Regarding that second to last comment, how did the ruling class instill this frogs in the bucket mentality among the working class so effectively? It’s one of the most potent ideological weapons of capitalism in my opinion. Upon experiencing injustice at work, 99% of western workers won’t think “I deserve better”, they’ll just get angry thinking about some office worker with slightly better working conditions. It makes me so pessimistic whenever I hear it.
It’s part of a pervasive attempt to make every american think they’re a member of the petite-bourgeoisie. It is widely acknowledged that working sucks, but the “American Dream” is to simply become the exploiter rather than improve conditions.
Vilification (and racialization) of the poor makes everybody think they’re “middle class”. What does middle class mean? Nobody knows as it has no useful definition, other than “not working class”.
Post WWII, suburbs were designed at least partly to get people “invested” into the “market” through owning their own homes (the other part was due to racism). Housing as a commodity means homeowners view themselves as a sort of solo investment firm manager, and therefore more likely to identify with business owners than with employees.
Similarly, the bourgeois concept of retirement is that eventually a smart and savvy person will be able to save up and live off of passive income, IE landlording and investments, which ties them to the market and means that they have a stake in “the economy”. Again, this makes people identify with capitalists over other working people.
Just generally destroying the labor movement means that workers seeking to better their circumstances can see they only have one path to a better life, that of the used jetski dealer, because any chance of improving working conditions is seen (not inaccurately) as unlikely or impossible.
I think a major contributing factor to this is American reliance on employers for healthcare. It’s a lot easier to quit and seek better working conditions elsewhere if you know major medical expenses won’t ruin you in the interim - this is about 10x as true in America due to the corruption and resulting additional costs endemic to the system.
If America manages to somehow implement single payer, I believe the potency of this ideological weapon would diminish drastically.
I changed jobs recently from one with “good” employer healthcare to one with “good+” employer healthcare. I was in a position to arrange it so that I would not only have no lapse in coverage, I would be double covered for a 2 week period. in fact, both insurance companies are under the same aegis / brand and honor each other’s network agreements. I researched this all methodically.
even with every advantage in the world, the transition has been a shit show with emails, phone calls, waiting, more phone calls, etc just to keep my extremely common, regular ass not-fun medication coming. not to mention, I still have to initiate healthcare with a completely new PCP anyway and delay my checkup by 2 months because of it, and NONE of this was communicated to me despite me telling everyone a month in advance.
100% people are locked into shit by the wealthcare system making any minor changes into total shit shows.
Regarding that second to last comment, how did the ruling class instill this frogs in the bucket mentality among the working class so effectively? It’s one of the most potent ideological weapons of capitalism in my opinion. Upon experiencing injustice at work, 99% of western workers won’t think “I deserve better”, they’ll just get angry thinking about some office worker with slightly better working conditions. It makes me so pessimistic whenever I hear it.
It’s part of a pervasive attempt to make every american think they’re a member of the petite-bourgeoisie. It is widely acknowledged that working sucks, but the “American Dream” is to simply become the exploiter rather than improve conditions.
Nice post!
Thank you for this amazingly thorough explanation!
I think a major contributing factor to this is American reliance on employers for healthcare. It’s a lot easier to quit and seek better working conditions elsewhere if you know major medical expenses won’t ruin you in the interim - this is about 10x as true in America due to the corruption and resulting additional costs endemic to the system.
If America manages to somehow implement single payer, I believe the potency of this ideological weapon would diminish drastically.
I changed jobs recently from one with “good” employer healthcare to one with “good+” employer healthcare. I was in a position to arrange it so that I would not only have no lapse in coverage, I would be double covered for a 2 week period. in fact, both insurance companies are under the same aegis / brand and honor each other’s network agreements. I researched this all methodically.
even with every advantage in the world, the transition has been a shit show with emails, phone calls, waiting, more phone calls, etc just to keep my extremely common, regular ass not-fun medication coming. not to mention, I still have to initiate healthcare with a completely new PCP anyway and delay my checkup by 2 months because of it, and NONE of this was communicated to me despite me telling everyone a month in advance.
100% people are locked into shit by the wealthcare system making any minor changes into total shit shows.