Things weren't better in the 1950s. At least in many ways. However, in some ways, things were better and did make more sense. For instance, it was possible for a family in the US to have a house, car, three kids, and a simply yearly holiday, on a single salary. It was quite normal. Yes, there was a lot of other shit going on that was good to get rid of, like systemic sexism and racism - but here we are 75 years later - still with many of the same issues.
And the average family can barely afford quality food on two salaries.
I have thought about this over the years and how the wealth gap keeps growing and why, considering that technically, more people are working, so it should be shrinking. But that is not how the economy is incentivised. Instead of wealth growing with more people working, what more people working has done has diluted purchasing power. Sure, there were more potential consumers, but the relative needs of those consumers hadn't changed.
A family with a house, car, three kids and a working father, needed much the same when the mother worked too. So while there was a dual income, the needs of the family didn't double respectively. What this meant is that companies could then increase their prices to absorb more of the excess, without offering anything extra in return.
But while nothing really changed consumer-wise, the entire dynamics of communities shifted at a fundamental level. For example, whilst talking with my friend the other day about his partner being stressed at work, we discussed how life has changed in the local neighbourhood. I could visit his neighbourhood today, break into all the houses, and find pretty much no one. However in the distant past, those same houses would have had housewives in them. At least in places like the US. And those housewives would have been interacting with each other, setting up plans for kids and dinners and all kinds of gossip. It held the community together in many ways.
This wasn't ideal in many ways, but it was an ecosystem that leant itself toward community building and continuance. While this has been taken away, there has been very little introduced to supplement for community building, which means that communities have eroded. The women who in the 1950s hypothetical would be the glue of the community, are now modern women working in stressful environments for a salary, and going home worn-out and uninspired in the same way men were earlier.
Everyone is just too tired to socialise.
For every action, there is a reaction. But also, for every opportunity, there is a myriad costs. There have been leaps and bounds made in many respects toward more equitable conditions for everyone, but in so doing, a lot of other problems have arisen in response. This is just the way it goes, because it is impossible to have everything simultaneously. We make a choice to do A, it means we can't do X, Y, and Z. We then choose B, and we might lose U, V, W also.
Every change has a cost.
Sometimes the costs are worth paying, sometimes they are not. And sometimes, the costs aren't truly known until the change has had time to percolate through society and shift behaviours, expectations, and beliefs.
As said, I don't think the world was a better place in many ways in the 1950s, but in many ways it was also a greater place because people interacted more together in a community. People knew their neighbours, talked with strangers, and felt safe leaving their doors open, without worrying about robberies or being kidnapped. Now though, we live in a world where the majority are worried about their financial wellbeing, their career growth, and their economic position.
Very few live a life of community.
In some ways, that life of community is a privileged life. Sure, in 1950s suburbia a generalised woman was doing the housework and looking after the kids the majority of the time, but this was possible because the man was working. Now though, everyone is working and no one has time to be a networked part of the community. Instead, the only value people bring to the community, is monetary value. The value of a person is now down to the value of what they produce, with very, very little thought into the value they bring to society.
Value to society used to be baked into life.
Not that we should go back and reintroduce all the negatives of the past to return to some kind of mistaken glory days, but we should also recognise that some conditions were better. By doing this, we can identify the parts that are missing today and find new ways, given all of what we have available to us now, to recreate a society that is healthier, freer, and more human orientated than the past. A community where everyone has equity beyond their salary.
There is a push for things like Universal Basic Incomes and four day weeks, and I see most of these as control mechanisms that are about maximising profits and wealth for those who already have far, far too much. However, if there was some potential for good, it would be if these mechanisms were used to not only free up people's time, but structured so that there was incentive to rebuild communities again, to expand social networks locally, and interact together as friends, family, and strangers - who all want good conditions in which to thrive.
I don't believe it will happen.
But I try to remain optimistic at times, just as a remainder that no matter how slim, there is a chance that people will wake up and act to improve the conditions for humans on this earth, now, and into the future. The problem for a lot of the things that will make the world a better place though is, it will cut into the profits of those who are becoming wealthy keeping it the way it is.
Taraz
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