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The system is stacked against fundamental change. Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never
by zanny 6y ago
The system is stacked against fundamental change. Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere.
The only time, in the US at least, anything has led to long term appreciable change in society for the betterment of the working class was when capitalism was in legitimate fear for survival in the face of communist revolutions the world over aside the great depression. The FDR generation didn't go from effectively total labor exploitation unbounded to 40 hour work weeks, unions, paid vacation, and safety regulations because the collective bourgeois woke up one day thinking their time had come by happenstance. Concessions were made to preserve the power structures that gave immense power to few at the cost of the many.
The civil rights movement was comparable where the most popular speaker in the country was espousing socialism and class consciousness and had to be assassinated to stop his movement adjourning organized aggression by the Black Panthers who also were mass murdered. But all that blood only managed to move the dial a hairs breadth toward liberty.
We will all be good citizens voting for one of the two choices presented us by our rulers this November, many of us going into the polls knowing the structural organization of said process means our vote is totally meaningless - first past the post, winner take all races down a scorecard of positions 90% of which you know nothing about but the letters aside the names, names you probably only heard in TV or radio ads inundating you for two months prior. Its a mockery of actual democracy and largely always has been - there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men.
- ericmay 6y ago> Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere. I'd say this is just a convincing argument that we can't leave it to government to fix society then. With respect to your points about capitalism. Yea sure. I think that to create a society that better respects the rights of workers and ensures that people live good lives. You'll see countries that are considered even more capitalistic than the US like the Nordics have really good government that they vote for and participate in, and they have great protections for workers. But they also pay for those things with higher taxes. The issue in the US is just that we don't believe the government can effectively do those things (and for decent enough reasons) so we just sit in this vicious cycle. Nobody wants to fix things. > there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men. Well there's a few reasons, but part of why we have a republic instead of a direct democracy is because the founders were worried about mobs of uneducated voters causing the government to do really dumb things. At the time the only educated people were white, land-owning men. If you can't trust your fellow citizens right now to vote, then I'm not sure why you'd trust them with even more power. To me it seems day in and day out I'm more and more convinced Americans shouldn't even be allowed to vote on account of how many dumb decisions we make. We don't deserve a republic or democracy. Fat, lazy, entitlement mentality for far too many.