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Ok, it's December and that means it's the start of the Christmas season. For one reason or another, I frequently rue this time of year. If it's not because I'm working retail, it's because I've got no gig at all. I'll go on the record and say that my last two years were the best I've had in about a decade, but I'm back in the slump again. It's a tough month to not be able to afford presents and it kind of sucks to be in that situation and hoping for Christmas money from relatives because it'll go to making sure they don't cart my automobile away.
Don't worry, though. I'm not in hysterics about the situation like I was last time. This is the more pragmatic look at the situation, but it's the same for me as it is for thousands of Americans throughout the country. I was a guy who, even if he wasn't always excited about it, went to work every day and took pride in doing a good job for a passable wage. The corporation who made that happened in the first place took a large number of solid-but-unremarkable jobs and turned them into below-living-wage jobs. Dell, basically, gets to pocket the remainder, so that's your microcosm for why the economy looks like it does.
Anyway, that was actually not what I was coming here for. There was something else that I keep meaning to go on about and never got around to it. In this period of economic downturn, it frequently gets relegated to a 'future issue' that's tangential and in the effort of keeping shit focused around here (which I clearly already do a poor job of), it gets left out. But. Ahem.
First of all, realize that I read the article a while ago and don't even know who hosted it. I don't have a citation, so you'll have to take my word for it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you're the kind of person who wouldn't, I'll point out that you're reading a political post on LiveJournal. Not quite the hallmark of robust journalism and punditry, this. What I had read was a paleo-conservatives take on OWS; a man right out of the Nixon-to-Regan era talking about the protesters and how it's no surprise that they're unhappy.
However, he went on to say, they're treating wealth like a zero-sum game and it's not. We can always, he went on, produce more things. All the things. As much as anyone could ever want. All we have to do is make that happen. We don't have to take from the rich, and it doesn't matter if there's a huge wealth discrepancy as long as everyone has plenty of stuff.
There, that's what we're talking about, today. And it's a very reasoned and solid talking point from a reasonable fellow. It's also totally and completely a) wrong and b) missing the point.
The wealth discrepancy exists and anyone who tries to tell you differently is either terribly mislead (if it's on the street) or in someones pocket (if it's on television). There are a million charts and graphs that will tell you this, and most of them are right. The problem isn't that the 99% don't have enough stuff. It's that they can't afford what they need. Pro-One Percenter's will tell you that we're practically overflowing with things, which is probably true. But a television, smart phone, or game station is cheap. They're the circuses that go along with our McBread. It's gas, cars, houses, and groceries. Saying everyone has a cell phone is obfuscation. We don't want cell phones. We don't want stuff. We don't have security.
More then that, though, the truth is that we actually can't make a never ending stream of useless crap. There's a limited amount of oil for gas and plastics, there's a decaying infrastructure that we're ignoring, and there's the fact that Americans are gobbling up the production of an entire planet. But these are things that can and will run out.
I love 'process' as much as the next guy. It's a fun myth that makes us feel pretty good about ourselves and how we live in the 'future'. And I'll be honest and say that the things we can do amaze me, excite me, and make me feel positive about a hypothetical future. That said, we've intentionally developed an economy that we insist needs to keep growing. It's a consumer economy and that's what capitalism is based on. If we had a never ending supply of material to go with a never ending growth rate of new consumers, that'd be fine. We don't. And that's it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Our stuff is designed to break because that means we buy more stuff when we don't have to. The lessons we're taught about being frugal and buying things to last all tank our economy and our economy is a construct to facilitate the wealth of our nation. But if you want to know the end lesson of our economic goals, let me tell you that we're already doing it right. This is the end result. This is the economy working as intended. It's basically slave labor and shit that breaks in a closed cycle. And if you think that's a bad thing, you have to re-think capitalism, because we can't afford it. Eventually scarcity is going to be a thing. And peak oil is already here. You can see it from the end of your driveway.
We must become accustomed to the idea that we have limited resources. It only seems like we don't because we've been taking from everyone else. If you want the absolute truth, I've been told that if we spread around the wealth into a number where everyone's got the same number of resources, they'd be scant indeed. I don't know what the number is, to be honest with you, but the argument was against a perceived idea of 'fairness'. They were saying, 'look, if you really wanted to be fair, this is what you'd have. now shut up and go back to your first world problems, because you're the global 1%.' All that tells me is that we're still doing it wrong.
