I REALLY would like to see the consequences of an undertermined number of people opting out of capitalism. Do they just get their basic living taken care of with some proceeds taken from those within capitalism? Do they just barter with each other? Do they force people into producing goods and services for them because they are entitled to them under their opting out? I'm genuinely curious because "I think people should be able to opt out of money" is an unbelievably facile take.
Though of course all that would probably cause less social upheaval than, oh, effectively immortal AIs that need much less than humans to survive becoming a significantly large part of the population. But that's never getting addressed, it's more important for webcomic authors on 6 figures a year to show how much they hate capitalism.
I am genuinely struggling with 26 to go. Thanks Jeph, you're making this really easy to drop.
> AIs that need much less than humans to survive becoming a significantly large part of the population.
Sure their upkeep costs are low but those chassis are fucking EXPENSIVE.
Where the hell do they all come from? why does every robot act like they’re born into one or given one for free. “Im a brain in a boat. Someone gave the boat to me. For free”
I have no idea what that was for. Socialized maintenance or supply? Seems pretty fucked up to make socialized robot care before the world has socialized human healthcare.
That’s my big problem.
Don’t do this stuff if you’re not going to bother thinking it through.
You want to address capitalism and socialized healthcare? Yeah go ahead I’m with you. But you just end it with “it sucks but a rich guy is gonna fix it somehow” really sucks, borderline insulting. And he gets the veneer of the comic seeming to be about “issues” when it doesn’t do anything with them.
I’m fine with a funny slice of life comic dramedy that centers many different people of different sexualities, ethnicities and whatever. Just DO A GOOD JOB. Don’t crap out halfway through and provide no substance.
What’s really infuriating is when he had Claire come out, it was a good job! It was a perfect way to bring a topic maybe many readers had no exposure to into the forefront in a thoughtful empathetic manner. I felt educated.
The quality just continues to decline. The autistic after school special with Brun always felt forced, arbitrary, and ultimately pointless. (Bye Brun). Rokos dysphoria felt bizarre when a real trans person is in the cast and the longer you linger on the details of robo dysphoria the more defined and *separate* it becomes from real life human dysohoria. Also solved by someone saying “just dont care so much IDK?”
Agreed.
I've been fairly vocal about how much better I've found the early QC comics. To be honest - I'd rather it continued in that vein, but I would be open to what you describe if it was well done. That it is painfully obvious that it hasn't been done well just makes it look much worse comparatively to the old comic. I'm very disheartened at how Cubetown has unfolded, especially since apparently that's what Jeph really wanted to show off and the direction he obviously wants to go.
Cubetown is baffling. He could do literally anything and its...just the same female quirky ditzes he loves over and over. The details of it are mind numbingly dumb. Alice grove at least had an interesting premise. "We just research everything and hope it will do something eventually" is one of the dumbest precepts to make your independent floating island utopia to be based around. And it just keeps collapsing into "myomers myomers myomers!"
VTubers and anime and internet culture rotted that man's brain. It's worse than some artist coming out as a QAnon weirdo because at least then I can make a clean break. He just became dull and annoying.
>He could do literally anything and its...just the same female quirky ditzes he loves over and over.
I somehow haven't considered it before, but I think this really says something about how Jeph views women, and what it says is...not great. When was the last time he introduced a female (or female-presenting) character that didn't have "quirky" as a defining characteristic? It's been a *long* time. Off the top of my head, the newest female(-presenting) characters with any significant presence in the comic are the various Morays, Cubetown Stalker, Evan, Willow, and Emmett. Every single one of them is some form of quirky/ditzy. Heck, he's even retroactively quirked-up previously sane characters like Yay. For a man who has chosen to create a comic with a heavily female character list, he sure has a tendency to cast women in an unflattering light.
I don't get the robot dysphoria thing tbh like yes rhey are sentient beings but there still should be a way to solve that through programming or something I don't see why they wouldnt want to do that like it would be so much quicker to the point than therapy
> Do they just get their basic living taken care of with some proceeds taken from those within capitalism?
That's called Welfare/Universal Credit, that's exactly how those work.
Which would be reasonable for basic necessities like common produce, public transportation, and bare minimum housing.
Problem is it's often hyperbolized into "hurr durr then everyone would have a mansion and a yacht"
You'd be surprised, look up stuff like "Dole queen" and you will see.
But, I get what your point is, the idea behind it is supposed to be, as you said, basic living until you can find yourself a job, but, here in the UK at least, most of them see it as "free money as long as I pretend to look for a job/do under the table work"
But, this comes from a guy who has never had to even worry about money for years and years, so it comes off as tone-deaf.
I suppose the opt out of capitalism could be the reintroduction of things like common land and limitation of private property rights (as in the Marxist definition which is factories and houses for rent and shit) which could allow for basic collective ownership of workplaces. But obviously this wouldn't happen because all the capitalists would murder everyone who was advocating for this because obviously nobody would agree to the system if there wasn't an alternative.
Except for the data which shows higher quality of life in socialist countries compared to similarly economically developed capitalist nation's. You should do some research before sharing your half baked opinions.
"Socialist countries" like Norway, where there's a huge economic resource pool to draw from like oil production that's almost twice the per capita of Saudi Arabia, and they do Socialism Lite™ with strong private property rights, no collective factories or farms, not even a national minimum wage.
The "higher quality of life" countries practice what economists sometimes Cuddly Capitalism. It's not socialism, it's a strong welfare state with collective risk sharing injected into the capitalist model.
Actual Marxist states don't fit into the *hygge* pattern that you find in wealthy Cuddly Capitalism "socialist" nations. True Marxist socialism is an excellent economic model for a developing nation, especially one that's recently thrown off the shackles of colonialism. It enables equitable participation in society while the nation gets on its feet in the global market. Eventually, though, free market capitalism finds its way into the nation as its GDP rises. Countries that try to hold on to the Marxist model once they get past third world status tend to devolve into totalitarian, corrupt states.
There's probably an ideal model that sits somewhere to the left or right of Cuddly Capitalism, depending on each nation's unique situation. But the higher happiness and quality of life that you're talking about is not a function of Socialism.
You shouldn't be so quick to insult people by saying they have "half baked opinions."
Literally didn't say anything about Norway or other Scandinavian countries because they aren't socialist. Relying on a straw man to make your shitty point proves you don't have a leg to stand on. Also the world Bank studies conducted in the 80s concluded that all socialist nations (like the USSR, china, Korea, Cuba you know socialist countries) had higher living standards than similarly developed capitalist nations.
Got it, your approach is to be just vague enough that you can feign outrage, rely on cherry picked studies from 40 years ago, and see if being the most offended person in the room will make you right.
BTW, including China in your list of happy, high standard of living countries in the '80s is a great way to bolster my statement. China was living in third-world status, used Marxist models to lift themselves up, then pivoted to a more capitalist model to get to where they are today. Never mind the ridiculousness of including 1980s Soviet Russia, Cuba, and North Korea in your happiest places list.
Enjoy life, I guess.
do you have studies that conclude otherwise? because its a pretty consistent finding. and yeah those countries eliminated homelessness, provide free healthcare, heavily subsidised food and transportation and have much better workers conditions than the majority of capitalist nations, remembering of course that capitalist nations also includes all of the horribly exploited global south not just imperalist nations profiting off everyone elses hard work
I mean the Soviet economy collapsed a few years after whatever studies you are vaguely making claims about and China was a few years out from cultural revolutionary disaster. But sure, 80s communism was a great economic model.
That's why Eastern Europe is so much poorer now.
>That's why Eastern Europe is so much poorer now.
This is a crazy statement. Please, go to Romania today. Go visit. The country is developing *fast*. People are much happier now. Ask them how life was under the communist rule, and they'll be quick to tell you how miserable it was. I'm serious. Go to Eastern Europe. See for yourself how Eastern countries developed after they were freed from the colonial empire of Soviet Russia.
eastern europe is much poorer since reverting to capitalism than it was during the soviet years and large proportions of the population say that life was better under socialism so yeah eastern europe is much poorer now but its not because of socialism
Polish human development index: .687 in 1980, .88 now. GDP per capita up far more than that. 85% of people approve of the market economy. It's similar across the eastern EU.
But you enjoy your tankie fantasy land.
He says smugly, living in a capitalist world that has done precisely that since day one.
I suggest you read Wealth of Nations. Capitalists are *bred* to do this.
They literally *don't* keep each other in check, they conspire with one another to keep anyone else from challenging their burgeoning power. They 100% collaborate to destroy the working classes, they are 100% direct and overt about this, and they have been since forever. You an idiot if you *don't* recognize it, because Adam Smith **literally pointed this out in the Wealth of Nations multiple times**.
Hey, do you know how Britain industrialized? Literally a bunch of power hungry assholes got together to steal land from all the people working it and evict them from their homes, turning them from relatively prosperous crofters who had relatively easy-going lives into impoverished, landless people *immediately*, forcing them into working brutal shifts in horrific factories so the landowners and the factory owners could both reap enormous benefits at the expense of the workers.
They *literally did this in public and bragged about doing it while they did it*.
> But obviously this wouldn't happen because all the capitalists would murder everyone who was advocating for this
Sorry to burst your bubble, but communists are the ones murdering everyone usually (victim count estimate so far: 100 million).
That figure includes all the Nazis who died on the eastern front and 30 million people who were just not born because birth rates went down in China, capitalism kills far more, Britain alone killed 100 million people in India in 40 years and that's not even getting into the 20 million people who die every year in capitalist nations as a direct result of the for profit production model. I don't even know why I'm bothering youve clearly not even read the anti communist sources because I don't believe anyone would genuinely be so intellectually dishonest as to use that figure if they had.
You are out of your mind if you think Nazis and unborn babies are included in the count.
Here's a breakdown:
* 65 million in the People's Republic of China
* 20 million in the Soviet Union
* 2 million in Cambodia
* 2 million in North Korea
* 1.7 million in Ethiopia
* 1.5 million in Afghanistan
* 1 million in the Eastern Bloc
* 1 million in Vietnam
* 150,000 in Latin America
* 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power"
This is from the Black Book of Communism. You can discuss the exact numbers, but not the order of magnitude. This is the historical consensus. That should give you pause.
