WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.060 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're looking 00:00:02.060 --> 00:00:05.440 at a report called the Architecture of Stasis. 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:09.320 And I have to say, the central idea is, well, 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:12.480 it's pretty cynical. It is cynical, but the source 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.300 argues it's also incredibly functional. Functional 00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:18.980 how? The argument is that the intense red versus 00:00:18.980 --> 00:00:22.320 blue conflict we see everywhere is... effectively 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.219 a simulation. A simulation. Yeah, like a live 00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:27.679 fire exercise. And it's designed for one reason, 00:00:27.739 --> 00:00:30.820 to neutralize the political will of the bottom 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:33.539 90 % of the population. So the gridlock is a 00:00:33.539 --> 00:00:35.700 containment strategy. You keep the 90 % fighting 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:37.740 each other so they can't challenge the top 10%. 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.380 Exactly. And the report breaks down two main 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:42.619 ways this is done, the division of labor and 00:00:42.619 --> 00:00:44.579 the division of subsidy. Okay, let's start with 00:00:44.579 --> 00:00:46.600 the division of labor. The report goes way back 00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:50.670 to 1894. The Pullman strike. Right, with George 00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:53.549 Pullman, the rail car guy. And he hires African 00:00:53.549 --> 00:00:56.429 -American men, many of them former slaves, to 00:00:56.429 --> 00:00:58.909 be porters. But it wasn't just about filling 00:00:58.909 --> 00:01:01.390 jobs, was it? No, not at all. The report says 00:01:01.390 --> 00:01:04.030 he was intentionally creating a racialized service 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:06.650 caste, a hierarchy. Which set up the wedge. The 00:01:06.650 --> 00:01:09.129 perfect wedge. Because when the white railway 00:01:09.129 --> 00:01:12.090 workers formed their union, they actually wrote 00:01:12.090 --> 00:01:14.909 it into their constitution to exclude the black 00:01:14.909 --> 00:01:17.629 porters. So when they went on strike for better 00:01:17.629 --> 00:01:20.599 wages, Pullman just he used the excluded black 00:01:20.599 --> 00:01:23.000 workers as strike breakers. He turned them against 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.939 each other. It's that idea of the psychological 00:01:24.939 --> 00:01:28.439 wage. Exactly. The white workers got paid less 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:31.159 in actual money, but they were paid in status 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:34.719 and whiteness as property. They chose that over 00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:38.340 economic solidarity. And the report argues we 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:42.240 are still running that same playbook. Which, 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:44.859 I guess, leads to the second mechanism, the division 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.000 of subsidy. Yeah, this is about what the report 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.799 calls the upside down welfare state. Okay, break 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:51.920 that down for me. It's pretty simple, actually. 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:54.540 The people who need government help the least 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:56.260 get the most. It's just branded differently. 00:01:56.579 --> 00:01:58.579 You mean like social welfare versus corporate 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:01.260 welfare? Precisely. So if you get something like 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:04.819 SNAP benefits, it's very visible. It's stigmatized 00:02:04.819 --> 00:02:07.579 as a handout. It's dependency. Right. But then 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:09.180 you look at something like the mortgage interest 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:11.780 deduction. Which is a huge subsidy for homeowners 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:14.960 who are generally more affluent. A massive subsidy. 00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:18.419 But we call it tax relief. It's seen as smart, 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:21.270 not dependent. And that makes the working class 00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:23.569 angry at the poor for taking their tax money. 00:02:23.689 --> 00:02:26.189 Instead of looking up at the massive wealth extraction 00:02:26.189 --> 00:02:29.370 happening above them, it keeps the 90 % fighting 00:02:29.370 --> 00:02:32.210 over crumbs. Which creates what the report calls 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:36.129 the twin four fives. The engineered 45 % versus 00:02:36.129 --> 00:02:39.550 45 % deadlock. So neither side can ever get a 00:02:39.550 --> 00:02:42.069 real majority to change the system. And the report 00:02:42.069 --> 00:02:44.090 uses an allegory for this that I actually remember. 00:02:44.289 --> 00:02:46.930 The old web series, red versus blue. Yeah, it's 00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:48.710 a great metaphor. The setting is a place called 00:02:48.710 --> 00:02:51.669 Blood Gulch. The box canyon. Mm -hmm. And you 00:02:51.669 --> 00:02:54.129 have these two teams of soldiers trapped in this 00:02:54.129 --> 00:02:57.430 canyon fighting an endless, pointless war over 00:02:57.430 --> 00:03:00.389 a flag in the middle. A flag that has zero actual 00:03:00.389 --> 00:03:02.889 value. None. And then you get the twist. They're 00:03:02.889 --> 00:03:04.810 simulation troopers. The whole thing is fake. 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.169 The war is being orchestrated by a figure they 00:03:07.169 --> 00:03:09.509 call the director. Representing the top 10%. 00:03:09.509 --> 00:03:13.169 Exactly. As long as red hates blue and blue hates 00:03:13.169 --> 00:03:15.629 red, no one ever thinks to look up and ask who 00:03:15.629 --> 00:03:19.069 built the canyon. Wow. That is a bleak image. 00:03:19.500 --> 00:03:21.659 So if we're all just soldiers in the box, does 00:03:21.659 --> 00:03:24.840 the report offer any way out? It does. It points 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:27.259 to what it calls a third force. The exhausted 00:03:27.259 --> 00:03:29.580 majority. The 90 percent, the people who are 00:03:29.580 --> 00:03:32.199 just tired of the simulation and are ready to 00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:34.539 stop fighting. It mentions reclaiming the white 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:38.520 stripe on the flag. Right. Not as the empty void 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.979 of capital, but as a blank slate, a space for 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:44.860 real solidarity. A recognition that most of us 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:46.780 are on the same team, economically speaking. 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:49.199 At the end of the day, yeah. Well. That is a 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:51.719 lot to think about. I guess we'll just leave 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:53.759 you with this question then. The next time you 00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:57.139 find yourself angry at the other side, ask yourself, 00:03:57.340 --> 00:03:59.259 are you fighting for the flag? Or are you just 00:03:59.259 --> 00:04:01.819 running drills for the director? Thanks for diving 00:04:01.819 --> 00:04:02.400 in with us.