this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Money might not buy happiness, but it sure as hell solves a lot of problems that make people unhappy.
The question is whether someone has "enough" money. Until you can live comfortably, more money DOES buy more happiness. Once someone can comfortably live and engage with interests, more money doesn't buy more happiness.
When someone says, "money doesn't buy happiness." what they're actually saying is they have enough money and they do not understand how poverty works.
A billionaire doesn't buy billion times as much clothes or food more than a comfortable middle class person.
They buy sweatshops and meat packing plants.
Try not to nitpick the difference.
Money solve a lot of problems we aren't trying to solve (as society) collectively.
Well, as a society we could solve the problem with money. We're all too happy to print more money for people who already have lots of it, why not do so for people who don't?
Because overtime, ppl that already have a lot will get all the money from the poor again cause they can make money from our necessities. Is necessary to give money to the poor in the short therm, but it does not fix the issue.
Sure, but if we're constantly shuffling the deck, then won't more people get opportunity to be successful?
People blame a lot of problems on capitalism (or communism, or whatever), but really these are just neutral systems. The problem is people.
People are irrational and selfish. Once their core needs are met, their desire to want things becomes overriding - but they treat it like a need. We need to win, otherwise we feel bad and feel worthless, even if we're doing pretty ok objectively. Capitalism allows people to pursue these wins, but it doesn't do enough to curtail people after they win what they need, and then make them work harder for the things they want.
With capitalism, the big con is value exchange. You want to pay as little as possible, or at its core put in as little effort as possible, but at the same time you want to sell your output for as much as possible. So, in order to game the system, people lie about value. An employer pays their workers a pittance, but then sells their output as a luxury. A trader haggles down the sale price of what they buy, then inflates the price of what they sell. The price is never actually truly representative of work (which can ultimately be defined in time, ie 'man hours) but instead is controlled by what the buyer is willing to pay.
These systems aren't inherently wrong, they just assume that people will always play by certain rules. They don't account for people figuring out the rules and trying to beat them.
If the system resets every so often then this can help mitigate people gaming the system. It won't stop people from playing the game, but it will give new players a chance, while incumbants have to stop dragging their feet.
Systems function vastly differently. Social structure directs values, opportunities, and relationships. Denying the differences of systems, and asserting human behavior as inflexible and prescribed, is simply obstructing meaningful possibilities for change.
That's not what I've said, at all. I didn't say any system wasn't different, I just said that none of them have addressed the real problem. Also, I in no way said that human behaviour is inflexible and prescribed; the point I'm making is that people are flexible, and that these systems do not adequately account for that ingenuity when it is applied maliciously.
If anything, you are implying that human behaviour is prescribed here. I think it is more accurate to say that social structure influences people. It doesn't direct them, any more than a lone person with a stick can herd a sheep.
Shuffling up the system influences people to work harder when they grow complacent, and simultaneously gives those who have little a better chance to build something greater. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than the status quo, and encourages further change.
You seem to be framing argument around the premise that the driving force behind human behavior is seeking to harm others for fulfilling selfish ends, transcending personal experience and social environment.
I am challenging your underlying premise, as collapsing harmful outcomes into a singular cause, not strongly substantiated or thoughtfully conceived.
You seem to be trying to box me into some sort of scarecrow, so you can argue that instead, rather than actually reading and considering what I'm saying.
You have not presented any challenge here. You haven't even addressed any point that I've made. If it isn't people causing the problem, then what is it? What is the problem?
Yes, silly. The unifying feature of all human society is that it is made up of people.
Do you have any values or aspirations for the kind of world in which you want to live, or is it just nuke 'em all?
Lmfao where did I say nuke them all? You're really trying it on now.
If you don't have anything significant to add to the discussion, if all you want to do is try and twist things into a "gotcha", then you should really just move on. You're only embarrassing yourself right now.
Listen. I am simply observing that your framing of society provides to no one any value.
The concern for people is how to configure people in a society that supports people achieving their shared interests as people.
It provides no value to anyone simply to assert as the problem having no solution simply that there are people.
I am encouraging you to consider, even just to imagine, the different possibilities for the world in which we could share.
You're simply saying vague things and trying to expand the language to sound clever and definitive. And yet, when I have asked you to define specific things, you have deflected.
