#systemic poverty

[ghost-mafia]

Hi.

I am à late 30s queer schizophrenic spoonie sw/tattooer, lately afflicted with chronic homelessness... and i absolutely c a n NOT lose the remaining belongings of mine that i have in that storage unit.. all of my deceased family member's urns are in that storage unit, all but ONE of my instruments are in my storage unit. My entire collection of thousands of tattoo stencils, documenting nearly every single tattoo that I have made in the last 15 years.. these are the few treasures I still have left ..

I have only NOT BEEN HOMELESS for LITERALLY TWO weeks and Ive Already lost literally almost everything I owned ONCE ALREADY*

*(in Jan of 22 my ex wife and I were moving back to Oly from LA when our completely packed uhaul truck was stolen, containing our entire combined life's work and worth of treasured art books, inherited musical instruments, irreplaceable family herirlooms and precious sentimental keepsakes) ..

MY boyfriend and I have both been thru absolutely devastating, FUCKIN SOUL CRUSHING traumatic experiences these last three years... We've survived losing beloved family members, pets, deaths of our parents and murder of my very best friend. we survived both of us getting pneumonia and blood poisoning AT THE SAME TIME .

YALL

SHIT HAS BEEN .. SO FUCKING HARD and idk how but I'm still here.

Please help me, tumblr. Draw me close to your understanding millennial/zoomer bosom and let me rest IF ONLY For a moment, knowing the meager accumulates matwrial sum of my rotten life still belongs to me. Please

I know it's .. not a massive fortune, the 232 or whatever I owe for my storage, but if you can spare even a BIT to help me.. I can't.. I just.

I have pixx and content you can buy, I can also offer excellent machine-free tattoo work to anyone local to the greater Seattle metro area. I can also read your tarot cards or draw your natal astrological chart... I am desperate and willing to exchange labor if various and sundry varieties..

Help me, almighty internet, help me

VENMO @ghost-mafia

PAYPAL @HANNAHSATAN or [email protected]

MY BOYFRIEND CASH APP $chetstarr360

#fundraiser #crowdsourcing #help needed #please help me #please help #desperately need help #homelessness #systemic poverty #capitalism #is #a #livin #hellworld #need a Christmas miracle

[wildcreativekatz]

Oh hey, would you look at that!

Turns out that the best way to solve the problem of vast amounts of people who need money is to give the people money!

It's almost like the majority of people don't want to be homeless, and actually want to be able to have shelter, food, medical care, and jobs! And that the majority of poverty is caused by a faulty system rather than individual fault!! WHAT A SURPRISE!!! :O

Seriously though, there is just,,, so much scientific evidence showing that the majority of humans, when given the resources they need, will not only thrive but will actively help their community thrive as well.

What comes around comes around. You do what you can to help your community thrive and they will help you in turn. We are a social species. We are our best when we lean into that part of our nature, not when we try and separate from it.

#systemic poverty #politics #youtube #secular talk #maslow's hierarchy of needs #lone wolves die when they are outcasted from the pack #Many are stronger then wrong #doesn't mean we all have to be the same or think the same #it just means we should look out for each other and stop danger from spreading #america #u.s politics #Youtube

[disgracefulthings]

Shen Qingqiu: Like you, I also have a tragic backstory

Wei Wuxian: Oh, did you have an abusive family?

Shen Qingqiu: Nope

Xie Lian: Have you lived through poverty?

Shen Qingqiu: Not that either

Wei Wuxian: Then what?

Shen Qingqiu: One time I read a really bad story

Wei Wuxian: ...

Xie Lian: ...

#wei wuxian: what about you? #shang qinghua: i lived in poverty AND my family never loved me #shen qingqiu: don't pity him! he's the villain of MY story!!! #wei wuxian #wei ying #shen qingqiu #xie lian #mxtx #mxtx svsss #mxtx tgcf #mxtx mdzs #svsss #mdzs #tgcf #scum villian self saving system #mo dao zu shi #tian guan ci fu #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #heaven official's blessing

[intersectionalpraxis]

Capitalism is killing people in so many ways, and the medical industrial complex is one of them. Healthcare should always be a universal right -both fair and equitable access, but in many cases it is not... the mass injustices.

#feminist #social justice #current events #current news #public health #health care #medical care #health and wellness #healthcare #medical industrial complex #medical industry #capitalism is evil #capitalism kills #abolish capitalism #capitalism #treatment #classism #poverty #systemic inequality #systemic injustice #united states

[mueritos]

i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.

some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.

This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."

If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.

I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.

fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.

#muertotalks #a mind dump after seeing so much come out after the self immolation of the us air force member #i know hes not the first one to self immolate for palestine #and he might not be the last #i hate the military #i really fucking do #but i choose to see the people within them as victims within the overall system just like the rest of us #i will never go through what they did to make them choose to enlist #i never struggled with poverty homelessness healthcare or social acceptance #i wont shame them #shame is not productive #i want them to know there are civilians who support their protests #i want them to know that we their allies too #a note on my palestinian classmate #if youre arab or also a colonized person impacted by the us military feel free to hate every member of the military #i dont intend to police yall in how you choose to feel your anger #im angry with you #the point i mean to make is about understanding and compassion #someone who has every right to hate these people still chose to see them as the people they are #yes i even want the best for the “bad” people in the military too #i dont want these people to continue the ideology but we cant stop that without dismantling these systems #and we cant do that without creating spaces for healing and reform and growth #so many thoughts so many thoughts #none of this is easy #i fight daily against impulsively hating the world #everyday is a fight to choose compassion and understanding #but being a leftist and doing leftism is not fucking easy #if you genuinely think it is it isnt #and you may be missing the point of what leftism is #anyway

[daftpatience]

one thing I have learned about being poor is that you cannot for a moment stop thinking about it

