Can market exchange create new value?

April 8, 2009 Db021 Comments

No misconception is more common among free market proponents than the idea that simple exchange creates new value. I wish to show how this reasoning is flawed.

: Image by arbeer.de via Flickr

A very common argument from economists and generally free market proponents is that the only thing that creates value are market interactions. The basic idea they try to promote is that the Capitalist system is not a zero sum game as one person’s gain does not need to come from another person’s loss. You can see an example of this argument from this latest post on Techdirt.

Too many people, it seems, assume that “there is no free lunch” means that the market is entirely static. That is, they believe it’s a zero sum game. If I do x, then y loses out. So, if I am offered free internet service or a free lunch, then whoever provided that is out the same. But that’s simply not true. Economics is not a zero sum game, but is built around economic growth — where the sum of economic activity can be greater than the parts. If I do a transaction with you, and in the end, we’re both better off (i.e., we both got more value than we gave up), then the amount of overall value in the world increased. It might not be a “free” lunch (the economic transaction cost me something), but new utility is created above and beyond what was there before.

(Emphasis mine)

I will not argue on the liberal use of vague concepts and examples that seem valid (eg Why “Free Internet” and not “Free Apples”? Because the argument sounds more plausible that way) but I will point out the black hole in the end.

What the author is telling us in effect is that when you and I trade commodities, new utility is created. So if I give you an apple and you give me an orange, new utility has been created out of thin air. What this utility is, the author does not deem worthy to mention so your guess is as good as mine.

We can safely assume that the author is rather talking about utility in the economic sense, which can roughly translate as satisfaction. In that case however, new utility has not been created but rather the individual utility of each person has been increased. But this kind of utility does not affect the cumulative value of the world, it only affects the individual. The amount of value in the world remains constant.

It is this kind of fallacious reasoning that leads to events such as the rise and fall of Iceland, where their “value” skyrocketed simple because the traders agreed upon themselves that their stuff was worth more. What they basically did was trade amongst themselves and with each trade, they were creating “new utility”. By the logic above, that is perfectly normal and acceptable. The result of which was that Iceland’s “wealth” ballooned to such an extraordinary degree and then popped at the slightest disturbance.

But the reality is that utility, and by that I mean objective value of any single commodity can only be created through one of two ways. Human Labour and Natural Phenomena. The only way to create a new car is to build it. The only way to create a new microchip is to build it etc. It is funny that the author quotes someone else who goes very close to this but fails to grasp it

A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects.

But of course the extra value that is created in the kitchen does not come from simply possesing lots of inexpensive ingredients. By this reasoning, the best cooks would be the ones who could trade their material best and get the biggest array of them, or trade for the ones that gives them personally the largest amount of satisfaction. After all it’s the trading that would “create new utility” and thus “value” isn’t it?

But that of course is patently absurd. The extra value that is created in the kitchen does not lie in the ingredients. It lies in the amount of labour the cook will put in his cooking. And if we take into account the skill of the cook, then we can speak about the SNLT to be more accurate. The more labour the cook puts into his cooking, the more value the end result will have.

It is understandable that economists would be avert to recognise where the value comes from, but this dooms them to simply a series of equivocations.

Socialism doesn't apply via self-description

April 8, 2009 orgthingy4 Comments

Should we take those who call themselves “Socialist” at their word? Anti-Socialists seem eager to do so but such a label can only be assigned by act, not by word

: Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Db0: A reader recently contacted me asking if he could write an article on Socialism and have it posted at the Division by Zer0. Since WordPress provides the capability to have multiple users and since the contributor role already exists and since writing has been slow around here lately, why not? Following you’ll find the opinion of Orgthingy from (I assume) France, edited for clarity by yours truly.

Whenever I mention that I’m a socialist, many point out that I’m a “Communist Nazi” or “Racist Bastard”, when I ask how’s being socialist racist, they answer “Nazis are National SOCIALISTS YOU RACIST BASTARD GO TO HELL!”; it basically annoys me.

Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and other “dictators” are nothing but the usual: Dictators that use the Communist and Socialist noble messages to satisfy themselves. Hitler didn’t provide jobs by his “Creative and evil Socialist ideas” but rather to kill the Jews (and others) so the Aryan-blooded Germans would think he actually created jobs for them. He didn’t. Socialism isn’t about satisfying anybody by killing others.

Now Stalin’s turn, USSR wasn’t Socialist/Communist at all, but State Capitalist. Stalin was a control-freak, but not every kind of control means “The Socialist Devil”; Capitalism has its kind of control as well, but people just don’t know.

Now it’s Saddam’s turn: His country had billions of dollars ,before he became president, flowing into country’s revenue, then he made his country billions in debt! After googling I found out that he spent the money either on weapons or for personal use; that really isn’t socialism.

People Wake up, just because they claim they’re socialists doesn’t mean they are!

Db0: Orgthingy is pointing out the classic fallacy of taking Dictators at their word on whatever they claim to be. Thus Stalin was a “Communist”, Hitler a “Socialist” etc. The people who accept such a self-definition by dictators and brutal regimes are guilty of intellectual dishonesty, for they won’t as readily accept, say, the claims of North Korea of being a “Democratic Republic”, nor would they accept claims of such people that their acts are for the greater good and whatnot.

It is obvious that a dictator will attempt to provide legitimacy to their rule. It will always be “for the people” or “for the nation” and any other such rhetorhic. The specifics will not matter but it will be whatever most people believe in. As such the dictators of USSR called themselves Communists, and the fascists of Germany called themselves National Socialists (as Socialism back then was still quite popular).

However to believe one thing those Leaders say but dismiss the other is simply disingenuous. Especially since what they claim to be has a perfectly clear definition already which diverges from their actual practices. For example, Socialism is supposed to be Worker’s ownership of the means of production and egalitarianism, but National socialists promoted exactly the opposite. Their regime was defined by a strict hierarchical pyramid of power and corporate cronyism, where economic freedom was high but political freedom low. Indeed, Capitalists all over the world loved the Nazis (as they have loved every other fascist/right-wing dictator since).

The rulers of any country will hijack the ideology that is most popular at the moment in order to retain their rule with the minimum of resistance. Nazi leaders gave the illusion of working for the good of the German people (National “Socialism”) while the USA ruling elite give the illusion of allowing power and choice for everyone (“Democracy”). None of these have much legitimacy and nor do they necessarily merge with what others mean when they say “Socialism” or “Democracy”. These labels do not work through self-identification.

Managers are the new nobility

March 31, 2009 Db071 Comments

Why do MBAs get so well paid even though all evidence points that they do not deserve it? My half-cooked theory is that they are the natural result of the crypto-feudalism of our system.

: Image via Wikipedia

I just read this interesting piece on how the MBA degree is not only useless but practically fostered the mindframe that drove the Wall Street meltdown. There are some interesting points within and some of the quotes are just hilarious but I feel that the author does not go far enough.

While the problems of the mindframe that your can “train a leader” are obvious not only after a short explanation but also through viewing the dismal failure most managers are, a failure which in turn has not relation to their subsequent payment and bonuses, the reasons of why this paradigm came to be is not explored.

And what would you know, I have a theory on that.

You see, we have a society which rewards those who can accumulate wealth better with more wealth. We also have the concept that this wealth can and should be passed to one’s progeny so as not to be squandered. We also know that wealth = power and power can be used to prevent others from challenging one’s own wealth/power.

As wealth accumulated to fewer and fewer hands, those at the top, through inheritage ended up creating dynasties, and the mentality of those who are born within a dynasty is that they deserve to be there. That they deserve these privileges that their ancestors have granted them (AKA Spoiled rich brats). When you add to that the common feeling of people who have “made it”, who do not want to see their progeny having to walk the same path but rather continue where they left them, you get the mentality of nobility: By right of heritage, one deserves their social position.

Sure one could train his children as experts on something but that would mean that they may start low and actually have to take orders from someone else. There also the alternative that the progeny simply lives of the considerable wealth the parents have created but this would lead to a progressive reduction of wealth, especially since a jbless hedonistic child is bound to spend increasingly more and more. No, the wealth a position had to be transferred somehow.

