We should return to the sharing economy of the 2008 crisis. In Spain, as it lasted 10 years, many of its ideas were implemented, including local currencies, time banks and using platforms to find each other, meet in the real world and do things together. It was an economy that helped create and recover true community. The world was falling apart but we were happy.
Is it wrong to think that capitalism is the apocalypse? That we don't go to our jobs in spite of on-going disasters, but that our jobs are the disaster, and that we are constantly forced to co-create the disaster/apocalypse in small steps?
I agree with most of the article, but I think this is a key point. We don't have time to win a long-game against capitalism, as important as mutual aid and co-ops are; what we need is a sense of radical urgency and action befitting the moment, understanding that the time we think we have is largely illusory. It is time that will redound mainly to the benefit of those currently in power, given their means and advantages. I write about this very thing on my page which I recently debuted; I'd appreciate anyone giving it a look if the above resonates with you.
Great article JP! Thanks so much for writing it. I run my own business because I can't handle being a cog in a broken system. My town has flooded twice, plus one cyclone and a few bush fires.
The town was evacuated but I still had to pay the rent for my business and my home and all the bills!
Its definitely hard to be motivated to work when the world is collapsing! At least its not just me, we’re in this together 🤪
I work in healthcare and yeah. We see, every day, the results of one piece of our current dystopia - the failing healthcare system. That, of course, includes pieces of the rest of our failing system including gun violence, drug overdoses and car/scooter/bike/etc accidents.
I always appreciate how accurate the truth is when you tell it. I personally sometimes feel like my day to day interactions mirror the insanity of the world right now. It’s crazy out there.
I really appreciate this piece, it reminds me of a piece I tried to write last year I named "Apocalyptic Realism" that I want to write fully this summer. Basically the like vulgar version is that in order to stay sane and be able to do the work we have to do we should develop a culture and mannerisms that reflect and express the fact that trying to retain an attitude of normalcy is insane in these Apocalyptic conditions. There's a lot of complications, obviously.
This one read like a sermon in the best way. Your capacity to uplift and empower is a gift. Thanks as always for fueling collective hope with strategy and vision.
OK, it’s important to work with the community and build a power base, a base that can be used to challenge the entrenched capitalist structure. But do you think we could manage to preserve private property along the way? I’m not interested in a Communist state, or some sort of Soviet collectivism.
There is a difference between personal property and private property. We are far from reaching communism, and there are many steps before that - but even when/if that point is reached, no one is taking away your personal space and forcing you to live in some kind of group home.
Well guess what… I am a proud and happy landlord. I provide critical service to the City Of Portland… I provide living space for people at a reasonable rate. What could be any better than that? What could be any more progressive? 😀🤓
Congrats on profiting from a broken system. That doesn’t make it just. It means the bar is so low that providing basic housing at a ‘reasonable’ rate feels revolutionary. We need housing decommodified, not rented out like subscription services.
I agree with Stefan, I'd prefer to have a government-supported housing system, like they have in Singapore, rather than the rising levels of homelessness we are seeing worldwide as rental and housing purchase prices become unaffordable in so many countries. Ironically, this means that Singaporese often have spare money to buy real estate in other countries. But of course it doesn't have to be either/or, we can have both private property AND a government supported housing system.
You shouldn’t be a landlord and other people shouldn’t have to suffer because you are a landlord and want to preserve a system of inequity so you can keep profiting personally through passive income routes.
I’m sorry, but making a profit is as natural as breathing. Profit making has been around since the Ice Age in the days of Ogg and Ugg, and living in the caves. I don’t think it’s gonna go away anytime soon. Anyway, it will not disappear if I can help it! 😀😁😁
You haven’t really lived until you’ve experienced the feeling of making money for doing essentially nothing. I own the property, I rent it out, and people pay me for it. I worked really hard for 30 years in competitive industries, so this is a nice feeling for me. Too bad you can’t be happy for me!!! Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!😃🤓😎
Also..You say you’re providing value, then say you’re getting paid for doing ‘essentially nothing.’ Which is it? Either housing is a basic right we all deserve, or it’s a commodity that makes you feel elite to profit from. Can’t be both.
Hello Kai… Hope you’re having a great day. I don’t pretend to know everything and I don’t pretend to know all the answers to social and philosophical problems. All I know is I need to make some money so I don’t become homeless. Being a landlord only makes me a small profit. But it feels good making it! 😁😃🤓
So why can’t housing be both a basic right and a means of profit for some? It seems like a win-win to me! Start saving your pennies now and buy a rental property in the future. That way you can partake in the capitalist system. You will not regret it! 😁😃🤓
So if I provide air at a ‘reasonable rate’ to people suffocating in a sealed room, does that make me a hero too? Just checking how far the landlord logic extends
What I’m hearing from you is, “I couldn’t wait to stop being exploited and become the exploiter”.
Being a landlord isn’t providing a valuable service, it’s exploitation, you’re not a hero for that. “Making profit is as natural as breathing air” is just a bullshite justification to make yourself feel better, it isn’t even true, exploitation isn’t natural. You have capitalist brain rot, you thinking you’re part of the “elite” because you own some rental property is actually hilarious though… thanks for the laugh.
We should return to the sharing economy of the 2008 crisis. In Spain, as it lasted 10 years, many of its ideas were implemented, including local currencies, time banks and using platforms to find each other, meet in the real world and do things together. It was an economy that helped create and recover true community. The world was falling apart but we were happy.
Yes, this! Finding community is the best way we can fight this!
Is it wrong to think that capitalism is the apocalypse? That we don't go to our jobs in spite of on-going disasters, but that our jobs are the disaster, and that we are constantly forced to co-create the disaster/apocalypse in small steps?
