Myths of capitalism: the myth of scarcity

[TBF]

Myths of capitalism: the myth of scarcity

by: Scott Hiley
August 14 2014

"We have to make the hard choices." "If we raise the minimum wage, unemployment will increase." "If we spend money on social programs, our grandchildren will pay for it." "If we don't decrease benefits, Social Security will become bankrupt."

How often have we seen these ideas, splashed across the editorial pages of newspapers, dribbling from the corporate mouthparts of the pundit class, or floating in the muck of right-wing plans to "reform" us back to the Gilded Age?

All of these ideas offer a "hard choice," an either/or: EITHER we have living wages OR we have jobs; EITHER we foot the bill OR our kids will; EITHER today's senior citizens give up some of what they earned OR tomorrow's seniors will get nothing. In other words, EITHER we hurt the working class OR we hurt the working class.

In philosophy, this kind of argument is called a false binary: a fallacy where someone offers two choices as the only possibilities, deliberately excluding other options.

In the case of these right-wing talking points, the option no one wants to mention is taxing the rich and cutting corporate subsidies to invest in social welfare, good jobs, and education ...

More here: http://www.peoplesworld.org/myths-of-capitalism-the-myth-of-scarcity/

[Ikonoklast]

1. Just look at who says those things, and then you'll know their true agenda.

The vastly wealthy and those they hire are the only ones spouting these lies.

[woo me with science]

2. +100000 We marinate in propaganda.

[Ikonoklast]

3. I need to inherit a few billion so I can start my very own 'think tank'.

I can hire every economist I can to tell the masses what is best...for ME.

[Yavin4]

4. if you can print your own currency AND the world accepts its value, then you can never be broke.

I posted that simple sentence once and was scorched by Libertarians and other gold bugs. Yet, it's dead on true. We have the ability to print our own currency and we inflate it all of the time. We just don't let labor participate in the inflated currency through suppression of their wages.

When you inflate the currency and deflate wages, you increase the value of existing assets and decrease the purchasing power of workers. Hence, the 1% / 99% divide.

[The2ndWheel]

6. Value and worth are as subjective as anything else

Money, or a digit on a screen, has value because we all agree that it has value. That's why everyone wants more of it.

One size fits all. That lack of diversity in value is the scarcity.

[TBF]

5. Thanks for all the responses -

I actually meant to post this in the Socialists Progressives Group so I appreciate that the article resonated with several folks in the General Discussion. I guess it isn't earth shattering information to those of us at DU, but it fools a lot of folks on the right who vote against their own economic interests time and time again.