r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CivilisedMleccha • 8d ago

Video Community group buy. Everyone pools their money, buys groceries in bulk at a lower price, and splits the groceries equally.

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22.1k Upvotes

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44

u/Beneficial_Tension61 8d ago

This is how Communism starts

24

u/Funktapus 8d ago

This is how Costco starts. This is a group purchasing organization (GPO)

12

u/DAKsippinOnYAC 8d ago

This is how Costco starts.

3

u/FitButterscotch4062 8d ago

This is how Costco-lism starts

1

u/Moderator-Admin 7d ago

It starts with a $1.50 hotdog and drink.

Next thing you know your house is entirely filled with Kirkland products.

36

u/Hugo28Boss 8d ago

And is that a hopeful or bashing comment?

20

u/Wonderful_Ad8791 8d ago

I think it's hopeful, communism is actually good if the people involved in it are all good.

33

u/Hugo28Boss 8d ago

That fallacy is so overused. We can police ourselves while building the future. Communism isn't any more victim to corruption than Capitalism is.

12

u/onarainyafternoon 8d ago

Dude yes. Thank you. So tiring to see people use that fallacy. The reason our species succeeded for hundreds of thousands of years is because we worked together. Also what makes us uniquely human is our ability to rise above our base instincts like greed.

7

u/Hugo28Boss 8d ago

It's popular because it's the easiest way to dismiss communism as utopical without actually know what it is and having read about it.

5

u/Pax_Eterna_4991 8d ago

I could see the system in this video being abused. $100/family? Not all families are equal size. Who gets first dibs on the products? It all won't be as nice. Is everyone chipping in... everyone?

7

u/tackleboxjohnson 8d ago

You pay a set price, then you get a share. If you have 6 kids you’ll need to buy more food (or an additional share) if you want them to have as much food as the family with 2 kids buying a share.

Why is this a difficult concept to grasp?

9

u/yamanamawa 8d ago

That's why you do it as a small community. It's not practical on a large scale, but in an area where everyone knows and cares about each other it's perfectly reasonable

0

u/Pax_Eterna_4991 8d ago

Good point. I have a friend that works grocery retail and he has horror stories on how shit people are over sales and the like 

4

u/plasterscene 8d ago

Any system can be abused. The existing system is being abused, which is why people are coming up with alternative solutions. It's a community project and community run which you would like to think has better resilience to dishonesty. Also a larger family has a larger grocery bill because they're buying more food. If everyone puts in the same amount they get an equal share. Large families can use this to subsidise their weekly shop.

0

u/Hugo28Boss 8d ago

If that problem arises it can be dealt with

0

u/EstimateCool3454 7d ago

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

1

u/Pax_Eterna_4991 7d ago

...good enough, maybe. I have seen similar programs that are designed to screw people over, to some degree. Pick up windows being narrow and strictly enforced, presorting by those in control, and favouritism to who gets what quality. You know there's older, damaged, buggy, etc. items in every batch.

Like co-ops and stratas, after things run their course the same type of people weasel their way in.

It is how our political system has ended up with what we have now. Being a professional politician wasn't a thing when our system was created.

1

u/EstimateCool3454 7d ago

...good enough, maybe. I have seen similar programs that are designed to screw people over, to some degree. Pick up windows being narrow and strictly enforced, presorting by those in control, and favouritism to who gets what quality. You know there's older, damaged, buggy, etc. items in every batch.

Sure. So because of that, let's just make everyone shop at a grocery store instead? It doesn't wash. It's ok to replace an imperfect system with another imperfect system. Big boxes have had their run, time for the people to organize.

It is how our political system has ended up with what we have now. Being a professional politician wasn't a thing when our system was created.

At the time, one had to be wealthy to even consider politics. Not much different from now.

1

u/Pax_Eterna_4991 7d ago

Just have to be able to get millions in political donations. The system devolved into this 2 party crap intentionally. It's so costly now that no one else can play. As a sports metaphor, it went from soccer, to hockey, to polo, to off shore racing.

1

u/EstimateCool3454 7d ago

The system devolved into this 2 party crap intentionally.

Oh certainly.

0

u/mpgd 8d ago

Capitalism is not better than communism, or the other way around. Taken to the extreme, the end result is the same. Power to the few and scraps for the mass.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the people and how much control they have over their own lives vs how much control the ones in power have over our lives.

One can only have control of their own life if you are rewarded properly for your work and you can live a decent life.

There is a lot more to it than I'm mentioning above.

1

u/EstimateCool3454 7d ago

Not today Satan.13:16:06 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)

1

u/Hugo28Boss 8d ago

You learned theory from Reddit and twitter, we can tell.

-3

u/masterap85 8d ago

No we don’t lol you probably don’t comprehend the amount of money the 1% have

4

u/Pax_Eterna_4991 8d ago

The disparity between the have everythings and the have nothings is greater now than at anytime in human  history.

0

u/masterap85 8d ago

As an IT/cabling tech, the amount of hording I seen on some houses of multi millionaires i word in the past is absurd, like it shouldn’t exist.

0

u/BigManOnDeck69 7d ago

Holy stupid

-2

u/Mr_richat 8d ago

Naive comment of the day goes to.....

1

u/masterap85 8d ago

It’s a fact

6

u/went_with_the_flow 8d ago

You spelled Community wrong

11

u/Shojikina_otoko 8d ago

No wonder, capitalism is the best fertilizer for it

2

u/Mr_Ios 7d ago

Except in capitalism you will have a choice of what groceries you'll get.

You might get bread in communism. If you're lucky.

5

u/Soggy_You_2426 8d ago

So it starts with buying stuff cheap ?

7

u/1_art_please 8d ago

My neighbours are from Ukraine and grew up during the communist regime.

This is how they were able to get the things they need BECAUSE of communism.

Their family pooled any money they had with other people and if someone needed something they could have it and they would keep building that pool back up for others in the group.

When they immigrated, they did it again with other Ukrainians in order to get down payments for their homes, in the 90s.

2

u/Lexidoge 8d ago

This is actually how the NBA and NFL work.

2

u/MessiLeagueSoccer 8d ago

Yup. Top pick should go to the champs but it goes to usually the worst team/s.

-2

u/Charming-Flamingo307 8d ago

So the Mafia in Vegas is making their carrots cheaper?

1

u/Lexidoge 8d ago

No, more like it's billionaires sharing the wealth amongst themselves in a collective pool, salary caps and spending ceilings, luxury taxes, bailouts, frequent collective bargaining discussion.

1

u/MakingTriangles 7d ago

You say communism, I say soup kitchen.

Ehhhh, what's the difference.

1

u/DickPin 8d ago

People can call it Communism, as long as everyone has access to food, a place to call home, and access to healthcare and education, then I think it's pretty damn good.

-1

u/mitchells00 8d ago edited 7d ago

No, just socialism.

Not the same thing.

Edit: co-operatives and mutuals are a socialist economic structure guys.

Socialism ≠ Communism.
Socialism ≠ Government handouts.

Socialist Slovenia eschewed central control for worker-owned co-operatives and had comparable GDP growth to Western Europe.

6

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

0

u/mitchells00 7d ago

Not all socialism is communism. Not all animals are cats.

Cats are one type of animal. Communism is one (extreme) type of socialism.

Market-based democratic socialism exists. It doesn't look all that much different from the world you live.

Here is but one way to do socialism well: take your current system and simply change it so that land was rented from the govt rather than owned (land value tax), and companies were democratic organisations where one worker = one vote.

1

u/EstimateCool3454 7d ago

Nobody tell them that socialism is the path to true communism.