#theres no peace #every little thing reminds me we are poor #seeing friends having electricity wifi heat food gas. it all costs money. and bills and fees and charges happen all the damn time #im constantly worried that i am measing up somehow or im not keeping track of my finances properly #the person handling our disability assistance application keeps coming back with question after question about my job #and i have so much doubt and fear that ive made some mistake in my answers that will disqualify us from support #and theres this sick backwards stupid thing where applying for and being on disability support is discouraging me from trying to make money #because the more i make the less likely we'll get support but i need to make money to live #its just fucked. and once we're on support i have to make monthly reports of my income so ill feel like im explaining myself all the fuckin #time #cus the system isnt built in a way that makes sense for self employed ppl who have business expenses to account for #sorry for the ranting i cant sleep #truly truly i think poverty is making me a worse persin #more anxious more resentful more jealous more miserable more spiteful #i have so little and there is so little i can do to help it #i want things in a more desparate and even childish way than i used to eant things #spend a lot more time fantasizing about magically having expendable income #not to mention the constant exponential guilt that comes from asking for help or recieving help. its guilt i need to unlearn but i feel it

[reasonsforhope]

If you're wondering why I set up ko-fi membership stuff after I really resisted monetizing in any way for so long, btw... Honestly, it's because taxes and some big surprise vet bills this month kinda. decimated my savings. by a lot.

Normally I'm okay enough financially, but I'm in a really high cost of living area, and it's just been a really rough month in a lot of different ways.

So, if you're interested in supporting me or my work, whether it's with a membership or a one-time thing or whatever - and only if you can genuinely afford it - that would honestly be amazing and more helpful than I strictly like to admit

As an extra incentive, if this ko-fi thing goes well, I'll commit to actually answering asks and shit again lol

Either way <3 <3 to all of you

#me #admin #blog business #not news #ko fi #the federal tax system is fucking broken #literally appalling that I made below the poverty line last year and still owed $2k in taxes #that should be illegal to do to anyone #not that “the US tax system is broken” is news to anyone but yknow it bears repeating #vet bills are like medical bills also super broken in the us #I should not have to pay this much money just to say goodbye to my baby #..................yeah like I said rough month #maybe keep me and my baby Roo in your thoughts this week #that would be really kind <3

[b0bthebuilder35]

Too often, people believe homelessness is due to some type of character flaw. In reality, that’s not even close. The top causes being…

1. A lack of affordable housing

2. Unemployment

3. Poverty

4. Low wages

#homlessness #homeless #unhoused population #unhoused #affordable housing #lack of affordable housing #unemployment #poverty #low wages #living wage #raise the wage #raise the minimum wage #poverty wages #employment #lack of employment #character flaw #systemic issues #systemic problems #capitalist system #reality #addiction #addicted #cause and effect #cause #causes #current reality #in reality #data shows #data #statistics

[thecruellestmonth]

Do you guys really believe that killing is the singular bad thing that cops do?

Or even that killing is the most frequent bad thing that cops do?

Are you saying that if cops didn't kill, then they'd be the same as Batman? Because then you're suggesting that effectively Batman already is a cop, with the exception that he hasn't killed (just like the majority of U.S. cops, who have never once shot or killed anybody).

I'm a bit worried to see opinions suggesting that only killing is wrong—and that violence, stalking, and humiliation are okay. In real-life, police commit countless acts of those "little" abuses, terrorizing entire communities, before they murder anybody.

Invading people's privacy is wrong. Hurting people to the point of hospitalization is wrong. Forcibly drugging people is wrong. Putting people in cages is wrong. Torture and "enhanced interrogation" are wrong. Ambushing people in their homes and safe places is wrong. Keeping inexhaustible wealth is wrong.

Superhero comics are power fantasies. Not all fantasies need to reflect our ideology in reality. But once you apply your real-life values to fiction, once you decide that fiction showcases exemplary real-life ideology—then your praise for Batman's ideology does become a worrying reflection of your real-life understanding of social issues.

#copaganda #Bruce Wayne critical #GCPD #fandom discourse #Batman copaganda #police brutality cw #Almost sorry to drag serious discussion of copaganda into ridiculous superhero comics but I swear the other guys started it first... #To be clear I'm completely disinterested in condemning or interrogating Bruce over his personal choice not to kill. #But I am so fascinated in how he justifies his own use of violence and privilege!!! So very very fascinated!! #Once again: LESLIE THOMPKINS IS RIGHT. #Actually I'm not gonna tag this post as @nti Bruce W@yne--because really I enjoy canon Bruce a hell of a lot more than his stans do lol. #Sorry but Batman isn't a darling anti-cop revolutionary. If he were then he'd get in line behind Green Arrow and like the Invisibles. #I mean maybe The Audio Adventures version is anti cop but still in a free-market libertarian power fantasy kind of way if you can dig that. #violence mention cw #murder mention cw #fandom drama #This is why Cheer doesn't work because Red Hood realizes 'Oh I don't want kids to lose their parents like I lost mine-- #--therefore I won't murder anymore. It's time to put my faith in the system. 👼👼👼' #Jason sweetie... you lost your father firstly to criminalization and incarceration for property crime. #You lost your mother to poverty and addiction. You are actually not like Batdaddy and your trauma is not a mere echo of his trauma. #Batman discourse

[lastcatghost]

So in case anyone's interested, I know a cheap way to make your own stickers, imma do some with some political texts on them and post them up wherever.

