There is much less recourse for having one's surplus labor "stolen," as it's normalized. Legally-sanctioned shootings could be the U.S. society's relief valve.
No, legally sanctioned shootings aren't a relief valve, they ratchet up social tension rather than relieving it.
But on an individual scale, the tension is released for the individual.
In exchange for releasing the emotional pressure of one person, another dies, and many more are imbued with negative emotions.
Very fitting parallel for the greater whole: zero sum.
The grand scale ratcheting-up effect is a result of processes that, while not narrowly focussed, most acutely apply to those associated with shootings.
> Very fitting parallel for the greater whole: zero sum
Its not zero-sum (if it were, the grand-scale effect would be neutral.)
As if the lower one's income, the closer one is to the heaping mass of natural inevitability: decay and death -- its gravity crushing.
> Its not zero-sum (if it were, the grand-scale effect would be neutral.)
I think I was referring to emotionally. There are so few great sources of positive emotion to tap into, that the zeitgeist is simply "take as much as you can for yourself, before it runs dry."
That in order to escape from "loss," you must create negative externalities and emotions -- no matter how small.
It feels cultural. There is no great basin of tradition and culture here; the positive emotions built off the backs of forefathers that sacrificed and endured negative emotion for the hope of a better tomorrow: missing.
Protecting your property is an innate human tendency. I'm pretty sure even in a marxist utopia, I wouldn't shed a tear for home invaders getting shot.
This is in large parts because of the cruel society the US chose to build even though the economy is developed enough to support a less exploitative model. I’m not saying poverty and hard lives don’t exist outside the US, but being fired from your minimum wage job because you called in sick once which kickstarts a series of events which has a very real chance of making you become homeless and without health insurance is a uniquely US-specific thing.