Imagine moving the goal post for everyone else, only to have your great grandchildren become so incompetent that now they can’t survive if there’s a level playing field…
Inequality reproduces itself and then defends itself.
The corridors of success and power are filled with mediocre white men.
José Olivarez, Promises of Gold; "Upward Mobility"
[Text ID: dancing to avoid the fluttering / of roaches, the boy brushes his teeth / with one eye on the sink / & one eye on the bugs / & one eye on his teeth / & one eye on time / & one eye on homework / & one eye on his brothers / & one eye on the future— / years later when his friends joke / about how he has poor people teeth, / his head will shed its skin / to reveal 5000 eyes the size / of cockroach hearts.]
An excerpt from The Rumpus Poetry Book Club‘s February selection,
Promises of Gold by José Olivarez
forthcoming from Henry Holt and Co. on February 7, 2023.
Subscribe by January 15 to the Poetry Book Club to receive this title and an invitation to an exclusive conversation with the author via Crowdcast.
"Elites of both parties have a deeply vested interest in preventing mobility for working people. Homeownership and childbirth are prioritized because both serve big business. None of it is about supporting a cultural desire for family. It’s about keeping people in debt and maintaining an economic status quo. Once you’ve bought a house, once you have kids, once you have student debt, your options to leave your job, start a business, move, or become free are limited. That’s why the government will tell you — or even force you — to have a child but won’t help with childcare.
They don’t want you to be able to work from home. They don’t want you to be free from the yoke of employer-based healthcare (which is hardly a handout as policies are becoming increasingly unaffordable). No. They want you in the office, with less free time than anyone in the free world. Because when people have time to think, to innovate, to start a business of their own without fear that they’ll get sick and go bankrupt from medical bills, they are no longer under corporate control. Without the threat of student debt and medical debt, how could they get you to join the military and fight in their wars? As Sparky Abraham of the Debt Collective puts it: 'Debt is a form of social control.'
Sound conspiratorial? Look at the evidence. Liberal lion Malcolm Gladwell, who has waxed poetic about how he loves to write his bestselling books from cafes, lectured normal folks to get back to work. 'What have you reduced your life to?' he asked the commuting masses. Democrats bragged about halving child poverty with the child tax credits, but despite being overwhelmingly popular, these policies quickly went back on the chopping block. We can’t let parents have enough money so that one can stay at home, or work one fewer job. The market demands a desperate labor force, not a happy one.
Recently, Ken Klippenstein and Jon Schwarz at the Intercept broke news that on an earnings call, the president of Douglas Emmett Inc., a real estate corporation worth over $3 billion and based in Santa Monica, California, said a recession could be 'good' 'if it comes with a level of unemployment that puts employers back in the driver seat and allows them to get all their employees back into the office.'
A recession could be good? Employers back in the driver’s seat? That’s code for 'able to exploit their employees without their employees having any recourse.'
That’s the whole game. The reason so many elites hated the stimulus checks is not because they drove inflation. You see, they don’t tie the PPP checks for billionaires to inflation in the same way. Or Trump’s tax cuts for the rich, which added more to the deficit for absolutely no reason than anything that’s happened before or sense. And they aren’t talking about the supply chain crisis or the war in Ukraine, two key causes of inflation.
No, they talk about spending because they don’t want working people to have options.
When working people have options, they can demand higher salaries. When workers have options, they can bargain for a bigger piece of a pie. This is why union organizing is so important. It gives workers, who individually have very little power, the power of collective bargaining, the power to withhold their labor together and force employers to share profits more equitably. In the golden age of labor, the 1950s and ‘60s, CEOs earned about 30 times more than their employees. Wanna guess what that ratio is now? It’s over 300 to 1. And this is while workers are working more hours with less to show for it.
COVID relief unexpectedly empowered labor, and now elites are trying to put a lid on it in whatever way they can: restarting student loan payments, canceling support for families with children, and intentionally driving up unemployment.
We need to recognize this and use [the recent] student debt victory to continue to pull together as a community of working people and keep demanding more. In the richest country in the history of the world, education should be free. Yes, even for rich kids. Just like public high school is free for the rich should they choose to attend. Just like libraries. And the services of firefighters.
It’s our country, and we get to make it work for us."
- Briahna Joy Gray, from "Debt is a Form of Social Control." Current Affairs, 15 September 2022.
Even at the end of the Emergency, while most of India was awash with anti-Congress sentiments, Karnataka went with the Congress. Indira Gandhi, who was defeated in the 1977 general elections, was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Chikmagalur constituency in Karnataka in 1978. One of the reasons for the Congress’ strength in Karnataka was Chief Minister Devraj Urs's policies which addressed the concerns of the historically downtrodden communities. Under Urs’ government of 1972-78, the combined strength of OBCs, Dalits, and Muslims overtook the combined strength of the upper castes and dominant castes for the first time in the legislative history of Karnataka. In some parts of the state, especially in the coastal districts, land reforms were implemented successfully, breaking the hold of upper castes and dominant castes. An effective reservation policy for OBCs was also implemented. These measures resulted in relative empowerment and upward mobility of sections of OBCs, Dalits and Muslims.
Shivasundar, ‘The Long March of Hindutva in Karnataka’, India Forum
Do not shame someone for wanting to better themselves. Whether it’s leaving a job, a person, or a country, everyone deserves a chance to improve their lives and strive for upward mobility in all aspects of their lives.
