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?
Is that seriously a question? “Is it right to create an in-group or should we just help everyone who gives a shit about the social contract?”
Yes. It’s the underlying problem. Even your summary is a valid question. People standing together means everybody has to be part of the in-group, or if there are various groups, they still have to find a common social contract. Otherwise somebody will use the situation for their benefit.