If you get a roll of parchment paper, take a piece of clear masking tape and put it down anywhere, put a printed design or text over the tape you just put down, then put another piece of tape on top of the design. Then you can cut it out more defined, and now you've made a sticker

Imma make up a bunch of pieces of paper with this text on them, and make a shit ton of stickers to put up everywhere as winter progresses

#political art #street art #human rights and civil liberties #fuck capitalism #communism #late stage capitalism #homelessness #class warfare #housing rights #poverty #classism #capitalism #violence of poverty #fuck the system #poverty is a threat over the working class

[without-ado]

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." —Dom Helder Camara

l Dorothea Lange l Migrant Mother l 1936

#quotes #words #photography #helder camara #photos #poverty #equity #social welfare #social justice #social systems #human rights #dom helder camara #dorothea lange #migrant mother #1930s

[sparksinthenight]

ONBB: It baffles me that schools throw away kids’ food or deny them a hot lunch because of inability to pay, BUT Covid hits and now my county provides 6 full meals a week to any kids under 18yo, enrolled or not. They always had the ability to feed kids, they just didn’t want to.

#school #school system #poverty #classism #school lunch #school lunches #social programs #help #community support #helping each other #class issues #class war

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter VI. Fourth Period. — Monopoly

1. — Necessity of monopoly.

Thus monopoly is the inevitable end of competition, which engenders it by a continual denial of itself: this generation of monopoly is already its justification. For, since competition is inherent in society as motion is in living beings, monopoly which comes in its train, which is its object and its end, and without which competition would not have been accepted, — monopoly is and will remain legitimate as long as competition, as long as mechanical processes and industrial combinations, as long, in fact, as the division of labor and the constitution of values shall be necessities and laws.

Therefore by the single fact of its logical generation monopoly is justified. Nevertheless this justification would seem of little force and would end only in a more energetic rejection of competition than ever, if monopoly could not in turn posit itself by itself and as a principle.

In the preceding chapters we have seen that division of labor is the specification of the workman considered especially as intelligence; that the creation of machinery and the organization of the workshop express his liberty; and that, by competition, man, or intelligent liberty, enters into action. Now, monopoly is the expression of victorious liberty, the prize of the struggle, the glorification of genius; it is the strongest stimulant of all the steps in progress taken since the beginning of the world: so true is this that, as we said just now, society, which cannot exist with it, would not have been formed without it.

Where, then, does monopoly get this singular virtue, which the etymology of the word and the vulgar aspect of the thing would never lead us to suspect?

Monopoly is at bottom simply the autocracy of man over himself: it is the dictatorial right accorded by nature to every producer of using his faculties as he pleases, of giving free play to his thought in whatever direction it prefers, of speculating, in such specialty as he may please to choose, with all the power of his resources, of disposing sovereignly of the instruments which he has created and of the capital accumulated by his economy for any enterprise the risks of which he may see fit to accept on the express condition of enjoying alone the fruits of his discovery and the profits of his venture.

This right belongs so thoroughly to the essence of liberty that to deny it is to mutilate man in his body, in his soul, and in the exercise of his faculties, and society, which progresses only by the free initiative of individuals, soon lacking explorers, finds itself arrested in its onward march.

It is time to give body to all these ideas by the testimony of facts.

I know a commune where from time immemorial there had been no roads either for the clearing of lands or for communication with the outside world. During three-fourths of the year all importation or exportation of goods was prevented; a barrier of mud and marsh served as a protection at once against any invasion from without and any excursion of the inhabitants of the holy and sacred community. Six horses, in the finest weather, scarcely sufficed to move a load that any jade could easily have taken over a good road. The mayor resolved, in spite of the council, to build a road through the town. For a long time he was derided, cursed, execrated. They had got along well enough without a road up to the time of his administration: why need he spend the money of the commune and waste the time of farmers in road-duty, cartage, and compulsory service? It was to satisfy his pride that Monsieur the Mayor desired, at the expense of the poor farmers, to open such a fine avenue for his city friends who would come to visit him! In spite of everything the road was made and the peasants applauded! What a difference! they said: it used to take eight horses to carry thirty sacks to market, and we were gone three days; now we start in the morning with two horses, and are back at night. But in all these remarks nothing further was heard of the mayor. The event having justified him, they spoke of him no more: most of them, in fact, as I found out, felt a spite against him.

This mayor acted after the manner of Aristides. Suppose that, wearied by the absurd clamor, he had from the beginning proposed to his constituents to build the road at his expense, provided they would pay him toll for fifty years, each, however, remaining free to travel through the fields, as in the past: in what respect would this transaction have been fraudulent?

That is the history of society and monopolists.

Everybody is not in a position to make a present to his fellow-citizens of a road or a machine: generally the inventor, after exhausting his health and substance, expects reward. Deny then, while still scoffing at them, to Arkwright, Watt, and Jacquard the privilege of their discoveries; they will shut themselves up in order to work, and possibly will carry their secret to the grave. Deny to the settler possession of the soil which he clears, and no one will clear it.

But, they say, is that true right, social right, fraternal right? That which is excusable on emerging from primitive communism, an effect of necessity, is only a temporary expedient which must disappear in face of a fuller understanding of the rights and duties of man and society.

I recoil from no hypothesis: let us see, let us investigate. It is already a great point that the opponents confess that, during the first period of civilization, things could not have gone otherwise. It remains to ascertain whether the institutions of this period are really, as has been said, only temporary, or whether they are the result of laws immanent in society and eternal. Now, the thesis which I maintain at this moment is the more difficult because in direct opposition to the general tendency, and because I must directly overturn it myself by its contradiction.

I pray, then, that I may be told how it is possible to make appeal to the principles of sociability, fraternity, and solidarity, when society itself rejects every solidary and fraternal transaction? At the beginning of each industry, at the first gleam of a discovery, the man who invents is isolated; society abandons him and remains in the background. To put it better, this man, relatively to the idea which he has conceived and the realization of which he pursues, becomes in himself alone entire society. He has no longer any associates, no longer any collaborators, no longer any sureties; everybody shuns him: on him alone falls the responsibility; to him alone, then, the advantages of the speculation.

