Abbrasive Capitalist

Up to this point on Reason and Capitalism, I’ve maintained a fairly professional and scholarly writing style. However, I recently stumbled into a movement so full of BS that I will take a break from semi-scholarliness in order to vent my frustrations at the utter stupidity of certain individuals.

The movement is based upon the idea that we are a “consumer society.” This is obviously bad, because, well, crap, it’s just bad to consume stuff. Because that is so selfish. In order to combat this, several have made it known that they will not be purchasing materials on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to serve poor people. Yes, they say they won’t buy products made by poor people in order to server poor people. Yes, this is as stupid as it sounds. My response on hearing this was as follows:

Holy CRAP. You are mad that people are poor so you STOP buying new stuff? What the heck? Dude. Just sit back and think about how the system works. We buy their nice crap. They get wages. We don’t buy, and they STARVE. In super-simple terms:

Shaun is a capitalist spoiled little selfish rich brat. He buys a nice hat trying to look hip in his culture, and doesn’t give a thought to poor starving kids in Bangladesh. The hat is made by Company A. Company A has factories in Bangladesh. Kookimoto is poor little Bangladesh man who was spit at by rich people when he was little. But now he now has a place to work.

Ethan is a high hippy living in America. He sometimes would like to look super-nice, but likes the idea of not looking hip for a cause. His cause is poor people. In order to help poor people, Ethan decides not to buy any stuff that poor people make.

Hatred of capitalism is cute. Hippy bumper stickers are sometimes catchy, and make me want to pump my fist and say something about peace and love. But to stop buying products because people are poor is literally one of the … most foolish things I’ve ever heard. Want to fight poverty? Strengthen the economy, and do something that gives the poor more money.

Gosh.

Wanna help the poor? Buy their crap.

Think I was too harsh?