Friday, March 14, 2014

This was both entertaining and thought-provoking

It was also a very clear headed explanation of some of the key mythologies of the modern cult of anarcho-capitalism.  I especially liked (edited with *'s for questionable language choices):

But if none of that stuff existed, there would be nothing stopping Jay-Z from taking your farm. In other words, you don't "own" ****. The entire concept of owning anything, be it a hunk of land or a house or a ****ing sandwich, exists purely because other people pay other armed men to protect it. Without society, all of your brave, individual talents and efforts won't buy you a bucket of ****s. So when I say "We're all in this together," I'm not stating a philosophy. I'm stating a fact about the way human life works. No, you never asked for anything to be handed to you. You didn't have to, because billions of humans who lived and died before you had already created a lavish support system where the streets are all but paved with gold. Everyone reading this -- all of us living in a society advanced enough to have Internet access -- was born one inch away from the finish line, plopped here at birth, by other people.


But it is a very straightforward explanation of the concept of interdependence, and the way that we are all connected based on social convention. 

Sometimes the Cracked site is surprisingly thought provoking. 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing this. I think it does the best job at surfacing the hidden curriculum behind our discourse on success and wealth. Maybe there should be a school for rich people that teaches them this. It strikes me as a mix of Marx and Confucius. The new motto: equality, opportunity and responsibility.

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