But, it is insisted, this is blindness on the part of society, an abandonment of its most sacred rights and interests, of the welfare of future generations; and the speculator, better informed or more fortunate, cannot fairly profit by the monopoly which universal ignorance gives into his hands.

I maintain that this conduct on the part of society is, as far as the present is concerned, an act of high prudence; and, as for the future, I shall prove that it does not lose thereby. I have already shown in the second chapter, by the solution of the antinomy of value, that the advantage of every useful discovery is incomparably less to the inventor, whatever he may do, than to society; I have carried the demonstration of this point even to mathematical accuracy. Later I shall show further that, in addition to the profit assured it by every discovery, society exercises over the privileges which it concedes, whether temporarily or perpetually, claims of several kinds, which largely palliate the excess of certain private fortunes, and the effect of which is a prompt restoration of equilibrium. But let us not anticipate.

I observe, then, that social life manifests itself in a double fashion, — preservation and development.

Development is effected by the free play of individual energies; the mass is by its nature barren, passive, and hostile to everything new. It is, if I may venture to use the comparison, the womb, sterile by itself, but to which come to deposit themselves the germs created by private activity, which, in hermaphroditic society, really performs the function of the male organ.

But society preserves itself only so far as it avoids solidarity with private speculations and leaves every innovation absolutely to the risk and peril of individuals. It would take but a few pages to contain the list of useful inventions. The enterprises that have been carried to a successful issue may be numbered; no figure would express the multitude of false ideas and imprudent ventures which every day are hatched in human brains. There is not an inventor, not a workman, who, for one sane and correct conception, has not given birth to thousands of chimeras; not an intelligence which, for one spark of reason, does not emit whirlwinds of smoke. If it were possible to divide all the products of the human reason into two parts, putting on one side those that are useful, and on the other those on which strength, thought, capital, and time have been spent in error, we should be startled by the discovery that the excess of the latter over the former is perhaps a billion per cent. What would become of society, if it had to discharge these liabilities and settle all these bankruptcies? What, in turn, would become of the responsibility and dignity of the laborer, if, secured by the social guarantee, he could, without personal risk, abandon himself to all the caprices of a delirious imagination and trifle at every moment with the existence of humanity?

Wherefore I conclude that what has been practised from the beginning will be practised to the end, and that, on this point, as on every other, if our aim is reconciliation, it is absurd to think that anything that exists can be abolished. For, the world of ideas being infinite, like nature, and men, today as ever, being subject to speculation, — that is, to error, — individuals have a constant stimulus to speculate and society a constant reason to be suspicious and cautious, wherefore monopoly never lacks material.

To avoid this dilemma what is proposed? Compensation? In the first place, compensation is impossible: all values being monopolized, where would society get the means to indemnify the monopolists? What would be its mortgage? On the other hand, compensation would be utterly useless: after all the monopolies had been compensated, it would remain to organize industry. Where is the system? Upon what is opinion settled? What problems have been solved? If the organization is to be of the hierarchical type, we reenter the system of monopoly; if of the democratic, we return to the point of departure, for the compensated industries will fall into the public domain, — that is, into competition, — and gradually will become monopolies again; if, finally, of the communistic, we shall simply have passed from one impossibility to another, for, as we shall demonstrate at the proper time, communism, like competition and monopoly, is antinomical, impossible.

In order not to involve the social wealth in an unlimited and consequently disastrous solidarity, will they content themselves with imposing rules upon the spirit of invention and enterprise? Will they establish a censorship to distinguish between men of genius and fools? That is to suppose that society knows in advance precisely that which is to be discovered. To submit the projects of schemers to an advance examination is an a priori prohibition of all movement. For, once more, relatively to the end which he has in view, there is a moment when each manufacturer represents in his own person society itself, sees better and farther than all other men combined, and frequently without being able to explain himself or make himself understood. When Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, Newton’s predecessors, came to the point of saying to Christian society, then represented by the Church: “The Bible is mistaken; the earth revolves, and the sun is stationary,” they were right against society, which, on the strength of its senses and traditions, contradicted them. Could society then have accepted solidarity with the Copernican system? So little could it do it that this system openly denied its faith, and that, pending the accord of reason and revelation, Galileo, one of the responsible inventors, underwent torture in proof of the new idea. We are more tolerant, I presume; but this very toleration proves that, while according greater liberty to genius, we do not mean to be less discreet than our ancestors. Patents rain, but without governmental guarantee. Property titles are placed in the keeping of citizens, but neither the property list nor the charter guarantee their value: it is for labor to make them valuable. And as for the scientific and other missions which the government sometimes takes a notion to entrust to penniless explorers, they are so much extra robbery and corruption.

In fact, society can guarantee to no one the capital necessary for the testing of an idea by experiment; in right, it cannot claim the results of an enterprise to which it has not subscribed: therefore monopoly is indestructible. For the rest, solidarity would be of no service: for, as each can claim for his whims the solidarity of all and would have the same right to obtain the government’s signature in blank, we should soon arrive at the universal reign of caprice, — that is, purely and simply at the statu quo.

Some socialists, very unhappily inspired — I say it with all the force of my conscience — by evangelical abstractions, believe that they have solved the difficulty by these fine maxims: “Inequality of capacities proves the inequality of duties”; “You have received more from nature, give more to your brothers,” and other high-sounding and touching phrases, which never fail of their effect on empty heads, but which nevertheless are as simple as anything that it is possible to imagine. The practical formula deduced from these marvellous adages is that each laborer owes all his time to society, and that society should give back to him in exchange all that is necessary to the satisfaction of his wants in proportion to the resources at its disposal.

