In other news: water is wet!
Yes but that is different. Because water DOES trickle down, you see?
And now it’s too late because the balance of power has shifted so much. Please someone change my mind and give me hope against this….
In <50 years we’ll have an ecological collapse that will render all wealth meaningless.
Does that help?
Quite the contrary. The wealth will make sure they’re the last ones touched by it.
No I think that made it worse…
Lmao can’t wait at this point. Sure will be one way to decentralise our economies…
Also here for the free hope.
Union power is on an upswing! The power of capitalism seems unescapable but so to did the divine right of kings! Things were this bad back in the 1920s too but the world didn’t stay broken. Climate change is solvable even if it takes us another 40 years to tackle it in earnest humanity together can do so much more to tackle it than just using high efficiency light bulbs, ya know?
Things are gonna be OK. A greedy ruling class, fascism, it is all stuff that has been dealt with before and will be dealt with again. It might not be great, or even good, but it will be OK.
Even saying that these aren’t new, unique problems might feel like doom and gloom but through cycles of oppression we have still gained ground in terms of health, violence, and social acceptance. It isn’t always 2 steps forward and one step back, not all things move at the same rate (growing support for gay people doesn’t help protect the environment and the back to the office push is actively against it) and there have been a lot of steps sideways (no lead in paint, gas, and pipes is great but forever chemicals and microplastics are a new threat) but really there has been more good than bad and more forward than backwards. No one is trying to drive buffaloes to extinction to genocide the native Americans any more, gay rights!, we saved the ozone layer, women can vote and own property, we forced racists to back off from overt suppression of minorities into less effective suppression that they can plausibly deny, and forced the ruling class to stop running things directly as kings and to work harder to sway things through payoffs and puppets.
We are winning. It isn’t easy, it isn’t all wins, but we win more than we lose and we are going to keep winning more and more. They still haven’t recovered from the magna Carta, let alone the French revolution or the civil rights act and every major victory comes closer after the last with the powers that be recovering less and less between them.
I hope my shitty little phone post helps cheer you up and remind you how far we’ve come. You might want to take a look at the solar punk mental health and positivity discord server though https://discord.gg/7RmYF5Kh
I love you, person.
❤️ You would do the same for me, other person.
Almost as if they don’t know the infinity of human greed. The more you have, more you want.
Also applies to cheese
Trickle-down economics and Reagan’s neoliberal approach have shown their limitations in today’s world. The promise of benefits trickling down from the wealthy to the rest of society often falls short. Instead, we witness increasing income inequality and a shrinking middle class. It’s clear that relying solely on the wealthiest to drive economic growth doesn’t create widespread prosperity.
To strengthen societies, we need innovative strategies that prioritize the middle class. Investing in education, healthcare, and social services can provide more opportunities and upward mobility. Supporting small businesses, fostering innovation, and ensuring fair taxation can also contribute to a more equitable distribution of wealth. It’s time to challenge the old paradigms and explore new approaches that truly uplift all members of society, fostering sustainable growth and shared prosperity.
You’re already doing them a favor by treating neoliberalism like a genuine, measurable economic philosophy.
Maybe once upon a time, way back when it was first suggested, some people might have actually believed that’s how things worked. But nobody these days is thinking “5000th time’s a charm”.
Instead, neoliberalism has become a collection of ready-made excuses for insatiable greed. They’re soundbites that seem plausible enough to for use in political speeches and press conferences – and when everyone is in on it, it’s even easier to convince people they’re true.
But openly or in secret, neoliberals love neoliberalism failing. That’s how they get rich.
Does the “free market” destroy companies who behave unethically? Nope! The most hated companies in the world keep posting record profits, because consumers don’t have the luxury of holding them accountable.
Does a “small government” with few regulations create increased competition? Nope! But it means they can dump their toxic by-products in the local river and pay out the savings as executive bonuses.
Does wealth “trickle down” to the poor? Nope! It ends up in off-shore bank accounts, but people are desperate enough for a little more cash that they keep voting to give the rich another tax break.
“Privatisation breeds efficiency” is bullshit that hands people monopolies and makes the public pay for its failure. “Welfare just causes inflation” is bullshit that frees up more public money for subsidies and no-bid tenders.
If neoliberalism actually worked, rich people would hate it.
Removed by mod
I can’t really parse that sentence but the Wikipedia page for neoliberalism will give a run down of the various definitions that have muddied the waters, the current widely accepted definition and how the modern definition relates to the policies of politicians like Reagan and Thatcher (may they both rest in piss).
As far as I can tell it mean ‘not liberal but is trying to pretend like it is’.
The fundamental of neoliberalism is still doing the capitalism but trying to make it work. However it also has a lot of intersection with 2k-era neoconservativism which pushes a little harder and tries to privatize everything.
Since then, the evidence privatization turns into enshittification is all over the internet, but the GOP has moved on to authoritarianist sabotage of elections to stay in power. And the establishment majority of the Democratic party is still neoliberal, beliving capitalism can at least be prolonged.
Of course, in doing so without reducing precarity and poverty, the DNC is only pushing us towards fascist rule, since blaming marginalized groups is a basic maneuver.
Incidentally there are capitalists who still argue that we can make capitalism work if and only if everyone agrees to treat the labor well (social safety nets, etc.) But the pursuit of infinite growth and ever-higher dividends has made this a controversy since the early years of Ford Motor Company. So there’s no sealant strong enough to keep that boat from sinking.
Why only the middle class? The lower class needs social welfare too, even more.
Yeah, I don’t get why societies are supposed to accept that there’s a ‘lower class’ to begin with. The only reason capitalists want this is so they can point at them as an example as to what could happen to you if you do the ‘wrong’ thing. That’s why they’re freaking out about ‘full employment’.
By this point, it kinda feels like to the 1%, there never was a “middle class” - it’s an illusion to give people hope.
Lyndon B Johnson once said "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Like, they are not doing everything they can to prevent it from trickling down.
😂😂😂😂😂 who would’ve thought that helping wealth hoarders hoard wealth would result in more wealth being hoarded
Trickle-down economics (or it’s more euphemistic name, supply-side economics) didn’t work in Hoover’s time either, though he swore by it.
You’da think we learned then, but by the time Reagan was around, the GOP base was more worried about uppity abortionist women and communist plots to turn the kids gay than whether the economy could support the promise of infinite growth. The boomers voting at the time were disinterested in future generations.
Heck, Reagan, himself was a Revelation Futurist, and believef he would be instrumental in a nuclear exchange to serve as a biblical apocalypse. He just couldn’t drive himself to first strike (and the Soviets weren’t going to do it.)
