Amen.
You can’t keep slaves anymore, but you can own a company and pay your workers an amount that makes it hard for them to pay for basic necessities so they don’t have time for leisure, or organising unions, or finding other jobs.
Slavery was abolished, so the rich are now trying to make economic oppression the equivalent of slavery.
Submitted 1 year ago by eee@lemm.ee to workreform@lemmy.world
https://i.imgur.com/0t0f9XH.png
Comments
dystop@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Maeve@kbin.social 1 year ago
Frighteningly few have health care with full employment, sometimes it’s not offered, when it is, it’s still not budgetable.
solivine@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
That’s exactly what it is, then I’ve had people laugh at me when I compare it to slavery.
Maeve@kbin.social 1 year ago
It’s called wage slavery and you can use that information to educate, if any will listen.
MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They should just start their own business then and stop being a bunch of lazy complainers
Carighan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I wish one of the bigger industrial countries had the balls to curb the state-like influence of billionaires, by flat out capping the amount of wealth they get to wield. It’s not even that people should not be allowed to be “rich”. But “rich” should mean owning 1-50 millions or so. Not billions.
Amilo159@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You should try visiting Scandinavian countries. While being ultra rich isn’t disallowed, it’s so heavily taxed that ultra rich end up providing more for the welfare than any other group.
… that is until they move out to Switzerland.
Maeve@kbin.social 1 year ago
My buddy is in Switzerland doing his phD. He says col there is hella expensive. Do they have a tiny tax rate?
Username02@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh no Switzerland is in shamble 😰
RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
If we’re not going to abolish money, it should really be entirely illegal for the highest paid person in a company to make more than, say, 15-20 times more than the lowest paid person.
kool_newt@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Reliance on the state to make things right is the fatal flaw. The purpose of the state is not to make our life better, it is to protect the powerful from us.
gowan@reddthat.com 1 year ago
Japan does this. They get around it with bonuses.
KIM_JONG@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lol 1 million doesn’t even buy a house where I live.
MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Rather than worrying about trying to tax 1 person heaps (they will dodge it anyway)
Why not put in place improved worker protection and pay laws.
Higher minimum wage - say equal to the bottom quartile median house price in the area, mandatory health care even for the lowest paid employees, absolutely no overtime.
They can dodge this by moving manufacturing overseas… But they already did this.
gowan@reddthat.com 1 year ago
Take a minute or two to look into how poorly wealth caps work. There’s a reason why no nation has them.
Cagi@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
[deleted]gowan@reddthat.com 1 year ago
Educated in history here (history should have no bias), while there are a greater number of slaves today they represent a smaller portion of the population than during the 1800s. In addition modern slavery is not the same as chattel slavery which is infinitely worse given that it denies the slave’s existence as a human being. Im not saying slavery is OK Im just saying your claims aren’t entirely accurate.
tst123@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This comment somehow did not make me feel any better.
hark@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Automation means that proportionally fewer slaves can provide more. That “denies the slave’s existence as a human being” bit is rather vague. Are you saying modern slavery is not denying the slave’s existence as a human being? What does that mean?
Canis_76@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Trying? Abolished? Sigh. Words. Slavery never left. Put all the pretty paint you want on those bars. It’s the change of perspective that comes with wisdom. Use that power well.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 1 year ago
13th amendment anyone? Even as it “abolished” slavery. It literally codified and enshrined it in the US constitution for the first time.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
This has always been the case. Look at immigrant exploitation, the truck system, sharecropping, child labor, exporting work to undeveloped countries to exploit unregulated labor forces there.
It was always about bringing back slavery without calling it slavery.
And it will always be so long as we let them keep trying.
Violence is not the answer until the hour that it is.
ilikekeyboards@lemmy.world 1 year ago
These kind of conversations will get to the attention of a 3 letter agency. Our just social stances will get lemmy raided.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I half wish it did. Within the far-right sectors of the social mediaverse, calls for murder or desires to engage in pogroms are commonplace, and are typical in the social media histories of rampage killers in the weeks leading up to their respective incidents. It’s conspicuous how often their rage-filled comments discussing violence have failed to trigger an investigation to see if that there fellow needs to be watched for a while.
