And no, the 6.134258 shares of Apple in your 401K don't make you an owner, lol.
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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The top brackets are manifestations of the bottom bracket. Its a divide-and-conquer strategy, and foolish to ignore on its face.
For centuries women couldn't own property, couldn't hold professional jobs, and couldn't participate in politics. Same with ethnic minorities. Queer sexual preference was outright prohibited by law and used to disqualify candidates from office, to break up organizations with police action, and to deny people access to private careers and public services.
You can come at this from a vulgar Marxist perspective and only see the Owners v Workers. But you're missing why owners have power if you neglect the layer upon layer of privileged class surrounding them.
If it really does just boil down to Workers v Owners, why don't the cops simply seize the means of production themselves? What keeps them loyal to the bourgeois if they themselves are not invited to the Epstein Island Bunga-Bunga parties? What keeps suburban professionals loyal? What keeps religious radicals loyal?
There's more at play than mere title to real estate or collection of rent. You have to face an ideology that's caked on thick.
https://theconversation.com/why-police-unions-are-not-part-of-the-american-labor-movement-142538
A good article for understanding the relationship between the police and other unions. But it doesn't answer the question
Imma just take a stab in the dark and say conservative/classical liberal ideology keeps them licking the toe jam of the owning class.
They love them some hierarchy.
Because as outlined culturally the police see themselves as the system itself, by nature of the job, as evidenced by their hostility towards the larger labor movement they're often tasked with breaking, something the vast majority of other union heavy vocations don't do, and are often given special carve outs when the labor movement and unionization are targeted legislatively precisely because it's their job to enforce those rules.
American police are more a capital defense force, and unlike the larger labor movement, have their priorities of being unaccountable to those they police backed by the state. They're the owner's special little boys/girls, they attract and recruit conservative minded power seekers who conflate legality with morality, and they like it that way. Note their awesome insurance, their massive starting salaries with high school education, they have little to complain about. Not to the owner's level at all, but they don't live in the same America most do.
They probably could take this country for themselves, but have you ever met a cop who wasn't a fan of structure for its own sake?