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Johnny Appleseed planting apple trees for kids to eat (discuss.online)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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Actually I looked up the real story of Johnny Appleseed and he was more about making hard cider and selling land. 🙃

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[–] 5 points 9 months ago (6 children)

This is true and has led to my new system for evaluating economic systems, what does it do with antisocial people.

Capitalism is interesting in that it actually has a plan for them. Let them be greedy little fucks and the system works for a while. Then they fuck everything up and the system collapses, either in a minor correction every couple of years or into fascism.

I would love for something like socialism or communism to work, but there’s this 1% that would pick the trees clean to better their own lot.

I don’t have any answer, but I have come to the conclusion that every economic and social system should only be considered viable if there’s a reasonable and compelling solution for what to do with the guy that wants to pick the fruit tree clean.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    the anarchist solution is to abolish property, meaning picking the fruit tree clean wouldn't actually give you anything besides a bunch of rotting fruit and others will probably get angry and stop giving you the stuff they make

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (4 children)

    Then no one has fruit. There is a non-zero percent of the population who would pick the trees clean for that reason alone.

    Anarchy, like capitalism, works best when all the actors are rational. People are not rational.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (3 children)

    this isn't a "people will manage the commons" argument; "that reason" is property itself which anarchism wants to abolish

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    I get the idea: if no one exclusively owns anything, then no one needs to hoard anything, and everyone gets what they need.

    Unfortunately, we do not yet live in a post-scarcity society. There needs to be a way to both ensure that limited resources are distributed appropriately (by whatever metric) AND to ensure that someone doesn't take more even when they are not acting in their own best interest.

    To continue the apples analogy, it's all fine and well to say that no one owns the apples so anyone can eat one whenever they want. In theory, no one would eat more than they can, so there would be enough to go around. But how do you handle someone who decides they want to control people by controlling the apples? If they take all the apples, then people will have to go to him if they want an apple, and they will have to pay some price for it (and I don't mean cash). What is the mechanism to ensure that doesn't happen? Or, what is the mechanism to prevent someone from burning down all the apple trees because they don't like apples or because they want someone else to not have apples?

    The idea that no one owns anything does not stop someone with an irrational mindset or with a mindset to force their will on others.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    the idea is that everyone knows the idea that nobody owns anything, so they'll boycott that person with zir rotting fruit and stop delivering their own stuff to zim so this person with the irrational mindset will have to confront that ze's ostracized. (of course, ze could still steal stuff from them if ze wishes, but ze no longer have the social feelings of receiving a gift.) if there are no apples anywhere else they're supposed to revolt and take the apples by force because of how used they are to the status quo, and if that person wants ze can start a hermit life somewhere else and ask for people to join zir quest about rotting fruit

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    This still depends on people behaving rationally. We need only look at the current state of things in the U. S. To know that people do not behave rationally on large groups.

    Here we have a man who has declared he is in charge of things he was never given charge over, and doing things he has no authority to do. Rather than say "no," enough people have simply shrugged their shoulders and said "okay," or worse, are actively supporting his control.

    You cannot depend on the majority to do the right thing at large scales. Small scales like a village, sure, but on a population level, most people are too apathetic. That makes it inevitable that those who desire power can take it, either by charisma or by force, and there will always be a group of people who will want that to happen and support them because they think they can get a piece of that pie. No amount of social stigma will help when someone controls the means for people to merely survive.

    Unless you support vigilante justice, but we only need to look at lynch mobs in history to see how well THAT turns out. There is a reason we have due process, but due process requires a governing body.

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