Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating.
The opposition to the child tax credit is a sad example of the convergence of ignorance, racism and right wing Christian propaganda that runs through so many debates on social policies.
Many have bought into the idea that giving individuals money keeps them from working. It doesn’t, but it does give people more options. Many low paying shitty jobs can only be filled if there’s a high level of desperation in society. Making these jobs desirable when people have choices (like now) costs money and cuts into profits. So no surprise that business is always taking short term profits.
Many people also simply aren’t very good at understanding the long term costs of poverty or conversely the benefits or raising children out of poverty.
You also can’t underestimate the role of magical thinking. There’s this strange idea (common in both Christianity and New Age thinking) that those in poverty are there because they chose and “manifested” it through wrong thinking if not sheer laziness.
The opposition to the child tax credit is a sad example of the convergence of ignorance, racism and right wing Christian propaganda that runs through so many debates on social policies.
Many have bought into the idea that giving individuals money keeps them from working. It doesn’t, but it does give people more options. Many low paying shitty jobs can only be filled if there’s a high level of desperation in society. Making these jobs desirable when people have choices (like now) costs money and cuts into profits. So no surprise that business is always taking short term profits.
Many people also simply aren’t very good at understanding the long term costs of poverty or conversely the benefits or raising children out of poverty.
You also can’t underestimate the role of magical thinking. There’s this strange idea (common in both Christianity and New Age thinking) that those in poverty are there because they chose and “manifested” it through wrong thinking if not sheer laziness.