Keep in mind that in 1975 the top tax rate was 48%, some sources say the effective rate on corporate was 44%. This message went out right before the largest recorded increase in USA poverty from 1980 to 1983, and the Reagan Administration gutting federal regulatory bodies and slashing the corporate tax rates down to effective 0 rates, sometimes a negative rate if they received corporate welfare.
If anything, bro really jinxed it by saying “it can’t possibly get worse, right?”
Wow even more Russian Soviet KGB dezinformatsiya. Capitalism is the best system the planet has ever seen. It ensures freedom and a just division of resources. Or would you rather than your sustenance depends on some commisar? Better make sure to magnify and sanctify the holy name of Stalin – or else!
In the US, you are free (it’s called right to work, sweaty!) to join and leave any company at any time. Whereas if comrade Stalin had his way, you’d be shipped off to Siberia to work a in a munitions factory while starving.
Capitalism is a system that lets anyone succeed. So perhaps there aren’t that many workers cöoperatives because most working class individuals are simply unfit for leadership positions.
I mean you can’t really expect someone whose job is to wait tables to know how to properly run a restaurant. It takes someone who understands systems and most people don’t.
But you know what. Even the poor have fridges and cars in the USA. Hardly could say the same about North Korea.
So perhaps there aren’t that many workers cöoperatives because most working class individuals are simply unfit for leadership positions.
I mean you can’t really expect someone whose job is to wait tables to know how to properly run a restaurant. It takes someone who understands systems and most people don’t.
Huh? How does being a cooperative preclude those businesses from having capable people in leadership positions? The only difference between a regular business and a coop is that generally coops will vote on who is in that leadership position, and they don’t over-value that leadership position, unlike most CEO’s which take an unjustifiable amount of money for the amount of actual work they contribute to the business.
How does North Korea, an authoritarian and decidedly not socialistic state (the workers do not own the factories in North Korea, the State does, which is bad) relate to any of this?
An unfortunate amount of the poor in the USA become homeless, which takes away access to cars and fridges.
By “just division of resources” are you referring to the monstrous and ever growing wage and wealth inequality gap? I’m not sure how you consider that to be a “just” system.
Everyone gets according to their contribution. That’s something communism and capitalism actually have in common. However capitalism takes into account uniqueness, results, and innovation. In communism you get rewarded just for doing something. No matter how shitty the thing is, no matter how lazy you are.
In capitalism you get according to how critical and innovative your thing is. So yeah, most people aren’t very critical or innovative. So why would they get much?
Oh, you can scan groceries or flip burgers — you should be able to buy an apartment in a large urban city. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit silly?
Also, we need wealth gaps so that people would be motivated to invest and grind and strive.
Communism simply represents any societal system of workers directly controlling enterprise, instead of its being controlled by private owners.
When enterprise is privately controlled, wage remuneration to workers is resolved entirely by the profit motive of private owners.
The employment relationship carries no deeper motive or essential virtue, as you have suggested. It embodies no natural directionality that “takes into account uniqueness, results, and innovation”.
Under private enterprise, all is subsumed under profit, and all that is not profitable is discarded.
When workers control enterprise, they may distribute the value of their product however they choose. No power prevents them from ascribing value to the attributes you have identified as meaningful.
What world are you living in? If capitalism rewarded people for how critical their jobs actually were, teachers wouldn’t be making minimum wage and needing to take multiple jobs to make ends meet. And according to COVID, delivery workers, supermarket employees, restaurant workers, etc, would all be rich seeing as they were deemed essential workers. Pretty sure there weren’t any CEOs deemed essential workers.
Are you trying to say that you are ok with people working a full time job and not being able to afford to live in the place where they work? It strikes me as a bit silly that you expect people to still do those jobs if it doesn’t pay enough to make it worth it. The real fault lies in the companies and corporations taking in record profits but “can’t afford” to increase wages because it’ll cut into their margins by .01%.
Wealth gaps do not motivate anyone to grind and investing money you can’t spare is not a feasible option to escape poverty.
The American Dream where all you needed was hard work and determination and you could buy a house, support your family, and live well, is dead. There are families with 2 adults working 2 or 3 jobs that still need financial assistance in order to afford food or rent. They’re definitely on the grind but that doesn’t work anymore. Now people grind just to survive while the wealthy do nothing and watch their bank accounts overflow.
The difference between the reality now and 30 years ago is the corporations got greedier and focused their energy on squeezing every cent they could out of their workers and their customers to live their own pockets. This is the reality of unregulated capitalism. It’s a fight for the bottom in terms of quality and a race to the top in regards to prices. The only thing that matters is profit above all else.
