Billionaires the original welfare queens.
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.
Seems like you’re describing anarchism, not communism. Go have a read, it’s an interesting field.
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!
I wasn’t playing a game, though. I was speaking in all earnestness. Peace.
If the only way to defend communism is by claiming that no country has ever done communism correctly, then that’s a problem. You can’t point to a single successful communist country because there aren’t any.
China became far more successful since it abandoned communism for its own flavor of capitalism. Private ownership in China has led to a massive improvement in quality of life for most Chinese residents, and more opportunities for success than ever before.
Meanwhile, most complaints about capitalism have almost nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with laws and regulations or human greed (which is the worst part of any system).
That’s not what I said. Try again.
Reminder that some unions have merch you can buy to help support their workers during strikes. This one doesn’t, unfortunately. But always check. I have some damn cool looking tshirts for other labor movements (Rail, Starbucks, Truck haulers, etc).
You can sign their petition here:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/big-3-ceo-petition-1?source=standwithuspage
I work at the corporate headquarters of a company that provides contract services to industrial plants. Not related to the car industry, but I literally just had a meeting today with some folks from HR to add a way to our central system to track what plants our employees have unionized at. The general tone was “oh crap we have union workers now, how do we not accidentally break the law because we’re quickly seeing more and more of our workforce unionize”
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Fuck yea, love to see militant labor fighting for what they need
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.
China is about to find out as well, they have something like a 30% new-grad unemployment rate, and Pooh Bear is on a bootstraps kick saying that social protections encourage laziness.
They’re on even thinner ice than the US.
I mean we all know what “didn’t” happen last time students got together in protest. Whatever became of the Hong Kong protest btw?
This is a good question. Last time I brought this up on Lemmy, someone said they were better off under the CCP than British rule. 🤔
They are in the economic industrial boom that already happened to western countries decades ago. The problem is that eventually all booms end
That is just buying into accepting the current model where the rich can have it all at the expense of the poor. The model is the problem not the amount we have to distribute.
Apparently these billionaires vote & elect the folks who want to arm all of these workers you speak of. Sound logic if you ask me
Well nothing has happened, what is being asked of them is less than what they’ve taken. Worse case scenario is they give back some of the stolen goods.
But this is the same as a fine for breaking the law, they made more than they lost as a result so this is all factored in.
Holy based, I didn’t know there were any unions with a backbone left in America
The UAW has always been pushing for Americans as a whole. Hats off to them.
Yeah, but Fain is the first democratically elected UAW leader (prior leadership was chosen by delegations and was fraught with racketeering and embezzlement) and it shows.
✊
Wasn’t it that same episode where Rom basically says word for word that he doesn’t support unions because one day he might own Quark’s bar and then he’ll be able to oppress people too? What a great show, some people dislike the ferengi episodes but they’re some of my favorites in the series.
Who could dislike the Ferengi episodes??
People with the same mindset as Ferengi and who don’t like to be called out for their shit.
Ikr? Some people hate 'em. They’re really goofy and cartoonish so I guess I get it. Profit and Lace is pretty tough to watch. The Magnificent Ferengi is my personal favorite (Iggy Pop guest stars too, what a treat!) And I quote the Rules of Acquisition in real life somewhat regularly, heh
The first couple episodes Rom is a real dick pushing the shit downhill onto Nog but once he goes from basic greedy goblin to engineer savant the dynamic is great
Yeah the Ferengi were cartoonish evil space goblins at first and weren’t very well received. They worked much better as comic relief when the writers toned them down.
Quark is also a great foil to the stiff backed Federation ideals that Sisko is always preaching. It’s nice to see life on the station outside of the rules of Starfleet, and the Ferengi episodes became some of my favorites cause it’s heartwarming in a way to see them try so hard, especially Nog. Toss up between Quarks and Ten Forward
No contest, Ten Forward doesn’t have a Dabo table 🤣
Stop! BRUNT FCA!
I’d watch Wallace Shawn read a newspaper.
They’re the best.
🖖
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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.
Building a super yacht means that dozens or hundreds of people work for the benefit of one person. As craftsmen, they could have improved the lives of tens of thousands in their community instead. As engineers, they could have built products serving millions.
Not to mention the natural resources used for one person’s benefit.
There’s nothing positive about super yachts (and mansions, private jets,…) being built. Don’t let the flow of money confuse you.
And here’s another aspect: all those craftsmen are taxed at a higher rate to cover for the losses incurred by tax cuts on the wealthy who hire them…literally working to pay someone else’s taxes. Rush Limbaugh kept selling this as “job creation”: if the rich get tax cuts “they’ll buy a private jet and someone has to wash it!” So the jet washer gets no security in a gig economy and has to pay his clients’ taxes.
the problem is actually how the rich keep buying the houses and making the prices increase for inorganic reason making people who really needs house cant afford it while at the same time the rich keep the house they bought empty
To be clear my comment was intended purely as satire. I definitely don’t view the construction of yachts as positive in any way.
