Some of my frustrations:
• The stratification of society
◦ The agglomeration of private business in to large multinationals who can outcompete or buy-to-neutralise smaller companies.
◦ That capital begets capital without any kind of tax on capital to taper the ‘positive’/runaway feedback-loop that develops.
▪ That the capital necessary to reach this position is out of reach for me.
◦ That the poor are sent to live away from the more affluent
▪ This helps perpetuate their distinctness and their lack of privilege
◦ That education leading to qualifications doesn’t by itself lead to getting on in life. It seems more like a system designed for laundering inherited privilege and justifying elitism than anything else.
◦ Inheritance of wealth/privilege/property
▪ Corresponding massively unequal distribution of assets
▪ That certain companies (and their assets) are exempt from inheritance tax.
◦ That I have mental health/adjustment issues and am broadly left to fend for myself.
▪ Someone is profiting by this and I, along with others, suffer the externalities which are manufactured for their benefit.
◦ The hierarchical work environment.
▪ The sense that it’s to be expected that leadership relies on manipulation and lying to those under your command.
▪ That you must tolerate being, often transparently, lied to by higher ups.
▪ That you should expect to be screwed over at some point by your employer.
▪ That for some reason everyone has to work 7+ hours a day, 5 days a week taking up so much of our willpower to someone else’s ends.
▪ That, for the most part, work is stultifying and at odds with personal growth.
▪ That we pretend that because you don’t have to go through this if you’re rich or well connected, we have a ‘free’ society.
◦ The terrible inequitable distribution of land (amongst other assets).
◦ That 40% of people in G7 societies haven’t seen any improvement in living standards since 1985 (and some have seen decreases in living standards).
• The inequitable bias of newsworthy items by the press.
• The misleading, divisive and fundamentally inane nature of political discourse.
◦ It completely misses considering what is necessary for a good life. Should this not be what politics is for?
• The idea that the current socioeconomic system is somehow natural or inevitable.
• That I am fighting a constant uphill futile battle
◦ That I will be the most likely victim of it.
• The inability for me to fit in/feel at-one with the bulk of the population – or even to find the part of the population which I can feel at home with. (Brave New World style)
◦ The feeling that I am wrong for being different.
• The idea that I, and only I, am to blame for the problems I face.
◦ I am clearly not a product of my environment at all.
• The personal isolation I feel.
• The political corruption.
• The political incompetence (with potential indistinguishable elements of corruption)
◦ That the help-to-buy scheme cost the tax payer almost £100bn and achieved results opposed to the alleged aims of the scheme (some Lords report from 2022).
• The rent-extraction by a financial system encouraged by Government support and regulation.
• The idea that we laugh at the USSR for its attempts at a planned economy, but we happily arrive at similar ends through the use of gigantic multinational asset management companies (and yet do nothing about them).
• The advertising and ubiquitous corporate speak designed to incrementally and ever-so-slightly misdirect.
• The impotence I feel to be able to change anything.
• The fear I feel when considering speaking out about these issues.
• That the idea of there being too few people for available jobs is seen as problematic – surely it is to be expected in any sufficiently complex society? It’s just about prioritisation (i.e. appropriate use of resources).
◦ Should we really be having more children to support economic growth? Surely that would be the cart leading the horse? Shouldn’t an economy adapt to serve whatever the populace chooses to do? Is our society really so brittle that it can’t cope with change?
• That we have a system that is unable to successfully prioritise how and where people should work.
◦ Should we really have so many people working in advertising, PR, gambling, blockchain, AI bullshit machines, etc. when we don’t have a sufficient number of doctors and nurses to look after the health of the nation?
▪ Yes, not everyone has the same interests and abilities, but this is a bit ridiculous. People are to an extent shaped by the choices available to them; make it more attractive to work in healthcare and more people will want to become people who are good at working in healthcare.
• That an industry can end up holding a whole economy/people hostage and have to be bailed out. Externalise the risk, privatise the profit. And that said system is in the same position of control 16 years after such a crisis.
• That politicians chase the votes of the marginal voters to the exclusion of all others.
◦ That so many votes are thrown away in a systematic pursuit of turning a minority of votes into a majority Government. How democratic.
• That we seem to continually arrive at the notion that we are powerless to change any of this. So much expert advice and predictions are predicated on nothing fundamentally changing and to me, that reinforces the notion that nothing can change.
◦ I suspect this is why people are allegedly sick of ‘experts’.
It felt good to write this down, and thought it might feel good to share it - but I do expect to be told I’m a complete idiot at least once.
Agree with all of your points, the systems that have been put in place are to preserve the wealth of the wealthy and take power away from those that don’t have access to wealth.
Capitalism has reached an end-game state. The rich under the status quo have won, and won’t accept less than they already have. It requires infinite growth like cancer, and if this isn’t stopped, most of society will continue to suffer more each year. People need to be shown to understand that we need a new model, that focuses on fulfilling basic societal needs over individualistic pursuits, and that this way of life can be better than what capitalism brings. Shorter work weeks - we only work the same number of hours to fuel infinite growth, eliminate jobs that serve no societal purpose, all corporate decisions are only driven by what is legal, and that the cost of being caught is low enough for them not to care. If that is legislated and enforced effectively (ideally in all developed countries), the people who hold capital will have nowhere to run.
Proportionate representation would be a first step towards regaining agency in the political process. People wouldn’t be forced to vote for one or other of the two only parties that can win in this structure (Tory or Tory-lite), they could vote for parties that actually advocate for policies that help those with less, those in need, and those who have been ignored by the past Governments. Get them to pass progressive laws that constrain those with power and tie it to corporate responsibility for societal good (a liveable minimum wage, restrict what jobs can be offshored or at least make societal mitigations, tie board wages to a certain multiplier of the company, or a median), enforceable criminal sanctions for white collar offences like corruption, and punitive disincentives to taking advantage of positions of power.
All this is possible, but it requires motivated people to be in the right places at the right times to make the right decisions happen.
Millennials and Gen Z have pretty good heads on their shoulders. In this election you can see the Tories sweating because the FPTP system is being weaponised against them to plan a wipe-out on polling day - well-deserved hubris. I have hope that the generations that have received nothing from consecutive self-serving Governments will make concerted efforts to change the system. Unions were unanimous in telling Labour they wanted PR. Next election, maybe that will make it into their manifesto.
It’s hard to be optimistic because thing have been getting worse for so long, but this decline is also not sustainable. If the change won’t come peacefully, it is inevitable that non-peaceful interventions will follow. They know that, and they know what the ultimate consequences would be.
At the same time, the encroaching climate crisis, climate refugees, the gulf stream stopping causing European temperatures to drop, and everything else that goes along with it is only likely to distract from this aim, embolden and elect populist fascists like Farage, and take us down darker paths. But if PR can be brought in before this happens, the future could be better for the masses, at least a bit better than they are now.