Rhodes Center Podcast: How Precarity Puts Capitalism on Edge 

Same here. I think she nailed it

yes!

I was able to read the preface and Introduction on Google books and parts of it really struck me similar to what you said. Even that part is worth the read. I think she's done something rare in that she's stopped, looked around and said the narrative being spun doesn't match what I know and can see. I'm an engineer and have lived my adult life not knowing what next week was particularly since they dragged us all onto contract work. The what happens next after the current contract isn't a nice way to live. Certain professions are naturally that way. A mechanic doesn't always know how many cars he'll fix next week but he knows something will need to be fixed.

It's *really* clarifying, the distinction she draws between the psychology of precarity, and the mass envy purportedly triggered by inequality.

Amen.

Well said. They have the skill to utilise, or exploit, other peoples' skills and labour. Utilising fairly is a good skill, unfairly or exploiting is not - my personal opinion, of course.

NO! They are really not! Just because somebody has more money, does not mean a lot of others have less!

@@cyberslim7955 That's not what they said. Control your knees, they are jerking.

Yes, but her crucial observations seem to center on the real, commonplace responses to insecurity, versus those that are *assumed* to begin with resentment over iniquity. It's an important distinction; these are the microfoundations of building effective political movements -- something the left hasn't exactly had a lot of luck with over the last 40 years.

Exactly! Why try to tease the two apart when 1 reinforces the other. you know what would make peoples lives less precarious? MORE MONEY and, by extension, LESS INEQUALITY

I don't think she's really doing that. I think she's pointing out that precarity affects a much larger chink of society including the rich. But I do think she misreads the risk takers in the top 1%. In the figurative top 1% there are risk takers and they enjoy taking those risks and dragging others along into that risk. I think one of the Western Worlds biggest problems is that we have continually bailed out the risk takers and they have kept taking bigger and bigger risks with our future. So I think she's mostly right but misses that there is a part of the top 1% who psychologically are addicted to risk and don't care about precarity that they put us all into.

@@georgehart1122 you got it George

NO, if you understand how banks create money and how the rich get richer, inequality is irrelevant.

It felt more like a cop out. I think it’s one thing to be like “this is such a big problem and i don’t have any solutions bc it stuns me”, but it’s another to talk for several minutes in a heavily and-here’s-my-policy direction and then be like “oh not that’s a politicians job. Oh and I’m going to make a whole series of political claims”

I think your right on that and I don't think she meant the top 1% as we commonly think of them. But many of them do live a precarious existence, but its different to the rest of us. Many of them are risk takers and they enjoy taking those risks and dragging others along into that risk. I think one of the Western Worlds biggest problem is that we have continually bailed out the risk takers and they have kept taking bigger and bigger risks with our future. So I think she's mostly right but misses that there is a part of the top 1% who psychologically are addicted to risk and don't care about precarity that they put us all into.

@@tonywilson4713 a bunch of those people are actually psychopaths who will never care about the risks for others.

@@autohmae If you can find it there's footage of Rupert Murdoch from the British enquiry into phone hacking. At one point he's playing all old and frail and it was other people doing the bad stuff behind his back. The British politician questioning then asked then maybe he shouldn't e running a major public company. Murdoch lost his composure for just a moment and snapped back of course not. Its not the words I remember but the body language and the tone. I'd always heard how ferocious Murdoch could be, but he never shows it publicly. Well for that moment he did - it was scary, psychopathically scary.

@@tonywilson4713 I know the huge influence he has had on the US,UK, AU media. But I don't life in these countries. But it has affected me as well. I remember the the phone hacks mostly as a news item. Never really looked into the man himself. But what you said about Murdock makes perfect sense to me. After the financial crisis I was following "The Joris Luyendijk banking blog" of "The Guardian". Sounds like you might be from the UK and their is a small chance you know about it. It gives an amazing look into how this environment is great for psychopaths. It's very scary actually.

@@autohmae close I'm Australian so I know all about living in a country with Murdoch influence

Which is exactly where the rich want us to be scared of losing our jobs and scared of each other.

interesting idea but i disagree. A system change can also seem less scary, the scarier your current situation is. Scary is relative.

tbf, she did express your idea around 14:50

That was my first thought. Wealthy white people have it so hard...

nothing scares rich people more than knowing that any small slip or error will result in them losing all they have... see the movie 'trading places'....

It's all about context. People with a lot of money feel just the same stressors as people with very little. There's a point (last time I checked it was around $53,000 a year) where having money stops being a comfort and starts to become a stressor in and of itself. It's like getting into first place on the racetrack, just because you are winning doesn't mean you can relax, in fact, you might likely get even more stressed because that guy in second place is gaining on you. It's not the rich people don't have it easier, of course, they do, they know where their next meal is and they have a roof over their heads, in fact, they have a choice of which roof they want but that doesn't mean they aren't miserable, stressed out, and sick; they are, just for different reasons. The poor and the rich both worry about similar things, for very different reasons.

You got it Paul. The problem is economic rent being extracted.

Nonsense.

Actually that's the glossy travel brochure version. Yes they lived a nomadic, hunter gatherer existence, but I think its stretching reality a very long way to say they lived some utopian existence. As for how long they have actually lived in Australia there is a narrative that's publicly accepted and backed by a certain fraternity within the anthropological community but if you actually know what the evidence is its very sketchy. There have been some wild claims by certain people that have been debunked to much embarrassment. There's no doubt that there's rock artwork that is incredibly old, but how old is the contentious issue. FYI - I am Australian and been to Kakadu where the most ancient of the rock art is and yes its mind numbing extraordinary.

