Is it all just a part of political theater meant to propel Meatball Ron into the spotlight, or are there deeper causes that this legislation is being created in reaction to? The purposeful dismantling of the education system seems like one piece, but what else is going on?
LBJ’s quote about how if you make a white person feel like they’re better than a black person, they will let you take the money out of their pocket is pretty spot on. Except it applies to more than just black folks. Capital has always needed a large segment of the white working class to feel like they have a special place of privilege in the US. That’s always been the implicit trade: the white folks (especially conservative, religious white folks) get to feel special - like this is THEIR country. And in exchange capital gets to ACTUALLY run the country. Without carving out a large group to elevate to a place of privilege, the working class writ large would probably start to unify against them.
This means there always needs to be “others” who are getting beat down to make those reactionary white folks feel like they’re in charge. It can’t (openly) be black folks anymore, though the anti-CRT push is 100% rooted in this. Gay folks were it in the 90s and into the 00s but that isn’t tenable anymore (though it’s making a bit of a comeback). It was immigrants for a while but that’s a tricky one for capital since without undocumented workers, profit in this country would collapse.
So the Wheel O’ Fascism spun around and landed on trans people. Easy group to target. It dovetails with all the other bigotries the white evangelical working class holds. And as a bonus, trans people are a group that a whole lot of liberals don’t really want to defend. So in that sense it’s a bit of a MacGuffin for capital: I don’t think there’s anything intrinsic about trans people that makes them the target per se, it’s just that the white working class folks that capital relies on need to punch down on someone.
TL;DR read Settlers
TL;DR read Settlers
I get it's a meme, but Gerald Horne's The Counter-Revolution of 1776 is all the best parts of Settlers and none of the worst.
He actually has a youtube channel with some of the best analysis of current events anywhere. This is his latest news update. I haven’t listened yet but I’m sure it’s 🔥: https://youtu.be/9PMkU4jyE7g
i think the material basis for it is the hollowing out of the state from it's productive forces into a gerrymandered retirement home / real estate experiment, as well as the imports of every reactionary comprador from latin america.
and also from what I understand before that Florida was mostly farm country, right? those already skew reactionary in the US and only now began to realize that maybe having cheap employees working in their farms might be more important than whatever culture war bullshit the radio man screams at them.
There’s also a likelihood that they’re politics of pure reactionary contrarianism. They’re doing the opposite of what other states are doing.
There is an active contradiction between the “protection of the fatherland” and the “cheap labor required for profits.” The same landlords and agrocapitalists who love the flag and hate immigrants need their labor to sustain and expand their surplus.
Well, there's definitely a national agenda in place. And I'm sure there's a bunch of floridians who see themselves at the vanguard of True America. 'When some ban trans health care, we make it so paramedics can let people die if we don't like them'.
I'm more interested in the cognitive dissonance involved. On one hand I can only imagine that the contradiction sustains itself because labour is disorganized. If cheap labour truly vacated Florida, what would happen? Would those farmlords start voting for liberal republicans? Or would they sell their land to real estate speculators and join the local KKK chapter?
It’s hard to predict what would happen but it seems like other things may happen like loosening regs to exploit a more exploitable population like children or the poor in general. Anti union laws are coming through for example. The state has 23M people with huge numbers of disenfranchised and undocumented people whose mobility is limited.
If we are in a perpetual crisis mode then I’d expect that tightening of the screw with the increasingly disempowered and growing majority juxtaposed against a bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie increasingly liberated to exploit. I don’t know if this would result in some sort of flashpoint but it’s also possible a series of climate change related calamities force mass migration to the north.
Even before the current situation FL was always a bastion of capital flight within the US due to its tax laws. Hearing from my chud extended family that retired from the northeast to FL that was near the top of the list for reasons. iirc FL is also the top state that the wealthy are currently moving into. They could be building out a fortress state for capital in decline and the punitive legislation is to both continue the neoliberalization of potential profit centers of state capacity while building up enforcement capacities. Shooting from the hip tho
hope their fortress state includes uh something to protect the groundwater from chemical pollution and the coastline
The supreme irony that the two neo-fascist strongholds are in some of the states that will be least habitable within the end of the century. If it was literature I’d call it too on the nose
Well done. Where were you in the thread on Animal Farm the other day?
theres literally nothing economic about it. i dont think theyve even attempted to make one up. Fascists didnt have an economic reasons for why gay people shouldnt marry so why would they start now?
