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How much of this is capitalism, and how much of it is just trade?
Bazaars go back 5000 years, about 5000 years before capitalism. If you've ever been to a bazaar or a street market in a developing country, you know they'll try to sell you anything and everything.
"But capitalism is so efficient at growing!"
Yeah, but now capitalism has grown out of control:
minimalism is so funny to me.
Like you're buying shit so you can not buy things? Yeah ok buddy.
That is one side of it that people fall into. But another side is sometimes buying something additional will simplify your life then it makes sense. Not everyone is one pair clothing and everything fits in a bag. Something as simple as you and your SO deciding on the same shampoo to only have one bottle in the bathroom. This allows you to buy in bulk the ONE shampoo you need. Also one less item to keep track of, need shampoo? which kind?
Same with food storage containers. Might be best to throw away all the different kinds you have and buy ones where all the tops are the same. Yeah, I bought something additional it now takes "minimal" effort to find something to store food it. It's more of an overall mindset to most people. It's the constant asking yourself "Do I need this in my life?" as you start to figure out all your shit starts to own you. Organization (a lot of money spent here) is key to this as if you can't find something in your home......do you really have it? Minimalists want streamlined processes or "OCD with purpose" as I like to call it. lol
That is fake minimalism. Minimalism in practice is donating stuff you don't need and not buying stuff unless you truly need it and will use it.
This ties into the notion of interpassivity. This is when a piece of media perform an action for you (think interactivity, but exactly the opposite). An example is the laugh track on sitcoms. Another is the series or film performing your environmental or anti-capital activism for you. Frequently the bad guy is some big polluting corp, or some evil rich guy who wants to bulldoze the community center to put his Luxury Resort there. You watch the movie, feel all rebellious and sympathetic with the main characters, and go home feeling like you've done something, when in fact all you've done is feed Disney some more money. See also movies like triangle of sadness and the glass onion or whatever.
Mark Fischer's capitalist realism explores this and similar ideas in a much more comprehensive and eloquent manner than I ever could. Give it a read, it's quite short!
Thanks, I've been trying to remember this term and where I saw this concept for like 2 weeks!
Also, a related concept is recuperation:
The process by which ideas and actions deemed ‘radical’ or oppositional become commodified or absorbed into mainstream society and culture.
Punk Rock itself is not a product of capitalism.
Album and ticket sales are.
I’ve been really interested in learning how to grow vegetables in my back garden. Somehow I just have this feeling that learning how to care about plants to make food (and not just because it flowers and looks pretty) will open my eyes to thinking about nature and the environment
At the moment, climate collapse is a conceptual issue to me in that “sure the days get warmer every year but it’s actually quite nice for me right now”, but I’m not as in tune with my environment to really notice how it’s impacting us.
Growing veg also feels like it has a higher pay off than just the cost price of a single unit of veg. There’s probably some nutritional benefit to it, knowledge etc that does beyond the price of buying an onion from the shop. I think getting in touch with this principle is the key to getting out of the ruthless capitalism structure
Basically, if we all just stopped buying shit and learnt how to fix and make shit ourselves our experiences of the things we attach ourselves to would be so much more authentic
You don’t have to buy doc martens because you feel like a rebel.