We don’t have to agree to disagree, it’s measurable. You just don’t have enough capital to make a dent before large numbers and market forces make it impossible to have an effect. That’s why we have governments and regulations in the first place. “Vote with your wallet” is part of the anarchocapitalist fiction that free markets self-regulate by way of the public acting on them through their consumption choices affecting supply and demand. It just doesn’t happen, demonstrably.
Real collective power is, ideally, enacted through those regulations under a rule of law. Governments made of people and acting on their behalf get to coerce rich assholes into following rules. It’s also collective action, like collective bargaining through unions enforced by a right to strike protected by the government.
If your republic has failed to do these things it gets trickier and you get into the territory of forcing reform through protest, mass disobedience or general strike. And yes, in extreme cases eventually revolution, but man, people online sure like to misrepresent how quickly or effectively through revolution because waiting for revolution is easier than actually doing the work.
I find Americans in particular are surprinsingly reticent to acknowledging this for a place that sacralizes both their foundational moment and several key historical landmarks, all enacted through these means. Nobody ever remembers the Great Burker King Boycott of 1972 or whatever. How is this even a debate.
We don’t have to agree to disagree, it’s measurable. You just don’t have enough capital to make a dent before large numbers and market forces make it impossible to have an effect. That’s why we have governments and regulations in the first place. “Vote with your wallet” is part of the anarchocapitalist fiction that free markets self-regulate by way of the public acting on them through their consumption choices affecting supply and demand. It just doesn’t happen, demonstrably.
Real collective power is, ideally, enacted through those regulations under a rule of law. Governments made of people and acting on their behalf get to coerce rich assholes into following rules. It’s also collective action, like collective bargaining through unions enforced by a right to strike protected by the government.
If your republic has failed to do these things it gets trickier and you get into the territory of forcing reform through protest, mass disobedience or general strike. And yes, in extreme cases eventually revolution, but man, people online sure like to misrepresent how quickly or effectively through revolution because waiting for revolution is easier than actually doing the work.
I find Americans in particular are surprinsingly reticent to acknowledging this for a place that sacralizes both their foundational moment and several key historical landmarks, all enacted through these means. Nobody ever remembers the Great Burker King Boycott of 1972 or whatever. How is this even a debate.