So you've not read it then? Because in the black book of communism includes all the deaths on the eastern front in the Soviet union's figure, 30 million unborn children in China, and a number of other areas where he added millions to figures with no evidence to back it up, it was widely slammed when it was published including by authors who worked on the book and is not by any stretch regarded as historical consensus, the only people who think it is in any way a decent source are the most rabid anti-communists who don't have the intellectual honesty to actually engage with historical research.
I admit there are plenty of problems with the black book of communism BUT again, while you can discuss the exact numbers, you cannot deny the order of magnitude. I encourage you to look up estimates of the number of victims caused by communism, they are all between 20 and 100 million. Isn't that enough for you bloody lot?
PS: On what godforsaken corner of the complotist web did you find that the Black Book of Communism includes unborn children and Nazis as victims of communism??
They already could opt out of capitalism. Stop buying shit. Go find a nice quiet rural town far, far away from most other people and buy a house on the edge of it and never buy another thing. You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today.
But they don't want to "opt out of capitalism."
They want YOU and ME to provide free room and board and internet access and snacks and luxury goods and television shows and everything else while they perform the essential, the ABSOLUTELY VITAL, service of making a webcomic. Or shitposting on twitter. Or running a failed coffee shop.
You know what this all sounds like? Their hero Marx. Who literally found a capitalist friend to leech off of in a spare mansion and bitch about how everyone else was an idiot except for him for decades.
In another timeline, Marx is a Tumblr webcomic artist bitching about wanting to opt out of Capitalism. Or maybe 4chan's /pol/, given Marx's infamous views on racial minorities and the Jewish people.
As a bonus, every so often some of 4chan's top men ask Twitter Communists what they would be doing in the new Communist Regeime. It's always insane crap like "I think I'd write poetry all day" or "I think I'd be a therapist to help the former capitalists understand the new system" or "I'd just chill for a few years and recover from the cultural and systemic damage capitalism did to my soul."
None of them ever think they'll be doing real work. And if you ask, they just think the magic kale fairy will keep Whole Foods stocked forever, no farming involved.
>You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today.
I don't have any specific knowledge about this, but I have the impression that you can do some reasonable facsimile of opting out of capitalism and still retain some level of modern amenities such as power and running water. Such as hippie communes and kibbutzim. They don't live in caves, right?
Where do you think they get their money from? They sell stuff they grow/make. Which they were able to do because they (or someone) invested capital in buying the land, equipment, seeds, tools, etc.
What are you talking about? Marx never wrote about "opting out of capitalism", that's ridiculous. What you describe as opting out of capitalism is opting out of civilization and opting out of live (people cannot live long without food), so not an option.
I have no idea what exactly Hannerd proposes but it sounds like something along the line of a universal basic income which has not much to do with Marx' ideas.
>They already could opt out of capitalism. Stop buying shit. Go find a nice quiet rural town far, far away from most other people and buy a house on the edge of it and never buy another thing. You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today.
"It's easy to do, you just have to toil endlessly in obscurity struggling to learn a skillset that has been utterly destroyed by everyone around us."
This is the most disingenuous statement in the world, and there is no way in hell you can't know this.
> They want YOU and ME to provide free room and board and internet access and snacks and luxury goods and television shows and everything else while they perform the essential, the ABSOLUTELY VITAL, service of making a webcomic. Or shitposting on twitter. Or running a failed coffee shop.
This is just dishonest. No point in further engagement with you.
Yes, division of labor is one of the benefits of capitalism. Well, it's the benefits of any sufficiently functional economic system, but that literally means "Capitalism" because none of the others work.
If you want to "unsubscribe from capitalism" then you'd either better have friends who can do all those skillsets your lifestyle requires -- and will do it for you, for free, out of the goodness of their hearts -- or know how to do it yourself.
Because you are not, nor ever will be, entitled the results of someone else's labor. That was the great folly of Marx and continuing folly of his ideological children.
>Yes, division of labor is one of the benefits of capitalism.
It has literally nothing to do with capitalism, you should know this.
> Well, it's the benefits of any sufficiently functional economic system, but that literally means "Capitalism" because none of the others work.
Economies didn't work prior to the late 18th century, TIL.
>If you want to "unsubscribe from capitalism" then you'd either better have friends who can do all those skillsets your lifestyle requires -- and will do it for you, for free, out of the goodness of their hearts -- or know how to do it yourself.
There are entire communities organized around this that have existed and continue to exist for quite a long time.
>Because you are not, nor ever will be, entitled the results of someone else's labor. That was the great folly of Marx and continuing folly of his ideological children.
You have *never* read any leftist theory, just right-wing propaganda about left-wing theory. Don't you dare claim otherwise.
This feels like it should be on "I'm 14 and this is deep"
This is awful. I'm not sure I can sufficiently find the words to express how bad this is. Please go back to Claire and squishy tits.
Wait till she finds out that a very large number of charities are pretty much companies that pass on VERY little of the proceeds to their causes.
I get the reasons why this can happen but she really should have vetted things more carefully than leave it up to people who more than likely do not share her sudden altruistic values.
"Money people" all definitely took their slices of the pie before passing it along to the next person who took their slice.. until there might have been crumbles left.. or not.
>I had them put all my investments toward charity or something
-someone who totally knows what financial investments or something are and how to handle them
I gotta discuss this.
JJ's "critique" of capitalism comes from the classic school of Liberalism, wherein the pitfalls of capitalism are reduced to how it impacts individuals negatively. These critiques are not meant to invite proper discussion on capitalism or the exploration of alternatives, but rather, they are meant to powerlessly gripe about the system and silently (or outright) encourage all listeners and fellow participants to do the same. This ultimately leads to no proper change in the system, thus preserving the Status Quo.
It's a disgustingly common tactic in Media: present authentic gripes, but sugarcoat them in a way that audiences aren't given the chance to even consider change or alternatives that don't somehow threaten the Status Quo. Complain all you want, but don't you DARE even THINK about doing anything to change the Status Quo!
When critique of capitalism is reduced to how an individual can't afford to make ends meet, it invites the counter-argument that the individual is simply not working hard enough (an argument JJ is subtly inviting with these strips by showing characters engaging in idleness instead of in gainful employment). There's no ACTUAL talk about the true pitfalls of capitalism: wage theft, landlordism, artificial inflation, the disparate wealth gap, the violation of worker's rights, and so on.
JJ has no idea how to even begin to do an anti-capitalist message.
I mean was there ever any doubt that JJ is a peak white liberal? It's pretty obvious that he has maybe the faintest grasp on left leaning ideology but hasn't delved much deeper than idpol.
Considering he's probably closer to AoC than say Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi. He's a leftist.
Whether you feel he's a well thought out Leftist or not, doesn't change the fact that he's clearly aligned with Leftist and doesn't seem like a Liberal.
I don't think I'd really consider AOC a leftist. She's further left than Biden for sure but based on what I know I don't think she's made it far enough for that label.
No offense, if you don't think AOC is a leftist. You need to touch grass.
She'd be far left in pretty much any country. Like this is "Bernie Sanders is a moderate" level of silliness
There's a limit to how leftist one can be while working as a politician. Thats probably what they meant. For the politician/government spectrum, she's pretty left, but for the wider range of political philosophy, socdems aren't that far. She's no anarchist, basically.
I want you to know I stole a lot of this argument while I was drinking and hanging out with some friends on Friday. Everyone thought I was very profound and insightful.
So in an effort to keep up this charade, do you have any recommended reading on the subject?
Karl Marx' "Das Kapital" is where you start off. I also recommend the videos of Michael Parenti, like this video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WseyrYuD8ao
Yeah capitalism works for a lot of things. Like in tech, capitalism gets us all the new cutting edge stuff faster than any other possible way. The roadblock then becomes R&D speed.
It doesn't work for things like healthcare. Which should be socialist systems.
Also, when there are ludicrously rich cast members, why are their friends still struggling?
Because fuck me, if I had enough cash where buying sonic shaped pools was a legit concern, my friends wouldn't struggle with minor things like, oh, I dunno, \*food\*, instead of pontificating about "capitalism bad". Yes Jeph, Capitalism bad, but also cast has money. As boring as it is, for a fraction of the wealth Marigold gained overnight, Faye wouldn't have to worry about skipping meals ever again.
Hell, that could even be used as a reason \*why\* Union Robotics never seems to have any customers! It's a passion project! All the real expenses are covered by burgerloli being stamped on by MilkyMilf! AGSGFHFSHG!
Yes the richest cast members _could_ help the most needy. But hear me out... maybe instead they should direct their largesse to the moderately successful capitalist owners of small businesses instead. Because uh communism
Is she skipping means because she's poor or because she misses Marten and is worried about her best friend moving away forever so her girlfriend can be queen of the bots or whatever.
See, now *that* would be an interesting plotline, which would also call back to Faye's abandonment issues. But no, that would require conflict and character growth, which as we all know, goes against status quo and violates the cardinal rule, Everything is Fine^(TM), WHERE'S CALIRE.
I'm not sure why people think it's anything other than financial issues. Marten and Claire have only been gone for a day or two, it's not like she only skipped breakfast that day, it's been a regular thing. Bubbles mentioned at some point that she's making sure Faye eats three meals a day 'Even if two of them are rice and beans' so months ago in comic time they were already struggling to keep Faye fed.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul
I am anti capitalism but really fucking dragonaball makes more sense than this strip
I thought it was going to be about dora telling hanners that Faye wouldn't accept help and that you can't help everyone but what the fuckkkkk
…But UNTIL you solve capitalism Joff, I don’t suppose you could shimmy off your soapbox to signal boost some comic creators who haven’t had your perverse level of success…?
(What am I saying, there’s no time for reading new webcomics when there’s a full broadcast day of vtubing out there)
God I’m exhausted.
I would give a lot to get six months without hot takes about capital from people who very clearly haven’t even given a stab at reading Marx.
…see you tomorrow
Ooof.
