One vs. the Many

[Enki]

I'm not defending that. There are lots of things we do that I think are unjust, that we agree on. I just don't always understand where you draw the line between giving priority to individual liberty and community interest. It seemed like it was drawn in the same place that it is drawn for most people: your own self-interest. With most people, that wouldn't bother me, because I just accept that most people are that shallow, but with you it didn't strike me as being right, which is why I always press it. Anyway, your last explanation helped some.

I am a white upper middle-class male with a lot of personal connections. I know half the civil rights lawyers in the city on a first name basis. I know several elected officials and a good portion of the Democratic party operative class. How can you possibly say this is my own self-interest?

I don't get in trouble for smoking pot. I was arrested for it once and paid a lawyer $ 500 to have the case dismissed within 5 minutes of her walking into the courtroom. I have health insurance. I have a family backstop.

How can this possibly be about my own self-interest? My white privilege absolves me of all of the concern that this applies to. I want to free all of those black and hispanic people from prison for a crime that shouldn't be a crime. Yes, I might grow a pot plant if it were legal. But that's hardly it. I hate seeing people in bondage for absolutely no good reason. There simply is no social benefit toward criminalization of marijuana use. It is pure social cost.

My self-interest is that we have a healthy society where everyone enjoys the privileges that I enjoy. That's in my self-interest.

[Enki]

when it comes to oppressing the poor its the government in collusion with the middle class of both left and right wing flavours.

from protecting house prices to protecting jobs or sheltered vanities, its all 100% driven by the mainstream and you cant blame billionaires or conspiracies.

the car industry is a wonderful subset of the larger problem with left wing unions protecting workers and left wing fear worshippers demanding state of the art safety and emmissions standards combined with right wing investors protecting their profits

policeman then get instructions to take all the poor peoples cars off the road and punishing them for not being rich enough to buy a late model car - its not a conspiracy, its the fact that the left and the right want the same thing, just for different reasons.

same with houses, democrat voters are every bit as fanatical about increasing house prices out of reach for the poor as republican ones, they just dress it up in "safety standards" and such.

sucks to be poor in the modern west, the right is openly disinterested, the left confuses you with sugary words and then just fucks with you via social engineering experiments, leaving you in a situation that you prefer right wing indifference.

which is why the poor whites vote republican actually... its not the mumbo jumbo theories about worshipping rich men.

Considering both sides implement nanny-state policies, I don't think that's it.

I think that it is more that local Republican politicians are able to appeal to an 'us v them' cultural appeal. That's why poor whites, but poor nobody else votes Republican. The Republicans have created a situation where they are the 'us' with the poor whites against the 'them' of the Democrats and all the other ethnic constituencies they must represent. Are there white racist Democrats? Sure...plenty. But the smarter Democrats know that they cannot say such things, they cannot pander to such language or the money from on high will go away.

[Enki]

The working poor demand and deserve policies that allow them access to better education and skills training, and support in transition periods if they happen to be caught up in a dying industry and require re-training. This class is massive in America and the west in general, and one of our primary concerns should be helping these folks through what is turning out to be a very important and difficult time.

can you turn rough and ready physical labour types who enjoy bawdy humour and practical jokes into mincing politically correct office types ?

this is part of why they have focused so much on bloody housing construction, its one of the last labour intensive things we have left and even if the factories "come back" they will never provide the mass employment that they used to do.

It is time to recognize that mass employment is a fiction that will never again occur properly, and that technology has made it so that no one ever need starve or go hungry. Those who cannot or will not access the resource provisioning systems in place are on their own, but not because the systems do not exist.

We are at that point where society COULD within this generation build that great society that the protestant work ethic and modern progress say we are the laborers building. It is completely possible. We have arrived. Unfortunately we cling to obsolete cultural norms that do not recognize the new reality and the new paradigm. People must work! Why must they work? Because they...what are you some kind of communist?

There will always be things for people to DO. Problems to be solved, but the notion of a 'job', a profession that will sustain you for your whole life, well that's done. In my generation people change careers every decade or so and this is the new normal. A social safety net is kind of like injecting liquidity into the human capital market, allowing people to change careers without having to worry that it will be a life destroying event.

[Zack Morris]

The chronically unemployed welfare queens require policies that change the relative incentives of breeding/working/etc.

I think it's been well established that welfare queens are largely a myth.

