America: give up safety nets for a chance to become wealthy?

[RadioRaheem84]

It seems that people in America are willing to relinquish their social safety net in order for the chance to make it one day knowing full well that that door is very narrow and based on a class structure. It seems like this nation is set up for one to have only one of three options: Leave the nation, work with little to no assistence, or become rich (middle class or higher).

Am I right?

[pierrotlefou]

What do you mean by social safety net?

[hugsandmarxism]

This has been going on since the Reagan years. The political right took advantage of the situation of the Carter administration and began dismantling government programs dating back to the New Deal with FDR. The bourgeois bought these union busting, social security dismantling measures from their political lackeys, and it's come back to bite them in the ass in recent years. They purged the remnants of US social democracy for neo-liberalism, and the result is they're hanging themselves faster than they would have otherwise. "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered" is the moral here.

[RadioRaheem84]

Sorry I just meant that the conservatives in this nation keep wanting us to limit government in favor of private interests in order to "ensure" liberty, i.e. make the marketplace more free. If Americans limit their need for social assistance then they will have more of a chance to advance in society by tapping into those open markets. But I dont understand why Americans would want to limit or give up things that benefit all for the chance of becoming rich by tapping into something that will benefit a few.

[Demogorgon]

The irony actually is that people are far more likely to achieve capitalist "success" in societies with decent social welfare.

[pierrotlefou]

But I dont understand why Americans would want to limit or give up things that benefit all for the chance of becoming rich by tapping into something that will benefit a few.

Hollywood syndrome: "I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna be a star!" plus racism from the right. Also a fear of the unknown. Anything that takes money from them and gives to others is, and i quote from a family member of mine, "pussy socialism. If you want to know what america should be, look at the old west." That stupid mentality is so deeply ingrained in american society despite the progressive gains we as a society have gained. Our former president is evidence enough of that.

[n0thing]

Eh. It's like the sub prime mortgages thing. Everyone took out massive mortgages they couldn't afford because they all thought they were on the way up the financial ziggurat, and would be millionaires in a year or two.

Maybe this is what happens when you have an entire culture modelled after an obsession with bourgeois culture. Celebrity magazines, Cribs, Forbes, and all that shit.

[RadioRaheem84]

Eh. It's like the sub prime mortgages thing. Everyone took out massive mortgages they couldn't afford because they all thought they were on the way up the financial ziggurat, and would be millionaires in a year or two.

Maybe this is what happens when you have an entire culture modelled after an obsession with bourgeois culture. Celebrity magazines, Cribs, Forbes, and all that shit.

Exactly. The mentality today is that America should back track to the days where social safety nets never existed. They think that if we were to rid ourselves of them than that will suddenly open up new avenues to wealth. Maybe, but only for the few that can capitilize on those certain industries that have been privitized.

This society has been foaming at the mouth at get rich quick schemes to pay off their massive debt ridden lives.