Forums

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You're missing my argument. There was a time when noblesse oblige worked. I could cite endless examples of past advantaged sorts who followed the rule, "don't be a pig and wreck a good thing." Investment bank partnerships of old come to mind.

But those days are long gone. And if we want to talk about whose dick is most prominently inserted in the poor's ass, the upper middle class and affluent-but-not-rich are the real culprits I see. The rich can pay greater taxes. It's the aspirant affluent who refuse to cough an extra $3k of their $600k salary because they want to use that money to put Mackenzie Childs doorknobs through the first floor, a liposuction tune-up, or bring the nanny along on summer vacation.

If I am missing your argument (and I use that term loosely), it's because it, like a chameleon, keeps changing color to fit into your newest point. The argument we have been having is about your justification for libertarianism, that the poor cannot be trusted to sip the tasty benefits of self-governance because they will drink too much, wreck the place, and the party will be over. For that reason, the argument (implicitly) is that only the better off (let's call them "libertarians" though many aren't) should get to drink and the unwashed should get to watch them and appreciated their wisdom in limiting government to the role of protecting the private property rights ("the law in its infinite majesty respects the right of the rich and poor alike to buy the only bridge in town and charge tolls for crossing").

In that argument you have given ground and given ground, and now are explaining that while government does screw the poor, we shouldn't think about how the rich gobble the food at the table (we've moved from drinks to the meal now), but should focus on the upper middle-class and the crumbs they get. ("Not crumbs!" you're going to say. "It's a full meal. The rich aren't eating because they filled up at Masa before they came over, and they don't like the government grub." Go ahead, just say it.)

What. ever. You are still saying, OK, so the government doesn't do anything for the lumpenproletariat but it just has to be that way because if it did, they'd drink us and eat us out of house and home, and then we'd have no democracy and we'd just be sitting by the side of the road, presumably without any of the benefits of the Schumpeterian destruction that you're otherwise always insisting is going to bring the phoenix-like rebirth of our economy -- somehow letting the government help poor people will nullify all of the advantages of heightening the contradictions. It's Marx for capitalists, I guess.

Older generations did follow a "don't wreck the place" rule. Sure, you had Fricks and Rockefellers who plundered the environment and abused workers. But you also had Henry Fords (loathsome bigoted views aside) who realized the best way to sell the most cars was to allow workers to earn enough to afford them.

It's so nice that you believe the press clippings of the older generations' plutocrats.

If you had immigrant grandparents who did alright here and were thankful for the opportunity, they probably drilled it into your head: "Treat people fairly, and don't draw attention to yourself."

My grandfather, the son of a man who got off a boat from Germany and homesteaded in South Dakota, once told me that the only two institutions that had ever done anything for him in his life were the Democratic Party and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Maybe he should have spent more time reading about what a swell guy Henry Ford was.

What you've just described is an incurious and narrowly focused person. You are correct - the rich are often just as clueless. But never the whole household. There's always at least one person in a rich household who took advantage of educational opportunities and grasps complex issues from numerous angles. This is usually the brother or sister who runs the family business, or manages the family funds, while the rest of the kids sell real estate, broker antiques, or tinker on their horse farm.

The poor are often too harried by life, trying to simply survive, to avail themselves of educational opportunities which would give them a better grasp of the issues. Hence, they acquire the narrow view you describe.

Again, the worst class are the non-earning members of the newly affluent. The spouses and children of docs, lawyers, small business owners... These people are often amazingly, shockingly incurious. And dull as all fuck.

You just told me that the poor are irrational. I then told you that they are rational and want ordinary things, not incurious or narrowly focused. That's your myopia or stereotype, not mine. I think people are mostly the same. And you don't.

I have never bought the argument there is always an elite that exploits everything. I think the post-war boom in this country (yes, possibly a non-reproducible aberration, for a number of reasons) demonstrated that a benign elite could simply manage things, and profit a decent bit more than everyone else, while delivering broad prosperity.

When the economy is growing and every is doing better, the fact that the well off are exploiting everyone else doesn't bother people as much.

I think we need a full on revolution to stop an emerging class system that will destroy this country. You might call my affinity for the old notion of noblesse oblige classist, and perhaps it is. But that was a class system that benefited people more broadly. What we have to today is a vicious, stagnant system that makes it near impossible for talented people of modest means to reach the higher levels. This undoes the whole idea of the American Experiment.

I see a society that in significant ways is more equal than it used to be, and a government that can continue that progress. I also see a conservative movement that feels threatened by the change, and is trying to stand athwart history, yelling stop. Which side are you on? Oh yeah, Gary Johnson's -- I forgot.

We've allowed the merchant class to morph into a rentier class. These people know no bounds. They are your Mnuchins, your Pruitts, your [Insert everybody on Wall Street in 2008]. They're blunt, thoughtless elitists. Nihilists, really. You don't get rid of these people, or their corrosive mindsets, with government policy giving the poor more power. You get rid of them with Great Depression level crisis that shocks some decency out of politicians and business people alike. You need an extreme event the forces politicians to elevate their sense of decency over their careers and say, "Wait minute. This is not America anymore. We need to stop this. We can't destroy the environment, create massive underclasses like Brazil, run a budget indistinguishable from that of a Banana Republic, and worship consumption. this degenerate behavior does not work."

Voting Democrats into office would help. Just sayin'.

I view this as a flaw rather than a feature at the moment. The system is precluding necessary radical change.


I agree with the first half. As to the second, I don't. I think we need a political civil war. We need a giant reset.

We're going to get it one way or another. 2008 is not over. Not by any stretch.

If you think violence and instability are better ways to resolve disagreement, it's odd that you haven't moved to Syria or Somalia. Not sure what you mean by the "system," but the point of having a government is to avoid anarchy, which turns out to involve a lot of dead-weight loss. Civil war: Not as much fun as it's cracked up to be.

I never said I didn't want those things. I was unclear, so I'll be clear here. When I said, "Here's money, you're on your own," I meant, "The state will continue to provide the basic necessities to qualify as a state," which include most of your list (I'd eliminate a few).

What you and other libertarians don't seem to grok is that everyone has "basic necessities" that differ, and that the things that matter to you aren't "basic necessities" for other people, while things that are "basic necessities" for them aren't for you. Of course you would eliminate a few. What government does is to take everyone's wish list and find a way to reconcile all the competing interests, imperfectly for everyone.

Of course, if you announce that the things that some people need aren't "necessities" and so they don't get to submit their wish lists, then those people get screwed, relatively.

Our form of noblesse oblige worked. But it's long gone. Now we just have a Gatsbian mess.

It didn't. That's why it's gone. And The Great Gatsby wasn't science fiction when written.

They need to learn the lesson that comes with going too far. You think that can be delivered via the ballot box. I think we need a crisis, and one where investors are savaged, and labor's value increases radically in relation to capital's.

No they don't. The poor don't need to learn lessons about what it's like to get screwed. Please read this, because Marina Hyde is brilliant and it's totally on point. There will be a quiz later about the Self-Knowledge Impregnator, so better read it to find out.

In any crisis, the poor will be screwed most of all.

Trump demonstrates my point about ordinary people being seriously uninformed.

Trump is seriously uninformed and he is rich. Please don't tell me it's because he's new rich. Just resist the temptation.