The working poor demand and deserve policies that allow them access to better education and skills training, and support in transition periods if they happen to be caught up in a dying industry and require re-training. This class is massive in America and the west in general, and one of our primary concerns should be helping these folks through what is turning out to be a very important and difficult time.

I agree in principle but I think that in practice, this does not work. Job skills are a moving target and employers tend to have some very specific requirements. I can't think of any general skills that would make sense to build a training program around, other than very specific, high end engineering topics for current engineers and developers looking to change their specialization (and those programs already exist).

Entry level positions that do not require a college diploma should be accessible to anyone but age discrimination is a problem. If you look at typical career trajectories, people are hired into an entry level position immediately after college or high school and then make incremental changes along the way. For any given mid-level or experienced position, which usually has very particular requirements, there is no lack of applicants with relevant on-the-job experience. How is a training program going to fix that?

The Obama administration, to its credit, has implemented training programs but they have not been successful.

[Mr. Perfect]

Considering both sides implement nanny-state policies, I don't think that's it.

I think that it is more that local Republican politicians are able to appeal to an 'us v them' cultural appeal.

99%-1%, teabagger,

That's why poor whites, but poor nobody else votes Republican. The Republicans have created a situation where they are the 'us' with the poor whites against the 'them' of the Democrats and all the other ethnic constituencies they must represent.

Actually The poor whites and ethnic minorities voted side by side for at least a generation or two, so it's not that. Poor whites are simply more pro-American and so long term membership in the Democrat party became untenable.

Are there white racist Democrats? Sure...plenty. But the smarter Democrats know that they cannot say such things, they cannot pander to such language or the money from on high will go away.

No they pander the other way. Didn't help them with poor whites, nothing turns an FDR Democrat into a Reagan Democrat into a Republican faster than talking about white privilege.

[Mr. Perfect]

It is time to recognize that mass employment is a fiction that will never again occur properly,

After Obama, no doubt about it.

and that technology has made it so that no one ever need starve or go hungry.

And yet people starve and go hungry.

Those who cannot or will not access the resource provisioning systems in place are on their own, but not because the systems do not exist.

The new left wing "get a job". "You're starving because you're too stupid to access existing resource provisioning systems".

We are at that point where society COULD within this generation build that great society that the protestant work ethic and modern progress say we are the laborers building. It is completely possible. We have arrived. Unfortunately we cling to obsolete cultural norms that do not recognize the new reality and the new paradigm. People must work! Why must they work? Because they...

Because they need money. Do you get money without working?

what are you some kind of communist?

There will always be things for people to DO. Problems to be solved, but the notion of a 'job', a profession that will sustain you for your whole life, well that's done. In my generation people change careers every decade or so and this is the new normal. A social safety net is kind of like injecting liquidity into the human capital market, allowing people to change careers without having to worry that it will be a life destroying event.

Yeah I'm sure this new imaginary system is going to pay a lot of rent for people. Speaking of "liquidity injection", do you know what a discouraged worker is?

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I think that it is more that local Republican politicians are able to appeal to an 'us v them' cultural appeal. That's why poor whites, but poor nobody else votes Republican. The Republicans have created a situation where they are the 'us' with the poor whites against the 'them' of the Democrats and all the other ethnic constituencies they must represent. Are there white racist Democrats? Sure...plenty. But the smarter Democrats know that they cannot say such things, they cannot pander to such language or the money from on high will go away.

I don't know how you can say this. Sure, Republican politicians appeal to us vs them mentality plenty, but the entire Democratic strategy has for years consisted of convincing various groups that they are under constant attack and need saving by the Democrats.

Working class New Deal coalition white Democrats left that party because it abandoned them in favor of a coalition of victims. Then, far left folks in the Democratic party didn't hesitate to exaggerate and demonize the negative characteristics of the white working class to whip up their various victim voters into a frenzy. It wasn't the Republicans 'us' vs 'them' drum-beating that drew the white working class away from the party it had supported for decades; the Democrats abandoned class politics in favor of identity politics.

