This is a brilliant work and I understand that because it is a critique, the harshness of its tone, and the action of digging out the most rotten side of the underbelly of capitalism, its ugliness, is actually its intention, but as all other critiques of capitalism, as the multitudes that they are, it does little to tell you why the system still exists and why many of the alternatives fail. It talks of the ugliness whilst its beauty is disregarded. But I understand. It is a critique after all and you did hit the spot.
You brought up three major focal points in this essay that capitalism's flaws seem to hover around. One of it is the illusion of choice and consent. The system tells you that you have a choice whilst at the other end of the choice is a life of poverty. If you are not working, you are dying. This is a good point if only it was really never just an issue of Capitalism alone, and we've always gambled with these choices before capitalism. A person would eat regardless and if they are not going to be slaving their way out in a job, they would be in a farm, or in a forest hunting. The superiority capitalism has in comparison to the others is that atleast in a job, you are sure to be getting paid and your employer owes you that. In the others there are fat chances that something bad will happen to your crops and or you will not come back with a catch in hand.
Now I understand we do not have to live in either way. We could think of a better way for a person to say "I don't want to work for pay" and yet not die. There are problems with this for sure. People do have to be working to keep a society afloat and to be honest with you, capitalism is not the first master to give you the "who doesn't work cannot not eat" maxim. Life gave the necessity for that first. Capitalism just turned that necessity into profit. The question is who would work for other people to just sit down and not do anything? What if everyone decides that they will not work since the state is arranged in that manner?
You can see that unless we build machines to solve this working problem, it would continuously stick to our faces like glue. However this will not be any different from capitalism. It's capitalism, just with machines as bots. This brings me to another critique I usually throw at critiques such as yours. Your use of the term Capitalism gives little space for a nuanced understanding of the problem. You throw the baby with the bathwater and my bro I tell you such mistakes have cost the lives of billions.
Secondly you criticized upward mobility. I am with you on this one. Many people don't get to become "bosses of their own" at all. But I also know that in better places like the USA as opposed to Nigeria upward mobility is much less a myth than it is here. In a functioning system, it does work. We might disagree on whether or not this is a problem of capitalism.
As for your last critique of the defenders of capitalism, which are folks like me, who tell you about failed system and how capitalism is the only efficient and perhaps working one; I will not try to tell you about the merits of capitalism since this comment has grown too long, but I will say that it is not a bad thing to wish for a better system. We should. However it is paramount that we watch our steps. Life is not very much as it seems sometimes.
This is an insightful and well-articulated response, Sini and I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness behind it. You are absolutely right that critiques of capitalism(including mine) often focus on its flaws without sufficiently explaining why it endures. And yes, the necessity of work predates capitalism, people have always needed to labour to survive, whether through farming, hunting, or trade. Nevertheless, my goal here was to attempt to burn capitalism and perhaps it will rise from its ashes and something better will emerge lmao.
I'd like to point out that the key difference is that capitalism takes this fundamental necessity and transforms it into a system where profit is extracted from labour in ways that disproportionately benefit those who own capital rather than those who perform the work. Unlike a subsistence farmer who keeps the fruits of their labor (barring natural misfortunes), a worker under capitalism produces value that is systematically siphoned upward.
You argue that capitalism at least ensures a worker gets paid, whereas farming or hunting carried risks of failure. This is true, but me thinks it misses the way capitalism shifts risk onto workers while ensuring that capitalists are insulated from the same uncertainty. If crops fail in subsistence farming, the farmer starves, yes but if a bolt driver gets sick, they not only lose income but still owe the costs of vehicle maintenance, rent, and daily survival, all while Bolt themselves remains profitable.
On the issue of upward mobility, I completely agree that the problem is more severe in places like Nigeria than in, say, the U.S., but even in wealthier economies, the promise of "work hard and rise" is often overstated. Systemic barriers, whether in education, access to capital, or labour market structures still ensure that only a small percentage truly "make it." The real myth isn't that some people succeed, but that their success is proof the system works fairly for all.
