[反共產] Vaush: boycotts are not the cure for capitalism.

clothing I wear put together by slave
shop work or sweatshop worker sorry glasses like it like everything and and if you wanted to step beyond the slavery element like all of the stuff that I buy it goes towards corporations I believe that wage slavery is unethical the exploitation of workers and everything you buy contributes to that unless you're buying from a co well I remarked recently on Twitter that you can't work from the chalkboard to the battlefield you have to get out on the battlefield have that real world experience to understand what the symbols mean when they're on the chalkboard that is especially true of the social science of economics that is especially true of understanding what's wrong with communism it's especially true of understanding what's right with capitalism what works about capitalism which doesn't look very convincing when put out as a theoretical statement on a chalkboard and the other hand there were a lot of sort of pleasing illusions built into a text like this the communist manifesto by Karl Marx gonna have a series of videos coming up criticizing Marx my stay in focus your camera you know there's a lot of coded language about class struggle and class war if you've seen what that means in practice if you've seen what that means in the battlefield you know even coded language about having you know the centralization of ownership of the means of production what that really means in practice it might look good on the chalkboard but you're seeing a symbolic diagram of the chalkboard and you're not really understanding what those symbols represent so an argument from someone like vouch whom I regard as a crypto communist more on that in just a second it's probably more influential in the world today in 2019 then the type of argument we find in Karl Marx's original writing in the the classics of communist theory or philosophy and what he's doing I think powerfully shapes people's lives in many ways one part of his argument is something I've addressed many many times this YouTube channel but now a couple of years ago it's what I call the boycott mentality and this is part and parcel of the purity mentality in politics the idea that the political movement is built by and for the purification of the individual and the purification of the group or the quote-unquote vanguard that's engaged in this movement in this transformative form of radical politics um the boycott mentality presumes that the way to pursue political change is by not buying things by refusing to buy things and then inevitably also there's the critique of the boycott mentality that leads to his feeling of futility that as he basically puts it if you can't boycott everything that's immoral why boycott anything that's immoral so if you can't refuse to purchase all of these terrible things produced by slavery and exploitation or what-have-you then what's the point of just boycotting one thing or another so the most fundamental mistake made here with the boycott mentality is the assumption that we change history that we change the political course of nation-states or cultures by subtraction by not participating in the economy by not participating an exploitation by not participating in politics even but withdrawing ourselves from the free market where things were bought and sold as opposed to seeing yourself as transforming the culture you're a part of transform the economy your product transforming the political system the nation you're a part of but plunging deeper into that economy by willing to but being willing to commit to doing more harm in the pursuit of the political goal that you're trying to achieve here so very simple example PCRM Physicians Committee for Responsible medicine ok they're not stereotypical radicals in most of their photographs they're wearing full lab coats they're all most of the leading members are medical doctors or research scientists sometimes there were a suit and tie but whatever PCRM who knows how many disposable plastic containers they're using who knows how much harm they're doing to the environment by taking flights traveling by air airplane back and forth between Los Angeles and Washington DC and New York and you know they're taking on board you know they're committed to the pursuit of their goals and they're willing to do all kinds of harm in their schools and they're willing to lobby government and for example ask for donations and then take those donations and give them to lawyers so yeah ethically you might ask at the midpoint that process okay so you just collected three hundred thousand dollars and now you're gonna take those two in two thousand dollars and give it to some of the wealthiest people in the world you're gonna give it to a law firm in Washington DC to press your case against Congress you know arguing about whether or not the amount of cholesterol and eggs is so unhealthy that should be illegal to you know promote eggs as a health food and this kind of thing okay so wouldn't it be more ethical to take the $300,000 and give it to the poorest of the poor help homeless people or help starving people in Africa there are ethical questions you can ask at every stage of that including as I say the air pollution produced by the airplanes and the answer is no you don't change the world by refusing to buy airplane tickets you don't change the world by refusing to buy meat or by refusing to buy alcohol or refusing to buy crack cocaine you change the world by making a positive commitment to go out and actually make that change happen as you force that change hey you know what I'd like I'd like to live in a country where there are no cocaine addicts where there were no drug addicts no heroin addicts let's say want to eliminate cocaine hearing do you think I'm going to accomplish that through a boycott do you think I'm going to accomplish that by just refusing to purchase cocaine and heroin myself do you think I'm gonna do that just by having a boycott movement where I invite others and motivate others and have rallies and maybe picnics and political festivals where we celebrate our boycott will pat ourselves in the back and act like we're so morally superior because we refuse to buy cocaine and we refuse to buy heroin no that's never gonna change the world it's never in transform the world in fact if you're serious about reducing the levels of cocaine and heroin being bought and sold being consumed in ours you're gonna have to embrace doing quite a lot of harm you're probably gonna have to imitate some of the most successful countries in the world at reducing and eliminating drug use countries like Japan countries like Singapore countries like Communist China where yeah a certain level of draconian repression where you know the police really do get get tough food drugs get tough on crime I used to live in a part of China that was right on the border with a civil war zone where opium and quite a number of other drugs like methamphetamines and MDMA ecstasy were being produced refined