"This brings us to the third and most distinctive part of Walsh’s argument: the role that Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, have played in alienating the white working class. In her view, the retreat of the white working class became an excuse for liberal Democrats to vilify this group, magnifying their shortcomings into a cartoon portrait of hopelessly racist and mean-spirited enemies of progress. This accelerated the white working class’s bitter departure from the Democrats. It also ensured that identity politics displaced class politics within the Democratic Party. As Walsh puts it: “I watched one area of common ground emerge on the left: more and more observers seemed to believe that so-called people of color … shared more interests with one another than with any white Americans.” - from a review of a recent Joan Walsh book

[Ibrahim]

when it comes to oppressing the poor its the government in collusion with the middle class of both left and right wing flavours.

Absolutely. Below a certain threshold the poor cease to be people. Different economic classes can fight over their share of the bill, working class and middle class and the wealthy. But the poor annoy all of them and are looked down on by all of them. Plus they disproportionately suffer from mental illness and addiction, so the prospect of doing anything substantial to help them is very off-putting from a financial and return-no-investment point of view. So everybody above the cutoff is equally responsible, assuming you believe that anyone is responsible at all.

Worth noting that while the poor do better in systems with socialized medical care than they do without, they are still woefully neglected in those states as well.

socialised healthcare does mean better statistics in some cases - not all - because many of the crustier people just flat out ignore the system.

True. But others have access to medications such as anti-psychotics, and can then start using the stepladder of group homes and social assistance to find their way to a permanent residence or employment. What is interesting about all of that is that it takes place largely ignored by the public, and if you were to poll people on it a majority of them would probably oppose the whole thing as an over-expensive waste of time. So even when you win you lose, in terms of public perception.

the truth of it is that without all these rules that enforce the middle class, a large percentage of the white working class would join the tropical aborigines in the master plan of sitting by the beach and fishing your daily meal and then spending your meagre dollars on piss n smokes... when you run out of space you have a little war and get the numbers back down again, just like all the tropical groups do.

I wonder about that. When you start to address the supposedly widespread permanent welfare class of subsidized smokers and TV watchers then the public opinion on social programs really crashes, but its hard to imagine that this is actually the problem people say it is. Does the existence of these programs encourage people to give up on work or ambition? In any case the countries that have comprehensive social safety nets are nicer in every conceivable way than those that don't. Its much easier to be unemployed in Denmark than America, and that doesn't seem to make America any nicer due to the supposedly coercive and work-encouraging approach of a deficient social safety net. Whatever numbers might say about America being the richest nation on Earth, anybody with a passport knows that %99 of the US is a total dump compared to any socialized Western European hellhole. Maybe not Scotland.

the upper middle class dream of it aswell, hence noble savage myths - however they have intellectualised their way out of it through constant reinforcement of why dragging yourself to a boring repetitive office job is the best thing and the future of mankind and everyone wants it and needs it, they must, they must, its the advancement, the future, the perfected civilised human etc.

I think its just self-interest that keeps them going. People would rather be bored, safe and fat than not, which is precisely why people invented the "Noble Savage" myth, or go hunting, or play video games, or do any other approximation of a rough and tumble fantasy life with their bourgeois spare time. Even so, I would still say that the majority of people would prefer to work than be paid to sit at home. Most people just complain that their work isn't interesting or fulfilling enough.

which is why they cant help the aboriginals in australia - they must be denied that lifestyle for fear of the message it would send the working class whites.

the poor are only fit for social engineering into working class, anything else is unacceptable, if the poor dont want that then they have mental health problems.

The difficultly of adapting the aboriginal lifestyle to modern working life (and typically the lowest orders of the working class are the only ones offered to them) is a unique problem that has yet to be solved, and so far everything that has been attempted has produced even worse outcomes than similar programs do for the rest of the poor population. The only exceptions are individuals who are talented enough to escape the entire system right past the working class, obtain an education, and become a lawyer or something. Or, in Canada, a hockey player.

The remainder of the poor only exist as a problem to be solved. You are absolutely right, the goal of society is to turn them into good little workers, or hope they die off. People can't be bothered to care which, so they certainly can't be bothered to think of any better way of addressing the problem. They are a bipartisan inconvenience, disproving both capitalist and socialist utopianism.

[Ibrahim]

The working poor demand and deserve policies that allow them access to better education and skills training, and support in transition periods if they happen to be caught up in a dying industry and require re-training. This class is massive in America and the west in general, and one of our primary concerns should be helping these folks through what is turning out to be a very important and difficult time.

can you turn rough and ready physical labour types who enjoy bawdy humour and practical jokes into mincing politically correct office types ?

this is part of why they have focused so much on bloody housing construction, its one of the last labour intensive things we have left and even if the factories "come back" they will never provide the mass employment that they used to do.

