Billionaires the original welfare queens.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Even China knows this. Give the hard working people a better job than mom and dad had and they won't rebel.
The people who are rolling in their next billion have forgotten what happens when you take that away.
I like this Shawn. I really do. He's saying the words and doing the actions. Go Shawn! Go!
Billionaires aren't the ones that starve when the economy implodes.
This kind of rhetoric is what makes moderates ambivalent about unions. Sure we support your goals but the side-effects of that cure are ten times worse than the disease itself.
Thanks to people who want to retain the status quo that economic crisis are handled by fucking the poor and bailing out the rich. That is not a law of nature btw. It is a choice made by both large american parties every time.
The US could also increases taxes, seize assets from rich people and imprison tax evaders. With that money they could invest in infrastructure, schools, hospitals, renewable energies... That would bring the economy back on track and also help everyone to prosper.
What you describe is the result of deliberate disaster capitalism, where crisis are embraced as an opportunity to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
both large american parties
Whoa whoa whoa let's not "both sides" this shit. There is one party doing this, and another party sometimes having to make concessions to them.
The US could also increases taxes, seize assets from rich people and imprison tax evaders. With that money they could invest in infrastructure, schools, hospitals, renewable energies…
Guess which party is working on all of this right now (minus the higher taxes part)?
Hint: the answer is not "neither"
the US democrats are far right conservatives by most countries standards. You saw how they fiercly opposed the idea of a somewhat lefty candidacy and instead brought on Clinton, who is a neoliberal economist and war hawk and Biden who is also a neoliberal economist and has a strongly racist history.
Who gives a fuck, they're not regressive fascists. "Both sides" is bullshit propaganda.
I am not saying that "both sides" are equal and it doesnt matter what to vote. I am saying that the problems will not resolve as long as the democrats are not moving towards being an actual center/progressive party. So it needs the activism on the streets and in the companies, because there is no political solution available in the current US party system.
Why does it seem like you guys have never heard of primaries? Or democratic party elections?
I stood in line to vote for my local reps who go to the national Dem party who decide what the party platform is and what to spend money on and who to support. Did you even know that was a thing?
How does that relate to the US democrats mostly having conservative/right wing positions? Also how do the primaries help you, when the US elections are significantly influenced by who can muster the most money in return for representing the interests of their money givers? Your constitutional court even argued, that bribing politicans is a form of protected speech.
Ah I see, you're not American so you literally don't know.
General elections for us are binary. We vote for Democrats or Republicans or we throw away our vote. There's no 3rd party.
Primary elections are where we determine the candidates that will be put forward for each party. This goes for President but also every other executive branch office, at the federal and state levels.
Internal party elections are where we decide the party reps who decide funding, advertisement, official party endorsements, etc.
Bernie lost the primary election because his core supporters have no idea any of these other races exist. They show up, barely, every 4 years to vote for president.
More centrist progressives like me show up every single election. We are constantly pushing our agenda up the chain.
Flighty Leftist voters don't stand a chance until they consistently show up to push their agenda.
i know what the primaries are. The system to remove political options from the general elections and push them into party internal factually excludes people from political participation and making their voice heard. You know, the working class people that cannot get leave from work to participate on these elections.
Also the difference between a two party system and a one party regime is one party. So US democracy is rather fragile by design. That is why people need to take the struggle to the factories and streets. The system and also the democratic party in itself is structurally rigged against them.
The idea of some glorious revolution that will fix all the problems in our democracy is the equivalent of Christians believing that Sky Daddy will send them to heaven.
And that is why you are the economically best developed and militarily most well armed third world country.
The parts of us that consistently vote Democrat are nomal, rational places to live. Funny how that works.
your normality is not our normality. Of course it is possible that all the European countries are crqzy communists and have a skewed view on the world, but i find it more probable that the US is out of order. For instance having protected leave when expecting a baby is guaranteed by all but two countries in the world. One of them is the US and the other is some island state in south asia iirc. That is something i'd expect a centrist government to solve imnediately. Obama himself made the ACA so that still most people need to get private insurance argueing that its 3 million jobs in that system. Even Maggi Thatcher did not dare to fuck public health insurance in Britain.
Of course your reference frame is the US, but i can only emphasize how eye opening a look into Europe might be, to see how far right the entire political system of the US really is.
the US
...is a conglomerate of 50 different countries.
Parental leave is a right in my state. Health care is nearly universal. Vote by mail is universal. My state guarantees sick leave and paid time off to vote, care for a sick family member, or other circumstances. My state has sane labor laws, rent control, anti-corruption measures, and progressive taxation.
