How do you respond to people when they say that "we have never had it so good"?
I hear this all the time, and normally i would respond by saying that only 1st world countries have a great standard of living, whereas their entire economic system is ironically based on the misery of indentured workers abroad.
But I always hear people give this cliched argument that capitalism has reduced global absolute poverty rates dramatically, and that we should not romanticize subsistence living but instead look at china and its growing middle class, and how people all over the globe are living longer healthier lives, etc.
So how do you respond to this?
Forgive the brevity: 1) It's
Forgive the brevity:
1) It's not true and especially not so in developed countries. In terms of working conditions, wages, expendable income, percentage of income going to housing, job security, and hours worked, things have gotten worse in the past 40 years or so.
2) Even if this was true, we're still exploited at work. Work eats into all aspects of our lives, causes personal and social stress, and the sole factor that we organize our lives around - work - is outside of our control. And, ironically, we could all work significantly less given the massive increase in productivity and the inevitable development of A.I., yet all those potentially freeing developments have just led a massive incfrease in inequality and precarity in the labor market.
3) Why bother arguing this? Personally, I don't think we win most people over with even the best, most factually sound arguments. Given the ideological conditioning we all experience growing up under capitalism, I don't think most people are open to criticisms of capitalism until they have some experience collectively acting against it.
Chilli, re no.3, I was
Chilli, re no.3, I was chatting with UV about this a little while ago. My experience reflects your comment and I've had no luck busting through the political myopia of both liberals and conservatives alike but the truth is that you guys convinced me with your arguments and my position altered massively. Ok, I was on the hunt for something tangible in the anarchism line but not so UV, who was a left leaning social democrat. What do you think about this? Is it that you think it's impossible or that the odds are so low you think it not worth the effort?
The favourite phrase of those
The favourite phrase of those who always had it better!
We have never had it so bad..
We have never had it so bad.. gathering climate storm with increased racial and geopolitical tensions, poisoned waters, precarious and just as alienating labor, food-systems managed with shady science, pandemics of neurosis and other mental disorders, massive alienating cities, the continuing threat of nuclear war, meth, crack, heroin epidemics.
Meth crack and heroin bad?
Meth crack and heroin bad? Are you crazy? I love that shit!
Just you wait till you come
Just you wait till you come down from your kite Noah! But as Chili said there's no point in seriously arguing. Someone's ideological persuasion doesn't bring down the juggernaut. It'll happen sometime.
We've definitely had it
We've definitely had it better. I have had to leave the area I grew up in because I will never be able to afford to live there. At my age my parents had stable jobs, owned a home and had had kids. They could look forward to pensions and had free healthcare. Relative costs of everything except for alcohol and food and flights were cheaper and renting wasn't 50-60% of take-home salary.
The Pigeon wrote: Just you
The Pigeon
I came down long ago my feathered comrade. Various vegan threads saw to that.
Same could be said at almost
Same could be said at almost any point in history, since wealth is mostly growing and society becomes more prosperous, that doesn't mean that mindless cancerous production is a fitting master of, or purpose for man. That is if you accept it as true, the distribution of resources is the worst it has ever been, the fact that there is more stuff in total doesn't mean anything
Thanks for the
Thanks for the responses.
Chilli, regarding your 3rd point - I think it basically boils down very simply to the fact that it's a common cliche'd argument in support of capitalism, and therefore anti-capitalists should have a strong argument against it.
And yes, perhaps you don't win most people over with factually correct arguments, but you certainly win some people over with them. How can someone have experience 'collectively acting against capitalism', as you say, if they've never had a debate or argument that has changed their views? I'm sure many people here have been in debates that have changed their opinions, or at least read arguments online that have helped convince them.
Regarding the argument itself, people will admit that things are bad now, but this response goes hand in hand with another common response that capitalism is 'the best system we have'. Ie: we are suffering through a hiccup in what is otherwise the most productive system we've created, and all it needs is regulation to run smoothly to everyone's benefit.
I think that we can admit as anti-capitalists that capitalism has raised billions of people out of the worst kinds of poverty, but I suppose the argument is that this may be a result of globalization, population density, industrialization, or a combination of all these things, and not necessarily capitalism itself. And we do not know if any other economic system would've been more successful in reducing poverty, because we can certainly all agree that the global powers actively sought to destroy any non-capitalist initiatives wherever they appeared, such as the Allied invasion of Russia in 1918, Vietnam, Cuba, and US support of Mobutu Seseseko, etc. etc. etc.
