“There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” is not an excuse to consume the fucking maximum...

Well seems the general opinion has changed a bit, we have this thread for example 8ch.net/leftypol/res/2881565.html

Though the general opinion doesn't matter when a janny just feels like banning people for petty reasons.

What made you think I'm a socialist for moralist or ethical reasons?

Regardless of your personal reasons, socialists need to be moral figures in order to gain the trust and respect of the masses.

Regardless of morals, you contribute more to the success of a capitalist system and the backlash against reform by consuming more

And what is "more"? Forcing myself to live an ascetic lifestyle will not destroy capitalism.

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This. Also, consumption matters. BDS wouldn't be a thing if boycotts were useless.

I didn’t say not to consume, I said that it’s not an excuse to consume the maximum amount you fucking can and contribute to the problem.

OP is a lifestylist and is probably a vegan too

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Boycots are only good as a means to an end, not an ends in and of itself. Israel will still exist regardless, but you might have mildly irked them

Ethical and unethical isn't a binary.
Just because capitalism reproduces a consumer model that pressures people into unethical consumption doesn't mean some decisions aren't more unethical than others.
Buying slaves for your sex dungeon from human traffickers is still less ethical than consuming some chickpeas you grew in your window. Drinking 90 bottles of water and throwing them in the dump is still less ethical than drinking some rainwater. Even something tiny with negligible impact, like buying union beer instead of union-busting coors is an ethical act of solidarity and there is a difference. A rigged system doesn't let people off the hook for the decisions that they do have some control over.
That isn't to say that lifestylism is a solution. Lifestylism becomes a problem when it supplants social organization and analysis. When yoi believe your obligation to your community is abrogated by your consumption or lifestyle, that is the problem. It isn't that some lifestyles aren't more or less ethical than others.
Read Bookchin.

what if i purchase the "maximum" amount of land, food, and weapons to start a commune, but it was purchased through sweatshop labor?

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That is not how it works and your personal lifestyle decsions will do little to capitalism and the market as a whole. And this is coming from a person who personally respects the ascetic lifestyle of Lenin and asceticism in general, and who has a general displeasure of unbridled hedonism. This idea that the consumer has control is purposely blinding yourself to the inner workings of how things actually operate, and how even the ascetic ideal in capitalism exists as merely another semi-manufactured consumer culture, as with any other.

i mean the biggest irony is that you cannot leave a capitalist society if you're in the middle of an island and you need to pay for a boat in order to leave, because everything is somehow owned by the state.
even the seeds, the trees, everything is somehow owned by them, giving them the power to own that sort of material seems fucking retarded.

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Well, it won't help capitalism that's for sure.

If the commune actually goes anywhere: life's a shit and people get sacrificed.

Am I allowed to drink coffee if I obtain it by shoplifting?

"There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism except let me explain why there is."

Great thread, OP.

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Not op but something not being ethical has shades of grey. Both stealing and murdering children in the crib is unethical yet I don't think they are equal. In other words OP is right.

You miss the whole point to begin with. That there are no ethical solutions to the problems of capital points to the fact that these problems are structural of origin and the solution addressing this must therefore be structural as well.

No reformism, thanks.

I can see why you think it implies reformism, but it doesn't have to. Part of it can just be reducing the damage you may do to other people or yourself if you can, while walking the road to the same goal.

I’m not against addressing the problem and finding a solution, i’m against using the problem as an excuse to practice what is basically consumerist nihilism

You’re “allowed” to do whatever the fuck you want. You’re your own creature. My point was that supporting the industry is counter productive to your goals

Lifestylism absolves yourself from confronting the contradictions of capitalism. I'm not kidding, publicly burning plastic, using an unnecessary ammount of plastic straws, etc is better praxis than using tote bags and shit.
People need to understand that individual actions have a miniscule effect on the machine that subjugates all of us and that the machine itself will be the cause of the death of the planet, not individual actions. Asceticism just artificially raises you to an imagiend higher moral status. A moralist liberal buying kambucha and organic apples is fueling capitalism just as much as the unwary buyer, but the liberal somehow finds a way to reward themselves for consuming. Avoid this trap, be the unwary buyer.
You can avoid supporting slave labor and shit, but don't pretend you're just massaging your ego.