Again, I appreciate your point that critiques of capitalism must avoid being simplistic and every other one. Capitalism, for all its flaws, has driven immense technological and economic progress. But acknowledging this does not mean we must accept its worst excesses as inevitable. The question is not whether we should abolish work or discard structure entirely, but whether we can imagine and construct a system where the necessity of work does not translate into the exploitation of the worker.
I value your submission. It is precisely in such exchanges that we refine our understanding and push toward something better. So next time, do not worry about your comment being "too long."😅
Upward mobility is as mythical in Japan, USA, France, Norway as it is in Nigeria. It becomes a more fantastical myth the lower down the pyramid you are. All over the world stories of the exceptions are sensationally amplified thus creating the illusion that “everyone has the chance”. I ask that you begin to question the wisdom of Robert Kiyosaki.
I don't think so, Jovita. I would like to dig more into this with you, but I know that we would disagree on one basic thing we should both agree on. The correlation of IQ with upward mobility. On whether wealth creates IQ or IQ creates wealth.
IQ is dependent on exposure and wealth improves/raises the convenience for exposure. So to answer it in your terms, Wealth creates IQ. (The phrase is inadequate and is blind to many things, but I just answer from your framing)
However, the above helps us with nothing. Let us look at upward mobility in theory and see why it is fantasy.
I'll use one of the most important resources we have, a fixed resource, land. I use land because it a determiner/factor for all other material resources.
“Everyone can increase their land holdings ”
“Everyone can increase their land holding without limit”
Let's say their are four of us on the planet, A, B, C, D. And 1000sqrft of land.
At the introduction of ownership of they are given 250 each.
If A increases his to 400, is it possible that the land of B, C, D remain at 250? No. Even more impossible is them increasing their share above 250, not if A's share will remain at 400.
It is inevitable that the more one has, the less another.
Eventually A with more land has more strength to grab more land because he has more food to eat an will have 910 leaving 30, 30, 30 for the rest.
Or B will become a ‘hustler’ and raise his to 70 and leave 10, 10 for C and D.
I think I've illustrated it as simply as I can. I hope this helps.
This is why I did not want to argue with you. Our fundamental beliefs are very different. No wealth doesn't raise IQ and IQ is not based on that. From studies, the tiniest exposure of a person to literature with as much food and other necessary resources, is enough for their intellectual capacities to fully mature. Even in the third world there is scarcity of places where there is not enough food and watere and literature that they cannot realize their intellectual capacities. This means that IQ and intelligence is biological, more so than it is based on exposure.
This would then correlate with the idea that people with above average IQ are more so likely to upwardly mobile than those who aren't. And this is true, for placed where there are more resources for the above average IQ person than most. For example, in a place like USA compared to Nigeria. This is why I say it is much less a myth than it is here.
2. Your second example is a simplified simulation of scarcity using land. But land ownership is not the foremost means of showing upward mobility. Many people don't want to own land. For example the creator of Telegram has no land. He doesn't have a house. Yet you cannot say he is not a boss of his own or not upwardly mobile. If going by strict definition, upward mobility just means progressing up the ladder to financial freedom. They are people who progress but far too little of them do reach the spot of financial freedom.
3. Apart from land scarcity, scarcity in a pure physical sense, really doesn't exist so long as the conservation of energy and matter matter still remains a physical law. The only things holding us back is imagination, intelligence, and people who prefer the present status quo.
Lol, this one is Elewa's disciple. “IQ is biological”. Rigorless racist fascist “researchers” are turning out eugenics promoting sludge and you're drinking happily. You only need to look at and compare the people that went to deteriorated public primary and secondary schools and those that attended maybe catholic mission schools to see that you're spewing bollocks.
In our universities, more often than not, the latter group thrive better than the former, given the same level of dedication.
I used land (and I mentioned why, very important, revert there) but it is applicable in a host of other resources. You just need take your time to study and observe our economic landscape. Look at the companies that and the top today and look at their heritage and the heritage of their owners, count the actual zero to hero stories and put in a ratio to the others. I don't want to type plenty. It is clear.
People do go from Zero to hero. And the fact that in the last three hundred years human life has been so improved by many merits under Capitalism, makes it that saying upward mobility is a myth, can very well be seen as a sign of severe brain damage. Maybe even more.
