virtue-signaling left-wing b.s.

(Stick around until paragraph 7 so you don’t get the wrong idea.)

completely unrelated photo to maintain the website’s tradition

//Rationale for Inaction

Deep poverty (a fancy term for anyone living below 50% of the official poverty threshold) is one of those subjects that you can only get so far in discussing in U.S. politics. This is particularly true in the upper class, and, while I believe that the Left is far more inclined to policies that reflect compassion toward the misfortunate than the Right, it is true on either side of the aisle. Poverty is tough to discuss past a certain point because there is a collective, unspoken recognition that poverty is necessary to maintain the level of hyper consumerism and egregious wealth hoarding that has come to characterize the American upper class. I’m not getting into a Communist (or, for that matter, Anarchist, Socialist, Marxist, or otherwise “lefty”) take. It is simply prudent to point out that deep poverty is not some incidental aspect of our economic structure, but rather a permanent factor that enables its converse, hyper-consumption, to exist. 

This is not a crazy notion. Imagine, for a moment, that the government suddenly obtained the capital necessary to house and feed those in poverty. The resources would come from, well, somewhere. They'd probably come from the Uber-wealthy or multinational corporations through higher taxes- but, really, adequately providing for all of the poor (11% of our population)? That level of taxation would warrant a lifestyle change for wealthier Americans. Vehicles would have to be given up. UberEats would have to be used less often. Luxurious and extravagant houses would not be quite as luxurious and extravagant. Vacations, air travel, elaborate meals, trips to see grandma— all of this may have to take a breather. 

Or, maybe we fund this new program with money the government is already collecting. Maybe we move money away from defense spending. This is all well and good, but there really is some truth to the notion that America is the way America is (prosperous and free for the top 1% of the population who can afford to enjoy that prosperous freedom) in no small part because America’s military and economic dominance gives it a pretty fat cushion to sit on. We can complain about the American pursuit of empire (which I do), but ending that empire, or even just reducing its monetary resources, means giving up some security, comfort, and ease.

Let’s even say that we could eliminate poverty without increasing taxes or cutting defense spending (or, for that matter, massive agri-business subsidies). The upper class consumes goods for ridiculously cheap prices in the U.S. You can buy physical goods for amounts of money that in no rational world translate to the cost of those physical goods. Having an  “information economy” is cool, but it's also nonsensical in terms of the production of actual goods. I can go and buy a T-shirt for ten bucks in Target, using money that I earned for contributing zero physical production to the global economy, knowing that the laborer who produced that shirt is probably getting less than a dollar of that money despite the fact that his physical labor to produce that shirt is worth way more in terms of real output than the bullshit thirty-seven minutes I spent clacking away on a Word Doc to pay for it. I can buy a container of grapes for an insanely low price without actually paying anything close to the labor required to pick those grapes, transport them across the country, and put them on the shelf. Do you think poor laborers are going to do that work for such a small return if poverty is eliminated? No. Unless we get a whole lot more comfortable with Zara and orange juice costing a whole lot more money, “eliminating labor exploitation” in the U.S. would mean that we need to permanently export our labor exploitation to other countries. We already do this, by the way- the goods you buy from China are cheap for a reason. I just mean that this sort of effort would really codify it. Those elegant utopian models of a wealthy country that “eliminates poverty”? Yeah, unless all of that country’s citizens start eating expensive, locally-grown food, wearing fewer outfits made at much higher prices, and generally consuming far fewer goods of far lower quality at far higher costs (which is to say, unless the country’s wealthy elite drastically decrease their standards of living), then they just need to export poverty and labor exploitation to places where constituents can’t see it. 