In the past, the founder of a very succesful company could easily tranfer his wealth to his children (or at least some of them) which wasn’t much different from a lord tranferring his feud to his sons. However as privately owned companies were outcompeted from public ones, this path became progressively harder to take as the shareholders don’t necessarily have to be the same as the managers.

So another way had to be found to ensure that the progeny of the movers and shakers of any society would in turn become the movers and shakers of the future. And just in time, the managerial courses came about. I have noted that the rise to prominense of such courses correlates very nicely with the increased incorporation of American business. The less the posibility one has to transfer the accumulated wealth, the more necessary to have a way to jump start one’s career.

And slowly but surely, the managerial class was created. A class which incidentally has a very high entrance cost (as you need to have both the money and the status to be accepted in institutions such as Harvard) which practically means that only those already in the upper levels of society can enter. And as progressively the higher paying positions of companies necessitated one being part of the managerial class, the cumulative dificulty in getting in, became even larger.

So now you’ve basically got a system where if you’re rich and powerful you get to become even more rich and powerful by right of heritage, while the chances of one of the unwashed masses “making it” are as high as the chance a mercenary or a merchant had to become a “sir” or a lord in an Aristocracy.

Like the nobility, the managerial class is not taught how to be productive or ethical like the rest of us, they are tought how to be decisive and arrogant. Like the nobility, the managerial class does not need to suffer the bad results of their actions (golden parachutes and the like) unless they happen to step on the toes of another of the ruling class while they’re at it.

It is funny because this is the culmination of all the bourgeoisie has been striving to achieve ever since the liberal revolutions of the past few centuries. To take the place the aristocracy had in their zenith. They have obviously achieved it, but like the aristocracy before them, they have nowhere to progress, but down.

Are the USA heading towards a military coup?

March 30, 2009 Db015 Comments

All the recent events point to the US military moving to a position to depose of their President if he gets too out of line.

: This is the kind of Propaganda I’m talking about – Image by fletcherwarren via Flickr

I’m seeing way too many right-wing secessionist alarms coming from the US lately and the trend is much too concentrated and much too supported to be extremist scaremongering imho.

The Army generals have already declared their distrust for the current administration and I’m willing to bet that the ruling elite are funding most of the secessionist movements. They’ve already uncovered that the “Tea Parties” and “Spontaneous Rants” were setup by the NeoCons so it’s not really a stretch to imagine that much of the rest is as well. We already know that Faux News wouldn’t fart without Murdoch’s approval so their latest stunt gives at least some credence to that theory.

Personally, I’m starting to believe that this is in psychological preparation for a military coup. They want a large amount of the populace supportive of a forceful takedown of the current government. I can’t really foresee how this will go down but I assume an increasing secessionist/revolutionary movement through astroturfing and viral messages, playing on popular disenchantment and anger.

Once the kettle has been brought to a boil, all it will take will be a crisis ((I’m assuming a catastrophic economic event, such as a nationa default or the disuse of the dollar as the global exchange currency)) that will give the cause for the generals to step in and declare the government null or somesuch.

The sad part is how the “Liberals” of the US are joking about these threats as if military coups have never happened before. If anything, with the increased reliance of the US on Mercenaries under the control of private individuals (with very strong ties to the NeoCons) such a move would be impossible to resist through democratic means. The Democrats will still be thinking that this can never happen in the land of the Free while the fascist flags are being raised on the white house.

So I see this coming and it’s scary. The signals are all loud and clear. The secessionists are proudly proclaiming their plans for terrorism and nobody even blinks (while of course animal-rights activists are labeled terrorists and detained at the drop of a hat).The ironic insult to injory is that a very large proportion of the mess the US is in right now has been caused by NeoCon policies. And now that the opposition is in the rule, they are going to use the disaster they’ve helped create to push forward something even worse.

The most unfortunate thing is that the reactionary feelings of general populace are being guided into supporting fascists instead of being agitated to struggle for their freedom. If what I foresee comes to be, US Citizens will be tricked into exchanging a Plutocracy for a Junta or a fascist regime and all their revolutionary energy will be sapped once they realize the result they’ve helped accomplish (or failed to stop).

