action lawsuit, and I don't care to get a dime from it so long as any company that tries to pull such shit suffers horrible--hopefully bankruptcy.
Americans own plenty of crap. Too much, in fact. Here in Raleigh, there are storage units for rent on every corner and more going up all the time. Americans have so much shit they have to pay people to store it.
"This has only ever described one type of person : the worst kind." Socialists! The lowest form of scum on the face of the Earth. "The hoarders. The greed. The ones that want to live in 20 mansions." What they have isn't what is important, how they got it is. If they did not use force then nobody has any right to intervene and if they did then it should be prevented. "The pricks that live at the top that rape the planet of its resources." Except they don't, they use the resources wisely and for the benefit of others, that is why they have so much themselves. If they didn't benefit others more than it dealing with them does then wouldn't have any money at all. "Fuck the "American Dream". It's the thing wrong with the world. It's the thing currently ruining it." How? Your says so is not good enough. "Uncontrolled Capitalism is NOT a good thing." Why not? What evidence do you have for this? "Not on a limited planet-only species." Actually it and the free market are the best system for dealing with scarcity. "Not even close." Why? Again your say so is not enough. "It's the worst thing for it." How so? "It's almost guaranteed to lead to war" Every single war ever fought was because of government overstepping it's rightful bounds. The last world war was started by Socialists. "and potentially even wiping the species out, even when they are fully capable of understanding that fact. (see the current political climate)" With the left being violenebt thufs wanting to take away basic human rights like free speech, self defense etc etc. "The only stable society is part capital and part socialist." That is t even possible, by definition the two systems are mutually exclusive. Capitalism is when the means of production may be privately controlled and Socialism is when they may not. Learn what the terms mean. "This is why the few countries that run on such a model FROM THE START," The only countries to do so collapsed in poverty years ago. "like most of the Nordic countries," Just a few problems there 1. Reality shows these are some of the most free market countries on the planet, with nost Being closer to the free market than the U.S. 2. The Nordic countries we're even more free market in the past and created a vast amount of wealth which they then used to make the welfare systems they have now. 3. The result of these welfare systems is that their economies have slowed and people are becoming worse off. 4. The Nordic countries are all rolling back their welfare systems. 5. Trump's tax plan has brought U.S. business taxes more in line with the Nordic countries business taxes. " are the most stable and happiest," Based upon what? A self selection survey for happiness? Hahahahahaha. Anythi...hahahahahahahahahahahaha Sorry that is too funny, it's a survey not evidence. "generally the best financials and so on." Like what? Please be specific about what these 'financials' are. "Get fucked, capitalism nerds." Say it to my face soyboy. "Money was only ever created to make barter easier." And that is all it does. "It was never supposed to run the world." It doesn't. "The majority of the planet still live by this model today. Barter, or barter with pseudo currencies or "local" currencies which aren't traded globally. And this isn't poor little third world disasters, I mean the majority of the planet. The poor places are resource poor, the traders and local currency users aren't." And? Do you have a point with any of this? "Hilariously enough, the quality of life for the capital-driven world is quite low compared to the ones that don't live by global, fiat currencies." Nope that simply isn't true there, please post the evidence you think shows that. "In actual fact, it's usually the countries with the highest GDP / PPP that have the worst qualities for life over every index of life other than "opportunity" and access to goods." Like what? More surveys? "Oh wait, gotta rack of a lifetime of debt to access half of it. lmao" Except you don't. "The financial world is a fucking mess." How so? "Take y
Welcome to the United States.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
In my life, I'd rather spend money to hike for 2 weeks in Patagonia than own 500 DVDs. Just sayin'.
Or Thailand or Nepal or Alaska or South Africa or Turkey or Italy or Costa Rica or Canada or in the Smoky Mtns or ... at the beach.
Stuff doesn't matter.
Spending time with family and friends having amazing experiences together does.
IMHO.
No, that's socialism's wrong projection of capitalism. Nice try though.
"Crony capitalism" is a misnomer." How is Government giving favourable conditions to some companies over others a misnomer? Really, I would like to know how you can think that. "Nobody has to give favorable treatment to their cronies for property-owners to exploit non-property-owners." Yeah they do, they need to make it so one of them can use force on the other. "That's just capitalism." No it isn't. "That's what capitalism is: a market distorted in favor of those who own capital." No it is literally just being able to privately control the means of production but nice try... "What you call "crony capitalism" is just capitalism." Nope, already explained why you are wrong above. "What you call "capitalism" is just a free market." Well in that case you are even more wrong because in the free market what you own doesn't mean you can force anyone to do anything. "A free market where capital is widely distributed in a decentralized way, not held by one class of people to the exploitation of another, is market socialism." No it isn't, by the very definition of the term Socialist that is untrue. To be Socialist there needs to be no privately controlled means of production. ""Socialism" doesn't mean everything is controlled by the state," Yeah it does. "it means capital is owned by the people." That would be a direct Democratic version of Socialism. There are many kinds, like those practiced by Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, etc " Widespread individual ownership by many people still counts; it doesn't have to (and shouldn't) be collective ownership through the state." That's all Socialism is, no privately controlled means of production... So either you are ignorant or lying which is it?
take this to its inevitable conclusion and you'll see that someday most people will work for nothing ... it's called slavery, and it's never really gone away
If property ownership is important corporations/business then it should be doubly important to the average Joe. As soon as they can, corporations will figure out who to take all your income with subscriptions models, leaving you with NOTHING when you stop paying, house, car, appliances, clothes etc. A fiefdom it will be, but your king will be corporations.
I have a friend who had a massive DVD collection and a really nice home theater setup. When he bought a DVD that he would plan on watching again in a short time span, he would rip it losslessly to another DVD (this was before massive, cheap hard drives.) He would set up the new DVD to only have the movie with the best soundtrack, and *nothing* else. You pop the DVD in and the movie starts immediately. No trailers, no menus, no ads, no warnings.
The sad thing is he had to technically break the law to get something he owned into a format he wanted it in. He wasn't stealing anything or infringing on anyone's IP, he just wanted to watch what he payed for without wasting time.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Henry Ford understand that paying the lowest wages just meant that nobody could afford their products. On the opposite end of the scale, retail shops started paying the absolutely bottom dollar... and what happened? Nobody could afford to buy their stuff, and discount stores now rule the roost when it comes to shopping. Had retailers, et. al. paid what the market should bear (especially what employees get in other countries), they would still be in business, and malls not a thing of the past.
A lot of retail businesses made their bed; they can lie in it.
Adam Smith wrote nothing about capitalism he wrote about free markets. Try actually reading him.
The term “capitalism” was coined by a socialist. Its conflation with “free market” (and “socialism”’s conflation with “command economy”) is the propagandist redefinition.
