I feel like some things have been weighing heavily on my mind lately.
Sometimes life is so needlessly complex, and it seems like no matter how good your intentions are, the absurdity of human existence comes around sooner or later to bite you in the arse.
It is certainly true that reality is nothing but a series of unfolding, overlapping, resolving, and then violently opposing set of contradictions. No matter what you do, or what you wish for, you will always be affected by some unintended and highly ironic consequences.
I need to read Jim Chalmers's (Federal Australian Treasurer) essay in The Monthly on his theory of Australian capitalism. I want to meditate on the whole ‘class society with a human face’ argument again. It seems easy to dismiss among comrades, but if we are being served this faerie tale yet again by the executive of the propertied classes, perhaps it is worth slowly unpicking yet again.
I am now seeing news reports of single parents in Australia who earn $130 000 annually having to starve themselves when their children is with their ex, in order to afford their mortgage repayments.
It is like the famous quotation says: when it is all said and done, the legacy of the human race will be an enormous irony: the masses will have proven to be mostly docile and stoic in the face of the theft of their future by the powerful and wealthy. The history of humanity is not one of violent upheavals, it is of endless patience and belt-tightening by the people, while our rulers feast and intoxicate themselves to excess with all the stolen money.
Once, I wanted to be acknowledged and celebrated as a great anti-capitalist political philosopher. Now I just want to keep my electricity connected. Maybe I should have hung on and sold out way back in my university days. I could have been part of Australia’s ruling class, and, had I doggedly pursued my own self-interest, I could at this very moment be living very comfortably.
When I search myself now, however, I know I have no regrets. I have always been true to myself. I am glad I quit the Labor Party in 2012/2013.
I just wish I had the power to turn things around for all these innocent people here who are getting absolutely fleeced by the private economic monopolies…