This article was originally published by Andrew Syrios at Mises Institute
The Left has become increasingly and often bizarrely obsessed with all manners of supposed privilege these days. Buzzfeed even put out a quiz on how much privilege you have. All of these various privileges work to form a simple Marxist-like dichotomy between the oppressed and the oppressor. So for whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, cisgendered, able-bodied and attractive people are all at least privileged if not part of an oppressor class. On the other hand, people of color, women, homosexuals, the disabled, Muslims and people of other faiths, transgendered, overweight people and presumably otherkins, headmates, and whatever other buzzwords the self-diagnosed crowd has come up with, are oppressed.
It’s hard to imagine a more effective way to increase division in society than by splitting everyone into different groups that are either good or bad, privileged or oppressed. And this division is then inevitably followed up by demanding a government solution to these inequities. One of the most obviously glaring omissions is that what made up the bulk of Marxist theory, namely the rich versus poor, hardly gets mentioned.
Indeed, one of the first things that came to mind with the recent proposals in South Africa to expropriate the land of white farmers without compensation is that no such proposals were being made for expropriating the land or assets of wealthy corporations. Perhaps that’s because wealth corporations can better defend themselves (or flee). Or perhaps it’s because class is far more fluid than things such as race. (Unless of course, you’re Rachel Dolezal).
One of the most remarkable failures of Marxist theory (of which there were many) was that Marx believed the revolutions would begin in the most advanced capitalist countries . This would imply a revolution was most likely to spring up in a country like Germany, the United States, Britain or France. Instead, the communists took over in far more backward countries that were still either partly or almost totally feudal, such as Russia and China.
In hindsight, this should have been obvious. Feudalism creates a strict hierarchal and static society where class is effectively something you are born into. Indeed, it is interesting to ponder whether it was the religious justification of the caste system that prevented a communist revolution from taking place in India. When class is something you cannot change, class warfare becomes a more appealing alternative. And while capitalism is a spectacularly more effective way to organize a society than communism, even the most ardent supporters of a free market will admit it takes time for class restrictions to fade and for a country to become wealthy after transitioning from a feudal or semi-feudal economy into a capitalist one.
For peasants who have lived under feudal lords and the like for ages, the false promises of communism were understandably more appealing.
However, even with all the government favors and restrictions hampering the economy, there is still upward mobility in capitalist nations. One study in the United States, for example, found that only five percent of those in the bottom quintile of income in 1975 remained there in 1991. And when age is taken into account, income and wealth disparities look far less stark . Despite terrible incentives from the welfare state, most of the poor don’t stay poor. And almost everyone at least has dreams and aspirations of moving up the ladder. In capitalist nations, class is not something you are stuck with.
In the current age, we can see how the use of class as a rallying cry mostly failed as Occupy Wallstreet quickly petered out and lost steam. Indeed, many Leftists have lost interest in class as it is generally the white working class in the United States who supported Trump and the white working class in Britain who supported Brexit.
In Occupy Wallstreet’s wake came the most deranged form of identity politics one could possibly imagine. And by focusing on immutable qualities (or qualities presumed to be immutable), the Left has fixed the pesky problem that class mobility created for their dreams of an ever-bigger state apparatus.
As noted above, modern day social justice warriors divvy everyone up according to various immutable or semi-immutable characteristics. You are either privileged and need to repent (give away your money, job, etc.) or oppressed and are owed something. Many of their arguments are simply ridiculous. For example, gender is a social construct but being fat is genetic. Others mute complex issues into simplistic dichotomies. Two of the most obvious are religion and gender.
In 2016, the Center for Studies on New Religions found that Christianity was the most persecuted religion in the world with 90,000 being killed for their religion. While Christianity is also the largest faith, this doesn’t exactly ring of privilege. And while it’s true, that being a Christian is probably a privilege of sorts in rural Montana, it’s not going to grant you much in Midtown Manhattan, Silicon Valley or Hollywood. Christianity seems to be the one religion you can make fun of these days. After all, a painting of Christ in urine is called “art” and sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts (your tax dollars at work!) while a guy in Britain is imprisoned (and later died) for putting a bacon sandwich outside a Mosque.
