Obviously, it's a metaphor for modern capitalist society. But in times of primitive communism, if someone made a net, they'd share with the entire community freely. Production wasn't based on accumulation of capital but on human need and reciprocal gift giving. If Able made a net one day, firstly he wouldn't have starved because the community would've shared food and secondly he'd make more for everyone if it worked and he'd teach everyone how to make their own. There's no classes so there's no conflict between people, everyone works harmoniously for the good of everyone else.
It doesn't surprise me that this guy literally can't comprehend a society of mutual sharing and cooperation. He's a fully liberal subject. Of course he sees things only through the lens of capital accumulation. Just like if we brought a medieval serf to today and explained how every day we go out into the world, we're surrounded by strangers, we work different jobs in our lives occasionally with people that don't even share a language with us, it would blow the medieval serfs mind. The serf would literally not be able to comprehend how our society can function - because the serf would be a fully feudal subject, only able to see things through the lens of mutual obligation, loyalty and familiarity.
This guy did correctly notice that increasing consumer debt is bad for capitalism (the solution floated during the 70s and 90s stagflation) but is incapable of understanding why capitalism is so reliant on consumer debt - he thinks it's just personal failures, millennial now-now-now entitlement etc., but debt is created because of low profitability caused by overproduction. The same thing happened in his metaphor, the good Able overproduced fish so he lent fish out. Consumer debt and late capitalism are inextricable, just like all economic systems driven by class conflict, capitalism contains in it its own seeds of destruction. It's a vice grip and just replacing modern regulation with the regulation of the gilded age won't make profitability soar (but temporarily anyway). The only way out of low profitability is the destruction of ineffective or inefficient capital, either war or literally going around and smashing up old machines and workplaces.
Also, towards the end the guy insists that you should have to pay to vote, lol. Literal rule by the rich, no patina of democracy. I do think we're headed in this direction as popular support becomes increasingly unnecessary (because labor power keeps declining), wouldn't be surprised if government will be replaced by much more direct corporate rule sometime mid-century if we don't manage to overthrow the fuckers.
I looked up Irwin Schiff and he was a proto-anti income tax libertarian or even a proto-soveriegn citizen. He died in prison in 2015 after many, many convictions of tax fraud (he wouldn't file at first and later reported 0 on his income on the basis that he "made no corporate profit.") His son, Peter Schiff, became a stock broker/investment ghoul that has one failed run at US senate under his belt. He's got a youtube channel called SchiffReport. Near as I can tell, he isn't an income tax dodger but does think all taxes should be abolished in favor of a single sales tax.
His son essentially took his dad's book here and rewrote it sometime int 2010 and called it "How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes" (if you want to torture yourself there's an animated version here).
How the fuck does inflation work if you're using fish as currency?
I spoke too early, he takes about 10-20 pages explaining the concept. It's as nonsensical as you expect.
thinking about the part in Graeber's Debt where he points out that orthodox economics relies on fantastical just-so stories which bear no resemblance to actual history -- like 3 straight fellas living alone together on an island "once upon a time"
On severe problem I see is that this argues at one point that overall price DECREASES across the board with subsequent wage decreases are actually a good thing. This is just absolutely wrong. First, the amount of labour performed in america has only increased while wages stagnated. That has been the root of many problems. So what this assumes is that capitalists are going to take the hits first while the workers reap the benefits of recieving lower wages as the value of products also goes down. This obviously just isn't the case, and I shouldn't have to explain why, but i'll briefly summarize by saying that the rate of inflation won't slow down nearly fast enough, so capitalists are gonna end up laying off workers and reducing wages faster than the price of the product falls in order to keep profit margins high. It isn't rocket science to say across-the-board pay decreases is a bad thing.
