40 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

It has to be said over and over, LOUDLY, that the struggle to pay for and provide care to loved ones who are “dependent” on you is not a personal failure, doesn't have to be a struggle, and IS NOT as much of a struggle in other countries that have created nationalized systems of support through legislation.

Americans, who pride themselves on independence and anti-socialism, do not actually want to struggle to meet their basic needs. We have just been conditioned to believe that there is no alternative to struggling except to become rich enough to no longer struggle; we've been conditioned to believe that being “unable to afford” basic amenities like childcare, eldercare, and housing is our own shortcoming; we have been conditioned to believe that we must carry it all on our own backs, unrelieved and unaided. This is patently false. We struggle because the stigma of socialism has been disingenuously linked with federal paid family medical leave and other social support programs subsidized by government.

Who is benefiting from this mindset? Wealthy capitalists. The economy does not actually support bootstrap wealth accumulation. It supports capitalistic exploitation of human labor that costs less than living expenses. The human laborers are convinced to keep working for wages below their costs of living because they're told that hard work is the key to getting out of poverty, eventually.

The fact is that the only way to get straight capital wealth is to invest large amounts of money in stock and not “work” at all. But if everyone did this, who would run the literal machines of commerce; the bulldozers and combines and power looms, the tractor trailers and cranes? The whole system is carried on the principle that people mistake purposely fabricated inequity for temporary poverty.

Expand full comment

We have been raised on the Horatio Alger mythology and a person hears it enough, by the time they are 7 years old, they believe all that! 😬💩💩💩💩💩 especially the MAGAS that I know. ( mostly Whites)

Expand full comment

Yes well articulated Carly.

Expand full comment
Error