I never said to do it for moral reasons or for a perceived high ground, nor did I support buying organic shit or going “vegan.” I’m against promoting commodity fetishism and continuing to purchase needless frivolities in MASSIVE excess (owning the latest gadgets, buying jewelry, owning walls upon walls of corporate merchandise, etc)
I’m not promoting full asceticism, I’m only saying you can’t use a lack of ethical consumption as an excuse to consume more. You’re crippling yourself by falling into a trap.

expect it's fucking subjective,and people already "choose" more or less what they consume in the limits of their economic power and what they think will make them happy,forcing some type of lifestylism upon others will never make you look good upon the majority,because you will just be another douchebag in the middle of a new community of samefags that do the same stuff you're doing.
So they are no real use out of embracing lifestylism expect you feeling like your a better person,and forcing your special worldview of what is ethical just fragment even more society and become just IDPOL at it's finest.

and how the fuck do you intend to do that,instead of rubbing your back before anything other than writing on a mongolian hand painting forum ? are you going to do your own special division of leftism that is concentrated on anti consumerism ?
Are you going to whine in the middle of starbucks because somehow something will happen ?
there are already not even 90% of the population that aren't using starbucks or whatever "insert name of company you don't like" so it's already happening,you're focusing on a minority of whales in the middle of a brainwashing tumbler to push people to consume by making them feel less alienated.

(me)
also you're kind of preaching to the choir as I do dislike consumerist culture and all of that shit,but I don't see anything other than systemic change to erase this garbage,if you somehow have a magical change that can actually do that individually,go wild,be my guest.

consume more than what? it's impossible to avoid capitalist propaganda. The best you can do is actively learn how to spot ideology, use ad blockers, anti-trackers, be vigilant of "native" ads, etc, and that tends to make you consume less.
Literally no one but the most degenerate, consume for the sake of consuming. Everything most of us buy, we either "need" or really want.
Could you give me an example of something you think qualifies as excessive consumerism?
phones have a lifetime. there's also the social status they project, which is important to some. why is it worse to have the best cellphone at the moment, rather than buy a cheaper one? exploitation wise, they're probably almost identical. Besides, everyone "needs" the more expensive one, or justify the extra expense of a better phone since the base price is already high. apart from that, not sure what gadgets you refer to, but it's still an effect of social posturing + being exposed to so much to advertising +- the "need" of said gadget.
could you describe "excessive" consumption of gadgets?
People are spooked into believing diamonds are important in a marriage. There's also the spook that spending money on your partner shows love. This is ideology. It's not particularly immoral to participate in this instance, just embarrassing and expensive. Also, jewelry is an important social signifier.
Again, could you describe "excessive" consumption?
like what?

PSA
Related to the post, if you're not using ad-blockers and anti-trackers, you're doing yourself a disservice and willingly Ludovico technique-ing yourself capitalist propaganda.

"There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism" is naive, idealistic, dogmatic, and false.

You're wrong.

Committing theft seems to be contrary to the idea of helping an industry?

No joke, consumerism will establish communism, when you choose the right brands. The CPC knows that and mindless consumer drones in the west are indirectly creating the future communist society.

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So blowing up Yemeni children in a school bus has the same ethical value as eating some alfalfa sprouts you grew in your view, because capitalism?

this may seem like it's coming out of left field but hedonistic consumerism is good and you can't blame the end user (or used) you can only blame those in control of the MOP

let's do the work of austerity for them!.!

Is the presence of exploitation the only criteria for "ethical"? Leaving aside that you can justify buying shoes made by child slaves on the basis of "no ethical consumption", surely there's an argument to be made for minimizing the environmental damage caused by the goods and services we purchase?

You're fucking retarded my man.

smdh

Eat shit and die motherfucker. You type like a teenaged girl. The Chapos have instilled class consciousness in many young people in America. They should have capped their Patreon at 20k a month or it doesn't count?

Come on, living a little dosn’t make you a bad person.

OP has a bit of a point even if they're going about it poorly and probably talking to people who already generally aren't as guilty of being anarcho-starbucks radlibs as average.

You should be working towards building socialist virtue ethics even if they don't change the system. There are less-damaging options available in many cases that should be taken just because they are available.

"There's no ethical consumption under capitalism" is true, but so is "there's more unethical forms of consumption than others". It's better to keep the phrase in mind as an argument against people who think we can ethically consume in the marketplace to get rid of the problems of capitalism rather than being an excuse to do whatever.

Oh wow dunking on conservatives and saying war is bad after the U.S empire was humiliated with 20 years of losses is really changing the calculus.

