AND WHAT GOOD IS AUSTERITY?
February 22, 2021
By Jayla Hart
With the holiday season comes the sweeping pressure for the act of giving. We give gifts to our loved ones, we give donations to our favorite organizations, we give (over)time to jobs that demand the most from us, even in times of tremendous stress. We work more so we can earn more so we can (theoretically) give move. Nevertheless, it is infuriatingly common for the people who work the most to earn the least, despite their tremendous labor. It is the parents tolling long hours at a job with minuscule if any, health benefits to provide for their children. It is the college student picking up extra shifts to cover rising tuition costs. It is the late twenty/early thirty-something millennial staying overtime (possibly with no break) merely to cover rent. Amid economic turmoil, it is the poor and working-class shoveling the burden of keeping most of society afloat. Yet, we have seen how our most essential workers routinely do not receive the resources and support they need (and unequivocally deserve) to receive to perform their jobs. We are met with lofty, if any, action from elected officials or violence from the state when we ask for assistance or fail to labor enough.
During these “unprecedented times” [pause for dramatic effect], the pandemic has elucidated how deeply impoverished much of the world is and further shown the rapid rate at which wealth inequality is increasing. If 2020 has revealed anything, it is that many of us are merely one paycheck away from eviction. Many of us are closer to poverty than we are led to believe. All the while, members of Congress (even our reportedly “progressive” legislators) try to justify measly stimulus checks after nine months of rising unemployment, evictions, and over 346,000 deaths from COVID-19. The government doesn’t value you enough to give $2,000 but will continue to explain the “necessity” of an expansive “defense” (i.e. war-mongering) budget or tax cuts for corporations. In a country that spent has spent the last fifty years eliminating its welfare infrastructure for the most vulnerable populations, 2020 was an unfortunately grim and stark reminder of how vulnerable so many of us are truly are. We have become entrenched in financial hell for the sake of our survival under capitalism.
To this end, I am reminded of the infamous Baldwin quote: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” However, in moments of economic crisis (i.e. right now), austerity politics becomes the gospel of nearly every conservative pundit and economist. We, the working poor, are told to save more and consume less; we are made the fault of our own poverty. The financial downturn is not the fault of billionaires hoarding wealth, the government bailing out exploitative corporations, or the vicious reduction in public expenditures. Instead, everyday people are punished for failing to make capitalism “work.” We feel the pressure to tighten our wallets but the wealthy feel no need to redistribute their massive sums of wealth to ease the world's fiscal burden. This is despite the fact that they profit off our labor. It is key here to acknowledge how the vast majority of this exploitative labor is extracted from Black and Brown communities domestically and abroad. Modernity’s political and economic order continues to fortify racial capitalism through racist hiring practices, inhumane labor standards (prison labor, Global South outsourcing), and the expropriation of land for corporate/private use.
Bearing this in mind, all those who believe in and peddle the mythical efficacy of trickle-down economics need to stop having wet dreams about Ronald Reagan and wake up. While we scrape together pennies and plunge ourselves into greater debt, it is essential to remind ourselves that the neoliberal agenda centers on our perpetual exploitation. Those with the financial means will continue to put the rest of us at risk to meet their bottom line. They don’t care about austerity; they care about ascending to greater power.
All the same, it is not uncommon that I will read or overhear someone scolding the working poor for purchasing expensive things, especially during the holiday season. Yet to shame the poor for wanting nice things while you, yourself, also desire nice things is absurd. The foul elitism and classism that erupts from people’s mouths as they preach austerity for the poor and luxury for the affluent are ridiculous. Although few would explicitly admit to this, I believe many people dream of being members of the ruling elite or, far worse, (falsely) assume they are in extreme proximity to those who are. This proximity to power emboldened those with the privilege to spare. Many prefer to soothe their inflated egos and abide by bootstrap mentality than critically analyze how their actions contribute to gross inequity. Similarly, the performative class solidarity prevalent in affluent liberal circles today does nothing to liberate us. It is a great hindrance to any freedom struggle. Meanwhile, conservatives, often hoarding capital in one hand while demanding extreme austerity in the other, are teetering so viscerally on the neoliberal tightrope. If their infinite hypocrisy is not forceful enough to knock them down, let the people rise to thrust them off their privileged platform en masse.
Henceforth, it is incredibly crucial for us to realize we live in an abundant world. Everything we need to survive and thrive already springs from the soil or falls from the sky. Our need to connect with people lies in genuine social interaction, not the exchange of capital or consumer goods. Our value lies in our ability to care for each other and our planet, not in the speed of our productivity. Many Americans live a life of excess and lack consciousness of it. Simultaneously, those who are aware of their excessive lifestyle feel no pressure to change their behavior because America's economy prospers on the premise of inconspicuous consumption. We are encouraged to chase a bag and clamor for expensive merchandise (or reprimand others on Twitter for not doing so). Our media glamorizes grind culture and penalizes rest. Our socialization has led us to misconstrue our wants as needs and our needs are negligible. Racial capitalism demarcates our cultures into racial/ethnic enclaves, each one becoming a means to an exploitative end. We either watch the insidious erosion of our community in real-time or are expelled to watch its (literal) destruction from the sidelines. Capitalism breeds these destructive habits that are not sustainable (i.e. look at the drastic effects of climate change). Simply put, capitalism’s ceaseless pursuit of greater production and profit is wasteful. We are told to be productive but what we are producing? We are made to feel guilty for resting but how can we be expected to work well if we never take a genuine break? From the beginning of our lives, we are raised to believe that finding a good, well-paying job is the ultimate way to success. Hell, the modern embodiment of success is an accumulation of material wealth and purchasing expensive goods. However, most of us are never taught the true value of our labor or the despicable cost of upholding capitalism.
Under scarcity politics, children are taught that there is not enough for everyone. They are conditioned to believe certain groups are more deserving of things than others. They are socialized to believe their self-worth has a price tag. These interpretations of life are legitimatized by visceral cycles of excessive competition and consumption found both in and beyond the classroom. Thus, it becomes commonplace for these children to become adults who find it compulsory to commodify their hobbies and appropriate the cultures of marginalized peoples to appease the demands of the free market. It’s all a scam. There is no free market. Virtually everything Americans (or citizens of imperialist powers) consume comes at the cost of another person’s exploitation and dehumanization. Right now, “cheap” labor is being exchanged across imaginary borders drawn by men who would rather crush your soul in the service of capitalism than redistribute the smallest morsel of their extreme wealth. These are the same men who filter fallacy after fallacy into American media and then sit behind closed doors discussing strategies to keep us reliant on their lies. The illusion that the effects of racial capitalism and imperialism can be reformed by the genteel hand of liberal policy is dismissive of how deeply rooted these practices are in America. Furthermore, this ideology greatly hinders our ability to creatively reconceptualize what our lives could be like. Scarcity may appear scary but it is far more horrifying to realize the depths the ruling elites go to further entrench our world in corruption, poverty, and oppression. Reforming our economy is a necessary step in the right direction but reform alone should never be our end goal. We don’t need austerity.
We need wealth redistribution, right now.