Some Thoughts on the Politics of the Bottom.

From the protests in Chile:

“We are not from the Right
nor from the Left.
We are from the Bottom
and we are coming for the ones at the Top”

In the politics of the Bottom we have to acknowledge that the Bottom have a uniformly terrible experience of government bureaucracy. They especially have a terrible experience of the legal system and the welfare system. Less money is spent on the Bottom. They get a worse education. They work harder. They don't live as long. They are bullied by the state and management. They are despised.

So the Bottom might not see socialism (the state running things) as a great idea. Handing power to the people who torment, torture, and kill the Bottom may seem like a bad idea to folk at the Bottom. Hence, many vote on the right to the consternation of the left. And they would not be wrong. You cannot empower the disempowered, by handing power to the state. The social liberal aims to give the Bottom a step up through education, healthcare, etc. But the bias in the system constantly sabotages this.

Unfortunately, contra the Liberal myth, the Bottom want to be empowered without taking responsibility. Who appears to offer this? Fascists. The Mafia. Gangs...

"Join us! No one will push you around (except us), we'll look after you and your family, you'll make good money, and there is a career path if you want it."

Fascists understand the bottom better than Socialists or Social Liberals. This is not a good thing... Economic Liberals (NeoLiberals) see the Bottom as an obstacle to prosperity.

The is a problem of Essentialism: the idea that being at the Bottom is not a matter of circumstances or chance; that is is somehow meaningful. If you trace back, people at the Bottom usually had everything taken away by the Top at some point and never recovered.

We have to somehow find a new dynamic. The court cases in the USA which aim to hold the oil companies to account for their deceptions on climate change is one good sign. Similarly the holding of big pharma to account for the opioid crisis.