this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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I was being ironic. The rich definitely aren’t a different species. They are just another window on human nature.
We can abstract money until it’s meaningless and then say “see, it doesn’t do anything.”
But even if you regress everything to a basic barter economy, capital still matters. You want to gather 40 workers for a year to create an irrigation canal? Well someone has to be prepared to feed them for a year, THIS year, before the canal can benefit any crops. Otherwise they’re going to fuck off back to their own arid fields and scratch out another year.
So you see, the village can’t get a new canal without the labor of the workers, but you can’t get the labor of the workers without some ready capital. Theres absolutely nothing abstract about it. Capital matters.
What we all get mad about is that the guy with the capital then OWNs the canal and charges high prices for the water. And the way to solve that is by collectively bargaining for some worker ownership at the start. People like yourself get lost hating the guy with the capital and convincing yourself he doesn’t matter. He does. You just need to negotiate for a better shake.
That has been hard to do historically because there’s always some jackass who comes along and says “I’m starving, and I can dig ditches, just feed me while I do it.”
I can’t tell if you’re trolling, arguing in bad faith, or just not reading carefully.
I never said I “hate the guy with the capital,” nor did I claim money “doesn’t do anything.” Its role in organizing labor and distributing resources is obvious.
What I said is that money isn’t essential. In your canal example, what’s actually required are laborers, food, and tools. Incentives can be monetary, collective need, shared access to resources, the sheer fun of it, or even coercion (though that last one is obviously undesirable).
The point stands: a canal, or a phone, can be built through many incentive systems that don’t rely on capital. What other element can be removed before the outcome is no longer the same?
p.s. You were not being ironic. You were being hyperbolic.
Don’t correct my vocabulary. Saying the rich are a different species is irony, not hyperbole. Anyway, you haven’t made any points that stand here.
5 minutes earlier:
So you never said it doesn’t do anything. Just that it can be removed from the picture with no result. (?!)
Goodnight to this conversation.
You are free to use words incorrectly if you so choose.
And seeing as you were unable to refute the point that "money is not an essential element to the creation process", I would say the point does indeed stand. But perhaps your usage of "point that stands" is just another example of your "alternate vocabulary".
Eitherway, have a good one.
Pff. Your refutation is there in black and white, and not just from me. The fact that you won’t recognize it doesn’t change anything.
Alright, then show me the proof. Quote the line where you, or anyone, demonstrated that money is an essential element for something to be created. Just one example where a sufficently motivated person or group in a moneyless society couldn't create something without money.
Because it’s not a phone, and it’s not a canal. So what exactly have I missed where money itself is the magic ingredient? How many dollar bills does it take to make a meal? Not to pay someone for it. Literally, how many do you have to chew and swallow to survive?
edit: oh, and to anwswer your edit that I missed,
Not quite "no result". But money is the only part of the current process to create a phone that can be removed and still have the same phone. Given the same manufacturing process, the same components, and the same labor, with an entierly different incentive system, you would get the same phone.
Does that mean we would have built the same device? Obviously not, the incentive system had an impact, for better or worse, on the decisions made to make the phone the way it is. But if we went post scarcity tomorrow, and money was abolished, would we sudddnly be unable to make the same phone?
You willfully missed the memo, but this was /thread.
You keep moving the goalposts. First you say your points stand unless we disprove them (as if that’s the way it works). Now we have to prove this new statement you -and no one else - have said, that money is the only way something gets created.
Really, just stop struggling. You made the point that capital can be removed with no effect, and that’s just plain bullshit. The rest is you dancing around trying to shift the goalposts.
Oh Jiminy Christmas, you really are dense.
I literally acknowledged in my first comment that payment in the form of capital is a perfectly fine incentive under the current system. So no, those quotes don’t “refute my point.” And nowhere in that thread did anyone refute my actual point.
So my point, that capital isn’t essential to creation, still stands. You even admitted as much to other commenters when you said:
So yes, exactly. Thank you for proving my argument for me.
And yes, if you wanted to refute me, you’d have to prove money is the only way something gets created. Otherwise, it’s not essential. Basic logic.
Did you have to refute it? Nope, I sure as hell didn't say you did. You could’ve let it stand, ignored it, or even agreed. Instead, you went with:
Followed by:
So which is it? Did you actually refute me, or are you just bluffing because you’ve got nothing?
And nice try with the strawman, but I never said capital can be “removed with no effect.” I said it can be removed while still being possible to get the same outcome. We would obviously have to change how we managed the distribution of goods, and decide if there even was an incentive to continue creating the specific "thing". (And if I can't correct your misusage of "irony", you sure as hell don't get to tell me what I meant. None of this "rules for thee, not for me" BS you're trying to pull.)
I have even repeatedly clarified as much when you asked if it could be removed with "no result":
At this point, it’s clear, you’re not debating, you’re just nursing a chip on your shoulder and lashing out at anyone who questions your golden cow.
Have a good one. (<-That was ironic)