It's only a crucial distinction if you don't consider yourself part of your own municipality. For the rest of us, (local) government is an expression of communion.
> Many people rightfully may consider their extended families to be not worth interacting with
I'm not convinced about the "rightfully" part. Your extended family exists because of choices of your direct family; to denounce the extensions is to make your direct family subject to your approval. You're free to do so, but I don't think "right" is the qualifier I would use.
> Beauty standards are determined first societally, then by entrepreneurs.
Except that entrepreneurs don't idly sit on the sidelines while "society" forms its standards. Our social self-image is dominated by only a few corporations, which have a lot to gain from controlling that image.
> The profit motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty [..] It is wholly neutral.
Just as the military motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty, I guess. Is developing and deploying nuclear weapons wholly neutral too?
> Clearly these are unresolved issues on part of the consumer.
On the contrary, when the majority of consumers is led to the wrong choice (cue philosophical derailment about moral relativism), it becomes a systemic problem. Maybe it's time to stop relying on 400-year old dogma?
> This is the almost cliched refrain of every moral reformer.
Your post also reads as the most cliched refrain of every economic anarchist. Can you even name one truly free market?
I don't understand the logic of "Direct family made this decision at some point, therefore you are obligated to perpetually obligate it." The "rightfulness" comes from the fact that the extended family may in fact be harmful and detrimental to one's well-being if it is highly dysfunctional. It can happen.
Our social self-image is dominated by only a few corporations, which have a lot to gain from controlling that image.
The implications of this statement, even if true, are quite unfortunate. It would imply the public is that naive and susceptible, but that moreover they have absolutely no recourse. This is a plain falsehood, they can each reject various parts of consumer culture if they wish, just as I (and presumably you) are doing by abstaining from lots of activities. You may also organize boycotts or engage in activism.
Obviously, without knowing who these corporations are and examining how they emerged, this statement you've given me alone is of little use to deliberate, and mostly makes the public look gullible.
Just as the military motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty, I guess. Is developing and deploying nuclear weapons wholly neutral too?
Well, you jumped the shark on this one. Whether you define profits as the speculation in opportunities concerning undervaluation or overvaluation of production factors, or profits as the surplus value extracted from variable capital, or surplus at all, I can't tell how it is anything but neutral. A particular profit-seeker may not be, but profit in general is. Production-for-use is a classic socialist anthem, but in practice it means always operating at subsistence and having distribution be inefficient because of cutting yourself off from a price system. Only in a hypothetical final state of rest/general equilibrium that cannot exist will profits disappear and only interest be obtained.
On the contrary, when the majority of consumers is led to the wrong choice (cue philosophical derailment about moral relativism), it becomes a systemic problem. Maybe it's time to stop relying on 400-year old dogma?
Not really moral relativism, but more that you cannot do interpersonal comparisons of utility. Even if you leave that aside, it is genuinely difficult to say that a majority of consumers are making a wrong choice, if it may be that is what they intended by their own volition. I'm sure going to strip clubs in general would count by a many definition, but, ultimately you have to convincingly prove there is both a massive and predictable irrationality going on. Even when you do, you have to weigh in the costs-benefits of intervention over individual bargaining and Coasian solutions of transaction costs and property rights.
If mine is 400-year old dogma, yours must be much older.
Your post also reads as the most cliched refrain of every economic anarchist. Can you even name one truly free market?
That's not the point, nor am I an economic anarchist. You can't just handwave useful economic research in a pithy one-liner about market irrationality without proposing a consistent model that doesn't lead to outright analytical nihilism, and you absolutely cannot refrain from extending irrationality to all other institutions and examine the effects, over merely assuming the perfection of some form of government.
Can you enumerate some of them, or point me to a simple resource? I have no desire to go read full-size papers, so something light that goes beyond the trite "we oppose any form of social organization" would be nice.
> The implications of this statement, even if true, are quite unfortunate
I guess that is true. Maybe yours is the more optimistic view of mankind. Your discomfort does not invalidate my viewpoint, though.
As for rejecting various parts of consumer culture, how would I participate in web 2.0 while rejecting walled gardens?
> Whether you define profits [..] I can't tell how it is anything but neutral
There is value in a society beyond profits. Individual freedom, social coherence and emotional stability cannot be valued at all, except perhaps in lost productivity when they break down. There are also forms of productivity that are not expressed as profit even though they could: childrearing and other forms of care come to mind. In addition, "profits" rarely include common costs (like depletion of fish stocks), or they are valued well below their true cost (e.g. carbon tax).
No, I cannot see how "profits" can be seen as neutral, when the true cost/benefit ratio to society is so skewed.
> it is genuinely difficult to say that a majority of consumers are making a wrong choice, if it may be that is what they intended by their own volition
Difficult as it is, the debate around the obesity epidemic is certainly heading in that direction.
A consistent pessimism for mankind should involve rejection of authority beyond corporate villains.
As for rejecting various parts of consumer culture, how would I participate in web 2.0 while rejecting walled gardens?
Web 2.0 is a useless term, but since we can assume it refers to social media that is intrinsically walled gardens, you simply do not participate in it. However, that you can't isn't strictly true. Metcalfe's law would make it harder since you'd need to restrict yourself to smaller social sites. Yet you're deriving utility from sites like HN, clearly, so this "Web 2.0" distinction strikes me as elusive. There's plenty of mitigations to lower your exposure to walled gardens while still nominally using them, it's not necessarily a binary proposition of accept/reject. Though, who ever said that rejecting consumer culture would be easy? Going outside any grain involves forgoing opportunities.
Your paragraph about profits is a tautology. Of course unquantifiable (psychic) profits are different and unrelated. Value and profits are not the same thing, and it's a red herring to bring up things like childrearing (which babysitters and nannies do for profit, nevertheless). How does this defy the intrinsic existence of profits and their neutrality? And, certainly, someone may indeed find value and derive profits (psychic or monetary) from conserving fish stocks or any other environment. Not only that, markets can be environmentalist. Check out these guys: http://www.perc.org/
Difficult as it is, the debate around the obesity epidemic is certainly heading in that direction.
No shit, people make decisions ex ante that prove ex post to have been incorrect (by whatever measure). I am unsure of what you intend by invoking the obesity epidemic (I''m presuming specifically for the USA?)
I don't follow. Why should I accept corporate villains?
> I am unsure of what you intend by invoking the obesity epidemic (I''m presuming specifically for the USA?)
I was referring to England actually. I don't know enough about the US situation, I'm guessing the obesity rates are similar if not worse. The concensus basically centers around "consumers are making a wrong choice because of the availability of cheap unhealthy alternatives". I used it to illustrate that even when it comes to something basic like sustenance, "the market" fails to produce the desired outcome.
Then perhaps you should stop asserting that "There is nothing wrong with pursuing profits", as you apparently are well aware that increased profits and increased value do not necessarily coincide?
Again, this mystical "community" is mostly an illusion. It's either private ownership or government ownership via eminent domain. Commons aren't applicable in most cases.
Bonds with extended family are to be settled on an individual case-by-case basis. Many people rightfully may consider their extended families to be not worth interacting with, and in any event this is all a flimsy normative sentiment.
Beauty standards are determined first societally, then by entrepreneurs. The profit motive is intrinsic to a world of uncertainty (see Frank H. Knight's Risk, Uncertainty and Profit). It is wholly neutral. There is nothing wrong with pursuing profits, even though a lot of people have an anti-capitalist bias and are convinced it's demonic.
I mostly agree, except in the sense that people are maybe being sold a bad cure for an ailment they might not have had, spending money they don't have, perpetuating the problems that caused them to want to escape in the first place.
Clearly these are unresolved issues on part of the consumer.
Markets are flawed because the actors in them are not rational or well-informed (which is often an axiom of whatever model one chooses to use), and because the actions available to them are dictated by those currently on top.
This is the almost cliched refrain of every moral reformer. Market participants are irrational, therefore $SOCIAL_ENGINEERING_POLICY_OF_CHOICE. Of course, there is information asymmetry in anything one does (market or no market), and the classic resolutions are through screening or signaling.
(Also, the definitions of "rational" and "informed" in economics are quite different from their colloquial counterparts. Moreover, assuming universal irrationality by default leads to nihilistic conclusions. At least it should anyway, most people use it as an excuse for their pet reforms by completely ignoring the irrationality in state institutions.)
For instance, violence or overt threats of violence in pursuit of gain is considered to be taboo in markets (that I know of), since those who have goods or the means to produce them generally want to keep that relative power over those who do not.
What the fuck? Violence is taboo in markets because the bourgeoisie capitalists want to exploit the underdogs? Could it possibly be because the initiation of force against voluntary actors is considered immoral by almost everyone? Hopefully you do, as well, but I can't deduce.
EDIT: The anti-capitalist and socialist crankery seems to be inherent from examining your post history.