State-promoted gambling both raises revenue and distracts the precarious workforce

Evidence

In the United States, individual states have been falling over one another to promote every form of gambling they might tax. Not only was it lucrative, but it taught the precariat to live suspended in a delirium of lottery fever, the better to be distracted from working life. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of states racing to tax gambling ‘the better to be distracted from working life’ is a bright, quotable line for a lecture or casual conversation.
• XREF: connects to: Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345; Casinos normalize risk so market failure loses its political charge — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 274

Broader Connections

• Casinos normalize risk so market failure loses its political charge #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 274
• Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue #complicates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345