From The News Journal (delawareonline.com):
Judge said du Pont heir 'will not fare well' in prison
So a wealthy du Pont heir convicted of raping his 3-year-old daughter is getting probation and 'treatment' instead of time behind bars because he "will not fare well" in prison (as if anybody fucking does). Reminds me of Glenn Greenwald's article, "HSBC, too big to jail, is the new poster child for US two-tiered justice system," in which he concludes: "How this glaringly disparate, and explicitly status-based, treatment under the criminal law does not produce serious social unrest is mystifying."
I couldn't agree more with Greenwald. I've been ranting about and protesting against this kind of shit ever since I started to actually pay attention to the world around me; and for the life of me, I can't understand why more people aren't up in arms over shit like this, or endless other examples of a glaringly inegalitarian system that not only produces toxic accumulations of both wealth and power, but serves to protect the economic, legal, and political hegemony of capital and wealthy/ruling-class elites while ruthlessly taking its pound of flesh from the rest of society, particularly from the backs of minorities and the poor.
If this or the Greenwald article doesn't piss you off and start to make you question whether we can do better, it really should.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
the downside of gentrification
Gentrification has a dark side and it's something I think we need to start talking about it, as well as having a broader conversation about the way our political-economic system is organized.
A lot of people I've talked to about gentrification seem to be for it primarily based on the positives of urban renewal projects, such as the influx of business it brings and how it helps to revitalize neighborhoods that've seen better days. What often happens, though, is that many of the people who already live in those areas get displaced.
Poorer yet up-and-coming areas of the city targeted for gentrification essentially get makeovers by the city, with improvements to public transit, good grocery outlets, etc. that tend to attract young, middle-class families and upwordly mobile individuals from other areas of the city, particularly the suburbs. Developers also play a role, buying properties to flip or convert into more profitable enterprises. It seems like a good thing. New things are being built and new people are moving in. Win-win, right?
A big problem, however, is that this influx of people, in combination with all the trendy, new (and pricier) dining and shopping establishments and living spaces that pop up, starts to put pressure on surrounding rents, real estate prices, and low-income communities, forcing many of the poorer, long-term residents to move to elsewhere, which often ends up by necessity being poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the neighborhood or city in question that lack many of the basic services of the one they're forced to leave.
Portland, one of the fastest gentrifying cities in the US, has seen its fair share of this, from gentrification in the 80s and 90s pushing out long-time working-class and African-American residents into the north and northeast to where it's currently threatening to push out homeless encampments and shelters downtown, and lower-income residents all over Portland outside of city limits.
One of the major issues this story raises, in my opinion, is the way the state (like many others) actually forbids things like rent controls while at the same time allowing property owners to rent based on income caps, highlighting the unequal relations between renters and property owners. As Commissioner Fritz so blatantly puts it, the state values land ownership rights over tenants' rights; and this hurts people. People like my friend Joe are being displaced, with little-to-no compensation; they're losing their homes and access to their communities as a result. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Renters essentially have no rights nor recourse within the current system based on profit and property rights. They're at the whim of markets, often unsympathetic legislators and courts, and property owners and developers who are conditioned and/or coerced by competitive pressures to make decisions based on profit rather than the needs of tenants or the surrounding community.
And worst of all, many in their own community are conditioned by the same system to to shrug off their suffering and say, "Tough luck, you should just stop being a loser and make more money or else move."
A lot of people I've talked to about gentrification seem to be for it primarily based on the positives of urban renewal projects, such as the influx of business it brings and how it helps to revitalize neighborhoods that've seen better days. What often happens, though, is that many of the people who already live in those areas get displaced.
Poorer yet up-and-coming areas of the city targeted for gentrification essentially get makeovers by the city, with improvements to public transit, good grocery outlets, etc. that tend to attract young, middle-class families and upwordly mobile individuals from other areas of the city, particularly the suburbs. Developers also play a role, buying properties to flip or convert into more profitable enterprises. It seems like a good thing. New things are being built and new people are moving in. Win-win, right?
A big problem, however, is that this influx of people, in combination with all the trendy, new (and pricier) dining and shopping establishments and living spaces that pop up, starts to put pressure on surrounding rents, real estate prices, and low-income communities, forcing many of the poorer, long-term residents to move to elsewhere, which often ends up by necessity being poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the neighborhood or city in question that lack many of the basic services of the one they're forced to leave.
