You Would Think That If Neoliberals Were

Adam Smith Actually Took All His Best Ideas And Lines From Sources From Medieval Persia. But One Thing He Doesn't Take Is The Underlying Assumption They Have That The Basis Of A Market Is Mutual Aid.

The Fascinating Thing About Standard Economic Stories Is Exactly That: They Assume That Everybody Wants That Kind Of Closure. That All Human Relations Are Forms Of Exchange, Because If Everything Is An Exchange Then It's True That We're Both Equals. We Walk Up, I Give You Something, You Give Me Something, And We Walk Away. Or I Give You Something, You Don't Give Me Something Right Now, And You Owe Me. So If We Have Any Ongoing Relationships At All, It's Because Somebody Is In Debt.

What About Precarious Labor? It's Actually Not The Most Efficient Form Of Labor At All. They Were Much More Efficient When They Had Loyalty To Their Workers And People Were Allowed To Be Creative And Contribute - You Know That What Precarious Labor Does Is That It's The Best Weapon Ever Made To Depoliticize Labor. They're Always Putting The Political In Front Of The Economic.

People Don't Have An Ongoing Relation Unless It's A Form Of Debt Because Everything Is An Exchange, So Ongoing Relationships Are Incomplete Exchanges, And Therefore One Party Is Probably To Blame - More Likely Than Not, Both Are. Sociality Itself Seems To Become Like A Matter Of Sin, And Inherently Wrong.

Now, We're Used To Thinking Of Communism As Being Once-upon-a-time-all-things-were-owned-in-common, Maybe-someday-this-will-come-again. And People Agree That There Is A Sort Of Epic Narrative Going On Here. I Think We Should Just Throw This Narrative Out, It's Irrelevant Anyway, And Who Cares Who Owns Things? I Don't. You Know, We All Own The White House. So What? I Still Can't Go In, Right?