For our society to function smoothly, you must make sure everyone ‘has’ something, and then offer the rich people the same item, but better.
If you really had Haves and Have-Nots, a society would have trouble.
Think about this. Almost everyone in the US has a car. Rich people just have nice cars. Everyone has shelter, but some poorer people have to rent, or have an older ‘fixer upper’ house (It isn’t old and shabby, think positive! It’s a ‘fixer-upper’! Just fix it up silly!).
Everyone has a phone, most have cell phones. Rich people have IPhones. Some of us make do with the ‘free with a 2 year plan’ phone.
Everyone has TV. Rich people have big TVs. Don’t complain about our factories moving to China, now even the middle class can have big TVs! Well, at least until the US’ inflationary monetary policies finally catch up to us, and prices start to soar…
Clothing, food, stereos. We feel richer when we go out and buy new clothes, even though they are Walmart shirts worth $9, while Jennifer Aniston spends $200 on a plain white t-shirt. Unconsciously we console ourselves by knowing we are not ‘Have Nots’. We have shirts too, so what if the CEO of Coke has a nicer shirt. Right?
What would happen to our society if people at the lower or lower-middle classes had to do without some item, and not just have to make do with an inferior version?
A few years ago, I remember hearing on TV that the government had challenged the big PC manufacturers to make a sub-$500 PC, so that every home could have a computer in it. Is this benevolence? Or do the people in power realize that the portion of society that are true Have Nots are likely to be more open minded to Change. Real change. Change as in “Lets overthrow the government and change everything” type of change. As long as everyone has what everyone else has, the poor are unlikely to revolt.
Lately you can read on environmentalist or frugal ‘how to stretch your dollar’ type websites that people should ride bikes to work, or bake their own bread. Or if you complain, people will ask you why you have TV? Why do you have a computer, or the Internet? Why are you driving a car, get a bike! I am not kidding, people say this.
This is fine, should I turn off my Internet then, and sell my TV? What if a lot of Americans had to do this?
I’ll tell you what would happen. All of those people would start going to work, listening to other people talk about who won American Idol, or how their Ipod was have trouble working in the air-conditioned car on the ride to work.
And they would get pretty pissed about this.
Class warfare it is called. Capitalism, in my opinion, only works as long as most people Have plenty of what everyone else Has. They can make do with less features, or less glitz, but they cannot do Without. Not when everyone around them has something.
This is what is happening. People are taking ’staycations’ now, and staying home while taking vacations from work. People are being told on self help websites to bake their own bread. Have you every tried this? The bread is oh so delicious. And the next day…it is a little stale. No preservatives. Have you ever tried to make a sandwich out of homemade bread? It isn’t easy. Recently there was an article about how rich people were getting their $400 hair cuts less often, but did not want other people to know about it. How will the average person feel when he has his homemade bread sandwich at work, and people ask him why the bread is not Wonderbread?
People are being told to ride their bikes to work. Put their children in bike trailers and go to the grocery store. I once had a guy tell me that the problem with poor people is that they made bad choices when buying things. He talked about the pants he wore to work. He said they were made in America, and he had many pairs last for years and years. They were very well made.
I looked them up - $120 a pair. So I asked him “Would my boss notice that I only wore two pairs of pants all week long?” Poor people would not have the money to buy $600 worth of pants just to wear to work. Amazing, how people can be so out of touch.
Another guy told me that people should not go to Emergency Rooms if they did not have health insurance, just go to a clinic! Again, this guy assumes everyone lives in a big city. I asked him how I would take my child, on a bike trailer, on a two hour trip to the nearest clinic (It is an hour trip on a bike just to the nearest Emergency Room from where I live…) in January, in upstate NY.
If things get worse, our society is going to see quite a bit of stress, I think. Why else would Republicans, who claim to want to end social programs, never end them? Why doesn’t George Bush end things like Earned Income credit on taxes for single moms, or housing assistance, Food Stamps, etc?
Because once people had to really start doing Without, the shit will hit the proverbial fan.
And what if people find out that the reason they are doing Without is due to government policies? What if people start understanding Inflation, and why the dollar dropped in value?
The shit will hit the proverbial fan, I think.
(For the record, I am not poor, this is not a complaining or whining article. Amazingly, I have empathy for those that do without in the US, when the reality is that there is so much wealth here that everyone could have good health care, GOOD education, and plenty to eat, if it were not for the corruption and greed of those at the top.)
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