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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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You are ignoring the immense weight of the threat of force
No, it exists but it's just almost never needed we ended up enforcing the system ourselves, no threat needed even if it exists as a backup.
I think you might be biased by your own experiences from places where the risk and reward for following vs breaking the law are so wildly in favor of following it. In poorer areas, the math gets closer.
Anyway, try mugging someone at gunpoint and telling them it was like you didn't have a gun because you never fired it.
I'm not from a country that's rich enough to have rich areas. No American style suburbs here thankfully.
The main disincentive is still societal even if you are talking just about shoplifting(Though I was mostly talking about private property). Cops will just arrest you but if you get a criminal record you will have a harder time finding a job, people will not trust you and your family may even disown you.
I understand that system is leagues more fucked up in the US where the cops will just shoot you if you're darker than mayonnaise, 3 insignificant crimes get you serious jail time and every sentence is normal amount of years times ten but it's a uniquely bad system there and not a reflection of the rest of the world and in the rest of the world the threat of violence is generally not there and we perpetuate this system. You guys also have absolutely insane wealth differences and like no way to even do anything about it, Americans should really take pointers from the French and organize a proper general strike, nothing will change if people just complain.
Also your analogy would be more accurate if I mugged someone with a toy gun. As I said cops aren't as powerful as the whole of the working class.
And what happens if you resist arrest?
You would most likely still be arrested or you would get away if really lucky. But this is all irrelevant, if cops were Thanos snapped capitalism would not go away, without unity in the working class nothing will change. Being able to steal without consequence is not socialism.
Yeah because that's not the only way that the systw. Is maintained by the threat of violence, it's just the most obvious. You keep making points like "you're gonna have to organize and fight" as if that disproves that the current system is maintained by violence. I think you don't quite understand what's being talked about
As I originally said: the threat of force exists but it's not the primary or even secondary way capitalism is maintained. Also if the whole working class unified that would be a force so big force is both irrelevant and quite potentially even unnecessary. But I brought both points up in my previous replies, I'd not accuse someone if not understanding if you yourself end up repeating points already answered.