Durkan's Austerity Budget Is All About How the Rich Oppress the Poor

You very well know that you live in one of the richest cities on earth, yet you have to hear your mayor, who claims to be progressive, present a budget that's informed by the "capitalist realism" of austerity. And so, while overabundance is apparently all around, we are ruled by an economic thinking that has the amazing ability to see through this tremendous wealth of stuff and see the thing-in-itself, wealth as value. There is never enough of this kind of value, which is purely metaphysical, to go around. It can only go upward. To protect the metaphysics of value, Durkan and her kind imagine economics to be "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." We do not have enough, we are told. Money doesn't grow on trees, they point out. This is not the time for reckless spending, he or her says with the gravity of a rural pastor. But none of this has anything to do with science. It's at best a bad sermon. Gone are the pleasing visions of a heaven of wealth unlimited; it is the sublunar realm where wealth as value is always in critical condition. It's so precious. It's as scarce as a miracle.

Listen to Durkan preach:



“My budget is also rooted in a difficult reality: After years of significant growth, city revenue is reaching a plateau... So we have to live within our means. Is our economy still strong? You bet it is — with all the opportunity and challenges that a strong economy brings. But as we project city revenue out into the future, there are clouds on the horizon. We are entering a new era of budget realities–and my plan recognizes that we must reprioritize our budget so we can continue to invest in the things that matter most.” Support The Stranger More than ever, we depend on your support to help fund our coverage. Support local, independent media with a one-time or recurring donation. Thank you!

Indeed, at this moment in the long history of defending the wealth of the rich (economics), a moment that has a recent memory of the total collapse of market ideology, a moment that very well knows 11,000,000 Americans lost their homes while trillions were and still are spent to protect the value of financial assets—even now, even after all of this, the bogus wisdom of tight budgets is shoveled and tossed to us not only from the ruling party but our own mayor. We're supposed to believe her. The heart of the mayor was speaking like a live wire. Feel sorry for it because these tough decisions must, in the end, be made by someone. If you do not understand her now, if you are angry at Durkan, just wait. That's all. Time will eventually reveal to you, poor soul, those clouds she saw on the horizon. In the future, there will come a day when you finally see that she was only doing what was best for all in this city. From the beginning, her heart was in the right place. Jenny, oh, Jenny.

Imagine pushing this type of austerity in a city where a trillion dollar company occupies 10 million square feet of office space & their centibillionaire CEO is the richest man in the world https://t.co/3AekOSE6ra

— Brett Hamil (@BrettHamil) September 25, 2018

Durkan's budget would discontinue the popular Play Streets/Summer Parkways program, which temporarily converts streets from places for cars into places for people.

— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett) September 24, 2018