cross-posted from: https://wolfballs.com/post/9801
The antiwork subreddit had some spinoffs, but they're looking leftist and to me like they'll not get anywhere as frequently I see people say that anyone right-wing is anti-worker, etc.
Doubt that's true, so what would a right-wing take on anti-work or work reform look like? What kind of goals or ideas do other people have?
Ironically a lot of people on the right kind of have anti-work goals of retiring and not having to work but only after having worked - is FIRE (Financial Indepedence / Retire Early) a better anti-work goal?
Ideas on how to improve workplaces?
To me also starting and promoting good small businesses, nonprofits, and other projects (like this forum) are good "pro work" practical initatives.
Any thought on conservative / independent equivalent of "anti-work"?
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
A left wing labor lawyer I listened to made a great set of points. A lot of what the establishment left screams for is specifically opposed to workers.
Open borders are great for driving down wages, reducing unionization, reducing benefits. Why do you think megacorps push for them? Fewer workers means companies have to compete with each other.
Woke regression is intentionally designed to divide people and to divide workers. Instead of being brothers and sisters doing a job together, you're intersectionally divided into a thousand microfactions. People are so busy fighting each other that they can't possibly band together to push for better working conditions.
Welfare in some ways is used by megacorps in a bitchy way -- the middle class pays taxes so low class workers can get underpaid jobs at Walmart then get topped up by welfare. I'm a roundabout way it's a wealth redistribution from the middle class to the wealthy, just like all the central bank bailouts the biggest companies can use while small businesses have to fold.
Reducing the size of government in general at this point is mandatory no matter what. Right now it's picking winners and losers almost exclusively, and it's using our money to do it. You can't get ahead while fat cats in Washington are deciding that amazon is a more deserving company to exist. Washington shouldn't choose what companies should exist. Even if you don't agree, the us federal debt is 30T, and interest rates are about to rise in response to inflation. It might already be too late, we might just all work for banks now because we've irresponsibly accepted government services without paying for them.
I've advocated for effectively eliminating corporations, forcing businesses to be extensions of a person whose personal fortune will be up for grabs if the company does anything dodgy. The way corps are humans for the purpose of getting rights but not for the purpose of responsibility and punishment is morally wrong.
Thing is, what's good for individuals or small businesses is bad for the mythical "The Economy" macroeconomic indicators and "too big to fail" businesses. Which is why they try to convince us we need to do what they want. What's best for them isn't best for anyone else. We've had 80 years to prove it.
squashkin@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
yeah I was going to make a post on this, been reading some antiwork and workreform and it's interesting to see their opposite viewpoint, they argue that conservatives vote against workers' interests... except that then the capitalists post that standards of living have gone up consistently in countries with more free market policies (which conservatives support, or at least do in theory).
a lot of posts on there are also saying that conservatives cannot be allies for work reform... which is a strange way of them inviting hostility to the achievement of progress for workers, since that's a good portion of the country that isn't part of their leftist groupthink, and will then oppose them or not be united with them.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I think it's stupid to shut off our brains just because ideas come from a place we don't like, but it's much stupider to assume that ideas are good just because they come from a place you like.
If you get a bunch of malicious smart people together, those smart people can make whatever position you have work for them. You can find a right-wing way to screw workers, or a left-wing way to screw workers. You can also find a right-wing way to support and empower workers, or a left-wing way to support and empower workers. There's good and bad in both sets of ideas, and there's blind spots each set of ideas have that can be exploited, and are exploited routinely by people in power.
I've worked a bunch of places and it was obvious. The union place would have every dickhead who wants to get something framing what he wants in terms of the union, but the same sort of people in a workplace without a union with a dick or a manager would have every dickhead who wants to get something framing what he wants in terms of that dickhead manager. The place with a strong safety culture had every dickhead who wants something framing what he wants in terms of safety.
mayonesa@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Most of what makes jobs odious comes from Leftist "reforms."