Re: this Feministe post (which a friend emailed me, because as I mentioned, I’ve been taking a break from reading most blogs)…
I must rant as if no one is looking, briefly.
I’m fed up w/ this bullshit. FED UP. I am just sick of all this groupthink/lockstep mentality going on. And I’m sorry but I’ve always thought that the people who think socialism is so awesome are privileged in their OWN way (as much as I’m sick of the word “privilege” being thrown around so much, too…) because it’s like, you know what, I know what it’s like to NOT have money, and I know it’s not romantic or revolutionary or transgressive - it SUCKS. So for me, having money is empowering not to mention “empaychecking.” Not everybody has the luxury to worry about what the best economic system is when they have to put food on the table, ever think of that? Plus the same old thing I keep coming back to… WHY is having money BAD?? It’s what you do with that money that counts, and yeah, feeding your family is pretty damn awesome. If you also have enough money to help others outside your family? GREAT!! But serious change takes economic leverage, and if we constantly vilify anybody who has a certain amount of money, we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot.
I’m fucking sick of it.
So there yo go. Cast me out, if you will. *shrug*
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10 Responses to "Super-annoyed, part 1"
Amber,
I totally agree with you on this one. I tried to read that blog post all the way through and only made it through about half of it before I gave up. I get sick of people blaming everyone else for their failures. I know things aren’t perfect but it is possible to succeed despite the odds. I also wonder what’s wrong with having money. I’ve seen my family diss other family members simply because they got rich. I can’t understand why people think it’s wrong to have money, either. I will truthfully be glad for the day when I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to keep a roof over our heads or how we’re going to eat. Good blog post. Keep up the good work.
“*shrug*”
a literary refernce like that can only mean war
From a comment on the linked post:
Ahh.. yes, because true feminists don’t want to get paid what they’re worth. Or something.
Amber (btw, love the blog), i believe it is quite possible to be pro-free-trade and anti-capitalist. Indeed, I would argue that is necessary to be anti-capitalist to truly favor voluntary exchange between free individuals. Capitalism, as it is actually practiced, is nothing but warmed-over merchantilism. It is the manipulation and perversion of market forces to benefit the entrenched interests at the expense of everyone else. Those entrenched interests usually being white, male, and with unfortunate attitudes toward women, people of color, and anyone not them, then yes, I assert capitalist feminists are indeed an oxymoron, and capitalism does support the patriarchy. However, I further assert that it not only possible but right and proper to be an agorist (advocate of a truly free market) and a feminist.
And the true, old school, pre- and non-marxist socialists had nothing against prospering. They were all about getting paid. That’s why they organized, agitated, and generally made a nuisance of themselves- They thought they, and their fellow workers, were being cheated by the bosses with the help of the State, and wanted their cut.
The point where free-trade advocacy and socialism differ and contradict each other is, I once more assert, the point where they begin to be misunderstood. If I may shamelessly plug (Im not directly involved in this, but I do admire and agree with them), I suggest perusing http://all-left.net/. I would also humbly recommend the works of Voltairne De Cleyre: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/cleyre/amertrad.html
It’s a complicated issue, but casting it as a “pro-capitalist feminist = oxymoron” is unhelpful from the start. I’d never say that a socialist or an anarchist couldn’t be a feminist, for example. It’s the same as pro-porn and anti-porn, the latter loudly demands for the exclusion of the former. How is this going to move us forward as women?
Like you, Amber, I’ve never had much luxury to worry about whether or not the present economic system I was living under was the “right” one, financially, I’ve been mostly on my own since I was 18, and my student debt is enormous. People will point to that as evidence of capitalism being evil - I would disagree. It’s not evil or good in and of itself, it’s just a system. The fact that this system made me worry about money and the future impacted me positively, though that experience is purely subjective.
I would furthermore say that what we have in the United States today is not late-stage capitalism, or anything like it ought to be, in fact. But I think our system should be enhanced, not tossed aside.
I guess for me, some personal feelings play into this as well, because a number of my staunch anti-capitalist “friends” went on to make light of my debt, and think it’s funny that I’m trying to repay it. When I asked them for advice, they were pretty flippant and assholish about it: stick it to the man! Change your name! Run away to Mexico! Bwa ha ha!
These people have had their parents supporting them throughout their lives, and they just didn’t get it. My predicament was a source of amusement for them.
This is part of the reason why I tend to react emotionally when these discussions start up. No real solution to folks like me are offered. So I look for my own solution.
My feeling exactly.
When I say I’m not anti-capitalist, ppl jump to conclusions and assume that means I’m sitting around chanting “U! S! A!” and am just pleased as punch w/ everything our country does economically. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the insistence on such black-and-white thinking really irritates me.
“Anti-Capitalist” is a term that’s used here to blanket a hell of a lot of people and points of view. And in a way that’s counterproductive. Basing a political critique or assessment off of what a handful of “Radical-to-wear-the-outfit” kids with no life experience isn’t very intellectually fair. Their arguments are flawed and unproductive from the start so why bother treating them as legit? Some people do seem to think that the kiddies represent what anti-unregulated capitalism IS. And they don’t.
The vast majority of people who want to reform the US want to do so based on Democratic Socialism. Which is the system used by most if not all of our contemporary democracies to great success. Dem-Socialism is a regulated capitalist system that allows for wealth so long as it isn’t accumulated at society’s detriment.
What you seem to be talking about is some sort of Communist hybrid that storms into the country nationalizing everything and keeping everybody in a state of poverty. That won’t happen. And of course, most of us are already IN a state of poverty. Even the clueless kids. If they live on their credit cards they’re just on borrowed time. If you can’t afford to have a chronic illness? Or to lose your job? You’re on a greased skid to hard-core, ugly poverty (where I am - lucky me).