May my communistic friends forgive me! I should be less severe upon their ideas if I were not irreversibly convinced, in my reason and in my heart, that communism, republicanism, and all the social, political, and religious utopias which disdain facts and criticism, are the greatest obstacle which progress has now to conquer. Why will they never understand that fraternity can be established only by justice; that justice alone, the condition, means, and law of liberty and fraternity, must be the object of our study; and that its determination and formula must be pursued without relaxation, even to the minutest details? Why do writers familiar with economic language forget that superiority of talents is synonymous with superiority of wants, and that, instead of expecting more from vigorous than from ordinary personalities, society should constantly look out that they do not receive more than they render, when it is already so hard for the mass of mankind to render all that it receives? Turn which way you will, you must always come back to the cash book, to the account of receipts and expenditures, the sole guarantee against large consumers as well as against small producers. The workman continually lives in advance of his production; his tendency is always to get credit contract debts and go into bankruptcy; it is perpetually necessary to remind him of Say’s aphorism: Products are bought only with products.

To suppose that the laborer of great capacity will content himself, in favor of the weak, with half his wages, furnish his services gratuitously, and produce, as the people say, for the king of Prussia — that is, for that abstraction called society, the sovereign, or my brothers, — is to base society on a sentiment, I do not say beyond the reach of man, but one which, erected systematically into a principle, is only a false virtue, a dangerous hypocrisy. Charity is recommended to us as a reparation of the infirmities which afflict our fellows by accident, and, viewing it in this light, I can see that charity may be organized; I can see that, growing out of solidarity itself, it may become simply justice. But charity taken as an instrument of equality and the law of equilibrium would be the dissolution of society. Equality among men is produced by the rigorous and inflexible law of labor, the proportionality of values, the sincerity of exchanges, and the equivalence of functions, — in short, by the mathematical solution of all antagonisms.

That is why charity, the prime virtue of the Christian, the legitimate hope of the socialist, the object of all the efforts of the economist, is a social vice the moment it is made a principle of constitution and a law; that is why certain economists have been able to say that legal charity had caused more evil in society than proprietary usurpation. Man, like the society of which he is a part, has a perpetual account current with himself; all that he consumes he must produce. Such is the general rule, which no one can escape without being, ipso facto struck with dishonor or suspected of fraud. Singular idea, truly, — that of decreeing, under pretext of fraternity, the relative inferiority of the majority of men! After this beautiful declaration nothing will be left but to draw its consequences; and soon, thanks to fraternity, aristocracy will be restored.

Double the normal wages of the workman, and you invite him to idleness, humiliate his dignity, and demoralize his conscience; take away from him the legitimate price of his efforts, and you either excite his anger or exalt his pride. In either case you damage his fraternal feelings. On the contrary, make enjoyment conditional upon labor, the only way provided by nature to associate men and make them good and happy, and you go back under the law of economic distribution, products are bought with products. Communism, as I have often complained, is the very denial of society in its foundation, which is the progressive equivalence of functions and capacities. The communists, toward whom all socialism tends, do not believe in equality by nature and education; they supply it by sovereign decrees which they cannot carry out, whatever they may do. Instead of seeking justice in the harmony of facts, they take it from their feelings, calling justice everything that seems to them to be love of one’s neighbor, and incessantly confounding matters of reason with those of sentiment.

Why then continually interject fraternity, charity, sacrifice, and God into the discussion of economic questions? May it not be that the utopists find it easier to expatiate upon these grand words than to seriously study social manifestations?

Fraternity! Brothers as much as you please, provided I am the big brother and you the little; provided society, our common mother, honors my primogeniture and my services by doubling my portion. You will provide for my wants, you say, in proportion to your resources. I intend, on the contrary, that such provision shall be in proportion to my labor; if not, I cease to labor.

Charity! I deny charity; it is mysticism. In vain do you talk to me of fraternity and love: I remain convinced that you love me but little, and I feel very sure that I do not love you. Your friendship is but a feint, and, if you love me, it is from self-interest. I ask all that my products cost me, and only what they cost me: why do you refuse me?

Sacrifice! I deny sacrifice; it is mysticism. Talk to me of debt and credit, the only criterion in my eyes of the just and the unjust, of good and evil in society. To each according to his works, first; and if, on occasion, I am impelled to aid you, I will do it with a good grace; but I will not be constrained. To constrain me to sacrifice is to assassinate me.

God! I know no God; mysticism again. Begin by striking this word from your remarks, if you wish me to listen to you; for three thousand years of experience have taught me that whoever talks to me of God has designs on my liberty or on my purse. How much do you owe me? How much do I owe you? That is my religion and my God.

Monopoly owes its existence both to nature and to man: it has its source at once in the profoundest depths of our conscience and in the external fact of our individualization. Just as in our body and our mind everything has its specialty and property, so our labor presents itself with a proper and specific character, which constitutes its quality and value. And as labor cannot manifest itself without material or an object for its exercise, the person necessarily attracting the thing, monopoly is established from subject to object as infallibly as duration is constituted from past to future. Bees, ants, and other animals living in society seem endowed individually only with automatism; with them soul and instinct are almost exclusively collective. That is why, among such animals, there can be no room for privilege and monopoly; why, even in their most volitional operations, they neither consult nor deliberate. But, humanity being individualized in its plurality, man becomes inevitably a monopolist, since, if not a monopolist, he is nothing; and the social problem is to find out, not how to abolish, but how to reconcile, all monopolies.

The most remarkable and the most immediate effects of monopoly are:

1. In the political order, the classification of humanity into families, tribes, cities, nations, States: this is the elementary division of humanity into groups and sub-groups of laborers, distinguished by race, language, customs, and climate. It was by monopoly that the human race took possession of the globe, as it will be by association that it will become complete sovereign thereof.

Political and civil law, as conceived by all legislators with-out exception and as formulated by jurists, born of this patriotic and national organization of societies, forms, in the series of social contradictions, a first and vast branch, the study of which by itself alone would demand four times more time than we can give it in discussing the question of industrial economy propounded by the Academy.

