They’re literally doing capitalism. M - C - M’ is described in the first part of Capital. This is money operating as capital. Buy a commodity for M, then sell it for M’ that is greater than M. You have no interest in the use value of the commodity. The only thing that matters is it’s exchange value.
Booyah. Capitalism isn't about distributing resources efficiently or meritocracy or effort versus reward. It means "I get my treats." Any treat that is not received marks a failure of the system. But an actual efficient system of treat distribution doesn't come with the sense of superiority you get from seeing the treatless.
EDIT: Not that food, clothing, housing, and medical care are treats, of course. They are basic human rights. But it's all piled under material success under capitalism, ie. treats. Only under capitalism are basic human rights turned into treats. Marx's "treat fetishism."
I don’t think most people seek out people they’re better than. Most of them want to be able to assume that everyone else is equally well off. But those treats are basically bribes to look the other way when they see poverty, so it’s not much different from the lifestyle of a corrupt official being interrupted because they stopped receiving their bribes
Bit idea: buying PS5s for scalping, but instead of selling the PS5s themselves, sell NFT "shares" in each PS5. The PS5 is kept in a closet/shed/warehouse somewhere, but each NFT purchaser is a part owner.
This is giving me echos of that dystopic vision of the future where instead of paying tuition you would tokenize your future and pay a percentage of lifetime earnings to shareholders.
That's already kind of a thing. There was a bill a while ago to make student loan repayment automatically come out of your income.
Tell people the PS5s are stored in a closet/shed/warehouse somewhere, then sell the physical PS5s too.
A decentralized autonomous organization - they're online groups that pool crypto to buy NFTs of the constitution or whatever based on a set of rules that they've written into the blockchain. They're basically the cyberpunk techbro version of your grandma's investing club.
Edit: If you're curious, look up the DAO that bought the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang album that the feds seized from Martin Shkreli. It's a sort of interesting story.
cause there is no obfuscation of thats what capitalism is lol, there is no cute production somewhere (Investment (tm))
I mean, scalping things is kinda annoying...
But sometimes I wonder if the people doing it need it a lot more than me
I don't think so, if you're spending 5k on starting costs up front for a bunch PS5's then you aren't destitute, and I think that's most of them. I don't think anyone is scalping one ps5.
Scalping luxury goods is no where near as bad as landlords/flippers scalping houses so I don't really care. Maybe I'd care more if I thought I'd buy a ps5 while it's a current console.
They are the kind of hustle demons who want to buy a yacht.
Because they think if you just say it in the right way, bosses will be fair (i.e. get a degree and spend 15 years becoming the only gear capable of keeping the machine going, but don't strike just quietly ask your boss for more than what your coworkers are making).
This is the end stage when liberals very obviously want a caste society, they just don't want to be the ones saying it is or enforcing it's existence.
They're delusional and think it will just all work itself out, or the government will step in and C'mon Man the scalpers into playing "fair".
because the only way to beat bots is to write better bots which is pretty difficult so there is no choice but to submit to the scalper. It's different from what they expected to be doing so it is bad.
capitalism sucks when you're not the one exploiting others. who knew? :curious-marx:
I've seen a similar thing with gun guys (since I occasionaly visit /k/ to pilfer gun pics, and end up feeling like a scavenger diving in a toxic waste dump). Constant whining about ammo shortages, people buying up rifles so they can price gouge, youtubers selling out, this or that company catering to the military and law enforcement markets instead of civilians... that's literally just the free market at work you morons, if you're gonna whine about that shit then I guess you have no option but to become a communist.
The average person in a capitalist country has 0 idea what capitalism is, and even most lefists haven't read Capital (not that I blame them, it's a slog). Scalping is viewed as "cheating the system", and if you press most people on it being capitalism functioning normally, they will either say that it's not real capitalism or that it's still wrong and should be illegal.
IME, most g*mers view video games as a meritocracy, where skill is the only thing that determines how well one does (see how upset they get when something is unbalanced). As a result, they're generally speaking opposed to "unfair" tactics, like Pay to Win systems, and it's easy to see how this expands to include scalping. If it weren't for the utter suppression of leftist views in the west and the ongoing multi-billion dollar fascist propaganda industry, I'd expect a lot more of them would come around to some sort of socialism.
It's also a matter of legitimacy and classism. Most people will recognize that small-time, "unofficial" capitalists and their actions are repulsive (see all the lib outrage at the price gougers selling hand sanitizer out of their garages early in the pandemic), but if you give that same small-time capitalist a jet-ski dealership they're suddenly legitimate and above questioning, even if they continue to be just as much of a scumbag.
See how upset most G*mers get at anyone bringing up the possibility of someone cheating. Unless it's glaringly obvious wallhacking or teleporting, most will say "git gud" or "mad because bad" because they want to keep the facade of meritocracy for all but the most obvious cheaters.
:heated-gamer-moment: That's an ANTI CONSUMER move! :heated-gamer-moment:
