We so routinely see hateful people sheltered from consequences--heck, even aided in the harm they do, by others who want to ride the wave of power, or who don't know how to "get off the bus"--that it's mystifying how we manage to be so hard on ourselves in our more quotidian struggles.
But then again, it feels like it should be a low bar not to do the harm that genuine grifters and hatemongers do.
In a better world they wouldn't be at the centre of every public conversation about moral action.
@corlin @MLClark Cultural regulators don't exist when your social fabric has broken down - which is the case in much of the West due to a combination of hyper-individualist mindsets (no doubt spread in large part by Cold War propaganda), an extremely isolating car-centric transportation/infrastructure paradigm that eliminates opportunities for natural social interaction, overwork robbing many people of the time/energy to socialize, and the two-income household norm reducing informal networking.
Yes all factors.
But perhaps, and I am just thinking aloud here, these factors all point to some more fundamental causes. What led to these culture factors developing and succeeding in the first place?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6V0qmDZ2gg&list=PL3VaCuWY1hJlNQ6a2PDd4Ib1kSxUAiflF
@corlin @MLClark They were intentionally fostered.
The hyper-individualism epidemic was caused largely by Cold War efforts to reduce sympathy for the USSR and harden the population against subversion.
Car-centric transportation and infrastructure paradigms were borne of auto industry lobbying, itself driven by the desire for more profits and successful because of corruption.
Overwork is a result of the intentional devaluation of labour by the bourgeoisie...
Yes.. All true...
But think deeper.
Why were these factors so successful?
It must be more than these intentionally fostered, cultural shifts.
Yes.
And think neurologically.Think mind body dualism. Think the enlightenment, and the rise of rationality.
@corlin @MLClark Rationality in and of itself is not selfish.
The advancement of life has always been through increasing cooperation/coordination of ever-larger systems; first prokaryotic cells, then composite eukaryotic cells, then microscopic multi-cellular life, then macroscopic multi-cellular life, then vertebrate multi-cellular life, then simple social multi-cellular life, & finally the likes of us.
The logical end-state of life is probably something like the Borg - a colossal collective.
@corlin @MLClark Right off the bat: I'm not sure I agree with their statement "There's no planetary boundaries as a result of the activity of deer or algae or oak trees."
Actually, algae were responsible for an *enormous* mass extinction known as the Great Oxidation Event. From the perspective of most of the species present at that time, algae smashed straight through planetary boundaries like they weren't even there.
Those boundaries are at least partially defined subjectively.
@corlin @MLClark And the two-income household norm, the result of bourgeois efforts to erode the value of labour - to vastly increase the available workforce without appreciably increasing the demand for labour, by manipulating the equal rights movement and selling them the idea that wage slavery is somehow freeing / empowering.
Yes Yes... And...
I agree.
I am just trying to get you to think deeper. More holistically, less "game theory-ish".
That's tripping into nuclear family fetishization. Lower-income women always worked, but the only way out of bad marriages for middle-class women was bodily autonomy and financial independence, with rights gained in the 1970s.
Middle-class women ran from the frying pan of toxic domestic spheres, or at least put up more defenses against abuse through careerism, and joined working-class women in the fire.
What's always been needed is more communal, less nuclear thinking.
@MLClark @corlin I agree about more communal, less nuclear thinking - but I think it'll take incremental change to get there, and it seems to me that "everybody works the 9-to-5" is a step in the exact opposite direction.
If everyone works the 9-to-5, it's like you don't even *have* units. Everyone's in their own little bubble. It's even more atomized than the nuclear family, which was already bad enough.
@IrelandTorin @MLClark @corlin Marillion lyrics:
Are we too far gone, are we so irresponsible. Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care.
We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine, pretending the end isn't quite that near.
We make futile gestures, act to the cameras, with our made-up faces and our PR smiles
And when the angel comes down, down to deliver us, we'll find out that after all, we're only men of straw
At this juncture, nothing less than UBI will help with our post-work crisis, but it might help to look to the greater world to see how other cultures manage.
A system that requires people to pair up to survive, and for one person to put themself in trust of the other's income, is never ideal except for the person who sees themself as being the one with the salary.
Other cultures have more collaboration built into existing economics. Western Protestant roots aren't it.
@MLClark @corlin I could agree with that.
The first step I had in mind wasn't quite like the traditional nuclear family, though: both parties would be expected to get the education/training to be *able to* work, but at any given time only one would... whether through some form of time-division (each only works for half the year, or maybe each only works 20 hours/week) or otherwise.
