back to basics....

Recently I wrote the following to my sister... but it may be of more general interest...

Dear Sister,

I just want to stress that I didn’t agree when you suggested the problems we face as a family are universal ones.

It is not true to say that it is the same everywhere. The problem is not only the inevitable fact of aging. To be sure, getting old is a problem everywhere, but the problem is made worse by the social and political system in the United States.

Aging is a universal problem, but our shitty system of public transport, and the correlated system of suburbanization, together with the awful profit-driven system of medical care all combine to exacerbate the problem. What all of those elements have in common is that they were designed to serve the interests of a small minority of our population.

An additional factor is cultural: America’s extreme individualistic ethos combined with Puritanism (or Calvinism) creates shame among the poor and intolerance towards them. We, as a society, specialize in blaming the victims. “Socialism” is not universally regarded as a dirty word. And many people (rightly in my opinion) regard America as a country with anti-social values. But let’s focus on public transport and health care.

Other countries have much better public transport and a system of medical care that is not profit-driven..

These two problems are instances of a more general problem in the United States. And if it exists elsewhere, that is largely because the US in the form of the WTO has been aggressively insisting that other countries behave like the US. Every time the United Nations ranks countries according to the quality of life, the USA ranks near the bottom among developed countries—below European countries.

I am not saying that there are no problems in Europe.

Slovaks and Austrians are racists. Austrians are suspicious of so-called “Eastern Europeans” and Turks. And Slovaks are suspicious of the Roma minority.

But Slovakia provides generous support to mothers and I have experienced the Slovak medical system, and I have seen with my own eyes that there is less bureaucracy when you go to the doctor in Slovakia than there is in the USA. Whenever I have gone with Mom and Dad to the doctor’s office, they have had to fill out detailed forms. (And these are not doctors who they are visiting for the first time!) I never had to do that in Slovakia. I had a small plastic card, and I just gave it to them. No forms. No hassle.

And, what’s more, I have been told that it is the same in Mexico. When you go to the doctor you give them your health card and you don’t have to fill out forms.

So, it is important to understand that it is not the same everywhere.

In many respects, things are worse in the United States—not because God or the laws of physics or economics or psychology make it that way. It is worse because certain groups in America (a genuine ruling class) have managed to control the economy and politics so that it benefits them first, so that they retain superior access to resources. The system they have created is neither just nor logical nor an inevitable product of the laws of nature. The current system was created by self-interested individuals who wished to retain their unjustly acquired privileges. And so it continues.

And if you say or think, “It’s the same everywhere”, what you are really saying is that no one is responsible. You are, in effect, justifying and trivializing the crimes of the ruling class. You are letting them off the hook for the mess they have made in pursuit of their own self-interest.

Yes, aging is a problem everywhere; but the social and political institutions which people create can either make that problem worse or they can ameliorate it.

Change begins when you say that a piece of shit smells. Something important happens when you say that the emperor has no clothes.

And the inefficient system of public transport and the system of medical care we have in this country are both enormous pieces of shit that reek of privilege and class.

I am not picking on you. Some things are too important to sweep under the carpet.

Love,
Your Brother


PS
You may be skeptical of my term “ruing class”. If so, I would suggest that when you get online, you take a look at the following:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/

This is the homepage of a sociologist, G. William Domhoff (at the University of California at Santa Cruz) who has been studying the class structure of the United States.