Upwards mobility is basically the ability of a person or group to cut across to a better socio economic status, it doesn't necessarily mean a person has to go from Zero to hero, what it means is that they tend to get better in a socioeconomic status, and that is not a myth. Your example talks more about scarcity of resources than anything else.
This is so disrespectful. Have you compared and contrasted the findings of the racist fascists to your liberal researchers that aren't racist fascists to actually come to s conclusion? If you've not then you should shut your trap because nothing you say will be important to this discourse.
In comparing people who went to dilapidated schools to those who did not, there would be not so much to see in differences because the number of exceptional people in Nigeria who started from dilapidated schools are quite so far in number to say that the environment is the reason behind the failures of others. I mean, I am one. I went to dilapidated schools all my life till the university. The only times I've had problems are with getting materials to read, and even with that I still am far more knowledgeable than many so called students from wealthy schools. And my story is not unique. There have been so many of my type that environmental determinism doesn't hold on to scrutiny. And if let's say on average students who went to catholic or otherwise wealthy schools, there is actually a biological explanation for that in terms of selective pressures.
I have a lot to say about this passion thing. It's a prison.
As for the commodification of the body, I extend it and say that all work not just sex work and organ harvesting is the commodification of the body. For every transaction we expend our flesh, in farms, construction sites, even the accounting department—mental work is also expending flesh, our brains are in it.
I say this so we understand that prostitution is not a more horrid form of what capitalism births. It shouldn't be given a special ‘really bad’ tag and be the focus of legislation or policing. It is in the same plane of evil as all commodification as I have defined above.
We shouldn't pick weeds to pull, we should raze the whole plot, and at once.
The way to avoid commodification of our bodies altogether is to abandon the things and concepts that are money and currency.
An imperfect (in the current regard) body of work I'll refer to so a person can get an idea of a moneyless, currencyless society is Becky Chambers' “A psalm for the wild built”.
My comment is really long now. Lol. *Presses send button
Well, Jovita. Your brilliant submission is not far from the truth, we should indeed endeavour to "raze the whole plot." However, to imply that "all work is commodification of the body" totalizes the argument. All fires are not the same. That statement is a poetic flourish, one that blurs crucial distinctions. Yes, in farms, construction sites, and even the accounting department, workers expend their effort, their time, their mental and physical energies. But sex work differs in a fundamental way: it involves the direct commodification of intimacy itself. It is not merely selling one's labour but selling access to one’s body in a way that few other professions demand. One can go to school to learn accounting, one may take years to be an apprentice of carpentry. There is a better argument for agency in the aforementioned.
To argue that sex work is merely another form of capitalism’s exploitative reach is to flatten the conversation entirely. Yes, capitalism extracts. Yes, labour under it can be brutal. But a person can leave a construction site, an office, or a farm without the same level of social, emotional, and often physical trauma that plagues sex work. A financial analyst who grows tired of spreadsheets does not carry the same scars as someone whose very personhood has been transactionalized in a deeply intimate way. This is why prostitution has been uniquely burdened with moral, legal, and psychological weight. Not because it is simply "another job," but because it straddles the boundary between labour and bodily sovereignty in a way that farm work or accounting never will. There is a reason why most societies, regardless of economic system, grapple with it differently than they do with, say, plumbing
So, to make progress, we must start tackling our problems from where it hurts the most.
You underestimate how demeaning farm work can be & you underestimate how comfortable sex work can be. All these workings fall in ranges, with respect to how demeaning/comfortable they are. None of them have a fixed spot for this, the experiences are various.
That the populace regards commodification of sex as more worrying is a matter of religious influence and not of material reality.
And the key word you have excavated for me, “Intimacy”. We have merely carried a thing that affords us great pleasure and awarded it the position of holy and have become irrate guardians of that holiness.
Sex work is just another entertainment industry work like music, acting and the lots, all of which can get very very demeaning.
I remain at my earlier position: They are all commodification of the body.
Well, I think your dismissal of the concern as "just religious influence" is reductive. The difference isn't moralistic; it's structural and psychological, but by all means, please take your stand.
