What's your impression of our [US] country? I ask in earnest because
I'm about to offer mine. This will be heavily characterized by my
thoughts after watching “Inequality For All” by Robert Reich.
If you want a history lesson of inequality, this is a movie for
you. You will learn how and when wages stagnate. You will see
parallels from the 1930s to what's happening now. You will get every
number your heart could ever want regarding GDP or value. What you
won't get is really anything to do about it. This is unfortunate
because Reich knows his shit, is data backed, but most importantly,
he's in the minority of anyone who seems capable of fixing things.
This doesn't mean he doesn't know how. Many people know how and
I'd argue that he's one of them. But his method isn't rooted in what
appears to be the actual state. His version for fixing things is to
rise up and realize that we make the laws. We create the government
that structures how free enterprise works. If we would only take it
upon ourselves and remain optimistic, because history is on our side,
things will eventually play out for the better.
For my part, I'm in no way an optimist. I don't acknowledge that
we have a real government. I don't know how you can have a Supreme
Court with justices that rub elbows with the Koch brothers. I don't
know how money or corporations are people or can speak.
Gerrymandering exists. Lobbying exists to the tune of investing 150
million to make 1.2 trillion the next year. We can't change the laws
because we literally don't have people who speak for us. The best we
are is an angry mob in the streets.
I really want to drive home how unhappy I am that the “optimist”
attitude seemed to be a selling point from the film. Reich travels
the country listening to peoples' stories of hardship. Working 2 and
3 jobs to pay the rent and barely feed the kids. People shacking up
with friends or back home. He knows that technology and cheap labor
over seas means that there is no new jobs just waiting over the
horizon. These people have ideas about starting families or one day
finding a better job to maybe afford a house or better car. These
people should be rioting in the streets. Optimism in this context
only serves to slow things down.
India and China are emerging markets. Both have a massive amount
of people that want the same crap Americans want. Do you think
companies care about getting you a job so you can afford their crap
when several billion people are hitting the scene becoming engineers
and doctors so they can live up to the example we set? Things will
not get better here. Legislation is dead because it's bought and paid
for. Unless you find a way to subvert the current paradigm, you're
absolutely stuck suffering it.
His point about history being on our side strikes another kind of
chord. My perspective of history shows that there's very human things
that go wrong at any time well before we decide to be responsible
about the free market. Not to mention, in a global economy, we're
still contending and negotiating with plenty of areas of the world
who don't think as “progressively” as we pretend we do. If
anything, history is teaching us that no matter how angry a group of
people gets and does something to reform, with enough time, money,
and influence, the rich will get their way eventually anyway, as if
they weren't all along.
To me, we ignore an overall philosophy. We don't appreciate that
greed, is in fact, bad. People are fundamentally selfish. Even if
it's private and they don't try to justify it with bastardized
interpretations of social Darwinism and Ayn Rand. When you stop
talking about human capital and consider yourself to be wealthy
because of your manipulation of law and percentages of pensions,
things go to shit. I don't know why we pretend that this is not
what's happening. I don't know how people forgot to be human. I know
the internet is distracting and poverty in this country looks
different than in others. But why did we volunteer to be so stupid
about it?
Reich's movie isn't going to do anything more or less than a
Michael Moore one. A few people will learn a little more about how
we're getting royally fucked, but it's not prescriptive. It doesn't
identify bad guys because it doesn't believe there really are any.
It's just “capitalism's” fault. It's our fault because
we haven't crafted the correct amount of laws. We're talking about
the Secretary of Labor under Clinton with all his information and
influence and practically zero ability after 30 years of the same
mantra able to shift the underlying tide. So what, we put one person
like him in Congress and cross our fingers?
I look at all of my broke friends and their debt. I look at the
ones who even with jobs are making what a teenager at a shit job
would make even if they got “specialized” training. How many of
you are just around the corner from a white picket fence and a kid? I
look at the laws that have track records of keeping the country
perpetually screwed over many years. I look at the smart people who
aren't doing it any better than the next smart person.
This is why I think we're fucked. Just because your county or town
does something a little different or manages to find a small piece of
pie does not mean anything about the overall system. It doesn't mean
people are smart enough nor inclined to figure out how to call out
the real people making real decisions that take real food out of
their mouths and really cause a lot of harm.
I live in the now generation. I don't even want to talk about
things like gay rights or abortion because it's tantamount to
discussing the merits of slavery. We shouldn't have let them go. I
don't need pundits telling me tired, broke, and word for word
arguments from 30 years ago that don't work. I think fuck them, stop
giving them a voice, fix it and move on. Just “be happy” and wait
for history to take over doesn't work for me.
And fuck pretending that everyone's an innocent bystander. You can
listen to Jaime Diamond explain that Wall Street is STILL doing the
same things that crashed the economy in 2008 today, in front of
Congress, and nothing gets done. He gets to stay rich and his bank
lives and we'll be the ones living the consequences of it for, if
we're lucky, just under the majority of our lives.
Finally, economists have this habit of talking about growth. We
need growth. We need people to buy buy buy. If we don't the economy
slows down, people don't buy, we don't have taxes, we don't invest in
infrastructure, everything starts to go to shit because it's broken
and people are dumber. Granted, this is how it's worked since the
70s, but I think it's because people haven't figured out how to
subvert power. When I hear growth, I hear pollution. When I hear buy,
I think back to when I learned that the idea of an identity being
wrapped up in what you buy being crafted by companies back in the
50s. I think of mental health and priorities when you attempt to
“Americanize” billions of new people to repeat the process.
Maybe we look at what it could be like if we pulled out. Maybe we
create things independent of shitty decision making from rich
assholes who deny you the right to be educated, healthy, or even
basically functioning. They only win that game if you allow yourself
to play it.
I'm not happy nor optimistic because I don't know anyone who
really experiences what we have in this country who is. Maybe I
should just get more rich friends?
