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>so without employement you just die homeless and hungry in the streets That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare. If the desi

>so without employement you just die homeless and hungry in the streets That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare. If the desire is to prevent starvation and homelessness, transfer payments do a fine job; there's no need for intervention in the labour market or monetary system.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
Quite a lot of people have died or committed suicide in the UK recently, because the government decided to change the rules around disability and chronic illness. It hired a shill organisation to declare that the disabled, chronically ill, and dying were fit for work. So bedridden terminal cancer patients have had all benefits cut and told to look for work. This is not an exaggeration, by the way. Graeber has missed something very obvious. We do not have a market economy. What we have is a status economy. People who get useful stuff done have low status, because in the bullshit economy the ability to get and hold status is the most valuable of all skills. So all transactions become a test of relative status, and people who have to do productive work have lower status than people who move status tokens (i.e. 'money' and 'power') around. And the weak - the homeless, the ill, the disabled, the outsiders and minorities - have the lowest status of all.
- arethuza 12y ago
 "What we have is a status economy" Which actually sounds rather like the original definition of "meritocracy": http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
 - crpatino 12y ago
 How can a system dominated by posers be called a "meritocracy"? I am sure it looks superficially the same, but in essence is the exact opposite.
coldtea 12y ago
>That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare. You'd be surprised. Visit any western country (US, the UK, France, ...) and see it happening. >If the desire is to prevent starvation and homelessness, transfer payments do a fine job; there's no need for intervention in the labour market or monetary system. Not sure what those "transfer payments" are. Anything like Western Union money transfers?

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

Quite a lot of people have died or committed suicide in the UK recently, because the government decided to change the rules around disability and chronic illness. It hired a shill organisation to declare that the disabled, chronically ill, and dying were fit for work. So bedridden terminal cancer patients have had all benefits cut and told to look for work. This is not an exaggeration, by the way. Graeber has missed something very obvious. We do not have a market economy. What we have is a status economy. People who get useful stuff done have low status, because in the bullshit economy the ability to get and hold status is the most valuable of all skills. So all transactions become a test of relative status, and people who have to do productive work have lower status than people who move status tokens (i.e. 'money' and 'power') around. And the weak - the homeless, the ill, the disabled, the outsiders and minorities - have the lowest status of all.

arethuza 12y ago
"What we have is a status economy" Which actually sounds rather like the original definition of "meritocracy": http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
- crpatino 12y ago
 How can a system dominated by posers be called a "meritocracy"? I am sure it looks superficially the same, but in essence is the exact opposite.

coldtea 12y ago

>That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare. You'd be surprised. Visit any western country (US, the UK, France, ...) and see it happening. >If the desire is to prevent starvation and homelessness, transfer payments do a fine job; there's no need for intervention in the labour market or monetary system. Not sure what those "transfer payments" are. Anything like Western Union money transfers?