With gender, at least in the West, it would seem rather obvious that there are advantages and disadvantages both genders have. Even if you assume the genders are biologically the same and all differences are a social construct (while there are also 57 different biological genders), the results would not imply privilege.
Yes, men make up 95 percent of Nobel prize winners, 95 percent of Fortune 500 CEO’s and 68 percent of STEM majors. But men also make up 93 percent of the incarcerated, just shy of 80 percent of suicides and 70 percent of the homeless. Feminists could push back and say that men get arrested more because they commit more crimes (that presumably the patriarchy made them do). But how does a man become a Fortune 500 CEO? Does it not require a lot of hard work and intelligence? And is anyone going to seriously claim that men are privileged when it comes to the divorce courts?
Feminists may challenge that men are in charge so any advantages to women are just “benevolent sexism.” But this retort would only be coherent if men and women were two collective beings. Each man and woman is, of course, just an individual and even though most of those in charge are men, the average man has as much ability to change the world as the average woman; close to zero. Every advantage and disadvantage men have is just the hand men were dealt.
Some of the same things could be said about whites, especially when whites can be discriminated against with affirmative action. And then there’s always that pesky question as to why Asian Americans earn more than whites if they’re, you know, being oppressed and all. Or perhaps Asian Americans are privileged too as they are now discriminated against by affirmative action as well.
Of course, this whole mess becomes even more complex when you realize you can be both an oppressor and oppressed at the same time. A white woman is privileged by her race and oppressed by her gender. This forms the “Kyriarchy” (yes, that’s a real term) of intersectionality where all these oppressions and privileges meet in one giant wheel of humanities majors pretending they are actual scientists who have come up with something that isn’t really, really stupid.
Indeed, the complexities and utter irrationality of intersectionalism is pretty easy to show. Do I, as a white man, stay privileged if I move to Japan or am I now an oppressed minority? Are the Japanese in Japan who oppose immigration “Japanese supremacists?”
While there have obviously been many major crimes committed by the West (or more accurately, Western governments), the West is by no means unique in these crimes nor immune to them. As someone with Greek ancestry, I could point to the Greek Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War (better known as the Armenian genocide, as approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed along with 600,000 Greeks). I could demand redress from the “Turkish supremacists” as well as the return of Constantinople, of course. Or did my Greek ancestors have “white privilege” while they were being exterminated?
One example probably best highlights the absurdities of intersectionalism better than any other. In 2014, it came out that in Britain, in the town of Rotherham, mostly Pakistani gangs had groomed and raped over 1,400 girls over the course of almost 20 years. The police had known about these crimes but had ignored them. To say this was a national scandal (and proof of massive government incompetence) is a huge understatement.
In 2016, the very white and very male Brock Turner, a Stanford student with a scholarship for swimming, sexually assaulted a classmate and was given a lenient sentence. While this was a terrible crime, in a country with 325 million people, it would seem to be, at best, a local story.
Instead, it blew up into a national flash point against the dreaded and evil patriarchy. Feminists wrote story after story about it. Rotherham on the other hand… not so much. Here are the search results for the feminist site Feministing.com:
For Jezebel.com, the count was:
Rotherham : 3
Brock Turner : 38
Manspreading : 15
Intersectionality sure is complicated.
The only interpretation one can come to is that there is no attempt whatsoever to be consistent or even coherent. It’s simply about divvying people up into groups to demand the state take from another to give to you. It is Bastiat’s second option; “everyone plunders everyone.” But with a twist; first you must pick a team before you begin the attempts at plunder.
In essence, privilegenomics doesn’t even attempt to come up with an economic rationale for redistribution and bigger government. It’s just mere tribalism and a demand to take other’s stuff for historical grievances, some real and some imagined, but almost all done to and by people who have long since passed away.
It shouldn’t be hard to see why this nonsense has acted as a sort of rocket fuel for the Alt-Right. Some people can only be told how privileged and awful they are for so long before deciding to identify with a collective themselves that wants to grow the state for their own benefit. But the Alt Right is clearly a reaction to the Left’s madness. Discrediting the former should diminish if not eliminate the latter.
