Convenience Does Require Exploitation, Yes

There are a lot of potential ways I could begin this post — honestly about 15 just popped into my brain stem — but I’ll start here:

I know a couple down in Texas. Pretty affluent. Nice subdivision. One or two kids. (Honestly I haven’t seen them in a second, so it could be at “two” now. Life finds a way.) The dude is almost semi-straight MAGA. He’s not flying flags out of his Audi/Saab/whatever, but he loves Trump and the “straight talk” and he loves the “tax position” and “the courts” and all that. The wife is a little bleeding heart lady, who kinda works but not really and is “artistic” and “creative” and “dives into causes.” If you ever visit their home, though, it’s all conspicuous consumption and six Amazon boxes on the porch at any given time. If you ever mention this to said couple, they will explain to you (often in heated tones) that they pay taxes and they “give back.” But their specific form of giving back, like most affluent people, is attending events with other affluent people whereby some of the money raised goes to vague people that you’ll never interact with day-to-day.

In other words, as you will see in the book Winners Take All, the “winners” are exempted from the questions:

This is probably one of the biggest “silent discourses” in American life. Affluent people generally are good people (not always) and they want to help (ditto), but the form of help cannot imperil or change their pursuit of convenience, comfort, status, and relevance. In this way, American life is akin to the worst types of diversity training: utterly performative, and no true change could happen because it will upset the apple cart of owners and executives.

I’ve ruminated on comfort and convenience as “goals,” and what that means for us as people, dozens of times. Here is one.

Drake summarizes this whole thing well. As long as “YOLO,” people will pursue the things that make them feel successful, relevant, and “belonging” to something. For a lot of people, that’s money and status. Can’t deny that, nor will it ever change.

Now, courtesy of Jacobin Magazine , let's move ourselves over to this article.

Admittedly I didn’t read that whole essay, but this part pops:

The world of designer bags and luxury travel depicted in the many videos participating in the “I don’t dream of labor” meme cannot exist without the labor of the workers who stitched the bags, the baristas who poured the coffee, the people who generated the wealth featured in these videos in the first place. This luxury for the wealthy few requires the exploitation of workers en masse.

Let me just pop that last part out for you again:

This luxury for the wealthy few requires the exploitation of workers en masse.

Indeed. The easiest way to conceptualize this is Amazon, actually. Workers piss in bottles to make productivity targets so that Amanda can have her stand-alone mixer a bit sooner. For Amanda to feel comfortable and like she’s “arrived” somewhere or “belongs,” someone else has to be exploited.

Similarly, if your kids are losing their minds and you bomb a Jack In The Box food order online, well, someone has to make that order — for not a lot of money — and someone needs to get it and deliver it to you (ditto). For you to be comfortable, someone has to be exploited.

Where this gets tricky is the idea of who has “earned” what. A lot of affluent people that I know justify everything in this discourse by “I earned that,” or “I built this division of this company, so I earned the right to…” Sure, there’s some validity in that. America loves a good Bootstraps Narrative.

I still come back to this idea that we are all human. Just because you have more assets or resources doesn’t make you a better human being, nor does it exempt you from these discussions. Can you never order takeout again because of exploitation? No. But maybe tip a little better? Start small. P.S. — one of the funniest things about my bartending arc is that middle-aged white guys who are generally affluent tip horribly, and Hispanic guys that own landscaping companies think nothing of tipping $200 on a $40 bill. It's interesting to watch.

Now look, the upper middle class is also very fraught ground where everyone is trying to stay on the proverbial convenience ship, and I understand that too.

But then we come to another question: is the aim of life really comfort and convenience, or is it community and relationships? You can obviously have both (millions do), but I feel sometimes like we sacrifice relationships and attempts at community in order to feel comfortable and relevant.

If you go back to that couple at the top, ostensibly they have a great life by American standards: nice house, good resale (provided interest rates ever come down), income coming in, stuff being delivered to their doorstep, “fun” side careers, etc. All gravy. I also know a few other couples in their neighborhood, who regularly tell me “Oh, they don’t talk to anyone.” So the comfort is there, but is the community? And at the end of the day in hospice, are you wanting more things to make you feel convenient, or are you wanting community and loved ones and stories?

Again, not mutually exclusive — but something to consider.

I know it’s very “woke” to think about exploitation at every turn, and it can be exhausting as well. Sometimes you just want to order the damn mixer on Amazon. I just wish we could have more discussions about this stuff, naw mean?

What’s your take on convenience and exploitation?