Abstract society, happiness swallowed by the market.

Abstract society, happiness swallowed by the market.

Land, labour, and money are not commodities.

The assumption that everything that is bought and sold must be produced for sale cannot be applied in any way as far as these three are concerned... Labour is just another name for human activity. Human activity is attached to human life and is produced not for sale, but for a different reason. Moreover, its activity cannot be separated from the other spheres of life, nor can it be stockpiled or mobilized separately from the person himself.

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The land is just another name for nature, which is not something humans can produce.

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Finally, real money is merely a token of purchasing power, and purchasing power is generated by the mechanisms of banking or national finance, not produced. The description of labour, land, and money as commodities is therefore entirely fictional.

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We tend to take the current market for granted and go back to the fact that it has been around for a very long time. But this is not a historical fact. Until the advent of capitalism around 1750, there was no concept of a market as it is today.

Now, in the free market, prices are determined by supply and demand, and human labor is also priced in the market according to the law of supply and demand. This was unheard of before capitalism.

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Our tragedy begins when labour, which cannot be commodities, is traded as commodities in the market.

It is impossible to separate labour from the individual worker, but the market brainwashes it into being able to separate it from itself.

And labour cannot be hoarded. Labour is the human activity itself, is not a stockpile commodity, and cannot be separated from man. However, because people are separated from themselves and bought and sold like commodities, humans are alienated from their work, and this alienation inevitably leads to unhappiness.

Work plays a huge role in life.

It's just too big to be called big.

It is difficult to separate work and life.

We wouldn't be happy if we were separated from ourselves by such a large part of our work. People say that if you work hard at what you love, happiness is on your side. In other words, don't think about happiness, and if you work hard at what you love, you will automatically become happy.

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But in a capitalist society, work is separate from ourselves. The results of your work are not yours.

In a capitalist society, we have become a commodity in the labour market.

Commodity values ​​are always fluctuating and unstable. A stable workplace is only an illusion as long as labour is provided in the sense of a commodity whose value always fluctuates according to market conditions. It refers to the temporary coincidence of supply and demand, not a reflection of one's original appearance. Because he is separated from work.

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All values ​​in the market are measured and converted into money. Commodities, whether tangible or intangible, are valued in money, but the problem is that money is an abstract system, not a substance like paper money or coins.

Money is just a token of the system, so why is it a threat to happiness?

Money, which means purchasing power, is expressed in numbers, and since numbers are abstract, the reason is that they cannot be realized no matter how much they accumulate. Today, money is basically a number that is stamped on a bank account. No matter how hard I try, I can't fill in the number of infinity. There is no concept of fundamental satisfaction. Even rich people are not satisfied and have no choice but to try to get richer, and although they can greatly increase their number with their efforts, they cannot be satisfied because there is always a larger number. This is the source of the tragedy.

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The foundation of our economy (and our society) is an abstraction.

The reward of our economic system is money. It's just a number that society as a whole agrees to have some value, and it's not something you can touch. Because it is based on such abstractions, our culture's rewards never satisfy our possessiveness. Like the anglerfish, we eat the world, but we never know we are full.

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We can hoard more than we need, far more than we can use in our lifetime. But since there is no limit to how high a number can be recorded in a bankbook, those who accumulate wealth continue to be rewarded by accumulating more and more.

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Numbers are value-neutral and abstract. Abstraction is at the heart of the economy.

The rich do not realize how rich they are because they live in an abstract society. So they keep trying to get richer.

Moreover, in a capitalist society, it is not at all a sin to become rich by winning the competition. Rather, it is an object of praise. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This has been predicted since the early days of capitalism. The logic and theories to support it were also provided. That is utilitarianism.

At the dictates of the laws of utilitarianism, people cut their sympathy from their hearts, and the heartless decision that they should deny solidarity with fellow men in the name of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number' was overshadowed by the dignity and splendour of secular religion. came to pass