In my case, I’m not going to engage in violence. At very least, I’m not fit for service in mischief or sabotage. My own next step is to do some research on mutual aid organizations which can serve to support protestors and, if necessary, saboteurs and other makers of mischief.
My comment is a reminder to myself that yes, violence eventually does end up on the table, as happened with Iran when the Mahsa Amini protests were responded to violently by Iranian law enforcement, which is when the banners were swapped for molotov cocktails, and state offices were burned to the ground.
In our case, we know the public will not gain rights until we make it disadvantageous to our governing officials to not do so. And as we’re seeing, they’re glad to take those rights away once they believe the threat has subsided. This is the justification for The Terror in France: while The Terror itself ended with Robespierre, the guillotines came out and aristocratic heads were piled high multiple times in the following century when kings had a propensity for rolling back established constitutional rights.
So long as we’re not going to tear the establishment down to distribute power more sparsely, we’re going to need some way to hurt officials who fail to defend the public interest from their donors, maybe so hard that it hurts the donors. How to do this is well beyond my pay grade, but without such capacity the transnational white power movement is going to continue advancing, and we can expect the US Supreme Court to keep stripping away our rights.
Yepthatsme@kbin.social 1 year ago
Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.
Nothing divine or important about that.
So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.
Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lets finally change it. Lets just get up and act, fuck it. I don’t want to play the game anymore.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They’ve lured us in with the promise of overtime to get us to work for them more, while keeping our wages artificially low so we have to work overtime.
SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Amazon workers with their forced over time go unheard.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is actually a way better and more efficient form of slavery. You need to feed, clothe, house, and medically treat slaves. WAY cheaper to pay minimum wage and tell them to fuck off.
LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
You could pull yourself out of this misery by your own bootstraps. I sell those for only $20. It’s not a set though. And they rip easily, better buy some more.
You can work for it, I’ll give you one strap per week.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Humans get powerful and don’t see the point in power unless they can abuse people
_haha_oh_wow_@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What’s this “trying to” bullshit? The for profit prison system and a legal system that punishes people for being poor would suggest they have already succeeded.
cloud@lazysoci.al 1 year ago
Screenshot from a xitter post seriously? Ban this shit from this sub if you want to achieve anything at all
Armand1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You guys don’t have a 40 hour work week?
Is this an American thing or a certain industries thing?
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Some industries (like mine) have mandatory overtime, but workers are absolutely compensated for that overtime.
The UAW is one of the most powerful unions in the US, so I’m not sure exactly where this post is coming from (as in, what specifically they think they are chasing via union action), but from the context of other news it sounds like they’re wanting similar comp without mandatory overtime in their industry.
Armand1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was not aware that mandatory overtime was a thing.
Seems kind of shit. Means that there is potentially no limit for how many hours they could make you work, and it’s obviously not healthy.
I’ve worked in a company that allowed overtime before but it was all optional. They would be like “is anyone willing to work this holiday?”. Depending on how low demand was, you could be paid up to double as much on those days.
Wilshire@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There are some exemptions, mostly for salaried workers.
Armand1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Am I reading right that they can pay you half pay for overtime, or do they mean that overtime is minimum 150% regular pay?
Yepthatsme@kbin.social 1 year ago
Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.
Nothing divine or important about that.
So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.
Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.
Gsus4@feddit.nl 1 year ago
With enough inequality and without a strong social net, wage labour is equivalent to slavery. They cover the minimum costs of your survival and you spend as much time working as they ask or else they’ll find someone more desperate.
onionbaggage@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
Ironically posted on Ex Twitter.
MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Really, we should be advancing beyond the 40 hour work week and into a 50, or even 60 hour work week.
PrettyBlackDress@lemdit.com 1 year ago
LaoisheFu@lemmy.world 1 year ago
‘trying to make’ ‘have made’
zeppo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yep, all of this “inflation” and “rising cost of housing” bullshit is essentially wealthy people turning the screws. They know regular people can barely make this work, and they love that.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m traveling in Europe right now and the prices everywhere are so reasonable it really pisses me off. Inflation my ass, I’m convinced it’s just American corps squeezing us for everything we got.
gowan@reddthat.com 1 year ago
Where in Europe and what items?