The particular words you use don’t matter so long as you use enough of them to distinguish four different things:
-a market where ownership is widely distributed among many people
-the opposite of that, a market where it is concentrated in a few hands who can use that to exploit others
- the orthogonal matter of a market where trades are dictated by a central authority
- and the opposite of that, a market where trades are made freely between equals
If you only use one word (“socialism”) for 1 and 3, and another word (“capitalism”) for 2 and 4, or worse still only talk about 3 and 4 using those words while others are talking about 1 and 2 using the same words, then it’s impossible to even have a meaningful discussion about any of this.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Yawn. Someone with an agenda at Bloomberg "News" wants us to be scared of something, specifically, the allegedly increasing tendency of people to share shit. Gee, I wonder why people whose bread & butter is encouraging people to work their asses off for next to nothing, and then to squander as much of a portion as possible of that next-to-nothing they somehow have to scrape by on, buying shit that the people who own Bloomberg "News" profit from the most whenever they're bought. Could there be a relationship there? Oh, and this isn't a new thing. Lending or sharing of books, etc., predates libraries, and libraries predate this country's existence. Any upward tick in this should be viewed of as a bad thing only inasmuch as people who would rather own their own copy CAN'T because they can't AFFORD to after paying through the nose for everything they NEED, and losing an arm and a leg as the cost of anything they want afterwards.
The real thing Bloomberg's readers should be afraid of is when people start buying Amazon Kindle books and Barnes & Noble Nook books, etc., on how to improvise pitchforks and torches, and how to construct GUILLOTINES.
There is an upper bound on the amount of economic inequality people are capable, on the whole, of tolerating before saying "fuck it" and then the lights go out, and you'll wish SOMEONE had stepped the fuck up and FDR'ed America again. Or I guess rolled the fuck up in a wheelchair and FDR'ed this motherfucker again. When the system is so rigged that you can't get by no matter how hard you work, you really don't have anything to lose. One more good housing crisis, credit bubble popping, flash crash, or episode of runaway inflation and you're going to start to see rich people running for the airports, only to learn that the people already know where they are, and it's hard to take off when there's overturned cars burning all over the runways, and people have shot their getaway planes full of holes.
"Don't worry. They can't do shit to me, I'm a fucking queen!" ~ Marie Antoinette, being famously, hilariously, and extremely goddamned wrong.
enable rant mode RANT MODE ENABLED AT FULL POWER (DEFAULT)
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, your politicians continue to have been bought and paid for, and plot to give even more money to people so rich they have no real idea how much fucking money they already have, and to take away your ability to vote, organize at work, or get healthcare after their jackbooted government thug cops shoot you, break your arms, crack your skull, sear your lungs and eyes with tear gas, etc., and then the corporate-owned-and-controlled-puppet-media manages to find something else to talk about because they're owned by the same fucking people the cops are actually serving when they're locking you up for having the temerity to exercise your first amendment and other rights, just like they did at Standing Rock. Film at 11... just not on any broadcast TV channel you can pick up because... did I mention they're all owned by the same cabal of too-rich slimy assholes?
disable rant mode RANT MODE TERMINATED
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
The reason Americans are so deep in debt is that that's government policy: the Fed and the Keynesians in government are keeping interests rates artificially low and the government has made it a key priority to extend credit to everybody in the country, for anything from student loans to homes to cars. And when people default on those bad loans, the government bails them out.
Free market capitalism doesn't do that because it makes no sense for greedy capitalists to sell stuff to people who can't pay.
So you're half right: the "property-owning elites" want to create a nation of debt slaves, but the "property-owning elites" only have that power because anti-capitalists give them that power. I suspect you are among the people creating this system.
Try actually reading yourself. The word "capitalism" predates the concept of socialism. So, no, it wasn't coined by a socialist.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
In a free market, the market is certainly "distorted in favor of those who own capital": that is the whole purpose of a free market. That's because the only way you can get capital in a free market is by producing stuff other people actually want. So, in a free market, the more useful you are to your fellow human beings, the more capital you accumulate.
"Crony capitalism" isn't capitalism at all, it is technically known as "rent seeking". Under crony capitalism (and its variants, progressivism, fascism, and socialism), you get more capital and/or more power by colluding with the government, regardless of how useful you are to your fellow human beings.
You and many people before you: We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! And with my inclination to practical action it seems obvious to me that we have to put a better, more just, more moral system in its place!
"Free marketeers love the term "crony capitalism" No we don't, we prefer it didn't exist. " because whenever the worst excesses of their bankrupt amoral philosophy rears it's ugly head they have a scapegoat to point at." Hat has never ever happened. You are simply lying because you don't have the facts on your side. If you think otherwise please give me an example so I can prove you wrong. "They loudly claim that all the evil results of encouraging control of an economy" And provide proof that it is the result of such, stange that you miss that out. " (and thus, inevitably a society)" No such thing as society. " to flow to people with the most stuff is a result of some unanticipated, impossible-to-account for factor" The regulations that make it so are the factors we are talking about. We are very specific about what causes the problem. "rather than the obvious result of applying a theoretical model to a world it does not match." We aren't Socialists. "Capitalism works perfectly, if only the world and human beings could just changed to accommodate it" It works perfectly with people as they are.
90% of the stuff I own sits in boxes in a garage, taking up space, not doing anyone any good. I think a lot of us can claim this same situation, considering how often you see garages stuffed full and .. storage unit rental outfits are EVERYWHERE in this country.
I think this shift toward non-ownership is ultimately a good thing. Consumerism isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway.
Besides, as a kid, I remember it was way cooler to borrow things from friends, when you were bored of it you gave it back. And you were never likely to want anything further to do with it anyway. Seems like a legit way to function as an adult, except the lender is some company, lending us text, movies, games, apps, rides in a car, whatever you can think of. You pay for what you use, then you're done, not married to it for rest of your life, having to care for it, and store it, and move it if you move.
"Crony capitalism" is a misnomer." How is Government giving favourable conditions to some conpines over others a misnomer? Really, I would like to know how you can think that. "Nobody has to give favorable treatment to their cronies for property-owners to exploit non-property-owners." Yeah they do, they need to make it so one of them can use force on the other. "That's just capitalism." No it isn't. "That's what capitalism is: a market distorted in favor of those who own capital." No it is literally just being able to privately control the means of production but nice try... "What you call "crony capitalism" is just capitalism." Nope, already explained why you are wrong above. "What you call "capitalism" is just a free market." Well in that case you are even more wrong because in the free market what you own doesn't mean you can force anyone to do anything. "A free market where capital is widely distributed in a decentralized way, not held by one class of people to the exploitation of another, is market socialism." No it isn't, by the very definition of the term Socialist that is untrue. To be Socialist there needs to be no privately controlled means of production. ""Socialism" doesn't mean everything is controlled by the state," Yeah it does. "it means capital is owned by the people." That would be a direct Democratic version of Socialism. There are many kinds, like those practiced by Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, etc " Widespread individual ownership by many people still counts; it doesn't have to (and shouldn't) be collective ownership through the state." That's all Socialism is, no privately controlled means of production... So either you are ignorant or lying which is it?
“Capitalist” as in one who owns capital does. “Capitalism” as in a system favoring capitalists does not.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I am not about to break the law to fight your battle for you. The consequences of breaking the law are yours to choose, if you want them, but I don't.
I use legal free alternatives when they are available and sufficiently convenient. And I go without content if I find the price or access controls to be too onerous. And I vote. Working within the system, and all that.
Deal with it.
Then explain the explosion of self storage sites crammed full of junk. It may be in certain areas, Digital media (music, literature, computer programs) that the above is true, but in general I think Americans own and possess a huge accumulation of stuff that is only growing larger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Reading books is much more important than owning them. EBooks eliminates waste.
Owning DVDs doesn't strike me as an important thing in life.
Still, despite these two things, I own a crapload of stuff.
Did you know that there has been a trend to reduce or even eliminate the savings that you, as a consumer, could realize by buying the electronic book as opposed to the physical one, despite how much more waste making and selling physical books creates?
When I asked a customer service rep at a company that shall remain namelesz, why in some cases the phsycial book is CHEAPER, NEW than the ebook when this retailer sells both, the response I got was that people are still buying physical books. (Inasmuch as that's not really an explanation why something that by rights SHOULD be cheaper ISN'T,) I replied with something like, "but... don't you have to pay the same royalties on both, based on intellectual property, but NOT have to pay to print the book itself, nor pay for the physical storage space of each in warehouses, on trucks, and ultimately on bookshelves in actual, brick-and-mortar stores whenever you start opening those for books, for the electronic books you DO sell? Why not make it easer to buy THOSE?"
The response I got basically was that they make more money pricing them this way, so this is the way they price them. (Sigh.)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
What's the problem with not owning stuff that has no physical form?
I own 300+ CD's and 200+ DVD's, and they are sitting in a box in the garage because I literally have no use for them -- I ripped them all to digital files, but I rarely even access the files since most of the time when I want to listen or watch something, I just get it from some streaming service. The movies I own on DVD are so old that they are generally available for free on some streaming service (Netflix or Amazon), and I don't think I own any CD's for bands that aren't already on streaming services.
I used to have hundreds of books too, but got tired of hauling them around when I move and got rid of nearly all of them, there are a few books I used to own on paper, and when I wanted to reread them, I bought a Kindle copy since it's so much more convenient. I've switched to Kindle Unlimited so I don't even have the tenuous "ownership" of purchased Kindle books and I'm fine with that, I don't need to accumulate them. The only reason I've held onto my physical DVD's/CD's is so I can prove that I own them since I've ripped them all (which itself is of dubious legality)
For physical products like a couch and TV, I do own that since that's an entirely different situation -- I can't pay a furniture store for a virtual couch that I can sit on.
Physical books are cheaper. I use software to track them though, so I know I have about 850 of them. Also, you don't own much more than the kindling part of the book when you buy it. Copyright still applies. DVD's I don't buy, but that's all that Netflix will send the movie to me on. There are zero movies left in the entire Netflix inventory that are useful and unwatched. I have to DVD everything. Even music, I buy the cheap CD from Amazon and they give me digital versions too. There is no replacement of physical things, just extra digital ones.
Only now we have money to give our local nobility every year in April, instead of crops.
From the article:
"I am still nervous that we are finding ownership to be so inconvenient."
and
"Perhaps we are becoming more communal and caring in positive ways, but it also seems to be more conformist and to generate fewer empire builders and entrepreneurs."
The author sounds as if this is a shift that society is making due to it's own tendency. BS. What choice do we have? Big companies like Amazon and Netflix derive more revenue from retaining ownership and control, since it prevents resale. It's also like a rental. Society is not losing its capitalist edge due to Millenial communalism or some silly notion. It's being done to us by the real capitalists - those who own the companies that produce things, those who make the money. I'm not hating on capitalism here, just on fuzzy thinking of the article.
Thereâ(TM)s no longer any denying that the US is not a first world nation. And thereâ(TM)s good reason why the GOP wants to privatize prisons â" thatâ(TM)s where the MAGA-hat wearers will get all their new fangled factory jobs and other guaranteed employment doing menial labor, working as prison slaves as the 13th amendment allows
Here's the downside of ownership. It really is because it has effects down the line. Try moving from place to place. It's like a marriage except you're married to your possessions. If all my games where physical boxes, I'd need a new place. If all my E-books were physical, my shelves would groan. Movies and music would be heavy boxes to lug up long steps. I'd have to pay more for a place just to keep the stuff. I'd have to pay more to move and store all those possessions. Technology has allowed a freedom my parents didn't have.
But if companies can figure out a way to force consumers to lease physical objects, that will happen too.
Live in the Matrix.
Normally, anything that reduces the average citizen's complicity in their own oppression by the powers that be(*) is a good thing....but replacing ownership of personal property with rental and/or licensing does not achieve that. it's worse. It removes even the choice to "opt-out" if/when you decide your life would be much better without wage-slavery (not uncommon if you manage to pay off your house mortgage or otherwise own it outright).
(*) i.e. the actual capitalists (not the working and middle-classes who have been deluded into thinking that THEY are capitalists), the 0.001%, those who actually own & control everything of significant value - including the "means of production".
I don't have mod points to upvote you, so instead I'll just write that your post was really clear and informative. Thanks. I like it when someone brings clear definitions to a debate. Or even better, like you did, when they bring clear explanations of the underlying concepts.
for virtual goods
so I consider that a good thing.
we've known the solutions since the American Great depression: Keep risky investment banks from mixing with safe stuff like home & car loans (e.g. "Main Street vs Wall Street"), make sure banks aren't under capitalized and require them to prove it, run demand side economics and subsidize during cyclic economic down turns, Don't fight wars except for defense because they guzzle money. There's a bit more too it, but it's nothing we haven't already figured out or that you wouldn't learn in a 4 year college economics degree.
Rent for essentials _is_ a problem. Not sure if you want to call it market distortion or not, but you won't find a lot of legitimate economists who don't think rent-seeking isn't a problem that needs solving. It's also a problem that's been solved: Government subsidized housing as needed and occasional rent controls. Develop new land as population grows, and educate your population because a well educated population doesn't grow uncontrollably (indeed, it often falls below replacement birth rates as Japan and even large parts of Europe are finding out).
We have solutions to these problems and none of them are Adam Smith's invisible hand. The only trouble is folks stopped believing in those solutions (even though they were working quite well) and the result was the 2008 crash (caused by deregulation started by Clinton & Continued by Bush Jr).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Good thing I pirate everything to circumvent their immorality.
You can't take a dictionary from the library, or an encyclopedia, or even an almanac. It's relatively useless to try to check out cookbooks, unless it's only on a few special occasions when you cook.