In this system, the rich control the “capitalism” and choose who the “rewards” go to. Profits go way up and CEO pay has increased 400% while the worker’s wages have remained the same. They’re doing stock buy backs and lining their own pockets while their employees need second jobs and food stamps to live.
You’re defending a system that constantly looks for new ways to fuck you over if it makes an extra penny. You need to reevaluate your whole schema
None of those workers are really grinding. They come from work and what do they do? They stuff their face with fast food and watch Netflix.
Why not read self help books, hit the gym, start a side hustle? With the savings from not paying for Netflix and eating avocado toast you can buy crypto! The grind is 24/7 my dude. I’m sorry but the majority of people are simply not ambitious enough. Those who rise early and work 24/7 on self betterment are rich. That’s the difference between a CEO and a teacher.
I don’t see how it’s trolling to point out that rich and successful people are just built different. They are superior so they should get more stuff.
Honestly all the haters and losers (sad!) should be lucky they’re not living in any other era of humanity. 500 years ago they’d be subsistence farmers but now they can order food through their phones.
If you have a local DSA chapter, you could give it a visit and see if it’s something you’d be into. They tend to have a good amount of genuinely nice friendly people, and they help people with mutual aid and other activities you may enjoy. Just an idea ^^
I think the idea is that while these are things you do anyway, you are rushed to complete them quickly, earlier in the morning than you would likely prefer, all for the benefit of someone else to profit off you (I.e, to be exploited).
I think someone that was in a co-op would not resent those things nearly as much, or at all, since all of that work and effort would be adequately rewarded.
I definitely would not wear a bra if I don’t need to go to the office. Hell, dressing and getting out of bed are also fairly optional, even if working from home and I don’t know anyone who commutes for the fun of it. Also I’d definitely take the full worth of my labor please.
It seems only sensible that someone would want to be paid the full value of their labor.
Yet, in so many of my conversations, someone gives a reasons to justify a share of the value being taken by executives and billionaires.
People are struggling to survive, but they act like their survival is less important than wealth being further accumulated by someone who already has enough wealth for countless lifetimes.
It’s less of a pain when the work you do is fun and interesting, but ironically when that’s the case you’re usually making even more money for someone else.
I dunno, working in construction contracting has taught me that time in man hours is the ultimate pricing value point, that everything can be boiled down to. Someone who gives up their time should reap the most benefits. Someone who owns a business and pays others to work should be heavily taxed.
Earning a bit more does help make it more palatable, but it still isn’t fair.
I think employees generally get such a raw deal that a fair deal would be refreshing and positive. However when you look at massively overpriced roles, eg consultants, they’d probably say it wasn’t fair to give them a fair deal.
I generally agree. However, I was curious whether you had any thoughts related more directly to one of the earlier comments, concerning how fairness, within the context of employment, might be evaluated.
Most people do not have the luxury of turning down a job offer, as the alternative is hunger and homelessness, which the employer uses as leverage to underpay their employee.
If housing and basic food staples were a human right (free) only then would you see fair wages in the open market, as people would have the option to turn down unfair jobs, forcing the employer to make them fair or hire no one.
I think the standard way of salary negotiations (labour supply and demand) is the only way to define fair salary. If this salary is not sufficient to make decent living, and if we want to correct for that, then it should be corrected by other means, such as UBI, out of compassion or other reasons, but not for fairness reasons.
Well, for one; Wages keeping up with inflation and productivity would go a long way to being more fair.
But I’m curious why you’re asking me what is fair, I already laid that out in my second paragraph in my previous comment. As I said, if the absolute basics to living were freely available, people would be free to reject unfair offers, and thus, in a theoretical ‘free market’ wages and benefits would increase to a truly fair and equal level.
So, your statement is that it is fair to guarantee the basic of living regardless of the person works or not. How do you respond to criticism that it is not fair to forcefully take money via taxes and spend them setting up standard of living for someone else?
How do you respond to criticism that it is not fair to forcefully take money via taxes and spend them setting up standard of living for someone else?
It wouldn’t be for someone else, it would be for everyone. Most people are okay with the idea of Universal Basic Income, because everyone gets it, even the rich, it’s fair.
