Last night's massive Lotto draw was one of those oddly unifying moments
in Aotearoa when, for a brief period, the country holds its breath
together. The anticipation, the chatter in dairies, the queues for
tickets, and the speculative fantasies people share about what they
would do with the winnings all point to something far more interesting
than simple entertainment. Lotto sells the promise of liberation. It
packages relief, security, dignity, time, and agency into a brightly
coloured ticket and tells people that the life they long for might, with
enough luck, finally fall into their hands. But the fantasy sold on
those slips of paper is not merely improbable; it is structurally
impossible. Under capitalism, most people will never experience the
freedom that Lotto advertises, no matter how many tickets they buy. The
game persists not because of its statistical plausibility but because of
the deep emotional hunger it feeds, a hunger created by the very social
and economic order that Lotto quietly reinforces.
What stands out is not the size of the jackpot, but the fact that so
many people felt compelled to invest in the possibility of escape.
Lotto's hold on the public is rooted in a broad sense of powerlessness,
the creeping belief that life cannot be changed through ordinary human
effort. The routine pressures of capitalism, rising rents, stagnant
wages, impossible working hours, insecure housing, and the growing sense
that one is simply surviving rather than living, all push people to
grasp for anything that promises a different existence. Lotto is the
state-sanctioned pressure valve through which that desire for change is
released safely, individually, and harmlessly. Instead of directing
dissatisfaction into collective organising, community building, or
structural challenge, Lotto channels it into a fantasy of miraculous
individual uplift. The entire institution functions as a kind of secular
prosperity gospel: if you are patient and lucky enough, one day the
universe will reward you. If not, better luck next week.
This logic reveals its political usefulness. Lotto encourages people to
abandon the idea that their conditions could be changed through their
own agency or through collective struggle. It replaces the notion of
solidarity with the notion of luck. Where political movements would ask
people to confront the systems that produce inequality, Lotto tells them
instead to buy a small moment of hope. And since most people will never
win, they end up returning week after week for another hit of
possibility, trapped in a quiet cycle of hope and disappointment. This
cycle is perfect for maintaining the existing order. A public that is
hoping for luck is far less likely to demand justice. A public that is
waiting to "win" is far less likely to organise to win.
Where Lotto offers fantasy, anarchism offers practice. Where Lotto
insists on the extraordinary, anarchism insists on the everyday.
Anarchism begins with the premise that people can build the lives they
want not through chance but through cooperation, solidarity, and the
dismantling of hierarchical power structures. It treats freedom as
something constructed, not awarded by randomness. The odds of improving
one's life through collective action are astronomically higher than the
odds of winning a jackpot. If one participates in collective struggle,
one will almost certainly experience tangible improvements: stronger
connections, greater support, practical resources, and the sense of
being an active agent in one's own life. These outcomes are not
speculative. They are observable, repeatable, and grounded in the entire
history of working-class and Indigenous movements in Aotearoa and
internationally.
The contrast becomes stark when you consider what people actually desire
when they buy a Lotto ticket. It is rarely about the money for its own
sake. People want time with their families, the end of financial
anxiety, a secure home, freedom from exploitative labour, the ability to
rest, to create, to breathe. Lotto markets these desires as prizes, but
anarchism understands them as collective political goals. The desire to
escape precarity is not pathological; it is rational. It is capitalism
that is irrational for producing conditions in which escape seems
possible only through improbable miracles.
Lotto's emotional appeal is so strong precisely because capitalism has
denied people meaningful control over their lives. When you are
exhausted, underpaid, overworked, and constantly anxious about housing,
it makes a certain sense to fantasise about being plucked from misery by
blind luck. Lotto fills the vacuum left by the erosion of collective
power. But where Lotto instrumentalises that desire in order to
reproduce the very system that generated it, anarchism channels it
toward restructuring society so that people need neither miracles nor
jackpots to live well.
What anarchism proposes is that the world most New Zealanders fantasise
about after buying a Lotto ticket could actually be built, not won.