(serious)ok then please explain to me how then trying to exterminate trans people helps them economically. im not saying they don't do ANYTHING on an economic basis, i just havent heard an economic argument for the anti-trans bullshit.
Transphobia as newer expression of latent homophobia that pervades all conservative and reactionary thought. These in turn are also linked with misogyny which again is also embedded in that ideology.
Conservative ideology is about maintaining (and expanding?) hierarchies where white cishet men are at the top. It’s not many steps removed from the idea that the family is the elemental unit of that hierarchy and oppression with the patriarch as the elemental oppressor.
These partriachal systems must be upheld in order to make "women's work" something that capital doesn't have to pay for. Trans people fly in the face of the structure which allows capital to profit freely off of social reproduction. So does feminism generally (or at least the good ones)
That's the argument Ive seen
havent heard an economic argument for the anti-trans bullshit.
the superstructure floats above the material base, that's like saying "I don't know why coca cola is hiring Colombian death squads to do Pinkerton shit against unionizing workers, I thought they made soda!"
You're right; one of the principle contradictions of fascism is the tension between all this irrational, costly reactionary stuff and the rational, profit-maximizing drive of industry. Look at all the strain between MAGA Republicans and neocons.
It's a deflection strategy. When you're getting mad about trans people you're not getting mad at your boss, in fact you might even organise with him because he's also a transphobe.
But fascism has an economic basis and reasoning to it, even if the choice of victim isn’t attached to it. They don’t need to understand their own reasoning or motivations to act, but as Marxists trying to produce sound analysis we should
fascism is protecting capital instead of workers and enforcing that with violence, while simultaneously fighting a culture war that is used to get their brownshirts energized. What was the economic reason for the Jewish genocide? Because they were taking up all the money i guess? that's the only reason I could make up now. Marxism is scientific, fascism isn't. They are incompatible ideologies so i wouldnt try to use one to explain the other.
:wtf-am-i-reading: You're saying there's no economic factors driving patriarchy and racism? And no link between the immense crisis in German capitalism, the rise of the Nazis, and the intensification of oppression against their targets over time? They forced people into slavery in the camps, and if they couldn't work stole their possessions and commodified their very bodies. Completely unrelated to economics.
Marxism is scientific, yes, which means it is able to explain fascism even if fascism can't explain itself. No investigation, no right to speak.
we're talking about modern day Florida and anti-LGBT legislation. We're not covering the grand scope of fascist history. Hitler probably did say killing the Jewish people was good for the economy since he claimed they had so much wealth and power. what wealth and power does the LGBT community have? not enough to matter currently. Maybe they say trans healthcare is a drain on the healthcare system? i havent heard that though, i just made that up. I was just trying to answer the question posed in the title of this thread.
It's the same story, the first targets of the Nazis were disabled people and trans people after all. US capitalism is in deep crisis and the response is playing out similarly (and differently). People have already made some good points tying patriarchy (including LGBT+ oppression) to social reproduction via uncompensated domestic labour etc. Trans people get the worst of it because they challenge patriarchal structures most directly, and provide an opportunity to mobilize and organize reactionary forces.
There's much more to it, but the most important part is that just because fascism is irrational doesn't mean the directions it takes are incomprehensible. In fact, it's essential for Marxists to understand the similarities and differences between what's going on today and what's happened in the past.
Hitler probably did say killing the Jewish people was good for the economy since he claimed they had so much wealth and power.