Lots of technology requires reference literature, and while some of it is available in digital form, ALL of it is available in dead trees. Very little of that is loaned by even a very good public library. Even a good university's research libraries will not have some critically important books. Thus, a prof consults colleagues, who have heavily laden shelves in their offices, or he/she needs to load down his own shelves.
Non-ownership of books is borderline functional illiteracy. Survivable, yes; desirable, no.
After ,30 years of buying whatever I want from sales and bargain bins I own enough stuff to go through during my lifetime. I've started to dig into it and realize I just don't need to buy anything else. I have enough to watch, read, listen to, and play. Anything else that comes my way better be cheap enough to get my attention.
That is all.
Lots of technology requires reference literature, and while some of it is available in digital form, ALL of it is available in dead trees.
This is backwards. Plenty of technical reference literature is only available online.
To each his own
How is the desire to own less shit a problem in the grand scheme of things? Unbelievable
But muh capitalism and libertarianism.
Yes, it worked for a century. Now it is over as growth cannot be sustained. We told you. You told us it was a facet of 'nature'. Well, you never answered my question: are ants capitalist, or socialist?
When economists talk about rent-seeking, they're talking about economic rent which is not the same as contract rent. You have confused the two.
Note that in surveys of economists consistently over 90% agree that rent controls reduce the quality and quantity of available housing.
Similarly, much of the rest of what you say flatly contradicts what "we've already figured out and what you'd learn in a 4 year college economics degree."
You titled your post "Problems your (sic) describing have mostly been solved" but you're not addressing any of the problems I described at all. I didn't talk about Lehman Brothers or fret about overpopulation, and I don't know why you think ranting about such topics constitutes a reply to me. If you want to tell me instead that you've solved e.g. the problems of regulatory capture, please enlighten us as to your miraculous solution.
I lease the land I run my business on and I lease and hire the expensive equipment and machinery my business uses. I live in a rented house and I also employ a handful of people.
Do I not have a stake in the system because of this?
I started out leasing and renting things so that I didn't need to put hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital into starting up. My original intent was that as I started making money, I'd sink it into purchasing those things the business uses, but with the help of my bean counter I realised that it's far better to put that capital to work elsewhere where it can earn more capital or make life easier.
Filling your home with mass-produced consumer goods isn't what I'd call a good thing. Those goods aren't going up in value and are occupying space. Sure, collect them if that's your thing, but if the argument is about conditioning people not to own things I'd say by far the larger problem is electronic payments and credit cards breaking the connection between spending money and it being a physical thing you can count and feel in your hand.
From Wikipedia: Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit
This definition dates from the 18th century.
Point in case: I get my computers refurbished. I'm a computer expert (duh). I get more out of a piece of junk computer than a regular guy out of a brand new 27" iMac pro. No surprise here. Hence, if I need to get a cheap high value car I'll ask somebody who's deep into cars. He'd probably be able to recommend something that costs a tenth of the regular price and lasts ages. My refurbished ThinkPad X220 costs 200$ + some cheap RAM and an SSD and does more than any regular computer user could ever ask for. I'd expect the same results from a car expert. Those Volvo station wagons from 2000 and before come to mind. They start warming up at 250 000 milage.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I think you could argue that the appearance of so called "crony" capitalism (with it's critics and apologists) is really just consequence of capitalism tendency to concentrate capital.
You don't sound like an American, Ivan.
No! The words you use matter immensely - that is, if you have any intention of productive communication. Yes, Adam Smith didn't use the word 'capitalism' or the term 'lassiez-faire' etc but rather the term 'system of natural liberty.' But for a century and a half this is what has been understood by 'capitalism' and no other name for such a system has been anywhere near so widely recognized. Socialism has always meant social ownership rather than private ownership. Coming up with your own redefinitions and playing Humpty Dumpty is just poor communication.
To talk about proposals for trying to decentralize economic power and distribute ownership, again, the term that will communicate that to people is 'distributivism' and not 'socialism.' Claiming that centralization and markets are simply orthogonal is to ignore the obvious issues: there is no way to allow free exchange and simultaneously prevent uneven accumulation of wealth.
BTW Bernard Shaw, who was with the (socialist) Fabian society, had debates with Chesterton about socialism and distributivism. In the 1920s he explained the standard meaning of 'capitalism' and 'socialism' for the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Shaw
Actually I would say their is far more technology reference material available in digital form that is completely unavailable in tree form. By coincidence I happen to be looking at a guide to updating the firmware to a particular piece of tech I admin, it is only available in pdf form via a secure download site, no tree copies available. The same is true for a great deal of technical reference material.
Contract rent is a type of economic rent.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
More people will be working out of their own home and will not need a car for a daily commute to work. Already, Walmart and other grocery stores will deliver your groceries. Very soon, the cost of owning a personal automobile--car payments, insurance, taxes, maintenance, repairs, etc--will be much higher than using Uber or Lyft for local travel and car rental for out of town travel. And the Uber, Lyft and rental cars will be self-driving (like the old days when the horse knew the way home.)
The nation was based on the notion that property ownership gives individuals a stake in the system. It set Americans apart from feudal peasants
Nothing set that apart from the feudal system. If you consider property ownership as the base of political participation, you basically have the feudal system back with the guys at the end of the food chain being the poor peasants and the guys with money who run the country.
bickerdyke
Adam Smith wrote about free markets, not about capitalism. The term capitalism as originally coined did not refer to the same thing as a free market. It is a redefinition of terms to equate the two.
Market socialism predates Shaw. It predates even Marx. Marx is the one who first claimed that free markets entail capitalism and that socialism therefore required a command economy, but many of his socialist contemporaries disagreed with him, only to be largely forgotten by history now. So clearly "market socialism" is not a contradiction in terms in their original sense, and "socialism" therefore cannot simply mean the opposite of "free market".
"It doesn't matter what words you use" as in I'm not trying to defend the purity of language for its own sake here, but to be able to distinguish between concepts, however you want to label them. If by "capitalism" you mean only the opposite of a command economy, a free market, then you now have no word to describe the opposite of widely distributed ownership, unless you'd like to coin one, but then nobody's going to understand what you mean until you explain you new word.
Likewise if by "socialism" you mean only the opposite of a free market, a command economy, then you now have no word to describe widely distributed ownership. You're using the word "distributivism" here, but that means specfically a market-based kind of distributed ownership, and not just the concept of distributed ownership agnostic to the market or command nature of the economy. So, again, do you want to have to coin a new word?
The earliest free market thinkers like Adam Smith did not favor concentrations of wealth and did not call themselves capitalists. The earliest socialists did not favor command economies, but they opposed concentrated ownership of capital and systems that favored it, which they called "capitalism". Back then we had these four clear terms -- free market, command economy, capitalism, socialism -- and could discuss things coherently.
