S. asks—Is it “the good” to fight [the march of bigotry], even if it’s doomed to succeed against freedom? Why?
Well, my family’s favourite moral lesson is:
Evil happens because good people "sit around and do nothing".
So, to me, that means omissions are just as strong as positive deeds. I add my own twist: I am not a consequentialist in the slightest. I am a deontologist: i.e., one’s intentions are all that matter with the action, not what results.
So, as long as you die fighting the good fight, you are all clear, your conscience is perfect.
I am not a stoic, I am not a utilitarian. A will in accordance with nature? Ha! Let me show you the sweetest revenge of all: You could not wipe the wry grin off my face. At the arrest. At the trial. At the sentencing, where I find out my fate: certain death. In prison, where I languish, and grow emaciated. Perhaps I expire in prison, as they make me do slave labour.
I forget how they martyr the good under Racism in the US—but don't forget that this land (Australia) was explicitly founded on it. Before they abolished the death penalty, here you were hanged. I have seen the room where they performed the last few executions here (the Fremantle prison). There is a gallows, but the room is tiny, and there are two doors: you enter alive through one.
Anyway my point is this: morals are so only so due to the Will. I am a voluntarist, I am the person who stands up first to decry an injustice. Perhaps you have not asked the right person, because i am a revolutionary; I don't believe in going down quietly.
I actually disagree with Orwell on the 2+2=5 scenario. I believe deep down you cannot be broken, there is always some a priori connection between a conscious mind and the truth.
I am not saying you are doing this, but: people also tend to separate out the Right from the Good. To me there is no distinction. even if the consequence is Tragedy, which, although sometimes it is, the purpose of morality is to know the truth, and love the good.
—B.V.
There are several perspectives on what "inflation" is. None of the classical bourgeois ones actually explain why it happens. In order to understand this word that is on everyone's lips, we must turn, again, to Karl Marx.
We may agree with the neo-liberals this much: Descriptively, yes, economic inflation is a general increase in the prices of commodities in the market. What is more important to point out is that inflation is a decrease in the purchasing power of money.
What is purchasing power? Like the label suggests, it is the ability of money to obtain the same value of economic goods between borders, as well as in time.
A good measure of purchasing power of money is, ironically, called the 'Big Mac Index'. Using the US dollar as a benchmark, we see the purchasing power of an Australian dollar to buy the same commodity--a Big Mac--is around -5% of an American.
The Australian dollar is more 'valuable' than most nations, but is still less 'valuable' than a US dollar. So, i hope this clears up any confusion about the idea that money is 'worth' something.
Let's return to the inflation crisis.
A reduction of the purchasing power of money means, all else held constant, if you had savings in a bank not accruing any interest, that money would decrease in purchasing power.
This means, whatever $100 was worth last month is now some fraction of that it was before. In order to have the same 'purchasing power', that money would have to increase at the same rate as the general rate of inflation.
An inflation crisis, which is what we are currently in, is when the rate of price inflation begins to outstrip people's personal income. We can skip entertaining any hypothetical scenarios and move right to the meat of the issue of the current economic crisis:
The growth of worker's wages in Australia are most definitely stagnant. They have been since the late 1970s. It is plain to see the lowering of the purchasing power of the income of the worker has been locked in.
Marx had a novel explanation for economic profit. He said it was linked to the amount of extra value a worker was able to produce over and above meeting the value of their own wages every day, week, month, year.
What happens when wages go down, any time they go down, is the share of economic value that is apportioned between the workers and the business owner changes. For workers, a decrease in the purchasing power of their wages means that the bosses sees a similar increase in the return on the outlay of their capital.
Here is the riddle unwound—It is a transfer of wealth from the worker to the boss. Bosses are currently recording record profits. Landlords are raking in incredible returns on their investment properties. The 0.6% vacancy rate has made leases more expensive than mortgages. And mortgages are expensive already.
Inflation is like a cancer, eating away at the welfare of the worker, and shifting the balance of power in the class struggle further towards the capitalist.
It is imperative that we, as Zizek so colourfully puts it 'cut the balls' off the capitalist system.
Can you think of any practical methods we can increase wages? Increase the share of the national income that goes to the toilers, the oppressed, the destitute, the homeless?
I can think of a few, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
—B.V. (~vidak)