Post

Region: Anarchy

Post by Renewed dissonance suppressed by Perrais.

Renewed dissonance

Marche noir wrote:

Actually, if you look at the rhetoric of the enfranchised and empowered, or rather, at the rhetoric of their courtiers - i.e. the Koch brothers, the followers of Ayn Rand and most self described "libertarians" and "conservatives" in the United States - they clearly deny the existence of luck or any other such external force.

Instead, they attribute their enfranchisement and power purely to the sweat of their brow as opposed to accidents of birth and circumstance (i.e. luck). If the poor don't have access to power, it's not because they are "unlucky", but because they are not working hard enough, and therefore deserve their poverty and all of the humiliations and deprivations that accompany it.

Emerson's quote is entirely in keeping with this view: i.e. if you're poor, it's a matter of cause and effect: you didn't work hard (cause), and therefore you are poor (effect).

I think I had in mind traditional religious appeals, especially those by which "God" will provide for the faithful. The "invisible hand" of the market fills a similar role; indeed, it is exactly the same appeal dressed up in secularized verbage.

God/luck/the market will all provide to the faithful...you know, if you'll just take it up the backside for Us a little while longer, etc. I don't think its difficult to observe elites dragging this sort of thing around.

Context • Report