Then Marx and his followers and their opponents over the past century or so heavily conflated free markets with capitalism and socialism with command economies to the point that now people cannot even think about the two different issues at play there. I am simply informing people of the older, undistorted meanings of the words, and opening up the possibility of discussing things more clearly with them.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so: that is just what we intend.”
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
This becomes most clear when we try to discuss anarchism. Not to argue for or against it, but just to talk about what it is and how it relates to other ideas.
Most anarchists would say that anarchism is inherently socialist, and that capitalism is wholly incompatible with anarchism. What they mean by that is that in an anarchic society, ownership would necessarily be widespread, because if it was concentrated in just a few hands then those few owners would effectively rule everyone else so it couldn't be anarchy.
Anarcho-capitalists on the other hand would say that anarcho-socialism is a contradiction in terms because by "socialism" they mean "command economy" which you can't have without a state obviously. Instead they would insist that anarchy must inherently be "capitalist", by which they means "free market", because with no state there's obviously nobody to control the market.
Thing is, the anarcho-socialists were there first. (Before the anarcho-capitalists, and before Marxist style socialists too). And in their use of the words, they can and do say that market capitalism is possible, state socialism is possible, and state capitalism is possible, and they are against all of them, especially the last one. Anarcho-capitalists on the other hand, like the state socialists they oppose and everyone on the line in between them, cannot even comprehend what "anarcho-socialism" or "state capitalism" would mean, because their use of language has become so degraded that they don't even have adequate words for ideas.
It's the same reason that the modern "right" think fascism is "left". Fascism is state capitalism, but they think statism = socialism and so cannot even see that they are as close to fascism as the state socialists they oppose, and the true opposite of it is anarcho-socialism, libertarian socialism, market socialism, which is an idea they're not even capable of thinking thanks to this Orwellian newspeak that can't distinguish between things anymore.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Owning less stuff is a good thing. Our minds are poisoned by attachment to stuff. Our attachment to stuff is poisoning our planet. What planet is this dude on?
Professional Idiot
Dude, learn to work the quote and break tags with your ass. That shit is not fucking comprehensible.
.though I think the examples cites (Kindle books vs. real books) is a bit shaky.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The world is slowly, slowly changing.
More licensed stuff, less owned stuff
More superficiality, less substance.
More and more gadgets, software, "food"stuffs, entertainment designed to deliver dopamine hits, to keep the populace occupied, providing labor (until they are no longer needed and are AI'ed away), pay taxes, and buy stuff at retail prices (that are designed to deliver dopamine hits.... profit!)
Oh the justice and inequality thing. True. But I see a simple starting point. Humans are innately cooperative and competitive. Love and War.
Any proposed solution is inherently these two things together. Like, the current system is bad so let’s compete against it with a new system. It’s the cycle of violence. Often in pursuit of love and justice.
Logic often can’t handle this “two things together” pattern. Debating gets polarised.
Plus there may be reasons why capitalism works which are nothing to do with the theoretical explanations for why it works. It’s not a clean-room science.
For myself I assume it is about individuals and creativity, in that, you can be as capitalist as you like but without a creative population you just have a pile of nuts and bolts coming off factory lines.
And the great sins of capitalism, like crashes, and super-rich, are just accidents in complex systems, in that you cannot foresee who or what is going to go off the charts and thus regulate in advance to stop them.
When the world only needs five computers, why would you regulate an industry to prevent billions getting hoovered up by key players, for example?
Life is risky. And managing risk is risky. And things are always “obvious” in hindsight especially when you can’t verify your insight because now the event is already history. But people can get qualifications and respect for their unverified theories.
Anyway, I think everyone agrees that, on the love side of our natures, we don’t want desperately poor people. And meanwhile, creative power is often competitive and has winners and losers. Plus even if society is very encouraging of creativity, things just go wrong for many individuals, like addiction or bad parenting or malnourishment (cheap sugary foods don’t count) and emotional and psychological stresses, and so on.
On the whole I am very lucky to have been born in a Western country which is already very developed. How or why the West developed is debatable, but ideologies don’t seem to be a way forward here. They might be useful in third world countries though, kinda like how traditional religions may be useful in giving people dreams of an ideal or pure life.
Wouldn't this be Corporitilism?
If kindle owns the books on your device, what if someone decides one of the books contains "hate speech", or false "facts"? Can kindle delete it or ban it? As we are so often told, "It's a private company, and they can do what they want".
if you really want to own physical copies, you can still do so. since less and less people choose to actually own them, i guess that was the preferred option all along, except that it wasn't available to do so.
i stream a lot, but i also have a lot of physical copies. If i like it well enough, i will buy it! otherwise, it was nice for one viewing/reading/listen, but not anything more. Not that much different to how a library works (except that it requires a bit more effort).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
The notion of "ownership" makes perfect sense for things like houses and cars
And yet today's up and coming generations do not choose to own these things either. They seem to prefer to rent housing and transportation, just like their entertainment, software, phones...
Some may argue that the situation is created by stagnant wages and high cost of living. But, even if that is the primary cause, there is still a mood, a new way of thinking if you will, that it is better to rent/subscribe than to own just about anything. Just a look at the comments on this article show many people arguing passionately that ownership is pointless, wasteful, old fashioned, and even stupid.
As I type this, I wonder how things will be as these non-owners enter retirement. What happens when they are no longer earning money and have nothing but rents and royalties to pay?
Edit: Captcha seems to be getting sentient. The word for this post was Racket.
Crashes are a sin of governments and fiscal policy, which turn moderate market fluctuations into disasters.
As for the very wealthy, they come in two varieties: the robber barons, who enrich themselves through government, and the entrepreneurs, who enrich themselves through creating stuff other people want to pay money for. Government creates robber barons (that's what the term originally comes from: the railroad and stell magnates who enriched themselves through government).
That's why free market capitalism rewards creativity richly: if you are creative in a way that helps your fellow human beings, as determined by the votes of your fellow human beings, you get richer. We call those votes "dollars".
If you are "creative" in ways that don't help your fellow human beings, nobody votes for you, and you don't get rich.
The percentage of desperately poor people in the US and the OECD is nearly zero, one of the great achievements of even moderately free markets.
These are all issues within the control of individuals and individual choices. Socializing the costs of such choices makes those problems worse over time.
No, not really: it's pretty well understood.
Great you realize it. And what is the absence of ideology? Letting individuals make their own choices, respecting their private property, and respecting their right to self-determination.
You must be new here (mod up funny!)
Stock pays dividends.
Stuff depreciates.
QED
..don't panic
It's only after you lose everything that you are free to do anything.
These two truths of life are the unbreakable pillars of the arguments against capitalism and private ownership of material goods. People individually are not naturally equipped to own stuff. Stuff is a burden and an obstacle to the things that humans naturally excel at. The worries that are attached to stuff are the things that break down human resolve, deplete us of our empathy and compassion, and drive us into the pit of materialism.