The reduced effective workforce would increase labor's market value, making things easier for single people too.
And that's why I'm saying it's important to look at other cultures. Job sharing and reduced scheduling are already implemented in other markets.
Your model is also focused on the wrong pressure point if the top concern is "labor market value" instead of quality of life. People are underpaid due to the disproportionate flow of wealth from labour to execs & shareholders. UBI studies show that investment *in people* increases entrepreneurship, creating healthier markets.
The solutions are there! They're not pipe dreams. But they do require us to look a little beyond the enemies that our capitalist societies want us to make of each other. The common scarcity myth of "too many women (or immigrants) in the marketplace is what's driving down the value of work" ignores the long history of working women and detracts from the stark facts of wealth and wage theft that actually underpin worker incomes still lying so far below our costs of living.
@MLClark @corlin Oh, I don't see it as an "opposing force" thing.
Way I see it, the capitalist class is *exploiting* immigrants and families - they've purposefully architected the systems and cultural norms that oversaturate the work force specifically to lower their labour costs.
The workers aren't to blame - they're just following the path they were funneled and manipulated into, doing what they had to / were told was necessary to survive and thrive. There's no shame in that.
@MLClark @corlin The wealth diversion and wage theft are definitely real; I do support tax policies, worker protections, and the proliferation of unions to help address that, but I feel that given the current geopolitical landscape implementing those things would be a real challenge.
Crippling the capitalist class by forcing a labour crunch, if the likes of offshoring and temporary foreign worker programs could be removed from the equation, would make it easier to get those things implemented.
I should also add that corporations don't care about keeping workers - that's why they're excited about the potential of AI, and that's why a higher portion of GDP in recent years has *not* come from real growth: it's come from a burgeoning "financial product" sector that generates wealth through a lot of handwaving and hucksterism.
Corporations have gutted real labour and services for a while. I'm in the middle of an industry downsizing for precisely that reason.
@MLClark @corlin I don't disagree with that.
Suffice to say if it were up to me, we'd be doing things very differently.
For starters, finance and AI would both be made functionally exclusive to the public sector. Making money off handling money is... well, let's just say I don't see that as part of a healthy economy - and anything that has the potential to reduce the number of jobs / replace workers should be owned in common so its consequences can be managed & proceeds shared.
Agreed on that one, Torin!
And it's also really important to have these chats, so thank you for that. As often as people can keep these issues alive in everyday conversations, the better our chances of raising class consciousness and achieving the level of civic empowerment needed to bring about real change.
@MLClark @corlin It blows my mind that so many people view financial trickery as a valid way of "earning" wealth. It should be clear by now that it's just exploitation of the system - something to be cracked down on, not celebrated.
Agreed - and thank you! I do enjoy them; few people are willing to discuss such issues in detail, and many have adopted disastrous neoliberal / neoconservative economic ideas, so any exception is greatly appreciated.
I firmly disagree, Torin. You're still seeing this through the scarcity myth, and glossing over huge parts of working class and women's history in the process.
Women weren't tricked into the market place to drive down labour market value.
Most were already there (women have always worked), and the rest joined them as part of a hard-won mid-20th C fight for protection from abuse while giving free labour in the home.
Labour oversaturation isn't the issue. It's taxation.
I have a bit of a background in history, which gives me exposure to how long this issue has been going on--but quite literally, the mid-19th Century was home to what was called "the woman problem" or "the woman question": too many unwed women competing in the marketplace. You also have writers of the era blaming women for over-saturating and "ruining" the ability for men to thrive in writing professions.
So this labour competition myth is old--and capitalists love it.
Cascading effects of increased labour market value will put heavy pressure on the flow of wealth to executives and shareholders (and on practices that adversely affect quality of life), as in a labour-constrained market the mantra is "attract and retain [employees] or perish".
Businesses that attempt to maximize executive/shareholder wealth capture at the expense of workers in such an environment will quickly find themselves with no workers.
Well... yes and no.
I'm not sure if you follow Behind the Bastards, but they had a great two-parter last year on Jack Welch, the jerkwad who played a significant role in changing corporate culture in the back half of the 20th Century. Just some fun listening to blow off steam in this shitty economy - and a strong repudiation of the idea that anything but better unions and stronger tax policies will disincentivize the corporate class we have now.
@MLClark
I have often thought about shame, and ostracizing, as the cultural regulator for this. But it so often misused. That I don't think it is applicable today.
As with so many things, cultural regulation has disappeared. We need to bring back constraints as a virtue.