Sorry, but those few hundred bucks weren’t getting us out of poverty.
The idea of "economic rationality" itself is kinda sus but still, this thinking is totally rational and reasonable. I feel like I've heard smart people who study poverty say the same thing. What's the point of saving money here and there when you're poor in the US? Any bit that you save is either not going to make a real impact (like what are you gonna do when you're poor, save all that extra money in a 401k for retirement?) or it's gonna get taken away from you via fines, medical bills, etc. Might as well make life a little more bearable.
It's all because capitalist society wants you to feel bad for using any of "their" (the capitalists) money to sustain yourself - food stamps, medicaid, etc. That money your folks spent on an snes - well to them that's money they could have used instead of you "taking money from the taxpayers". It's not because they think you should save wisely out of a spirit of thriftyness as a virtue, but because they just think you're taking "their" money. And this thinking has been so effective in dividing the working class, I've even seen it in people who are still poor but not as poor as other people. It's so gross, death to America etc etc.
I know we have beef with Weber, but this is peak calvinist and protestant work ethic. Thriftiness and material efficiency are very tied to that kind of thinking.
The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt—your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.
The idea of "economic rationality" itself is kinda sus but still, this thinking is totally rational and reasonable. I feel like I've heard smart people who study poverty say the same thing. What's the point of saving money here and there when you're poor in the US? Any bit that you save is either not going to make a real impact (like what are you gonna do when you're poor, save all that extra money in a 401k for retirement?) or it's gonna get taken away from you via fines, medical bills, etc. Might as well make life a little more bearable.
It's all because capitalist society wants you to feel bad for using any of "their" (the capitalists) money to sustain yourself - food stamps, medicaid, etc. That money your folks spent on an snes - well to them that's money they could have used instead of you "taking money from the taxpayers". It's not because they think you should save wisely out of a spirit of thriftyness as a virtue, but because they just think you're taking "their" money. And this thinking has been so effective in dividing the working class, I've even seen it in people who are still poor but not as poor as other people. It's so gross, death to America etc etc.
I know we have beef with Weber, but this is peak calvinist and protestant work ethic. Thriftiness and material efficiency are very tied to that kind of thinking.
The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt—your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.
:marx-hi: