Power over others provably makes you behave like way more of an asshole
Inequalities of power are destructive to society, to human health, and to human happiness
Capitalism is evil.
I wonder if this is why Americans are so damn mean. Ronald Wright said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” That opinion is supported by the advertising industry (ten thousand get-rich-quick scams tell people they’ll be loaded any day now), and the credit industry lets everyone be affluent, if not wealthy (at least for a little while).
Americans think they’re rich, or they will be soon, or they deserve to be rich, and they mimic the mannerisms of the rich- including being total entitled douchebags. As we just had vividly demonstrated, the actual rich people have weaponised this by turning members of the working class against each other along racial/ethnic/religious lines.
How do we fix it? How do we get people to accept that they’re broke, and they’ll stay broke unless they upend everything from the Protestant work ethic to the way they treat janitors? I have the wrong kind of brain for this. I tend to line up facts and shout them at people, which has never, ever worked. Any brilliant chaotic good marketers out there who can tell me what to do?
no offense but can you stop blaming poor people for the rampant classism in the US and Americans who act entitled. and also not erase the fact that white privilege plays a large part in said entitlement.
like can you never do that again thanks
Wait, at what point were the poor blamed? From what I interpreted the problem is on a grand scale since everyone is influenced by the idea of the American Dream and thus delusioned into believing that anyone and everyone can climb out of poverty when in reality that’s a rarity.
Yeah I think the point is that poor people are blamed in the US because there is a culturally pervasive idea that poverty is the fault of the poor… also although classism is a phenomenon that I agree is a problem, my real goal is abolishing class entirely. Rich people being mean to poor people is a problem, but it’s not the ultimate problem, the ultimate problem is the existence of a system of stratification that creates rich and poor (capitalism)
I guess the question that comes with that is is by abolishing class what will we replace it with?
Communism and socialism are ideas that only work in theory not practice.
The other issue that comes with it is that many of us have been taught the the belief that lack of upward mobility is tied to natural selection (in an economic sense, I forgot the actual word for it).
I.e ‘the poor stay poor because or x,y,z and this is why they deserve to starve/die off). For centuries they have been thought of as a a nuisance to society but ironically in America these beliefs have been upheld by the poor themselves through propaganda and manipulation.To just abolish capitalism isn’t going to work. The majority even if they are the ones suffering the most by it are just gonna reject you and your belief system in favor of capitalism because they are convinced that it’s problems don’t affect them even when they do.
Alrighty, so communism and socialism are terms that get tossed around without a lot of clear ideas as to what they mean. A lot of people think they mean an authoritarian state in charge of the economy, and although this is a model some people still uphold, most communists have never thought that was a good idea. At it’s most basic, socialism is the idea of a radically democratic society where instead of having bosses, we made decisions at work democratically and all shared equally in ownership, whether we’d still do things by a market (market socialism) or we’d make our collectively made workplace decisions for the overall social good and manage things that way is a subject of debate (I come down on the anti-market side personally). I’d strongly recommend Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread as a text for learning more about this.
And of course you can’t just say “abolish capitalism” and have it happen like that, you have to talk to people, build organization, and convince people through practice and discussion that you are right. It requires planning and movement building and education and struggle, but it’s very well worth doing.
Anyone who’s ever felt belittled by their boss or worried over a bill is affected by the problems of capitalism. Anyone who’s ever felt small in the fact of government bureaucracy or intimidated trying to cancel their cable subscription is affected by the problems of capitalism. Nearly every petty humiliation and injustice of economic life can be traced back to capitalism… the problem is mostly just spreading the message
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 