5LL #8 - National Prison Strike, Socialist America, Social Wealth Fund, Anxiety, Student Loan Debt
How the Ongoing Prison Strike is Connected to the Labor Movement
Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue
For centuries, a worker’s most potent weapon against exploitation from capitalism and oppression from the powers that be has been direct action: the strike. And right now, America’s prisoners are on strike. Incarcerated workers across the nation are standing up to protest their inhumane living conditions and buck the horrific yoke of prison slavery with organized labor’s strongest weapons—solidarity and collective action.
What Would a Socialist America Looks Like?
Derek Robertson, Politico Magazine
For Fox News viewers, it’s the stuff of nightmares—not to mention that skittish Democrats fear alienating swing voters more comfortable with their party’s post-Lyndon B. Johnson incrementalism. According to a poll from August, however, for the first time since Gallup has asked the question, more Democrats approve of socialism than of capitalism. Could socialism really come to America—and what would it look like? Politico Magazine invited a group of socialist writers, policy wonks and politicians (and a few critics) to weigh in, and their responses were as diverse as the movement itself—reflecting, if nothing else, the expanded political horizons of our post-Trump brave new world.
Social Wealth Fund for America
Matt Bruenig, People's Policy Project
Social wealth funds are generally defined as “collectively held financial funds, fully owned by the public and used for the benefit of society as a whole.” The concept is also sometimes referred to as “citizen’s wealth funds” or “sovereign wealth funds.” Whatever you call it, the idea is simple: the government directly owns a large pool of income-generating assets and then uses the return on those assets for social welfare purposes.
We Are All Very Anxious
Plan C
Today’s public secret is that everyone is anxious. Anxiety has spread from its previous localised locations (such as sexuality) to the whole of the social field. All forms of intensity, self-expression, emotional connection, immediacy, and enjoyment are now laced with anxiety. It has become the linchpin of subordination.
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Debt to Me
M.H. Miller, The Baffler
Now thirty years old, I have been incapacitated by debt for a decade. The delicate balancing act my family and I perform in order to make a payment each month has become the organizing principle of our lives. To this end, I am just one of about forty-four million borrowers in the United States who owe a total of roughly $1.4 trillion in student loan debt. This number is almost incomprehensibly high, and yet it continues to increase with no sign of stopping.
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