They posted a character from a sado-masochistic pedophilia manga whose main theme is "this makes you feel feelings because normally you can't." It's booj fun. It shouldn't have gotten this far, this goddamn thread.
Honestly… fuck OP. Fuck people who live mentally invested in manga as if it isn't overwhelmingly propaganda and fetish art serving to be commodity.
Every fan-translation site is a lumpenproletariat revenue stream, probably funding someone involved in child porn production or consumption or some other undermining of revolutionary potential. So yes, it is exploitative.
They are only making this argument because they want to try and guilt others into inaction to the effect of "I participate in pedophilic consumption, so I need to feel better by implicating you in negative consumption habits too."
Pretty sure being a victim of MacDonald's is far more innocent objectively than being a fucking pederast and worthless NEET. This site needs some fucking house cleaning, some kind of purge.

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Lol this, watch how much ass hurt this causes among all the whitetarians and petite bourgeoisie larping as workers that have infested this board for years.
It's hilarious how people that concern themselves with stuff like buying clothes that's not made in sweatshops are accused of lifestylism by people that prove with every breath they take, couldn't give a fuck about workers.

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How does throwing sand in the gears of the dialectic not change it?
By buying organic you're undermining the ability of porky to privatize seeds. It's only when you proclaim that this in of itself is enough does it become a problem.

There is literally nothing wrong with eating fast food or drinking Starbucks, except your personal health maybe but that's not what we are talking about here. If you buy bottled water, pharmaceuticals, coffee or soy sauce you are more likely to contribute to corporation who fuck the world and its people over ten times till Sunday, whereas your neighbourhood McDonalds probably gets his stuff locally. So why should I not go and eat at McDonald's besides muh capitalist aesthetics?

Socialists obsessed with consumerism literally think it's US imperialism when there is McDonald's in another country but not Haliburton.

I don't get into anime shit so I have no idea what the fuck OP's pic is about and I care even less.

All I'm saying is don't be champagne socialists justifying it with "muh no ethical consumption"

Wow, you do not know how supply chains work.

Correct sometimes you just don't have a choice since there's nothing else around for miles.

Incorrect. Coffee is a drug that you don't need to ingest. Furthermore, even if you want to stay addicted to coffee, Starbucks is pricier than your local cafe (with no real benefits for the price) so only bourgeois hipster faggots drink it. It's the Apple of coffee shops.

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local in name only

fuck off, drugs are praxis and not even ironically. there needs to be more seattle, more contradiction. the contradictions are not moral judgments on people, they are symptoms of a dying system. moralizers are literally the worst kind of ass eaters (they do it for profit not fun) and cryptoreactionaries
availability is the main benefit, or have you never driven long stretches in rural areas? they don't have "local cafes," that shit is downright european and not common. some local cafes are also more expensive and thats purely because they cant compete with starbucks. if youre going to talk shit on drugs via coffee and then act like "muh mom and pop drugs sellers ie cafes are better" you seriously enjoy a bit too much mental auto-fellatio esp considering you just argued :if its the only thing around." often starbucks is the only coffee made by human effort around
says the contrarian

the hidden costs in cumulative health damage that comes out of fast food consumption is like getting hit by a car while someone tells you getting hit by cars is a normal thing. the society promotes it; it isn't often an option for some people to eat well or take the time to dissect the exploitation behind stuff they are consuming. i dont like champagne socialist excuses, but it also shouldnt be weaponized to attack proles who don't know better; i'm qualifying the details cause' it needs clarification.

You are correct but I don't drink coffee. My point was there is no ethical difference between going to Starbucks or your local bakery to have your morning coffee. Do we agree here?

The McDonald's around the corner literally gets all his stuff from regional, government-subsidised farmers. What's your point, sperg?

What do you mean? Do you think McDonald's is lying? They totally could be, but that would make them vulnerable to a lawsuit, because I'm sure someone would eventually find that out.

