Years upon years of pro-capitalist propaganda is a helluva drug.
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
I luckily don’t hear that much. I mostly hear fellow wage slaves making barely enough to slowly die repeat bullshit news headlines like “no one wants to work anymore” all the while working harder and harder for less and less. It’s incredibly depressing.
When I worked at DGX, basically EVERY customer said this in response to seeing me being the only one behind the counter…
No… No, this store just has shit pay, forces EMPLOYEES to pay for parking, and is willing to fire people at the drop of a hat.
Unregulated lobbied capitalism. I’m okay with capitalism and competing ideas. What I’m not okay with is some of the late stage problems we’ve encountered as a society. Assuming the US average person lives to be a very low of 50, we are four generations deep. Ive known two generations in my own lineage. That’s not very long.
It’s okay to make better systems. Even for billionaires its okay because a rising tide floats all the boats. This is something that needs to be taught better to the upper class. If these guys had less complaining workers, people willing to contribute more so in their enterprises, workers who are happy to make their products, it would be fine. Putting the squeeze on the little guy does nothing for these dudes besides some tight margins.
Coupled with a very elderly legislative body we are left with senseless greed in both trade and politics. Portions of the population just consume politics like it’s a sitcom. What we’re left with is a system in need of refinement.
If these guys had less complaining workers, people willing to contribute more so in their enterprises, workers who are happy to make their products, it would be fine.
I am not sure that would work. Happy people start to get self-aware and then start to make demands. People who are suffering one way or another are easier to control.
Look for example at how people behave after a war. They work together, build stuff together, do everything to manifest peace. Look at how they behave a few decades later … it has fallen back to in-fighting. Once everything is in order again, people fight among each other. Neighbors fight for shit like wrongly places trees, some build gangs and move around to destroy stuff just for fun, etc.
Humans are shit. We are just not made for being happy.
I don’t know man I just work here
I have the perfect plan. We hook all children up to a lifelike VR war simulation shortly after being born. Then when they reach a certain age we pull them out of it so they’ll behave cooperatively.
Well, if we believe the great prophets Wachowski in their prophetic depiction called “The Matrix”: the people in that simulation would just go crazy and die.
“Maybe one day I’ll join the Multi-Billionaire Club! 🤓”
Ah yes, “memes”
Where is my meme status quo flavored.
Look out, plebs! Those foreign lads are going to steal your crumbs.
We need more general knowledge.
I think prefer my memes to be generally funny, instead of angry and political
Simple, under this system the more desperate folks undercut him. They don’t see the rules of the game are what is causing that. They couldn’t imagine a system under other rules, except for Stalinist nightmares. So crushing the people who undermine them is the only option they can imagine (and have been lead to believe by the preachers of hate)
You mean blame it on illegal migrants working without paying “their share” in taxes like everyone else?
Dude… the communists on Lemmy are hilarious!
Except your logic falls apart pretty quickly.
You are choosing to blame people who are getting exploited. Either firstly they are being hired under the table to do this work under the market rate. Wouldn’t this be the fault of the employer then. They are hiring such workers who are also not paying “their share”. Conservatives are so quick to point at illegal immigrants as the problem but rarely the people who you know actually pay them to make living in this country possible for them.
Now what if they were stealing someone’s identity to work a normal job? Its not right but identity theft is a large problem because we Americans for some fucking reason refuse to establish a national ID system. Where there are safeguards and ways to fix this but nah we are stuck with Social security numbers, which were designed merely for Social security for those above the age of 65 to claim their benefits but then it was misused by the IRS (which can we seen as fair since its a public entity in government) but then it was then abused by private organizations like banks and employers. Side tangent over, if an illegal immigrant did this they would then be paying “their share” of taxes. So your complaint is a nothing burger.
If we had an illegal immigration problem it is because there is a clear market for people who provide for them and it ain’t only the democrats. Republican’s Corpo rights focus is all about this and letting corps do whatever the fuck they want to do but focus on the suffering of others is their promise to their dimwitted voters (who vote primarily for abortion bans and immigration problems).
Yes let’s blame this on the illegal migrants instead of the businesses that create the problem. Easier to hate illegals than the “financially smart” business owner that’s fucking you over and breaking the law, amirite guys?
Both… Both is good?
I get that argument on paper but I think it’s more of the government’s doing. Hear me out first, we could live off the grid, build our own house, our own farms, never work for a job, but the government stops us, they are the weapons of the banks and rich who enforce authority.
They gave the housing market and land to the banks. I understand many blame minorities for taking our jobs, when in reality, capitalists just hire whoever works for cheaper, and yes, that’s true. But if wasn’t for government regulations, more jobs could exist for everyone, or you could live off the grid.
I like to cite how many despise healthcare being tied to your job, but government involvement caused that in the first place.
We live under corporatism/fascism. Yes, the rich run everything, but they have the government be the ones to control us. You must first get through the pawns if you want the king.
You think it’s building codes keeping people in poverty??
Let’s try to elaborate more.
We live under corporatism where the rich have bought out everything. The banks own the land. Big Pharma runs the medical industry. And the military industrial complex runs NATO and such. We call this money lobbying.
It doesn’t just affect politicians, even agencies and armies. The FDA and CDC for instance are owned by big pharma. Big pharma lobbies to these agencies to create more regulations, yet, these regulations the agencies make never seem to hurt the big guy, only the smaller companies starting up. They want to kill the competition. That’s why medicine and insulin can be so expensive.
Banks like JP Morgan financed the war on terror. We came into the middle east to help their people rebuild, instead, we expanded JP Morgans banks, and drew out the war to finance them better, among many other terrible things.
There could be tons of jobs right now, but people lobby to have regulations crush the smaller guys so few monopolies have power. The government enables the rich.
So, when someone is in poverty, let’s ask why from every angle possible. Why can’t they have a house? Credit scores, banks owning everything, and blackrock eating up the housing market. Why can’t they get a job? Not enough jobs available. Why can’t they find food and temporary place to stay? Inflation, which is the silent tax making food more scarce, and no one wanting to give the poor a place to stay and help them get off their feet and become independent.
When you see all of these things, you realize that the powers that be don’t want us to be self sufficient and independent from them. I don’t see it as just “housing codes.” More as government control. Think of the banks as the king, and the government as it’s military.
Yes, I understand oligarchy and also corporate capture. Those things are bad.
What does that have to do with friends and neighbors blaming minorities?
I’ve talked with socialists before. They had interesting reasons to justify socialism. They talk about how minorities come over the boarder and steal jobs, but claim that it’s because the rich hires who works for cheaper, that’s why this happens as minorities will work for cheaper. At first, I thought it was an unbeatable argument. But, if it wasn’t for such government regulations, more jobs and competition would be available for these people. And if things didn’t work out for people, they should just be able to homestead like what people once did.
Some socialists believe that late capitalism has caused our recessions. They see value in work, but not the dollar. My argument is that if it wasn’t for the FED causing inflation, things wouldn’t be so bad. Woodrow Wilson created a centralized bank, worse thing possible. And we had presidents ban the gold standard to top it all off, that’s why money feels useless. If it was a finite currency (like bitcoin aims to be) then I see great value in it.
Honesty, I’d consider myself to be libertarian at the level of federal government. But less libertarian and more constitutionalist the closer to home it gets. I don’t necessarily support government, but definitely governance if so to speak.
People like Ted K were definitely smart. He believed we should go back to the Neolithic era in the sense where we have our small local communities with direct democracy. In terms of freedom, and maybe happiness, that’s the best option.
Do billionaires and millionaires count? What? Do we call them rhe financially unchallenged? /s