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Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

Whilst technically correct, I still object. Many if not most things aren't political in a meaningful way, but surely you can make them political.

This is how you get "water is racist" and the entire movement of social justice becomes a thing of ridicule. The strategy harms, it doesn't help.

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How about this: Every economic interaction (which includes employment) is political. Would you agree with this?

No, not at all.

I will think about it the next time I buy an old lawnmower on craigslist.

I hope you properly paid sales tax on that purchase, if required, as the political system in many US states requires you to.

If I take a dump I have to ensure to dispose it properly, because the fecal disposal is tightly regulated by many states, therefore taking a dump is a political issue.

That's the legal system not the political system.

And you think there is a difference between the two?

Yes. And thinking there isn't a difference makes you silly, not clever.

That's lawnmower ageism.

Cryptocurrency is a huge climate problem -- why is the opposition to coinbase all about social justice takes from twitter?

It's not political, it's fashion.

> How about this: Every economic interaction (which includes employment) is political.

“Economics” and “politics” are just different lenses for viewing interactions relating to the distribution of power (equivalently, control of scarce resources.) They are the same thing; economic interactions are political and vice versa; economic power is political power and vice versa, etc.

This is also why capitalism (enabling the private accumulation of economic power) and democracy (involved the egalitarian distribution of political power), despite both initially being advanced by the same moves away from the particular structure of the monarchic/feudal concentration of both, are fundamentally in tension and ultimately incompatible.

Take one step back. The interaction might not be political in itself but the desire to be able to engage in it might be. As others said, buying a lawn mower isn't political. Demanding that the product you are buying is safe and that economic transactions are done with USD or Bitcoin is definitively political.

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