Now, I don’t share in Carlin’s pessimism. Nothing that is made cannot be unmade. If the factories that produce the goods can be re-tooled and restructured to produce different and better products, so too can a society be reworked to produce better standards of living.
Leftists understand that economic conditions of a society affect its politics and culture, and vice versa. Carlin describes America as a society whose economy controlled largely by a relatively small group of people in the corporate class, and this is certainly true. By extension then, we know they also have a control on the politics and culture of America. (This is, by the way, certainly not unique to America. This system, which leftists refer to as late capitalism, is a global reality that touches the lives of everyone on the globe in one way or another.)
However, our current situation hasn’t always existed, and will not always exist. Change is a constant of human societies and every person has both some means and every interest in helping shape what the next direction will be.
That is the first hurdle to be overcome, is pessimism. Things can (and will) change. There is often a popular idea that certain negative social conditions–racism, poverty, inequality–can not change. Such thinking is often promoted by the ruling classes of most every society throughout time and geography, in some form or another. It’s the foundation on which all forms of slavery exist. In ancient times, it was because the gods had decreed it to be so. In our contemporary times, it’s often just said, “Well, that’s just the way it is.” But no social condition “just is”. They are all created, and they all can be undone.
Once you have cleared this first hurdle, you have begun your path to freedom.
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