Buy Nothing Day 2008- Priceless

A TRSG+H Production- A "commercial" I made as a project for my intro to video production eqpt. class. It promotes Buy Nothing Day- for more info, check out http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• TRSG
• TRSG+H
• Buy
• Nothing
• Day
• Adbusters
• Melissa
• Marx
• Priceless
• Mastercard
• commercial
• cookies
• Starbucks
• Latte
• Macbook

[Andrew5544]

How did we go from using 30% of the world's resources to 80%?

[deeblite]

I don't recall where I got that number from- I think it was something on the adbusters web page. I didn't really research this- that wasn't the point of the assignment.

[paultheuglydog]

How can people stop buying stuff? We need to buy stuff to live.

[deeblite]

First, buy nothing day isn't about never buying anything ever again. It's about not buying stuff on a single day in order to make a point. Second, saying you HAVE to buy stuff in order to live is just not true- people survived for thousands of years before currency even existed.

[singinggerbils]

Funny how many things from this commercial seem so familiar. Even that seal in the first shot. And especially that girl. But why is it Buy Nothing Day 2008? Aren't we still in 2007?

[deeblite]

Yes, but Buy Nothing Day 2007 had already passed when this was being made =)

[eggsparker]

where are you getting this? who was saved by capitalism?

[florkgagga]

You are bringing in some nice arguments, which we could discuss about but you don't really USE them. Maybe because you don't understand the VARIOUS causes of famine etc. When people died of famine before capitalism "saved" them it was not because of poor work but because of natural disasters. Some of it could have been prevented, yes, with better education but that's where the church comes in...

[clambii]

Right, but even with government intervention the distribution of wealth is ridiculous. Now, when I was talking about the exploitation of workers I was referring to the fact that any employee is denied the true worth of their labor. Someone at McDonald's makes almost four times their actual wage as profit for the company. Thus, exploitation. The way the FREE market works is by imposing economic risk on the poor and never actually taking risk themselves because the rich are padded with funds.

[clambii]

To workers! They left agriculture because the industrial revolution destroyed their trade. Yes, this discussion is useless. You're obviously a fan of capitalism and now you're claiming that I'm lying in your frustration. In a globalized economy the effects stretch to everyone. There are people starving and dying everywhere even while the bourgeosie continue to profit. Again, you seem to be referring to Feudalism. Capitalism is the new Feudalism.

[p0rq]

Pay less then their time and labour is worth... to whom? These people didn't leave agriculture for the fun of it - they did it because it meant they got paid more, and could afford more than just bare subsistence.

Individuals in agrarian societies could barely provide enough food or shelter for themselves. They worked hard and couldn't produce any more in those four months, and had barely enough to live on, leading to famines.

I will not continue this discussion because you are just lying.

[p0rq]

The protection of individual rights does not stagnate. But the belief in its importance does, hence the growth in government intervention in the economy, which brought us to where we are today.

[clambii]

Also, capitalism is the reason everyone is freaking out financially right now. I'm not saying older systems are better, I'm saying we must always progress. Stagnation will surely cause failure, just like history.

[clambii]

Actually I WAS trying to say that the problems you described were NEARLY exclusive to European Feudalism.

[clambii]

The exploitation is using labor as a profit tool. Paying less than a person's time and labor is actually worth in order to maximise profits is exploitation. Egrarian societies didn't work a lot because they didn't have to. They were able to provide their own food and shelter without having to sell their time. They worked hard for about four months and lived off of that for the rest of the year. Capitalism has CAUSED famine. The Great Depression is one example. We're almost there again.

[p0rq]

Exploitation? What exploitation? Before the advent of capitalism, we were barely surviving above subsistence. We didn't work any more than that because it was barely possible to do so, whilst still surviving.

I won't disagree that currency is the standardisation of trade. And I think it's a good thing. Morally.

I am not making the claim that 'currency' cured disease and famine. I'm claiming that capitalism did. Disease exists, but nothing like in pre-capitalist times - famine is gone for us.