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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sunshine@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

Based on the excerpt from this Discworld book, what other items do you use regularly that would fit in this theory? (Boots and shoes are fair game!)

Text transcript for people who want it:

[The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.]

Bonus: suggest ways you can repair/restore your item/other people's items.

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[-] kool_newt@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

The explosion of dollar stores in the U.S. is like a boot that keeps pushing stomping on poor people to ensure they have to way out and this theory perfectly describes the situation.

The way forward is not to replace dollar stores with Targets, it's to move beyond capitalism and it's base of exploitation and move toward a base of cooperation.

Some ideas:

  • Make and grow stuff (food, weed, soaps, furniture, etc. and give it away, consume stuff your neighbors make and grow. Everything you avoid buying is power you don't give to the capitalists.
  • If you have money, help those that don't to buy quality boots (without seeking to profit, such as from a loan)
  • Fix things, value things not for being brand new, but for working and having history.
  • Buy used (tho if you have money, take care not to buy up all the nice things at thrift shops leaving the scraps for those who the thrift shops are their only choice)
  • Become reslilient at the community level - start out by making friends
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
682 points (100.0% liked)

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