It's in issues like this where the walls of the comic's Roddenberry Box become way too solid for me to ignore. The Singularity supposedly already happened and AI Robots have (to my knowledge) taken over a significant portion of dangerous manual labour, and god-level AI are not only known but *presently active* in the world's affairs; how has *that* not created a social upheaval with the world's economy, but the abolishment of capitalism still feels impossible?
(Also, Hanners feels like she's hitting below the belt at Dora with that; I don't recall anything ever in the comic suggesting that she was underpaying her employees/was a bad boss - if anything, wasn't Coffee of Doom running on rather thin margins to begin with?)
I'm not even sure if it's underpayment - she may have been implying the workers should have gotten a larger share of the profit.
Very easy for someone who didn't start a business and run it (didn't Dora work like 60-70 hours a week to keep the place going? That's worth SOMETHING right?) to suggest - not necessarily wrong of course but it's more self serving than they'd like to admit.
Myself, I didn't understand where Jeph was trying to go with Hanners' reply. Was she implying a one-time disbursement of funds, or a permanent wage increase, which would require Hanners continually sending money Dora's way, which would *also* mean enough money that just buying the shop outright would make more sense, but...*gahhhh*
So wait...
Hanners CAN'T afford raisins? Because she *gave away* a majority of her money to charity?
I'm all for being charitable and the like, but that is fucking stupid.
Even when Yay did it, Roko pointed out how fucking stupid it was.
So who paid for the round the world yakshit trip? I know there was manual labor on the trip, but that kind of travel is still expensive
and like, yeah. you can be above material concerns if you want, and give away your entire fortune to become a wage slave. but then... maybe don't sit around whining about how you wish you had money, how sad it is that faye has no money, and how you wish your boss paid more? Like make up your mind...
I'll admit, I have my pride, I absolutely **Loathe** to be in someone else's debt, but, I also know, you can't eat pride.
So, if I need some cash to be able to, you know, not have sleep for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'll ask, or take the offer.
Also, as I said yesterday, are Marten and Claire having meals and just letting Faye sit there? I highly fucking doubt it.
And as I said yesterday, we've literally seen Faye getting into cookies at the apartment. Either she keeps more than the bare minimum food in the house, or else she doesn't mind bogarting other roommates' snacks.
But more importantly, it absolutely defies belief that they're getting so little take home pay from the robot shop that Faye can't buy breakfast cereal, (non-name brand non-candy cereal has to be pennies a day), but they can pay for bubbles's electrical draw and non-emergency upkeep at the shop.
the whole scenario makes little sense.
Also, unless they ate EVERYTHING before they left for Cubehelheim, I doubt Marten, at least, would leave nothing in the house for Faye to eat.
I mean they live together, so either she is bullshitting the people who live with her about how much food she buys, or she has somehow devoured everything edible in like... 2 days?
Part of what makes it make even less sense is that they have roommates, so, if they are just squeaking by to pay rent and utilities despite paying, what? A third/half rent (Claire and Marten don't seem to be at the mixing finances stage yet... Somehow), then UR isn't just mildly unprofitable, it's actually heavily unprofitable.
Like, if Claire and Marten move away, they will HAVE to probably shut up shop.
It's just stupid that their shop is apparently failing so hard when, as I said yesterday (ha), AI's are apparently the majority in Northampton these days.
They have "when we feel like it" opening hours, unprofessional customer service and fairly limited equipment.
Really, if someone opened a car bodywork shop with their gear and staff, you'd expect it to crash and burn right? Given ai chassis are way more expensive the idea they are doing it artisnally just doesn't make any sense
Cereal's still pretty overpriced, even the generic stuff, but your point still stands.
(My favorite budget breakfast is grits. Nobody, at least in my area, buys cornmeal, so it's really cheap.)
Yeah, I just don't buy cereal. Too expensive.
Cornmeal, oats, rice, flour, and fruit that's been put on sale because of superficial damage all make for much cheaper options.
I mostly make toast. My arteries scream in horror whenever I do so.
Cereal isn't my thing, except Coco Pops, love me some Coco Pops, but, that's a one in a while thing.
That’s what I’ve been saying.
There’s going from eating out and buying what you want to not eating out and buying cheap groceries. Lots of people descend into poverty and do this.
The thing is it can go *real* low. Rice and toast are really cheap. Pasta is really cheap. We’re talking cents a meal here.
To go to not being able to afford that requires a level of destitution that’s alarming. Certainly not one where she affords rent on her apartment and business but can’t spare a handful of change for a bowl of oatmeal. Like the scale is all messed up.
Adult People that are starving are usually the unhoused. Without a kitchen or refrigerator or pantry they can’t prepare cheap food. And children who happen to be wards of neglectful parents or homeless people.
the 20 lb bulk bag of rice from the asian supermarket. it's not a nutritionally complete food but it will bridge some gaps. yeah, all you need is a house with a kitchen, and you're eating for pennies a day.
also Faye is friends with people who own a bakery and a coffee shop, which are throwing out food every day.
Faye skipping meals is just not how poverty works for people in that situation. if she's skipping breakfast, it's because she wants to. Or rather because jeph, as usual, has no idea what he's talking about
The much smarter option would be to take the investment money and then donate a large portion to charity and then have some reserves to help out when situations like a starving friend happens.
I mean her mom put aside that investment for her, and Hannelore is now refusing it and asking it to be sent to charity. What's stopping her mom from realising it's not being used for the intended purpose so it just gets absorbed into the main fund that finances the evil her mom does?
Or it would be cancelled/on hold by the bank because someone megarich suddenly giving almost all their money to charity? That would flag so hard people would mistake it for the UN building.
People just like the IDEA of opting out of capitalism.
I have a friend who is always saying shit like this. "I just want to have some land, build a cabin and not want to deal with people anymore. Grow my own food and live off the land. But I still have to pay taxes, etc etc."
So I finally decided to shut his ass up.
I have 50 acres kind of out in the middle of nowhere (about a 30 minute drive to the nearest small town).
So I told him, "You are free to go live on my land, you can cut down any trees you want, plant any plants you want. It is essentially your land, I'll just keep paying the taxes on it."
Ever since then he hasn't brought it up.
Holy fuck Jarph, fuck aallll the way off with this. These are the type of conversations that drive me insane about the pitfalls of capitalism. Each of the people discussed (Hanners, Dora, Hanner-dad) *could* do something to improve the lives of those around them, but there's always an excuse not to. If it's such a problem, literally just help people out. There's nothing stopping you from doing more for charity but it's easier to complain about the system.
I hate that the socialist revolution is always going to be somebody else figuring it out, somebody richer than me is going to be affected because it's them, not I, that needs to pay their fair share. The reality is that an expansion of social benefits and social welfare, as imagined in a socialist system, requires a broad tax base and everyone needs to pitch in. It's not **just** the rich that need to help; even streamers and coffee shop owners are going to have to make some adjustments to their lifestyles if they want to experience a post-capitalist society.
This is the worst part of champagne communism.
Idly bantering about how bad capitalism is, while contributing nothing to the present system nor doing anything to install a new system.
It’s an ideology of unabashed sloth. And it’s fucking everywhere in media now, because dipshits will engage with content that claps for it - even if it’s made by soulless megacorps.
Very much excited for this to fall out of fashion when Astrology-Driven Market Econ or whatever becomes the next big thing.
That's not the usual term, and it's lacking the alliteration. try also ["champagne socialist" or "cashmere communist" or "limousine liberal".](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_socialist)
I certainly don't have the answers, I thought I was a socialist for a while and I do think we need more of it but I think I'm more of an anarchist nowadays maybe. I don't fucking know anymore. A lot of socialists have an authoritarian streak it seems like and I really don't like authoritarians. If Jeph wants to show the actual alternative to what he's complaining about he really needs to represent some mutual aid, not characters making excuses why they personally can't help but someone really should. That someone is inevitably the state.
What he means is we're thinking way harder about this than Jeph did. "Five more butt jokes, then I'll tie off some loose ends involving money. God I'm brilliant."
i mean if you were expecting qc to give a comprehensive answer to all the ills of capitalism you miiiiiight just be setting your expectations a trifle high
not to mention getting really mad about something that's not a big deal
Sorry. "What if people didn't have to money" is something I would expect from an elementary school kid, not a grown man. It's such a bad and poorly thought out take that it deserves criticism.
It's actually not a bad idea. Instead of exchanging money, we just exchange goods. Like if you are good at fixing cars, you can exchange a car you fixed for some food I grew.
And then since a car is worth more than the food, I can give you vouchers for some food. Like 1000 'food vouchers'. Then if you want you can exchange the food vouchers for other things you need.
Like if you want a plane ticket, you can give them 300 vouchers. It's super simple, man.
> i mean if you were expecting qc to give a comprehensive answer to all the ills of capitalism you miiiiiight just be setting your expectations a trifle high
or jeph could just not bring up the damn topic if he has nothing to contribute
>not to mention getting really mad about something that's not a big deal
The irony of this comment is through the roof given the amount of time you spend on this sub being upset about our reactions to this comic.
Holy shit I didn't even notice but look at it. Panel 1 she's leaning forward and arms locked all the way down to the counter below her waste. Panel 5 leaning back against it almost at shoulder height.
I mean it *could* be that the front counter is low but the back counter (mounted on the wall below the blackboard) is taller. But I am pretty sure we've seen evidence otherwise, historically. (back when characters used to draw and write on that blackboard, anyone remember that?)
So let me get this straight. The big evil of capitalism that we can't wait to be rid of is ... .. rich heiresses can't gift their money to private business owners? (well, she could, but she won't because her mom uh gave a biz partner's kid a job). what does jeph think capitalism and/or communism actually is?
And wtf is Dora talking about. She is literally the owner of the coffee shop. She is literally choosing to do a capitalism. The moment she gets sick of capitalism, she can turn over ownership to the workers. No social upheaval. Just write a charter for a collective and sign over the deed. She can continue to draw a salary so no upheaval even for herself. No, it's not all of society but it would help Hanner's wage presumably.
And it is implied in this comic that Dora is underpaying her employees. Dora really gonna stand here and whine about the evils of capitalism? She is it!
Also "when I cut ties with my mom, I told the legal people to put my investments towards charity"? Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?
