Comment on A reminder
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
I don’t love how we as a capitalist society have financialized everything into economic terms.
I’m rich now, but I grew up lower middle class (had food security and shelter security, but many aspects of middle class lifestyle were out of my family’s reach, like being able to dine at restaurants or go out of town for vacation or afford most of the things or experiences advertised on tv). I was also fairly financially insecure in college and the few years after (playing games with back dated checks to make rent or pay bills, lots of late fees and overdraft fees).
Even in those relatively insecure times, though, I was never anywhere close to 3 (or 6 or 12) months away from homelessness. I had a strong network of friends, family, neighbors, etc., who could keep me on my feet. Some of it was money (where people could chip in to help with an uninsured medical expense or loss to a car or a house), but a lot of it was social, like being able to get a ride from a friend when your car is in the shop, a meal train while someone is sick/hospitalized or bereaving the loss of a family member, etc.
By steering the discussion into purely what can be bought and sold with money in an economy between strangers, I feel like this misses out on what actually makes us secure, and what keeps us from homelessness and food insecurity. Those parts of society should also be protected and bolstered, even if they don’t fit cleanly into financial, economic, political, or policy categories.
It also misses who among us are actually the most vulnerable or the most secure. There may be people who have solid net worths on paper but aren’t actually resilient against bad months, and other people who might not look like they have much property/wealth/income but actually can manage a crisis just fine.
5318008@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
If your target audience consists of people who already agree with the basic economic principle, then by all means, add as much nuance as you like.
If your target audience is a single, white, cis male, 55k per year salary-making, apartment-renting, roommate-having, college dropout normie, then maybe a simpler distinction will be more effective?
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
That second paragraph of distinction is more clear
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Depends on what the purpose is. In this thread we have people who very legitimately feel that despite literally being closer to millionaires than homeless on this “three months” test, they don’t feel financially secure. That feeling matters, and we shouldn’t ignore it.
And my point is that implicitly conceding ground by framing things in the language of emotionless finance and economics may actually be fighting things on less friendly territory to begin with.
5318008@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
Your mileage may vary, but I do not consider this a concession. Anyone can make an emotional argument. You usually need to actually be right in order to make an emotionless academic argument.
When it comes to arguing for the claim being discussed… whether you’re closer to homelessness or being a millionaire (the three month thing is incidental to the main point)… then whether these disciplines are friendly territory pretty much boils down to whether you can explain it or not.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
No, I’m not making an emotional argument. I’m arguing that the subjective feeling of financial security specifically traces to certain hard-to-measure factors that aren’t easily reduced to quantitative metrics.
That’s why many people will look at the argument and say “oh I’m actually not that close to homelessness” or even “I’m basically a millionaire but I don’t feel like one.”
By highlighting the easy-to-measure metrics (net worth of a million dollars, not having a legal right to occupy a residence), it steers the discussion into the quantitatively easy metrics rather than the lived reality of people in the economy, which depends on other less quantitative factors. And then we’re talking about “winning” an argument that no longer cleanly maps onto what actually matters.