Secure housing could exist through decommodification and cooperative
control. Labour could be reorganised around human need rather than
profit, with workplaces democratically controlled by workers rather than
owners. Communities could develop localised systems of mutual support,
resource sharing, and autonomous decision-making. Time could be freed
from the tyranny of wage labour and redirected toward collective
flourishing. These changes do not require divine intervention. They
require people organising together.
And crucially, this kind of organising already works. Workers' movements
have historically won every meaningful labour right we now consider
basic - the weekend, the eight-hour day, sick leave, safety standards,
and more. Maori land occupations and kaupapa Maori movements have
reclaimed land, language, and cultural autonomy. None of these victories
came through luck, all of them came through collective struggle.
When people join such movements, the "odds" of transforming their lives
shift radically. The likelihood of finding community, support, and
empowerment becomes almost guaranteed. The sense of isolation so common
under capitalism dissolves. People begin to see themselves as
participants in shaping the world rather than passengers hoping for an
unlikely upgrade. The contrasts with Lotto could not be more pronounced.
A Lotto ticket builds nothing. A movement builds everything.
There is another dimension to consider: Lotto's function as a political
pacifier. It offers a simulation of agency, a momentary belief that
one's life might change without confronting any structures of power. The
more desperate people become under capitalism, the more appealing this
fantasy grows. In this way, Lotto acts as a safety valve that relieves
pressure without altering the system that generates it. The state
acknowledges economic suffering but directs people to seek salvation
through luck rather than justice. The Lotto kiosk becomes a substitute
for political imagination.
Anarchism disrupts this dynamic by insisting that people do not have to
wait. They do not need permission from the state, a political party, a
boss, or a jackpot draw. They can act now, with the people around them,
to carve out alternative ways of living. Every garden, every
cooperative, every free store, every occupation, every strike, every
blockade, is a concrete step toward the world Lotto only pretends to
offer. This is why anarchism is threatening to the established order: it
gives back to ordinary people the one thing Lotto, capitalism, and the
state all require them to surrender - agency.
The irony of last night's draw is that millions of New Zealanders
experienced the same emotion simultaneously: the longing for a better
life. The fantasy may have been individual, but the feeling was
collective. If people shared that desire not in queues for tickets but
in movements, unions, collectives, and neighbourhood assemblies, the
country would be unrecognisable within a generation. The same hope that
fuels Lotto could fuel revolution, if redirected.
The lesson is not that people should feel foolish for buying tickets, it
is that their desire for change is entirely legitimate. The political
question is what they are taught to do with that desire. Lotto teaches
them to dream privately. Anarchism teaches them to act publicly. Lotto
tells them change must be granted by chance. Anarchism tells them change
is made by people. Lotto produces one winner and millions of losers.
Anarchism rejects the very premise of winning and losing as capitalist
distortions that pit people against each other. Lotto sells fantasy.
Anarchism builds reality.
It is no exaggeration to say that you are far more likely to build the
life you want through anarchist organising than through Lotto. The
former has a track record of success measurable in every labour right,
every community project, and every instance of collective solidarity in
our history. The latter has odds so infinitesimal that the human brain
cannot meaningfully comprehend them. Lotto asks for money and gives back
dreams. Anarchism asks for participation and gives back power.
The life people imagine when they hold a Lotto ticket in their hands, a
life with security, dignity, and control, is not absurd or unrealistic.
What is absurd is the idea that such a life might be delivered by
randomness. What is unrealistic is the belief that an economy built on
exploitation might one day produce fairness spontaneously. What is
fantastical is the notion that a ticket purchased at a dairy could do
more to transform your life than collective struggle ever could.
If last night's draw revealed anything, it is that millions of people in
Aotearoa are yearning for liberation. The task is to show that
liberation is not granted by luck but made by people. The future is not
a jackpot to be won, it is a world to be built. Lotto wants you to wait.