Perhaps it can’t be helped. The Socialism movement of the USA has been hamstrung through persistent and extreme propaganda to the point that the mere word is used as slander. As such, there are few people that can push the coming reaction to the right direction and while a crisis of Capitalism can turn people Socialist overnight, a sustained misinformation campaign, such as the one going on at the moment, can easily polarize in the opposite direction.

For your sake Americans, I hope I’m being horribly wrong on this.

How would Anarchists/Communists deal with the Free Rider Problem?

March 24, 2009 Db061 Comments

The issue of Free Riders is frequently brought forward as an argument against Anarchism and Communism. However not only would such societal leeches be fewer but also far less problematic.

: Image by schoeband via Flickr

A Free Rider is considered someone who consumes more than he should, or more than what is considered “fair”. In the more extreme case it is someone who contributes nothing but still receives the full benefits of society. In a more mild case, it might be the lazy person who manages to obscure the fact that he’s only working half the time.

Both of these cases are considered a problem because they present a prisoner’s dilemma to whatever they apply. If I work in a factory and can simply slack off half the time, this will bring me the benefit of living a happier, less tiring and stressful job. If this can pass unchallenged it will trigger others in the factory to act in the same way (defect) so as to get the same benefit. When a few people become free riders then it usually does not create an issue as others can cover for their loss without noticeable drawbacks. However when everyone, or a critical mass, defects then everyone suffers.

Free rider then must be somehow convinced or coerced to stop defecting from contributing what is expected of them, and societies have come up with various ways to work around this problem. In a modern nation for example, active coercion is used via the form of taxes to insure that everyone contributes their share. In a theoretical “Anarcho”-Capitalist society on the other hand, this problem is resolved through death ((To be fair, this is the position is espoused by this particular AnCap who seems to be a bit challenged in the empathy department. As such, it does not necessarily mean it’s the position espoused by all AnCaps, so a more accurate description instead of “death” would be “reliance on private charity, but possibly including death where charity is ineffectual”. H/t sblinn)). The question occurs then, how would an Anarchist/Communist society deal with Free Riders.

The way I see it, there’s two necessary conditions that must exist to turn someone into a free rider. These are Incentive and Obfuscation. Incentive is the fact that in a prisoner’s dilemma the best result is when the other side cooperates as you defect. The greater the difference from the result of mutual cooperation compared to cooperation/defection, the greater the incentive to defect. Obfuscation on the other hand is the ability to hide your choice in the prisoner’s dilemma so as to avoid coercion or others defecting with you.

The greater the incentive and the easier the obfuscation, the more free riders you will get in your system until it collapses. A Capitalist system (wether a fascist, democratic or an stateless one) has such a a major issue with free riders because both conditions are high. It is easy to hide the fact that you’re lazy when your co-workers won’t care to give you away and the rewards for doing it are considerate (same pay for less work). I want to show how in a Socialist society both of these conditions are severely reduced.

Incentive

Lets say we have a factory where our potential free rider is a worker. In a Capitalist run factory he would either be getting the minimum wage (the cost to survive) due to the commoditization of labour, or in the lucky case that the worker is living in a Bourgeois nation, he’ll be getting a decent one. Whatever happens then, the worker knows that he will be getting the same wage and it will also be unlikely that any extra effort will be rewarded.

But this is not the case in a socialist mode of production. Because the workers themselves reap all the fruits of their own labour any slacking at work will come directly out of one’s “paycheck” while any extra effort will increase their reward. Because of this, in our prisoner’s dilemma abstraction of the situation, the reward one receives from cooperating with others within Socialism are approaching the reward one receives via defection. The smaller this difference between rewards becomes, the smaller the incentive for one to defect

Obfuscation

The second condition is how easy it is for a potential free rider to hide the fact that he is slacking about. Within a capitalist company, the limited management finds it very difficult to tell apart who is the slacker as opposed to who is simply slower than others (but still trying) or who is having a bad time. And since other workers generally don’t rat on their colleagues, especially when working conditions are bad, it becomes quite easy to hide the fact that you’re avoiding work, and this only gets easier in direct proportion to the size of the company.

