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Zonie63 -> RE: Why feminism is still necessary (11/4/2013 5:08:30 AM)
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ORIGINAL: egern
Bingo!
It was bad in the 80's, and it is bad again in the teens, with a lot of people just mindlessly accepting that greed should rule the world, never mind the consequences for same, and that anything and everything is ok if you can make money out if it. It is not just immoral, it is stupid!
I agree completely. Greed became rather brazen in the 1980s, and it’s been that way ever since. At least during the period from the 1940s to the 1970s, there was at least some consideration given to working class people, and as a result, America’s standard of living was higher and our economy was on much more solid ground.
I happen to think that the reason things are bad now is precisely because of what was done during the 1980s. It’s just that our economy was so strong back then that it took this long for the consequences to finally reach us.
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Many of the big banks in the UK based their founding of trades with slaves. Very enterprising.
It’s similar in the U.S., where much of our early economy was built on slavery and territorial expansion.
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I seem to remember that back in the history if the US there was some very rough fights about salary for miners - for factories?
Yes, and I think the same thing occurred in Britain, too. The views of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo dominated the early thinking of industrialists. That’s where some of the cold-blooded harshness of capitalism seems to come from, and as a result, life was pretty miserable for the early workers during the Industrial Revolution. The result was poverty and privation, although that would lead to some uprisings, riots – and even revolutions in some countries.
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With the industrialization also came a new level of exploration - the 'satanic mills' in UK - and we should just accept that as 'human nature?
Malthus did. He argued that population increases by a geometric ratio whereas the food supply increases by only arithmetic ratio, leading to his view that the population will always outstrip the food supply. This view carries the implication that the lot of the masses can never be improved. If their condition is temporarily bettered, they will produce more children which will outstrip the food supply and threaten starvation for all. Only poverty and privation hold them in check, Malthus (and many capitalists) would argue.
It also carries the implication that it’s not the fault of the wealthy that the poor are miserable, but because of the poor’s own behavior. This, too, is the central message of capitalism, laissez-faire economics, and the implied interpretation of the “American Dream.”
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That is to say that greed and stupidity should and must rule the world, until the world is no more. If we accept that, we are equally stupid.
You’re right, but unfortunately, stupidity seems to reign supreme.
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What I mean to say here is that there is a lot more to it than 'if you work hard you will be rewarded'. You can work your ass off, and never get anywhere but backwards. It all depends. If the system calls for you to be more of a shark than your competitors, then I say the American dream is a nightmare. Same for other countries, of course.
It’s definitely been a nightmare for some. The notion that “if you work hard you will be rewarded” sounds similar to “you can be or have anything you want, as long as you’re willing to work for it.” This implies that if someone doesn’t get what they want or don’t seem rewarded by the standards set by our culture, then it means that they didn’t work hard enough and so they must be “losers.”
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My point is that the "American Dream" never really existed in the first place. There was the Industrial Revolution, which improved the standard of living in multiple countries, as well as a slow and steady movement towards liberalism which gave consideration to workers' rights and needs.
Pardon me but isn't it true that in the beginning there was some realism to the expression? People could get land cheaply and could start again. At the expense of the Indians obviously.
Yes, although the term “American Dream” itself was not coined until 1931:
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Adams coined the term "American Dream" in his 1931 book The Epic of America. His American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
For those coming from areas of the world which still were not free and where most people were peasants/serfs, the prospect of coming to America and realizing one’s dream was very real. I’m not denying that, and no doubt it took a great deal of hard work by millions of settlers who staked their claim.
But it also involved taking a great deal of land which already belonged to other people, as well as countless millions of acres of arable land (a benefit of our climate and geography) and huge reserves of untapped resources. A lot of capitalists and faux-patriots pat themselves on the back for our wonderful “system” for which they give sole credit for our wealth, strength, and high standard of living. To listen to some of these people talk, they make it seem like the same group of people could have accomplished the exact same thing if they settled on Antarctica.
