#late capitalism

[hyperlexichypatia]

If office jobs are miserable, and manufacturing jobs are miserable, and service jobs are miserable, and freelance work is miserable, and being unemployed is miserable, what does that tell you?

How would you look at that situation and conclude "No, it is the workers who are wrong"?

There is functionally no difference between the conservative narrative of "If you don't like getting kicked in the head all day for $7.25 an hour, then quit whining, pull up your bootstraps, go back to school, and get a job getting kicked in the knee all day for $8.00 an hour, you lazy whiner!" and the progressive narrative of "Um, people who get kicked in the knee all day for $8.00 really need to check their privilege, some people would kill for that comfort and security." (Also, what comfort and security? Depending on the office, a worker may be as likely to be a temp with no benefits as a salaried employee).

And the people in the notes saying "Well, you can --" No. "You" cannot. Some few individuals may be able to #lifehack their way into a sufficient source of income that isn't miserable and exploitation-based, but this is not scalable life advice. Labor operates on the same principles of supply and demand as any other commodity. If more people go into your cool niche job with good pay and good working conditions, supply of workers will increase, and that good pay and working conditions will decrease. Just ask everyone who went into nursing or IT in the 2000s. The problem of the power relations between employer and employee are not solvable by "getting a better job."

Anyway, join a union. Stop seeing other workers as your competition. And never be "grateful" for a job. Labor is entitled to all it creates.

loser-ass website that so many people are afraid of a “soulless” office job, when so many people would KILL for that comfort and security. obviously i get not wanting to work in The Mines (retail, service, manufacturing, etc) but the reality is that like 90% of people who don’t work in The Mines have a 9 to 5. so like what are you expecting? to just never work at all or write fanfiction for a living or become like an astronaut princess rockstar because you haven’t changed your answer to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” since kindergarten? i fear the conservatives may have been right about us.

[prettiestboytoy2]

Be the change you want to see in the world

[bouncinghedgehog]

[hyperlexichypatia]

The thing about "lack of third spaces in the U.S." that doesn't get mentioned enough is that it's not just "Capitalists and corporations bought up the commons, privatized public resources, and made people pay to access them."

That's a big part of it. But it's not the only part.

The other part is that middle-class people -- particularly middle-class white, abled people -- willingly forked over money to set up private spaces rather than share public spaces with people of color, disabled people, neurodivergent people, poor people, religious minorities, and other "undesirable" people.

When you look at any article or picture from some point in the 20th century about third spaces that are less common now, consider that depending on exactly where and when in the 20th century U.S. this was, people of color might have been banned from that space by either law or threat of violence or both (or, at minimum, made to feel unwelcome). Physically disabled people probably could not access those spaces (or were institutionalized or kept at home). Visibly non-passing neurodivergent people probably could not access those spaces, because they were institutionalized or kept at home. Two women kissing, a man in a dress, any type of visibly queer or gender nonconforming person would not have been tolerated in that space.

And my point is, these things are not unrelated. The decline of third spaces is not unrelated to civil rights gains.

I'm not saying "Stop talking about the good things of the mid-20th century, don't you know that era also had racism and sexism and ableism and queerphobia?"

I'm saying they're not unrelated -- it's not "This time period was better in some ways, like more third spaces, but worse in some ways, like more racism and ableism." It's "Those good things, those third spaces, those labor unions, those safe neighborhoods, that sense of community, relied upon the systemic exclusion of a dehumanized underclass, and as soon as any civil rights pressure was put on that systemic exclusion, the sense of community crumbled."

The pattern is clear and recurring: Privileged people build a public space for "the community", marginalized people start using it (sometimes after a court case or two), the public place gets a reputation for being "full of" marginalized people, privileged people build a private space they can exclude people from, privileged people abandon the public space, the public space gets neglected and deprioritized because "nobody (who matters) uses it anymore," the public place goes to shit from neglect and possibly closes, the private space gets expensive, privileged people lament the loss of the public space.