Even for the “non-working poor” (an insane classification to describe human beings, but we use it nonetheless), we know that our hyper-consumerism cannot exist alongside their complete deliverance from poverty. Feeling bad for homeless people helps with our guilt, but if we want to get every homeless person “off the streets” and prevent future homeless people from going on the streets, we need fork over a lot of money. A lot. Unfortunately, we’re so addicted to the zeroes at the end of our bank accounts (and the ironclad belief that our jobs demanding zero physical labor and hours spent on the computer have contributed enough value to the global economy to justify the wealth we’ve amassed) that this is a tough proposition. We all know this. It’s just tough to say, so instead of talking about eliminating poverty in any substantial policy terms, we talk about SNAP benefits and Medicaid expansion. These are important policies, certainly, but don’t begin to tackle the reality: As long as there is a super-duper-upper-class that underproduces and over-consumes, there will need to be a super-duper-lower-class that overproduces and under-consumes. 

//Premises 

As you can probably tell, I would prefer we make those sacrifices to eliminate poverty. I think it’s weak, stupid, Anti-American, and unpatriotic to avoid even talking about true poverty elimination because it would require us to sacrifice for our egregious standard of living. But I realize that this is a slippery slope. What if we wanted to eliminate wealth inequality entirely- no one overproduces, no one underproduces, and everybody gets an equal share of the pie? This sounds cool, but if you thought the ramifications of eliminating poverty were delicate, try the ramifications of creating a society where paying for anything requires you to compensate the laborer according to actual equal pay standards. You think healthcare is expensive now? Or food? Or clothes? Because we feel comfortable underpaying the physical producers of goods, we get those goods for cheap. Economic growth gets real tricky in a hurry if we abandon that holy principle. Should we? Yes. Will we? No. Why? Because we can’t imagine doing so. 

But, thankfully, we don’t need to talk about what we are going to do on that front, because I don’t know what to do. So what I want to talk about, instead, is personal responsibility. 

We’ve already established: 1. We could eliminate poverty. 2. We won’t, because it would demand that we lower our own standards of living. Let’s throw some other principles in there:

3. You are a human being. This means:

3a. It is understandable that you do not want your standards of living lowered, and you are not evil just because this deadly collective action problem is staring you in the face. 

3b. (That being said), you have a moral responsibility to resist self-centeredness. This is, like, bedrock stuff. If you’re Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, I can point to about a thousand mandates from God in each of your holy books that says so. If you are really any monotheist, an atheist, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, then your belief system acknowledges that all life is made of the same fundamental stuff. The human soul. The reincarnated eternal being. Organic content interpreting electric impulses. All of this means that you are no different from a man sitting on the side of the road with a cup asking for spare change. 

4. You have spare change. 

Ok, to reiterate: you are a resident of a country which has found itself (very understandably, but no less shittily) in a scenario where a lot of people have almost no resources and a lot of other people have an insane amount of resources. Your country (1) could fix this problem, but (2) it won’t, because it’s really difficult for anyone to imagine the sort of counter-capitalist restructuring this requires. You are (3) a human, and therefore (3a) it is understandable that you aren’t out there calling for a massive, social-democratic political movement to end poverty (even if I, magnanimous, pretentious college student that I am, think we should probably all be doing that). But, at the same time, (3b) you have a moral responsibility to, even if just in your day-to-day life, act in accordance with a code that acknowledges the inherent virtue in selflessness. Finally, (4) you have spare change. Or, at least, you have your phone's TaptoPay feature, and there’s probably a grocery store near you. 

Those are the premises. 

//Logical Conclusion 

In light of those premises, we should all be giving way more money to homeless people. Or at least buying homeless people way more stuff.

I don’t mean donations to shelters, although we should make those. I mean actually giving stuff to homeless people. You are a soul wrapped in flesh; man is born God wrapped in chains, and the shears of virtue and experience free him from those chains, until he is just God in the end. You are a glowing sphere of cosmic light- one brilliant, unique fragment of a brilliant, unique universe that somehow grew consciousness and got to spend some time observing that universe. You are a person with an ego. With willpower. With dreams. With hunger and thirst. And so is the guy sleeping on the side of the street as you’re power-walking to your 8am appointment. If we aren’t going to support the policies we need to support in order to make sure he never needs to sleep on the side of the street again, we should at least give him some food and help with his hunger. He is no more or less than us. And, for the love of God, even if we somehow can’t spare our bread-giving moments, we should look him in the eyes, smile, and say “Hello.” Not patronizingly (and it has been suggested to me that saying hello to homeless people is somehow patronizing). Just normally. Respond when you’re spoken to. Can you imagine how quickly you would lose your mind if everyone one day suddenly stopped acknowledging you? If you were one day invisible?