This is a brilliant work and I understand that because it is a critique, the harshness of its tone, and the action of digging out the most rotten side of the underbelly of capitalism, its ugliness, is actually its intention, but as all other critiques of capitalism, as the multitudes that they are, it does little to tell you why the system still exists and why many of the alternatives fail. It talks of the ugliness whilst its beauty is disregarded. But I understand. It is a critique after all and you did hit the spot.
You brought up three major focal points in this essay that capitalism's flaws seem to hover around. One of it is the illusion of choice and consent. The system tells you that you have a choice whilst at the other end of the choice is a life of poverty. If you are not working, you are dying. This is a good point if only it was really never just an issue of Capitalism alone, and we've always gambled with these choices before capitalism. A person would eat regardless and if they are not going to be slaving their way out in a job, they would be in a farm, or in a forest hunting. The superiority capitalism has in comparison to the others is that atleast in a job, you are sure to be getting paid and your employer owes you that. In the others there are fat chances that something bad will happen to your crops and or you will not come back with a catch in hand.
Now I understand we do not have to live in either way. We could think of a better way for a person to say "I don't want to work for pay" and yet not die. There are problems with this for sure. People do have to be working to keep a society afloat and to be honest with you, capitalism is not the first master to give you the "who doesn't work cannot not eat" maxim. Life gave the necessity for that first. Capitalism just turned that necessity into profit. The question is who would work for other people to just sit down and not do anything? What if everyone decides that they will not work since the state is arranged in that manner?
You can see that unless we build machines to solve this working problem, it would continuously stick to our faces like glue. However this will not be any different from capitalism. It's capitalism, just with machines as bots. This brings me to another critique I usually throw at critiques such as yours. Your use of the term Capitalism gives little space for a nuanced understanding of the problem. You throw the baby with the bathwater and my bro I tell you such mistakes have cost the lives of billions.
Secondly you criticized upward mobility. I am with you on this one. Many people don't get to become "bosses of their own" at all. But I also know that in better places like the USA as opposed to Nigeria upward mobility is much less a myth than it is here. In a functioning system, it does work. We might disagree on whether or not this is a problem of capitalism.
As for your last critique of the defenders of capitalism, which are folks like me, who tell you about failed system and how capitalism is the only efficient and perhaps working one; I will not try to tell you about the merits of capitalism since this comment has grown too long, but I will say that it is not a bad thing to wish for a better system. We should. However it is paramount that we watch our steps. Life is not very much as it seems sometimes.
This is an insightful and well-articulated response, Sini and I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness behind it. You are absolutely right that critiques of capitalism(including mine) often focus on its flaws without sufficiently explaining why it endures. And yes, the necessity of work predates capitalism, people have always needed to labour to survive, whether through farming, hunting, or trade. Nevertheless, my goal here was to attempt to burn capitalism and perhaps it will rise from its ashes and something better will emerge lmao.
I'd like to point out that the key difference is that capitalism takes this fundamental necessity and transforms it into a system where profit is extracted from labour in ways that disproportionately benefit those who own capital rather than those who perform the work. Unlike a subsistence farmer who keeps the fruits of their labor (barring natural misfortunes), a worker under capitalism produces value that is systematically siphoned upward.
You argue that capitalism at least ensures a worker gets paid, whereas farming or hunting carried risks of failure. This is true, but me thinks it misses the way capitalism shifts risk onto workers while ensuring that capitalists are insulated from the same uncertainty. If crops fail in subsistence farming, the farmer starves, yes but if a bolt driver gets sick, they not only lose income but still owe the costs of vehicle maintenance, rent, and daily survival, all while Bolt themselves remains profitable.
On the issue of upward mobility, I completely agree that the problem is more severe in places like Nigeria than in, say, the U.S., but even in wealthier economies, the promise of "work hard and rise" is often overstated. Systemic barriers, whether in education, access to capital, or labour market structures still ensure that only a small percentage truly "make it." The real myth isn't that some people succeed, but that their success is proof the system works fairly for all.
