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Just dusting off my old Das Kapital book. Why not organize occupations according to guilds, where independent purveyors and craftsmen can freely exchange by directly facing one another using their own properties and instruments of labor? Are the only choices for NYC to subordinate people to capitalists or the ghetto?
Guilds were used all throughout the middle ages to hoard craft knowledge and thus wealth to a small mercantile elite. They were just below the nobility in terms of making Europe from the fall of Rome to WWI a place to escape from.
BTW, people purveying their own labor/skills is called capitalism.
BTW, people purveying their own labor/skills is called capitalism.
I said using their own property and instruments of labor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shizzles
Guilds were used all throughout the middle ages to hoard craft knowledge and thus wealth to a small mercantile elite. They were just below the nobility
They were hoarding but they weren't small relative to the rest of the number of people inhabiting towns.
I sympathize with some aspects of the article. New York is not as visually interesting as it was in the past and there is more of a money element than ever before.
But I also understand that change is inevitable and the same thing is happening to most prominent cities, both here and abroad. And as some of you have pointed out, not all of the change is bad.
I would guess most people believe New York began and ended with them i.e. they define by the time when they were there. Of course, this is not rational. But emotions are often anything but rational. I lived in New York for most of the 1980s and all of the 1990s. A glorious time. The era of fiscal bust and Son of Sam was over and the Renaissance had begun. But it had not yet affected the uniqueness of the place.
So it goes. New York will always be great, one way or the other.
New York City is still the capital of the world. More historic preservation and less welfare (including abolishing the NYCHA, and selling the "projects" to people who work, for a modest price) would solve all NYC problems.
I said using their own property and instruments of labor.
Then you'd be limiting the ability to earn money to those who own property and how much. There'd be no faster way to feudalism than this. An "Instrument of Labor" could be anything including your own hands. Thus what I said stands.
Then you'd be limiting the ability to earn money to those who own property and how much. There'd be no faster way to feudalism than this. An "Instrument of Labor" could be anything including your own hands. Thus what I said stands.
Of course, it limits the ability to "earn money" (ie, accumulate capital). But the point is whether there is another choice other than between capital stratification and ghetto only. Yes, it comes with compromises, but is there another choice besides the two always mentioned?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shizzles
An "Instrument of Labor" could be anything including your own hands. Thus what I said stands.
Sure, but is the exchange of value conducted by the facing of individual laborers/craftsmen/purveyors as I stated in my post, or between laborers and capitalists where the end result is the capitalist accumulating capital?
I really cannot agree with you on this one. No US citizen is denied access to earn money. My access to earn money was severely limited until I earned a Green Card, but only because I was an immigrant (and that is okay, I understand the need to control immigration) - after that, I was allowed to compete for any job I wanted and knew how to do. Oh right, I was also in training for 30 years, rather than pursuing crime, begging for handouts or having kids I couldn't support. As an immigrant, I would say that the US provides much more access to earn money than any other country I know of, and I just wish I had been born here - my life would have been a million times easier.
I think the problem is just the opposite: people in the US have it so easy that a large segment of the population thinks everything should just fall to them from the sky, and therefore don't want to make even the minimal effort to get qualified for a useful trade, or, at the very least, not have kids they can't afford.
The people don't have the power to create the conditions. They really don't.
You're kind of like the person who will get pissed off that the person in front of you is buying lobster with food stamps. But not get pissed off at why that person is allowed to do so, regardless of the morality/legality of it.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
New York City is still the capital of the world. More historic preservation and less welfare (including abolishing the NYCHA, and selling the "projects" to people who work, for a modest price) would solve all NYC problems.
I agree with those actions but any city that elects a guy like your mayor is a city that is not interested.
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