> I’m reminded of the factory workers in other countries whose indigenous land was stolen by the government so they could no longer farm. The one fertile farmin

> I’m reminded of the factory workers in other countries whose indigenous land was stolen by the government so they could no longer farm. The one fertile farming land land was used to build factories. And the indigenes people, who no longer had any land to farm on, finally “chose” to work in the factory. Sure, primitive accumulation is a real problem. But you can also follow that chain arbitrarily far back in history and it doesn't really get you anywhere. If you want to go live off the land, that's certainly fine with me, i'm just saying: don't expect to receive the fruits of modern civilization if you aren't participating in it. > I disagree with you strongly that voting every few years is the definition of democracy if you mean to say it is the entire definition of democracy. There’s been thousands of years of history and philosophy as it relates to democracy and voting every few years is far from the only idea people have had about it. In particular voting for representatives is participation in a representative democracy, which is one kind of democracy. There are others. Of course, there are many reasonable reifications of the 'democracy' abstraction. However, voting for representatives every few years is very reasonable one, and the idea that it is "not democracy" is simply wrong.