how to not solve any problems
have you ever talked to a conservative?
i have. in fact i grew up a con and spent most of my teen years vociferously supporting the fringest of fringe politics. we had a party called the christian heritage party and it's exactly what you think it is if you know what the dogwhistle heritage means, and the big controversy at my church was whether it was not just advisable but permissible to ever vote for the actual conservative party instead of the niche hatemonger party.
that is to say i grew up amongst christian nationalists. in canada. isn't that fun?
anyways, i've talked to a lot of conservatives. i find them fascinating. because we agree. a lot.
don't get too excited though. we agree on the problems. because the problems are fairly obvious. you talk to someone in the trades and they know in their bones that their boss taking home 50% of the fruits of their labour isn't right.
ok, so how do we fix that problem?
and that's where we get stuck. there are all kinds of answers to this. some are good (coops, revolutions, etc); some are bad (lowering taxes, less regulation). most of the time the solution is just to start your own company so you're the boss, something not everyone has the seed capital or temperament to do, and something that just structurally can't work. someone's got to be the employee.
so maybe we don't actually agree on the problem after all. we actually agree on the symptoms. your problem isn't my boss takes home fruits of labour he didn't perform but instead i am not the boss. which is a very different problem. which is to say you're not terribly concerned with the material reality of the system you participate in; you're concerned about your position in the hierarchy.
oops.
i'm a big believer in not bitching about things you can't or won't change. so if you go to bed every night and one of the coils in your bed stabs you in the back all night long and you can't get a decent night's sleep but yet you won't buy a new mattress or you can't afford to buy a new mattress and you won't sleep on the couch you shouldn't be out here complaining to me about that. you should just do something about it. if getting stabbed in the back a bunch seems to you to be an acceptable tradeoff for not getting involved in matressdom then accept that about yourself. you're stabbed-in-the-back guy. that's who you are. don't make it my problem.
so anyways i'm an optimist and think problems can be solved. i think when we're talking about resource allocation it's better to talk about ways to ensure a level playing field and economic justice rather than just settling for jostling for position in life's org chart.
if you just accept the fundamentals of the reality you've been given, if you accept that this is just how it is, you're playing the game of capitalist realism. you don't get to complain about how the way things are has its boot on your neck when all you want is to wear the boot.