i think they can pass this claim off as true while doing a sleight of hand. i just dont see them getting local suppliers in certain places: there are plenty of places where local beef or chicken is just not feasible, so they must be getting it through their local supplier as a middleman, not the actual livestock grower/endpoint. maybe i'm wrong, but some places don't have any such way to supply certain necessary parts of their menu. they also make zero-preservative claims and the like that are totally specious but look nice for PR.
i googled around and found shit like this:
reuters.com/article/us-china-food-lavin/meat-supplier-in-china-food-scandal-grew-with-mcdonalds-idUSKBN0FT02M20140724
independent.co.uk/environment/mcdonalds-beef-burgers-amazon-rainforest-deforestation-cargill-bunge-a7741541.html
so, yeah. they aren't getting it locally or if they are, it's quietly through their crony suppliers. its as lazy as putting a shell company in place or buying up a local supplier and then funneling what you need through it while obfuscating its true source
i know this is speculative but hey whatever sue me (like they should be). i dont trust shitty corporations and dont think with their global emphasis on "quality" which really means making the same shitty burgers in every country that its realistic that they are sourcing locally absolutely… think about the deserts near dubai; unless every big mac is made of camel or some shit then i get it. economies of scale dont favor local production which is geared towards and scaled to existing demands, not the larger, heavily processed output that a lot of regional mac-dongles do
also i found this pic on reddit while poking around abt the topic

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Agreed. This really isn't a black and white issue, it's a black to dark grey issue at best.

Just suggesting people watch themselves and have some bare minimum level of socialist responsibility, keep your eyes and ears open, and help inform others.

good point.

Lol, in what fucking city are there fast food joints but no grocery stores. Don't give me that food deserts bullshit, if you can drive to a grease pit you can drive to a grocery store.
I live in a major US city and even the shitty parts of the city have a grocery store near by.

STFU corporate boot licking liberal. If you think McDonalds sources millions of "local" cows to make 10's of millions of burgers each year then point out all these "local" cows ass wipe.

What about the rural podunk towns that even major retailers have left?

I've been in a town in Illinois where we couldn't even find tylenol until we asked a hairdresser who gave us some of her own.

I obviously wasn't talking globally, but I happen to live in an area that excels at bread, cheese and beef production, with farmers being subsidised by the government (so they can sell it under-value), so the idea that McDonald's here gets its stuff locally isn't unfeasible.

Obviously if you get your Big Mac in Dubai or Hongkong, all kinds of shit will probably be going on.

My argument was that if you encounter a scenario in which McDonald's gets its stuff somewhat sustainably, it isn't ethically bad if you go there just because of the McDonald's aesthetics and what it represents.

They’re ain’t no small towns like that. There’s a bunch of unincorporated towns that are really just giant trailer parks, but those people don’t want to become a town because then they’d have to pay taxes. This is just boomers bitching about not paying taxes then acting surprised when there’s nothing around them.

Nigga McDonalds sources all their own shit you fucking clueless hipster. That’s why a McDonalds burger tastes exactly the same in the US as it does in Germany. Shut the fuck up with this fair tail that any fast food joint is buying shit piecemeal from local farmers and chopping it up themselves. All that shit comes from the same mega factories.

Dude, there were literally entire streets of old, closed businesses and even the everytown stores were closed for more days than expected because there just was not enough revenue circulating to be worth it to be open most days.

i think as the aspiring vanguard we should avoid too much indulgence in any of it, but shouldnt separate ourselves from the reality of it. proles are eating it and they get a wage from making it. you have to see people getting mistreated and the fucked up contradictions in the temples of capitalism and be in touch with it

i live in a mostly black no mans land where there are few places that arent fast food, "food and liquor," or otherwise misc eateries comparable to roach infested third world simulations of a restaurant. the last super market went out in the late 80's when the last middle class white ppl left for the suburbs
many people i know waste money taking taxis to the supermarket cause they got no damn car. fuck your sample size/experiential evidence, ive got my own experiential shit, too, what now fag?

dude food deserts are real fuck off with this petit booj shit. you are a fucking retard just stop… next youre going to say "read sttlers" kys

so what? there are places where there are no potato growers. cant possibly be local, and like i said, economies of scale make it unbelievable. even if you and i cant say it truly, we know whats happening. its no conspiracy, just capitalism being capitalism.

and lets not even get into their labor practices too. exploitation is in everything best nobody deludes themselves that it permeates all of this system

I don't know if it deserve it's own thread so i will ask here.
If ethical consumption is impossible, can a damage controlling consumption exists?