Portland, one of the fastest gentrifying cities in the US, has seen its fair share of this, from gentrification in the 80s and 90s pushing out long-time working-class and African-American residents into the north and northeast to where it's currently threatening to push out homeless encampments and shelters downtown, and lower-income residents all over Portland outside of city limits.
One of the major issues this story raises, in my opinion, is the way the state (like many others) actually forbids things like rent controls while at the same time allowing property owners to rent based on income caps, highlighting the unequal relations between renters and property owners. As Commissioner Fritz so blatantly puts it, the state values land ownership rights over tenants' rights; and this hurts people. People like my friend Joe are being displaced, with little-to-no compensation; they're losing their homes and access to their communities as a result. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Renters essentially have no rights nor recourse within the current system based on profit and property rights. They're at the whim of markets, often unsympathetic legislators and courts, and property owners and developers who are conditioned and/or coerced by competitive pressures to make decisions based on profit rather than the needs of tenants or the surrounding community.
And worst of all, many in their own community are conditioned by the same system to to shrug off their suffering and say, "Tough luck, you should just stop being a loser and make more money or else move."
Friday, March 14, 2014
sick-day rant
Ironically, I hate not working because it gives me too much time to think abut all the things I hate about working. I hate, for example, that I'm pressured to work for a wage to survive, trading my autonomy (and sometimes my dignity) for a portion of the value I help produce but have no rights to. I hate the control over my life that employers generally have and freely exert, from when I have to be there and when I can leave to when I can even fucking pee. I hate that I have to schedule my entire life around when I'm not working, time which is also dictated by employers. I hate how difficult it is to find a job you like with an employer who doesn't treat you like a commodity (or like shit, since your labour-power is nothing but a commodity in the final analysis), where you're not belittled every day by management simply because you're on the low end of the capitalist totem pole. I hate how employers have the tendency to make you feel like an asshole when you're not able to make it in to work, even if you rarely ever call in. I hate the alienation of work, from the alienation imposed by the social relations of production (e.g., the divide between owners/managers and workers due to unequal relations, the divide between workers due to competition for and at work, etc.) to the alienation of not owning the product of my labours and the unfulfillingness of working simply to produce surplus-value for another. I hate that I'm pressured to spend so much time doing something I often don't enjoy for people who often don't know or care about me, while I spend so little with the people I love and who love me. I hate the stress this causes. And most of all, I hate that so many other people feel the same way, even if they're not fully cognizant of it, but at the same time feel trapped materially by their dependency on wages and psychologically by cultural and ideological conditioning into believing there's no alternative. /rant
Saturday, March 8, 2014
happy international women's day
Today marks the 103rd anniversary of International Women's Day, a day dedicated to women and their contributions to the world.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when the first International Women's Day was observed, women were being pushed into the workforce in record numbers due to a combination of factors including rapid economic and population growth, widespread poverty, and the need for cheap labour to fuel the industrial capitalist machine.
Women, who in many countries, including the US, still couldn't vote, were often working 10-12 hours a day in deplorable, sweatshop-style conditions, sometimes even being locked in factories until their work was done. And during this time, many of the largest and most militant strikes were organized by women fighting for things like shorter hours, better pay, safer working conditions, the right to unionize, and the right to vote.
With all the progress that's been made, it can be easy to forget how bad things were and how far we've come in just the last 100 years alone. But I think it's important to remind ourselves every now and then of the contributions and struggles of working women in both the past and present, not only to honour those that fought so hard to get us where we are today, but to remind ourselves of the work that's yet to be done.
So today, we celebrate and honour the contributions and struggles of women everywhere. Bread and Roses!
At the beginning of the 20th century, when the first International Women's Day was observed, women were being pushed into the workforce in record numbers due to a combination of factors including rapid economic and population growth, widespread poverty, and the need for cheap labour to fuel the industrial capitalist machine.
Women, who in many countries, including the US, still couldn't vote, were often working 10-12 hours a day in deplorable, sweatshop-style conditions, sometimes even being locked in factories until their work was done. And during this time, many of the largest and most militant strikes were organized by women fighting for things like shorter hours, better pay, safer working conditions, the right to unionize, and the right to vote.