Regardless, it is now more important than ever for individualism to win out.
***
About the Author
There was a plan to impoverish the Blue collar working class. And both political partys where in on it. The NWO doesn’t want or need the middle class. The loss of the USA production jobs and middle class wealth was on purpose. So don’t be stupid and think we can vote our way out of this mess. No choice but prep for the day when the grid goes down and stays down. Or some other great SHTF event happens. You better have a years supply of everything. Don’t Trust Anyone. If you think someone is trust worthy. Give them keys to everything you own. Give them your pin Number and the combination to your safe. When folks are starving they turn animal very quick. Prep for a stone age existence.and if its not that bad so much the better. Stone age folks didn’t barter with gold & silver. Take that gold and silver money and buy canned goods. Canned goods purchased today will cost more next month. Find some place to hide where you can be moderately comfortable during the extreme heat and cold. The Guy on the Woodpile Report gives some good advise.
Old Guy
TPTB need to maintain a “bully boy” enforcer over their global empire. No nation has either the capability and political environment to fill that role but the USA. US weapons are manufactured in the USA for a reason. The USA has sufficient petroleum refining capacity to meet its indigenous needs. All of this is dependent upon sufficient political stability that will not jeopardize the US armed forces ability to service the needs of TPTB.
If warfare goes virtually robotic as a previous article about AI theorized all of the above is moot. Political stability at home, concern about the safety of your family from the government doesn’t effect a drone, micro drone or robot.
Is it really a question of if warfare is going to go robotic or is it a question of when will it be near fully robotic?
I think even if we are headed toward a dystopian totalitarian order preps and skills could be worthwhile. Gold and silver could be handy as the decline takes place. In a full blown shtf gold and silver may not have as much value as a can of beans. But if get past that stage they will have value again during the rebuild process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBnwqmJdrsU
The short film adaptation of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron was amazing when it came out, and both it and the surrealistic short story itself are very relevant here.
If for some strange reason you have not seen “2081” yet, please click the link, its 20 min well spent.
Thank you. I agree, well spent time….we were never DESTINED to be “equal” and fight against it for all the exceptionalism we each possess. Settling for the mundane is acceptance of a walking death, would rather prefer a true death in exceptionalism than crawling to socialism. Put them all to death, to save humanity.
h ttps://w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=nBnwqmJdrsU
The short film adaptation of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron was amazing when it came out, and both it and the surrealistic short story itself are very relevant here.
If for some strange reason you have not seen “2081” yet, please click the link, its 20 min well spent.
Awesome video, thank you
There was a time in my life I might have thought it far fetched but not so anymore.
The middle class doesn’t want or need the NWO.
I’m almost 53 years old, self employed, and when I get up at 5 am every morning to go work my ass off every day as I have since I was 15 I have zero empathy for some lazy deranged liberal turd who thinks I’m “privileged” and owe them something.Come try to take something from me I worked for that you NEVER earned or deserve and see where that gets you. Probably shot !
There isn’t one working person I know that doesn’t feel the same way. You want privilege? Here’s the broom, start earning it instead of riding it.
Anonymous, same here. If someone wants to get themselves killed that’s one way to do it.
John Galt them all. Stop. Just stop. Stop spending. Stop paying taxes by earning little or nothing. Stop buying and paying sales taxes. Just stop. Eat from your garden and spend nothing for a month and they all crumble and beg us to all come back just like in Atlas Shrugged. We have the internet to coordinate this. Just do it.
the dollar is valued as it is accepted
so stop accepting it
the fake money + the chooze is our central
There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose…. JM Keynes, quoting Lenin
Agree: unplug from their system. It only works if you are willing to work every hour given and then pay tax at the maximum rates. As soon as you stop doing that, you drain away the wealth that the system requires. Tax is the main whip hand used to control people. Do like the rich do: reduce your taxes to zero and offshore as much of your assets and wealth as you can.
Get to know the tax regulations and then look for the legal loopholes.
The Civil Rights Act that was passed in the 1960’s needs to be repealed. Civil rights were invented by the commies to eliminate or restrict individual rights. Period. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice is there to enforce the end of individual rights. It is staffed by black racists and White communists.
