Late stage capitalism is where your best idea for showing disapproval for capitalism is to buy some shit.
Whoa! What an awesome community I had no idea existed. Still discovering gems on Lemmy!
ITT people who think any argument can be countered by pointing out any inconsistencies of the person making it.
Think about it: If a chainsmoker would say to me “don’t smoke that cigarette! It’s unhealthy for you”, what would be the right response? According to these smart people here it would be: “Ha! if it’s so unhealthy why are YOU doing it???”.
One can make a correct argument and simultaneously contradict it with their actions. It doesn’t automatically void the argument.
The chainsmoker arguing against smoking is actually a perfect example to capitalism. He is addicted to smoking so much so that he is unfree to make decisions, out of control of his own life. He might have a clouded judgement at times and yet, is still able to correctly identify the problem, or parts thereof.
To capitalism we are also addicted in a way. Most aspects of our lives are controlled by it, many are made possible by it and also many bad things are enabled by it. As an individual it is almost impossible to not participate in capitalism. In order to have a baseline existence you need to participate in capitalism. Yet we can try to argue against the current system and try to find ways of making it better. It’s a really dumb argument to say “hahaha, but you bought vegetables in a supermarket, there for your critique of exploitive behavior of this supermarket chain is invalid”.
Additionally only allowing this shirt when it’s worn as a self-referential joke is also dumb. One can be critical of capitalism AND at the same time (self-referentially and/or ironically) admitting the inherent contradiction in one’s behavior.
It’s a little like critisizing people who speak on behalf of tolerance of they fight against nazis or other intolerant groups of people - and thinking your very very smart. The goal is more tolerance for people in the world because it makes the world a better place. It is not tolerating anything for the sake of being tolerance. That’s just apathy.
