Around the world, trust is low and getting lower. History reminds us what happens next tends to be messy. But we can head that off now, if we really want to.
It’s almost as if Cdn Cons have realized that breaking down trust in govt actually works to further their goal - privatization and more $$ for their wealthy corp donors. Why would battered, lied-to, stressed-out Ontario voters support the concept of better-funded health care and education when those programs are in the hands of the likes of dofo and his ministers? Ironically they worse they are at their jobs, the more they advance their objectives.
It's a tangential point but one I only clicked to reading your discussion of the polling numbers but differentiating class based on income is a pretty rough proxy for the class divides Marx laid out - ie between owners of capital and the workers. That is, you can be a decently paid academic or healthcare professional but still ultimately be a worker. And that's not even talking about the intraworker distinctions (valuable or not, depending how rigid you want to be) between the intern, the manager and the petit bourgeois.
To bring it to your point, I wonder what difference we could draw out in perspectives of the "upper" class (by income) if we pulled the owners out from the workers. Maybe trust wouldn't be the right angle though as the owners are pretty well enmeshed in the power structures of the state, at least in Canada.
"the profit margin for the FIRE sector (finance, insurance and real estate) rose from a previous average of 14% to 22% in 2021..instead of admitting their role in this inflationary outbreak, the interest-conflicted chorus of bank economists see their mission as breaking the expectations of the little guy."
We are seeing the full realization of Habermas' Legitimation Crisis, and I'm not sure an appeal to Frankfurt materialism is a viable exit strategy. The pandemic was a litmus test and levels of trust in Canada suggest that in 2020 we unleashed a latent distrust that we always knew existed, but never to what extent.
Great article David! Wondering if you could elaborate on the hard solutions that should be on the table for addressing the class divide and which of these proposals do you think would have the most impact?
“Addressing low trust requires structural material solutions.” - it’s amazing what happens when people perceive that they are being treated fairly.
It’s almost as if Cdn Cons have realized that breaking down trust in govt actually works to further their goal - privatization and more $$ for their wealthy corp donors. Why would battered, lied-to, stressed-out Ontario voters support the concept of better-funded health care and education when those programs are in the hands of the likes of dofo and his ministers? Ironically they worse they are at their jobs, the more they advance their objectives.
It's a tangential point but one I only clicked to reading your discussion of the polling numbers but differentiating class based on income is a pretty rough proxy for the class divides Marx laid out - ie between owners of capital and the workers. That is, you can be a decently paid academic or healthcare professional but still ultimately be a worker. And that's not even talking about the intraworker distinctions (valuable or not, depending how rigid you want to be) between the intern, the manager and the petit bourgeois.
To bring it to your point, I wonder what difference we could draw out in perspectives of the "upper" class (by income) if we pulled the owners out from the workers. Maybe trust wouldn't be the right angle though as the owners are pretty well enmeshed in the power structures of the state, at least in Canada.
Breaking The Expectations Of The Little Guy
https://unpublishedottawa.com/letter/389816/breaking-expectations-little-guy
"the profit margin for the FIRE sector (finance, insurance and real estate) rose from a previous average of 14% to 22% in 2021..instead of admitting their role in this inflationary outbreak, the interest-conflicted chorus of bank economists see their mission as breaking the expectations of the little guy."
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Modern Monetary Theory in Canada
We are seeing the full realization of Habermas' Legitimation Crisis, and I'm not sure an appeal to Frankfurt materialism is a viable exit strategy. The pandemic was a litmus test and levels of trust in Canada suggest that in 2020 we unleashed a latent distrust that we always knew existed, but never to what extent.
I've never seen as profound a shift as this: https://twitter.com/VoiceOfFranky/status/1618991644824715264?s=20&t=jK34qg8on_uQIEbIJus_LA
Observation. How much of current trust issues are related to demographic flip to aging retired boomers (and their drain on the economy)?
Japan has been at the bleeding change of that and has the lowest expectation of things getting better in "X years time".
Great article David! Wondering if you could elaborate on the hard solutions that should be on the table for addressing the class divide and which of these proposals do you think would have the most impact?