You may be thinking: "I was taught not to give homeless people things because it just enables their homelessness." This is, and always has been, a stupid argument. They are not homeless by choice. They do not want to be homeless. They will be homeless whether or not you buy them a loaf of bread or give them three bucks. They don't have a house or (probably) a job, and they need food or else they will die. Sometimes a fellow human is in this sort of situation. It's mind-numbingly idiotic to think that by refusing to give them resources you are pulling some big-brained, Machiavellian maneuver. They need bread and socks. When they ask you for resources and you have more than enough resources to spare, your refusal is an active decision to reject their need. It's not a rationally calculated decision for their benefit. And yes, particularly when it's easy and costs us this little, we should be calculating our decisions for the benefit of others. 

You may be thinking: this is extremely obvious stuff. I would say this in response: if this were obvious stuff, it would be reflected in the daily conduct of America’s city-dwellers. But it is not. People walk by homeless people a hundred times- hell, a thousand times- more frequently than they stop to give them the resources they’re asking for. America’s largest, most liberal, most “welcoming” cities have denigrated homeless people to the status of invisible outcasts. I am complacent, and you are complacent. We should give more money to homeless people. 

//Social Responsibility in American Life

American civic life is in desperate need of new social responsibility movements. I do not mean political movements. Yes, we need fighters for the homeless and the poor in politics, but we also need movements of collective commitment to do good that are completely detached from the halls of power. I can hear the far-right complaints now: "Why should we care about those whose suffering is not our fault?" I can hear the “true [read: performative] Marxist” complaints as well: "Concerning ourselves with social movements detached from power simply distracts us from the larger structural problem." To this far-right dissenter, we must politely and firmly offer a simple retort, so eloquent as to dismiss any further regrettable discontent: “You must, really, truly suck to be around.” To the Marxist hard-line dissenter, I must offer a less concise retort: “Are you busy ending the larger structural problem? Probably not. Hold fast to your beliefs about the superstructure, fine- but don’t use those beliefs to trick yourself into believing that you live a life of active rebellion that somehow excuses you from supporting less fortunate people on a day-to-day basis.” Go back into that grocery store and get something for the family of four living in the grim shadow of a concrete wall that you routinely stroll past on your way home from work. 

I think we lack these social movements for the same reasons our social bonds have so severely decayed in the current techno-dystopian consumerist sitcom episode that our country has created for itself. We are addicted to virtual worlds where we perceive the immense volume of our collective socioeconomic problems, and so we retreat into community bubbles where all we care about is planning for our next big move to “fix the system.” “We’ll take back Congress,” we say. “We’ll win the White House. We’ll protest at the hospitals, and we’ll fix the school system, and we’ll stick it to the man.” Yeah. We need to do all that. We need to fix, well, almost everything. A huge chunk of the Left wants to fix it, a good portion of the Center wants to fix it, and a smaller, but still notable number of those on the Right want to fix it,  too. Maybe next year. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” we say. But in our righteous fury at the petty pace of the progress we wish that we could achieve, we’ve become completely ambivalent to the spiritual (or ethical, or biological, depending on whatever noetic system floats your boat) responsibility that we shoulder when we sign on to the business of being alive. Call it ego, even: we should be humans, and we should be completely unwilling to give up the beautiful, awesome power of doing good. We should be indignant at the mere idea that the complexity of the global economy could ever force us to resign our right to selflessness. You can have our moral responsibilities and interpersonal obligations when you pry them from our cold, dead, fingers. 

In other words, we should give a lot more money to homeless people.