(The future is LOCAL! - CL)
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https://unclejohnsband.substack.com/p/recursive-globalisms?publication_id=2317098&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=y7h5a&utm_medium=email It’s difficult to explain how surreal it was watching the bottom fall out of the infinite Progress! dream. The curse or blessing of Gen X is straddling worlds. The boomers and older still act like their long dead and mouldering fantasy debt blowout is “real”. With too many too stupid and ignorant to do other. Millennials and younger only know the clown world end of the House of Lies. With too many without hope or prospects outside of family or government program support. The first can’t imagine a month’s rent costing more than a month of minimum wage. The second can’t imagine wandering down to the plant out of high school and landing a job that makes them a homeowner within a few years. We were there for both.
One of the more irritating things about the “Americans won’t work” canard is how the lack of financial incentive is completely left out. Mass post-industrial jobs in the NUC pay crap relative to the old industrial ones. There’s no social compact to share the fruits of material production when nothing is produced. And if eligible for checks of any kind, there can be little to no benefit to working. Then throw in the sudden cost of living explosion. There are actually two problems here. People won’t work if they have a comparable alternative. And work has to allow a sufficient life. Cutting off the checks would solve the low-skill side of the “foreign labor” debate quickly.
Culture broke down when production was severed from place.
Importing workers severs employment of any kind from place.
The first flew in behind a spray of lies. Bets on the second?
Which is why the future is local. Grass roots. Organic networks. Sustainable production. When place offers promise of sufficient, hope returns. Optimism follows. And actual meaningful culture can grow. It isn’t easy. But it’s real. What’s the other viable choice?