Him
Blacks should not be able to vote? Please explain.
People that live on the dole should not be able too vote. No pay , no play. Another issue that no one is talking about is the amount of money that’s being hidden from the economy. Be it Gold, silver, bullets, or beans; more and more people are getting out of the system. Solar Cells, Cell phones, work at home, home schooling. Yes the lower middle class in dieing’ the upper is hiding. I have a fair amount of cash that 30 years ago would have been invested in the productive economy, now I see no reason to risk it just so the Gov can take half and waste it.
“People that live on the dole should not be able too vote.”
Thats still a separate issue from my question. Regarding your thoughts it opens up questions. Should those who lost their employment through no fault of their own when their job, the ones in the neighboring city too all went overseas? These people paid in for decades. Should the worker at Amazon who gets food assistance be disenfranchised facilitating even more power to Bezos? Conversely multiple generation welfare recipients, as the series Shameless shows multi racial (yes blacks are disproportionally represented)voting is a perversion. If the government lived up to its mission statement, The Preamble, we wouldn’t be in a lot of this mess. “Promoting The General Welfare” conflicts with allowing multi national corporations to find the cheapest labor source on the planet and sell here W/O penalty.
Paranoid, agreed. On wealth being hidden from the economy we’ll probably never know how much is hidden. Supposedly 40% of the entire nation’s wealth was taken back in the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Bush gave a bailout to Wall St. in October 2008 and then Obama gave them another bailout in July 2009. Thus the printing presses have been going 24/7/365 since that time. That’s the ‘life support’ the economy is on.
the “printing press” is never life support
real life support is actual wealth
the real wealth is acting as life support for the printing press
Kevin, how silly of you. They should be able to vote under the same rights as the rest of us. We should lose our individual rights under the guise of protecting the rights of others? I never thought you one the commies. I was wrong. Or are you just confused?
“They should be able to vote under the same rights as the rest of us.”
Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which tagged along with the Civil Rights Act the “Right” to vote was like the “Right” to “Keep and bear Arm”s in certain states; in name only. So regardless of the 14th Amendment voting “Rights” were effectively bypassed.
I lean Libertarian as both Conservatives and Progressives (so called liberals) pick and choose through the Bill of Rights. I like them all.
” I like them all”
And they apply to everyone or they apply to no one. Actually William Shatner said that well in a Star Trek episode where the “Yangs” (Yankees) lost its meaning over generations. His oratory in that scene still sends goosebumps up my spine.
I have reconsidered. The government we have now is a socialist democracy. We started with a free constitutional republic, limited franchise. I demand we return back to the original intent of the founders. Limited franchise means that not everyone in the country can take part in the franchise. The franchise being the right to vote. Universal suffrage is the strategy of the Marxists to destroy the Republic. So far, they have done a good job at that. The USA was in fact a White Christian country. It was founded as just that. When the founders said, All men are created equal, they meant White men. How do we know this? Because at the time of the founding, blacks were not citizens, they were slaves. Indians were considered separate nations, and any Mexicans around were considered under the jurisdiction of either Spain or France. And there were no Asians here. So, they could only have been referring to White men. White women couldn’t vote and even White men with no education, or land, or money couldn’t vote. Voting was restricted to basically, farmers, merchants, tradesmen, military and the well to do. And it worked.
Africans are the only people that have not Neanderthal DNA. Africans are Denisova and not part of the human race. All others that all contain both Denisovan and Neanderthal genes are true humans. Therefore they can vote. Give each African American a million dollars and a plane ticket to Africa and in two to five years they would all be broke and sitting on there nuts in front of a mud hut beating each other over the head with sticks. No brag just fact.
Him is correct.
Constitutional rights are natural rights, confirmed by a document.
“Civil” rights are, by very definition, government granted rights. As such, they can be revoked by the issuing authority- the government.
