Like most people in their 40s, I have been unemployed more than once. Before anyone says anything about “making choices,” please 1) stop yourselves, and 2) recognize that if an educated Black former prosecutor loses a presidency, little ol’ me is nothing to consider. I have managed to pull through with help, but in the turbulent world we currently face, the opportunities to pick myself back up are becoming few and far between. Whether or not people are willing to accept this, such situations are because capitalism is designed to exploit, not to empower, and the number of vulnerable people will grow, not shrink.
Within this system, predators are hoping that people will make the desperate choice of either taking a bad job or getting a bad loan. Either one of these situations is terrible, but employers put up so many barriers that it takes forever to get a job. During this time, bills are still do, children still have to be fed, and survival is still required, and this is the whole premise of the predatory financial system. Consider also that most of these terrible jobs and financiers are located in Black communities, and then consider why so many people believe that Black people are so bad with money.
In this world, money is power, and anyone smiling about this is in serious need of a mental health professional. If technology is currently being cultivated to take jobs away, how are people supposed to survive? Telling everyone to save for emergencies when salaries are unequal to living costs is moronic. Employers enjoy the power they have over individuals rather than their employees having confidence, so they are interested in doing whatever they can to make sure that they retain power. Case in point: employers do credit checks on employees that they somehow cannot figure out how to hire in less than a month.
Furthermore, capitalism is run by sycophants, whether we can accept it or now. For employers to feel powerful, they create elaborate hiring processes hoping that time will weed out any threats to their egos, leaving only the truly malleable. People can go around bleating that anyone can do anything, but there is no such thing as people being comfortable without having a lot of financial cushioning, and employers are not interested. Control is more intriguing than collaboration, and trying to create a stable existence in a country that validates abuse is daunting.
At one time, I lived with a corporate recruiter on the verge of losing the job because of living circumstances. To help both of us, I shared resources I had been gifted to secure housing for both of us while I continued to contract and waited for employment. I could never have predicted the financial and emotional abuse that later ensued, coupled with being periodically locked in my bedroom–all so that the individual could maintain control. Despite having already lost so much, I fled the domestic abuse to find another household. However, remember what I said: the individual was a corporate recruiter, which meant the power to help me secure both employment and funding. Why did I have to flee? Because the control was more important than gratitude and equilibrium. Capitalism is about preying on others, and in an oligarchy, financial stability is a fantasy.
Chasing A Dying Empire 