However when you have a company where every worker’s reward is directly affected by every other contribution, suddenly people who take but do not give stand out much more. And because we’re talking about interactions between equals, workers will find it much easier to speak out and pressure the slacker socially to behave. Whereas it’s easy to hide from ( (or suckup to) the minority of the people who have the power to punish or fire you, it is not as easy to do the same when everyone you work with has a chance to notice, complain and eventually get rid of you.

Now you might have noticed that I’m mostly talking about workplaces as this is the main area where someone might try to free ride, but there’s also the case that one tries to escape working altogether. How can you tell then if your neighbour is contributing his part to the community for all the benefits he’s getting back? Like the workplace, in a small scale community ((since I generally advocate those I will argue from that point.)) it is very difficult to hide the fact that you never seem to be doing anything. Sooner or later neighbours and other member will start adding 2 and 2 together and come to the right conclusions.

We also should consider that it’s very unlikely that any person would prefer doing nothing for most of his life. I think it’s in our evolved psychology to want to feel productive to some degree. Certainly there are subcultures where it seems as if free riding (on social benefits) is promoted, but how much that is caused by other social conditions is a big argument (ie are people free riding because they can, or are they free riding because the alternative low-paying crappy non-fulfilling jobs are a far worse option?)

Dealing with Free Riders

So I’ve argued how the number of Free Riders within an Anarchist/Communist society would be much lower than what we’ve come to expect from experience, but it’s still conceivable that a number of them will still exist. While it will be easier to be discovered and the rewards of them defecting will be marginal, some may opt for this method. Perhaps they are just that lazy or don’t care what others think etc. How will we deal with them?

Social Pressure

Humans are primarily social animals and don’t really want to live alone. When a free rider is discovered in work, his colleagues can easily make his life miserable by avoiding contact and/or being hostile, depending on how much he is slacking off. This type of pressure works even now to a significant degree and you very often see people quit from nice jobs because of office hostility. If this can work on people who can even be on the right (that is, not being lazy) then it will doubtly work on people who have to face their colleagues and their own conscience.

Outside work, the same thing can happen. Friends & Family will start urging you to do your part or abandon you if you don’t. Social contacts may become hostile and as the information spreads more and more, people around you will do the same. Imagine your grocery store clerk wordlessly giving you your necessities, imagine your postman “forgetting” to bring you the mail. You get the idea. I do not think there’s many who will want to be in this situation, especially if it’s their own fault for wanting to be lazy.

Ostracism

There is always a chance that a free rider will associate with other free riders in order to alleviate the effects of social pressure. As long as food and shelter are always provided, then one only needs to avoid social withdrawal in order to function in society and if they can find other like them, a subculture of free riders may be created that will be more resistant to social pressure.

Hopefully a future society will be a federation of communities whereas people cluster together with whoever they want to associate with. As such, each community will get to decide with whom they want to associate with and provide their communal resources. Were such a group of free riders to appear amidst the community, it would be relatively simple for the productive members of society to refuse to support them. Whereas this is impossible in a tax based welfare system, it would be fairly simple under Anarchism.

Leaving them be

It is very possible that even with the small incentive and low chance to hide, some people might still find a way to free ride in a Anarchist/Communist society and this is unavoidable in any kind of system really. For example in a taxation situation, you still have a lot of people who find a way to hide their true income or simply become invisible and only work through the black market. In the sense that these people keep using public services that the rest of us have paid for, they are free riding.

Well how about simply ignoring them? The number of such undiscovered free riders can never be large enough to be disruptive as this would mean that the method they achieve it would eventually leak to the rest of the community which would then take action. Trying to get rid of them through blanket measures is more likely to do more harm than good, as it may require authoritarian measures and the like.

So in the end you have a very small percentage of any community leeching off somehow in a way that does not incite others to do the same, we simply write it off as part of the waste. Among the people with special needs, the sick, the children and the elderly, a bunch of free riders will never make any difference.

