I recently bought the family a new vehicle from an official dealer, needed for their contractor job and as a family car. The fucking sleazy salesperson used my contact information from the purchase to call me during dinnertime and try to sell me on this side hustle pyramid scheme FiNaNCiaL SeRviCeS seminar.
First of all, I just gave you a big-ass commission from buying this big-ass car with $10k of MarKeT AdJusTmeNtS. Then you have the audacity to use my PII from your job to insult my intelligence by trying to pyramid scheme me?
This got me thinking on the prevalence of the modern American “scam economy” and how it signals the ongoing collapse of the capitalist world. Not only are workers paid a penny for every dollar of profit their labor generates, they must take second jobs just to make ends meet (generating even more stolen profit) while being wrung out by seemingly endless scams.
Legalized online gambling, pyramid schemes, timeshare offers, payday loans, rent-to-own stores, endless side hustles, thrift store flipping, dropshipping tutorials, MLMs, crypto rugpulls, identity theft, US health insurance, TurboTax scams, student loans. I mean the list just goes on endlessly. Not to mention the “zombie economy” of simultaneous stagnant wages, increasing inflation, and decreasing quality of goods.
It’s exhausting even while knowing exactly how these all work, I genuinely can’t imagine how disappointing this must be for the average worker who can’t even tell between a scam and a savior. Is ignorance bliss?
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the topic - any relevant reading recommendations? Lived experiences? I am trying to find my footing with local PSL after a move, but my plan has always been to stay armed and hope my organization can fill the gap once the liberal “rule of law” fails. However, it does seem like imperial society is moving more towards technofeudalism enforced by advanced surveillance and extreme violence that will maintain that veneer of liberal rule of law thus preventing total collapse and wide-scale revolution.
Will the workers truly only wake up when the mass starvation starts? Can the miracle of the early CPC’s struggle for survival be replicated in modern times?
My only real observation at this point is that I am surprised more people aren’t noticing how much bullshit it all is. It does feel like it’s deliberate, like they’re the cartoon wolf that ran over the cliff edge and if they don’t look down they won’t fall. I can’t fault them for clinging to that ignorance because its all they have left. I feel like speed of each new scam phenomenon is accelerating and the rate is increasing. It feels like only yesterday they were hooting about cartoon apes. Now there’s AI in your microwave. Eventually the residue of the last scam will still be left on the target preventing the new scam from sticking. Eventually there’s no more stretch left in the rubber band.
What does kinda frighten me (in addition to the usual concerns) is that we’ll be going into the collapse more atomized than ever. With more unproductive bullshit experience from our bullshit jobs. It’s daunting.
Snow Crash, but by Peter Watts.
My only real observation at this point is that I am surprised more people aren’t noticing how much bullshit it all is.
I think a lot of people do see that everything is a grift, but they feel like the only thing they can do in response is be a grifter to avoid being the griftee.
It’s basically how many of these things work. People buying meme coins know it’s just a scam, but people but them thinking they’ll dump them on some other sucker. Like the car salesman selling that pyramid scheme, he probably knows by now it’s ultimately a con, he’s trying to get others in so he can go from being a victim to a perpetrator.
Car sales people are literally the absolute worst. I did it for a few months after moving to a new city. They brag about ripping people off. FYI never buy from a dealership.
100% agreed. I’ve worked with plenty of good folks from the corporate sales division at work, but car salespeople (that don’t quit…) are irredeemable psychopaths.
Leaving details out to preserve anonymity, there are ways to get new Japanese cars from dealers with no markup here and I am very financially literate, but there was just no other option in this particular situation. Believe me I gave them a “reeducation” for blowing that. Mistakes are a luxury for the wealthy.
As a Toyota fanboy, I’m totally searching this in a few years when my current Toyota fails.
Seems like it depends heavily on the dealer and how far you’re willing to drive to make the buy - it’s not some secret technique I’m gatekeeping or anything, it would just legit dox my city to share hahah. Big Toyota fan as well, but I’m definitely running my current car into the ground first.
I’m on my third Avalon and I had to fly to get it, and drive 20+hrs home. I got it for 5 grand during lockdown. I’m curious what Yoda’s you’ve got/had?
Ahh those are great. Lockdown was really an interesting time for the car buyer.
I only had an '04 Corolla way back when! Currently on an '18 Hyundai sedan but let’s just say: I’m sure my next one will be a Toyota once this thing starts breaking down too much. No idea what will be out by then, but those CHRs, Corolla Crosses and Prius Primes look incredible.
One pro is that was before they started stuffing the cars with tech so any mechanic can fix it, and the small third party shops that barely speak English can keep these things going forever.
Funny you bring up Hyundai! Right before I got the last year model Avalon, I was driving a $500 '05 Senata. Got it at 160k miles and gave it to my cousin at 300k with the same second pair of keys. Only left me stranded one time in a Walmart parking lot. But with only a request for a cardboard box to lay on, and $10 worth of tools, I got her fixed up.
I heard newer models are less robust though, which makes me sad.
Will the workers truly only wake up when the mass starvation starts?
Don’t count on it. Hardship and deprivation doesn’t turn you into a morally superior person. Without an organised militant labour movement it is much more likely that the declining standards of living will turn western workers even more far right. After all, the basis of fascism is people who think they are not receiving the privileges they are owed.
It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered.
Will the workers truly only wake up when the mass starvation starts?
Yes, and by then it will be far too late.
“I would have endured the Long March”
- me, shortly before dying in the middle of a city from climate collapse, clean water shortages, and famine
The scams can continue longer than i can stay alive. It’s a deep pool.
“The workers” will not wake up on their own, ever. Concerted organizing is always required and even the successful movements never arrive fully formed. Expect overt violence and heightened contradictions. More fertile ground for organizing coupled with repression and 20 new kinds of Pinkertons. Trying to organize younger workers that won’t recognize the dangers of organizing with their phones and spying cloud services until their friends start dying. There is no guarantee that “the workers” will succeed on any first round. The path may involve a fascisy takeovet, bourgeous revolution, and only then a socialist surge. The intermediary period could look like the status quo but with a higher prison population, lower pay, higher rent, worse education, and increased reactionary sentiment.
We do still need to organize, to build the best possible path. And hey, there might be a soft balkanization where we can organize more safely in certain states.
