Tag Archives: socialism

Lunch date…

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For all my ranting and raving, I have a loose policy of not really talking too much here about my personal life. Often enough that’s because I’m not sure it would make for particularly dynamic reading. Plus, there’s the bit about the internet not needing to know absolutely everything I’m up to. Occasionally, though, there’s a little bit of a story that just too good not to share.

You see, I had a lunch date Sunday afternoon. Low pressure, low key, and the first time I’ve sat down in a restaurant since December 2019, when the rumors of plague started rumbling out of China. 

No, I obviously won’t name names, but she’s a lovely girl – charming, articulate, and a keeper of cats with at least a polite interest in books. I’d be hard pressed to remember when two hours in the presence of other people passed quite so pleasantly.

There’s a catch, of course – and not, probably, an obvious one. You see, in what I can only assume is typical of her fellow Millennials, there was a bit of a rant about capitalism, “the system,” and a Bernie-esq flavor of wishing to bring about a brave new socialist world. 

Look, I’m all for people being engaged, involved, and having informed opinions. I’m even up for the discussion should anyone want to have it. But it was hard not to chuckle a bit at the mental gymnastics it takes to talk about burning down the system while drinking $15 sangrias paid for by someone who earns their living by actively working to advance the system and prop up the military-industrial complex. Unless your plan is to dismantle the system one drink at a time, in which case then I suppose the revolution is now.

I’m not sure there will be a second date, but the first one was worth having if only for the pure entertainment value. 

It could be a reset, but “great,” not so much…

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Over the weekend I read an article predicting that after the plague we’d see increasing population density in cities, people abandoning rural and suburban living, and abandoning the whole idea of home ownership in favor of multi-year leases on “semi-customizable” apartments.

These would be futurists foresee a “great reset” in consumerism and the rise of free public transportation, socialized healthcare, higher taxes across the board supporting more “free” at the point of use services, and generally adoption of ideas I’d generously call “the golden age of socialism.”

Who knows. Maybe the authors are right. Maybe the masses are just sucker enough to give up on capitalism. I’ve rarely been far wrong when I expect the worst from large groups of people in the past and I don’t see any reason that wouldn’t continue to be true in the future.

It’s a change program I’ll fight tooth and nail, of course. The capitalist economy took a kid from down the Crick, let him climb the property ladder, live what in any generation would be consider a good life of providing for myself and all the resident animals, and build a respectable retirement savings along the way.

I could be an outlier, I suppose, as I tend to want the exact opposite of what this particular author calls for in his vision of the utopian social order brought about by a Great Reset. If the plague has taught me anything it’s that I can’t wait to double down on home ownership – although maybe I’ll opt for a little less house next time in favor of a lot more land. Never once during the plague did I find myself wishing I was stuck in a 600 square foot box with minimal access to outdoor space, so I admit I have questions about their logic here. Likewise, I can’t remember a time when I wish there was just a little more bureaucracy in anything I was trying to do. The whole idea feels deeply counterintuitive.

The idea of living asshole to elbow with a thousand other people in some concrete and steel tower is my version of hell. If it works for you, have at it, I guess… though I’d appreciate someone explaining to me why it’s anyone else’s responsibility to fund your deluxe apartment in the sky, though that’s probably fodder for a different blog post.

If they’re right and I really am an outlier, I suppose all it really means is in fifteen years or so there’s going to be a hell of a lot of rural land ready to be bought cheap… assuming the wannabe Marxists haven’t managed to strip away all pretense of private property. The article’s authors were happy to hint around at that particular vision of the future, but lacked the academic fortitude to say it directly.

You’re welcome to your workers’ paradise, but I’ll be over here fighting it every step of the way. Call me old fashioned, but I’m still in the corner of the system I’ve seen working for me over the last 42 years rather than the one that’s brought us such interesting moments in history as the collapse of the Soviet Union, Venezuela’s frittering away of a king’s ransom in petro-dollars, and starvation rations under the panned economy of North Korea.