I've mentioned before that I think that activism is largely a waste of time, I'll try to elaborate on it here. Beware this is a massive and borderline unreadable word dump that I might edit once I feel like it, so it's probably best to not bother with this. I just needed to write something today I guess.
There's a post on here somewhere that puts something into words very well; the vast majority of different types of oppression only end whenever they start to become un-economical or otherwise inefficient at exploiting labor.
I think it's hard for activists to hear, but unless it's just bad business, people are not going to stop being exploited. most movements only ever picked up whenever there was little to gain from oppression, where all that was needed was to give a stagnant culture a little push towards better attitudes.
And yes, there are exceptions, but they are rare, and they face intense struggle, more often than not. Think about how Haiti was virtually the only successful slave revolt ever; and how the country was punished and oppressed for centuries after in many other ways.
Slavery largely started to end in the Americas and the wider western world when the cash crop boom started to fizzle out along with other forms of industry. At that point it was recognized owning large amounts of humans was a horribly inefficient way to extract capital, thus it was slowly abolished. This isn't the complete story, there were ethical considerations kept in mind. But as long as there was a flow of money, most were willing to keep those to a minimum and turn the other way. Suppression can be cheaper than changing. And of course even now, many types of slavery are still common, sex trafficking is still rampant for one. And it's not uncommon for trafficking or next-to-nothing wages to occur in various types of modern industry as well, from agriculture to manufacturing.
Something I just stole from reddit:
In the case of Great Britain, I don’t believe abolition was realized directly by European powers’ colonization of Africa, but it certainly made abolition an economically viable position. More directly it was the work of former enslaved Africans like Oloudah Equiano through his famous autobiography and Quakers like Anthony Benezett Or Methodist John Wesley. Their efforts didn’t remove slavery across all parts of empire, but it started the move so that it would be possible. The Slave Trade Act of 1807 would be passed making the slave trade illegal, but not slavery itself (so they can be retained but not sold/bought). The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 abolished slavery across British territories (except India) were freed, but still indentured to their owners. It would not be until the 20th century when Britain’s African territories would also abolish slavery. So in many ways, it was piecemeal and slavery practices still continued to benefit the metropole that could afford to “abolish” it.
In the U.S., the Civil War coincided with Manifest Destiny, Westward Expansion, and securing territories from Spain after the Spanish-American War. Congress abolished the slave trade in 1800 and would not abolish chattel slavery until 1865. There’s certainly strands of scholarship that argue that the question of slavery was perpetually raised for new territories which is what made it such a hotbed for political division, because the Confederacy knew the political power they would lose if “free states” far outnumbered “slave states.” Yet at the same time, the U.S economy thrived despite losing its extraction of slave labor thanks to its expanding territories, cheaper resources it secured from the broader Americas, and cheaper immigration labor, whether the movement of folks across the Atlantic and Pacific, to work the factories and, new forms of coolie labor to replace slaves.
Sex conflict exists and will likely always exist as long as sexes do. But there are clearly layers of misogyny.
Womens' rights largely vary with the type of agriculture a society uses and how militaristic the society is. When men produce the majority of food there's less preventing them from taking as much power as they wish. This type of agriculture are very labor intensive and benefit from a large population, incentivizing forcing women to birth as much as possible. Societies with 'easier' forms of agriculture can still be very misogynistic, but there is often less of an incentive to be so (see: groups such as the Haudenosaunee the Mosuo). Obviously I'm largely simplifying things and I'm nowhere near being an anthropologist so please do your own research, I'm just generalising things I've read.
There's a correlation with feminism and increasing industrialization, as it's no longer as efficient to keep a woman inside all day as a house slave if dishwashing and laundry machines exist. Why not send them to work instead to extract other forms of labor?
se of this I feel that traditional activism is only going to be effective if the environment it's in is already receptive to change. I do think that there may be ways to engineer this.
Most "successful" (I'm being generous here, they always have one billion caveats) social justice movements have occurred during and after the industrial revolution, where labor was automated, both in the household scale (i.e. washing machines) and the factory scale. It is always more efficient to exploit lumps of gears and metal than it is to exploit a worker with a thousand different needs.
There's a somewhat bitter irony with industrialization; it often helps rid the world of many types of oppression yet tends to consolidate power in the hands of a rich few. In theory it can be decentralized but it's hard to do so once a capitalist regime is firmly in place; after all they are just another type of oppressor, and it is still far too economical to rake the lower classes with one's business power. Even if a few are rid of, there is nothing to stop another group from showing up shortly down the line, no matter what type of economic system you try to use.
What exactly can be done? I don't know. But I feel like it's worth at least framing things in a different perspective; instead of solely trying to convince people of something, I think it's worth it to try to actively change the environment.
prguitarman
origamiaround