Anarchism wants you to act. And if you want the life you dream about
when the draw is announced, your chances are infinitely better if you
organise, not if you pick numbers.
https://awsm.nz/the-odds-are-better-with-revolt-why-anarchism-beats-lotto-every-time/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
in Aotearoa when, for a brief period, the country holds its breath
together. The anticipation, the chatter in dairies, the queues for
tickets, and the speculative fantasies people share about what they
would do with the winnings all point to something far more interesting
than simple entertainment. Lotto sells the promise of liberation. It
packages relief, security, dignity, time, and agency into a brightly
coloured ticket and tells people that the life they long for might, with
enough luck, finally fall into their hands. But the fantasy sold on
those slips of paper is not merely improbable; it is structurally
impossible. Under capitalism, most people will never experience the
freedom that Lotto advertises, no matter how many tickets they buy. The
game persists not because of its statistical plausibility but because of
the deep emotional hunger it feeds, a hunger created by the very social
and economic order that Lotto quietly reinforces.
What stands out is not the size of the jackpot, but the fact that so
many people felt compelled to invest in the possibility of escape.
Lotto's hold on the public is rooted in a broad sense of powerlessness,
the creeping belief that life cannot be changed through ordinary human
effort. The routine pressures of capitalism, rising rents, stagnant
wages, impossible working hours, insecure housing, and the growing sense
that one is simply surviving rather than living, all push people to
grasp for anything that promises a different existence. Lotto is the
state-sanctioned pressure valve through which that desire for change is
released safely, individually, and harmlessly. Instead of directing
dissatisfaction into collective organising, community building, or
structural challenge, Lotto channels it into a fantasy of miraculous
individual uplift. The entire institution functions as a kind of secular
prosperity gospel: if you are patient and lucky enough, one day the
universe will reward you. If not, better luck next week.
This logic reveals its political usefulness. Lotto encourages people to
abandon the idea that their conditions could be changed through their
own agency or through collective struggle. It replaces the notion of
solidarity with the notion of luck. Where political movements would ask
people to confront the systems that produce inequality, Lotto tells them
instead to buy a small moment of hope. And since most people will never
win, they end up returning week after week for another hit of
possibility, trapped in a quiet cycle of hope and disappointment. This
cycle is perfect for maintaining the existing order. A public that is
hoping for luck is far less likely to demand justice. A public that is
waiting to "win" is far less likely to organise to win.
Where Lotto offers fantasy, anarchism offers practice. Where Lotto
insists on the extraordinary, anarchism insists on the everyday.
Anarchism begins with the premise that people can build the lives they
want not through chance but through cooperation, solidarity, and the
dismantling of hierarchical power structures. It treats freedom as
something constructed, not awarded by randomness. The odds of improving
one's life through collective action are astronomically higher than the
odds of winning a jackpot. If one participates in collective struggle,
one will almost certainly experience tangible improvements: stronger
connections, greater support, practical resources, and the sense of
being an active agent in one's own life. These outcomes are not
speculative. They are observable, repeatable, and grounded in the entire
history of working-class and Indigenous movements in Aotearoa and
internationally.
The contrast becomes stark when you consider what people actually desire
when they buy a Lotto ticket. It is rarely about the money for its own
sake. People want time with their families, the end of financial
anxiety, a secure home, freedom from exploitative labour, the ability to
rest, to create, to breathe. Lotto markets these desires as prizes, but
anarchism understands them as collective political goals. The desire to
escape precarity is not pathological; it is rational. It is capitalism
that is irrational for producing conditions in which escape seems
possible only through improbable miracles.
Lotto's emotional appeal is so strong precisely because capitalism has
denied people meaningful control over their lives. When you are
exhausted, underpaid, overworked, and constantly anxious about housing,
it makes a certain sense to fantasise about being plucked from misery by
blind luck. Lotto fills the vacuum left by the erosion of collective
power. But where Lotto instrumentalises that desire in order to
reproduce the very system that generated it, anarchism channels it
toward restructuring society so that people need neither miracles nor
jackpots to live well.
What anarchism proposes is that the world most New Zealanders fantasise
about after buying a Lotto ticket could actually be built, not won.