How am I going to pay for this? I have to keep working this dead end job to pay my bills. I have to... I have to... I have to...
This is why we NEED communal ownership of things - things need to be for everyone, and anyone. When we're so wrapped up with our stuff, we cannot be wrapped up in our relationships with others.
This is the thing that Marx got wrong about communism. It's not about economic equality at all. It's about relationship. It's about human understanding. It is about tolerance. Our stuff is what takes us away from these things.
Communism is really the ONLY *social* system that works. There should be no *economy*, only human relationship. Money is the root of all kinds of evil, including the evil that destroys humanity.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view...
When the licensing rights run out on the thousands of digital purchases you made, you will have nothing. Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, none of them actually OWN those movies, TV shows and music albums. They license them, sometime for a year, sometimes for 5 years. When those license terms run out they have to re-license them to keep them available. As has been seen with Amazon and especially Netflix, they don't always renew those licenses. You are tossing away money on digital bits that have zero value to anyone other than the original copyright holder.
I buy physical media, for less than the cost of digital, and make my own digital backups to stream infinitely anywhere with an Internet connection. All of these physical goods count as what are known as "assets". They make me worth more than the t-shirt on my back. Your life has no value.
The public never owned most of the books, movies or music on their shelves. The copyright holders own them. If you have a physical copy of somebody else's copyrighted work and that copy makes you feel you own the work, it has confused you. If you can only access a work by streaming it or viewing it on a copy-protected web page, your means to access it more closely reflect copyright law than having a physical copy would. This makes it easier to have an honest conversation about what form copyrights should take.
https://archive.org/details/texts
The reason most don't own their own homes is due to the "real estate - industrial complex", where a critical mass of realtors / local government officials / lending (often interchangeable) work with each other to keep jacking up and creating more and more expensive houses with absolutely no low income housing in sight.
Better still, reading ebooks you actually own.
Why? I rarely read a book twice. Reference books are handy to own.
Why spend money on "owning" an e-books when you can take them out of the library?
Oh, I found the article. I was just wondering what it says about Slashdot that all the comments prior to yours were apparently by people who didn't try to read the article, just the summary.
My wife and I have a use it or lose it policy with most things in our house. We regularly toss stuff we don't need into a bin and either donate it to goodwill, scrap it, or throw it out. Digital storage of media is great for saving space. I don't have to deal with a wall full of DVD's, and my wife can check out books for free from the local library on her Kindle. It makes cleaning easier and opens up space.
You can't take a dictionary from the library, or an encyclopedia, or even an almanac. It's relatively useless to try to check out cookbooks, unless it's only on a few
special occasions when you cook.
Who really uses dictionaries and encyclopedias anymore? Finding a word/lemma in a digital reference is so much easier, plus you can follow links and do full-text search (if the index doesn't contain what you're looking for)
Cookbooks: yes, they are useful. I am a pretty hard-core amateur cook, but there's only a couple books I use a lot (mostly silver spoon (italian) and food lab). 90% of my recipes are digital, either my own collection, or (selected) online recipes, e.g. seriouseats.
Lots of technology requires reference literature, and while some of it is
available in digital form, ALL of it is available in dead trees. Very little of
that is loaned by even a very good public library. Even a good university's research libraries
will not have some critically important books. Thus, a prof consults colleagues,
who have heavily laden shelves in their offices, or he/she needs to
load down his own shelves.
I'm an (associate) professor and have been in social science research for the past 14 years. I hardly ever use physical books or journals. We don't even have personal bookshelfs anymore in my department. I've not visited my library since grad school. Everything relevant is written in journals or the occasional edited volume, all available online.
Non-ownership of books is borderline functional illiteracy. Survivable, yes; desirable, no.
I love owning books for leisure reading, in bed, on holiday, on the couch. But I have friends who use ebooks for that and they seem perfectly happy with it. ...
Books make great sound-isolation and decoration, though. A shelf full of ebook readers is just not very pretty to look at :-)
If it weren't, it wouldn't be so damned inconvenient, with constant upkeep and fees. And, in the end, you're paying for a broken down unit that ends up getting repossessed anyway.
No, that's completely false. Any portion of contract rent may be economic rent, from 100% to zero, but they are quite different things.
history will be constantly "revised" by those in control of "The Cloud" to fit their narratives and to control public perception. If you think this is unrealistic, think again.
A historian friend of mine has already noticed and pointed out that the streaming versions of many historical documentaries have been heavily edited versus their physical counterparts (DVD/VHS/etc).
And fuck the American way of life. Greedy assholes should stop breeding and clogging up roads
Look at the likes of Grant Cardone and other Real Estate investors.. those who have all the money. The successful entrepreneurs.
This is kinda like the same worry guys have over feminism and women who freak out over every little thing. Chill out bruh. It's OKAY. They're not going to destroy your manliness. Let a bunch of other dudes lose their man card. Keep yours and you'll be okay. I promise. No need to be scared.
Truth is that someone will be always owning stuff and while stuff like music and movies is easily streamable and entertainment etc. That's intellectual property.
Real property, stuff like houses cars etc. can still be owned and will be so for a long time.. Especially because cars cost a fortune to lease and it's not practical, and this is why most people will buy super cheap beaters to get around.
There are people who ride bikes etc. but they still own those bikes.
In NYC and DC people take the metro often they won't even own a car. This is fine. People in towns with no good public transit will always have to own a vehicle in order to get around.
I don't think capitalism is in any danger of going away especially since the majority of our lifestyle is based on the outcome of capitalism. We consume that which people sell.
Well, I have to say that I'm shocked.. SHOCKED! (Well, not that shocked) by this report.
When you are actively prevented from owning practically anything (From books, all the way to homes), it's hard not to be cynical about capitalism.
Capitalism means nothing when you are not allowed to have capital. The US is becoming (or in may cases already has become) everything it hated about communism.
The fact that a sizable portion of the population actually loves Russia is very telling all in itself.
It reminds me of the Qwest commercial: "All rooms have every movie, ever made, in every language, any time, day or night." Well, here we are.
There! Problem solved!
Capitalism is inconvenient, people want to make their lives easier.
Almost everything listed that people are becoming satisfied renting from services, as opposed to buying on physical media? They're all intellectual properties that the sellers/creators insist you don't really OWN after buying them. When you buy a music CD, you're not allowed to duplicate it and share copies of the content with others. When you buy a movie on DVD, it's illegal to decrypt the copy protection on it, even for the purpose of transferring the movie content to a different form of media so you can watch it on various electronics you own that can't play from the physical DVD disc.
When you shell out the $50-60 for a new video game for your console, it's subject to whatever usage terms and restrictions they want to place on it. Might have to buy a second one if you want to play the game online from two different consoles in the house, so your kids can play it against each other. Who knows?
I think that's a BIG driver of the change to a rental, on-demand model.