2. In the economic order, monopoly contributes to the increase of comfort, in the first place by adding to the general wealth through the perfecting of methods, and then by CAPITALIZING, — that is, by consolidating the conquests of labor obtained by division, machinery, and competition. From this effect of monopoly has resulted the economic fiction by which the capitalist is considered a producer and capital an agent of production; then, as a consequence of this fiction, the theory of net product and gross product.

On this point we have a few considerations to present. First let us quote J. B. Say:

The value produced is the gross product: after the costs of production have been deducted, this value is the net product.

Considering a nation as a whole, it has no net product; for, as products have no value beyond the costs of production, when these costs are cut off, the entire value of the product is cut off. National production, annual production, should always therefore be understood as gross production.

The annual revenue is the gross revenue.

The term net production is applicable only when considering the interests of one producer in opposition to those of other producers. The manager of an enterprise gets his profit from the value produced after deducting the value consumed. But what to him is value consumed, such as the purchase of a productive service, is so much income to the performer of the service. — Treatise on Political Economy: Analytical Table.

These definitions are irreproachable. Unhappily J. B. Say did not see their full bearing, and could not have foreseen that one day his immediate successor at the College of France would attack them. M. Rossi has pretended to refute the proposition of J. B. Say that to a nation net product is the same thing as gross product by this consideration, — that nations, no more than individuals of enterprise, can produce without advances, and that, if J. B. Say’s formula were true, it would follow that the axiom, Ex nihilo nihil fit, is not true

Now, that is precisely what happens. Humanity, in imitation of God, produces everything from nothing, de nihilo hilum just as it is itself a product of nothing, just as its thought comes out of the void; and M. Rossi would not have made such a mistake, if, like the physiocrats, he had not confounded the products of the industrial kingdom with those of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Political economy begins with labor; it is developed by labor; and all that does not come from labor, falling into the domain of pure utility, — that is, into the category of things submitted to man’s action, but not yet rendered exchangeable by labor, — remains radically foreign to political economy. Monopoly itself, wholly established as it is by a pure act of collective will, does not change these relations at all, since, according to history, and according to the written law, and according to economic theory, monopoly exists, or is reputed to exist, only after labor’s appearance.

Say’s doctrine, therefore, is unassailable. Relatively to the man of enterprise, whose specialty always supposes other manufacturers cooperating with him, profit is what remains of the value produced after deducting the values consumed, among which must be included the salary of the man of enterprise, — in other words, his wages. Relatively to society, which contains all possible specialties, net product is identical with gross product.

But there is a point the explanation of which I have vainly sought in Say and in the other economists, — to wit, how the reality and legitimacy of net product is established. For it is plain that, in order to cause the disappearance of net product, it would suffice to increase the wages of the workmen and the price of the values consumed, the selling-price remaining the same. So that, there being nothing seemingly to distinguish net product from a sum withheld in paying wages or, what amounts to the same thing, from an assessment laid upon the consumer in advance, net product has every appearance of an extortion effected by force and without the least show of right.

This difficulty has been solved in advance in our theory of the proportionality of values.

According to this theory, every exploiter of a machine, of an idea, or of capital should be considered as a man who increases with equal outlay the amount of a certain kind of products, and consequently increases the social wealth by economizing time. The principle of the legitimacy of the net product lies, then, in the processes previously in use: if the new device succeeds, there will be a surplus of values, and consequently a profit, -that is, net product; if the enterprise rests on a false basis, there will be a deficit in the gross product, and in the long run failure and bankruptcy. Even in the case — and it is the most frequent — where there is no innovation on the part of the man of enterprise, the rule of net product remains applicable, for the success of an industry depends upon the way in which it is carried on. Now, it being in accordance with the nature of monopoly that the risk and peril of every enterprise should be taken by the initiator, it follows that the net product belongs to him by the most sacred title recognized among men, — labor and intelligence.

It is useless to recall the fact that the net product is often exaggerated, either by fraudulently secured reductions of wages or in some other way. These are abuses which proceed, not from the principle, but from human cupidity, and which remain outside the domain of the theory. For the rest, I have shown, in discussing the constitution of value (Chapter II, section 2): 1, how the net product can never exceed the difference resulting from inequality of the means of production; 2, how the profit which society reaps from each new invention is incomparably greater than that of its originator. As these points have been exhausted once for all, I will not go over them again; I will simply remark that, by industrial progress, the net product of the ingenious tends steadily to decrease, while, on the other hand, their comfort increases, as the concentric layers which make up the trunk of a tree become thinner as the tree grows and as they are farther removed from the centre.

By the side of net product, the natural reward of the laborer, I have pointed out as one of the happiest effects of monopoly the capitalization of values, from which is born another sort of profit, — namely, interest, or the hire of capital. As for rent, although it is often confounded with interest, and although, in ordinary language, it is included with profit and interest under the common expression REVENUE, it is a different thing from interest; it is a consequence, not of monopoly, but of property; it depends on a special theory., of which we will speak in its place.

What, then, is this reality, known to all peoples, and never-theless still so badly defined, which is called interest or the price of a loan, and which gives rise to the fiction of the productivity of capital?

Everybody knows that a contractor, when he calculates his costs of production, generally divides them into three classes: 1, the values consumed and services paid for; 2, his personal salary; 3, recovery of his capital with interest. From this last class of costs is born the distinction between contractor and capitalist, although these two titles always express but one faculty, monopoly.

Thus an industrial enterprise which yields only interest on capital and nothing for net product, is an insignificant enterprise, which results only in a transformation of values without adding anything to wealth, — an enterprise, in short, which has no further reason for existence and is immediately abandoned. Why is it, then, that this interest on capital is not regarded as a sufficient supplement of net product? Why is it not itself the net product?