Imagine applying that universal concept, but to food and shelter. It would not only help the most destitute, but also the innovators. Research has shown that people are more willing to risk becoming entrepreneurs in Canada due to healthcare not being tied to employment. Imagine if we took away the risk of homelessness and malnutrition from not working for someone else? Hundreds of thousands would now be in a beautiful position to start their own business with far less risk to their, or their families, well being.
I would also place emphasis on the Basic part of Basic Necessities. It would only be feasible to provide just the most economical basics, which would mean a small square footage dwelling (think large apartment blocks, cheap to build, but efficient to heat and maintain), running water, electricity (with a kwh power-limit per month, anything over that would cost money), internet since it’s a required utility in the modern age, and core/cheap but nutritious staple foods. We’re not talking luxury apartments and food here.
(Personally, I would argue Universal Basic Income is not viable within our current system, as that extra money would be quickly siphoned out of everyone’s pocket by increased rent and artificial price increases all around to capture this extra capital that would be floating around. It could only work if there were limits on rent and other basic necessities).
Being OK and being fair are different things. And I think significant amount of people, at least in US are against this, so, for them it would not be OK or fair. The reason I was bringing this up is to point on difficulty to define what fair is if it relies on things that are not fair to be implemented.
I mean, some people are against social security, welfare, and medicaid despite how significant of a difference they have made to reduce starvation, poverty, and medical induced bankruptcy for the disadvantaged. And no matter how much evidence is shown of those societal benefits, they would reject it because it does not align with their world view or is not in their immediate interest.
As complete 100% consensus is generally impossible to achieve, I would argue the thing that helps the most people is generally the most ethical choice, but that’s just my 2 cents.
Out of curiosity, how do you think those sorts of programs being implemented would be a net-negative for society as a whole?
I do not know if they will be net positive, it depends on metric the comparison is made with. I think on pure economic side it is not beneficial for GDP growth. Just take EU and compare it with US. I think the system in US is more fair and closer to true, fair value of labor.
But I think the fair world is a world without compassion and with huge separation between rich and poor. I think on ethical grounds we should make the world less fair, more equalized, despite of the fact that it reduces GDP growth, because there are other metrics possible, like human happiness and well being.
Our conversation started from me noticing that people in this discussion expecting that fair value for labor is higher than what is typically paid. And I think the reverse is true because there are things that artificially increase wages, like minimum wage in many states. So, “be careful what you wish for” kind of thing.
But I think the fair world is a world without compassion and with huge separation between rich and poor. I think on ethical grounds we should make the world less fair, more equalized, despite of the fact that it reduces GDP growth, because there are other metrics possible, like human happiness and well being.
I’m a bit confused by your definition of fair, to the point where I think that we hold the same precepts, but we may using different words for them. I would make the case that increasing ‘fairness’ is equivalent to making things more equalized. I would use both terms interchangeably.
In any deal, if one party has more leverage than the other, in principle it’s not a ‘fair’ deal, even if the disadvantaged party rationalizes that it could’ve been worse, or that the other party didn’t fully exploit the power of their advantage. In the context of labor, reducing the leverage that employers have over workers is evening out the playing field, which I would say is more fair.
To be clear, in an ideal world, neither party would have leverage over the other, and people would work for someone else or with each other only due to it being mutually beneficial in equal measure. In reality, things will never be that ‘perfect’, but I think it’s absolutely possible to remove the more egregious points of leverage.
The people using existing leverages will try to prevent that by removal kicking and screaming because they don’t want their advantages to be reduced, however they should try to be content with an equal power dynamic if they consider themselves at all moral. In all other areas of life humans have decried unjust imbalances of power, and I don’t see how labor relations would be subject to different rules than, say, competitive sports. We don’t stack the deck against one team or the other, we try to make it fair.
So when you say a fair world would is a world without compassion and even more division between rich and poor, I must ask, how are you defining the word fair?
Fair: without favoritism, cheating, impartial. A fair fight is when two people fighting without any help from anybody. Giving one guy extra boost (say, special gloves) because he is weaker is unfair, but more equal.
I think equality in freedom is fair. Equality in means is comparison and not fair, since you have to be partial and take money from the rich and give to the poor. It would be fair only if the rich actually stole from the poor against the law of the land, but if the rich earned himself (say, he is a successful lawyer) then equalization of means is not fair.
You make money for someone else in exchange for the safety of a consistent paycheck. Its like the old feudal system, in theory you are being protected in exchange for your labour.
Of course in practise you are at the mercy of the company, and in the feudal system the protection you were afforded meant you needed to pay for your own armour and fight to the death to protect your owner.