Secure housing could exist through decommodification and cooperative
control. Labour could be reorganised around human need rather than
profit, with workplaces democratically controlled by workers rather than
owners. Communities could develop localised systems of mutual support,
resource sharing, and autonomous decision-making. Time could be freed
from the tyranny of wage labour and redirected toward collective
flourishing. These changes do not require divine intervention. They
require people organising together.
And crucially, this kind of organising already works. Workers' movements
have historically won every meaningful labour right we now consider
basic - the weekend, the eight-hour day, sick leave, safety standards,
and more. Maori land occupations and kaupapa Maori movements have
reclaimed land, language, and cultural autonomy. None of these victories
came through luck, all of them came through collective struggle.
When people join such movements, the "odds" of transforming their lives
shift radically. The likelihood of finding community, support, and
empowerment becomes almost guaranteed. The sense of isolation so common
under capitalism dissolves. People begin to see themselves as
participants in shaping the world rather than passengers hoping for an
unlikely upgrade. The contrasts with Lotto could not be more pronounced.
A Lotto ticket builds nothing. A movement builds everything.
There is another dimension to consider: Lotto's function as a political
pacifier. It offers a simulation of agency, a momentary belief that
one's life might change without confronting any structures of power. The
more desperate people become under capitalism, the more appealing this
fantasy grows. In this way, Lotto acts as a safety valve that relieves
pressure without altering the system that generates it. The state
acknowledges economic suffering but directs people to seek salvation
through luck rather than justice. The Lotto kiosk becomes a substitute
for political imagination.
Anarchism disrupts this dynamic by insisting that people do not have to
wait. They do not need permission from the state, a political party, a
boss, or a jackpot draw. They can act now, with the people around them,
to carve out alternative ways of living. Every garden, every
cooperative, every free store, every occupation, every strike, every
blockade, is a concrete step toward the world Lotto only pretends to
offer. This is why anarchism is threatening to the established order: it
gives back to ordinary people the one thing Lotto, capitalism, and the
state all require them to surrender - agency.
The irony of last night's draw is that millions of New Zealanders
experienced the same emotion simultaneously: the longing for a better
life. The fantasy may have been individual, but the feeling was
collective. If people shared that desire not in queues for tickets but
in movements, unions, collectives, and neighbourhood assemblies, the
country would be unrecognisable within a generation. The same hope that
fuels Lotto could fuel revolution, if redirected.
The lesson is not that people should feel foolish for buying tickets, it
is that their desire for change is entirely legitimate. The political
question is what they are taught to do with that desire. Lotto teaches
them to dream privately. Anarchism teaches them to act publicly. Lotto
tells them change must be granted by chance. Anarchism tells them change
is made by people. Lotto produces one winner and millions of losers.
Anarchism rejects the very premise of winning and losing as capitalist
distortions that pit people against each other. Lotto sells fantasy.
Anarchism builds reality.
It is no exaggeration to say that you are far more likely to build the
life you want through anarchist organising than through Lotto. The
former has a track record of success measurable in every labour right,
every community project, and every instance of collective solidarity in
our history. The latter has odds so infinitesimal that the human brain
cannot meaningfully comprehend them. Lotto asks for money and gives back
dreams. Anarchism asks for participation and gives back power.
The life people imagine when they hold a Lotto ticket in their hands, a
life with security, dignity, and control, is not absurd or unrealistic.
What is absurd is the idea that such a life might be delivered by
randomness. What is unrealistic is the belief that an economy built on
exploitation might one day produce fairness spontaneously. What is
fantastical is the notion that a ticket purchased at a dairy could do
more to transform your life than collective struggle ever could.
If last night's draw revealed anything, it is that millions of people in
Aotearoa are yearning for liberation. The task is to show that
liberation is not granted by luck but made by people. The future is not
a jackpot to be won, it is a world to be built. Lotto wants you to wait.
Anarchism wants you to act. And if you want the life you dream about
when the draw is announced, your chances are infinitely better if you
organise, not if you pick numbers.
https://awsm.nz/the-odds-are-better-with-revolt-why-anarchism-beats-lotto-every-time/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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