I hope I'm not reading this as a refutation capitalism as exploitation-based economics. I could carry on about that, but will pick up something:
> I've never purchased shampoo or paid for a hair cut - I am female [me: this choice of quote has nothing to say about gender, please read on]
In the Soviet Union, there was a growing demand for consumer goods. Government fought to reach a balance on whether it was time to undertake those goals, and how much of it should be handled by the secondary market.
After WWII, the United States switched to a highly commercial culture of consumer debt financing, a general consumerist focus. This put the communist nations, themselves developing rapidly, under even more strain to give citizens what they saw the West was enjoying. This may have been premature, and some might argue lead to an untimely end for the USSR.
What's interesting about your story is you we're living in a world of few consumer goods, like in the era before and during Khrushchev.
So where capitalism used the newly developing marketing gimmicks to both sell consumer goods at home, and undermine the priorities of People's government abroad--you, at least, are in a place where those superfluous goods are not a sign of victory over People's governments, but actually wasteful and unattainable. At least if one wants to move out of their car one day.
I'm sure none of this is lost on you as a writer of... what was it... Biden speeches? [Fake edit: the apocalypse!]
If we are rejecting the consumerism that served some role in bringing down the USSR, perhaps it's not a wishful thought that class consciousness growing. Maybe we're fatigued, ready to accept a world without the gimmicks parading themselves as innovation and surviving for years a household names off investor money and debt like a Potemkin village.
This is a good practice, living off less, but it's a blow to Western economic theories that have bought their way into textbooks. But what's to come down the pipeline isn't just the growth of China, but also Africa and partnering nations that we're used to exploiting (look at the grooming of India as a place of new manufacture). We'll soon see less opportunities to exploit, higher prices and, well, Socialism or barbarism.
What's funny is I've been living in St Petersburg Russia for 4 months a year for the past 3 years. It's wild to live there now, where the stylish and beautiful youth are extremely enthusiastically embracing capitalism. I am not sure how capitalism is not gendered or any other economic system, but I agree, I'm very sure the failure of every economic theory is one of imagination and disciplinarity.
> I've never purchased shampoo or paid for a hair cut - I am female [me: this choice of quote has nothing to say about gender, please read on]
In the Soviet Union, there was a growing demand for consumer goods. Government fought to reach a balance on whether it was time to undertake those goals, and how much of it should be handled by the secondary market.
After WWII, the United States switched to a highly commercial culture of consumer debt financing, a general consumerist focus. This put the communist nations, themselves developing rapidly, under even more strain to give citizens what they saw the West was enjoying. This may have been premature, and some might argue lead to an untimely end for the USSR.
What's interesting about your story is you we're living in a world of few consumer goods, like in the era before and during Khrushchev.
So where capitalism used the newly developing marketing gimmicks to both sell consumer goods at home, and undermine the priorities of People's government abroad--you, at least, are in a place where those superfluous goods are not a sign of victory over People's governments, but actually wasteful and unattainable. At least if one wants to move out of their car one day.
I'm sure none of this is lost on you as a writer of... what was it... Biden speeches? [Fake edit: the apocalypse!]
If we are rejecting the consumerism that served some role in bringing down the USSR, perhaps it's not a wishful thought that class consciousness growing. Maybe we're fatigued, ready to accept a world without the gimmicks parading themselves as innovation and surviving for years a household names off investor money and debt like a Potemkin village.
This is a good practice, living off less, but it's a blow to Western economic theories that have bought their way into textbooks. But what's to come down the pipeline isn't just the growth of China, but also Africa and partnering nations that we're used to exploiting (look at the grooming of India as a place of new manufacture). We'll soon see less opportunities to exploit, higher prices and, well, Socialism or barbarism.