the way i've always looked at it is like this: in contemporary western culture, almost everybody (99% of us) is roughly equally poor and has roughly the same disposable income, but we have varying levels of debt and taxation depending on our salaries. the result is that increases in wealth in our culture get almost entirely eaten by the financial system, and nobody really benefits by making more money, in terms of actually having more money to actually spend.

as your salary increases, 

- your rent or mortgage increases, because you rent nicer places or buy bigger houses and you have to do that, too, it's not optional, really.

- your car payments increase, because you buy fancier cars

- your credit card payments increase, because you buy fancier clothes

- your taxes go up

- you pay off your lump sum debts

- you spend more on kids because you breed more, because you get laid more often, one way or the other

the result is that whether you make $30K/yr, $50K/yr, $100K/yr or $1000K/yr, you end up with the same amount of money to spend per month, but you live with different "grades" of belongings representing different classes of wealth.

but who gives a fuck?

your fancy mansion is made of the same wood and concrete and drywall that my below market rent basement is. it will crumble just the same. you chase off the same mammals, you kill the same roaches. the bank is better off, but are you better off? are you really better off?

you're not; not really.

so, why bother?

now, some libertarian capitalist douche bag will seize on this as an argument that socialism reduces productivity, but the point that i'm making is that nobody benefits from increases in productivity in a capitalist society except the banks, anyways, so your bogeyman is actually capitalism and not socialism, but why would i give a fuck about productivity if it just goes to the rentiers in the first place? why wouldn't i boycott that system on it's face? if rising productivity has no effect on my individual material conditions in the capitalist system, i have no reason to give the slightest fuck about whether i'm "productive" or not. it's just the rentiers bitching that their rent isn't rising fast enough and they can go fuck themselves. that's not even capitalism. it's actually feudalism, but it's the facade of capitalism that allows the feudalism to maintain itself and prosper. if you want to get at and dismantle the feudalism, you need to tear down the facade of capitalism. it has nothing to do with socialism, and you may find that socialism is actually good for productivity after all if you'd  just shut the fuck up for a second and give it a try.

i was born a prole and i understand it and i understand there's no way out and i seek to make the best of it.

maybe the fancy car and the fancy house is valuable to you, but it's not valuable to me, and i don't care. i want a clean, safe space that is big enough for me to work in, and i've got it, for now. i want practical shelter for functional use value, i don't want empty displays of wealth. all walls crumble, in the end; they're all made of the same thing, they're all the same. you're just the same pile of dirt and microbial shit, in the end.

the result is that i may be far less wealthy than you but i don't think i'm worse off. if you strip away the illusions of upgrades in material conditions that the banks hold your hand and lead you through as they elevate you through this ponzi scheme we call "class" and fuck you in the ass while doing it, the only differences between you and i are that you work harder for the same practical outcome, you have less fun than me and you have more debt and more responsibility than i do.

i spend almost nothing on maintaining my bicycles and $0 on gas. i avoid cell phones. my rent is cheap. i have no credit card debt.

am i actually better off?