Oh! That is a good point. I shouldn’t say the problem is money, (especially since I call this mini-monologue I’m trying to develop “The Problem is Growth”)

My goal with that whole comment was to describe money’s tendency to grow without limit. And I was under the impression, even as I posted, that I need a lot more practice before I can deliver a simple paragraph that can capture and convey the dangers I see in growth.

To answer your question, no. Money is not material value. Money is an abstract representation of value. Not a “store” of it (as I called it). It’s separated from the material and labor value it represents. And in fact, it’s probably that separation that makes it capable of the dangerous, cancerous growth that I am so wary of.

I would actually argue that money – and not human nature – is the point of failure. To be more specific, money’s capacity for growth.

The second you have the growth associated with a store of value (the ability to spend $100 and get back $110), you have the capacity for different piles of value to grow at different rates (depending on things like luck, ruthlessness, and cleverness) without being limited by a single human’s ability to labor.

And when you have different piles of money growing at different rates with no upper limit, you have some growing so fast that they become cancerous, sucking the resources out of the entire system.

It’s both better and worse having this problem than having one of human nature. Worse because growth is an even more universal part of nature than greed. (So we can’t get rid of it.) Better because it’s something we are intimately familiar with trying to contain. We have surgeries for rapid cellular growths. We have antibiotics for rapid bacterial growths. We have entire forestry organizations that release hunting licenses dedicated to containing rapid deer population growth.

Growth is an incredibly simple, two-dimensional graph, and it’s easy to tell when we’re controlling a growth vs succumbing to it.

The meme said, “the means of production.” It did not say, “every, single means of production.”

The OP could have meant anything from workers electing their CEOs in 51% of the steel mills, smelteries, oil rigs, cinemas, restaurants, etc. all the way up to 100% like you decided to assume.

But honestly, it makes very little sense to read 100% into this, especially with your wording of “good or service-providing entity”.

A hell of a lot of “good or service-providing entities” are sole proprietorships, which are in a blurry gray area between private ownership and cooperative ownership. On the one hand, many capitalists started out as sole proprietors. On the other hand, by owning one’s own means of production, a sole proprietor is both worker and owner, fitting perfectly in the definition of socialism. In fact, I would argue that the sole proprietor doesn’t really become a socialist or a capitalist until another worker joins the business and it becomes a cooperative or a private company. Until then, the distinction is meaningless.

Are their last words going to be “see? You were overreacting.” right before someone pushes a button on their gas chamber?

Or have they already booked their tickets to some recently-confiscated house in the West Bank?

I voted for Harris, but I feel like it’s pretty obvious why someone would vote third party instead.

One need only reject the premise that voting should be a strategic act of harm reduction. Mind you, I’m not saying “is” here. I’m saying “should be”.

We may not take their approach, but you have to admit that there’s value to it. They are embracing the world as it ought to be, whereas we are trying to work with the reality of the situation as we perceive it.

And we could be perceiving incorrectly. For all we know, Trump could loose-cannon his way into making Netanyahu’s whole party lose their next election. It may not be likely, but nothing in this world is certain.

For all we know, the Heritage Foundation could destroy so much of the government and economy so rapidly that it weakens all of the property rights and FBI operations aimed against self-sufficient mutual aid, and communes start springing up all over the place. It’s not likely without massive turmoil, starvation, and bloodshed. But however unlikely, we cannot predict the future!

Cyncism is costly in terms of mental health and well-being. In order to choose pragmatism over principles, we must accept a reality where no good choices exist. But that’s not something we can do everywhere. We can’t repeatedly choose the “least miserable option” and still be able to hold ourselves together and function. It’s just not possible.

Humans need hope to survive. They need a hill they can hang onto. They need to be able to say, “on this ground, I fight for what should be rather than what is.”

Some people’s hill is their ballot.

This is amazing. Also I…

I can’t say I disagree. Russia’s economy really has been destroyed. We’ve been checkmated.

I am so sorry. That’s devastating. You already have to struggle to fight your illness. But to have to fight that hard AGAINST YOUR DOCTOR when your doctor is supposed to be on your team? It’s a betrayal.

The entire industry is built on catering to the vast swaths of women who get ignored by doctors and need somewhere to turn.

I highly suspect doctors are taught in medical school, “women are over emotional and prone to exaggeration.”

Hell, “hysteria” was considered a valid diagnosis until the 1950s.