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It is my impression that with industrialization the dream was turned nightmare. Exploitation the rule of the day. It certainly gave a lift to some people - a gigantic lift to some as well - but at the expense of the workers. Wealth is not got except at someone's expense.
I think that the upheavals and revolutions in the industrialized countries balanced things out. The real tragedy was that it actually had to come to that, in that the wealthy classes couldn’t just decide to be a little less greedy before they had a gun put to their heads. Of course, one also has to keep in mind that this is the same ilk of people who led their own nations into devastating world wars, so this is the mentality that we’re talking about.
The ironic thing about capitalism and the study of economics in general is that it’s incredibly myopic and somewhat politically naïve. They never seem to plan for nor put into their economic projections anything about revolutions, wars, or other upheavals in the world.
That’s why U.S. foreign policy seems so inconsistent and haphazard, because they don’t really plan for anything in advance or have any contingencies to fall back on. They just make it up as they go along because they’re apparently unable to look at the world today and come up with a coherent and rational analysis. To them, foreign policy is about “opening up new markets,” advocating some sort of world-wide capitalist utopia, but to me, that indicates a certain naïveté and ignorance about geopolitics and the world at large.
They don’t even seem to understand the basics of cause-and-effect. Remember after 9/11, when G.W. Bush said “they hate us for our freedom”? That statement speaks volumes about the general ignorance of America’s ruling class and their inability to understand the causes of why things happen in this world.
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Also, I sincerely doubt that anyone gave consideration to the needs or workers, these things are never given, they have to fought for and won. Sharks do not suddenly become humanitarians, much less fair.
I see your point, although I’ll have to give some credit to some of those in the ruling classes who had enough foresight to advocate liberal reforms before a total upheaval or full-blown revolution took place. I think there was some degree of sympathy for the working classes in the US and UK which allowed for reforms to incrementally change the system and make it better for the working classes – without a total change in government of the kind seen in the nations of Continental Europe. The resultant devastation of two world wars most likely caused even the most intransigently greedy aristocrats to think a bit about the consequences of their actions.
But now, the generations today are starting to forget all that, and those in the wealthy classes are reverting to their old myopic ways again.
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I agree that the American Dream is a myth, well suited to give people hope in spite of everything and keep them from changing things, in the US as well as everywhere else. 'Everyone can become President', right?
Yes, and as I mentioned above, there are plenty of rags-to-riches anecdotes in American history to feed this particular myth. Much has been made of the rise of Abraham Lincoln and other “Log Cabin Presidents.” Leadership is not a matter of birthright or nobility.
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Now, I do not deny that working hard and being clever can benefit people in the right position and at the right time. But to say that hard work is a guaranty that you will do well is to scorn slaves, mine and plant workers, domestic staff and a lot of other people who simply cannot get out. Yes a few, a very few, do. But you cannot base a whole concept in the few, and forget the rest.
Very true.
I do happen to agree that hard work and being clever can be beneficial to anyone, but this can be said of anyone in any country under any political system. There is nothing magical about a political system, although to say something like that would break the narcissistic bubble that many of my fellow Americans have cocooned themselves in.
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But I can't help saying that the said technological advancements also have a price - there are no free lunches. Overusing materials that are limited, making people into milk cows for the industry, making society fantastically vulnerable - what happens to everything if the electricity goes?
A bad sun flare?
Yes, of course, the system rests on a few precarious foundations, such as the incessant and hungry need for energy supplies. Several years ago, there was a fuel pipeline which burst north of Tucson and interrupted the flow of gasoline into the Phoenix area (Tucson was mostly unaffected). The pipeline was from Texas and was the source of around 70% of their supply, with the rest trucked in. As a result, there was a severe disruption for a couple of weeks. There were large gas lines, price gouging, and fights breaking out; it was a bit of a mess which was finally resolved once they fixed the pipeline. Similarly, overnight blackouts in major metropolitan have turned out to be utter bedlam in a very short period of time.
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