Is there any other "sport" so perfectly encapsulating everything shitty about capitalism? It's got everything:

  • Extremely large amounts of nature converted to courses made out of non-indigenous plants that waste water and labor keeping the grass at a constant height
  • Course are owned by tax-dodging private social clubs with hefty membership costs
  • New members have to be approved by the existing membership, so undesirable (read: non-WASP) members of the community can be rejected even if they can meet the economic costs
  • Special discount rates offered for family of current members, ensuring generational wealth and privilege is maintained
  • Most of the workforce is made up of undocumented laborers from Central America who do manual labor in exchange for shitty wages
  • Middle school-age children are employed as off-the-books pack animals so the players don't accidentally do any amount of manual labor
  • Players also have the option of driving little cars (with no safety mechanisms at all) so they don't accidentally get exercise
  • A whole match takes four fucking hours to complete, requiring substantial free time on top of the sunk costs in fees and equipment

Climate destruction, resource waste, tax-dodges, racism, nepotism, illegal and child labor, and extremely high artificial costs for a leisure activity: I can't think of a single more appropriate avatar for capitalism. Well, maybe if there were slaves.

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The course near me is owned by an American Indian tribe, lets anyone in, and uses low-maintenance gardening (lots of rocks, we're near the desert). I feel like the sport can be molded to a proletarian character since at its core it's a social activity with a kind of meditative element.

    Plus driving golf carts is super fun seriously.