He’s not saying “blacks should not be able to vote” He’s saying the worldview held by the Founders already covers it. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”
Him, agreed wholeheartedly on your comments about the Civil Rights Act AND the Civil Rights Division at DOJ. What ‘civil rights’ really means is special treatment for minority groups, especially blacks based upon a totally false narrative. Anyone who wants to take something from me and I don’t care what their excuse is had better be ready to die. It’s just that plain and simple. You come to me with bad intentions toward me I will respond accordingly.
The Deplorable Renegade
We’re in general agreement. The racial quota hurts everyone often including the recipients. That part of the Civil Rights Act steps on A to supposedly help B. If a candidate is accepted to Medical School ,who without quota would not be accepted, then one looks at those blacks that did get accepted on merit (Think Ben Carson) and assume that they are not worthy.
Regarding voting if people can fight, die or get wounded then they dam sure have a say inch runs age country and so do their spouses and parents.
who not inch
Come to my front door, leave your privilege outside. I don’t have any and cede nothing to anyone. Try next door….
Any one who celebrates Martin Luther King day is celebrating a trained Communist. He was trained as an actual card carrying Communist in an actual school of Communism along with Rosa Parks who attended the school at the same time.
NWO Global Communism is not what it is sold as. It is not a communal living equality based utopia. Blacks were elevated by Communists in order to destroy the white power enjoyed by white people because of their high level of achievement due to hard work and innovation, scientific discovery, and technical superiority.
Communists know that in order for them to reign as the dictators and tyrants of this world, they must have a stupid subsurviant and disarmed public, just smart enough to serve, but not smart enough to outwit themselves.
That is why they seek division and conflict. While the rest of us try to make the most of a bad situation. Communists (like Rob Emanuel “never let a crisis go to waste”) exploit conflict and division.
_
but not smart enough to outwit the tyrants
_
“Calling the cops is like opening a box of chocolates — you never know which one will kill your dog.”
Hit the nail on the head!!
If Dr King and Rosa Parks were trained by the communists then hooray for the damn reds. You can’t tell a woman to get in the back of a public bus because you feel so mighty and superior. Who in the hell are you? What your saying is that Communists offered them freedom. Thats disgraceful in concept; we’re better than that.
Actually communists keep capitalists from becoming fascists. FDR legalized organized labor giving labor a piece of the economic pie because they were fearful that the communists had their ear. US industry didn’t wantonly go overseas de-industrializing the US when the USSR had a third of the globe. Those businesses feared nationalization which kept them here thus gainfully employing Americans. Since the USSR dissolved the US has invaded country upon country having no fear of a significant response. We’re in a continuous state of war because of it.
Kevin 2, you sound more commie with every post.
I’m stating facts which you cannot challenge with facts of your own so as the saying goes:
‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me”.
NAFTA & China Free trade came into being 1996 and 1999. The USSR dissolved and with it largely the threat of foreign nationalization of assets in 1991; Look, think, see any relationship? Organized Labors legal birth was with the 1935 Wagner Act. The communists took the USSR by then and were courting US labor leaders; Look, think, see any relationship?
You honestly believe that Rosa Parks should be seated behind you on public transpiration? Is her money different from yours? Where do you get the justification for that and its enforcement by local law enforcement? They’re communists because they want the same respect that you believe your entitled to?
GTFOOH
Kevin, the Rosa Parks event was planned well ahead of time. And yes I can say she shouldn’t be there. Segregation was for the protection of our people. Now we are subjected to much more crime because of forced integration. You are living through the end of Western Civilization. How’s that working out for you?
Roza Parks had no business being at the front of that bus?
GTFOOH. What rights do you have ordained by law or God that allows you to get preferred seating? “She shouldn’t have been there”? Says who? You?
GTFOOH
“You are living through the end of Western Civilization.”
If anything is causing that look at TPTB, not Dr King or Rosa Parks. Look at the SOBs that eviscerated US manufacturing. Camden was a good city when it had good jobs.
