"Exchange economics frames life as a contest between bargainers who maneuver to outwit each other in order to control pieces of a fragmented world. Free trade, the free market—these are oxymorons: where profiteering can bend everyone and everything to its prerogatives, eventually no one is free to focus on anything else. Exchange economics imposes a one-dimensional scale of value, according to which everything can be appraised and traded. Today, this framework has taken over all of our relations and means of survival. This is why so many people are materially, socially, and emotionally impoverished.
The gift economy prevails wherever people can share things freely without keeping score. In gift economics, the participants receive more the more they bestow—not only because generosity tends to beget more of the same, but also because gift-giving is its own reward. Everyone who has shared a real friendship or attended a successful potluck has seen that when the opportunity presents itself, human beings enthusiastically return to this way of relating."
Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism
Revisiting the Difference Between Mutual Aid and Charity
crimethinc.com/2025/06/06/mutu…
#MutualAid #capitalism #FreeMarket
Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism
To get the most out of mutual aid, we ought to create participatory commons in which everyone can contribute and there is no fundamental division between organizers and beneficiaries.CrimethInc.
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
"The idea quickly spread across the United States, Russia, and other countries such as Australia, England, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Africa, and Canada."
"The movement has taken root in dozens of cities in the United States, with some holding one-time events, annual, bi-monthly, and even monthly markets."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_R…
Bloomington, IL
facebook.com/bnreallyreallyfre…
Portland, OR
portlandlivingonthecheap.com/r…
Raleigh, NC
triangleonthecheap.com/raleigh…
Carrboro, NC
triangleonthecheap.com/free-ma…
Athens, GA
visitathensga.com/event/really…
#FreeMarket #MutualAid
Raleigh Really Really Free Market July 13 - Triangle on the Cheap
Jody Mace (Triangle on the Cheap)How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
Ah yes, "the economy". The only thing that counts, according to what we're told; that which everything must be measured against.
Tell me, how much did your parents charge you for services rendered while raising you? Have you paid them back yet?
It seems obvious to me that there is more gift economy happening (now and throughout human history) than there is "free market".
Anyway, there are reasons why such behavior is not as obvious to you. I'm pretty sure you would claim that those reasons have to do with intrinsic "human nature", and that "free market capitalism" is the inevitable and only answer. I think otherwise, but it would take a wall of text to explain, are you up for that?
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
Voluntary exchange is not capitalism. POSIWID, not what some dictionary says it is; not what propertarians and US-style "libertarians" pretend it is.
The word has historical roots that you have rejected in favor of a more recent narrative that is grounded in falsehoods and a disingenuous agenda.
Your backyard is "yours" only because of regulations. Capitalism cannot exist without regulations and violence to enforce them. Capitalism *is* regulation, not freedom.
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
"Wrong, but we've seen how fond you are of assuming."
Why would I have to assume anything about your position? Do you think I've never read any of your posts? Or have you never made your position clear in any of them?
"There are plenty of examples of free market capitalism"
Such as?
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
In other words, I did already know your position and had no need to ask.
And yes, I agree, some things seem obvious to some people yet are completely wrong, even oxymoronic. Like the idea of "free market capitalism", a thing that has never existed and never could exist.
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
So you don't believe that free market capitalism (as you conceptualize it) is the superior, most viable alternative that best accommodates human nature and basic economic concepts?
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
When I asked you to demonstrate how anything said was false, I was specifically and obviously referring to my previous post ( c.im/@whathappened/11491105913… ) which you hand-waved away as "cheap claims, fabricated to discard counterexamples to your narrative", to which I replied asking you to back up that assertion. You've evaded addressing that by skipping back to a previous comment that you had already denied without explanation. But ok, I'll reply to that: even if I was wrong about what you *would* claim, I was being truthful and honest when I said I was "pretty sure". And while you've twice dismissed that, you've not explained what you actually *would* claim, to show that I was wrong about what I was pretty sure of.
But I really still want to see you demonstrate what's fabricated or false about these specific statements:
_____
Voluntary exchange is not capitalism [which you've agreed with]. POSIWID, not what some dictionary says it is; not what propertarians and US-style "libertarians" pretend it is.
The word has historical roots that you have rejected in favor of a more recent narrative that is grounded in falsehoods and a disingenuous agenda.
Your backyard is "yours" only because of regulations. Capitalism cannot exist without regulations and violence to enforce them. Capitalism *is* regulation, not freedom.
_______
You also evaded my question about how and why voluntary exchange is a "fundamental part of capitalism", as you put it. What are these "basic concepts underlying capitalism" that you grasp, and how did they come to underlie capitalism? Was there something like a "Declaration of Capitalism" or a "Capitalist Manifesto" that capitalists are all expected to adhere to?
How did we get here?
2025-07-25 00:33:32
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
Talk about "cheap claims":
- what did I say that was a fabrication? I made accurate, factual statements. Demonstrate how anything I said was false.
- how and why is voluntary exchange a "fundamental part of capitalism"? I mean sure, it happens. I'm not saying that capitalism eliminated voluntary exchange. More like it enclosed it. Capitalism made exchange mandatory. Sure, you have some choices. But those choices are defined by the market society that has been imposed on us.
People (outside a privileged few with the power to push their agenda) did not arrive at capitalism voluntarily, it was forced upon most of the world violently and through regulation (like Enclosure).
How did we get here?
Unknown parent • • •@AlexanderKingsbury
You gave me an example of what you considered to be "free market capitalism". I replied with statements countering that example. You then replied to those statements by saying: "Meh, cheap claims, fabricated to discard counterexamples to your narrative."
It seems obvious to me, but whatever. I still would like to see you explain exactly what's fabricated about those specific statements I made. I don't see any point in dwelling on my earlier statement about what I thought you would claim about free market capitalism, I'll just stipulate that I could have been wrong about that so we can move on to discussing the actual topic at hand rather than discussing our discussion in a pointless debate-me-bro feedback loop going nowhere.
I am also asking (as you suggested I should do rather than assuming) what you think those "basic concepts underlying capitalism" are that explain how and why voluntary exchange is a "fundamental part of capitalism", and how those concepts came to underlie capitalism. Was capitalism intentionally and systematically built on them?