"We are rats, deliberately starved and set against each other" (Ian Welsh)

"What I see is that we are rats, deliberately starved and set against each other. . . . When the rich are taking all of the winnings of the economy, and then some: we tear at each other like starved rats."

-- Ian Welsh, in a new blogpost,
"Helping the most discriminated against"

by Ken

I mentioned recently, when I passed along Ian Welsh's post "The Death Bet" (in "'We're living the good life on "death bets,' says Ian Welsh, and the IOUs may come due sooner than we gamblers thought)," Ian has recently been doing a number of posts on and around the subject of economic inequality, looking from various vantage points at the way societies are organized and why it is that the people in position to control the flow of wealth will always divert as much as they can into their own coffers unless they're forced to do so. And why asking politely will bring only laughs, and even asking impolitely won't help. They won't give up anything unless they really believe it's going to be forcibly taken away from them.

The latest of these posts looks at how the elites divide-to-conquer among variously less-advantaged subgroups within the giant group of the underlings.

Helping the most discriminated against
Posted: 18 Jan 2014 01:58 AM PST

There is no question, in the developed world in general, that men are better off than women; that whites are better off than people with melanin; and that straights are better off than non-straights. (Let alone the transgenders.) To give just one example, a black person will receive half the requests for interviews that a white person will with the exact same resume; and a white convict is more likely to be hired than a black non-convict.

I am unclear on how to deal with this type of discrimination at the current time. What I see is that we are rats, deliberately starved and set against each other. The plight of the female, non-CIS, non-white, non-standard-sexuality rats is worse (on average): but, we’re rats, and we have masters, and they have taken all the gains in productivity for 40 years now–and we’re fighting for scraps, because goddamn it we need them.

The reality for working class white males is that while their lives are better than females/ethnics/etc… things have been getting worse for them since 1968 – 45 years now. That’s when their wages peaked. They are bitter and angry. Sure, things are worse for other people, but their pain is real, and being told that they are to blame does not fly with them, and it never, ever, will. You can scream till your faces are blue at them, and they will not believe they are to blame. (In the same way that most boomers will never admit they have any blame for how the US has turned out.)

If we have a tide that is raising all boats, these problems are easier to fix: the white CIS straight males get less of the increases; the more discriminated people get more of the increases; but everyone’s life is getting better. When it’s not a zero some game, when it’s a positive sum game, this problem becomes so much easier to fix.

When the rich are taking all of the winnings of the economy, and then some: we tear at each other like starved rats.

Agree that everyone will win (except the rich, who will lose); and that those who need more; who have suffered more, will get more.

Then turn our ire to the people who have taken everything they can.

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