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.
Ah, that's interesting. Maybe a two-track approach. I'd imagine there's a gradation of soft to hard alienation and distrust, since we do see these numbers move.
I think there's a tonne of inter-generational tension -- and it gets mobilized as one against the other instead of us trying to build solidarity. That said, I can't imagine how younger generations feel anything but royally screwed.
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?
Ouf, there are a number of things. I think shifting to worker owned businesses is crucial. Also, participatory democratic institutions is another. Decommodifying certain areas of the economy, at least partially, is essential: housing, above all. Addressing corporate profiteering is another. Renewing the public healthcare system is another still.
I certainly think more worker-owned businesses and participatory institutions would have eased the polarization that happened e.g. with covid and vaccine mandates. Whether or not there is a mandate, it would be an outcome negotiated with the people you work with every day; there’s a limit to how nasty or disillusioning that can get. By comparison, I saw firsthand in the multinational company where I work how thoroughly morale was damaged by a vaccine mandate imposed (and then canceled) top-down on the US portion of the company through the OSHA contractor rule.
Silver lining: a lot of what happened during covid that destroyed trust in the short term might lead to a renewed concern for labour rights over the medium to long term. You see, the mandates were aimed at anti-vaccine employees and citizens, but the underlying message “you are not important or ‘essential’; you are disposable and if you don’t do what we like we can exile you from society in an instant” was aimed at everyone.
Trust in healthcare is a whole other topic; I think in Canada the warning signs were there already as early as 2000-2001 and we are now 20 years too late to easily restore trust in medicine with cute things like ‘fighting disinformation’ or giving it more funding. Research how David Healy was scouted around that time to be a director at CAMH and hired and then fired before the first day on the job. And decide on a stance: if he was some loony disinformation spreader, why was he hired? if not, why was he fired?
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.
Oh that is interesting. I have to think of this but I think you're right and on to something.
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."
______________________________________
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
Ah, that's interesting. Maybe a two-track approach. I'd imagine there's a gradation of soft to hard alienation and distrust, since we do see these numbers move.
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".
I think there's a tonne of inter-generational tension -- and it gets mobilized as one against the other instead of us trying to build solidarity. That said, I can't imagine how younger generations feel anything but royally screwed.
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?
Ouf, there are a number of things. I think shifting to worker owned businesses is crucial. Also, participatory democratic institutions is another. Decommodifying certain areas of the economy, at least partially, is essential: housing, above all. Addressing corporate profiteering is another. Renewing the public healthcare system is another still.
I certainly think more worker-owned businesses and participatory institutions would have eased the polarization that happened e.g. with covid and vaccine mandates. Whether or not there is a mandate, it would be an outcome negotiated with the people you work with every day; there’s a limit to how nasty or disillusioning that can get. By comparison, I saw firsthand in the multinational company where I work how thoroughly morale was damaged by a vaccine mandate imposed (and then canceled) top-down on the US portion of the company through the OSHA contractor rule.
Silver lining: a lot of what happened during covid that destroyed trust in the short term might lead to a renewed concern for labour rights over the medium to long term. You see, the mandates were aimed at anti-vaccine employees and citizens, but the underlying message “you are not important or ‘essential’; you are disposable and if you don’t do what we like we can exile you from society in an instant” was aimed at everyone.
Trust in healthcare is a whole other topic; I think in Canada the warning signs were there already as early as 2000-2001 and we are now 20 years too late to easily restore trust in medicine with cute things like ‘fighting disinformation’ or giving it more funding. Research how David Healy was scouted around that time to be a director at CAMH and hired and then fired before the first day on the job. And decide on a stance: if he was some loony disinformation spreader, why was he hired? if not, why was he fired?