With all the progress that's been made, it can be easy to forget how bad things were and how far we've come in just the last 100 years alone. But I think it's important to remind ourselves every now and then of the contributions and struggles of working women in both the past and present, not only to honour those that fought so hard to get us where we are today, but to remind ourselves of the work that's yet to be done.
So today, we celebrate and honour the contributions and struggles of women everywhere. Bread and Roses!
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
ukraine, a mirror of capitalist social relations?
Ukraine is being torn apart and it seems like there's plenty of blame to go around. Some blame Russia and pro-Russian Ukrainians. Some blame the West and pro-EU Ukrainians. Some blame the oligarchs. Some blame the fascists, who fall on both sides, although primarily on the pro-West side. Some say that Ukraine is the just the latest victim of US/Russian imperialism and the new Cold War.
On the face of it, I think they're all right, each side ultimately adding to the political instability. But on a deeper, more abstract level, I think the seeds of this crisis are the competitive social relations inherent in, and which dominate, 'exploitative' modes of production such as capitalism (and feudalism before that)—the former being the material basis for the continued social reproduction of the latter.
Unlike those who assume 'human nature' is a fixed, static thing that's naturally greedy, competitive, etc., I take the position that much of what we label human nature is fluid and changeable yet strongly conditioned by the world around us, including the economic 'base' of society, the way society reproduces itself. Hence the forces and social relations that are embodied within any given mode of production help shape and influence the ideas and social relations within that society (and in a global context, that includes those between nation-states). In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, for example, Marx famously writes:
In a capitalist system, what Marx termed the 'coercive laws of competition' forces individual capitals to compete with one another and exploit labour as much as they can in the pursuit of profit; and at the same time, these coercive laws of competition force individual workers to compete with fellow workers, locally as well as globally, for jobs that provide the wages they depend on to survive. And this, in turn, influences and reinforces relations (individual, national, etc.) that are built upon or grow out of this socio-economic foundation.
Ukraine, then, can be seen as an extreme example and reflection of this competition, particularly between nation-states and especially the EU (and the US) and Russia. In the final analysis, most global conflicts have material, socio-economic causes underlying them, not ideological ones. Imperialism is really just the coercive laws of competition unfolding at the political level via the expansion and protection of markets and spheres of influence; and Ukraine is currently in the middle of an imperialist tug-of-war between national competitors that's tearing the country apart from the inside out.
Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions to these things, and god knows how it's going to turn out in the end. But regardless of the outcome, I can't help but wonder what a world characterized by a mode of production based on cooperation and free association (rather than competition and unequal social relations) might look like and how it might change things. Just imagine the possibilities.
On the face of it, I think they're all right, each side ultimately adding to the political instability. But on a deeper, more abstract level, I think the seeds of this crisis are the competitive social relations inherent in, and which dominate, 'exploitative' modes of production such as capitalism (and feudalism before that)—the former being the material basis for the continued social reproduction of the latter.
Unlike those who assume 'human nature' is a fixed, static thing that's naturally greedy, competitive, etc., I take the position that much of what we label human nature is fluid and changeable yet strongly conditioned by the world around us, including the economic 'base' of society, the way society reproduces itself. Hence the forces and social relations that are embodied within any given mode of production help shape and influence the ideas and social relations within that society (and in a global context, that includes those between nation-states). In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, for example, Marx famously writes:
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.
In a capitalist system, what Marx termed the 'coercive laws of competition' forces individual capitals to compete with one another and exploit labour as much as they can in the pursuit of profit; and at the same time, these coercive laws of competition force individual workers to compete with fellow workers, locally as well as globally, for jobs that provide the wages they depend on to survive. And this, in turn, influences and reinforces relations (individual, national, etc.) that are built upon or grow out of this socio-economic foundation.
Ukraine, then, can be seen as an extreme example and reflection of this competition, particularly between nation-states and especially the EU (and the US) and Russia. In the final analysis, most global conflicts have material, socio-economic causes underlying them, not ideological ones. Imperialism is really just the coercive laws of competition unfolding at the political level via the expansion and protection of markets and spheres of influence; and Ukraine is currently in the middle of an imperialist tug-of-war between national competitors that's tearing the country apart from the inside out.
Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions to these things, and god knows how it's going to turn out in the end. But regardless of the outcome, I can't help but wonder what a world characterized by a mode of production based on cooperation and free association (rather than competition and unequal social relations) might look like and how it might change things. Just imagine the possibilities.
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