“So, when these gentlemen say, ‘You are utopians, you anarchists are dreamers, your utopia would never work,’ we must reply, ‘Yes, it’s true, anarchism is a tension, not a realization, not a concrete attempt to bring about anarchy tomorrow morning.’ But we must also be able to say but you, distinguished democratic gentlemen in government that regulate our lives, that govern us through the opinions that you form daily in your newspapers, in the universities, schools, etc., what have you gentlemen accomplished? A world worth living in? Or a world of death, a world in which life is a flat affair, devoid of any quality, without any meaning to it? A world where one reaches a certain age, is about to get one’s pension, and asks oneself, ‘But what have I done with my life? What has been the sense of living all these years?’”
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[–] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Standard of living is just a made up metric that only increases because it exludes so many things from it. When I read about it on Wikipedia it becomes clear to me that its a capitalist inventiom or atleast serves really well as capitalist propaganda.

Things that somehow dont get included but definitely reduce my "standard of living":

  • extinxtion of plant and animal species that I will never be able to wittness, also knowing others will also never be able to wittness
  • steady increase of armed conflict and yearly rrlated deaths in recent years
  • fucking cars everywhere
  • increased control of the state and billionaires of every part of my life
  • continued colonial exploitation
  • absolute inaction of " those gentleman" when it comes to stopping the current genocides happening world wide
  • ...
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  • [–] -4 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Okay, if you want to be exceedingly pedantic and call me on using "standard of living" in place of its hypernym "quality of life", then by all means. I'm glad your 15-second glance at Wikipedia has enlightened you that one of the main concepts in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which measures things like access to social services, food, clothing, etc.) is filthy capitalist propaganda; I meant quality of life.

    Edit: If I had to add to the list, it'd be animal agriculture destroying the environment and torturing and murdering billions of sentient, emotional creatures across the world (let alone commercial fishing) for superfluous human enjoyment. Something you statistically take part in for no good reason, although I'm proud of you if you don't.

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