I agree with most of the article, but I think this is a key point. We don't have time to win a long-game against capitalism, as important as mutual aid and co-ops are; what we need is a sense of radical urgency and action befitting the moment, understanding that the time we think we have is largely illusory. It is time that will redound mainly to the benefit of those currently in power, given their means and advantages. I write about this very thing on my page which I recently debuted; I'd appreciate anyone giving it a look if the above resonates with you.
All those disaster movies and dystopian novels led us to believe we could at least stop mowing the yard and paying the gas bill. Nope!
thank you for putting some really earnest and practical words around this, this is needed
Great article JP! Thanks so much for writing it. I run my own business because I can't handle being a cog in a broken system. My town has flooded twice, plus one cyclone and a few bush fires.
The town was evacuated but I still had to pay the rent for my business and my home and all the bills!
Its definitely hard to be motivated to work when the world is collapsing! At least its not just me, we’re in this together 🤪
Yes, it is truly.... discombobulating. We do what we can, though. Bear witness.
And find community. We have to come out of our isolation, or we will never be able to fight this.
I work in healthcare and yeah. We see, every day, the results of one piece of our current dystopia - the failing healthcare system. That, of course, includes pieces of the rest of our failing system including gun violence, drug overdoses and car/scooter/bike/etc accidents.
This newsletter brings me hope in every issue. Thanks for the glimmers.
You'll like this satire methinks:
"I couldn't die, I've got court tomorrow": https://tritorch.com/balancez/I%20Couldn%27t%20Die%2C%20I%27ve%20Got%20Court%20Tomorrow.mp4 [1:20mins]
I always appreciate how accurate the truth is when you tell it. I personally sometimes feel like my day to day interactions mirror the insanity of the world right now. It’s crazy out there.
Heija
I really appreciate this piece, it reminds me of a piece I tried to write last year I named "Apocalyptic Realism" that I want to write fully this summer. Basically the like vulgar version is that in order to stay sane and be able to do the work we have to do we should develop a culture and mannerisms that reflect and express the fact that trying to retain an attitude of normalcy is insane in these Apocalyptic conditions. There's a lot of complications, obviously.
This one read like a sermon in the best way. Your capacity to uplift and empower is a gift. Thanks as always for fueling collective hope with strategy and vision.
"Living differently"
good thoughts, thank you for practical steps forward.
OK, it’s important to work with the community and build a power base, a base that can be used to challenge the entrenched capitalist structure. But do you think we could manage to preserve private property along the way? I’m not interested in a Communist state, or some sort of Soviet collectivism.
Full disclosure… I’m a landlord.
There is a difference between personal property and private property. We are far from reaching communism, and there are many steps before that - but even when/if that point is reached, no one is taking away your personal space and forcing you to live in some kind of group home.
Landlords shouldn't exist in the first place
Well guess what… I am a proud and happy landlord. I provide critical service to the City Of Portland… I provide living space for people at a reasonable rate. What could be any better than that? What could be any more progressive? 😀🤓
Congrats on profiting from a broken system. That doesn’t make it just. It means the bar is so low that providing basic housing at a ‘reasonable’ rate feels revolutionary. We need housing decommodified, not rented out like subscription services.
🤡
no. too bad!
I agree with Stefan, I'd prefer to have a government-supported housing system, like they have in Singapore, rather than the rising levels of homelessness we are seeing worldwide as rental and housing purchase prices become unaffordable in so many countries. Ironically, this means that Singaporese often have spare money to buy real estate in other countries. But of course it doesn't have to be either/or, we can have both private property AND a government supported housing system.
I’d be OK with a mixed bag approach, part government supported housing, and part private property housing.
You shouldn’t be a landlord and other people shouldn’t have to suffer because you are a landlord and want to preserve a system of inequity so you can keep profiting personally through passive income routes.
I’m sorry, but making a profit is as natural as breathing. Profit making has been around since the Ice Age in the days of Ogg and Ugg, and living in the caves. I don’t think it’s gonna go away anytime soon. Anyway, it will not disappear if I can help it! 😀😁😁
You haven’t really lived until you’ve experienced the feeling of making money for doing essentially nothing. I own the property, I rent it out, and people pay me for it. I worked really hard for 30 years in competitive industries, so this is a nice feeling for me. Too bad you can’t be happy for me!!! Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!😃🤓😎
Also..You say you’re providing value, then say you’re getting paid for doing ‘essentially nothing.’ Which is it? Either housing is a basic right we all deserve, or it’s a commodity that makes you feel elite to profit from. Can’t be both.
Hello Kai… Hope you’re having a great day. I don’t pretend to know everything and I don’t pretend to know all the answers to social and philosophical problems. All I know is I need to make some money so I don’t become homeless. Being a landlord only makes me a small profit. But it feels good making it! 😁😃🤓
So why can’t housing be both a basic right and a means of profit for some? It seems like a win-win to me! Start saving your pennies now and buy a rental property in the future. That way you can partake in the capitalist system. You will not regret it! 😁😃🤓
So if I provide air at a ‘reasonable rate’ to people suffocating in a sealed room, does that make me a hero too? Just checking how far the landlord logic extends
What I’m hearing from you is, “I couldn’t wait to stop being exploited and become the exploiter”.
Being a landlord isn’t providing a valuable service, it’s exploitation, you’re not a hero for that. “Making profit is as natural as breathing air” is just a bullshite justification to make yourself feel better, it isn’t even true, exploitation isn’t natural. You have capitalist brain rot, you thinking you’re part of the “elite” because you own some rental property is actually hilarious though… thanks for the laugh.
I’m always having ambitions to be part of the elite and the ruling class, in however small a way. I’m still part of the elite!!! YAYYY!!!