Privileged people killed public pools rather than share them with Black people. Mortally wounded public schools rather than share them with people of color and religious minorities. Are trying to kill public libraries rather than share them with queer people and unhoused people and neurodivergent people. Can't revive public transportation for fear of sitting next to poor people. It's white flight all the way down.

The whole "Social democracy is the left wing of fascism" claim is tankie ridiculousness, but like most tankie ridiculousness, there's an underlying grain of truth. In this case, the underlying grain of truth is that widespread support for public services is a much easier sell when people don't think they'll have to share resources or public space with people they consider inferior. It's not a coincidence that some of the countries that provide the highest quality of life for their abled citizens are some of the worst to noncitizens and disabled people.

And it's not like Weird Queer Left-Leaning Types have a great track record of sharing public space with people different from yourselves, either. Y'all can't be normal about someone wearing a yarmulke at Pride. Y'all can't be normal about adults playing board games with kids. There's no way you'd be okay with unsupervised, uncontrolled, unmedicated-by-choice schizophrenic people hanging out and talking to themselves. You cannot handle public third spaces.

Yes, blame corporations and advertisers for privatizing public spaces, but also blame the social prejudice that willingly forks over money to avoid sharing public space with Those People.

[lenbryant]

The plan.

[poltergirlst]

would you let me hit tonight, baby boy? momma is upset at the imminent collapse of our world :(

[secretkindoflove]

Raging Wildfires in Chile - Please Reblog!

Over a hundred people found death and counting, as neighbors and volunteers gather to remove debris by their own means. This wildfire has spread along three different cities, urban and rural spaces included. Arson is claimed.

Many people and pets are still missing, their whole lives destroyed by these aggresive fires as they reached urban villages, thousands evacuated from their home. Please help us create some awareness with a little reblog and maybe some help, as firefighters and other official charities [TECHO chile, Desafío Levantemos Chile, Hogar de Cristo] are accepting donations.

[komihn]

me irl | IG: komihn

[389]

∆ from Weather by Jenny Offill, p. 44

[sonnetsoflatecapitalism]

A CEO has been assassinated! A vigilante killer in a hood Took up the mantle for which they were fated, With three shots did thus for the common good. "Don't celebrate a murder!" cry the feds, As though between the classes there weren't war. They hope to save their own cowardly heads, To keep us all from settling out the score. Executives of healthcare sell our lives To eke out shares of profit and receive The accolades from shareholders that drive The never-ending grind of corporate greed. A murder is a solitary kill; Let thousands die? that’s just the market’s will.

[economicsresearch]

page 566 - it was a nice town until everyone started turning their households into business firms.

Everyone thought the same thing: my household is inefficient. It provides shelter for myself and my family but I cannot quantify that using my late-capitalism vocabulary. Also, I am not generating income from the pull-out couch in the basement.

So, instead of uniting with neighbours to build a new vocabulary that spoke of secure households for all people, they washed towels for strangers and fretted over star numbers. Hopefully, their business firm would earn enough that their household could join the wealthy hegemony actively destroying the public good. A new vocabulary was never created.

[frail-simulacra]

Vision migraine google maps

[sataniccapitalist]

[prettiestboytoy2]

In light of recent events, "Violence is not an solution" narrative was meticulously engineered and ingrained by establishment into every facade of media and education, to prevent masses from fighting back oppression. They want you to engage them inside the system that benefits and protects them.

Violence fundamentally circumvents the system and therefore is terrifying to economic and political elites while wielded by lower class.

[bouncinghedgehog]

[hyperlexichypatia]

One of the most common criticisms of "housing first" initiatives (programs to provide housing for unhoused people unconditionally without gatekeeping) is that housing first "does not improve mental health."  Now, let's set aside for the moment that this criticism is irrelevant -- the purpose of housing is to provide shelter, not to "improve mental health" -- what definition of "mental health" could possibly make this true? As much as I try to critique and deconstruct the social construction of "mental health," how could it possibly be true that having a safe, assured place to live would not result in greater happiness, greater inner peace, less depression, less anxiety, less negative emotions, than living on the street?  What possible definition of "mental health" would not be improved by being housed rather than unhoused?

