This is going to be a lengthy discussion, but bear with me.

Here's an example: in the "radical left" (their words) magazine Jacobin, the editor writes a defense of Gerry and Sarah as a way of arguing for the abolishment of, well, everything Randian. He's against the "work ethic", he wants a paradigm shift away from American producerism-- the idea that your value is based only on what you can produce for the economy-- towards social rights, e.g. Living Wages. I disagree with everything in it, so what? but it is very well written and reasoned, and if I played the same game as him I'd want him on my team.

The point here is that he wants CHANGE. Here is the last paragraph of the article, tell me if you can find anything supporting the status quo:

Rather than the "deserving" or "working" poor, with its connotations of moral judgment and authoritarian social control, it is time to begin speaking the language of economic and social rights. For instance, the right to a Universal Basic Income, a means of living at a basic level that would be provided to everyone, no questions asked. Against the invidious politics of the work ethic, it's time to argue that some things should be granted to everyone, simply by virtue of their humanity. Even hipsters.

Sounds sublime. But Gerry already had a living wage-- he spent it on the University of Chicago, 41 years of food stamps in 4 years. If everybody knew in advance the outcome was going to be unemployment and living wages, then why doesn't Frase challenge the capitalist assumption that college is money well spent-- could have been used differently? He can't. This thought cannot occur to him, not because he is dumb, he clearly isn't, or because he is paid by a college-- money is irrelevant to him. He can't because his entire identity is built on college, academia. He is college. Take that away, he disintegrates. So in the utopia he imagines, college still exists AND people get living wages. Call me a Marxist, that's what we have now.

Let's do a little from the back issues of Trilema, translated :

Dream Time

After writing about the genius, original, exceptional and fantastical not to mention necessary initiative of an ex-aparatchick in Ceausescu's repression, turned demagogue as the winds blew, wheels went in motion. Not that they ever stop, but whatever, as a manner of speaking.

So if you had at your disposal - not twenty thousand euro, that paltry sum constitutes capital only in the naive minds of the poor, people who don't matter nor have ever mattered anywhere and at any time - but a hundred thousand, that being the point from which one might perhaps talk of capital, in cash, on the table, in front of you, what'd you do with it ?ⁱ

Do not perceive any obligation to do anything "respectable", "projects like for the EU" or other bullshit. It's your own money, that's the big deal, and you can do whatever you please and feel like. I'm uninterested in how well you fit on some sort of social ideal that's presumptiously naive and stupidly implemented.

Be honest, be authentic, indulge a moment of solitude in your own company, in that inner circle which I hear everyone has even if not everyone spends any time there each day, or each year. So. What's the best use for a hundred grand ?

And, while you answer, so as to satisfy the needs of comedy, allow me to cite "a project" :

