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Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. A pragmatist would have been more sympathetic fo
by arrosenberg 1y ago
Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. A pragmatist would have been more sympathetic for reasons beyond pure capitalist economics.
- linotype 1y agoI just don’t buy this argument. By global standards, even the poorest Americans (with obvious exceptions like the homeless) are relatively wealthy. Comparison is the theft of joy.
- arrosenberg 1y agoSeems kind of silly to pretend it won’t happen though. Especially since we’ve chosen to base social status on wealth.
- teaearlgraycold 1y agoWell it would be one thing if it were an inevitable natural conclusion. But working people are getting poorer because the owner class is hoarding wealth. It’s simply unjust. It’s the difference between losing your house to a hurricane and having someone burn it down.
- nandomrumber 1y agoYou say comparison is the theft of joy, and then ask us to compare to an irrelevant metric. If living standards are falling, grocery prices have increased, rents have gone up, wages have stagnated, what does the price of eggs in China have to do with my assessment of the local conditions.
- linotype 1y agoOver what period of time have prices at grocery stores and rents not increased? Food and clothes are cheap by historical standards as a percentage of income. https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/Charts/58367/food-prices_fig09.png https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/Charts/...
- nandomrumber 1y agoWhat does the last two years of that graph indicate?
- pazimzadeh 1y agoReplying to @linotype, below your comment: > I just don’t buy this argument. By global standards, even the poorest Americans (with obvious exceptions like the homeless) are relatively wealthy. Comparison is the theft of joy. Define wealth. The cheapest option for many foods in other countries is often not only much cheaper, but also of much higher quality than the cheapest option for the same type of item in the US (bread, rice, etc..) in fact their cheap version could easily be pass for the US premium grocery version.
- philipov 1y agoYou are speaking as if there is a single objective agreement between people on what constitutes the most pragmatic answer. There is no such agreement. The foundation of liberalism is that we can not agree on first principles. An authoritarian crackdown is just as much an expression of pragmatism if the actor believes they can win.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government. No, they aren't. It's dubious that even the widening relative gap between the working class and the capitalist class plays a major role, though that at least has the virtue of being a real condition and not a fantasy.
- arrosenberg 1y agoIf you have an alternative hypothesis, I’m all ears. The lack of good paying jobs and the knock on effects of expanding wealth disparity seems to be underlying most of the issues driving radicalism, left and right, up and down. In America, at least, workers think tomorrow will be worse than today and they are resorting to populism to try and reverse the trend.
- iepathos 1y agoI don’t think it’s accurate to say that the working class is “resorting to populism to reverse the trend.” If anything, the fact that so many working-class voters support a wealthy oligarchy—one that consistently advances policies benefiting the super-rich at the expense of ordinary people—suggests that a significant portion of the population is being swayed by misinformation and manipulation, not that they’re successfully advocating for their own interests. Ironically, it’s often the opposite party that actually pushes for policies that would materially benefit the working class. The real fallacy is equating the current wave of so-called “populism” with a genuine effort to improve conditions for workers. In practice, what’s being called “populism” is frequently just another vehicle for entrenched elites to consolidate power, not a movement to empower ordinary people.
- lurk2 1y ago> Ironically, it’s often the opposite party that actually pushes for policies that would materially benefit the working class. Such as?
- 1y ago
- Der_Einzige 1y ago[flagged]
- kmeisthax 1y agoWhat do you think is a driver of that male loneliness? The traditional heterosexual norms of courtship and marriage don't exactly work when your country has a huge swath of people in economic precarity. People put off dating, sex, and procreation because they can't afford it. Unless you plan to just... force people to fuck? And hope people don't notice their finances getting fucked? Seems like a recipe for drama[0]. > oh wait actually soon Marxist’s are going to do the anti-AI shit of claiming they’re sentient and thus deserve “rights” As someone who's never read Marx, this feels like a strawman at best? At the very least, "liberate the robots" is a pro-AI position, not an anti-AI one. [0] https://xkcd.com/592/ https://xkcd.com/592/
- arrosenberg 1y agoThis is pretty unhinged, so I’ll only respond to the one interesting thing - it’s pretty obvious that part of the male sexlessness problem is related to a lack of good paying, respectable jobs. Tough to get a good woman if you don’t have that going for you.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Deteriorating conditions for the working class are the main driver of our push toward authoritarian government I don’t buy this anymore. The evidence is for a simpler hypothesis: 20 to 30% of Americans are stupid. They vote against their own economic interests, which doesn’t make sense if wealth is the problem. My personal hypothesis is lead exposure. But further empowering that segment with wealth strikes me as counterproductive.
- arrosenberg 1y agoDoesn't explain it at all. The biggest swing from 2020 to 2024 was people under 45 voting for Trump at a much higher rate, mostly driven by men. Anyone under 45 was born at least 5 years after lead gas was banned in cars. They're mad because they don’t see a path to the future they were promised. Calling them stupid is patronizing and counterproductive, even if true.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoI’m not saying all Trump voters are stupid. Just that there is a stupid subset that are not rationally motivated. It’s productive to call this out, because I think it requires reworking our political system to deal with their threat. Fortunately, MAGA seems eager to set the precedents we’ll need in the future. (It’s also not patronising because I don’t care what they do as much as that they don’t cause problems for other people. That’s defensive more than patronising.)
- tekknik 1y agoI propose another hypothesis, those that haven’t learned of the desire for real change instead of stagnant leadership will continue to make the same mistake each election cycle. Learn to read the signs instead of calling people stupid for not agreeing with you, and then following it up with an attempt to force their alignment.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
- hhghkj 1y agoBad education system and social media contribute too. Manipulating the masses has never been as easy and cheap as it is now. Russia in particular knows how to do it in scale.