Remember, the thing we're looking for is to understand the economic reasons why Florida is trying to genocide trans people. Fascists themselves aren't going to say "trans people are groomers, and also they represent an ideological threat to the system of social reproduction of labor" or whatever. Maybe you can get some hints from the bourgeois funders of fascists, but I would not expect to see economic reasoning straight from politician's mouths.
they did argue about the cost of gender affirming healthcare for trans people in the military but like that wasn't the actual reason why, it was just a convenient argument to advance the already-existing project of trans oppression
i kinda do, that’s how they convey so many of their plans. It’s always about saving money, especially for republicans.
But that's not the real reason. E.g. conservatives put on the "small government" mask when they try to cut the welfare state. But they're not trying to get rid of unemployment benefits because they are just strong believers in a balanced budget*. They're trying to get rid of unemployment benefits because capital needs a reserve army of labor.
* well maybe individual political actors are. But we're interested in the reasons the bourgeoisie selects these guys.
What was the economic reason for the Jewish genocide? Because they were taking up all the money i guess?
There's more complexity to it than that.
Forced labour had an economic basis. And several industries could be spawned from transforming work camps into death camps, for one disgusting example - you can make wigs from the hair gathered from the dead.
You find inside this transformation from forced labour to death machine the basis of different groups of the bourgeoisie having an economic incentive to see that transformation happen. But even more so is the unsustainability of it all in a system where fixed costs are too high, when maintaining your slaves becomes unsustainable economically you just start killing them all off because that's cheaper.
This whole video is very worthwhile, but I've linked to a relevant portion of it, only need to watch 10 minutes or so. https://youtu.be/QO-7cymgtqo?t=4622
ok i understand the economic basis behind Jewish genocide, but the main topic here has been what is the economic reason for anti-trans laws in Florida. im open to hearing ideas of that, cause i have no clue. I dont think ive heard a conservative say why getting rid of trans people helps the economy.
My personal take is that it has to do with the labour pool and aging of society. The ratio of young workers to old retirees is ever increasing and this leads to a labour shortage.
The solutions? One solution is immigration. They don't like that. Another solution is birthrates.
So how do we achieve more births? We need to do patriarchy. Trans people are the first victims of a patriarchal revival intended to subjugate women and raise birthrates. Trans people are necessary victims in this revival because their very existence threatens patriarchy as they exist outside of any conceptual family that patriarchy can produce.
As society ages and as the ratio of young workers to elderly ever increases this crisis of labour continues to increase and the urgency of their solution to it increases.
With immigration off the table because of a culture of white supremacy, this is all I have that makes economic sense.
Jews did on average have surprisingly strong economic standing for being such a hated minority in Germany. Pushing them out meant that their white competitors could steal their market share. That's a large part of the economic basis of the persecution of Jews in Germany, it deflects from the basic contradictions of falling profit by creating artificial growth for a brief period to the targeted benefit of the Nazi's popular base.
and that makes sense to me. im trying to find a similar reason to apply to anti-LGBT laws in Florida as well.
I agree that it is harder to understand. My personal theory is that trans people are targeted conversely because they are such a tiny and obscure part of the population that they are relatively helpless (along with other aspects like Christian paranoia of sexual deviancy) and, critically, they can be linked to "them" (elites [Jews]) by being cast as a product of woke ideology and urban decadence and so on. I think trans people are being targeted so they can be basically an appetizer for the death machine.
Fascists didnt have an economic reasons for why gay people shouldnt marry
as the neoliberal (fascist!) Margaret Thatcher once said, "there is no such thing as a society, there are only individuals and families". This explains why the hollowed out "nuclear family" exists, it is under this industrial paradigm of dissolving human solidarity with your kooky aunt or uncle that allows for socialism to be something we can fight for. If your elders live in a "retirement home", why would you need Medicare 4 all?
Attack the teachers' union takes away the ground muscle of his opposition.
Attacking the queer community attacks the cultural opposition to the conservative movement.
It's the same reason Nixon went after Hippies and Black people and Reagan went after Trade Unions and Queers.
Meanwhile, taking hard stances in the culture wars motivates his base and amplifies his ground game. This plays especially well in Cuba where there's a lot of retirees and Cuban ex pats.