A vulgar right-wing libertarian might here say that as long as there is any waste, as long as any person has the possibility to leech off his hard work, then the system is unacceptable. But the problem is that under Capitalism not only do the free riders abound but they also get to wield all the power. Who are they? Well, as per the initial definition, they are of course the ones who do not contribute anything by themselves and retain all the benefits of society. How do they do that? By simply turning their wealth to more wealth without having to lift a finger. They are the parasitic class who skim all the surplus value without having to break a sweat. They are the Capitalists.

Given the choice of a free rider in an Anarchist society – who can never have anything more than anyone else, nor exert any power over his comrades – and a free rider in a Capitalist society who not only gets to live the good life without even trying, but also get to be more powerful as time passes at the expense of everyone else…well I’d like to think that most can see which is the best choice.

Taxation and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (barefootbum.blogspot.com)

"This ain't Capitalism"

March 19, 2009 Db030 Comments

Whenever suffering and misery happen in a country which consider itself Capitalistic, it is quickly pointed that this is the fault of anything BUT Capitalism. This article explains why this is a fallacy.

: Image by Jacob Bøtter via Flickr

It’s a recurring theme lately that whenever one will point out sufferring and generally bad stuff happening because of Capitalism, right-wing libertarian apologists will pop-up from the woodwork to point out that “This ain’t Capitalism”. They will claim that the government played too big a role and this we can’t really consider it a fault of the system per se, but must lay all the blame on the government intervention ((The hypocrisy that takes the cake of course is when the same people will blame all the suffering of USSR, Korea and China squarely on Communism without being willing to recognise any other factor other than how those nations defined themselves)).

This is starting to get quite annoying so I think it’s time to explain why I consider this a no-true Scotsman fallacy.

First of all, ‘Capitalism’ as a word is quite recent, only coming into the mainstream vocabulary at the start of the 20th century by Werner Sombart, a Marxian who used it in his critique of the system. Before that, the use of the word had been sporadic and in variants of the root, with the most important being by Karl Marx himself who wrote mainly about the Capitalist mode of Production.

This concept has been expanded in the last century to mean a complete economic system who’s core characteristic is the same Capitalist mode of production that Marx was accurately criticizing. Peripheral to that is the sociopolitical situation within which this mode of production exists. This can range from authoritarian imperialism (Fascism), to libertarian minarchism (The American ‘Libertarianism’).

All of these, are still Capitalism. The means of production (factories, land, labour) are still privately owned and the only thing that changes is the degree of political freedom and interference of the state. But the degree to which these two fluxuate has nothing to do with wether the system is Capitalistic or not.

The Austrian school of Economics is of course the most rabid denouncers of this idea. For them, as long as Capitalism is not absolutely free any government, it cannot be called as such (Merchantilism is apparently the correct word) something of course which is complete nonsense. Even under the most welfare-oriented system, the mode of production still remains in the hands of private owners and as such the core characteristic is fulfilled. To argue otherwise is similar to claiming that someone is not a Scotsman because he puts sugar in his porridge.

Apologists of Capitalism from every school of thought, wether that is that there is too much restriction on Capital or that there is not enough restriction on Capital, will eagerly lay the blame for all the human suffering under the actions (or inactions) of Capitalist regimes on anything else than the economic system itself. It’s too much state intervention. Or too much credit expansion. Or not enough checks and balances. Or too much Greed. Or too much Corruption. Or too much environmental destruction. Whatever. It’s anything and the kitchen sink to blame but Capitalism.

And yet we see the same suffering and destruction occuring to any Capitalist system sooner or later. Wether that is the Free Market Wonder of Chile, the Soaring Growth of India or the State Capitalism of the USSR. No matter how much or how little government intervention there is in the market, the same crises happen, povertry and starvation remain, and people suffer. And the only thing that stays constant, the only common denominator, is the Capitalist mode of production.

This is Capitalism.

Also see: Capitalism: A good word for a bad thing.

Make your avatar a "Hoodie"

March 18, 2009 Db02 Comments

The Greek Govt is trying to criminalize attempts to protect one’s identity during social upheavals. This is a call for solidarity.

Last year during the Greek Riots, there was a government suggestion to somehow punish people who cover their faces during protests, in effect making it unlawful to protect your anonymity. Back then along with another person, I took a symbolic solidarity action by taking a picture of myself as a hoodie but as time passed and the riots abated, the issue was forgotten.

However it seems that the Government has not forgotten their plans and has now proceeded to decree that anyone caught “vandalizing”, acting violently or simply disrupting the public peace while wearing a hoodie or otherwise covering their face characteristics will be further charged with 2-10 years of punishment. You read that right, if you go out to protest and you are deemed to be disruptive to the public peace (who will judge that? The cops of course) while covering your face (or not, Greek cops have no problem accusing you anyway, and what is easier to accuse than “covering the face characteristics”) then you can go to jail for 2 years at least.

Wonderful.

As a reaction to this announcement, Plagal, who initiated the action the last time, brought up this symbolic move of picturing yourself in a hoodie once more and urges everyone to do something similar. The reaction this time has been much more positive and many more people have done the same (there’s a list in the link above) which could possibly be due to the fact that another blogger proposed the same thing independently, only she went one step further and proposed the great idea to switch all our avatars to Hoodies in solidarity.

So here we go:

I’ve already updated my twitter and facebook avatars and I urge you to do the same in all the places where you commonly hang out. And of course if you’re a blogger upload one in your blog and explain why you did it.

If you live in Greece I furthermore wholeheartedly suggest you start strolling around the city as a Hoodie, just so that you can show your disdain for this new government clampdown of freedom of expression and the right to anonymity.

Ska-P is on tour?! FFFFFFFUUUUUU

March 18, 2009 Db01 Comment

Ska-P is coming to Greece and I won’t be around. No vacation allowed in this period 🙁

: Ska-P (via last.fm)

I just realized I missed the Ska-P concert in germany after their recent reunion. Now I find out that in mid-May they’re going to be in Greece and specifically in my home city Thessaloniki. To say that I’d like to see them live would be an understatement. Judging by how awesome and dancealicious their songs are by default, their live shows must be amazing fun.

[youtube]4nmO54Tf5vM[/youtube]

So the title of this article goes to the fact that I will lose this concert unless I pull a brilliant plan to somehow be in Greece at this particular Fortunately for me, We (me and the gf) already plan to be there at around this time but we were planning for around June. I need to simply make pull it back a bit.

[youtube]Q-Iv7JqlTjw[/youtube]

I was totally hooked to Ska-P from a colleague a few years ago and I’ve become a big fan since then. By the time I learned about them they had already disbanded but in 2008 they rejoined and brought a new album (which I need to acquire post-haste). Not only do they make awesome music – combining folk, metal and punk in a wonderful mix of Ska – but they also have a very uplifting tone and lyrics centered around liberty, anti-capitalism and racism. Just perfect.

[youtube]cZhl8HU2WQI[/youtube]

So um, yeah. Other than a blatant opportunity for me to post some vids of them in an attempt to hook y’all. This was simply an exclamation on the fact that I may lose my last chance to see them. This must not be.

Quote of the Day: KKE and Slander

March 18, 2009 Db0

Bravo Liana .. Tell us the way, how can a revolutionary party deflect the international slander, when whole communist regimes have succumbed to them? It seems that KKE can make it, because it has the divine favour (something that other communists don’t) and has made a monastery from sinless Shaolin that deflect every intervention.

Quoth Gatouleas

Bravo Liana ((Editor: A well-known repressentative of the Greek Communist Party)).. Tell us the way, how can a revolutionary party deflect the international slander, when whole communist regimes have succumbed to them? It seems that KKE ((Editor: The Greek Communist Party. Stalinist)) can make it, because it has the divine favour (something that other communists don’t) and has made a monastery from sinless Shaolin that deflect every intervention.

Translated from Greek. Lots of fun and a good article to boot

Quote of the Day: Obama the Corporatist

March 17, 2009 Db01 Comment

[Obama] is not a socialist, as conservatives may be arguing, but he is a corporatist. Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.

Quoth Douglas Rushkoff

[Obama] is not a socialist, as conservatives may be arguing, but he is a corporatist. Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.

A Division by Zer0

A bug in the code of the universe

Can market exchange create new value?

Socialism doesn't apply via self-description

Managers are the new nobility

Are the USA heading towards a military coup?