You clearly have no idea what the US is like, so kindly stop talking about something you have no knowledge of.
The US is not a "conglomerate" nor is it different countries. You do not have a passport from your state and if your state would seceede there wont be many international recognition.
Also it is quite telling that you say that you have these rightsin your state, so workers who dont habe them shouldnt fight for them. Then again i think you just saw recently in the abortion decision of the supreme court, why it is dangerous to leave these things to the state level and not have them on the federal level or better yet constitutionally protected.
Waah waah technicalities. Stop distracting. My original and central point was that in Democratic strongholds, the US more closely resembles a European standard of living. Do you agree?
so workers who dont habe them shouldnt fight for them.
Stop making shit up and pretending I said it.
My point was that the workers need to fight, because they have no political means. You showed that they do have some political means, which i interpreted as an arguement against them fighting and trying the political way.
While i agree that there is different states with different levels of workers rifhts, i still think that the political route is not reliable, in particular in the states where republicans are dominatinf but also because of the reluctance of the federal level of the democratic party to grant and protect workers rights. These need to be governed by federal law and their principles should be in the constitution.
That... is a very...VERY BAD IDEA.
Billionaires have enough money to survive an economic crash without batting an eyelid. Do you?
Most billionaires aren't billionaires in cash. If the market crashes, so do they. Now they might be reduced to "only" a hundred million or so but that can be catastrophic when your personal finances depend on billions in stock backing up a series of long term rotating loans.
They wanted to use the market to exploit the people. But that makes them vulnerable in a way rich people didn't used to be vulnerable.
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I vote for wrecking the rich's yachts. There's even a great capitalist reason to do it: the companies that build them might make new sales! Win-win!
When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
It's like trickle down economics, but we gotta shoot some holes in the water tower to make it trickle down.
When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
People who think the rich just have vaults full of money are so fucking ridiculous.
Poor people sit on cash. Poor people hide cash in their house. Almost the entirety of any rich person's wealth is invested, because rich people generally pay smart people to handle their money.
“We were very wealthy,” says Errol Musk. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.”
With one person holding the money in place, another other would slam the door.
“And then there'd still be all these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.”
You are willfully ignorant.
What the UAW is doing here is fighting for all workers. This sets precedents that ripple across all industries. What formed the UAW back in 1937 took some balls, and so does this.
It's not communism to fight for dignity and a living wage. We're practically fighting for some more table scraps, but the rich are acting like we're threatening social fabric.
Go and get it Shawn, this is exactly what we all need right now. Support the UAW.
In the last 20 years, we've seen the most rapid rise in productivity since the industrial revolution, and just like in the wake of the industrial revolution, there was massive worker exploitation that led to reforms and eventually unionization that ushered in a golden age of labor in America where workers were fairly compensated for the work they provided, so much so that it was easy for a salaryman to support a nuclear family on his single paycheck.
Since then, the business owner class has been working hard to dismantle unions while refusing to pay their fair share of the massive profit windfalls to the bottom rung workers. We are long overdue for sweeping multi-industry unionization effort. Only then will we start seeing something more than just table scraps.
Fighting for dignity actually is literally communism. It's capitalist propaganda that has you convinced otherwise.
Communism provides a theoretical framework to advocate for those things, but it is not the same as doing those things. I think the distinction is important because it allows you to have a plurality or support
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I mean, I can see a utopian vision of Communism where dignity is forefront, but I've also seen where it's dystopian. Correct me if I'm wrong but the basis is to each according to their need and from each based on their abilities. Dignity isn't mentioned, but the happiness and contentment of all is the goal so I suppose it's inferred but not specified.
Either way, it doesn't have to be viewed with any kind of social opposition. If we keep following the slippery slope of late game capitalism, who's to say companies don't just purchase legislation that re-establishes full on slavery? We have a fucked up oligarch system, and moments like this where workers unite is a good thing in any system. Free market my ass, and this is a moment where arguing for semantics is a side-discussion, for now it's us against the oligarchs.
I think a better way to describe the essence of communism is an end to dominance hierarchies. Authoritarians often use leftist rhetoric to gain power, which is why so many of them have called themselves socialist or communist, while being the exact opposite of the ideals they claim to support.
You are 100% correct, it is us against the oligarchs. That's also the entire basis of communist theory, btw. Regardless of terms used though, we are on the same side of this fight, and I am glad that we are.
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