Watching creatives tell other creatives that it’s immoral to accept money from capitalists feels a bit like a bucket full of crabs.

Like it or not, capitalism dominates the western world, and we all have to make compromises if we want to survive.

( https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/990138-she-reached-down-and-picked-a-crab-out-of-a)

A capitalist society runs on money, and art isn’t accepted currency.

I could write the most beautiful poems in the world, but my rent is paid in cash.

If you tell creatives not to accept money from capitalists… it sounds like you’re saying they shouldn’t have money at all.

And if artists and creatives are always struggling for money, food and shelter, that saps their time and energy. That means less time spent on:

1) Creating new art
2) Arguing for structural changes to the system

And capitalism doesn’t care or notice if it lets someone die.

There’s a spectrum, obviously.

Accepting money from a small firm or charity? Eh, fine.

Accepting money from an oil company or a Bond supervillain? Maybe less okay.

But simply accepting money does not make somebody irredeemably awful.

Is capitalism screwed-up? Undoubtedly.

But if you dislike the system and think it should change, I’m not sure telling artists (or anybody else) that they’re terrible people for accepting money will get the result you want.

/thread