Building a super yacht means that dozens or hundreds of people work for the benefit of one person.
And then they take the money they earn and they buy shit, directly helping other people
Nah, directly helping other ppl would be the person who bought the yacht instead spends their money on things that enrich their community/society/their workers.
This is actually an example in The Wealth of Nations; Adam Smith considers whether a hooligan smashing a window is a benefit to society because it creates work for the glazier.
Smith concluded that no, it isn’t a net benefit because the glazier could have made a new window instead.
However, given that megayachts are net negative to society, I’m not sure how he’d view this case.
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The argument is sloppy.
The working class makes gains when our work helps us as a class, not when we are forced to serve.
If the wealthy are able to support the creation of wasteful luxuries for their own vanity, then they must be able to support activities that help the working class.
The difference is that the latter may require some encouragement.
My comment was satire. Stop arguing with the wind.
Many comments being posted are intended as satirical, but the actual apologia resembles satire so much that I think the intentional satire is rather creating confusion above all else.
Creating confusion for you maybe. Nobody else took my comment that seriously.
I said “shooting holes in a water tower to make trickle-down economics work” as a reply to someone making an obvious quip. IDK if you’ve just never been around leftist discussions, but joking about how fucked trickle-down economics is isn’t an endorsement of building megayachts that wreck the environment and provide no good to society.
Stop being intentionally obtuse, or just don’t blame others for your inability to read between the lines.
EDIT to add: I also explicitly stated it was satire in response to the only other comment that replied to mine taking it seriously. But even their comment just seemed more like a clarification for anyone else reading, not someone actually taking my comment seriously.
Creating confusion for you maybe. Nobody else took my comment that seriously.
The general view is one I have reached after reading hundreds of threads or more.
So then why reply to my comment with a hostile argument when there was already a thread in reply to mine which cleared up any possible confusion?
You can’t read satire, got confused and replied without spending the time to even read the other reply saying the same shit you said.
And you wanna blame satire for creating confusion.
If u smell shit everywhere you go, check ur own shoe bud.
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.
You’re an idiot if you thinks fucking safe holds any real amount of money, or that one South African semi-rich person counts as any sort of evidence.
Cash depreciates over time. No rich person keeps a ton of cash, because it means they get less rich every day.
Poor people live paycheck to paycheck, 1 disaster away from bankruptcy and absolute poverty. What the actual fuck are you taking about??
Yes, and a big part of that is that rather than get bank accounts, savings accounts, and any sort of money discipline, they fly blind and end up turning to terrible shit like payday loans.
See, one of us has actually worked to help change the spending habits of low-income people and the other person gets their information from memes.
Source- trust me bro!
That’s a pretty cool story you’ve got going on in your head there lol. You’re a fucking 🤡
Thanks for driving my point home about your memes-based-worldview.
But if you want a source, because you can’t Google basic facts, then sure
https://www.gao.gov/blog/more-7-million-u.-s.-households-have-no-bank-account.-why
7 million out of 39 million living in poverty don’t have bank accounts. Lol, that’s your proof for your argument. And that’s not including the working poor. Wow, I don’t know what’s scarier- the fact that you think this is proof that the PoOr aRe CoNdItiOned tO noT uSe bAnKs- If OnlY thEy’D oPen Savinzgs AcCoUnts, or that you think that you “got me” with that stat. Fucking 🤡
Underbanking is a problem, and so is underinvesting. Both are caused by profit motives because investors rather put in pay day loan services instead of grocery stores in historical redlined districts🤷
But sure, blame the habits of poor people.
Yeah, all those poor folks literally sleeping on cash under their mattresses because they don’t have to spend it immediately on things like, you know… staying alive.
Tell me you don’t actually know any poor people without telling me you don’t actually know any poor people.
Lol. Sure sure. Apparently I’ve been living poor incorrectly by immediately spending my money on things like food, shelter and childcare instead of hoarding it like some kind of Scrooge McDuck wannabe.
You think poor people have money they don’t need to spend, so they just keep it stashed away in a shoebox or something? How out of touch are you?
This is an endemic problem with poor people, actually, because poor people are often conditioned not to “trust” banks.
You’d know that, if you knew them.
You must be right. I’ve never lived in and among poverty. Thank you for explaining my life to me. Is there anything else I didn’t actually experience?
Yeah, cause poor people and low income people are so much more rare to encounter during a day, then a millionaire/billionaire or people in top 5%… /S
Almost the entirety of any rich person’s wealth is invested, because rich people generally pay smart people to handle their money.
Damn, maybe poor people should just hire a full-time broker and give them the $20 they can spare this month and let that smart person invest it so they’re not poor anymore 🤓
Being poor in the US is a literal trap. It is intentional. It is exploitation. The lack of financial education isn’t the fault of poor people who grew up going to schools that could barely afford to run, and/or went to school hungry.
And once you’re poor, it can be extremely difficult to escape, bc the system is designed to punish poor ppl. Poor ppl sit on cash bc if it’s in a bank the money they need for food might get taken away bc of some bullshit overdraft fee or similar. I know bc I’ve been poor and know poor ppl.
