If I live in the woods alone, hunting and gathering my food and felling my own timber for firewood and construction, then that is my economy. Economy means how a society allocates their resources.
If I live in a one-person-society as a hermit, then me gathering and hunting at least enough food to stay alive and having enough resources to keep my abode able to protect me from cold and rain is my economy.
As economy means simply allocation of a society’s resources, it is not possible to not have an economy. There is always an economy. But, it doesn’t need to be based on money, necessarily. Any system where goods are distributed to people who need them is an economic system.
So, the OP is misunderstanding the word “economy”, but the main point of course still stands:
The monetary economy as we see it in our current society is actually purely a social construct.
Or simply: “Monetary economy isn’t even real, we literally fucking made it up” is correct.
You do understand context? OP was talking in the context of the current world economy, how we have countless billionaires whilst still half the world population is going hungry? Oh, you want to say that those billionaires basically also only are billionaires Because of how economy works? Then hoe about that we produce enough food to feed the entire world multiple times over bit end up throwing so much away that still half the world goes hungry?
How about so many people being homeless because houses are too expensive and governments can’t be armed to build more in a timely manner?
The thing is, for toppling the current economic system, it would be important to understand that there can be different economic systems. And also, that it’s not a choice between only capitalism and communism, but that there is an infinite amount of other economic models to invent and use. And their subtypes.
Understanding economy as a synonym for our current money-based economy is strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged.
If you don’t understand why having an economy that is thought of is important, you cannot get any useful results by toppling the current one.
It’s pretty obvious from context that the meme (don’t forget, this is a meme, posted in a meme community) is about our current, monetary-based economy, not the concept of economy in general. I fail to see how that’s “strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged”, especially since the point of the meme is about tearing down the current system (and the implication that it be replaced with a moneyless one). Also I think your definition of “economy” is so watered down as to be useless. IDK, this all just comes across as you nitpicking and trying to be correct for the sake of being correct, ie, pedantry.
They are. A
Just read the text without biases and you’ll notice. It preaches to its own congregation, but looks like a simple stupid claim to anyone it might actually benefit.
The generally accepted definition of a society is a group of people living together in an organized way. There are more things that go into it, but clearly a single person doesn’t qualify as a society. I would argue that general usage would also preclude super small groups of people, but that’s not core here.
What is core here is that you are arguing a straw man argument. All economies, large or small, exist as cultural constructs that mediate how the resources will be divided. The shape this takes is absolutely “made up” and we could decide at any moment to change how it functions.
Economies do not exist outside of culture and culture is constantly negotiated between those participating in it. Therefore, economies are absolutely made up and I believe it is you who does not understand economy.
If I live in the woods alone, hunting and gathering my food and felling my own timber for firewood and construction, then that is my economy. Economy means how a society allocates their resources. If I live in a one-person-society as a hermit, then me gathering and hunting at least enough food to stay alive and having enough resources to keep my abode able to protect me from cold and rain is my economy.
As economy means simply allocation of a society’s resources, it is not possible to not have an economy. There is always an economy. But, it doesn’t need to be based on money, necessarily. Any system where goods are distributed to people who need them is an economic system.
So, the OP is misunderstanding the word “economy”, but the main point of course still stands: The monetary economy as we see it in our current society is actually purely a social construct. Or simply: “Monetary economy isn’t even real, we literally fucking made it up” is correct.
But economy is real.
Yeah, but no.
You do understand context? OP was talking in the context of the current world economy, how we have countless billionaires whilst still half the world population is going hungry? Oh, you want to say that those billionaires basically also only are billionaires Because of how economy works? Then hoe about that we produce enough food to feed the entire world multiple times over bit end up throwing so much away that still half the world goes hungry?
How about so many people being homeless because houses are too expensive and governments can’t be armed to build more in a timely manner?
I could go on, but you get it
No, I don’t. (And the rest of your message was based on the assumption that I do)
Are you practicing for the pedantry Olympics
No. But I do get why you’d ask :)
The thing is, for toppling the current economic system, it would be important to understand that there can be different economic systems. And also, that it’s not a choice between only capitalism and communism, but that there is an infinite amount of other economic models to invent and use. And their subtypes.
Understanding economy as a synonym for our current money-based economy is strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged.
If you don’t understand why having an economy that is thought of is important, you cannot get any useful results by toppling the current one.
It’s pretty obvious from context that the meme (don’t forget, this is a meme, posted in a meme community) is about our current, monetary-based economy, not the concept of economy in general. I fail to see how that’s “strongly in the interest of those who want to keep the current system unchanged”, especially since the point of the meme is about tearing down the current system (and the implication that it be replaced with a moneyless one). Also I think your definition of “economy” is so watered down as to be useless. IDK, this all just comes across as you nitpicking and trying to be correct for the sake of being correct, ie, pedantry.
It’s obvious for you and for me. It’s not obvious to everyone. And it’s non-obvious to the majority.
I feel like it’s not obvious to you, or else you wouldn’t have posted several paragraphs describing how the OP was using the term incorrectly lmao
They are. A Just read the text without biases and you’ll notice. It preaches to its own congregation, but looks like a simple stupid claim to anyone it might actually benefit.
What
The generally accepted definition of a society is a group of people living together in an organized way. There are more things that go into it, but clearly a single person doesn’t qualify as a society. I would argue that general usage would also preclude super small groups of people, but that’s not core here.
What is core here is that you are arguing a straw man argument. All economies, large or small, exist as cultural constructs that mediate how the resources will be divided. The shape this takes is absolutely “made up” and we could decide at any moment to change how it functions.
Economies do not exist outside of culture and culture is constantly negotiated between those participating in it. Therefore, economies are absolutely made up and I believe it is you who does not understand economy.
An economy exists, always. Ants have an economy.
How that economy is implemented is a social construct. The basic idea is not.
I do agree with you 100%, and what you are saying is what I was trying to communicate.
Either we both understand what economy is, or neither does.
However, one of us has a better command of the English language than the other, and the better one isn’t called Tuukka :)