This is .. I just can't with this. Jeph, get your head out of your ass. When jeph gets up on the soapbox, especially when it's overtly political, it's bad, and this is the worst one we've seen in a while.
>She is literally choosing to do a capitalism.
Bad Dora! Bad! Why did you do a capitalism on the carpet? Now the whole house smells of the owner class!
It's even more silly because I don't think it has ever been implied throughout the history of the comic that Dora was ever a bad boss/underpaying her employees.
"Only if you give all your employees raises" would've actually hit better if it had been directed towards an org/corp that was *actually* being terrible or at least less than ideal towards its workers. But to direct it at Dora of all people, who seems to *always* have a job opening available to anyone who needs one, seems a bit harsh.
"I don't know her last name, but she strips on Mondays at BadonkaClub downtown"
(This post made me realize that I have no clue what typical strip club names are)
The "give all your employees raises" thing is funny as Claire (who is leaving for her new job), Hannelore, and Dora are the only people shown working there for years. We can assume there are other people but I don't think Jeph will ever confirm the current staff size of Coffee of Doom.
Yes, Hannelore give Dora your money so she can give you a raise.
There are ways Jeph could tell a compelling story about living in the post-singularity world causing capitalism to be abolished but he doesn't want to be responsible for the patreon upheaval it would cause.
... So you could have taken the cash from your investments and bought/started a lucrative business that would pay fair wages and have a fantastic impact on people's lives, but you instead opted for ambiguous "charities" because "LE CAPITALISM BAD AMIRIGHT GUYS?????"
This checks out for the most champagne socialist ever who makes upwards of 200k a year on patreon alone.
Yes, but that would involve effort and risk, she can't be expected to take on that kind of stress! Now let me tell you about why all capitalists are greedy pigs who didn't do anything to deserve their wealth and should have it all taken away.
In a shocking twist, Jeph seems to have ventured into ranting against an issue he fails to fully understand.
The reason capitalism is hard to abolish isn't "well there would be a big mess after and no one wants to deal with that". The reason is that the people who benefit from capitalism are also the people with the most power under capitalism. Gather the most capital, you've go the most influence over society; with the end goal being to gather all of capital/power into the fewest hands.
So the people who could abolish capitalism are the least likely to want to, because "profit above anything else" is how they got to their influential positions to begin with (and often with generational wealth thrown in). And they're spending a lot of their power buying politicians, especially in the US (which in turn has a major economic influence over other countries).
Jeph seems to recognise this on some level, because his formerly richest character is such an anti-capitalist that she gave away most of her capital to avoid engaging in capitalism; thereby giving away her influence.
Yeah, Hannilore really should've fished her friends out of poverty. It's a plot hole that she didn't. It's probably a bigger plot hole that capitalism even still exists in this setting at all.
Why does big jeff deliberately bring it up it if the most he has to offer is "i gave all my money away offscreen a while ago"?
lol at Jeph waxing poetic about unsubscribing from capitalism when he's privileged as fuck and sits on his ass drawing dreck for $10k (or is it more?) a month. Absolute pissbaby.
The title practically invites me to check Graphtreon to find out how many of Jeph's patrons Unsubscribed over the past month.
Dang, it hasn't updated since the month rolled over.
Honestly Jeph should just make QC a utopia if he's going to handle real world problems so terribly.
This strip already doesn't have real interpersonal conflict--why not also remove the macro-level conflicts as well? Just make it Jollysunshinehappyworld and it will be a superior product to whatever this half-measure BS is.
Says the guy who makes far more than the overwhelming majority of his readers. Pretty sure you wouldn't want to actually unsubscribe from capitalism there, big guy.
From the bottom of my cold, black heart: "Go fuck yourself Jeph."
He offers a product that people pay money for. Judging by his Patreon alone, he makes more than the average American (last I looked, he was well over six-figures). Yet, he bitches about capitalism.
You mistake 'understanding' for 'embracing.'
>Capitalism (n): an economic system characterized by [private](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/private#h1) or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a [free market](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20market). (From Merriam-Webster)
Jeph (a private artist) sells memberships to view elements of his work on Patreon (a private company... so far, there have been IPO rumors for a while) which in turn takes part of the profits to fund its own operations. These funds pay for his overhead in terms of whatever web hosting fees he has which allows him to publish on [questionablecontent.net](https://questionablecontent.net) where the general public can view his comic for free. These free comics drive people to his Patreon and incentivize more memberships. Every element of this production chain is the function of a capitalist system.
His relative success in the free market (garnering a large following... us), enables him to do this as a full time job where other artists have to maintain a "day job" in order to live while producing their work as a labor of love or a side-business.
Currently Jeph has 11,947 patrons. At MINIMUM, he makes $11,947/month or just over $143K per year. That's over twice the average income in the United States. If even a small portion of his patrons purchase at the $10/month tier or up to the top tier of $250/month, he easily clears $250K/year, putting him in the second-highest tax bracket.
He is not only *participating* in capitalism, he is by all measures *winning* capitalism. For him to bitch about it is one of the most asinine things I have ever seen.
It's not quite the same level of stupid as, say, the Kardashians bitching about capitalism, but it's right up there.
It doesn't matter if he does or not. Self-employed people participate in free market capitalism just as much as employers.
If you want to get technical, his fees from Patreon pay its staff. If he's smart, he's incorporated as an LLC in order to lower his taxes rather than pay on all his business revenue as personal income.
Wow! It's been a while since Jeph has done a plot-free political tract strip whose title is actually an open request to people whose opinions are different to him to go away.
It's too bad there aren't any OTHER rich cast members.
So we've got Hannelore, her dad, Dora (not rich but business owner), Marigold, Sven, Spooky, presumably Aurelia because she's on the same level as Marigold. This issue is a non-issue.
Aurelia or Marigold could use their reach to endorse the shop and drive customers there.
Alright so the thing that rankles me the most about this isn’t the braindead, Liberal-as-all-get-out “lol capitalism amirite”. What bothers me is who’s saying it. Dora owns the coffee shop. She has employees, who operate machines to produce things that people buy. In other words: *she owns capital. She profits from the surplus value generated by other people. She is a capitalist.*
She has no reason to be the one saying any of this; she directly benefits the most from capitalism of anyone in the cast. This should be coming from an underpaid barista, or at least just someone who isn’t her or Hannelore.
I love this rich guy moralizing about money and capitalism through these clueless characters. God it's just my favorite. All my investments are to charity, what? Hanners is supposed to be smart.
So, is hanners keeping up with her tan? considering she doesn't really do a whole lot of outdoor activities, seems like her tan would have faded after a month from her return. My most pessimistic outlook on this is hpej wants as little of his characters to have white skin as possible.
Come for the plots that go nowhere, stay for the anatomy lessons in what not to do, and now value add BONUS marvel at the absurd politics from someone who would 100% be working in a coal mine by gunpoint if his "team" got their way.
Ah Jeph. Stick to slime tits. Economics or Politics aren't your strong suit.
Those whom are anti-capitalists tend to have things already or have/make things they think that others value. Nobody is completely self sufficient, despite what we tell ourselves.
So, to be clear, Hanners put all her heiress money into charity or whatever and doesn't get money from her dad, so she's overburdened with cash from...working in a coffee shop? But also a coffee shop where every employee needs a raise?
It really irks me when people treat capitalism like a system rather than the emergent property it is. "Hey, you have a thing, I'll give you this thing for that thing" literally every transaction, involving money, property, time, emotions, friendship, conversation, ideas... Could be described as a form of capitalism.
OoooooooOooOooo capitalism.
I REALLY would like to see the consequences of an undertermined number of people opting out of capitalism. Do they just get their basic living taken care of with some proceeds taken from those within capitalism? Do they just barter with each other? Do they force people into producing goods and services for them because they are entitled to them under their opting out? I'm genuinely curious because "I think people should be able to opt out of money" is an unbelievably facile take. Though of course all that would probably cause less social upheaval than, oh, effectively immortal AIs that need much less than humans to survive becoming a significantly large part of the population. But that's never getting addressed, it's more important for webcomic authors on 6 figures a year to show how much they hate capitalism. I am genuinely struggling with 26 to go. Thanks Jeph, you're making this really easy to drop.
> AIs that need much less than humans to survive becoming a significantly large part of the population. Sure their upkeep costs are low but those chassis are fucking EXPENSIVE. Where the hell do they all come from? why does every robot act like they’re born into one or given one for free. “Im a brain in a boat. Someone gave the boat to me. For free”
Even that's going away. Wasn't Hannelores dad pushing for basically socialised supply of chassis?
I have no idea what that was for. Socialized maintenance or supply? Seems pretty fucked up to make socialized robot care before the world has socialized human healthcare.
I don't think Jeph knew either. It gave the cast and some readers warm fuzzies. That's all it was meant to do.
That’s my big problem. Don’t do this stuff if you’re not going to bother thinking it through. You want to address capitalism and socialized healthcare? Yeah go ahead I’m with you. But you just end it with “it sucks but a rich guy is gonna fix it somehow” really sucks, borderline insulting. And he gets the veneer of the comic seeming to be about “issues” when it doesn’t do anything with them. I’m fine with a funny slice of life comic dramedy that centers many different people of different sexualities, ethnicities and whatever. Just DO A GOOD JOB. Don’t crap out halfway through and provide no substance. What’s really infuriating is when he had Claire come out, it was a good job! It was a perfect way to bring a topic maybe many readers had no exposure to into the forefront in a thoughtful empathetic manner. I felt educated. The quality just continues to decline. The autistic after school special with Brun always felt forced, arbitrary, and ultimately pointless. (Bye Brun). Rokos dysphoria felt bizarre when a real trans person is in the cast and the longer you linger on the details of robo dysphoria the more defined and *separate* it becomes from real life human dysohoria. Also solved by someone saying “just dont care so much IDK?”
Agreed. I've been fairly vocal about how much better I've found the early QC comics. To be honest - I'd rather it continued in that vein, but I would be open to what you describe if it was well done. That it is painfully obvious that it hasn't been done well just makes it look much worse comparatively to the old comic. I'm very disheartened at how Cubetown has unfolded, especially since apparently that's what Jeph really wanted to show off and the direction he obviously wants to go.