@@tonywilson4713 To me satisfaction has nothing to do with utopia . Satisfaction is, in my opinion, what you feel when your needs are fulfilled. Today we are obsessed with what we want, and I believe we have forgotten what we need; the feeling of belonging (on earth, in society), the feeling of pride just for being human, the feeling of joy just for living. Pride is a reflection of others respect, belonging is created by the stories we tell and the care we recieve, joy is an ecco inside. Im not talking about an easy life, Im talking about a life that fulfills your body, mind and soul.

@@ellengran6814 I can't disagree with that but its also a little to far into the fantasy utopia that too many want to preach about but never do the hard work for. And the worst of those people expect others to work their asses off to provide the nik naks they like. A number of years ago a bunch of free thinking utopians came on television in Australia. One of them while telling how magical her life was was asked about being on government financial assistance. She then said that WITHOUT that money she wouldn't be able to feed herself. When she was asked what people might think of that as they drove to work the next day her answer was "how terrible it was that people drove cars." That wasn't the question - the question was if her life was so good why did she need others to pay for her food. Having lived for a short time in the far north of Australia and having met the locals I can tell you one thing for certain. Neither you or me could live as they live. They do know how to live off the land, but in the world we have their life expectancy is dramatically shorter without modern health care. So where do we strike the balance between their lifestyle and their life expectancy. Having known some of their history and knowing how some of them live today I guarantee you that there are many native Australian communities where you as a girl would NOT want to grow up. Other than health care there are some cultural issues that aren't mentioned much and I can't mention them here without getting into trouble (that's a hint - don't ask).

@@tonywilson4713 I saw a documentary from Canada. Indigenous people (inuits) have been forced to live in cities and their children forced to boarding schools (just like indigenous people all over the world) . Their children are now unable to live the old life, they dont have the skills needed. The adults miss the freedom of their old life . Alchohol and depression has become a part of the lives of both the old and the young - just like it has in all other indigenous tribes. In my view, the opium problems in US is kind of the same problem . The old way of living in the Midwest, factory jobs, disappeared. Some say : Stupid people, why cant they just adjust - moove away from their friends/family, study computer-science and get a job at Facebook. In my opinion we have to learn to respect the needs of human beings. Yes, we can change/adapt but we all adapt in different ways, at different speed. As I said I believe we also have to focus more and learn more about what it means to be humans - what our needs are. We create societies for humans, not for money or robots.

@@tonywilson4713 PS. One of my sons spent a year on a University in Australia. He had a great time 😊

yes, because fascism is telling people that those who they hate will suffer more. this was the argument of those who voted for Trump. I will lose social security but there will be a wall

@@roc7880 It seems to me that cutting-edge right-wing thinkers are really interested in crafting legal definitions of "citizenship" that make its *revocation*, not merely restriction, much easier for authorities. Social benefits are already essentially tied to citizenship (in reality, if not in right-wing fever dreams). Revocation of citizenship makes it easy to ensure that only "real Americans" get things like Social Security. In fact maybe it could even get a new name, something like, say, National Social Security.

@@samuelglover7685 indeed, the right invented the original identity politics doctrine, except that they were more smooth in using euphemisms before. now, they are in the open.

ok smith what's your plan..??

@@markbrownner6565 Did you read my comment?

@@squatch545 yes how will the revolution manifest itself..??

@@markbrownner6565 Do you know what a revolution is? See:: French Revolution, Spanish Revolution, etc.

@@squatch545 sounds violent... will you lead the charge when the gates are stormed..??

...the folks coming into the jobless status. Ronny Ray-Gun let them in, and it's never been the same since. Republican through and through, he was voted in by the idiots who voted him in. It's so much easier to blame them as opposed to the person they put into office.

So long as we have people who have all the wealth and power, we will always have precarity. Ubi is fine and good and would help people. Then the wealthy would undermine it just like they did the minimum wage. I mean the minimum wage was founded to be a living wage no matter who did the work. The wealthy used their power to keep the minimum wage as flat as possible knowing that the cost of goods would always go up and thus make the minimum worthless. They would do similar with the Ubi.

@@shaz7132 UBI is not intended to eradicate inequality. That its not its purpose. It never was. A country that has a UBI system will still have poor people and wealthy people. UBI is and does exactly what its name says it is and does: a guaranteed minimum income for every citizen between the ages of 18 and 65. It is a simple statement that says that no citizen will be allowed to live below a certain financial threshold. The state will provide a fixed and flat rate unconditional payment to all adults, whether they are in work or not, regardless of their earning potential or the value of their skills in the labour market, without any means test, and independent of any other economic or social circumstances. It can be very easily extended to cover under 18s and over 65s if we want to protect the retired poor and families with only one earner. And it could also be introduced alongside the existing social protection system which gives additional payments for people in very difficult circumstances who need extra help - like people with severe disabilities or people who care for them at home. Tou say that UBI would decimate healthcare. This is complete nonsense. Healthcare in European countries is a completely separate administration and is provided completely separately from the provision of social security services like unemployment payments, pensions, subsidies for low incomes, disability payments or maternity payments. Nobody here is denied healthcare because they are unemployed.

@@baltasarnoreno5973 your last statement is why his statement is valid here in the land of for profit healthcare. UBI will just allow all the private, for profit rent extractors to further extract.

@@tracyleighbasham Then maybe it's time for a publically funded healthcare system in the US, perhaps? Can't get enough political support for a publically funded healthcare system? Then you will never get support for a UBI either, and the whole question becomes moot. So maybe you should first get your political priorities right. Or maybe you should stop wasting your time on campaigning for the impossible, and go and find something more productive to do with your life.

@@baltasarnoreno5973 if I wanted to be a butt hurt ass, I could literally say the same about your UBI agenda. Also, I'm a private citizen, not a politician. I don't campaign. I just call balls and strikes. 😉