Nov 11, 2023Liked by Kareem Kudus, Generation Squeeze
Depending on CHARITY is a culturally backward thing. Drake could do more good by saying: "Nobody should be in a position to be so charitable...let alone for there to be a need for me to be so charitable or such a big shot. Only a small man feels big being charitable when he knows that his community should be pooling resources, having social policies and services that provide..... everybody is just as deserving of basic needs ....there is no dignity in charity for me and certainly no dignity for you....If I paid my fair share of taxes...if I did not make so much money off good fortune-luck, off of investments, including real-estate investments... then the whole community could share the wealth not equally but reasonably fairly." Some Canadian Indigenous cultures believed in pooling and sharing that made charity unthinkable. Charity is a sickly answer for a culture that has lost its sense of value of everyone, it's sense of community. In short Drake could do more good by drawing attention to and supporting Generation Squeezes policies rather than being so charitable.
I couldnt agree more with you Glen! I spent the entire second half of the concert trying to figure out how to make Drake, and others in positions like his, realize and advocate for the idea that "Nobody should be in a position to be so charitable", etc.
So interesting what you mentioned about the Indeigenous cultures. Any chance you have some resources where I could learn more?
I think you might find this related article that I wrote on my personal blog to be interesting. It's about how generosity from super wealthy people seems helpful, but really it just blinds us from the problem - that wealth is so concentrated: https://kareemk.substack.com/p/the-problem-disguised-as-the-solution
Nov 11, 2023·edited Nov 11, 2023Liked by Kareem Kudus, Generation Squeeze
The chickens!! Great point about resisting cynicism. I see some comparable fatalism from other political directions too, where people will (somewhat correctly) point out that the lifestyle many boomers had was both environmentally unsustainable and happened in a unique economic period, with the implication the problem is more expectations than policy. It's true people will have to adapt their consumption and adapt to a changing climate, but like GenSqueeze points out, not caring about economic fairness makes that harder. Young adults who need to work more to pay for housing (or more in taxes) have less time and money left over to care about the future. Much easier sell to cut back on environmentally-harmful consumption if it can mean working a little less (or a little differently) than if your work choices are still completely determined by more and more money going to the same housing. It's a great message that fairness between current generations will help avoid pressure to kick costs to future ones, and maybe a little motivation for the surprising number of other young-ish people I meet who can't bring themselves to care on their own behalf.
Even aside from the dollars and cents part, housing really constrains people's choices about how to adapt! A price on pollution will feel more unfair to someone who already has little choice but a long commute (like if they live with parents or got priced out of the area where they work entirely) than someone who can choose to move closer to work. Same with renters who aren't the ones making choices about insulation or heating systems, and maybe can't afford to move, but are still exposed to costs. If people feel they can't actually adapt their behaviour in response to prices, that price is likely to feel like an arbitrary punishment.
Super well said Valerie. That's why Gen Squeeze has a variety of concrete policy solutions to reduce our wallet problems -- like more affordable child care, parental leave, housing, and even lower income taxes (made possible, for example, by higher taxes on high levels of housing wealth). As we reduce our wallet pressures, like you say, people will be more open to adapting in ways that are necessary to reduce our climate pressures.
Thank you, Kareem. Obscene wealth with is something our society stays away from addressing. That any man disserves so much more than the poorest man is something I have given a lot of attention to. Setting limits is something that we in the West are horrid at. Karl Marx certainly did not have a palatable answer-no private wealth. His answer was extreme. And ours is extreme too in allowing for Billionaires. Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos....Musk are obscenely rich and we all know it. Yet we look to them as great men when in fact they are obscenities. These oligarchs have killed free enterprise. And if you examine how they got super rich it was not because they were more blessed than the average man but that they were advantaged and learned to take every advantaged they could to attain endless material wealth. And a big part of that taking advantage was taking advantage of other people's work. Mariana Marzacotto in the Entrepreneural State carefully traces Steve Jobs steps. Not one of the components in the iPhone was developed by him-but by Publicly Funded Research. All Jobs did was package it. Public funds made it possible and avoiding taxes was a Hallmark of Jobs' success. Bill Gates much the same rolling one advantage into the next big advantage. We see Bill Gates as a Great Man! We buy his books on climate change, when the very lifestyle his lives and the very works of his Charitable foundation contribute to climate change. He is a great man because he has accumulated so much wealth! We are a superficial-stupid people. Gates takes full advantage of that.
Kareem, John Ralston Saul in Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada explains how CHARITY goes against native culture. He uses our Charities as going against the nature of community where nobody hoards or lords-but puts access food etc. into a pool that one is free to give to and take from without any sense of charity, as he or she pleases. Nobody plays the big shot but just does the right thing. If you got more than you need it is amoral to keep it. We do not shame having excessive wealth, we glorify it. We have the disease of More!