Answering this requires unpacking the wildly different, almost completely unrelated, definitions of "mental health," one applied to relatively privileged people, and one applied to oppressed people.

For relatively privileged people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on emotional well-being, introspection and self-awareness, and the mitigation or management of negative emotions like pain, depression, anxiety, and anger.

For oppressed people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on compliance, obedience, and productivity.

Like most privilege disparities, this isn't binary. For most people who are privileged in some ways and marginalized in other ways, "mental health support" will include some degree of the emotional support given to privileged people, and some degree of the compliance and productivity training given to oppressed people, with the proportions varying on where exactly each person falls on various privilege axes.  All children are oppressed by ageism, so all children's "mental health" has some elements promoting compliance, obedience, and productivity. But relatively privileged children may also receive some emotional support mixed in, while children of color, children in poverty, and children with existing neurodivergence labels will receive a much higher ratio of compliance training to emotional support.

One of the clearest illustrations of this disparity is the contrast between the "self-care" recommended to privileged people, and the "meaningful days" imposed on oppressed people.

Relatively privileged people are often told, by therapists, doctors, mental health culture, and self-help books, that they are working too hard and need to rest more. They're told that for the sake of their mental health, they need work-life balance, self-care, walks in the woods, baths with scented candles. Implicit in these recommendations is that the reason these people are working too hard is because of internal factors, like guilt or emotional drive, rather than external factors, like needing to pay the bills and not being able to afford a day off.

By contrast, unhoused people, institutionalized people, people labeled with "severe" or "serious" or "low-functioning" mental disabilities, are literally prescribed labor. Publicly funded "mental health initiatives" require the most marginalized members of society to work tedious jobs for little or no pay, under the premise that loading boxes at a warehouse will make their days "meaningful" and thus improve their "mental health." And unlike the self-care advice given to relatively privileged people, the forced-labor-for-your-own-good approach is not optional. People are either forced into it directly by guardians or institutions, or coerced into it as a precondition to access material needs like housing and food.

The form of "mental health" applied to relatively privileged people has some genuinely useful and beneficial elements. We could all stand to introspect and examine our own feelings more, manage our negative emotions without being overwhelmed by them, have self-confidence. We all need rest and self-care.

Still, privileged mental health culture, even at its best, is deeply flawed. At best, it tends to encourage a degree of self-centeredness and condescension. It's obsessed with classifying experiences as "trauma" or "toxic." It's one of the worst culprits in feeding the "long adolescence" phenomenon and generally perpetuating the idea that treating people as incompetent is doing them a kindness. Even the best therapists serving the most privileged clients have a strong tendency towards gaslighting and "correcting" people about their own feelings and desires.

But perhaps the worst consequence of privileged mental health culture is that it gives cover to the dehumanizing, abusive, compliance-oriented "mental health care" forced upon the most marginalized people. Privileged people are encouraged to universalize their experiences with sentiments like "We all deal with mental health" or assume that the mild, relatively benign "mental health care" they experienced are the norm, so what are those silly mad liberation people complaining about?

Tonight, I listened to a leader from an agency serving unhoused people talk about how "Everyone struggled with mental health during the pandemic"... and then later mention that their shelter categorically excludes people with paranoid schizophrenia diagnoses. So perhaps "everyone struggles with mental health," but only certain people are categorically excluded from services, from shelter, from autonomy, from basic human rights, because of how their brains happen to work.

As always, it seems like so much effort in the mad liberation/ neurodiversity/ antipsychiatry movement is spent holding the hands of relatively privileged people receiving relatively privileged "mental health care" and reassuring them that we're not trying to take it away from them. Fine, it's great that you like your antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and your nice therapist who listens to you and your support group. Great. Go live your best life. But that has nothing to do with our fight against forced drugging, forced labor, forced institutionalization, forced poverty. It's not even close to the same "mental health."