A LOT of people in this thread seem to completely miss the fact that something is a social construct is can still definitely be real.
Monday is a social construct, but I’m still expected to go to work.
Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
This community is anarchist-flavored. Reactionary takes won't be tolerated.
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Serious posts go to !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Rules
If you post images with text, endeavour to provide the alt-text
If the image is a crosspost from an OP, Provide the source.
Absolutely no right-wing jokes. This includes "Anarcho"-Capitalist concepts.
Absolutely no redfash jokes. This includes anything that props up the capitalist ruling classes pretending to be communists.
No bigotry whatsoever. See instance rules.
This is an anarchist comm. You don't have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is. We're not here to educate you.
No shaming people for being anti-electoralism. This should be obvious from the above point but apparently we need to make it obvious to the turbolibs who can't control themselves. You have the rest of lemmy to moralize.
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
A LOT of people in this thread seem to completely miss the fact that something is a social construct is can still definitely be real.
Monday is a social construct, but I’m still expected to go to work.
And work weeks used to be 80+ hours, but we changed that. Hell we could change Monday if we had the political willpower.
Hunger is real in the sense that the human body becomes nutritionally deficient regardless of our will whereas the validity of modern food scarcity is a sociopolitical consensus.
e.g. One can swim in the ocean but cannot reason with it.
Work weeks used to be 80+ hours, and "we" changed that, but it wasn't by requesting or voting or something. It was via violent riots involving police beatings and explosives being thrown. And it took decades.
Changing things that the rich prefer to remain unchanged can be done, but it isn't easy or fast.
Surely they will come to their morals and give up a small portion of the money they won't ever get to spend fully for betterment of humanity.
Of course we can change Monday. It’s a social construct. We made it. We can unmake it. We can make it into something else. That’s the point. It’s also real.
Just like a house is real after we’re done building it.
We’ve built a machine that produces famine. It does not have to exist. But it does. The machine is real. If we want to get rid of it we have to actually tear it down. Again, like a house.
The operative word in social construct is not social. It’s construct.
I think you're really getting hung up on the fact that many people consider abstract concepts to not be "real". Monday is not an inherent and tangible thing, it's not possible to sense it in any way. You can't go outside, look at the sky and go "yep, it's Monday". That might not be how you choose to define the term "real", but plenty of people do define it that way.
Then you're angry about people using hyperbole to make a point about the evils of the powerful.
That's a bit pedantic.
Real in this sense is just being poignant about how the powerful rely on false appeals to the authority of things like the economy to evade responsibility and culpability.
Yes, but hopefully you can see that if there was a rule that said you aren't allowed to eat on Mondays, how people might start to question the legitimacy of the concept of a Monday.
"If we gave them food and housing, how would we force them to perform the labor that generates all my wealth?"
-1%
You make rice, beans, most veggies and micro-apartments ultra cheap and subsidized, so everyone can at least survive. People will be motivated to upgrade, which incentivizes work.
If I live in the woods alone, hunting and gathering my food and felling my own timber for firewood and construction, then that is my economy. Economy means how a society allocates their resources. If I live in a one-person-society as a hermit, then me gathering and hunting at least enough food to stay alive and having enough resources to keep my abode able to protect me from cold and rain is my economy.
As economy means simply allocation of a society's resources, it is not possible to not have an economy. There is always an economy. But, it doesn't need to be based on money, necessarily. Any system where goods are distributed to people who need them is an economic system.
So, the OP is misunderstanding the word "economy", but the main point of course still stands: The monetary economy as we see it in our current society is actually purely a social construct. Or simply: "Monetary economy isn't even real, we literally fucking made it up" is correct.
But economy is real.
Are you practicing for the pedantry Olympics
No. But I do get why you'd ask :)
The thing is, for toppling the current economic system, it would be important to understand that there can be different economic systems. And also, that it's not a choice between only capitalism and communism, but that there is an infinite amount of other economic models to invent and use. And their subtypes.
Understanding economy as a synonym for our current money-based economy is strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged.
If you don't understand why having an economy that is thought of is important, you cannot get any useful results by toppling the current one.
Yeah, but no.
You do understand context? OP was talking in the context of the current world economy, how we have countless billionaires whilst still half the world population is going hungry? Oh, you want to say that those billionaires basically also only are billionaires Because of how economy works? Then hoe about that we produce enough food to feed the entire world multiple times over bit end up throwing so much away that still half the world goes hungry?
How about so many people being homeless because houses are too expensive and governments can't be armed to build more in a timely manner?
I could go on, but you get it
Oh, you want to say that those billionaires basically also only are billionaires Because of how economy works?
No, I don't. (And the rest of your message was based on the assumption that I do)
And ours is fake. Made uo. Composed of lies.
Absolutely!
When America conquered Japan at the conclusion of WW2, America overhauled their economic systems. The Zaibatsu were largely dismantled, policies to spread out wealth were installed, and many other things were done to nip totalitarianism and militarism in the bud. While this was purely for selfish reasons, this initiative transformed Japan into a place of prosperity.
It is my hope something similar happens when a 2nd American Civil War is concluded. A rebalancing of the scales is sorely needed, so that the American dream can become reality for all.
It basically is. I remember in 2008 going outside and the birds were tweeting, people were still going around as normal etc. Basically we were told there was no money for anything and people were being laid off because some numbers in a computer said so. The mechanism that was supposed to make sure there was money for starting and developing enterprise imploded and fucked us instead.
Agricultural patents aren't real.
Naive looking titles like these are effective ammo against the people who use it.
Basic economics is as real and essential as law or human language, despite being made up. The problem lies beyond the basics; the stock market has largely become a pyramid scheme that glorifies gambling, which cryptocurrency does by default. It's all of these greed-inducing humanity-destroying contraptions that deserve relentless mockery, defiance, and ultimately, subversion. We need a system where profit is a vice, not a virtue.
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
"The Economy" = Rich People's money.
A warning sign during the spring/summer 2024 was the federal reserve and other departments reporting the economy was doing great. You’d hear this shit every week on Marketplace every week.
But real spending power did not feel great at all! It was somewhere during that time period that I recognized Trump had a real shot at getting reelected.
yeah we made it up, but unfortunately for you we made it up so fragile that if someone sneezes too hard you might wake up homeless tomorrow, so we can't just allow people to have food sorry. just drink fewer lattes, ok? it's gonna be fine don't think about the poors.
Economies, money, governments - are all made up representations of societal will. People can change that any time they want, but we let the narcissistic monsters with power run things unopposed because it’s easier.
It is a construct but it is far more than just a social construct.
That doesn't mean it cannot nor should not be changed. It definitely needs a lot of fixing...
How isn't it a social construct?
Gender is a social construct but it's real.
"Far more than" != "not"
If it were only a social construct, there wouldn't be massive amounts of resources directly involved in its operation. Nothing has to be involved more than peoples' emotions for gender to exist, but the modern economy is far more than a prescription for interaction or identity.
I have no reading comprehension