Another response may be that yes, capitalism reduced global poverty through industrialization, the invention of medicines and vaccines and cars and refrigeration, but now with post-industrialization we are moving to a more mechanized world while our global population keeps increasing, and therefore things are getting worse. A sort of 'late-stage capitalism' argument.
Edit: Khronos I like your argument! Simple and to the point. Serfdom was marginally better than slavery, that doesn't mean we should've all stuck to serfdom.
Quote: How can someone have
So, first, yeah of course some small percentage of people can and will be swayed by argumentation - but I tend to think it's people who are attracted to a particular way of thinking or, as Noah said, looking for answers.
More directly replying to your point, I think in the majority of cases action precedes consciousness. I mean, despite the fact that most people don't identify as anti-capitalists, people undertake anti-capitalist acts all the time - from stretching their lunch break to going on strike, those acts are about putting our individual and collective needs and desires before the needs to capital. Does that make sense?
With that said, maybe I should have said "consciously acting in their collective interest" ;-)
I agree with virtually all
I agree with virtually all the points made in this thread.
Replying to, ‘We have never had it so good’, I’d ask, who are the ‘we’?
As a child my mum scared me into washing my hands after going to the toilet by telling me about the risks of polio and living in an iron lung or wearing callipers on my legs. Yesterday the News spoke of how polio was near the point of eradication worldwide. So some good news. Earlier in the week, reports about the thousands of young children in the UK having all their teeth extracted in hospital. Many poor people are buying DIY dentistry kits as they cannot afford a trip to the dentist. Just the tip of the poverty iceberg.
Basically capitalism is a shambles, a roulette wheel dealing out wealth to the few, and misery in varying degrees, to the many. And the walking wounded say, ‘I’m all right, Jack’.
I think that spreading these
I think that spreading these sorts of cliched soundbites like "capitalism has brought millions of people out of starvation and subsistence" is dangerous and one of the most effective forms of propaganda. They are simple memes that make their way into popular culture and are then repeated ad nauseam because they require no critical thought or cumbersome facts to memorize.
That's why this is one of those Twitter-friendly statements that should be put into resources like An Anarchist FAQ and deconstructed, rebutted, and spread.
It's an interesting discussion whether people become anti-capitalists through argumentation or through action, but for me personally I was on the fence on many things, sought out reading material, decided i was convinced by the arguments, eventually self-identified as anti capitalist, and then thought "it's time to take the next step from belly-aching to friends on social media to actual activism." And this all started from pretty conventional pro-capitalist views. I'm sure there are people who arrived at the same conclusions in completely different ways.
A lot of people are looking
A lot of people are looking for alternatives. Hell even my boss said "whoever comes up with an alternative to capitalism will win the Nobel prize." Bit my tongue to say the least but it goes to show that many see the problems and expect a "theory" to explain and work out a functioning alternative.
That's why I think libcom does an important job. More well argued libcom perspectives are important. Also because many see the contradictions of leftism whilst looking for alternatives
[url=chomsky's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QAqU2KpaY
So what? The question is
So what? The question is whether we can have it better and the answer is YES!
Being grateful for what you have is a sign of a slave's mentality.
Spotted this again today: "In
Spotted this again today:
"In 15 years a billion people have been removed from poverty. That's capitalism."
Seen here
spaceman spiff wrote: Spotted
spaceman spiff
That's a brilliant quote. Who is it from. I'm not on Twitter and I daren't sign up - Libcom is all the time suck I need.
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we have it good / better
we have it good / better because of the technological / scientific advance, we increased our possibilities as humans (for example we can heal most shit, produce the same stuff with a fraction of work involved and could stop a meteor from destroying earth, soon will be able to escape the explosion of our sun .. and so on - not saying its done but the possibilities are there). but the worker has never been as poor as today. (total wealth compared to worker's personal wealth - or richest guy's wealth compared to worker's wealth). though the 2nd argument is misleading because the capitalist wealth comes down to purely labor expended (as long as its paid for) and who in their right mind would call labor expended "wealth".
And here it is again: Reddit
And here it is again: Reddit circle-jerk on capitalism
It's entitled: Today I learned that the extreme poverty rate in East Asia has decreased dramatically over the past 25 years, from 60% in 1990 to 3.5% today.
And the top comment was: "All due to capitalism"