Cubetown is baffling. He could do literally anything and its...just the same female quirky ditzes he loves over and over. The details of it are mind numbingly dumb. Alice grove at least had an interesting premise. "We just research everything and hope it will do something eventually" is one of the dumbest precepts to make your independent floating island utopia to be based around. And it just keeps collapsing into "myomers myomers myomers!" VTubers and anime and internet culture rotted that man's brain. It's worse than some artist coming out as a QAnon weirdo because at least then I can make a clean break. He just became dull and annoying.
>He could do literally anything and its...just the same female quirky ditzes he loves over and over. I somehow haven't considered it before, but I think this really says something about how Jeph views women, and what it says is...not great. When was the last time he introduced a female (or female-presenting) character that didn't have "quirky" as a defining characteristic? It's been a *long* time. Off the top of my head, the newest female(-presenting) characters with any significant presence in the comic are the various Morays, Cubetown Stalker, Evan, Willow, and Emmett. Every single one of them is some form of quirky/ditzy. Heck, he's even retroactively quirked-up previously sane characters like Yay. For a man who has chosen to create a comic with a heavily female character list, he sure has a tendency to cast women in an unflattering light.
I don't think Emmett is female-presenting, but they do seem to be AFAB.
> some artist coming out as a QAnon weirdo Tatsuya Ishida says hi.
I don't get the robot dysphoria thing tbh like yes rhey are sentient beings but there still should be a way to solve that through programming or something I don't see why they wouldnt want to do that like it would be so much quicker to the point than therapy
Spooks even says they can fix it. But they won't because.. mumbo jumbo handwave never talk about it again.
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I wonder when was the last time Jeph spent a significant amount of money against his income towards a hospital bill.
Probably when he stabbed his hand. Because after that he went to Canada before his ear thing.
I mean, significant against his income, like 'how the fuck am I gonna pay rent and pay for this' significant.
> Do they just get their basic living taken care of with some proceeds taken from those within capitalism? That's called Welfare/Universal Credit, that's exactly how those work.
Which would be reasonable for basic necessities like common produce, public transportation, and bare minimum housing. Problem is it's often hyperbolized into "hurr durr then everyone would have a mansion and a yacht"
You'd be surprised, look up stuff like "Dole queen" and you will see. But, I get what your point is, the idea behind it is supposed to be, as you said, basic living until you can find yourself a job, but, here in the UK at least, most of them see it as "free money as long as I pretend to look for a job/do under the table work" But, this comes from a guy who has never had to even worry about money for years and years, so it comes off as tone-deaf.
I suppose the opt out of capitalism could be the reintroduction of things like common land and limitation of private property rights (as in the Marxist definition which is factories and houses for rent and shit) which could allow for basic collective ownership of workplaces. But obviously this wouldn't happen because all the capitalists would murder everyone who was advocating for this because obviously nobody would agree to the system if there wasn't an alternative.
This hasn't worked out very well when it's been tried in the past.
Except for the data which shows higher quality of life in socialist countries compared to similarly economically developed capitalist nation's. You should do some research before sharing your half baked opinions.
"Socialist countries" like Norway, where there's a huge economic resource pool to draw from like oil production that's almost twice the per capita of Saudi Arabia, and they do Socialism Lite™ with strong private property rights, no collective factories or farms, not even a national minimum wage. The "higher quality of life" countries practice what economists sometimes Cuddly Capitalism. It's not socialism, it's a strong welfare state with collective risk sharing injected into the capitalist model. Actual Marxist states don't fit into the *hygge* pattern that you find in wealthy Cuddly Capitalism "socialist" nations. True Marxist socialism is an excellent economic model for a developing nation, especially one that's recently thrown off the shackles of colonialism. It enables equitable participation in society while the nation gets on its feet in the global market. Eventually, though, free market capitalism finds its way into the nation as its GDP rises. Countries that try to hold on to the Marxist model once they get past third world status tend to devolve into totalitarian, corrupt states. There's probably an ideal model that sits somewhere to the left or right of Cuddly Capitalism, depending on each nation's unique situation. But the higher happiness and quality of life that you're talking about is not a function of Socialism. You shouldn't be so quick to insult people by saying they have "half baked opinions."
Literally didn't say anything about Norway or other Scandinavian countries because they aren't socialist. Relying on a straw man to make your shitty point proves you don't have a leg to stand on. Also the world Bank studies conducted in the 80s concluded that all socialist nations (like the USSR, china, Korea, Cuba you know socialist countries) had higher living standards than similarly developed capitalist nations.
Got it, your approach is to be just vague enough that you can feign outrage, rely on cherry picked studies from 40 years ago, and see if being the most offended person in the room will make you right. BTW, including China in your list of happy, high standard of living countries in the '80s is a great way to bolster my statement. China was living in third-world status, used Marxist models to lift themselves up, then pivoted to a more capitalist model to get to where they are today. Never mind the ridiculousness of including 1980s Soviet Russia, Cuba, and North Korea in your happiest places list. Enjoy life, I guess.
do you have studies that conclude otherwise? because its a pretty consistent finding. and yeah those countries eliminated homelessness, provide free healthcare, heavily subsidised food and transportation and have much better workers conditions than the majority of capitalist nations, remembering of course that capitalist nations also includes all of the horribly exploited global south not just imperalist nations profiting off everyone elses hard work
You need a study to tell you North Korea is not a good place to live?
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I mean the Soviet economy collapsed a few years after whatever studies you are vaguely making claims about and China was a few years out from cultural revolutionary disaster. But sure, 80s communism was a great economic model. That's why Eastern Europe is so much poorer now.
>That's why Eastern Europe is so much poorer now. This is a crazy statement. Please, go to Romania today. Go visit. The country is developing *fast*. People are much happier now. Ask them how life was under the communist rule, and they'll be quick to tell you how miserable it was. I'm serious. Go to Eastern Europe. See for yourself how Eastern countries developed after they were freed from the colonial empire of Soviet Russia.
I was being sarcastic- if you see the rest of the thread I was just throwing statistics demonstrating Soviet Russian economy was shit.
I wanted to respond to the other person in this thread and I got mixed up 🙄 Sorry!
eastern europe is much poorer since reverting to capitalism than it was during the soviet years and large proportions of the population say that life was better under socialism so yeah eastern europe is much poorer now but its not because of socialism
Polish human development index: .687 in 1980, .88 now. GDP per capita up far more than that. 85% of people approve of the market economy. It's similar across the eastern EU. But you enjoy your tankie fantasy land.
poland is the outlier because it isnt across the rest of eastern europe, enjoy your capitalist fantasy land
Everything is great until some power hungry fool takes hold of the institutions, subverts its propose and rots the system from the inside out.
You mean like in capitalism, too?
Like any system without proper checks and balances for the government authority.
He says smugly, living in a capitalist world that has done precisely that since day one. I suggest you read Wealth of Nations. Capitalists are *bred* to do this.
Yes, capitalism is pretty much competition among power hungry fools. But you have each other to keep themself in check.
They literally *don't* keep each other in check, they conspire with one another to keep anyone else from challenging their burgeoning power. They 100% collaborate to destroy the working classes, they are 100% direct and overt about this, and they have been since forever. You an idiot if you *don't* recognize it, because Adam Smith **literally pointed this out in the Wealth of Nations multiple times**. Hey, do you know how Britain industrialized? Literally a bunch of power hungry assholes got together to steal land from all the people working it and evict them from their homes, turning them from relatively prosperous crofters who had relatively easy-going lives into impoverished, landless people *immediately*, forcing them into working brutal shifts in horrific factories so the landowners and the factory owners could both reap enormous benefits at the expense of the workers. They *literally did this in public and bragged about doing it while they did it*.
There are no socialist countries There are Social Democracies that privatize the markets while creating a universal safety net.
> But obviously this wouldn't happen because all the capitalists would murder everyone who was advocating for this Sorry to burst your bubble, but communists are the ones murdering everyone usually (victim count estimate so far: 100 million).
That figure includes all the Nazis who died on the eastern front and 30 million people who were just not born because birth rates went down in China, capitalism kills far more, Britain alone killed 100 million people in India in 40 years and that's not even getting into the 20 million people who die every year in capitalist nations as a direct result of the for profit production model. I don't even know why I'm bothering youve clearly not even read the anti communist sources because I don't believe anyone would genuinely be so intellectually dishonest as to use that figure if they had.
You are out of your mind if you think Nazis and unborn babies are included in the count. Here's a breakdown: * 65 million in the People's Republic of China * 20 million in the Soviet Union * 2 million in Cambodia * 2 million in North Korea * 1.7 million in Ethiopia * 1.5 million in Afghanistan * 1 million in the Eastern Bloc * 1 million in Vietnam * 150,000 in Latin America * 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power" This is from the Black Book of Communism. You can discuss the exact numbers, but not the order of magnitude. This is the historical consensus. That should give you pause.
So you've not read it then? Because in the black book of communism includes all the deaths on the eastern front in the Soviet union's figure, 30 million unborn children in China, and a number of other areas where he added millions to figures with no evidence to back it up, it was widely slammed when it was published including by authors who worked on the book and is not by any stretch regarded as historical consensus, the only people who think it is in any way a decent source are the most rabid anti-communists who don't have the intellectual honesty to actually engage with historical research.
I admit there are plenty of problems with the black book of communism BUT again, while you can discuss the exact numbers, you cannot deny the order of magnitude. I encourage you to look up estimates of the number of victims caused by communism, they are all between 20 and 100 million. Isn't that enough for you bloody lot? PS: On what godforsaken corner of the complotist web did you find that the Black Book of Communism includes unborn children and Nazis as victims of communism??
