Unburdening the Lives of the Wealthy
It just feels off, so much societal effort spent building luxury condo towers while every major city in the United States is undergoing a housing affordability crisis. It's almost as if we were somehow misplacing care. How can we redirect some of this energy to improve the fates of ordinary people? We reserve the best for the people with all the money. Why the social anxiety to please them?
If you look at the American economy from afar, you can appreciate hundreds of thousands of ordinary people waking up every day, teaming up and joining forces to make the most sumptuous lifestyles happen. American society coordinates to make those lifestyles possible even as inequality grows to new highs. American society can't stop supporting the lifestyles of the ultra rich otherwise the dream is gone... you can't kill the dream, of having it all, of having society cater to your every whim.
Swelling Fortunes
In February 2021, electric carmaker Tesla jumped into the cryptocurrency bandwagon with two moves: It first purchased $1.5 billion USD worth of Bitcoin, the company then expressed an intention to accept payments in the currency. Bitcoin quickly shot up by 48% to reach $57,500 USD in the following days. Bitcoin enthusiasts were raving, not only did they suddenly have 50% more disposable wealth, they also had something new and exciting to do with their holdings.
Tesla has yet to release information on car sales completed with Bitcoin but guessing the logic informing Mr. Musk’s decision is not a stretch: Bitcoin holders saw the value of their holdings surge by 340% in 2020-2021, on top of a 93% gain the year before. The swelling fortunes of crypto became very visible and had few places to go. Mr. Musk saw balloons asking for release.
There is a connection between these events and the booming luxury residential market of New York and other world cities: Luxury real estate development is designed to poke and benefit from swelling capital fortunes. The burgeoning accounts of the wealthy exert a pressure on the market. The market nods back in acknowledgement and things start happening – mansions are built, luxury towers rise, gated communities and golf courses bloom. There’s beauty in these things except in that they are 'exclusive' meaning "not for everyone". They are spaces for non-harmonization.
↳ TNC / Logic of Exclusion, Othering
Burden is a Way to Harmonize
No country in the world makes life easier for people with money than America, you can tell in appreciation of just how easy this country makes it to delegate a task to the money-starved while shielding yourself from the consequences. The transmission of the burdens of life to disadvantaged people, you have industries upon industries built upon this. It‘s easy to forget that burden is a way to harmonize. Burden... you know, just a little, just enough, to make life meaningful.
Burden is a harmonizing force, living burden-free is fetishization. Even children, when they become old enough, are made to share the burdens of domestic life. Now consider the millionaire, consider the billionaire. Our societal attitude towards them is one of “Please! Unburden their lives! Enough have they done for society!”. Society then proceeds to coordinate to unburden and provide for their immodest lifestyle. Nothing you can do in a lifetime can justify a right to servitude, but in America it can.
✎ Connection to
Key / The Prevention of Misery and Tragedy
Key / The Reproduction of Money