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> That’s what happens when an industry is fully enveloped by capitalism Yep, I'd say that capitalism itself is an MLM.
by rlili 4y ago
> That’s what happens when an industry is fully enveloped by capitalism
Yep, I'd say that capitalism itself is an MLM.
- guerrilla 4y agoCan you elaborate as to why you think so?
- superdisk 4y agoIt requires ever increasing growth to function and the world's resources are finite.
- guerrilla 4y agoThese are facts but don't explain why OP sees it as a pyramid scheme*. I'm not say it it's not (or that it is), but I think an explanation could be helpful. If you said the stock market or something was a pyramid scheme then okay I can see that, but what does it mean for capitalism to be one. > *A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products
- sky-kedge0749 4y agoNot GP, but here's an answer to your question in the form of a jigsaw puzzle: https://www.etsy.com/listing/739198964/crimethinc-pyramid-of-capitalism-1000 https://www.etsy.com/listing/739198964/crimethinc-pyramid-of...
- guerrilla 4y agoThat's equivocation between a pyramid as hierarchy and a pyramid as a specific business model. As far as I know, capitalism doesn't require constant recruitment because growth can be achieved in other ways like reducing product quality, reducing wages, deteriorating working conditions, increasing technological efficiency, enclosing commons, privatizing public goods and services, etc.
- sky-kedge0749 4y agoCapitalism usually means a small owning class and a large working class, which is the hierarchy. It doesn't actually require a pyramid scheme system of recruitment, you could just have an enforcer class that beats the workers into hopeless submission and consumption. The way it works now though is that workers at every level are led to believe they can rise up the pyramid. This is a good complement to the raw violence which is still there: this belief reduces enforcement costs, encourages consumption, and allows for some necessary meritocratic elevation to the educated technical/bureaucratic class.
- guerrilla 4y agoYeah I didn't ask if capitalism is a hierarchy, that's obvious. The claim is that it's a pyramid scheme which is an unrelated claim.
- rlili 4y agoThe alternatives that you listed seem likely to eventually lead consumers to stop consuming a product. Population growth, on the other hand, does not. Unless, of course, we reach the inevitable point where resources become so scarce that no one can consume anymore. But that future is still distant enough to be systematically ignored. Hell, even climate change is still being barely addressed.
- guerrilla 4y agoPopulation has an upper limit too anyway... growth can inly go so far, which is beside the point.
- rlili 4y agoOther commenters already stated that, but it's because achieving increasing profits ultimately relies on an increasing population to work and consume. This is why, for example, people are always encouraged to have children. It's marketing to coerce people to reel more people (in that case, unborn people) into the scheme. What's the difference between that and any other MLM?
- rdbell 4y agoReproduction is one if the most fundamental instincts ingrained in all of nature and you’re blaming people’s desire to have kids on some kind of capitalist conspiracy. That’s an absurd take.
- aetherane 4y agoIn cities all over the world, people are reproducing less and less. Many governments have programs to encourage people to have families because it is important for the economy and sustainability of the country.
- 789itsfine 4y agoThe number of children born to a given family has fluctuated over time. It's not absurd to say that the shape of our society influences family planning. In fact, there are capitalist countries (coughJapan) where encouraging baby-making, in the face of a demographic crisis that threatens to catastrophically disrupt economic stability, is state policy.