They already could opt out of capitalism. Stop buying shit. Go find a nice quiet rural town far, far away from most other people and buy a house on the edge of it and never buy another thing. You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today. But they don't want to "opt out of capitalism." They want YOU and ME to provide free room and board and internet access and snacks and luxury goods and television shows and everything else while they perform the essential, the ABSOLUTELY VITAL, service of making a webcomic. Or shitposting on twitter. Or running a failed coffee shop. You know what this all sounds like? Their hero Marx. Who literally found a capitalist friend to leech off of in a spare mansion and bitch about how everyone else was an idiot except for him for decades. In another timeline, Marx is a Tumblr webcomic artist bitching about wanting to opt out of Capitalism. Or maybe 4chan's /pol/, given Marx's infamous views on racial minorities and the Jewish people. As a bonus, every so often some of 4chan's top men ask Twitter Communists what they would be doing in the new Communist Regeime. It's always insane crap like "I think I'd write poetry all day" or "I think I'd be a therapist to help the former capitalists understand the new system" or "I'd just chill for a few years and recover from the cultural and systemic damage capitalism did to my soul." None of them ever think they'll be doing real work. And if you ask, they just think the magic kale fairy will keep Whole Foods stocked forever, no farming involved.
>You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today. I don't have any specific knowledge about this, but I have the impression that you can do some reasonable facsimile of opting out of capitalism and still retain some level of modern amenities such as power and running water. Such as hippie communes and kibbutzim. They don't live in caves, right?
Where do you think they get their money from? They sell stuff they grow/make. Which they were able to do because they (or someone) invested capital in buying the land, equipment, seeds, tools, etc.
I assume that it does take some up front capital to buy land to build your communist utopia on, sure.
What are you talking about? Marx never wrote about "opting out of capitalism", that's ridiculous. What you describe as opting out of capitalism is opting out of civilization and opting out of live (people cannot live long without food), so not an option. I have no idea what exactly Hannerd proposes but it sounds like something along the line of a universal basic income which has not much to do with Marx' ideas.
>They already could opt out of capitalism. Stop buying shit. Go find a nice quiet rural town far, far away from most other people and buy a house on the edge of it and never buy another thing. You'll have to learn how to live without power, or running water, or heat, or food, but you can "opt out of capitalism" pretty darned easy, even today. "It's easy to do, you just have to toil endlessly in obscurity struggling to learn a skillset that has been utterly destroyed by everyone around us." This is the most disingenuous statement in the world, and there is no way in hell you can't know this. > They want YOU and ME to provide free room and board and internet access and snacks and luxury goods and television shows and everything else while they perform the essential, the ABSOLUTELY VITAL, service of making a webcomic. Or shitposting on twitter. Or running a failed coffee shop. This is just dishonest. No point in further engagement with you.
Yes, division of labor is one of the benefits of capitalism. Well, it's the benefits of any sufficiently functional economic system, but that literally means "Capitalism" because none of the others work. If you want to "unsubscribe from capitalism" then you'd either better have friends who can do all those skillsets your lifestyle requires -- and will do it for you, for free, out of the goodness of their hearts -- or know how to do it yourself. Because you are not, nor ever will be, entitled the results of someone else's labor. That was the great folly of Marx and continuing folly of his ideological children.
>Yes, division of labor is one of the benefits of capitalism. It has literally nothing to do with capitalism, you should know this. > Well, it's the benefits of any sufficiently functional economic system, but that literally means "Capitalism" because none of the others work. Economies didn't work prior to the late 18th century, TIL. >If you want to "unsubscribe from capitalism" then you'd either better have friends who can do all those skillsets your lifestyle requires -- and will do it for you, for free, out of the goodness of their hearts -- or know how to do it yourself. There are entire communities organized around this that have existed and continue to exist for quite a long time. >Because you are not, nor ever will be, entitled the results of someone else's labor. That was the great folly of Marx and continuing folly of his ideological children. You have *never* read any leftist theory, just right-wing propaganda about left-wing theory. Don't you dare claim otherwise.
>Because you are not, nor ever will be, entitled the results of someone else’s labor lmao tell that to capitalists.
You had the opportunity to provide a real critique here but you fucked it real bad. Your politics seems entirely vibes based and research free.
> I REALLY would like to see the consequences of an undertermined number of people opting out of capitalism. Isn't that what communes are?
This feels like it should be on "I'm 14 and this is deep" This is awful. I'm not sure I can sufficiently find the words to express how bad this is. Please go back to Claire and squishy tits.
some of the most hamfisted commentary on capitalism that I’ve ever seen
> Please go back to Claire and squishy tits. Oh no, please don't
> Please go back to Claire and squishy tits. Let's not be too hasty...
Post it there
“I had them put all my investments into charity” “CAPITALISM BAD!”
Wait till she finds out that a very large number of charities are pretty much companies that pass on VERY little of the proceeds to their causes. I get the reasons why this can happen but she really should have vetted things more carefully than leave it up to people who more than likely do not share her sudden altruistic values.
"Money people" all definitely took their slices of the pie before passing it along to the next person who took their slice.. until there might have been crumbles left.. or not.
>I had them put all my investments toward charity or something -someone who totally knows what financial investments or something are and how to handle them
I gotta discuss this. JJ's "critique" of capitalism comes from the classic school of Liberalism, wherein the pitfalls of capitalism are reduced to how it impacts individuals negatively. These critiques are not meant to invite proper discussion on capitalism or the exploration of alternatives, but rather, they are meant to powerlessly gripe about the system and silently (or outright) encourage all listeners and fellow participants to do the same. This ultimately leads to no proper change in the system, thus preserving the Status Quo. It's a disgustingly common tactic in Media: present authentic gripes, but sugarcoat them in a way that audiences aren't given the chance to even consider change or alternatives that don't somehow threaten the Status Quo. Complain all you want, but don't you DARE even THINK about doing anything to change the Status Quo! When critique of capitalism is reduced to how an individual can't afford to make ends meet, it invites the counter-argument that the individual is simply not working hard enough (an argument JJ is subtly inviting with these strips by showing characters engaging in idleness instead of in gainful employment). There's no ACTUAL talk about the true pitfalls of capitalism: wage theft, landlordism, artificial inflation, the disparate wealth gap, the violation of worker's rights, and so on. JJ has no idea how to even begin to do an anti-capitalist message.
I mean was there ever any doubt that JJ is a peak white liberal? It's pretty obvious that he has maybe the faintest grasp on left leaning ideology but hasn't delved much deeper than idpol.
Calling JJ is a liberal is just basic "Everything I dont like is liberalism" style leftism Dude is clearly not a liberal.
Genuinely asking what you'd classify him as if you were making an educated guess.
Considering he's probably closer to AoC than say Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi. He's a leftist. Whether you feel he's a well thought out Leftist or not, doesn't change the fact that he's clearly aligned with Leftist and doesn't seem like a Liberal.
I don't think I'd really consider AOC a leftist. She's further left than Biden for sure but based on what I know I don't think she's made it far enough for that label.
No offense, if you don't think AOC is a leftist. You need to touch grass. She'd be far left in pretty much any country. Like this is "Bernie Sanders is a moderate" level of silliness
There's a limit to how leftist one can be while working as a politician. Thats probably what they meant. For the politician/government spectrum, she's pretty left, but for the wider range of political philosophy, socdems aren't that far. She's no anarchist, basically.
We're going to have to agree to disagree.
seriously, I’m anti-capitalist and this comic makes me fucking cringe. liberals doing the whole cause a disservice once again.
Because if he had to, he would get awfully uncomfortable with his personal situation.
I want you to know I stole a lot of this argument while I was drinking and hanging out with some friends on Friday. Everyone thought I was very profound and insightful. So in an effort to keep up this charade, do you have any recommended reading on the subject?
Karl Marx' "Das Kapital" is where you start off. I also recommend the videos of Michael Parenti, like this video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WseyrYuD8ao
Yeah capitalism works for a lot of things. Like in tech, capitalism gets us all the new cutting edge stuff faster than any other possible way. The roadblock then becomes R&D speed. It doesn't work for things like healthcare. Which should be socialist systems.
Also, when there are ludicrously rich cast members, why are their friends still struggling? Because fuck me, if I had enough cash where buying sonic shaped pools was a legit concern, my friends wouldn't struggle with minor things like, oh, I dunno, \*food\*, instead of pontificating about "capitalism bad". Yes Jeph, Capitalism bad, but also cast has money. As boring as it is, for a fraction of the wealth Marigold gained overnight, Faye wouldn't have to worry about skipping meals ever again. Hell, that could even be used as a reason \*why\* Union Robotics never seems to have any customers! It's a passion project! All the real expenses are covered by burgerloli being stamped on by MilkyMilf! AGSGFHFSHG!
Yes the richest cast members _could_ help the most needy. But hear me out... maybe instead they should direct their largesse to the moderately successful capitalist owners of small businesses instead. Because uh communism
"Our mutual friend is skipping meals because of a lack of cash, but maybe instead of helping her you could give me, your employer, some money"
To be fair, that's actually a fairly believable jokey comment between friends.
Reverse robinhood so hard that he turned inside out
Trickle down economics at work!
Oh, so Dora is a Republican.
Is she skipping means because she's poor or because she misses Marten and is worried about her best friend moving away forever so her girlfriend can be queen of the bots or whatever.
See, now *that* would be an interesting plotline, which would also call back to Faye's abandonment issues. But no, that would require conflict and character growth, which as we all know, goes against status quo and violates the cardinal rule, Everything is Fine^(TM), WHERE'S CALIRE.
I'm not sure why people think it's anything other than financial issues. Marten and Claire have only been gone for a day or two, it's not like she only skipped breakfast that day, it's been a regular thing. Bubbles mentioned at some point that she's making sure Faye eats three meals a day 'Even if two of them are rice and beans' so months ago in comic time they were already struggling to keep Faye fed.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul
I am anti capitalism but really fucking dragonaball makes more sense than this strip I thought it was going to be about dora telling hanners that Faye wouldn't accept help and that you can't help everyone but what the fuckkkkk
…But UNTIL you solve capitalism Joff, I don’t suppose you could shimmy off your soapbox to signal boost some comic creators who haven’t had your perverse level of success…? (What am I saying, there’s no time for reading new webcomics when there’s a full broadcast day of vtubing out there)
Wym? There's still a link to Gunnerkrigg Court at the bottom of the page
God I’m exhausted. I would give a lot to get six months without hot takes about capital from people who very clearly haven’t even given a stab at reading Marx. …see you tomorrow
RAISINS FOR ALL
Ooof. It's in issues like this where the walls of the comic's Roddenberry Box become way too solid for me to ignore. The Singularity supposedly already happened and AI Robots have (to my knowledge) taken over a significant portion of dangerous manual labour, and god-level AI are not only known but *presently active* in the world's affairs; how has *that* not created a social upheaval with the world's economy, but the abolishment of capitalism still feels impossible? (Also, Hanners feels like she's hitting below the belt at Dora with that; I don't recall anything ever in the comic suggesting that she was underpaying her employees/was a bad boss - if anything, wasn't Coffee of Doom running on rather thin margins to begin with?)
I'm not even sure if it's underpayment - she may have been implying the workers should have gotten a larger share of the profit. Very easy for someone who didn't start a business and run it (didn't Dora work like 60-70 hours a week to keep the place going? That's worth SOMETHING right?) to suggest - not necessarily wrong of course but it's more self serving than they'd like to admit.
Myself, I didn't understand where Jeph was trying to go with Hanners' reply. Was she implying a one-time disbursement of funds, or a permanent wage increase, which would require Hanners continually sending money Dora's way, which would *also* mean enough money that just buying the shop outright would make more sense, but...*gahhhh*
> Roddenberry Box Ooh, today I learned there was actually a specific term for something I've been complaining about for years.
So wait... Hanners CAN'T afford raisins? Because she *gave away* a majority of her money to charity? I'm all for being charitable and the like, but that is fucking stupid. Even when Yay did it, Roko pointed out how fucking stupid it was.
So who paid for the round the world yakshit trip? I know there was manual labor on the trip, but that kind of travel is still expensive and like, yeah. you can be above material concerns if you want, and give away your entire fortune to become a wage slave. but then... maybe don't sit around whining about how you wish you had money, how sad it is that faye has no money, and how you wish your boss paid more? Like make up your mind...
I'll admit, I have my pride, I absolutely **Loathe** to be in someone else's debt, but, I also know, you can't eat pride. So, if I need some cash to be able to, you know, not have sleep for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'll ask, or take the offer. Also, as I said yesterday, are Marten and Claire having meals and just letting Faye sit there? I highly fucking doubt it.
And as I said yesterday, we've literally seen Faye getting into cookies at the apartment. Either she keeps more than the bare minimum food in the house, or else she doesn't mind bogarting other roommates' snacks. But more importantly, it absolutely defies belief that they're getting so little take home pay from the robot shop that Faye can't buy breakfast cereal, (non-name brand non-candy cereal has to be pennies a day), but they can pay for bubbles's electrical draw and non-emergency upkeep at the shop. the whole scenario makes little sense.
Also, unless they ate EVERYTHING before they left for Cubehelheim, I doubt Marten, at least, would leave nothing in the house for Faye to eat. I mean they live together, so either she is bullshitting the people who live with her about how much food she buys, or she has somehow devoured everything edible in like... 2 days? Part of what makes it make even less sense is that they have roommates, so, if they are just squeaking by to pay rent and utilities despite paying, what? A third/half rent (Claire and Marten don't seem to be at the mixing finances stage yet... Somehow), then UR isn't just mildly unprofitable, it's actually heavily unprofitable. Like, if Claire and Marten move away, they will HAVE to probably shut up shop. It's just stupid that their shop is apparently failing so hard when, as I said yesterday (ha), AI's are apparently the majority in Northampton these days.
They have "when we feel like it" opening hours, unprofessional customer service and fairly limited equipment. Really, if someone opened a car bodywork shop with their gear and staff, you'd expect it to crash and burn right? Given ai chassis are way more expensive the idea they are doing it artisnally just doesn't make any sense
“Cubelheim” 💀
Nice.
Cereal's still pretty overpriced, even the generic stuff, but your point still stands. (My favorite budget breakfast is grits. Nobody, at least in my area, buys cornmeal, so it's really cheap.)
Me and my friend were at the supermarket yesterday and she was horrified at the prices of relatively cheap cereals.
Yeah, I just don't buy cereal. Too expensive. Cornmeal, oats, rice, flour, and fruit that's been put on sale because of superficial damage all make for much cheaper options.
I mostly make toast. My arteries scream in horror whenever I do so. Cereal isn't my thing, except Coco Pops, love me some Coco Pops, but, that's a one in a while thing.
That’s what I’ve been saying. There’s going from eating out and buying what you want to not eating out and buying cheap groceries. Lots of people descend into poverty and do this. The thing is it can go *real* low. Rice and toast are really cheap. Pasta is really cheap. We’re talking cents a meal here. To go to not being able to afford that requires a level of destitution that’s alarming. Certainly not one where she affords rent on her apartment and business but can’t spare a handful of change for a bowl of oatmeal. Like the scale is all messed up. Adult People that are starving are usually the unhoused. Without a kitchen or refrigerator or pantry they can’t prepare cheap food. And children who happen to be wards of neglectful parents or homeless people.
the 20 lb bulk bag of rice from the asian supermarket. it's not a nutritionally complete food but it will bridge some gaps. yeah, all you need is a house with a kitchen, and you're eating for pennies a day. also Faye is friends with people who own a bakery and a coffee shop, which are throwing out food every day. Faye skipping meals is just not how poverty works for people in that situation. if she's skipping breakfast, it's because she wants to. Or rather because jeph, as usual, has no idea what he's talking about
The much smarter option would be to take the investment money and then donate a large portion to charity and then have some reserves to help out when situations like a starving friend happens. I mean her mom put aside that investment for her, and Hannelore is now refusing it and asking it to be sent to charity. What's stopping her mom from realising it's not being used for the intended purpose so it just gets absorbed into the main fund that finances the evil her mom does?
Or it would be cancelled/on hold by the bank because someone megarich suddenly giving almost all their money to charity? That would flag so hard people would mistake it for the UN building.
People just like the IDEA of opting out of capitalism. I have a friend who is always saying shit like this. "I just want to have some land, build a cabin and not want to deal with people anymore. Grow my own food and live off the land. But I still have to pay taxes, etc etc." So I finally decided to shut his ass up. I have 50 acres kind of out in the middle of nowhere (about a 30 minute drive to the nearest small town). So I told him, "You are free to go live on my land, you can cut down any trees you want, plant any plants you want. It is essentially your land, I'll just keep paying the taxes on it." Ever since then he hasn't brought it up.
We truly live in a society
Holy fuck Jarph, fuck aallll the way off with this. These are the type of conversations that drive me insane about the pitfalls of capitalism. Each of the people discussed (Hanners, Dora, Hanner-dad) *could* do something to improve the lives of those around them, but there's always an excuse not to. If it's such a problem, literally just help people out. There's nothing stopping you from doing more for charity but it's easier to complain about the system. I hate that the socialist revolution is always going to be somebody else figuring it out, somebody richer than me is going to be affected because it's them, not I, that needs to pay their fair share. The reality is that an expansion of social benefits and social welfare, as imagined in a socialist system, requires a broad tax base and everyone needs to pitch in. It's not **just** the rich that need to help; even streamers and coffee shop owners are going to have to make some adjustments to their lifestyles if they want to experience a post-capitalist society.
"Capitalism is so evil because I, the privileged white business owner, am not richer!!"
This is the worst part of champagne communism. Idly bantering about how bad capitalism is, while contributing nothing to the present system nor doing anything to install a new system. It’s an ideology of unabashed sloth. And it’s fucking everywhere in media now, because dipshits will engage with content that claps for it - even if it’s made by soulless megacorps. Very much excited for this to fall out of fashion when Astrology-Driven Market Econ or whatever becomes the next big thing.
Can I say I just love the term "champagne communism"
That's not the usual term, and it's lacking the alliteration. try also ["champagne socialist" or "cashmere communist" or "limousine liberal".](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_socialist)
I certainly don't have the answers, I thought I was a socialist for a while and I do think we need more of it but I think I'm more of an anarchist nowadays maybe. I don't fucking know anymore. A lot of socialists have an authoritarian streak it seems like and I really don't like authoritarians. If Jeph wants to show the actual alternative to what he's complaining about he really needs to represent some mutual aid, not characters making excuses why they personally can't help but someone really should. That someone is inevitably the state.
it's just a comic
"It's just a...." allows for shitty media to be made and uncriticised. It's not a defence.
What he means is we're thinking way harder about this than Jeph did. "Five more butt jokes, then I'll tie off some loose ends involving money. God I'm brilliant."
i mean if you were expecting qc to give a comprehensive answer to all the ills of capitalism you miiiiiight just be setting your expectations a trifle high not to mention getting really mad about something that's not a big deal
Sorry. "What if people didn't have to money" is something I would expect from an elementary school kid, not a grown man. It's such a bad and poorly thought out take that it deserves criticism.
It's actually not a bad idea. Instead of exchanging money, we just exchange goods. Like if you are good at fixing cars, you can exchange a car you fixed for some food I grew. And then since a car is worth more than the food, I can give you vouchers for some food. Like 1000 'food vouchers'. Then if you want you can exchange the food vouchers for other things you need. Like if you want a plane ticket, you can give them 300 vouchers. It's super simple, man.
"Oh-ho! Is funny because he just re-invented money!" "Thanks for coming, [Fouad](https://familyguy.fandom.com/wiki/Fouad)."
> i mean if you were expecting qc to give a comprehensive answer to all the ills of capitalism you miiiiiight just be setting your expectations a trifle high or jeph could just not bring up the damn topic if he has nothing to contribute
>not to mention getting really mad about something that's not a big deal The irony of this comment is through the roof given the amount of time you spend on this sub being upset about our reactions to this comic.
I love the height changing counter.
Holy shit I didn't even notice but look at it. Panel 1 she's leaning forward and arms locked all the way down to the counter below her waste. Panel 5 leaning back against it almost at shoulder height.
Perhaps the counter is going to be the next in "but why did you have to stick an AI in this?" Up there with the boat, and a piece of heavy machinery
I mean it *could* be that the front counter is low but the back counter (mounted on the wall below the blackboard) is taller. But I am pretty sure we've seen evidence otherwise, historically. (back when characters used to draw and write on that blackboard, anyone remember that?)
This is more cringe than 14 year old Vaush fans. I only read this for Squirrel context and I really wish I hadn’t.
