Are you one of the many who work 40 hours a week at minimum wage? At an hourly rate of $14.25, you need to work just over 32,000 years — without vacation — to accumulate $1 billion. But let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that you have this hoard in your hands. What do you do with it? Do you take care of schools? Hospitals ? Rampant poverty? Of the culture ? Transports ? Food crisis? What do you start with?
A billion, of course, will not be enough for everything. At all.
So, suppose you have 2 billion in hand. In the lottery, in California, an individual has just won a little more. He had a one in 292 million chance of winning that jackpot. To list so many possibilities one by one, it would have been necessary, to play every day, that you began 800,000 years ago, that is to say at the time when your ancestor Homo sapiens still lived in the company of large Neanderthals. The truth of probabilities, I know, is a little more complicated. The fact remains that your chances of winning the lottery are more than low. But whatever. Let’s dream.
What would you do with 3 billion? By winning the jackpot of his re-election, the government of François Legault, he decided to dismantle this loot to spread microportions on the mass of voters. These are 6.4 million checks that he throws in the air, like confetti.
After the 2021 fiscal year, the CAQ had already paid out a first check for $500 to adults whose income was $100,000 or less. This time, it is 3.5 billion taken from state coffers that have been sliced up. In other words, in one year, 6.7 billion have been disseminated, whereas this money, as a whole, could have been used as leverage to carry out a collective project.
What can a society do with 6.7 billion? Examples abound. In Montreal, the new metro line, expected for years, is estimated, with its 29 stations, at 5.9 billion.
If it is true that many things can be reproached to Justin Trudeau, is the Canadian Prime Minister wrong to mean to the nationalo-conservatives of François Legault that the fact of squandering so much money in the form of shots constitutes a choice more than debatable? In health, the Quebec government claims to lack resources. But he finds it smart to deprive the community of a boost of more than 6.7 billion?
For years, society has been depoliticized to be better returned to individuality. We have been trained to “adapt” to anything and everything, regardless of collective issues. The times enjoin us to withdraw into our “authentic self”, to reach our “full consciousness”, in the name of “individual emancipation”. This cult of the individual encourages the worst fads. Read the mantras that abound on so-called social networks, those places where you are always alone. “Nothing imprisons you, except your thoughts”, it seems. “Nothing limits you, except your fears. ” Oh good. And “nothing controls us except your beliefs. And what else? All these personal development injunctions rely on “every man for himself”, in full agreement with the spirit of neoliberalism. Just dare to claim that it is the best way to be digested all round and you will be accused of “ideologue”, which remains, after all, the most common way today to repudiate those who still defend the interests of the community.
We have learned, as we have been taught, to “adapt”, to agree to “modernize” ourselves, in the name of the “flexibility” demanded by companies that grow fat on our passivity. We conceive, because we have been told so often, that the times require us to “go faster” in order to catch up. Who made us late? Whatever. In any case, learn that you no longer need a strong society. You can manage on your own. Take your $600. And manage.
The health system is collapsing? Be reassured: you will have $600 to thwart the disease, for example by paying for a membership in a private gym. By dint of sweating profusely on sophisticated machines, you will surely come to believe that cancer will spare you, that hospitals will never be for you. It’s so easy to believe that you are solely responsible for your health… At the same time, you can work 60 hours a week, combining two or three jobs, in the hope of eventually making ends meet.
Here we are all prisoners of this system of thought devoid of horizon, incapable of stopping to choose another common destiny. Look at Dominique Anglade. It perfectly illustrates this state of paralysis in which we let ourselves slip collectively. For months, she repeated for the gallery that it was necessary to debate ideas. It was rather the enfilade of commonplaces, specific to managerial babble. The leader of the Liberal Party also affirmed, when resigning, that it was necessary to “renew the offer”. As if the future of our society was always reduced to this calculation of supply and demand. No ideas, no dreams, no projects to federate us, except that of believing in a dried up individuality.
Algorithms are responsible for recomposing what has already pleased us so that we do not leave the terms of the present where we are already stuck. “Did you like this?” You will surely like this. »
Above all, do not dare anything different. Growth could be threatened. Rather turn in circles, wisely. While cashing your check for $600, dream that you will become a billionaire. Buy lotto tickets. But who will win out of this? status quo ?