It is time to recognize that mass employment is a fiction that will never again occur properly, and that technology has made it so that no one ever need starve or go hungry. Those who cannot or will not access the resource provisioning systems in place are on their own, but not because the systems do not exist.

We are at that point where society COULD within this generation build that great society that the protestant work ethic and modern progress say we are the laborers building. It is completely possible. We have arrived. Unfortunately we cling to obsolete cultural norms that do not recognize the new reality and the new paradigm. People must work! Why must they work? Because they...what are you some kind of communist?

There will always be things for people to DO. Problems to be solved, but the notion of a 'job', a profession that will sustain you for your whole life, well that's done. In my generation people change careers every decade or so and this is the new normal. A social safety net is kind of like injecting liquidity into the human capital market, allowing people to change careers without having to worry that it will be a life destroying event.

This change is potentially coming, I can't say. At present, having a job, any job, is superior to being unemployed. Middle class unemployed have more in the way of benefits, savings, and family to fall back on for a while, but at the end of that rope its still better to work at McDonald's than be unemployed, even for somebody who used to be a middle manager in an office setting.

So as that is presently the case we want to encourage conventional employment as the easiest and quickest way of improving a person's life.

[Mr. Perfect]

When you lose even ibs what are you left with tinker?

[Enki]

This change is potentially coming, I can't say. At present, having a job, any job, is superior to being unemployed. Middle class unemployed have more in the way of benefits, savings, and family to fall back on for a while, but at the end of that rope its still better to work at McDonald's than be unemployed, even for somebody who used to be a middle manager in an office setting.

So as that is presently the case we want to encourage conventional employment as the easiest and quickest way of improving a person's life.

Some people like to portray the normal way that western nations do business as some sort of radical agenda. Unemployment insurance is there so people can reskill while looking for work in their core competency. It's so skilled labor doesn't get lost in unskilled jobs.

[Enki]

I don't know how you can say this. Sure, Republican politicians appeal to us vs them mentality plenty, but the entire Democratic strategy has for years consisted of convincing various groups that they are under constant attack and need saving by the Democrats.

You need to keep up. I was specifying very certain and specific 'thems'. The Republicans appeal to poor whites, but not to poor anyone else, as I said. So the salient feature is not that the Republicans appeal to the 'poor' due to resentment of social engineering.

Working class New Deal coalition white Democrats left that party because it abandoned them in favor of a coalition of victims. Then, far left folks in the Democratic party didn't hesitate to exaggerate and demonize the negative characteristics of the white working class to whip up their various victim voters into a frenzy. It wasn't the Republicans 'us' vs 'them' drum-beating that drew the white working class away from the party it had supported for decades; the Democrats abandoned class politics in favor of identity politics.

Not even addressing what I said. You're just shifting the scope of the argument to talk about your favorite topic. Which is fine. It's just not a relevant response to what I said.

"This brings us to the third and most distinctive part of Walsh’s argument: the role that Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, have played in alienating the white working class. In her view, the retreat of the white working class became an excuse for liberal Democrats to vilify this group, magnifying their shortcomings into a cartoon portrait of hopelessly racist and mean-spirited enemies of progress. This accelerated the white working class’s bitter departure from the Democrats. It also ensured that identity politics displaced class politics within the Democratic Party. As Walsh puts it: “I watched one area of common ground emerge on the left: more and more observers seemed to believe that so-called people of color … shared more interests with one another than with any white Americans.” - from a review of a recent Joan Walsh book

The white working class is not monolithically Republican.

[Mr. Perfect]

Some people like to portray the normal way that western nations do business as some sort of radical agenda. Unemployment insurance is there so people can reskill while looking for work in their core competency. It's so skilled labor doesn't get lost in unskilled jobs.

How come it's not working?

[Zack Morris]

How do you know it's not working? I've known people that have collected unemployment insurance between different kinds of jobs. It helped them a lot.

[Mr. Perfect]

tell me the number of discouraged workers under Obama, let me know what kind of numbers you come up with.

[Enki]

How do you know it's not working? I've known people that have collected unemployment insurance between different kinds of jobs. It helped them a lot.

It is not working because he disagrees with it. That is his criteria.

[Mr. Perfect]

Do you guys even know what a discouraged worker is?