Eh, I’d argue that can make it more palatable, but honestly I do think, at least in most cases (I can think of outliers), it’s generally pretty exploitative to profit off of someone else’s labor that they themselves are not actually wanting to do themselves, especially if the threat of homelessness and hunger is the prime motivator for the person doing the work. Like, it’s not really fair in the grand scheme of things.
A simple way to fix that I guess would be if every company was a co-op. Since then everyone is profiting equally, and no one’s labor is being exploited for the exclusive benefit of another.
If you’re one of the lucky few sure. But then you’re kinda part of the problem. The vast, overwhelming majority of people on the planet work jobs they don’t really like just to keep a roof above their heads.
That’s the issue, not if someone else makes profit or not. If nobody makes profit from your work, but you still work job you really do not like just to keep roof above your head, then what’s the difference?
Why would someone need to work a degrading job simply to remain housed, other than because such impositions support the profit motive for landlords, lenders, and employers?
Why do you think it is because of that? Do you think the temp agriculture jobs, for example, would suddenly become having huge payments if farmers, who hires temp workers, have no profit? Please consider that farming is subsidized in US, because it is difficult to make profits there. Or do you think that cleaners who work in non-profit organizations have huge salaries and interesting job?
I doubt there could be much meaning found in the possibility that corporate farms “suddenly” would have no profits.
Corporate farms are structured around the profit motive, which is supported by the claim they assert for exclusive control over certain plots of the land, and for exclusive ownership of the products from using such land. For farm workers not to be exploited, they must stop upholding respect for such claims. Plainly, their lives would be vastly better in consequence, as the full value of their products would be distributed among themselves, with no share being taken from them by anyone else simply from a claim to private ownership.
yes but a factotum is a person who does general, menial jobs, and Bukowski was writing about his (assumed true) experience finding work after being rejected for thrww1 the WW2 draft. (EDIT: typo)
Well, if OP ever moves, the old slab could be broken up on site, the base moved, and a new slab cast at the destination. Or just hire the local high school football team at $20/jock/hour—four of them should be able to move it. 😅
I’m saying it’s not a gender specific issue, but I guess you’d rather play a victim. If you want experience from a men’s perspective, I have zero issue with emotional support when I’m talking to girls I can trust.
I’m saying the complete opposite of “be a man” that support is out there for men. Are you even attempting to read comments in good faith, or are you reading some completely different text that isn’t there?
So you disagree with the premise that men who reach out are told by society to be a man instead, and want to bring up women's problems instead of acknowledging the problem because you have 'girls you can trust'. To top it off you respond to someone pointing out your whataboutism by accusing someone of 'playing the victim'.
That is what I am responding to, you dismissing the issue while claiming that are aren't and doing the exact thing being discussed in your responses.
Alright I think this convo is done since you are clearly taking this in bad faith after I clarified multiple times that is nothing close to what I said. Find a strawman somewhere else to argue against.
I think that you are both wrong and right. Societal treatment of mental health issues is indeed quite poor regardless of gender. However, it is important to realize that there ARE differences that relate directly to one’s presenting gender.
Just as women are not taken seriously by health professionals, men are frequently treated as less-than by western culture at-large, if we show anything but chauvinistic bravado. This lack of care has had a profound impact on both young and old men who have any mental illness, leading to isolation, and becoming vulnerable to radicalization by those actively preying on them and using them as tools of violence or suicide.
It’s a real, gender-specific problem that is well-encapsulated in the proverb “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
I think you’re being a little disingenuous. The two conversations are not only both important, but they’re both closely related to each other. It’s impossible to talk about the mental well being of half the population without the other half coming up, since a lot of the problems and their solutions are the same.
It is very possible to focus on half the population being told to 'man up' and the gender specific meaning that phrase has since it does not apply to the other half. Just like we can focus on women being told to smile more without needing to drag men's vaguely related experiences into it.
I think it is getting better. I have a "Boys Get Sad Too" hoodie (recommend them wholeheartedly) and so far I have gotten only positive comments, even from people where you might not have expected it.
As a trans woman who grew up being taught boys don’t cry, it’s taken me the better part of 6 years to learn how to connect with my emotions healthily. I’m so sorry that society treats y’all like this. 💜
I basically had suppressed my emotions my whole life. Since puberty I could count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times I legit cried before transition and it was usually something like death of a pet or family member.
Some of thst was from running on the wrong hormones, but plenty of cis men are able feel emotional on T. A lot was being scared of showing I had emotion.
I've faired better as I'm not 2 years into transition and already feel like a different person.
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