Some die-hard proponents of capitalism argue that nothing offers freedom like their favorite economic system. They say no other system comes close to offering freedom. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Die-hards who favor capitalism and it’s ugly step-sister, democracy, often give crazy examples of how free people are:
If I’m poor, I can choose to miss a few meals and buy a guitar if I want. That’s freedom.
Such statements say more about how completely snookered the speaker is than anything about freedom. It’s 50 shades of delusion. People who say such things feel free, but that feeling and the real thing are distinctly different. This example doesn’t illustrate freedom at all. It represents a restricted, two-choice dilemma. Wondering how free you are? See how many restricted, two-choice dilemmas you face each day.
A restricted, two-choice dilemma is a predicament where only two options exist, both undesirable. In this example eating and buying a guitar are mutually exclusive. Good guitars cost a lot in America, unless you get lucky at a garage sale or on Craigslist. “Missing a few meals” to afford a guitar actually means “going hungry”. I would not enjoy going hungry to buy a guitar, no matter how much I enjoy playing. Restricted, two-choice dilemmas always end up in compromise. Compromise means making concessions. Making concessions is not freedom.
Isn’t it absurd to think a free person must choose between getting a guitar and eating? Real freedom eliminates nearly all restricted, two-choice dilemmas. With real freedom you can have a guitar. Eating has nothing to do with it.
Do you disagree? What restricted, two-choice dilemmas do you face? What would it feel like to be able to make either choice independent of the other? I’d love to hear your example.
The 2 choice dilemma I have is a choice between a full time job with forced overtime more or less since they can fire someone for any reason such as lack of productivity. Or a low paying part time job that can’t even pay a decent hourly rate. The choices in this system are dismal to say the least and I no longer feel in control of my life, I’m just along for the ride.
Now in a Copiosis system I would definitely be a hands on engineer/optimizer upgrading and making more efficient everything from power plants and chemical plants to utility systems which despite what people would think dosnt exist in this joke of a system otherwise we wouldn’t have crap like power plants that dump perfectly good hot water into cooling towers vs putting it into a district heating system, which they do have in some places but that is the exception and not the rule.
I’m tired of wasting my talent on a system that is destroying the planet for no reason and is full of starving children, for some of them they literally can’t wait another day
Yep. Everyone is faced with restricted two-choice dilemmas all the time in the current system. In Copiosis….if you’re an engineer/optimizer….there are so freaking many ways you could make the planet and people better off: hands on for sure on virtually any machinery depending on your skill, but also coordinating the work of others, identifying opportunities to gain efficiencies, training others (if you enjoy that), inventing something new, writing a book on the new thing, or writing a book on how to optimize…so many options!
In real life, I would probably have a guitar made in China. I would probably be eating really cheaply for a while and skipping restaurants.
Yeah, that’s probably how it would go in today’s world. Yes, isn’t “Real life” is being created by humans like you and me? It’s a malleable thing, reality, not something that’s fixed. If that’s the case, and I believe it to be, there’s no reason in real life why, you can’t have healthy, nutritious and sumptuous meals AND have a guitar (made in your local country). That’s our commitment. Real freedom. Not a bunch of restricted two-choice dilemmas.