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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The "economy" will exist whether it's a capitalist system or something else. Blaming the system is a stupid take when it's the actors within it causing the issues you complain about.
It's like blaming gravity.
How does the working class not realise that the wealthy are the sodden bitch in a bog handing out the sword? Jeeebus
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.
Yeah, but that "catastrophe" you and I won't see it. We would have died already out of hunger or disease. You cannot survive only on hate itself.
Edit: typo
Eh, when food gets scarce there's a few ways things can go. Usually the people in charge try to stop those kind of extreme events by handing out food. It's when there's a dust bowl at the same time that things get nasty.
Yeah, go ahead and think you can live on handouts from the rich and powerful, whose economy you're trying to wreck.
That's uhh not how real life works. It ain't a story where morality (yours or mine) matters. Hungry humans get very desperate and has been the cause of more than one period of extreme violence. That's why people get fed when governments can do it. Not because of any sense of charity.
In a wrecked economy the government can't do it. Because the government is not a magical entity. Then what?
The government is more real than the economy. It's made of actual people doing actual things. In a total economic collapse but with a good food supply government ration stamps become the new form of pay. Again. This has happened before. They can't wave a magic wand but they can physically work together in their pre-existing hierarchy.
You have no ideea what are you talking about!
A good food supply means a working economy, for gods sake!
You need seeds, water for irrigation, fertilizers, tractors, various attachments to them, trucks, fuel, silos, for storin, dedicated plants and educated people to build and maintain everything. And I haven't reached animal husbandry or food processing!
Or you would argue that we all do subsistence agriculture because then I have a very bad news for you. Where to many for ineficient low yield agriculture and even if this wasn't a problem,many, like you, don't know how to do it.
Well no because subsistence farming is the exact opposite of government distribution.
You are aware that none of that stuff magically disappears right? It might disappear from an accounts book but it still physically exists. I really don't know how else to put this to you but the labor, equipment, and human experience don't just poof when the economy crashes. It's all still there waiting to be used. If it wasn't then we'd have died out a long time ago. The economy is an ephemeral concept thought up by humans. The stock market doesn't make the grain grow.
Well kid, it's funny that your ideea it's not applicable only if it's sapping resources created beforehand. So is a net consumer not producer. In comunist terms it's a "parasite on the workers class".
There are some key concepts you're not grasping and you should educate yourself for your own good. Things like:
- economy is much more than a stock market.
- producing good and services that people require is the economy itself.
- politics doesn't create anything (regardless of the ideology) it suppose to find the best way to manage what has been created by the economy and society.
- the reliability of a system is inversely proportional with its complexity. In other words things break more complex things have bigger chances to break.
I didn't say politics. I said government. The people doing this kind of work will do it no matter which party is in office. And they are out there right now somewhere in the world doing it already. And if you want to cast the whole of production and distribution as "the economy" then it would take an asteroid, super volcano, or zombie plague to stop it. We aren't talking about everyone just doing nothing and you know it. People are still going to harvest food. Truck drivers are still going to drive their trucks. The method of pay just changes.
Saying the economy isn't just the stock market when the economy crashing is solely defined by the stock market going down is fucking hilarious.
I said what I had to say it's time to carry on. Good luck!
You could have found more respectful ways to say them.
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
That's like saying physics only provides a framework for experiment.
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.
You don't seem to understand that your distinction between the theory of communism, and communism as practiced, are both equally valid and accepted uses of the word. One is a theory, one created reeducation camps and killed millions of their own people. It is not capitalism that convinced me of this.
Your comment is fair, but please allow me to deflect for a moment with a few questions:
The nazis called themselves national socialists, do you believe they were socialists?
The north korean government has called their country a democratic republic, do you believe that?
I'm guessing you answered no to both. If that's the case, why do you believe the ussr and the ccp when they say they were/are practicing communism?
Additionally, who benefits more than capital if you believe socialism and communism equal authoritarianism?
If you guys understood marketing, you’d stop insisting on your version of the word being the one people should embrace. Socialism sells way better than communism even though it still gets people as riled up as Sen Kennedy reading “not all boys are blue” while pretending that it’s legally mandated to be given to white Christian boys at birth. 9/10 you guys rail against European social democracy, regardless of the fact that it would be a far easier reach for the US and would dramatically improve the lives of workers.
Always play offense. Useful tactic, but easily avoided. Bye!
Image Transcription:
X/Twitter post by user Teddy Ostrow @TeddyOstrow reading '"In their economy, workers live paycheck to paycheck while the billionaires buy another yacht... So we're gonna wreck their economy cuz it only works for the billionaire class," says @UAW prez Shawn Fain in Detroit.'
Attached is an image of UAW president Shawn Fain speaking passionately at a targeted strike rally against the Detroit Big Three automakers (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis).
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I'm happy to see this transcription "service" here on Lemmy. Thank YOU!
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