To the extent that calling the 'system of natural liberties' 'capitalism' was a redefinition, it was already redefined that way in standard English usage roughly 150 years ago. Trying to use the word to mean what you claim it means based on your personal interpretation of Marx is a Humpty Dumpty move and not a serious attempt at communication.
'Socialism' never, not even in the earliest "utopian socialist" writers, described "widely distributed ownership," it always described social ownership, which is antithetical to private ownership however widely distributed. That's not identical to a command economy, but no other scheme for social ownership beyond the smallest scale has been seriously propounded.
'Distributivism' only entails a market economy to the extent that that's entailed by any private ownership.
You're not informing people about "undistorted meaning" or being more clear, you're distorting the meaning of socialism to push your own opinion while ignoring the obvious dilemmas, just like so many advocates of socialism from Saint-Simon to the present day.
I take issue with this argument. I've had it before with people.... First off, "wage slavery" is a nonsense term. Slaves weren't paid wages at all and never entered into an employment contract with anyone. It trivializes the plight of real slaves, forced to do labor while owned as property by someone else.
Capitalism is a whole economic system that benefits all of its participants. The middle class or working class may not "own the means of production", but that doesn't mean they're not part of the Capitalist system. Owning the means of production does you NO good if nobody wants to buy what you're producing. The 0.001% can't just buy and sell exclusively to each other.
The system we have is about making voluntary choices and promises, for the most part. Government has mandatory taxation it throws into the mix, so that part is forced. But when I decided to buy a house, I was well aware that I was committing to 30 years of loan payments and a need to work for those 30 years to make sure I had the funds to keep making those payments. That's not wage slavery! That's a VOLUNTARY choice on my part. There's not even any guarantee I *have* to labor for 30 years to pay the house off. Many other things could happen, including my property value increasing enough so I can make money reselling it, to pay it off with a profit. Much less likely -- I could win a lottery of some kind and be able to pay it off that way. Or perhaps I'd come into an inheritance that helps pay it off? Maybe I decide to leverage it as a money generation tool, renting to people via AirBnB at some point?
I don't understand this flawed argument of yours that claims we're all just slaves to the system. It sounds like you want the ability to just be handed possessions and not have to pay for them?
Economic rent is when someone who is the gatekeeper to a resource won't allow access to those who need it to use unless they are paid to do so.
The owner of a piece of property is legally a gatekeeper to it, inasmuch as they can legally exclude others from use. Allowing others to use it, but only for a fee -- "contract rent" -- is therefore an example of economic rent.
Fun fact: "usury", a term usually considered an epithet today, literally just means that, etymologically: A fee for use. All rent is usurious, by definition. (Including all interest, which is just rent on money).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Nicely put; it shifted the foundational terms for how this physicist thinks about economics. Any more, weeks or even months go by between slashdot comments that drive me to deeply think. You just reset that clock. If I had modpoints, you'd get them.
Your child comment loses me. Perhaps it's me -- I keep trying to respect anarchism, but it seems fundamentally flawed -- as unlikely to scale up to large spaces or populations as communism. We're just too predisposed to ignore Others and rationalize acting lazily or greedily for a 'good' equilibrium to be likely.
(posted AC to let this bit of puffery and irrelevance fade into the dust)
You just described George Soros.
The epitome of this is that no-one owns cars any more - they continuously roll over a leasing plan. Makes no sense to me.
Shelves of DVDs, CDs, Cassettes, Videos and Books. I found that for the most part, I only ever watched, listened or read them once. Now I own mainly paper reference books, and some digital books that could probably be deleted. I'm quite happy using my kindle app, streaming movies and not owning dust collecting media.
" And what is the absence of ideology? Letting individuals make their own choices, respecting their private property, and respecting their right to self-determination."
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
This means that capitalism must change too.
What do they want? yo force people consume more of what they need to be consumes?
Or maybe this exposes the line of private property.
yes, there is a social security fund that's about to go bankrupt. It's supposed to go bankrupt. It's the fund needed to pay for the aging baby boomers who, despite all their efforts, are eventually going to die. There are fewer Gen Xers and fewer still millennials.
Yes, Social Security has some problems. That's because inflation keeps devaluing the dollar and we don't raise the hard cap on SS taxes. All we have to do to 'fix' SS is to raise the cap on what can be taxed.
But that's not the point. This is what's called "Starve the Beast". The goal here is to make SS collapse so the ruling class can pocket the money. They'll do it in stages so you don't notice. Paul Ryan's already floated the idea of ending SS for anyone under 55. He and his ilk will keep pushing that narrative. It's the same line of thinking that got us "We had to bomb the village to save it". You were never there to save the village, where you?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When it comes to books, music, and movies, I think the OP is backwards. Bards used to travel and tell stories. The concept of writing them down and selling them to own was new. Now that we're streaming such story content is actually a return to the original, where the value is in its novelty and temporal relevance, rather than in repeated accessibility and reproduction.
But I've noticed this issue in something that I feel is much worse. Household contents.
Think about furniture. Think about art. Think about tools and dishes and plant holders and pillows and photo albums and records and record players and rugs. And impressive chrome strollers -- basonettes? And classic cars. And fur coats.
My grandparents inherited these types of family heirlooms. My parents did too. Owning 100+ year old family furniture, of course. The furniture can last that long, and it's good, who would throw it out?
Now look today. How much will you take of your parents' stuff? Do you want their wood furniture? Ikea's cheap, get new stuff. Do you want their painting? Digital screens.
And tomorrow? How much do you have that you're saving for your children to inherit? Old strollers? You likely lease your car, and no one wants your own one anyway.
Planned obsolescence. . .of ownership, of families, of pride in anything.
Mod parent up, this person knows and understands history!
Not owning your own media (or anything) will be a problem...eventually. We're in a small window right now where the average person puts up with subscription models on certain things, but if more vendors went that direction we'd reach a point where people can't afford that any more. Cell phones, cable Internet, Spotify, iTunes, etc...when is the limit?
I didn't buy and store books. I borrowed them from a library. Why would I want to maintain my own library?
I didn't buy and store cassets. I listened to the radio. Why would I want to curate and constantly switch out tapes when someone else would do the selection for me to keep it fresh?
I didn't buy and store DVDs. I'd go to the movies, rent them from a store, or wait for them to be broadcast. I very seldom watch a movie more than once. Why would I want to keep stacks of plastic around that I never use?
In short, the author needs to get a life and maybe finding a hobby. If you're life revolves around hoarding and curating "media", you're a loser.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
When I buy a book, I prefer a used book and especially prefere one that has been "written in". See another person's comments, highlights, questions, etc is an addition to the book. You don't get that with ebooks.
I add my own highlightes and comments both for my future reference and for whoever may read it in the future, it also helps me process, remember, and enjoy the book.
