Why Do Tens of Millions in the US Support an Economic System That Doesn't Benefit Them?

[appalachiablue]

- If people throw away money, opportunities, and their very lives chasing destructive delusions, then we might as well revert to divine right of kings or the selection of leaders by lottery. - Mike Lofgren, Common Dreams, June 20, 2022. Ed.

- No one is strapped to a chair & forced to watch drivel like Fox News. -

For nearly 2 centuries, literature from Marx & Dickens to Thomas Piketty & Barbara Ehrenreich has dissected & denounced the machinations of the greedy rich. Turn their pockets inside out, make them pay their fair share, & a more just society might be possible. No one is strapped to a chair & forced to watch drivel like Fox News. Perhaps the most insidious propaganda is voluntarily self-administered. That sentiment is not wrong. If someone like Elon Musk has a higher net worth than the gross domestic product of a country like Ukraine, with over 40M people, something is out of whack.

But what if the analysis is incomplete? Suppose there is more collusion with the rich & the powerful, & not just from their public relations people, lawyers, & financial advisers, but from tens of millions of people who derive no benefit?

Josh Marshall, the editor of Talking Points Memo, wrote about a conservative acquaintance. Years ago this person, an immigrant from Britain, admitted that he didn't like firearms & didn't want them near his children. But he agreed with the NRA position on guns as a matter of ideological solidarity. Lately, he bought a firearm & sees himself protecting home & family from the crazed criminal hordes a la Night of the Living Dead. Marshall then discussed the police position on gun control. Traditionally, they were in favor of it; that made sense, since they were the people authorized & paid by the citizens to face down armed killers. Hence their campaigns against armor-piercing ('cop killer') bullets, high-capacity automatic rifles, etc.

But now, consistent with the right-wing politicization of police unions, they are silent on gun control or against it.

Although the conservative guy and the police see the issue from different existential situations, they both took positions that were against their rational self-interest. The conservative is far less likely to save his family in a fantasized shoot-out than to see his kids endangered by a shooter at their school or other public place. And the cops' attitude is crazy if literally everyone may carry a concealed weapon under any circumstances, anywhere, without a license, as several state legislatures are considering. These are examples of irrational thinking, an aberration whereby one's picture of the world does not align with one's own enlightened self-interest. The people affected are reducing the odds of their own biological survival in favor of some hazy, un-thought-through "ideal."

Progressive have puzzled over why this occurs in economic matters. At one time in our history this was rarely the case. Farmers in the late 19th c. knew exactly how the railroads, grain wholesalers, and banks were screwing them. Likewise, organized labor from the Homestead Strike to the Battle of the Overpass fought and died in shocking numbers for the simple dignity to work like free men rather than as wage slaves. No longer. In 2016, the farm vote went 70-80% to a candidate who told them that he would ignite a tariff war with the farmers' largest overseas customer for soybeans & pork. For good measure, he would cut off the source of labor they needed for harvesting & downstream processing.

Farm income plummeted and rural suicides spiked. No matter; they voted for that same candidate in 2020 in even higher numbers...

Read More, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/20/why-do-tens-millions-us-support-economic-system-doesnt-benefit-them

[Aristus]

1. Because they're all hoping someday it will.

n/t

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. It is not just 'hoping'...

We were told that the American Dream(r) would allow us to be anything we wanted. We were told that anyone can get there with hard work and honesty. We were told many, many things. And...

[Ford_Prefect]

2. Effective propaganda generates base beliefs which exist well beyond their original expression.

Religion has exploited this for centuries. RW propaganda was produced by some of the same brilliant minds that sold us cigarettes, alcohol, and Cold War mythology.

When you have an education system which teaches rote learning and blind faith in the official answers, rather than how and when to ask good questions, you wind up with citizens who cannot see or hear when they are being lied to, and who think patriotism is marching in line to the official music.

Most important is that you have a population who cannot see that the roles they've been fed all their lives are the only ones possible or wise. That includes an economy dependent on nearly permanent debt and social distinctions based on economic class rather than character.

[appalachiablue]

3. Right on the money, tragic but age old. Thanks for replying.