Depending on CHARITY is a culturally backward thing. Drake could do more good by saying: "Nobody should be in a position to be so charitable...let alone for there to be a need for me to be so charitable or such a big shot. Only a small man feels big being charitable when he knows that his community should be pooling resources, having social policies and services that provide..... everybody is just as deserving of basic needs ....there is no dignity in charity for me and certainly no dignity for you....If I paid my fair share of taxes...if I did not make so much money off good fortune-luck, off of investments, including real-estate investments... then the whole community could share the wealth not equally but reasonably fairly." Some Canadian Indigenous cultures believed in pooling and sharing that made charity unthinkable. Charity is a sickly answer for a culture that has lost its sense of value of everyone, it's sense of community. In short Drake could do more good by drawing attention to and supporting Generation Squeezes policies rather than being so charitable.
I couldnt agree more with you Glen! I spent the entire second half of the concert trying to figure out how to make Drake, and others in positions like his, realize and advocate for the idea that "Nobody should be in a position to be so charitable", etc.
So interesting what you mentioned about the Indeigenous cultures. Any chance you have some resources where I could learn more?
I think you might find this related article that I wrote on my personal blog to be interesting. It's about how generosity from super wealthy people seems helpful, but really it just blinds us from the problem - that wealth is so concentrated: https://kareemk.substack.com/p/the-problem-disguised-as-the-solution
The chickens!! Great point about resisting cynicism. I see some comparable fatalism from other political directions too, where people will (somewhat correctly) point out that the lifestyle many boomers had was both environmentally unsustainable and happened in a unique economic period, with the implication the problem is more expectations than policy. It's true people will have to adapt their consumption and adapt to a changing climate, but like GenSqueeze points out, not caring about economic fairness makes that harder. Young adults who need to work more to pay for housing (or more in taxes) have less time and money left over to care about the future. Much easier sell to cut back on environmentally-harmful consumption if it can mean working a little less (or a little differently) than if your work choices are still completely determined by more and more money going to the same housing. It's a great message that fairness between current generations will help avoid pressure to kick costs to future ones, and maybe a little motivation for the surprising number of other young-ish people I meet who can't bring themselves to care on their own behalf.
Even aside from the dollars and cents part, housing really constrains people's choices about how to adapt! A price on pollution will feel more unfair to someone who already has little choice but a long commute (like if they live with parents or got priced out of the area where they work entirely) than someone who can choose to move closer to work. Same with renters who aren't the ones making choices about insulation or heating systems, and maybe can't afford to move, but are still exposed to costs. If people feel they can't actually adapt their behaviour in response to prices, that price is likely to feel like an arbitrary punishment.
Super well said Valerie. That's why Gen Squeeze has a variety of concrete policy solutions to reduce our wallet problems -- like more affordable child care, parental leave, housing, and even lower income taxes (made possible, for example, by higher taxes on high levels of housing wealth). As we reduce our wallet pressures, like you say, people will be more open to adapting in ways that are necessary to reduce our climate pressures.
Glad you like the chickens!!
Correction- obscene wealth
Thank you, Kareem. Obscene wealth with is something our society stays away from addressing. That any man disserves so much more than the poorest man is something I have given a lot of attention to. Setting limits is something that we in the West are horrid at. Karl Marx certainly did not have a palatable answer-no private wealth. His answer was extreme. And ours is extreme too in allowing for Billionaires. Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos....Musk are obscenely rich and we all know it. Yet we look to them as great men when in fact they are obscenities. These oligarchs have killed free enterprise. And if you examine how they got super rich it was not because they were more blessed than the average man but that they were advantaged and learned to take every advantaged they could to attain endless material wealth. And a big part of that taking advantage was taking advantage of other people's work. Mariana Marzacotto in the Entrepreneural State carefully traces Steve Jobs steps. Not one of the components in the iPhone was developed by him-but by Publicly Funded Research. All Jobs did was package it. Public funds made it possible and avoiding taxes was a Hallmark of Jobs' success. Bill Gates much the same rolling one advantage into the next big advantage. We see Bill Gates as a Great Man! We buy his books on climate change, when the very lifestyle his lives and the very works of his Charitable foundation contribute to climate change. He is a great man because he has accumulated so much wealth! We are a superficial-stupid people. Gates takes full advantage of that.
Kareem, John Ralston Saul in Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada explains how CHARITY goes against native culture. He uses our Charities as going against the nature of community where nobody hoards or lords-but puts access food etc. into a pool that one is free to give to and take from without any sense of charity, as he or she pleases. Nobody plays the big shot but just does the right thing. If you got more than you need it is amoral to keep it. We do not shame having excessive wealth, we glorify it. We have the disease of More!
I love how you put it, that Marx's answer was too extreme (which I agree with), but so is ours, in the opposite direction.