capitalism: n. an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
This is an illusion. All exchange of wealth is, in general, cooperative. Wealth, in the modern sense, is fabricated... since our money is a fabrication.
fabricate: v.t. 1. to make by art or skill and labor; construct. 2. to make by assembling parts or sections. 3. to devise or invent (a legend, lie, etc.) 4. to fake; forge (a document, sinature, etc.).
Wealth accretion cannot occur without the cooperation of debtors. For a debtor to become a creditor, new debtors must be created. Our current understanding of capitalism depends on this illusory distinction between creditors and debtors... but we are learning that new debt (and debtors) cannot be created indefinitely.
We are also learning that the wealth of the nation seems to be entirely dependent on the creation of new debt (wealth).
I posit that all demand (in the modern age) is dependent upon debt. A home or a stock is not worth X dollars because of some rational calculation... its value is dependent upon access to debt.
Where does money come from? In the U.S., the Federal Reserve prints money, loans it to a bank, and the bank loans it to someone else. Thus, anyone who manages to accumulate money has been explicitly dependent upon some other individuals borrowing that money from a bank (a bank that borrowed from the Federal Reserve). So, we have entity C1 that has X dollars and group D1 that owes X dollars to bank B1 that owes X dollars to the Federal Reserve. C1 has NOTHING if D1 has never owed a thing.
The wealthy exist at the pleasure of the debtors (the poor.. as it were). The wealthy should come to accept this reality just as the poor should accept it.
A nation's currency derives its value from that nation's stability. A nation's stability is derived from the cooperation of its inhabitants (most particularly, its debtors).
When Mario Savio said this it seemed so difficult to imagine how one might throw their body upon the gears of the machine to prevent it from working. The beauty of modern capitalism is that preventing "the machine" from working is extremely simple. One can prevent the machine from working through the seemingly passive act of refusing to pay off debt.
The apt, though probably aprocryphal, Donal Trump paraphrase is:
When you owe the bank $100,000 it's your problem. When you owe the bank $100,000,000,000, it's the bank's problem.
Wake up motherfuckers.. this is The Bank's problem.
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