THE ABSENT CASTE IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD
As I take a break in my 14 hour shift, à la Eric Hoffer I guess, I find myself writing again.
Today I draw the attention to those who are exhausted and overwhelmed by scarcity and betrayal, just about half of the country or “blue-collar” workers as they call us.
The ethos of a people is the culture, mores, beliefs and constructs that structure the social and political life within a state. In the liberal Leviathan that ethos has been shaped into what is required for the workers to not have a collective identity as such, which is a prerequisite for the reproduction, expansion and accumulation of capital in the hands of the usufructuary/donor/plutocratic caste.
Such an obliteration of the only identity feared by the master caste has been accomplished by a relentless, centuries-long campaign of indoctrination and propaganda. These days we call it “programming” and also “living in the matrix”.
A glaring example of the total destruction of this most self-evident and consequential identity is the public discourse itself. Indeed, no matter how hard we look around—social media, traditional media, academia, etc.—there are no workers to be seen, we just do not have access to the microphone. Everybody in the discourse is well-off (even grossly rich) and well-connected. Media hosts, influencers, podcasters, and their guests—investors, celebrities, athletes, performers, politicians and talking heads, professors, etc. All belong to the “upper echelon”, and they are not only the subjects of their own lives but the objects of the workers attention. In fact, they all thrive in the vital national light while the workers wither away in the dark, as the caste which is only good to make them rich and powerful. We are only referred to when talking about the “uneducated”, or “racist”, or “extremists”, and so on. Our indispensable role in laissez-faire by underselling our labor power (the only commodity we got) in the liberal market through the construct of wage labor is not even mentioned, although that is the ground upon which all of them tread in their “self-made” march toward “success”. We are also essential in the circulation of capital (paramount for its expansion and accumulation) through the sustenance of the state itself and the consumption of goods and services.
But the most liberal (and hurtful) of all boundaries is in the realm of politics. For we are only good to vote, but never to run. We are good to give power to others, but never to think we deserve to take it for ourselves. We are just spectators, never leading actors. By design, the liberal mastodon has laid out a system where only the rich or those who are able and willing to do their bidding can actually run for office, so as to not be overtaken by forces which do not subscribe to the idea that the state is a vessel to be exploited for the benefit of a few—through trade, immigration, regulation and tax policy, executive actions, judicial rulings, government contracts, expansion of the monetary supply through interest-bearing banknotes and much more. This is what liberal apologists call a “democracy”….