Sequence 4 parts 2016–2017
Superfluous People
Who gets treated as surplus, and what do they do when they know it? I follow the question through marriage, work, imperialism, and the accursed share.
Superfluous Men and Women
In patriarchal cultures, women and men are required by the political economy to form family units for institutional purposes. This is very difficult on individuals when the sex ratio deviates from parity. Sometimes small communities experience this sex ratio deviance due to economic migrations, where men or women move abroad to find work, but are…
Imperialism as a Response to Surpluses and Superfluousness
“Older than the superfluous wealth was another by-product of capitalist production: the human debris of every crisis, following invariably upon each period of industrial growth, eliminated permanently from producing society. Men who had become permanently idle were as superfluous to the community as the owners of superfluous wealth.
“That man who has nothing to lose:” Black Americans and Superfluousness
Long before white Americans felt like their society had abandoned them, Black Americans knew the feeling. Just like whites do today, some Black Americans responded to earlier superfluousness by ” clinging to guns and religion ” to use Barack Obama’s famous analysis. (cf. Kinsley gaffe ) Here’s James Baldwin, describing the Nation of Islam: “I’ve…
Touchstone Terms: The Accursed Share
This is a part of a series on terms and concepts that I find particularly resonant. We usually say that the fundamental rule of economics is scarcity : there are never enough widgets (food, housing, gadgets) to meet all the demand And even where we seem to be endowed with wealth, we still face opportunity…