The empathy leaving my body as someone holds up the line buying and scratching tickets one at a time. Those things really need to be outlawed, as far as I’m concerned.
Lotteries are reactionary poor taxes imposed by neoliberal states that can no longer raise their own funds for projects so have to create “for profit” gambling rackets to fill in the gaps of cutting taxes on the rich. They also serve a useful ideological purpose for controlling the poor, giving them an avenue to make it big and join the capitalists. Why be a pain to the state and improve conditions when YOU could be a lucky winner and be rich!! They exaggerate the likelihood of it happening and pretend anyone could win at any time to keep this illusion alive.
I feel like there’s also some state propaganda involved in making it seem like lottery winners just blow all their money and become poor again. I don’t know how true that is but it’s always smelled wrong to me.
That lottery winners typically do become destitute again is true, but it’s not because they blow all the cash.
Lottery winners are subject to a lot of pressure from other people who want that money. Hostile divorces, scams, and familial financial abuse are all really common. Winners are rarely informed of the financial instruments the wealthy typically use to protect their wealth, and thus have a much higher financial attrition rate.
They also tend to be less aware of and prepared for future financial precarity. The concept of being “set for life” seems to result in a really high rate of underinsurance, so when an unexpected financial hardship like a house fire or major car accident occurs, they’re typically unprepared for that hardship.
If I won a lottery I would donate almost all of it nearly immediately to various causes and family and friends, it would solve a lot of problems for those around me. I don’t think I would be willing to hoard it up in a stock portfolio and cold shoulder everyone around me. I know homeless people, people with crippling medical debt, people who are about to get evicted, people who have severe alcohol or substance abuse issues. I could fix nearly all of this if I was just loaded.
Here’s what I think is happening. The neolibs defund the state and replace the gap in funding with lotteries.
Neolib/Liberal propaganda to defend these policies: Join the lottery! Your life isn’t hopeless in this capitalist hellscape, you have a small chance to live the life of your dreams and get as lucky as other rich people. (Appeals to desperate, uneducated poor people)
Conservative counter-propaganda, they are fine with the lotteries but take issue with the framing: There’s no luck involved in being rich, rich people are ontologically superior beings with improved money management and self-control. Even if you somehow get our level of wealth, you will quickly revert to your wretched natural state. Anybody who ought to be rich, is already rich, through hard work and genius. (Appeals to smug, educated middle class and rich people)
When I worked at a gas station, I always dedicated one register to lotto and one to regular customer. If you wanted lotto you had to wait in the lotto line.
Ended up making the lotto folks speed up because the regular people would just wait and get silently irritated, but other lotto people would get pissed when they had to wait so a sort of natural “buy, scratch, get back in line” system formed.
The empathy leaving my body as someone holds up the line buying and scratching tickets one at a time. Those things really need to be outlawed, as far as I’m concerned.
Lotteries are reactionary poor taxes imposed by neoliberal states that can no longer raise their own funds for projects so have to create “for profit” gambling rackets to fill in the gaps of cutting taxes on the rich. They also serve a useful ideological purpose for controlling the poor, giving them an avenue to make it big and join the capitalists. Why be a pain to the state and improve conditions when YOU could be a lucky winner and be rich!! They exaggerate the likelihood of it happening and pretend anyone could win at any time to keep this illusion alive.
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-19-lotteryism-part-i-how-a-compliant-press-fuels-the-spectacle-of-winning
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/2017/12
I feel like there’s also some state propaganda involved in making it seem like lottery winners just blow all their money and become poor again. I don’t know how true that is but it’s always smelled wrong to me.
That lottery winners typically do become destitute again is true, but it’s not because they blow all the cash.
Lottery winners are subject to a lot of pressure from other people who want that money. Hostile divorces, scams, and familial financial abuse are all really common. Winners are rarely informed of the financial instruments the wealthy typically use to protect their wealth, and thus have a much higher financial attrition rate.
They also tend to be less aware of and prepared for future financial precarity. The concept of being “set for life” seems to result in a really high rate of underinsurance, so when an unexpected financial hardship like a house fire or major car accident occurs, they’re typically unprepared for that hardship.
If I won a lottery I would donate almost all of it nearly immediately to various causes and family and friends, it would solve a lot of problems for those around me. I don’t think I would be willing to hoard it up in a stock portfolio and cold shoulder everyone around me. I know homeless people, people with crippling medical debt, people who are about to get evicted, people who have severe alcohol or substance abuse issues. I could fix nearly all of this if I was just loaded.
Here’s what I think is happening. The neolibs defund the state and replace the gap in funding with lotteries.
Neolib/Liberal propaganda to defend these policies: Join the lottery! Your life isn’t hopeless in this capitalist hellscape, you have a small chance to live the life of your dreams and get as lucky as other rich people. (Appeals to desperate, uneducated poor people)
Conservative counter-propaganda, they are fine with the lotteries but take issue with the framing: There’s no luck involved in being rich, rich people are ontologically superior beings with improved money management and self-control. Even if you somehow get our level of wealth, you will quickly revert to your wretched natural state. Anybody who ought to be rich, is already rich, through hard work and genius. (Appeals to smug, educated middle class and rich people)
When I worked at a gas station, I always dedicated one register to lotto and one to regular customer. If you wanted lotto you had to wait in the lotto line.
Ended up making the lotto folks speed up because the regular people would just wait and get silently irritated, but other lotto people would get pissed when they had to wait so a sort of natural “buy, scratch, get back in line” system formed.