this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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politics

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So slavery as indentured servitude is the American future. Way to "new model" the old model.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

This was always the goal. Serfdom in a different package.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 hours ago

YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FIRST, ASSHOLE.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)
  • Dey tk 'r jerbs!!!

  • Ok, here you go, maga listens to its voters, kicked out all the immigrants and imports and is proud to present: serfdom.

  • No, not like that!!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 13 hours ago

Oh, cool. We're going backwards. That's fun.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

With good union representation, right?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The USSR had lifetime factory jobs, too.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

The USSR didn't have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren't forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.

Please, what's your source on your claim?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Please, what’s your source on your claim?

Tankie spotted

Average interaction.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

So if I wanted to change jobs or quit a job to go into higher education, do you know if that was possible, how hard was it to do? Because available positions does not equal job mobility, as you need permission from the factory manager and the state and those are harder to get when qualified workers are scarce.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment

I'm sorry, do you seriously think the USSR lacked classes/stratification?

and people weren’t forced to work anywhere

Yeah if you ignore the Gulag system you can make a lot of the USSR sound utopian.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

And the US still has millions of slaves to this day, completely legally. We use slaves to fight forest fires. How fucked up is that? Hell, the modern US has managed to create the absurd phenomenon of the full-time employed homeless person. Oh, and and the peak of the USSR? The US trapped millions of people in a hellish nightmare of a legally induced racial caste system.

If you ignore the slavery, the homeless working multiple jobs, and the US's historic racial caste system, you can make the US sound utopian.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I challenge you to point out where I praised the US. I’ll be super impressed if you can.

This is a flagrant whataboutism. The US’s history of enslavement and atrocities don’t undo those of the USSR.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 hours ago

Come on man it took one google search to read about the centralized labour programs, liquidation of foreign ethnic groups, and militarization of labour. This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago

WorryFree™

[–] [email protected] 23 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

ha. see, the thing is... no. make me. i got a bullet for every single fucking one of you that tries to fuck my genuinely good life up. i figured out how to escape this shit life and i'm never going back. i ain't got no kids so i don't have to worry about any of this. yall have all fucked this world up beyond recognition and i will fucking kill you if you try to drag me down into your bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

That’s the thing, they don’t care if you work there, they won’t make you, you’ll just starve to death in the street or die from lack of medical care or some previously preventable problem. You likely would never be forced to work but not working will be essentially choosing slow suicide

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Strip me off my decent life and try to make me work labor. I will. But my incompetence will be the greatest incompetence. My wages will do nothing but pay for my mistakes and I will just keep making them.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 16 hours ago

He means while they're still kids btw

[–] [email protected] 32 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

Ok, so a few points, from a lifelong industrial OEM technician:

First of all, there's nothing wrong with factory jobs IF your employer takes care of its workers, that's a big "if" but one all the world's workers should take care of, since manufacturing is of course one of the biggest areas of employment and it's not going away anytime soon.

My job, working for an equipment manufacturer, can be quite enjoyable and well paid, again depending on the employer, I'd advice any technically inclined individual to look into it. St the same time, I'd never work as a maintenance tech in a factory, that's usually a very stressful job, with emergency work in poor condition, often pushed to work unsafely because of the rush, on old machines often dirty or in poor repair.
Still, I've seen some people make quite a comfortable position in that setting, so it may not be all bad.

As for pay, I think pay should depend mostly on 3 factors: effort, skill and comfort. Those who work harder, are more skilled and are forced into unpleasant settings should be paid more. If you want a more comfortable job you cannot expect to make more than a good, equally skilled worker who's in noisy, dangerous or disgusting environments, and so on.

I don't understand the intergenerational employment point, that sounds sorta dystopic and has no connection to the rest of the argument.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You won’t be well paid, you will not have benefits, you will be forbidden from unionizing, you will have very little say about the particular job you work or the schedule you’re given. You’ll take what you get or starve in the streets. It’s disingenuous to act like “factory work” will resemble the good factory jobs that currently exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

If that's what it takes for Americans to reach their limit and claw back some dignity from their owners...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

I only contract in upstate NY but the manufacturing facilities were specifically placed in areas that will support the bare minimum wage and consistently have supply and or facility issues due to the location. A major pharma organization draining water towers. A large toothpaste manufacturer neglecting PRVs the decades and constantly shooting silica's into the air.

I see great potential in these facilities but i am ALWAYS reminded of the shit business practices i see even when they cause the company to lose money.

Sure some of these places will prosper but most will crumble inside 5 years and displace a lot of people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

How is it possible to avoid repetitive stress injury on an assembly line? Seems inevitable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Aside from what @[email protected] wrote, ideally we'll reduce human labor to overseeing machines, at least on industrial lines, over time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Replacing humans with machines generally results in greater disparity of wealth, historically

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

You still can't stop progress, so you've got to solve that issue another way

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

If you don't own the machines you should get supplemental income from being displaced.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Development of technology isnt always progress. Sometimes its a step backwards.

Progress depends on if it does good or bad. If it just causes a greater disparity of wealth (while building crappy machines that are designed for obsolescence and people dont need), then it is not progress.

Example: looms are arguably progress (almost everyone needs cloth). Robots that manufacturer ICE SUVs are not progress (making more gas guzzlers is causing mass extinction).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Great question. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are more difficult to avoid when tasks are repetitive, forceful, and/or use a limited range of motion. Implementing a "stretch and flex" type program, completing thorough ergonomic evaluations (and actually following through with their findings), and rotating workers through various tasks that change the motions performed and body parts being stressed will knock down injuries considerably.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Considering they’re working on getting rid of lunch or bathroom breaks this is just a fantasy… is it possible to have decent factory jobs? Sure. Will that be what’s given to you as an option? Absolutely not

This must be prevented from happening, once it becomes the institutional norm it will be so difficult to reverse course

[–] [email protected] 9 points 15 hours ago

I didn't realize that I could be a toolmaker when I grew up until I was already grown up.

I fucking love my job. If I had realized how cool this job was when I was in high school I'd be one of the most well paid people in my field right now. As it is I'm just doing pretty well.

Industrial jobs definitely aren't for everyone, but that's literally any job. I left a comfortable office job for the trades because those jobs aren't for everyone either. And I'm far happier for it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I agree that the work isn't too bad if you're the right type of person. We have pretty good rules from OSHA.

TBH though the intergenerational employment and company towns angle makes it seem like all the rules are going to be discarded so I'm a bit concerned

[–] [email protected] 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 15 hours ago

And that's the problem! These jobs may be okay for now but the people running the government, including the clown in the article, actively wants to make it worse.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 22 hours ago

Yeah you and your kids and their kids... All slaving away in poor conditions, at the same time.

No retirement for the old. Child labor. Shitty conditions with zero worker protections. Low pay to keep you in poverty. All while the rich sit on their lazy fat asses like the parasites they are...

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