what is your red line?

money discourse from the week + Love is Blind, reading recs, & more!

“the rustling riot of turning, falling leaves…”

Dear friends,

This was a big week for thinking about money and values. First n+1 posted a job call for a managing editor position in NYC that paid ~$60k; then prominent Leftist-branded staff writer for The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino, announced that she’d partnered with Airbnb (a company on the BDS list); then, for a workshop I’m in, I completed a “workload audit” tracking every dime I make and how. I had a lot of feelings about each of them. Respectively: media jobs should pay more, especially in New York, but also I know so many people (myself included) who have had to live on far less than $60k; this is just inexcusably bad, there is no nuance to be found here, a person who claims to care about Palestine should not partner with a company on the BDS list that is also responsible for displacing low-income people in major cities; and, finally: holy shit, I work a lot of different jobs (I listed 10 total active gigs), and wow this is really unsustainable.

These are questions I think of often, and which felt especially salient this week: Who “deserves” a “good” income? What is a good income? How do we abolish wage labor again? When is it appropriate to “get your bag” and when do you get to say no in order to be in alignment with your beliefs? When do you have to say no? How do those of us who hold anti-capitalist values still work toward some sense of financial stability (and even abundance), especially if we don’t come from generational wealth? As my friend Nic Antoinette often asks, “How much is enough?” How much money should you give away every month? Is it ethical to “save” money when millions of people are starving? When is it better to have less money and more time, what can your nervous system tolerate a lack of most? Who gets to rest and who is in constant hustle? Why are artists expected to work for free? How the fuck did we consent to a world where a home healthcare worker who keeps people alive earns poverty wages while a tech bro who works a few hours a week makes millions? Whom amongst us makes money from an unproblematic entity? What is your red line? What is mine?

These are perhaps trite and tired questions, but I don’t think they have easy answers and so I like to, every so often, ask them out loud. To chew on them a bit. Some of these questions are rhetorical, but mostly they’re not. If you’d like to respond in the comments, I’d love to know where your head is at.

Below: some excellent reads on art-making, reflections on celebrity losses and who gets to live a long life, a classic piece of incel satire, and more; some thoughts on what the current season of Love is Blind is illuminating about the culture; a musical ode to Appalachia; and a bunch of things from the week that made me feel joy, despite it all, in my heart.

One more thing! Peter (Gelderloos, my partner) is doing some really cool work abroad right now, and part of what he’s doing is happening next month in Brazil. He’ll be part of an anticolonial network of people coming together to share methods of survival that don’t feed into empowering capitalism and the state (which are, of course, the biggest threats to our survival). There is a fundraiser to support this gathering; they are asking for a very modest amount, and if they don’t hit the goal they won’t get any of the money. Please consider sharing some funds toward this project and/or sharing the link.

love & solidarity,

raechel

Reading + Podcasts.