>>> Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com> 07/29/99 12:23PM
Very cogently put, Charles. I still have a nagging suspicion that
gambling as a *growth industry* signals something askew with this
country that isn't expressed by other forms of capitalist exploitation,
but I clearly have to think more about this subject.
(((((((((((
Charles: On one level it could be said to promote a risk taking mentality in our youth, which we might suspect reinforces bourgeois mythology about risktaking as a virtue of entrepreneurs, a sort of corrupting with bourgeois values (and lies because the richest people get and stay that way by reducing the risks with their money to the lowest level; the mythology of risktaking entrepreneurs creates the suckers who the real rich take money from to lower the risk on their own money ).
However, I would corroborate Michael Yates' essay as it seems to suggest that on another level the "real folks" are registering a sort of reckless protest against the reign of money in their lives. In other words, the opposite of promoting a value of bourgeois society, the value of money, so to speak.
Part of my thinking is that I can't ignore the "mass" nature of the willing and enthusiastic gambling in THE class. I can't dismiss it as done with unconsciousness of the negative side effects, including gambling addiction and risktaking enthusiasm. I just don't buy that such large numbers of people are that "dumb" or "mindless" as to not know this or that they lose money net. They are on some level aware of the nature of the thrill as analyzed on this thread. And so on some level it is a protest.
It is certainly not a revolutionary movement, but it is a sort of cultural "reform" in the ironic form of a decadence and it originates in The class itself ; the numbers and illegal gambling, etc.
But it is contradictory and there are negative side effects. I don't mean to deny that.
Charles Brown