Please

stop being an individualist you freaks.
the point of socialism is to make the world better, not to make yourself better. socialism is not a moral balm to cleanse you of your many sins under capitalism, it is the cold hard wind of change abolishing the very potential of sinning. stop seeking personal salvation, stop trying to reduce personal 'responsibility' for crimes created by a system.

if you want to stop people dying in train crashes, re-engineer the train. don't work in the fast-food industry so that you technically have no culpability for the mistakes of the railways. that does nothing to help anybody, it just makes you feel good about yourself. you should feel bad for that.

consumption should be judged culturally and on certain principles like hating scabs, not by quantity or by the level of exploitation that goes into their productions.

your contribution as an individual is irrelevant. it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. stop thinking in terms of individual ethics. if communists are going to have ethical consumerism it's useful only as a spectacular gesture, and it's honestly a pretty shit one. hey kids, become a communist so you can have less stuff of lower quality!
compete on quality, not on whining. elitism and supporting labour struggles not ethical consumerism thank you.

under communism a lion will ethically consume you for my amusement.

not really outside very specific circumstances. other people will continue to do damage anyway because the incentives of the system pull that way.
if you assume a circumstance where, for example, you live in a cabin in the woods on your own or a private island or something then yes, reducing consumption will reduce how much damage you do to the woods and the creatures in the woods, to your own benefit. but eventually global warming from outside society is going to set the woods on fire anyway so it would probably be more effective to try and stop capitalism than to move to the woods. (i'm not just saying this because i want the woods to myself)

Sounds like fucking fascism to me but okay

Whatever you say, kidfucker

consumption accelerates capitalist mode of production - is that not a good thing?

lol spooked

You're benefiting off of the backs of your fellow men and women and literally lining porky's pockets.

You might be misunderstanding what he's saying. Also, don't use moralist arguments.

What are you talking about? OP is a retard but you are going off about things completely unrelated to their retardation. Why do faggots feel the need to soapbox about how their own personal affective tastes are somehow related to socialism?

No they aren’t, even the worse neighborhoods will have a bodega. Fuck off whitetarian that’s never actually spent in time in a bad part of town. Like how the fuck can anyone live anywhere if there’s no food, fast food costs more than home cooked food.
Thanks for reminding me, read “Settlers” you spooked honkey.

smh, look at these terrible colonists living on long dead injun skeletons that have no bearing now!

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ITT: A bunch of triggered whitetarians scared their own property values will be hurt if poor proles engage with class struggle in ways that are in their grasp like boycotts and voting with your wallet.

Lol that picture was probably taken during the days of Jim Crow, and yeah, white people bought into the genocide of injuns as you call them in a pathetic attempt to cause offense, because they got to become landed out of it, just like Settlers said.

That doesn't change the fact that capitalism is ineffective cannibalism, no matter the conditions
That doesn't effect me. All land is conquered, that's just the dialectics of the past. We're simply all living on borrowed Labor. of dead people who don't matter anymore

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"Food desert" doesn't mean there's literally no food anywhere

also
Capitalism traps poor people by making them pay more for an inferior product?
IMPOSSIBLE!

I think the left as a whole needs to really stop going into the lifestylist hippie mode, NO. While living in capitalism we should use it to our advantage. You should not be persuaded to not even try to become a capitalist of any kind. USE the system to your advantage. There is this amazing line from a song from the Idles I really like "the best way to scare a tory is to read and get rich". There is literally nothing to gain from excluding yourself as much from the system.

What does this have to do with white people’s utter lack of revolutionary potential for at least 80 years?
It does, but since porky gave you a few gimmedats your cool with sitting on the Revolution.
And it remains conquered because of whitetarians.
Lol no.
No nigga this is about now, and how because white people have 100k lines of credit in the form of Home equity lines of credit, that they sabotage any minorities from over throwing capitalism. Just look to your buddies on Zig Forums for proof,

You won't get rich off of wasting money on commodities.

Quick, give Algeria back to the Romans. It's clear that they lived there first, and only won through bloodshed.
Same principle
What is: The Great Depression and the following U.S unemployment councils, everybody hating bosses, the IWOC/NABPP and IWW's revival
>white people have 100k lines of credit in the form of Home equity lines of credit, that they sabotage any minorities from over throwing capitalism. Just look to your buddies on Zig Forums for proof,

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Life is consumption.

youtube.com/watch?v=D_3qxr4mQCI

Take the Darth Nihilus pill, oh wait that's a redpill and you're a leftyfag.

today i learned marxism is fascist.
quality discourse from the noflags as usual.

unless you're going to draw this to the natural conclusion of advocating guyanism, stop.

broke: advocating voting with your wallet
woke: advocating piracy of everything that can be pirated, obtaining consumption without transaction.

start an unboxing youtube channel
(note: this is culturally unethical in 99% of circumstances)