Wages that don't cover rent and the voter factory

When wages don't cover rent, the system expands its catalogue of voters

In the debate, a thesis making the rounds in economic analysis is voiced in a parodic tone: the more housing, food and transport rise relative to wages, the more varieties of voter the system needs to keep the peace. The thesis has an uncomfortable core. When the basic basket outstrips the paycheck, no revolt breaks out: instead, an offer unfolds. And that offer comes in more colors than ever.

The analogy used is that of the generations of Pokemons. There was a first batch, red and blue, which, according to another participant, was sold as the workers' party. The 2008 crisis arrived and a second generation appeared, purple and green, with the same packaging and fewer promises. The diagnosis repeated in the thread: more expensive every year and with less battery. All, however, from the same manufacturer.

Russia as a mirage: the wage that doesn't add up with the rent

The other axis of the matter is geographic. One participant says he saw in a reliable article that in Moscow and Saint Petersburg a factory worker's wage is close to the Spanish one, that a kilo of pasta costs around 30 cents and that chicken comes in under two euros. With those numbers, the debate turns to those planning to pack their bags.

The counterweight to those figures comes from another participant. According to him, those wages have been inflated by the war economy and the labor shortage after mobilization, not by any merit of the model. The 200-euro rents correspond to rooms in the deep outskirts, not apartments downtown. And the tally leaves out an item that makes no headlines: the freedom to speak your mind.

The one waiting for the tanks and the one waiting for no one

The thread describes an archetype: the person who neither emigrates nor organizes, but waits on the sofa for some distant leader to roll in with the tanks and fix his rent. For that participant, it isn't geopolitics, it's faith. The same participant points to the figure that truly causes discomfort: the one who doesn't vote, doesn't consume and believes in nothing. That one doesn't need to be manufactured: he comes from the factory, with his screen and his air conditioning paid in installments.

Amid these tensions, one wonders whether the most profitable profile might be precisely the one who has stopped expecting anything from anyone.