Well I as Racist as the next person. But a persons sould doesn’t have any color. Folks try and place blame When they don’t even know what the problem is. We actually don’t have a race ,religion or political problem. The problem is too darn many parasite takers. And you might be part of the problem. If whatever you do for income does not use the natural resources of this planet to make build or grow a tangible product that adds to the GNP your a parasite. The farther you are from being a vital part of this chain of production the larger parasite you are. You might attempt to justify your parasitic income. But your still a part of the parasitic equasion. And Too many Takers and Too few Makers is never long term sustainable. And when you have excess takers they are able to vote themselves goods , money & services from the Public Coffers. So my solution is no Parasite Taker reguardless of race ,religion, gender or political creed should be allowed to vote. Draw a government check and no Vote for you. Receive government assistance No Vote for you. Employed by and city state or federal agency No vote for you.
I married the smartest sane woman and I ever met. I’m no dummy. We had children who have children.
Meanwhile in the slum, stupid women had babies with the biggest dick they could find.
The children of our children will either be getting Nobel prizes, or killing children in Chicago and Baltimore.
It isn’t racist, it’s reality.
I’ve always been amazed at the bible and its references to genetics, be they Giants or the foul people of Sodom and Gomorrah. God warred with satans offspring.
Hmmm, looks like he lost the battle by looking around….
Yup!
More and more of the wealth and the power is being concentrated in fewer hands. Regardless of the reason, it fosters resentment. Playing poor against wealthy is the heart of the Democratic platform. Unfortunately, it works more often than it fails.
The only privilege I have is living on this retarded mud ball of a planet surrounded by ignorant morons all screeching about “privilege”. Sorry f*kers don’t get it that we are all subject to the same laws of nature, but are all hung up on the trifling laws of men.
We can do well for a asteroid strike to snap mankind back to reality instead of these fictitious western world 21st century “problems” of modern men.
Have you looked around. Im simply amazed at the majority of people I observe. They are Fat to Obese. And have a cell phone glued to their ear. A lean person is a rare sight. When I was 50 years younger there where very few fat people and a obese person was very rare to see. I can understand why the white fat ass women crossbreed with blacks. No quality white guy with any smarts would breed them. The fat white guys cant do them any good with their dinky little peckers. ( OH my God I sound like Frank Thoughts LOL) The fat epidemic is why I think there is no possible solution to restore the USA to anything resembling the Republic it once was just a mere 50 years ago. A great culling is needed. .
Agree: the US is getting taken to the cleaners by China, Russia etc. because America is no longer a country filled with the best people in the world. 50 years ago, Americans were the fittest, smartest, most prosperous people in the world. It was self-evident. But today, most Americans are obese, whacked out of their minds on drugs, poorly educated and informed, dependent on welfare etc.
It is to the point where the Marines need to just take over and start running people’s days to whip them into shape. Mandatory runs every morning, classes in literacy etc., moral education.
As for the women, no wonder decent guys do not want to breed with them. Obese, scrawled with tattoos, potty mouths, entitled and uncultured – decent guys would be better off getting themselves a Russian, Chinese or European wife.
Old Guy, LMAO! Once again you speak the truth. There also way too many hogs waddling around in my area. I think they get out of breath just walking from their front door to the mailbox to get that welfare check. I wouldn’t give them the time of day myself. The fat ass white women also have the same SHEEPLE way of thinking as anyone smaller than them. Hey I’m also sounding like Frank Thoughts, LOL. Oh well, at least I know I’m in good company.
. . .be sure to cull the (((right people)))- the string pullers who cause all these problems
Privilege, it does not live at my house. I am in my seventies and still work my tail off since I was a kid and pay high taxes, never even drew a unemployment check in my life. LBJ used me along with many more as cannon fodder in Vietnam. I worked as a paper mill millwright most of my life and try to teach my grand kids to be productive people and not be fooled by the socialists. I believe there is a great storm coming to America so be prepared as well as possible and never give up your freedoms no matter what comes.
America lost its freedom during the UNcivil War of Northern Agression!
the war was NOT about slavery, though that was one SMALL part the MAIN CONFLICT WAS OVER STATES RIGHTS!
the south had every RIGHT TO SUCEED from the union
DIShonest abe wanted the war
the confederates were the last patriots
if Washington, Patrick Henry,Adams, Hancock, Jefferson Benjamin Franklin, or any of the other founding fathers were alive today they would ADVOCATE REVOLUTION against this tyranny!