Don't worry, though. I'm not in hysterics about the situation like I was last time. This is the more pragmatic look at the situation, but it's the same for me as it is for thousands of Americans throughout the country. I was a guy who, even if he wasn't always excited about it, went to work every day and took pride in doing a good job for a passable wage. The corporation who made that happened in the first place took a large number of solid-but-unremarkable jobs and turned them into below-living-wage jobs. Dell, basically, gets to pocket the remainder, so that's your microcosm for why the economy looks like it does.
Anyway, that was actually not what I was coming here for. There was something else that I keep meaning to go on about and never got around to it. In this period of economic downturn, it frequently gets relegated to a 'future issue' that's tangential and in the effort of keeping shit focused around here (which I clearly already do a poor job of), it gets left out. But. Ahem.
First of all, realize that I read the article a while ago and don't even know who hosted it. I don't have a citation, so you'll have to take my word for it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you're the kind of person who wouldn't, I'll point out that you're reading a political post on LiveJournal. Not quite the hallmark of robust journalism and punditry, this. What I had read was a paleo-conservatives take on OWS; a man right out of the Nixon-to-Regan era talking about the protesters and how it's no surprise that they're unhappy.
However, he went on to say, they're treating wealth like a zero-sum game and it's not. We can always, he went on, produce more things. All the things. As much as anyone could ever want. All we have to do is make that happen. We don't have to take from the rich, and it doesn't matter if there's a huge wealth discrepancy as long as everyone has plenty of stuff.
There, that's what we're talking about, today. And it's a very reasoned and solid talking point from a reasonable fellow. It's also totally and completely a) wrong and b) missing the point.
The wealth discrepancy exists and anyone who tries to tell you differently is either terribly mislead (if it's on the street) or in someones pocket (if it's on television). There are a million charts and graphs that will tell you this, and most of them are right. The problem isn't that the 99% don't have enough stuff. It's that they can't afford what they need. Pro-One Percenter's will tell you that we're practically overflowing with things, which is probably true. But a television, smart phone, or game station is cheap. They're the circuses that go along with our McBread. It's gas, cars, houses, and groceries. Saying everyone has a cell phone is obfuscation. We don't want cell phones. We don't want stuff. We don't have security.
More then that, though, the truth is that we actually can't make a never ending stream of useless crap. There's a limited amount of oil for gas and plastics, there's a decaying infrastructure that we're ignoring, and there's the fact that Americans are gobbling up the production of an entire planet. But these are things that can and will run out.
I love 'process' as much as the next guy. It's a fun myth that makes us feel pretty good about ourselves and how we live in the 'future'. And I'll be honest and say that the things we can do amaze me, excite me, and make me feel positive about a hypothetical future. That said, we've intentionally developed an economy that we insist needs to keep growing. It's a consumer economy and that's what capitalism is based on. If we had a never ending supply of material to go with a never ending growth rate of new consumers, that'd be fine. We don't. And that's it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Our stuff is designed to break because that means we buy more stuff when we don't have to. The lessons we're taught about being frugal and buying things to last all tank our economy and our economy is a construct to facilitate the wealth of our nation. But if you want to know the end lesson of our economic goals, let me tell you that we're already doing it right. This is the end result. This is the economy working as intended. It's basically slave labor and shit that breaks in a closed cycle. And if you think that's a bad thing, you have to re-think capitalism, because we can't afford it. Eventually scarcity is going to be a thing. And peak oil is already here. You can see it from the end of your driveway.
We must become accustomed to the idea that we have limited resources. It only seems like we don't because we've been taking from everyone else. If you want the absolute truth, I've been told that if we spread around the wealth into a number where everyone's got the same number of resources, they'd be scant indeed. I don't know what the number is, to be honest with you, but the argument was against a perceived idea of 'fairness'. They were saying, 'look, if you really wanted to be fair, this is what you'd have. now shut up and go back to your first world problems, because you're the global 1%.' All that tells me is that we're still doing it wrong.