[Ibrahim]

This change is potentially coming, I can't say. At present, having a job, any job, is superior to being unemployed. Middle class unemployed have more in the way of benefits, savings, and family to fall back on for a while, but at the end of that rope its still better to work at McDonald's than be unemployed, even for somebody who used to be a middle manager in an office setting.

So as that is presently the case we want to encourage conventional employment as the easiest and quickest way of improving a person's life.

Some people like to portray the normal way that western nations do business as some sort of radical agenda. Unemployment insurance is there so people can reskill while looking for work in their core competency. It's so skilled labor doesn't get lost in unskilled jobs.

That is a good policy too, though my comments above were more about getting the unemployed into any form of employment. A country/state/city wants people to be working, and it wants working people to be maximizing their potential, but in terms of triage in a recession or in coping with unemployment or homelessness, the most important thing is getting people working in any capacity.

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

[Ibrahim]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

You mean %5 of Americans?

You must agree that "welfare queens" and the ambition-sapping consequences of the social safety net are a conservative talking point.

[Mr. Perfect]

I think not helping the poor is supported by all Americans judging by what happened during the Obama term.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

You mean %5 of Americans?

You must agree that "welfare queens" and the ambition-sapping consequences of the social safety net are a conservative talking point.

Less than 5% of Americans believe that nothing should be done to assist the poor. In fact, the number is a fraction of 1%. Some people do not believe that the federal government ought to be coordinating such assistance, but your thinking doesn't allow for that kind of nuance.

[Enki]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

You mean %5 of Americans?

You must agree that "welfare queens" and the ambition-sapping consequences of the social safety net are a conservative talking point.

Less than 5% of Americans believe that nothing should be done to assist the poor. In fact, the number is a fraction of 1%. Some people do not believe that the federal government ought to be coordinating such assistance, but your thinking doesn't allow for that kind of nuance.

So lets call that 5% Mr. Perfect's people. Are you in that category? You have used the term 'welfare queen' before. I have never met a welfare queen.

[Ibrahim]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

You mean %5 of Americans?

You must agree that "welfare queens" and the ambition-sapping consequences of the social safety net are a conservative talking point.

Less than 5% of Americans believe that nothing should be done to assist the poor. In fact, the number is a fraction of 1%. Some people do not believe that the federal government ought to be coordinating such assistance, but your thinking doesn't allow for that kind of nuance.

It makes no difference. We have historical evidence for what private or religiously motivated charity provides for the poor, and it is a small fraction of what state-run services provide.

Consider: Americans have less state-run social programs and more people who identify as observant Christians than any Western European country. If this fantasy of individual or faith-based charity worked then America would already be the best place in the world to be down on your luck. Except we all know that that socialized and religious ambivalent Swedes care for their poor, and their citizens as a whole, better than US donors and philanthropists do for their fellow Americans.

No, we all see through the excuse of private charity. Charity does a lot of good both in America and worldwide, but it is a drop in the ocean. Please don't add the double-down excuse that freedom-loving Americans are simply withholding their charity until the inefficient state and rapacious tax burdens are lifted from them. Then, and only then, would milk and honey flow.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I think this is how the rest of the developed world, and half of the USA, looks at it. However others adopt a Randian model wherein there should be nothing done to assist the economic losers of the market economy.

I think only a very small minority of people believe that. Less than 5%.

You mean %5 of Americans?

You must agree that "welfare queens" and the ambition-sapping consequences of the social safety net are a conservative talking point.

Less than 5% of Americans believe that nothing should be done to assist the poor. In fact, the number is a fraction of 1%. Some people do not believe that the federal government ought to be coordinating such assistance, but your thinking doesn't allow for that kind of nuance.

So lets call that 5% Mr. Perfect's people. Are you in that category? You have used the term 'welfare queen' before. I have never met a welfare queen.

Sure I've seen them, though neither of our anecdotal experiences proves their existence either way. But no, regardless of the fact that I believe our welfare programs disincentivize productive engagement for people already predisposed in that direction, I nevertheless believe that a healthy society takes care of its poorest members. Mr. Perfect probably believes this too, whether or not he thinks inefficient federal programs that can be used to buy votes from people with their hands out is the best way to do it. In fact, if Mr. Perfect is the exact statistical stereotype of the American Christian Republican that everyone thinks is so greedy, he actually gives more of his time and money to charity than the average non-Christian Democrat.