Boil Before Drinking » capitalism

Liography of Ayn Rand

Brother Greg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:39:29 +0000

Apparently somebody thinks Ayn Rand was a big ol’ liar who fictionalized her own life story to make herself out as a self made heroine.
Who knew? I for one am shocked that people don’t pull greatness out of their own asses build mighty empires through hard work, aided only by the blessed spirit of capitalism.

Mob Activism

The Runs — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:02:49 +0000

I generally associate the word ‘mob’ with negative things. Some would suggest this is intentional as the forces of ‘order’ strive to imprint negative associations to people gathering. Ah, that’s a topic for another day. To my post now, though, I am exposed to the term ‘mob’ more often, and am gradually lessoning the imagery of badness I get from the work.

To that point, I bring you Carrotmob.

“Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases, rewarding companies who make environmentally friendly choices”

Check out their mission statement and the results of their first event.

I think this is a great way to raise awareness. Working within the system, using the system, playing the system… choose your line… works. You can protest consumerism, capitalism, etc. all you want, but that does not change the fact that these are FORCES. They are not people, entities, corporations, governments… they are forces that other have tapped into for their own ends. And thus they can be used to good, bad, and anything in between.

These guys put something together that seems to provide a net benefit to just about everyone involved. I am sure some poor sucker had to wait in line for an hour longer than usual to pick up their weekend booze at the usual store, but that’s not a great inconvenience. Maybe traffic was bad in the area, too. But it would cause people to take notice that there was an event going on, and hopefully check into the situation and thus become INFORMED of the cause. I think there are a lot of people that will take a lock at the placards and maybe try to catch what slogans are being chanted, but I bet people are a lot more curious when they see a long line of enthusiastic, POSITIVE people at an ordinary looking store.

Read the carrotmob explanation. They do a good job of explaining their goals and approaches.

Circuit City Bankruptcy?

Brother Greg — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:49:00 +0000

I remember reading something in the spring about Circuit City firing anyone making 51 cents or more above an arbitrary maximum average. Because we all know how generic sales people are, I’d much rather have the “I don’t know what that is” high school kid helping me than the guy who’s been doing it for 10 years.
The good news is that the verdict is in and it’s a hard indictment of corporate idiocy. Circuit City’s stock price is down from almost $20 in March to just above $5 now. Of course this should mean a multi-million dollar bonus for the CEO shouldn’t it?
Now I believe it’s the responsibility of the free market to continue tearing Circuit City a new one, and if we’re all lucky they’ll be under new management and/or bankrupt by next Christmas.