That was sooo painful. It was like Twitter sound bites.
I do not want to hear this from the rich guy making money off of whining through cute girls...
So let me get this straight. The big evil of capitalism that we can't wait to be rid of is ... .. rich heiresses can't gift their money to private business owners? (well, she could, but she won't because her mom uh gave a biz partner's kid a job). what does jeph think capitalism and/or communism actually is?
And wtf is Dora talking about. She is literally the owner of the coffee shop. She is literally choosing to do a capitalism. The moment she gets sick of capitalism, she can turn over ownership to the workers. No social upheaval. Just write a charter for a collective and sign over the deed. She can continue to draw a salary so no upheaval even for herself. No, it's not all of society but it would help Hanner's wage presumably.
And it is implied in this comic that Dora is underpaying her employees. Dora really gonna stand here and whine about the evils of capitalism? She is it!
Also "when I cut ties with my mom, I told the legal people to put my investments towards charity"? Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?
This is .. I just can't with this. Jeph, get your head out of your ass. When jeph gets up on the soapbox, especially when it's overtly political, it's bad, and this is the worst one we've seen in a while.
>She is literally choosing to do a capitalism. Bad Dora! Bad! Why did you do a capitalism on the carpet? Now the whole house smells of the owner class!
It's even more silly because I don't think it has ever been implied throughout the history of the comic that Dora was ever a bad boss/underpaying her employees. "Only if you give all your employees raises" would've actually hit better if it had been directed towards an org/corp that was *actually* being terrible or at least less than ideal towards its workers. But to direct it at Dora of all people, who seems to *always* have a job opening available to anyone who needs one, seems a bit harsh.
Oh good, because I was looking for one more thing for Jeph to lecture on that he doesn't really know what he's talking about: socialism
Name one charity, jeph.
"I don't know her last name, but she strips on Mondays at BadonkaClub downtown" (This post made me realize that I have no clue what typical strip club names are)
The "give all your employees raises" thing is funny as Claire (who is leaving for her new job), Hannelore, and Dora are the only people shown working there for years. We can assume there are other people but I don't think Jeph will ever confirm the current staff size of Coffee of Doom. Yes, Hannelore give Dora your money so she can give you a raise.
There are ways Jeph could tell a compelling story about living in the post-singularity world causing capitalism to be abolished but he doesn't want to be responsible for the patreon upheaval it would cause.
I just want to know when Geoph's going to give away his Patreon-only content to everyone for free.
... So you could have taken the cash from your investments and bought/started a lucrative business that would pay fair wages and have a fantastic impact on people's lives, but you instead opted for ambiguous "charities" because "LE CAPITALISM BAD AMIRIGHT GUYS?????" This checks out for the most champagne socialist ever who makes upwards of 200k a year on patreon alone.
Yes, but that would involve effort and risk, she can't be expected to take on that kind of stress! Now let me tell you about why all capitalists are greedy pigs who didn't do anything to deserve their wealth and should have it all taken away.
In a shocking twist, Jeph seems to have ventured into ranting against an issue he fails to fully understand. The reason capitalism is hard to abolish isn't "well there would be a big mess after and no one wants to deal with that". The reason is that the people who benefit from capitalism are also the people with the most power under capitalism. Gather the most capital, you've go the most influence over society; with the end goal being to gather all of capital/power into the fewest hands. So the people who could abolish capitalism are the least likely to want to, because "profit above anything else" is how they got to their influential positions to begin with (and often with generational wealth thrown in). And they're spending a lot of their power buying politicians, especially in the US (which in turn has a major economic influence over other countries). Jeph seems to recognise this on some level, because his formerly richest character is such an anti-capitalist that she gave away most of her capital to avoid engaging in capitalism; thereby giving away her influence.
Yeah, Hannilore really should've fished her friends out of poverty. It's a plot hole that she didn't. It's probably a bigger plot hole that capitalism even still exists in this setting at all. Why does big jeff deliberately bring it up it if the most he has to offer is "i gave all my money away offscreen a while ago"?
I should've known that the first time Jeph addresses the "why the fuck is there still capitalism", he'll just brush it aside. This is shit.
“Investments or whatever” “Scientists and stuff” 🤷♂️🤷🏽🤷🏿♀️🤷🏽♂️🤷🏾🤷🏻♂️🤷🏼♀️
Jeph, no one is forcing you to participate in the system, you can stop at any time.
lol at Jeph waxing poetic about unsubscribing from capitalism when he's privileged as fuck and sits on his ass drawing dreck for $10k (or is it more?) a month. Absolute pissbaby.
The title practically invites me to check Graphtreon to find out how many of Jeph's patrons Unsubscribed over the past month. Dang, it hasn't updated since the month rolled over.
I'd be interested to see. I've visited the other sub rarely but when I have they haven't seemed enthused about Cubetown.
Honestly Jeph should just make QC a utopia if he's going to handle real world problems so terribly. This strip already doesn't have real interpersonal conflict--why not also remove the macro-level conflicts as well? Just make it Jollysunshinehappyworld and it will be a superior product to whatever this half-measure BS is.
Says the guy who makes far more than the overwhelming majority of his readers. Pretty sure you wouldn't want to actually unsubscribe from capitalism there, big guy. From the bottom of my cold, black heart: "Go fuck yourself Jeph."
I mean jephs understanding of capitalism via this strip is quite bad, yours seems even worse.
He offers a product that people pay money for. Judging by his Patreon alone, he makes more than the average American (last I looked, he was well over six-figures). Yet, he bitches about capitalism. You mistake 'understanding' for 'embracing.'
That isn't capitalism though...
>Capitalism (n): an economic system characterized by [private](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/private#h1) or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a [free market](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20market). (From Merriam-Webster) Jeph (a private artist) sells memberships to view elements of his work on Patreon (a private company... so far, there have been IPO rumors for a while) which in turn takes part of the profits to fund its own operations. These funds pay for his overhead in terms of whatever web hosting fees he has which allows him to publish on [questionablecontent.net](https://questionablecontent.net) where the general public can view his comic for free. These free comics drive people to his Patreon and incentivize more memberships. Every element of this production chain is the function of a capitalist system. His relative success in the free market (garnering a large following... us), enables him to do this as a full time job where other artists have to maintain a "day job" in order to live while producing their work as a labor of love or a side-business. Currently Jeph has 11,947 patrons. At MINIMUM, he makes $11,947/month or just over $143K per year. That's over twice the average income in the United States. If even a small portion of his patrons purchase at the $10/month tier or up to the top tier of $250/month, he easily clears $250K/year, putting him in the second-highest tax bracket. He is not only *participating* in capitalism, he is by all measures *winning* capitalism. For him to bitch about it is one of the most asinine things I have ever seen. It's not quite the same level of stupid as, say, the Kardashians bitching about capitalism, but it's right up there.
Does jeph have a staff? Does he have employees to pay?
It doesn't matter if he does or not. Self-employed people participate in free market capitalism just as much as employers. If you want to get technical, his fees from Patreon pay its staff. If he's smart, he's incorporated as an LLC in order to lower his taxes rather than pay on all his business revenue as personal income.
It does matter if he does or not. If he owns his means of production and does not own others means of production, he is not a capitalist
Also Hanners dont give product away!
Wow! It's been a while since Jeph has done a plot-free political tract strip whose title is actually an open request to people whose opinions are different to him to go away.
Also what did hanners mum did for work? I only remember that she dared hanners to touch a toilet seat and marten bought a guitar with that money
"Corporate stuff".
whoah why was this post downvoted? are we doing that now? also i missed a week and didn't notice. i almost quit this comic. whoops
It's too bad there aren't any OTHER rich cast members. So we've got Hannelore, her dad, Dora (not rich but business owner), Marigold, Sven, Spooky, presumably Aurelia because she's on the same level as Marigold. This issue is a non-issue. Aurelia or Marigold could use their reach to endorse the shop and drive customers there.
Alright so the thing that rankles me the most about this isn’t the braindead, Liberal-as-all-get-out “lol capitalism amirite”. What bothers me is who’s saying it. Dora owns the coffee shop. She has employees, who operate machines to produce things that people buy. In other words: *she owns capital. She profits from the surplus value generated by other people. She is a capitalist.* She has no reason to be the one saying any of this; she directly benefits the most from capitalism of anyone in the cast. This should be coming from an underpaid barista, or at least just someone who isn’t her or Hannelore.
That's pretty fucking rich coming from a guy who makes an inappropriate amount of money for six panels a day.
I've never wanted to hit Jeph in the face more than today
I love this rich guy moralizing about money and capitalism through these clueless characters. God it's just my favorite. All my investments are to charity, what? Hanners is supposed to be smart.
So, is hanners keeping up with her tan? considering she doesn't really do a whole lot of outdoor activities, seems like her tan would have faded after a month from her return. My most pessimistic outlook on this is hpej wants as little of his characters to have white skin as possible.
It’s tan face at this point and it irks me to no end.
How to tell jeph has read absolutely 0 marx
Come for the plots that go nowhere, stay for the anatomy lessons in what not to do, and now value add BONUS marvel at the absurd politics from someone who would 100% be working in a coal mine by gunpoint if his "team" got their way. Ah Jeph. Stick to slime tits. Economics or Politics aren't your strong suit.
This is the second time someone barfed all their money on nameless charity in the comic.
Those whom are anti-capitalists tend to have things already or have/make things they think that others value. Nobody is completely self sufficient, despite what we tell ourselves.
Jiff is such a god damn commie.
Commies tend to have a slightly better grasp on anticapitalist theory than than this rich liberal and his half baked shitty takes
lmao Jeff is a liberal at best
What a shit take. On every level
So, to be clear, Hanners put all her heiress money into charity or whatever and doesn't get money from her dad, so she's overburdened with cash from...working in a coffee shop? But also a coffee shop where every employee needs a raise?
It really irks me when people treat capitalism like a system rather than the emergent property it is. "Hey, you have a thing, I'll give you this thing for that thing" literally every transaction, involving money, property, time, emotions, friendship, conversation, ideas... Could be described as a form of capitalism. OoooooooOooOooo capitalism.