Some years back me and my friend would constantly discuss the outrageous reality for men that is Alimony law. That a foid becomes owner of half of everything you have plus a part of your future income just for marrying you. How is this not ripe for abuse?
His takeaway was that people fundamentally lack anger the way he does. And they are willing to accept any abuse if it comes from an authority, like a Family Judge. He believed that he would not have meekly accepted such an outcome.
Anyway, I went a bit deeper and ruminated on what's exactly going on here. If your wife can divorce you anyday and take away half of what you own then did you ever own that stuff in the first place? Because it's fate is clearly not under your control. But then who does it belong to? The Judge? He certainly can arbitrarily take it from you and give it to someone else. Then can't he just take everything you own for himself?
"But Caesercel", you say, "the judge only acts in the boundations of law with some wiggle room". Alright, then that money really belongs to the lawmakers, right? Lawmakers who decide that half of everything a man makes her wife owns. But they themselves are elected by the people. So does that mean it really belongs to "the people", so the people decided on these Alimony laws?
This was one of the first cracks in my conventional understanding of "private ownership". Nobody actually "owns" anything in an exclusive manner. You only own something in a system insofar as other people in the system think you own it. Money is not a real thing that exists. It's a stand in for real things like products and labour. It's a socially constructed representation of prevalent material relations of economy.
His takeaway was that people fundamentally lack anger the way he does. And they are willing to accept any abuse if it comes from an authority, like a Family Judge. He believed that he would not have meekly accepted such an outcome.
Anyway, I went a bit deeper and ruminated on what's exactly going on here. If your wife can divorce you anyday and take away half of what you own then did you ever own that stuff in the first place? Because it's fate is clearly not under your control. But then who does it belong to? The Judge? He certainly can arbitrarily take it from you and give it to someone else. Then can't he just take everything you own for himself?
"But Caesercel", you say, "the judge only acts in the boundations of law with some wiggle room". Alright, then that money really belongs to the lawmakers, right? Lawmakers who decide that half of everything a man makes her wife owns. But they themselves are elected by the people. So does that mean it really belongs to "the people", so the people decided on these Alimony laws?
This was one of the first cracks in my conventional understanding of "private ownership". Nobody actually "owns" anything in an exclusive manner. You only own something in a system insofar as other people in the system think you own it. Money is not a real thing that exists. It's a stand in for real things like products and labour. It's a socially constructed representation of prevalent material relations of economy.
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