and traded openly there were rebel armies walking distance from where I lived there were rebel armies who were you know trading opium for guns okay and where I was I was on the Chinese side of the border not a single drug addict visible in the whole city not a single homeless person on drugs there were there were posters up letting you know that if you use drugs jail it was a very very effective you know repressive government there and also a culture that in a positive way encouraged mental vigilance acuity sobriety but yeah you were right next to a war zone full of illicit drugs and yet in that part of Union this is bordering on Kachin State this is the catch in Jing pol Shan State armies bunch of different rebel armies active in that neighborhood so yeah if you want to pursue that goal the way to get there is not going to be a boycott now guys I'm so critical I'm vegan but I do not believe that the function of veganism the positive impact of veganism is achieved through a boycott I think the boycott is just stage one she's basically like a social media exercise where we commit to this boycott we engage in this boycott and then we get to meet one another we get to recruit talent to do exactly the kind of thing PCRM is doing already to get organized and make a positive difference to the world so guess what guess what though if you sincerely want to help the factory workers if you sincerely want to get out improve labor conditions in China in Vietnam in Indonesia if you want to improve labor conditions even in the great state of Texas in the USA the way to do that is not through a boycott you're never going to achieve those goals just by you personally committing that you're not going to buy the shirts because you think it's the product of exploitation ok look step two of his argument it says that getting into his appealed to futility fallacy is he presents the whole world and so evil he predicts of all consumption as being so overwhelmingly evil that there's no point in him boycotting just one thing or another he has to resign himself to the idea that his t-shirt is produced by terrible exploitation unless he says unless it's produced by a co-op ok so this gets into the profound ethical significance of ignorance and knowledge and what's in between ignorance and knowledge is active research ok we're all born ignorant and if you've managed to make it to age 25 congratulations congratulations and not committing suicide make it a Chifa if you've managed to make it to age 25 you will have had at least a few examples in your life where you look back at decisions you made and think if only I had known more I would never have done that thing I would never have made that compromise you look back at decisions in your life with tremendous regret because what we know changes how we feel what we know changes what we regard as ethical or unethical knowing what I know about cheese produced from Cal Milk I can't enjoy cheese I can't just set that aside right there was a time when I was a child I didn't know these things I didn't think my parents weren't vegan and what-have-you and you know so obviously my perception and my experience of what it is to eat cheese is profoundly different ok so you know ignorant matters knowing matters and being motivated to engage in active research to change your perception of the world and change what it is you're I'm going to do really matters but you know that change doesn't all go in one direction it's not the case that researching the reality of factory conditions is just going to lead to your radicalization I really don't believe that so for example he suggests that everything is exploitation unless it's a co-op and the selection of examples is telling he talks about where your t-shirt is made but I guess that's a little bit mysterious to him because he's never visited a t-shirt factory he's never done any research into the reality of t-shirt protect so let's let's start with an example that's really not too mysterious at all not even for comments let's talk about the grocery store okay so from various point of view what he's claiming is that working in a grocery store for $12 an hour is slavery is exploitation his quote unquote wage liberty he regards that as completely immoral unless the grocery store you're working at is a co-op so in this case in this example you may know people dear viewer you you probably know a few people who've worked at a grocery store and you've been to a grocery store you've seen what their jobs are like it's not so mysterious I've known people who worked in grocery stores I never had that job myself oh yeah actually I have works in a grocery store a long time ago okay anyway yeah so who else working at Pro Street store did I feel my fellow workers were horribly exploited and then if I compared what I was doing to the employees at a co-op cuz I've known a few grocery store co-ops whether you live in United States Canada or Europe you've been to a few grocery store co-ops and what do you know life is not that different in fact you may know a private for-profit grocery store that pays its employees better than the coop you may know individual employees at the co-op who say they hate their job and they feel they're being exploited and they want to go work at a grocery store that's a heartless corporation instead because they think they'll have a better deal they'll work better hours they'll better conditions whatever it is okay the reality of the difference it makes working for a corporation versus working for a co-op is unbelievably slippery and trivial I mean you know that I've said this before in a video but the prices on the products may be slightly higher the wages of the employees may be slightly higher the level of professionalism and innovation and the management may be lower but these are not worlds apart it's not as if when you go to a co-op you feel like you're walking into a socialist utopia and when you walk into a corporate grocery store you're feeling you're walking into a capitalist dystopia they're so close it's laughable now I'd like to suggest to you dear viewer that if you walk into a factory that makes t-shirts and you walk into a co-op that makes t-shirts it's not all that different another example that I've had a lot of contact with his bacon if you take a minute to think about the lot of the common baker the life of a baker it's not the case at all that being a self-employed baker is necessarily better than being employed in a large factory there are many many advantages to being employed as a baker in a factory regular hours regular pay no risk to yourself if you are a small self-employed bespoke Baker the main advantage you have is tax evasion most of the people who do small-scale baking like that they could be creative with what they report to the government with how much money they made they get paid cash in hand and so on but I mean just in terms of the grueling schedule you have to work if you want to bake your own bread or bake your own cross all and then go and sell them at a farmers market