Again, I appreciate your point that critiques of capitalism must avoid being simplistic and every other one. Capitalism, for all its flaws, has driven immense technological and economic progress. But acknowledging this does not mean we must accept its worst excesses as inevitable. The question is not whether we should abolish work or discard structure entirely, but whether we can imagine and construct a system where the necessity of work does not translate into the exploitation of the worker.
I value your submission. It is precisely in such exchanges that we refine our understanding and push toward something better. So next time, do not worry about your comment being "too long."😅
Upward mobility is as mythical in Japan, USA, France, Norway as it is in Nigeria. It becomes a more fantastical myth the lower down the pyramid you are. All over the world stories of the exceptions are sensationally amplified thus creating the illusion that “everyone has the chance”. I ask that you begin to question the wisdom of Robert Kiyosaki.
I don't think so, Jovita. I would like to dig more into this with you, but I know that we would disagree on one basic thing we should both agree on. The correlation of IQ with upward mobility. On whether wealth creates IQ or IQ creates wealth.
I'm to answer? Ok
IQ is dependent on exposure and wealth improves/raises the convenience for exposure. So to answer it in your terms, Wealth creates IQ. (The phrase is inadequate and is blind to many things, but I just answer from your framing)
However, the above helps us with nothing. Let us look at upward mobility in theory and see why it is fantasy.
I'll use one of the most important resources we have, a fixed resource, land. I use land because it a determiner/factor for all other material resources.
“Everyone can increase their land holdings ”
“Everyone can increase their land holding without limit”
Let's say their are four of us on the planet, A, B, C, D. And 1000sqrft of land.
At the introduction of ownership of they are given 250 each.
If A increases his to 400, is it possible that the land of B, C, D remain at 250? No. Even more impossible is them increasing their share above 250, not if A's share will remain at 400.
It is inevitable that the more one has, the less another.
Eventually A with more land has more strength to grab more land because he has more food to eat an will have 910 leaving 30, 30, 30 for the rest.
Or B will become a ‘hustler’ and raise his to 70 and leave 10, 10 for C and D.
I think I've illustrated it as simply as I can. I hope this helps.
This is why I did not want to argue with you. Our fundamental beliefs are very different. No wealth doesn't raise IQ and IQ is not based on that. From studies, the tiniest exposure of a person to literature with as much food and other necessary resources, is enough for their intellectual capacities to fully mature. Even in the third world there is scarcity of places where there is not enough food and watere and literature that they cannot realize their intellectual capacities. This means that IQ and intelligence is biological, more so than it is based on exposure.
This would then correlate with the idea that people with above average IQ are more so likely to upwardly mobile than those who aren't. And this is true, for placed where there are more resources for the above average IQ person than most. For example, in a place like USA compared to Nigeria. This is why I say it is much less a myth than it is here.
2. Your second example is a simplified simulation of scarcity using land. But land ownership is not the foremost means of showing upward mobility. Many people don't want to own land. For example the creator of Telegram has no land. He doesn't have a house. Yet you cannot say he is not a boss of his own or not upwardly mobile. If going by strict definition, upward mobility just means progressing up the ladder to financial freedom. They are people who progress but far too little of them do reach the spot of financial freedom.
3. Apart from land scarcity, scarcity in a pure physical sense, really doesn't exist so long as the conservation of energy and matter matter still remains a physical law. The only things holding us back is imagination, intelligence, and people who prefer the present status quo.
Lol, this one is Elewa's disciple. “IQ is biological”. Rigorless racist fascist “researchers” are turning out eugenics promoting sludge and you're drinking happily. You only need to look at and compare the people that went to deteriorated public primary and secondary schools and those that attended maybe catholic mission schools to see that you're spewing bollocks.
In our universities, more often than not, the latter group thrive better than the former, given the same level of dedication.
I used land (and I mentioned why, very important, revert there) but it is applicable in a host of other resources. You just need take your time to study and observe our economic landscape. Look at the companies that and the top today and look at their heritage and the heritage of their owners, count the actual zero to hero stories and put in a ratio to the others. I don't want to type plenty. It is clear.
People do go from Zero to hero. And the fact that in the last three hundred years human life has been so improved by many merits under Capitalism, makes it that saying upward mobility is a myth, can very well be seen as a sign of severe brain damage. Maybe even more.