Here again the philosophy of the economists is wanting. To defend usury they have pretended that capital was productive, and they have changed a metaphor into a reality. The anti-proprietary socialists have had no difficulty in overturning their sophistry; and through this controversy the theory of capital has fallen into such disfavor that today, in the minds of the people, capitalist and idler are synonymous terms. Certainly it is not my intention to retract what I myself have maintained after so many others, or to rehabilitate a class of citizens which so strangely misconceives its duties: but the interests of science and of the proletariat itself oblige me to complete my first assertions and maintain true principles.

1. All production is effected with a view to consumption, — that is, to enjoyment. In society the correlative terms production and consumption, like net product and gross product, designate identically the same thing. If, then, after the laborer has realized a net product, instead of using it to increase his comfort, he should confine himself to his wages and steadily apply his surplus to new production, as so many people do who earn only to buy, production would increase indefinitely, while comfort and, reasoning from the standpoint of society, population would remain unchanged. Now, interest on capital which has been invested in an industrial enterprise and which has been gradually formed by the accumulation of net product, is a sort of compromise between the necessity of increasing production, on the one hand, and, on the other, that of increasing comfort; it is a method of reproducing and consuming the net product at the same time. That is why certain industrial societies pay their stockholders a dividend even before the enterprise has yielded anything. Life is short, success comes slowly; on the one hand labor commands, on the other man wishes to enjoy. To meet all these exigencies the net product shall be devoted to production, but meantime (inter-ea, inter-esse) — that is, while waiting for the new product — the capitalist shall enjoy.

Thus, as the amount of net product marks the progress of wealth, interest on capital, without which net product would be useless and would not even exist, marks the progress of comfort. Whatever the form of government which may be established among men; whether they live in monopoly or in communism; whether each laborer keeps his account by credit and debit, or has his labor and pleasure parcelled out to him by the community, — the law which we have just disengaged will always be fulfilled. Our interest accounts do nothing else than bear witness to it.

2. Values created by net product are classed as savings and capitalized in the most highly exchangeable form, the form which is freest and least susceptible of depreciation, — in a word, the form of specie, the only constituted value. Now, if capital leaves this state of freedom and engages itself, — that is, takes the form of machines, buildings, etc., — it will still be susceptible of exchange, but much more exposed than before to the oscillations of supply and demand. Once engaged, it cannot be disenaged without difficulty; and the sole resource of its owner will be exploitation. Exploitation alone is capable of maintaining engaged capital at its nominal value; it may increase it, it may diminish it. Capital thus transformed is as if it had been risked in a maritime enterprise: the interest is the insurance premium paid on the capital. And this premium will be greater or less according to the scarcity or abundance of capital.

Later a distinction will also be established between the insurance premium and interest on capital, and new facts will result from this subdivision: thus the history of humanity is simply a perpetual distinction of the mind’s concepts.

3. Not only does interest on capital cause the laborer to enjoy the fruit of his toil and insure his savings, but — and this is the most marvellous effect of interest — while rewarding the producer, it obliges him to labor incessantly and never stop.

If a contractor is his own capitalist, it may happen that he will content himself with a profit equal to the interest on his investment: but in that case it is certain that his industry is no longer making progress and consequently is suffering. This we see when the capitalist is distinct from the contractor: for then, after the interest is paid, the manufacturer’s profit is absolutely nothing; his industry becomes a perpetual peril to him, from which it is important that he should free himself as soon as possible. For as society’s comfort must develop in an indefinite progression, so the law of the producer is that he should continually realize a surplus: otherwise his existence is precarious, monotonous, fatiguing. The interest due to the capitalist by the producer therefore is like the lash of the planter cracking over the head of the sleeping slave; it is the voice of progress crying: “On, on! Toil, toil!” Man’s destiny pushes him to happiness: that is why it denies him rest.

4. Finally, interest on money is the condition of capital’s circulation and the chief agent of industrial solidarity. This aspect has been seized by all the economists, and we shall give it special treatment when we come to deal with credit.

I have proved, and better, I imagine, than it has ever been proved before:

That monopoly is necessary, since it is the antagonism of competition;

That it is essential to society, since without it society would never have emerged from the primeval forests and without it would rapidly go backwards;

Finally, that it is the crown of the producer, when, whether by net product or by interest on the capital which he devotes to production, it brings to the monopolist that increase of comfort which his foresight and his efforts deserve.

Shall we, then, with the economists, glorify monopoly, and consecrate it to the benefit of well-secured conservatives? I am willing, provided they in turn will admit my claims in what is to follow, as I have admitted theirs in what has preceded.

#organization #revolution #anarchism #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #anarchy #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues #economy #economics #climate change #anarchy works #environmentalism #environment #solarpunk #anti colonialism #mutual aid #the system of economic contradictions #the philosophy of poverty #volume i #pierre-joseph proudhon #pierre joseph proudhon

[mightymizora]

People compare Gortash to Elon Musk but kids I would be so surprised if Escobar wasn’t wholesale on the Gort mood board

#psychopath with an obsession with image #tearing up the rules of engagement as he goes #grew up in poverty and was wildly intelligent and used it for ill #smuggler and trafficker and known sadist #fully using the system when it suited and destroying it when he had enough power and clout #a different man to different people #wanting to be liked and if not liked respected and if not respected feared #it’s the mood board truly #anyway thank you Gort friends for reminding me about when I was a kid and absolutely fascinated by how the fuck his whole life happened #truly one of the worst people who has ever lived

[thoughtportal]

shame in being trampled by the system

#toot #toots #mastodon #poverty #poor #systemic oppression #wealth inequality #income inequality #inequality

[reasoningdaily]

Children still mining cobalt for gadget batteries in Congo

A CBS News investigation of child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo has revealed that tens of thousands of children are growing up without a childhood today – two years after a damning Amnesty report about human rights abuses in the cobalt trade was published. The Amnesty report first revealed that cobalt mined by children was ending up in products from prominent tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Samsung. 