PROJECT PROPOSAL FOR THE INVESTNT OF THE BONDS ISSUED AS PER THE COJOCARU LAW [for 10 people = 200 000 euro]ⁱⁱ

INVESTED;
1. Land area = 10 000 sqm, of which 1 500 sqm buildings
2. Pigs, 700 heads.
DETAILS;
1. 1 500 sqm buildings
a; You dig up [with a bulldozerⁱⁱⁱ] a "canal" over a length of 150m 2 meters deep and 10 meters wide, with a 1 meter level difference [this level difference for drainage]. The ground excavated is to be pushed in one place [gully, swamp land etc; not in lakes or streams!] The terrain for emplacing the construction can be emplaced at the bottom of a hill, taking into account the possibility of catching a water stream^iv. The final construction will be 3 meters tall on the sides [2 meters underground and 1 window] and 5 meters in the middle. The roof will be built in two "waters". The construction being half buried, it will be cool in the summer [20-25 degrees]^v and warm in the winter [18-22] so as to save money with heating during winter!
For excavating the "canal" [2m deep and 10m wide] will be required about 150-200 hours. A bulldozer can be had for ~150 RON/hour^vi... 200x150 = 30 000 lei = 7 500 euro.
b;Foil for internal insulation 2 250 mp plus 1 800 for roofy, approximatively 1 000 euro
c;Pouring 2 000 sqm concrete = 200 cubic m = 36 000 lei = 9 000 euro [the concrete to be poured also around the cake construction [1 meter wide]!
d;Roofing, 59 150 = 15 000 euro
1.Roof supports; 7x7 = 300 pcs 6m ea = 6000 lei
2.Inner poles; 8x8 = 150 pcs 5m ea = 3000 lei
3.Supports for supports;8x8=75 pcs 4m = 1 125 lei
4.Outer poles, 1 m; 7x7 = 60pcs 5m ea = 900 lei
5.External supports;7x7=75pcs 4m ea = 1 125
6.Roof reinforcers every 3 m; 8x8 = 50pcs 10m ea = 2 000 lei
7.2 cm thick board;1 800 mp = 36 cubic m = 9 000 lei
8.Corrugated sheet;1 800 sqm = 36 000 lei
9.Cellular concrete for interior walls 10x30x50 650 sqm = 26 000 lei = 6 500euro
Drywall etc 5 000 euro
f;Buying young pigs 700 heads = 140 000 lei =35 000 euro
g;Electricity, piping water inside, washing hoses[carcer uses 10L water for a 10 sq m surface] 2 000 euro
h;External fence^vii 400m = 8 000lei = 2 000 euro
i; Warehouse for the storaging [corn, cereals] 4 000 euro
j; Shit collecting hole [6x6x3 concrete] 1 500 euro
k; Thar 700 pigs, to reach 100-120kg they consume 400kg corn each;this means feed 42 000 euro each year[50kg corn sack costs 30 lei]
So far there've been invested 130 000 euro
700 pigs x100kg = 70 000kg x 15lei kg viu = 1 050 000 lei = 262 500 euro yearly profit ! So 26 250 for each investor in the first year. The next year the profit will be smaller, because they will have to buy their own feed, there will be no need for livestock as they produce themselves!
I have made these calculations for they who do not want to invest,but just "sell" the 20 bonds for 5000 euro! Let's suppose a family has 5 members and each gets 20 000 euro as bonds. In total there will be 100 000 euro, which investment makes another 100 000 euro in a year! If it "sold" they, get 25 000 euro, which will be spent in a year and after it has spent they will deserve to become mere workers! They have no excuse for having become poor!
P.S. The building to be oriented East-West with windows in the South. I will leave it to you to evaluate the estimative value of window pane [150m length 1 meter tall]

They will deserve, you see, to become workers. The current crop of workers don't deserve, these haven't wasted any opportunity, haven't thrown out the window any occasion, never passed, like cows, by any chance.

They simply had no luck. But if you were to give them now 400`000`000`000 euro, if you "invest" this immense sum in giving a chance to every worker in this country, to every "slaves without employment" then I readily assure you that in 5, or in 10 years you will at most have nineteen, alright, maybe at most twenty-twentyone millions of dudes that also, never had a chance, and don't deserve to be worker slaves, and if you gave them another 400`000`000`00 millions or something, for sure everything'd be solved, and only who deserves would still be a slave after that.

Which is to say them. Like it happens.

This might strike you as outright raging lunacy right off the pages of timecube, and broadly it actually is. Nevertheless, it discusses actual historical events, some derp did in fact come up with a "plan" whereby every living thing in Romania was to get 20k euros just for existing. It never went anywhere, of course, but it got a lot of support. And if the entire "investment plan" makes you think of Bitcoin "companies" and the tardstalk forum, you're not terribly far off. The "consensus" among the ruminants as to the wisdom, feasability, practicality and morality of the scheme had a very XT air about it. Down to the T, actually, down to the tired ex Security agent in "charge" of it.

So it goes.

I don't know if you get it or don't, but I'll readily wager money on the theory you don't.

Here's a hint, nevertheless : the shelves of the bars in this country are mostly taken up by the miserable products of distilling grains. Notwithstanding that grain distillate is poor alcohol and as long as fruit's present it never makes the list. Notwithstanding that they live right south of the best rum in the world and so on and so forth.

The reason is that teenaged girls don't drink for the taste. You know ?

1. Notice that this question was posed, and deemed interesting, before Bitcoin. It is stale triviality today, I wouldn't ask this anymore than I'd ask what to do if it rains. [↩]
2. It's not explained whence one gets nine suckers to direct, but the quiet assumption is that the adult male in the sort of rural Romania that can't spell but aspires to economic relevancy (as opposed to slavery!) is the center of a family at least ten heads strong. Because Pashtun, that's why.

   Note that they correctly found the degree of magnitude for capital, in one unconscious, practical step. [↩]

3. Don't ask me how the fuck is this supposed to work, I didn't come up with it. [↩]
4. Free of any charge or encumbrance, you realise, because the cow thinks it owns the pasture it grazes upon. [↩]
5. He knows, he's done the research. [↩]
6. 50 bucks. The numbers are roughly accurate. Imagine a country like this. [↩]
7. They probably intend to do the internal part of the fence in a later installment. [↩]