Upwards mobility is basically the ability of a person or group to cut across to a better socio economic status, it doesn't necessarily mean a person has to go from Zero to hero, what it means is that they tend to get better in a socioeconomic status, and that is not a myth. Your example talks more about scarcity of resources than anything else.
This is so disrespectful. Have you compared and contrasted the findings of the racist fascists to your liberal researchers that aren't racist fascists to actually come to s conclusion? If you've not then you should shut your trap because nothing you say will be important to this discourse.
In comparing people who went to dilapidated schools to those who did not, there would be not so much to see in differences because the number of exceptional people in Nigeria who started from dilapidated schools are quite so far in number to say that the environment is the reason behind the failures of others. I mean, I am one. I went to dilapidated schools all my life till the university. The only times I've had problems are with getting materials to read, and even with that I still am far more knowledgeable than many so called students from wealthy schools. And my story is not unique. There have been so many of my type that environmental determinism doesn't hold on to scrutiny. And if let's say on average students who went to catholic or otherwise wealthy schools, there is actually a biological explanation for that in terms of selective pressures.
A wonderful read
Thank you, Jerry.
I have a lot to say about this passion thing. It's a prison.
As for the commodification of the body, I extend it and say that all work not just sex work and organ harvesting is the commodification of the body. For every transaction we expend our flesh, in farms, construction sites, even the accounting department—mental work is also expending flesh, our brains are in it.
I say this so we understand that prostitution is not a more horrid form of what capitalism births. It shouldn't be given a special ‘really bad’ tag and be the focus of legislation or policing. It is in the same plane of evil as all commodification as I have defined above.
We shouldn't pick weeds to pull, we should raze the whole plot, and at once.
The way to avoid commodification of our bodies altogether is to abandon the things and concepts that are money and currency.
An imperfect (in the current regard) body of work I'll refer to so a person can get an idea of a moneyless, currencyless society is Becky Chambers' “A psalm for the wild built”.
My comment is really long now. Lol. *Presses send button
Well, Jovita. Your brilliant submission is not far from the truth, we should indeed endeavour to "raze the whole plot." However, to imply that "all work is commodification of the body" totalizes the argument. All fires are not the same. That statement is a poetic flourish, one that blurs crucial distinctions. Yes, in farms, construction sites, and even the accounting department, workers expend their effort, their time, their mental and physical energies. But sex work differs in a fundamental way: it involves the direct commodification of intimacy itself. It is not merely selling one's labour but selling access to one’s body in a way that few other professions demand. One can go to school to learn accounting, one may take years to be an apprentice of carpentry. There is a better argument for agency in the aforementioned.
To argue that sex work is merely another form of capitalism’s exploitative reach is to flatten the conversation entirely. Yes, capitalism extracts. Yes, labour under it can be brutal. But a person can leave a construction site, an office, or a farm without the same level of social, emotional, and often physical trauma that plagues sex work. A financial analyst who grows tired of spreadsheets does not carry the same scars as someone whose very personhood has been transactionalized in a deeply intimate way. This is why prostitution has been uniquely burdened with moral, legal, and psychological weight. Not because it is simply "another job," but because it straddles the boundary between labour and bodily sovereignty in a way that farm work or accounting never will. There is a reason why most societies, regardless of economic system, grapple with it differently than they do with, say, plumbing
So, to make progress, we must start tackling our problems from where it hurts the most.
I'll keep it short.
You underestimate how demeaning farm work can be & you underestimate how comfortable sex work can be. All these workings fall in ranges, with respect to how demeaning/comfortable they are. None of them have a fixed spot for this, the experiences are various.
That the populace regards commodification of sex as more worrying is a matter of religious influence and not of material reality.
And the key word you have excavated for me, “Intimacy”. We have merely carried a thing that affords us great pleasure and awarded it the position of holy and have become irrate guardians of that holiness.
Sex work is just another entertainment industry work like music, acting and the lots, all of which can get very very demeaning.
I remain at my earlier position: They are all commodification of the body.
Well, I think your dismissal of the concern as "just religious influence" is reductive. The difference isn't moralistic; it's structural and psychological, but by all means, please take your stand.