Regulated Capitalism isn’t about making sure that you never become rich or keep you poor. It makes sure that no-one is dying next to you in a gutter so *that* you can become rich. And you simply cannot compare being middle class or poor in the US with being poor in Sweden or Denmark or even Canada. The only systems I know of that depend on most people being kept poor are communism, totalitarianism and unregulated capitalism (where we are - lucky us).
Most of the industrialized democratic nations of the world with higher or comparable standards of living are dem-socialist. Those nations have plenty of rich people. They have plenty of businesses - many of them small neighborhood businesses existing alongside transnational corporations.
Democratic Socialism is based on the idea that we all use the tools of society to our individual benefit and so we should all pay for those tools to be kept up. That payment should be in proportion to how much we use those collective tools. Why make a middle class factory worker pay more tax than their boss when their boss is using the roads to ship their product over? The boss’s shipping activities cause more damage to the infrastructure so she should pay more to keep it up. That sort of thing.
No one has to pay high health insurance costs but instead pays a smaller proportional amount for collective health coverage. Because illness effects everyone. Yeah, there can be issues with healthcare systems. But those issues are far better than what we have here. We’re so far beyond broken there isn’t vocab anymore to describe it.
You also have to keep in mind that each regulated capitalist state or socialist country does things differently depending on the needs of their people. Each country applies things differently to suit their own culture. So looking at Sweden’s system and objecting to it because it has elements that our culture doesn’t like is not a valid objection. Everyone applies the principles differently to suit their needs.
VERY IMPORTANT: I’m not saying that socialist nations have no problems. Every system has problems and issues. But where do you want your problems and issues to be? In our unregulated capitalist USA we’re trying to figure out how to get health care to kids who desperately need it. And we face heavy opposition to “giving” kids that health care. In France, they’re dealing with getting the balance right for working in a global economy. I think I’d like France’s problem more. Sure people cheat the system. In ANY system a fixed percentage are going to try to cheat. We currently have a three-year process for getting disability benefits in this country and the only ones who can jump all the hurdles are the damn cheaters who aren’t sick.
And unregulated-capitalism IS evil. Note I said *Unregulated.* And not profit, or wealth. Unregulated Capitalism is an evil system born out of the worst sort of greed. The twisted delusion of ultimate privileged: that everyone lives or dies by their own merit alone. That no one owes anything to their society. That it’s admirable to make a profit of a few cents off of the suffering of others because those others deserve to be where they are. Unregulated-capitalism washes the moral responsibility to community and society away with a sea of profit and a pile of shiny stuff. It is a soul rotting, consumptive sickness of corpulent avarice. Profit is good. It is. But a system that allows profit to precede people is evil. And regulation is what keeps profit-seeking from being evil.
And the thing is, it’s an evil that breeds violence, hatred, sickness and ignorance. Sooner or later, it will destroy itself. Unregulated Capitalism is as unsustainable as Stalinist/Marxist Communism. It will consume itself if left long enough. And I’d prefer reform over societal-inferno.
Yes, the Che Guevara shirt wearing, Anarchist wannabe, parent-supported kiddies are annoying as all hell. I can’t stand them either. But don’t give them the benefit of treating their rhetoric like real policy discussion. There are real ideas to discuss that just get tarred by the kiddie rhetoric. Too many people think that socialism is the same as communism. Or that a socialist USA would take everyone’s money away. And poor people need to be concerned about this crap and educated about it. Because we’re the only ones who are going to really understand what needs to be done. Otherwise someone else is going to formulate policy around their concept of poverty and it won’t be helpful.
Phoinix, I’m unsure how you’re defining capitalism here. I don’t think you’re defining it the way I did, since I define capitalism as including regulations on the market. I’m not saying my definition is better, I’m just striving for clarity.
Assuming you instead mean capitalism to mean something akin to market activity, how do you back up your assertion that unrestricted market activity IS evil? We’ve seen plenty of socialist nations, existing with various degrees of injustice, tyranny, stifling of the human spirit, some of them quite tolerable, some of them not. We’ve not seen any country support unrestricted market activity. Not, not even the US (especially not the US.) In fact, those large institutions that most often support the patriarchy- the State, various Churches, many types of Big Business- also support regulating, controlling, and taming market activity. Keeping it in its place. Far be it from me to confuse causation with correlation, but I find that very interesting.
And I’m sorry but I’ve always thought that the people who think socialism is so awesome are privileged in their OWN way (as much as I’m sick of the word “privilege” being thrown around so much, too…) because it’s like, you know what, I know what it’s like to NOT have money, and I know it’s not romantic or revolutionary or transgressive - it SUCKS. So for me, having money is empowering not to mention “empaychecking.”
OMG, A-frakkin’-men, Amber! I like knowing I can support myself without shaking in my boots over whether or not I will have a roof over my head or food in my stomach in THIS country.
While not specifically about this post, the following is more of a general statement based on my past.
Reading your latest posts, I think you are burning out. You are showing the same signs that I was, when I first started burning out. Don’t make the same mistake that I did, and keep trying to stay involved in the tech scene. I did that, and it took me five years to recover from burn out. I advise just walking away for a while. Cold turkey. Since you obviously have a solid tech base, you’ll easily be able to catch back up when you recover. Yeah, you’ll take some damage by doing it, but you’ll take less than if you drag it out. Or at least, thats my experience.
Though, specifically about this post - I disagree with Phoinix. I’m all for unregulated capitalism. When you require people to take care of others, you are enslaving them. Thats far more evil than people dieing in a ditch. If someone chooses to help others, thats laudable, and deserving of praise and help. But the key is, they aren’t enslaved, but are making the choice of their own free will. (Thats the unspoken evil in Socialist health care - you enslave the doctors, and force them to use their hard earned skills on what you want them to.)
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