It does mean a lot, because these are the actual definitions that literally everyone knew not even 40 years ago. It wasn't until the right started it's mass revisionism of well known history that the definitions got mangled, and that was done purposefully so that useful idiots like yourself can further their agenda.
You are laughably wrong. Market Socialism was well understood back in the 60's. I realize you're too young to have experienced that time, or the depths of revisionism the American right wingers have gone to manipulate the definitions into what you've been told they are, but the majority of us can remember those times, and have personally witnessed the right's historical revisionism in action. Christ, you can actually look up their game plan - just Google the Powell Memo.
Glad you like it, thanks for the feedback. :-)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Thanks! :-)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
So you're completely right: the "property-owning elites" want to create a nation of debt slaves, but the "property-owning elites" only have that power because other capitalists give them that power. I suspect you are among the people creating this system.
Fixed that for you. You're quite welcome.
There is no reason to be nervous. We had way, and I mean WAY too much stuff to begin with. So far I've taken a Chevy 1 ton extended express and used it to haul crap from my Son's house to the dump - 9 times! I'm not talking about a truckload the way he'd fill it up, I'm talking the whole fucking truck was full to the top. Now it's ready to think about cleaning it up about the same amount again!
This is not unique. I flip homes too. I come across homes that the people just left it as it is. They're full of more crap today than they were 20 years ago. The DVDs, game consoles, direct tv boxes... and on and on and on.
The property concept is still alive and kicking.
Now that it's a day later, here's the link you'll be looking for:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view...
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
To be clear, I'm not saying that crony capitalism isn't a thing. It is a thing, and it's a bad thing. But it's a specific bad thing: where those with power due to their capital-ownership give unfairly favorable treatment to their cronies in what should be fairly competitive arenas. It doesn't just mean "the bad kind of capitalism".
All capitalism is the bad kind, because all capitalism is inherently about those who own capital exploiting those who don't. If that isn't happening, then it's not capitalism happening -- even if it's a free market. A free market where that doesn't happen isn't capitalist, because that's just what capitalism means. A landowner extracting money from tenants in exchange for nothing, just because those tenants have no land themselves and so have to live somewhere or another on the terms (and at the price) set by whoever owns that somewhere, has nothing to do with cronies, but is the epitome of capitalist exploitation. Likewise a wealthy banker lending money at interest, or any gatekeeper of a resource limiting access to it unless people bribe them into allowing its use. That's what capitalism is.
NB that buying or selling something is not capitalist.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Maybe a loss of a sense of personal ownership ... but corporations are more focused on ownership than ever.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
In a world where we don't produce enough to fulfill everyone wish to own, it's perfect that we are loosing the need to own. The need to own is what's giving the polution a headstart and the idea behind capitalism that market ca grow without end is seriously stupid. We need to stop owning and start sharing. The best example is cars... everyone want a car or two or three... one for everyone... but that's just stupid and useless... I mean everyone knows that cars are practical, i'm not saying it's not.. I know I can't live without one, but having a car that pass 95% of its time being parked and unused is the ABSOLUTE waste. We should share cars as we share busses. Lets fight this need to own and welcome to the sharing mentality.
Frankly, people never owned the music or the words in the book. They owned a physical copy printed on a dead tree or a shiny disc. Copyright law always restricted what you were able to do with the music or words.
People had the rights of the owner of a lawfully made copy, as set forth in 17 USC 109, 117, and 1008, and foreign counterparts, These include 1. the perpetual right to use the work privately as long as the copy remains in usable condition, and 2. the right to resell the copy to someone else. A streaming lessee does not have these rights.
Crashes are a sin of governments and fiscal policy, which turn moderate market fluctuations into disasters.
As for the very wealthy, they come in two varieties: the robber barons, who enrich themselves through government, and the entrepreneurs, who enrich themselves through creating stuff other people want to pay money for. Government creates robber barons (that's what the term originally comes from: the railroad and stell magnates who enriched themselves through government).
This is one of the easiest conspiracies to debunk in modern times :). Market crashes are a side effect of capitalism; the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. A surface level understanding of history will teach you at least that much; a closer understanding of history will prove it irrefutably.
Also it is well known that robber barons got rich in spite of the government. Again, one simply needs to read a bit of history, since it all points to this basic fact. The only sources that claim that government made the people who already owned everything wealthy are revisionist sources from the 70's. You can tell by their publish date that they are false, and nobody except gullible rubes would ever believe such obvious BS.
That's why free market capitalism rewards creativity richly: if you are creative in a way that helps your fellow human beings, as determined by the votes of your fellow human beings, you get richer. We call those votes "dollars".
If you are "creative" in ways that don't help your fellow human beings, nobody votes for you, and you don't get rich.
Another extremely easy to debunk falsehood. Capitalism rewards creativity only if it can be exploited for monetary gain. There is a good reason why multiple products that all do essentially the same thing can exist; wasted effort instead of innovation. Capitalism is extremely risk averse, which is the opposite of creativity by any logical definition. That's why 99.9% of scientific advancement and technology comes from the public sector, which is then monetized and sold by private sector. I can count on one hand the number of innovations that began solely from a private research facility, and any intellectually honest person can do the same.
The percentage of desperately poor people in the US and the OECD is nearly zero, one of the great achievements of even moderately free markets.
LOL! You poor child! The percentage of desperately poor people has been increasing for the past few decades. Go outside and look around instead of believing every feelgood lie right wing think tanks foist upon you. Not to mention, the only achievement capitalism has made in this regard is by redefining what poverty is. This is well known - defining poverty as living off of $3 USD a day, and then redefining it as $1 USD ten years later, allowed capitalists to claim that capitalism "lifted billions out of poverty". And the only people stupid enough to fall for that obvious canard were the right. Needless to say, you were tricked by that one, kiddo.
These are all issues within the control of individuals and individual choices. Socializing the costs of such choices makes those problems worse over time.
Capitalizing on selling individuals those choices has made the richest people on Earth. Sure it's up to their individual choice, but we all know the psychological effects of marketing. It has provably exacerbated many of humanity's problems, such as delaying cures for easily cured diseases, simply because there is more money in providing treatment. Or introducing drugs to non-white communities in order to introduce drug wars to keep those populations in private prisons. In fact, socializing those issues is the only proven way of combatting the problems that capitalism has introduced. Look at Portugal, who decriminalized drugs and treat it like a medical problem (an extr
Bookshelfs? Way to go, Professor!
The issue I have is, the assertion that Capitalism is threatened. That the very concept of ownership is at risk.
This assertion is 100% fact-free and bonkers. I have no sympathy with the author or his argument. People who have freely changed their buying habits are actually exercising Capitalism and economic freedom.
The author could have made a case that our relationship with certain things, the aforementioned books and music, are changing. Except, that article has already been written, hasn't it?
The entire premise of the author is wrong and bogus. He's sounding an alarm for no reason at all. What's next, an indictment of grocery stores because some of the customers like soy milk instead of cow's milk?