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Comment by kortilla | Hacker News Reader

> It's not a choice. You have a (metaphorical) pistol to your head to engage with the system as it is, die, or be killed.

This is ridiculous. In the US people constantly quit to start small businesses, work for other businesses, or just not work at all. There is zero threat of violence if you choose not to work.

Additionally, there is no concept of debt slavery at all outside of the military (which is probably the most successful socialist institution in the US). There is no forced labor to pay down debt.

> private property in absentia (ultimately based on theft, might I add)

Based on theft from who? If I grow some cucumbers in my garden, who have I stolen them from?

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I don't think you understood what I meant, I probably wasn't clear.

There is no threat of violence if you choose not to work. The violence is if you try to subsist to your means without engaging with the economic system. So you are forced to engage in the economic system as it is.

As for debt slavery, I'm simply saying that the arguments used to justified exploitative labour relations are exactly the same as were used to justify debt slavery.

If you grow cucumbers in your garden, your first need to buy the land for the garden, which was ultimately stolen from someone else. But growing a cucumber in your garden is not private property in absentia, it's private property in present use.

All you're saying here is that a person can't survive completely on their own. That's always been true, and is just part of The Human Condition, not a plot by evil capitalists.

Division of labor is the foundation of civilization, and how we have become so incredibly wealthy.

In a division of labor system, everyone needs to contribute as much as they benefit, on average, and the system of mostly voluntary trade is how we keep track of that. You trade your labor for money, that you in turn trade with others for the result of their labor.

Demanding to share the fruits of that system - which come from the work of countless other people - without being willing to contribute to it with your own work is both selfish and antisocial.

That’s meaningless though. It’s been stolen by literally every non voluntary change of control. Dinosaurs stole land from each other.

Taxation is stealing money from your citizens and we don’t describe it that way because it makes the term somewhat meaningless.

>In the US people constantly quit to start small businesses, work for other businesses, or just not work at all. There is zero threat of violence if you choose not to work.

SOME people. Median savings are ~$4k, realistically the average person needs access to credit (which they may not have), a strong support network, or some other way of surviving longer than 2 months without work.

And whether or not you do have the wealth or support network needed to choose not to work is determined mostly by who your parents are. This isn't a fair system.

> If I grow some cucumbers in my garden, who have I stolen them from?

The cucumbers aren't stolen, but the land is. Ultimately almost all private property in land was dispossesed of common ownership or previous inhabitants. Not that you need to feel guilty about it, but you do need to pay your taxes.

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