this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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TranscriptA tweet saying "bruh the economy isn't even real, we literally fucking made it up, just let people have food wtf"

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[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 16 points 6 days ago (4 children)

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.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Are you practicing for the pedantry Olympics

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's pretty obvious from context that the meme (don't forget, this is a meme, posted in a meme community) is about our current, monetary-based economy, not the concept of economy in general. I fail to see how that's "strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged", especially since the point of the meme is about tearing down the current system (and the implication that it be replaced with a moneyless one). Also I think your definition of "economy" is so watered down as to be useless. IDK, this all just comes across as you nitpicking and trying to be correct for the sake of being correct, ie, pedantry.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's obvious for you and for me. It's not obvious to everyone. And it's non-obvious to the majority.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I feel like it's not obvious to you, or else you wouldn't have posted several paragraphs describing how the OP was using the term incorrectly lmao

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They are. A Just read the text without biases and you'll notice. It preaches to its own congregation, but looks like a simple stupid claim to anyone it might actually benefit.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 days ago

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)

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And ours is fake. Made uo. Composed of lies.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 days ago

Absolutely!

[–] Enekk@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

The generally accepted definition of a society is a group of people living together in an organized way. There are more things that go into it, but clearly a single person doesn't qualify as a society. I would argue that general usage would also preclude super small groups of people, but that's not core here.

What is core here is that you are arguing a straw man argument. All economies, large or small, exist as cultural constructs that mediate how the resources will be divided. The shape this takes is absolutely "made up" and we could decide at any moment to change how it functions.

Economies do not exist outside of culture and culture is constantly negotiated between those participating in it. Therefore, economies are absolutely made up and I believe it is you who does not understand economy.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago

An economy exists, always. Ants have an economy.

How that economy is implemented is a social construct. The basic idea is not.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago

I do agree with you 100%, and what you are saying is what I was trying to communicate.

Either we both understand what economy is, or neither does.

However, one of us has a better command of the English language than the other, and the better one isn't called Tuukka :)

[–] SabinStargem 12 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] dullbananas@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

Agricultural patents aren't real.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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...

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How isn't it a social construct?
Gender is a social construct but it's real.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

"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.

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago

I have no reading comprehension

[–] FundMECFS@quokk.au 89 points 1 week ago (10 children)
[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The pyramids of giza are obviously fake, capitalism wasn't invented yet so there was no innovation

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It wasn't capitalism, but the means of production don't seem like they were owned by the population but rather individuals still. A theocratic monarchy is the closest I could guess to call it. So basically if the U.S. is almost there

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

True, but this was referring to people saying that innovation won't happen without capitalism.

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[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 60 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Economics is closer to theology than physics as an intellectual discipline. Its power is proportional to the belief it commands.

Finance is an arbitrary subset of mathematics, cherry picked by the owning class, and applied as their supporting mythology.

It’s entirely imaginary, which means alternatives are only ever a conjuring away.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Economics is closer to theology than physics as an intellectual discipline. Its power is proportional to the belief it commands.

Person with degree in Econ here:

Ah, yep. This is correct.

Our theologies tend to have more numbers than most religions, but most economic 'schools of thought' pretty much are just warring religious sects, the dynamics are quite similar.

That being said, I am speaking of the kinds of 'economics' the vast majority of people will ever hear about, due to how at least in the US, we mostly only popularize and give media time to what Academic Economists largely consider to be idiot crank fraud propogandists.

There are some actually good modern Academic Economists who you'll hear from or about, from time to time, and they often are highly respected and credible because they have the capacity to consider the varying ideological/religious flavors of economic sects, and pick the parts of each of them that seem to actually be well evidenced, and make functional/causal sense, without discontinuity or contradiction.

Like uh, I myself can tell you that I find a lot of Marxist economics to be compelling and accurate, but, some of its proposed exact ideas on how prices and pricing work... are problematic.

Conversely, while I find the vast majority of Austrian economics to be voodoo bullshit, I do think they have at least a core framework of how to approach some dynamics in monetary policies that actually do track with reality better than most other economic 'schools', such as MMT.

What I mean is that they tend to pay way, way more attention to the different uh, levels, or kinds of money, and how they circulate around and interact with things like bond markets and interest rates, and from this you can get a more holistic picture of the actual state and behavior of monetary and financial systems... whereas a lot of other economists just hsnd wave away that complexity, and then come up with more ad hoc explanations for things that a sort of Austrian-derived monetary view can give you some useful predictive indicators from.

And, just to clarify, I am not an academic myself, just got to a specialization in econometrics and then went to work as a data analyst / 'scientist'.

(I always found the job description of 'data scientisr' to be largely a misnomer, we're basically just a flavor of statisticians? but sure, we are a scientist because boomers think knowing how to do stats on a computer is 'science'? like we are... discovering new truths about the world????)

I'd say if you want a crash course in some non bullshit modern economics, check out uh, Richard Wolfe, Joseph Stiglitz, Yannis Varoufakis, Robert Reich.

Also, check out Paul Samuelson, who in his time did actuslly strongly push for using more robust and complex math (for economists, anyway) by borrowing from physics.

Oh right and we cannot forget the Beautiful Mind himself, John Nash, who also did a lot of serious, basically genius level math, and more or less made Game Theory into a massively useful and applicable framework for evaluating how and why agents make which choices in basically any definable scenario.

Really, he is a mathematician, not primarily an economist, but I at least find Game Theory to be a fundamentally necesarry tool in any serious economist's toolkit, and Nash did win an Economics Nobel.

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[–] Madrigal@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Everything starts to make sense when you realise “The Economy” is just a euphemism for “Rich People’s Interests”.

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[–] vzqq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 1 week ago (8 children)

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.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago
[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (6 children)

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.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Violent riots and thrown explosives are excellent ways to develop political willpower!

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"If we gave them food and housing, how would we force them to perform the labor that generates all my wealth?"

-1%

[–] morphballganon@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Well, if automation replaces people, no one would have to work, we can all benefit from UBI funded by robot manufacturing.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Pfffffft UBI, they'll just let us starve fam

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Until they realize that you can't sell overpriced cars to starving people. Then they'll concede UBI.

That said, UBI is pretending to be socialism, but it's rooted in capitalism.

[–] IzzyJ@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

They can move upmarket and just sell to each other

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is why I hate when the libs on Lemmy/Reddit keep advocating for gun control. You have no leverage if you give up all the guns to the state.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 6 days ago

This degree of optimism suggests that we have wildly different takes on the world.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's made up by people who couldn't provide value to society and had to figure out something lest they be left to fend for themselves.

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[–] xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Economy is the new god, it even has priests and bishops and shit.

Why shouldn't I do X? Because it's bad for the economy, we can't stop climate chage, that would be bad for The Economy. Etc

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