Poor people aren’t poor because they don’t invest wisely enough. They’re poor bc the system is designed in so many ways to keep it that way.
Also rICh pEoPle dOnT Sit ON tHeiR MoNey ThEY iNvEsT it
Yeah, putting billions of dollars into stocks and letting it sit there is still hoarding wealth. Call it “investing 🤓” or whatever. It’s still hoarding, it’s still immoral and detestable.
You sound like you’re 17 and just started listening to Fox Business for financial advice.
You’re kidding right?
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The yachts are probably insured
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Just because they don’t literally have millions sitting in a checking account doesn’t mean they can’t liquidate some of their investments and get it in short order.
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Better yet, train orcas to attack yachts!
Buddy, youre not gonna believe this…
Gibraltar Orcas: “Way ahead of you there buddy”
Do a new Boston Tea Party except this time we launch barrels of tea at yachts.
I need a couple of their yachts to drag over some sturdy icebergs. Re-enact a much more expensive Titanic.
Thanks to them you’ll be hard pressed to find any sturdy icebergs anymore.
Protecting their yachts was their plan all along!
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).
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
I’m happy to see this transcription “service” here on Lemmy. Thank YOU!
Thank you! Hopefully I will one day have most people doing it themselves so I have less to do.
You are my favorite person today.
Thank you!
That’s red hot commie stuff right there. I like it :)
There is nothing communist about that. He’s not advocating abolishing private ownership. Businesses and workers both operate in the free market, which allows workers to advocate for their position in the market.
The free market doesn’t exist in a communist economy. Communism uses a planned economy, so the government strongly regulates both businesses and workers. This eliminates workers’ leverage over employers.
There is nothing communist about that.
Seeking a new economy, based on the challenge that the current one serves the owning class, is the very essence of the communist movement.
He’s not advocating abolishing private ownership.
Billionaires are the owners, and they are being challenged, as well as the system that serves them.
Businesses and workers both operate in the free market, which allows workers to advocate for their position in the market.
No. Markets confer freedom only to those who enter them already having the more advantageous position.
The free market doesn’t exist in a communist economy.
You previously gave an accurate definition of communism. Markets are not specifically or fundamentally rejected by communism, even though many would wish to see their eventual abolition.
Communism uses a planned economy, so the government strongly regulates both businesses and workers.
Communism seeks direct control of the economy by workers.
This eliminates workers’ leverage over employers.
Workers have no leverage over employers, because employers already own everything. Workers have only the power to withhold their labor, though doing so carries great risk.
Isn’t that what they want you to think? Throwing around words like communist and making it seem like a bad thing to share wealth?
Exactly. Unions exist in Liberal and Social Democracies, too. They want to keep us on this Neoliberal path, because it’s so very exploitable. Unions are just a drop of democracy, but for your workplace, or sometimes renting and transit systems.
I like this Shawn. I really do. He’s saying the words and doing the actions. Go Shawn! Go!
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like him.
Workers of the world, unite!
Why not? Megacorps and billionaires wreck the economy all the time, and exploit it for their favor.
Why not let the poor and worker class wreck it for once.
Set the whole goddamn thing on fire, and throw the rich into it.
Fucking legend. Hats off to him and the UAW
That is something I wonder about. Inflation makes the poor poorer but when asked, economists are like “trust us, inflation is good”.
A small amount is good. Deflation makes it so not spending money is more beneficial. The longer you wait to spend the more the money is worth. This causes fewer products and services to be purchased, which pays for wages. Inflation makes the opposite true. The longer you wait to spend your money the less it’s worth. It encourages spending, not saving. Inflation that outstrips increases to pay is obviously very bad though.
Inflation reduces the value of money at the bank: the money saved as well as the money borrowed.
In an ideal world, wages are indexed on inflation (way of calculating inflation in this context can be discussed), and inflation is kept above present targets levels (central banks try to keep it at 2% these days).
That makes your debts easier to reimburse, and limits returns on savings. Have you ever noticed that people who keep talking about the “value of work” actually push for low wages and no or low taxes on capital gains, so actually wants the capital to make more money than work?
A low inflation allows big money to hoard more and more. Higher inflation means money that’s not actively contributing to the economy will lose its value over time, and that’s exactly what you, at the bottom of the ladder, want (and considering top of the ladder is hundreds of billions of $, ever 6 figures employees are bottom of the ladder).
Too high inflation leads to an uncontrolled spiral. Deflation is also very bad (no investment will ever happen if your money just appreciate by doing nothing). But the 2% target is not to protect you. It’s made for money to make more money.
But about the link between wages and inflation: what we have today is a situation where we let cost of life dramatically outpace wage growth. So where did the inflation come from? Profits! That needs to be rebalanced.
From 1945 to the early 80’s (before the €), France and some other countries minmum wages were indexed on inflation. If doing so would instantly crash an economy, we would have noticed…