There's such sensitivity around cobalt mining in the DRC that a CBS News team traveling there recently was stopped every few hundred feet while moving along dirt roads and seeing children digging for cobalt. From as young as 4 years old, children can pick cobalt out of a pile, and even those too young to work spend much of the day breathing in toxic fumes.

What's life like for kids mining cobalt for our gadgets?

So, what exactly is cobalt, and what are the health risks for those who work in the DRC's cobalt mining industry?

What is cobalt?

Cobalt – a naturally occurring element –  is a critical component in lithium-ion, rechargeable batteries. In recent years, the growing global market for portable electronic devices and rechargeable batteries has fueled demand for its extraction, Amnesty said in its 2016 report. In fact, many top electronic and electric vehicle companies need cobalt to help power their products.

The element is found in other products as well.

"Cobalt-containing products include corrosion and heat-resistant alloys, hard metal (cobalt-tungsten-carbide alloy), magnets, grinding and cutting tools, pigments, paints, colored glass, surgical implants, catalysts, batteries, and cobalt-coated metal (from electroplating)," says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than half of the world's supply of cobalt comes from the DRC, and 20 percent of that is mined by hand, according to Darton Commodities Ltd., a London-based research company that specializes in cobalt.  

Health risks of chronic exposure 

According to the CDC, "chronic exposure to cobalt-containing hard metal (dust or fume) can result in a serious lung disease called 'hard metal lung disease'" – a kind of pneumoconiosis, meaning a lung disease caused by inhaling dust particles. Inhalation of cobalt particles can cause respiratory sensitization, asthma, decreased pulmonary function and shortness of breath, the CDC says.

The health agency says skin contact is also a significant health concern "because dermal exposures to hard metal and cobalt salts can result in significant systemic uptake." 

"Sustained exposures can cause skin sensitization, which may result in eruptions of contact dermatitis," a red, itchy skin rash, the CDC says.

Despite the health risks, researchers with Amnesty International found that most cobalt miners in Congo lack basic protective equipment like face masks, work clothing and gloves. Many of the miners the organization spoke with for its 2016 report – 90 people in total who work, or worked, in the mines – complained of frequent coughing or lung problems. Cobalt mining's dangerous impact on workers and the environment

Some women complained about the physical nature of the work, with one describing hauling 110-pound sacks of cobalt ore. "We all have problems with our lungs, and pain all over our bodies," the woman said, according to Amnesty.

Moreover, miners said unsupported mining tunnels frequently give way, and that accidents are common.  

Miners know their work is dangerous, Todd C. Frankel wrote late last month in The Washington Post. 

"But what's less understood are the environmental health risks posed by the extensive mining," he reported. "Southern Congo holds not only vast deposits of cobalt and copper but also uranium. Scientists have recorded alarming radioactivity levels in some mining regions. Mining waste often pollutes rivers and drinking water. The dust from the pulverized rock is known to cause breathing problems. The mining industry's toxic fallout is only now being studied by researchers, mostly in Lubumbashi, the country's mining capital."

"These job are really desired"

Despite the dangers and risks of working as miners in the cobalt industry, at least of the some miners in the Congo "love their jobs," according to Frankel.

"When I talked to the miners there, none of them want to lose their jobs or give up their jobs. They love their jobs," Frankel said Tuesday, speaking on CBSN. "In a country like Congo, mining is one of the few decently paying jobs to be had there, and so they want to hold onto these jobs."

They also want fair treatment, decent pay, and some safety, "and they would love for their kids to not work in the mines," he said.

"It's a poverty problem," Frankel said. "These parents I talked to – they don't want their kids working in these mines. The problem is that their school fees – schools cost money, and you know, food costs money, and they sort of need their kids to work in there."

Poverty also drives children into the mines instead of school – an estimated 40,000 of them work in brutal conditions starting at very young ages.

The thousands of miners who work in tunnels searching for cobalt in the country "do it because they live in one of the poorest countries in the world, and cobalt is valuable," Frankel wrote in the Washington Post article.

"Not doing enough" 

CBS News spoke with some of the companies that use cobalt in their lithium-ion batteries. All of the companies acknowledged problems with the supply chain, but said they require suppliers to follow responsible sourcing guidelines. Apple, an industry leader in the fight for responsible sourcing, said walking away from the DRC "would do nothing to improve conditions for the people or the environment."

Read company responses here

Amnesty said in November, however, that "major electronics and electric vehicle companies are still not doing enough to stop human rights abuses entering their cobalt supply chains." 

"As demand for rechargeable batteries grows, companies have a responsibility to prove that they are not profiting from the misery of miners working in terrible conditions in the DRC," the organization said. "The energy solutions of the future must not be built on human rights abuses."

An estimated two-thirds of children in the region of the DRC that CBS News visited recently are not in school. They're working in mines instead. 

CBS News' Debora Patta spoke with an 11-year-old boy, Ziki Swaze, who has no idea how to read or write but is an expert in washing cobalt. Every evening, he returns home with a dollar or two to provide for his family.

"I have to go and work there," he told Patta, "because my grandma has a bad leg and she can't."

He said he dreams of going to school, but has always had to work instead.

"I feel very bad because I can see my friends going to school, and I am struggling," he said.

Amnesty says "it is widely recognized internationally that the involvement of children in mining constitutes one of the worst forms of child labour, which governments are required to prohibit and eliminate."

#cobalt #PD Congo #PDR Congo #cobalt mining by children #amnesty university #The toll of the cobalt mining industry on health and the environment #Congo Economic Theft #minerals #rare earth minerals #tesla #iphones #cellphone batteries #ev batteries #lithium batteries #child labour #forced child labor #poverty #systemic racism