cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/54239937
During the Great Depression, when banks foreclosed on farms, neighbors often showed up at the auctions together.
They’d bid only a few cents, and return the land to the family that lost it. Sometimes a noose hung nearby as a warning to outsiders not to profit from someone else’s ruin.
It was rough, but it worked, communities protected each other when the system wouldn’t.
If a collapse like that happened today, do you think people would still stand together or has that kind of solidarity disappeared? Could it happen again?
That noose only worked because it was a legitimate threat.
Penny auctions could happen today, but only combined with a similar legitimate threat. That’s the obstacle.
Wanna bet that there would be immediate police action arresting people for “credible threat to people’s lives”?
That’s what makes it a great obstacle today.
I’d take that bet.
The key words are immediate and action. Police don’t do that
The obstacle isn’t just the lack of threat, it’s also the lack of community. Most people know their co-workers far better then their neighbors.
Cars shuttle us in private to work, no need to see people on the street or bus. Commerce is online or in big box stores, no need to know the local business owners. All our services are online and now our relationships and friendships as well.
These abstractions have destroyed any sense of community we have, so even if a similar situation were to happen today, I doubt your neighbors would even know it’s happening, let alone band together to help.