or a County Fair or something when you are your own boss and you are your own employee and you have to buy your own ingredients at your own risk and you have to calculate your own profit and losses it is not easy to say it all that the self-employed Baker is less exploited than the Baker who's employed in a in a large-scale Factory what is easy to say is that the large scale factory is much more efficient and because of that greater efficiency often the factory can provide a much higher quality of life for all of its employees right which is measured in pay benefits and a considerations including like how many hours of sleep you get a night because baking very long hours often starting at 2:00 a.m. maybe four am depending on the bakery that's true for small bakeries and large so again a lot of left-wing people they go into a situation like that with the attitude smallest beautiful wage laborers exploitation you know whereas being self-employed or being part of a co-op magically solves those problems because you no longer have quote unquote the exploitation of man by man that's an old communist canard and again if you actually learn these things if you don't work from the chalkboard to the battlefield if you go and learn what these things really how they really work in the economy on the battlefield and then work your way back to the chalkboard you're gonna have a much richer understanding these things so look guys ignorance matters and what we learn and what we know changes that we feel and if you take the time to really learn about where your t-shirts come from what it's like to work in a factory the advantages and disadvantages of being employed in manufacturing of any kind whether it's in a you know a textile factory or in a computer assembly Factory you will start to understand why people volunteer for these jobs why farmers are eager to give up working on their parents farm and start a new life in the city manufacturing t-shirts manufacturing computers so on and so forth I don't want to give too many long engines here but I used to live in Southeast Asia and Laos and Cambodia and northeastern Thailand I visited many factories I did research on factories and factory conditions including human rights research this ghoulish picture that's being painted by left-wing extremists that any employment of any kind is just too horrible to behold well when I lived in the capital city of Laos vhn there were teenage girls who would drop out of high school to go and work in a t-shirt factory they made other kinds of clothes to you whatever t-shirts blue jeans you name it and they would buy themselves the fanciest motorcycles that existed there they would be earning so much money teenagers who had dropped out of high school that they were they were teenage girls in the capital city of the country and they earned more money than their own parents their own parents would be back living on the rice farm and they'd say wow this is an amazing opportunity so the purchasing power of the wage they had and the freedom and options an opportunity that gave them at an early age and then when he stretched it out over a full life cycle like okay well so they got this great start in life working in a factory as a teenager what did they go on to do afterwards when I did social science research on this in Cambodia the number one answer for the women working at our clothing factory so again not just t-shirts but including t-shirts the number one answer for what you plan to do when you leave this job was that they were opening their own shops they were opening their own you know and I saw some of those too they were opening their own small factories they were opening their own tailoring shops or what have you they were taking the skills they learned in a factory and going on to business for themselves and the vast majority of the employees in those factories they would only work for about two years so I mean some of them want to switch and go into a totally different field so they worked for one year or two years save up a pile of money and then go open a shop go into another business go back to school go and do whatever it is they wanted to do with the rest of hives but it was not the case at all in Cambodia and Laos that working in a factory was a dead-end job that it was a hopeless job that it was a low-paying job in that society and the reality of the work they're doing what is it you imagine that's so horrible about actually stitching two pieces of fabric together I've mentioned this before on the channel there is a documentary you can see you can see it here on YouTube or you can pay to see it somehow else or on the internet but there is a fact there's a documentary showing clothing factory conditions in China that is called China blue I would just warn you there are two different versions of the film one has been edited down to just one hour to broadcast on TV I really recommend you watch the longer version of the film it's better but you get to see the human reality and yeah the documentary is meant to be shocking it's meant to wake you up to the fact that a lot of factory workers in China leave in terrible conditions but guess what if you want to make the world a better place if you to improve factory conditions in China you have to get motivated you have to get organized you have to actually get out and positively make the world a better place you can never make those changes by just subtracting yourself from the equation but your decision to not buy a new t-shirt at all it's never going to achieve those political objectives and you know what if you start flying back and forth between Washington DC and you and China so you can visit factories in China and maybe film the conditions there and then go back to America and Lobby the government and say hey we need tariffs we need to enforce you know higher standards for working editions in China we need to punish American companies that are profiting by exporting their kids away you know what you can never compensate for the damage you have done to the Earth's upper atmosphere you can never take back the pollution you've caused when you commit positively to achieve something in this world when you commit to political action whether it be in peace or in war whether it be in democracy or whether it be fighting against a dictatorship okay you are committing to do harm you're committing to do damage along the way to achieving that positive goal that's why ethics matter that's why politics matters that's what we all had this terrible dreadful sense that at bottom were dangerous people and the road to hell is paved with good intentions some of the first terrible disasters in the whole of human history including the creation of communism in China and Russia some of those things that were taken up as experiments by people who sincerely believed they were making the world a better place and what they ended up to me instead was killing millions millions of people I mean really people like to disrespect my shoes but the fact that my name is I don't know