I have defined the problem: people, not the social structure. I have described how the social structures we have implemented so far are inadequate solutions at addressing the problem; people figure out the structure and play it to their advantage. I have suggested that we need to keep the systems in flux - to shuffle them up - in order to mitigate people taking advantage. Furthermore I have said that this will direct us to better societal systems overall in the long run. New possibilities require ongoing change, on a fundamental, not brief and superficial level.
You have offered little to nothing in this conversation. You've taken pot shots, but they're firing further and further from the mark. You're positioning yourself against me, as if defeating me will be some kind of victory. I would much prefer it if you worked with me so we can both figure out the objective truth. I don't want you to say I'm wrong, I want you to prove what I'm saying is wrong, as if you succeed in that I'll know things better.
Again, though, a problem that can be solved is not a problem simply described as "people", unless you are making a suggestion that mostly everyone finds disagreeable, such as denying the existence of others, or advocating a collective suicide pact.
Is it not more coherent to frame as an objective how people may live together, as people in society, pursuing their shared interests as people?
Consider an analogy. Suppose a bicycle breaks. Would it not be sensible to try to find the flaws in the structure, and to replace or to reconfigure the parts identified as broken?
Would you take the bicycle to a repair shop, expecting the proprietor to explain simply that the problem is "bicycles"?
Do you see the problem, with framing as a problem, that which is already given as unalterable?
Again, the problems people face is not "people", but of how we may live as people.
The problem I've presented isn't just "people", though, it's more "people will find a way to be unpredictable". Any system you throw at people, they will analyse it and try to find a way to defeat it. Even if you frame an ideal society, there will always be outliers who try to go against the grain and pursue their own interests, sometimes at the expense of others. Rather than trying to idealise everything and everyone, an effective system should recognise this human trait and attempt to account for it in such a way as to balance out or disinsentivize it.
If a bicycle breaks, the first step is to analyse the break, then to repair or replace the broken part. Sometimes it is more efficient to replace the whole bike, but in many cases that just isn't practical - outside of commercial consumerism, replacing things isn't practical in the vast majority of situations. Overall, it is better to focus efforts; rather than replacing the whole bike you just replace the parts that cannot be repaired. If the bike is designed and built well, rather than designed to be disposable, replacement parts will almost always be better than a whole new bike. I've had the same broom for the last 20 years.
If the bike was designed poorly, I would expect the bike shop owner to tell me I've bought a poorly designed bike, and to explain how other bikes were better designed and could better deal with the wear and tear I was experiencing.
However your analogy doesn't really fit. The issue here isn't the bike, it's how people are riding it. A racing bike has a certain configuration; a mountain bike has a different configuration; your average consumer bike has neither of these. Capitalism requires people to give a fair and honest value to things. Communism requires ultimately the same, but as defined by fewer people. Both of these are like selling a BMX to someone who wants to ride on the road or trails, rather than a halfpipe.
I don't think any system is unalterable. In fact, I would say that trying to advocate for comprehensive change is almost always a losing battle. You would not convince a mountain bike rider that they should do away with gears and ride a BMX. Rather, we should be taking the versatile mountain bike and make small changes to it to cover more different types of terrain, including that which BMX typically dominate.
However, if you really wanted to make a better BMX, you wouldn't scrap the BMX and start from scratch. You would make iterative improvements on one aspect of it until you found the sweet spot, then you would move to another area and focus on improving that.
That's what we need in society. Constant, iterative improvement, while simultaneously allowing for objective review of progress to ensure things are going in the right direction. Trying to flip things over all in one go really just gives opportunity for incumbant players to dictate the change such that they remain on top, then after the change the typical narrative is "Well, we've had one change, we can't be having another now, not so soon".
You repeated the particular language several times, though it has no value to anyone except you and someone who may read your mind.
What do you mean? Do you mean that inconsistency is an intransigent trait of humanity? Do you mean people become restless? Do you mean people try to preserve order, but fail?
Your language continues to be nebulous and imprecise.
Who would "throw at people" a system? Are you describing an autocracy, or a foreign occupation?
Can people identify a system, or simply organization and practices under which they prefer to live and by which they feel empowered?
Do people seek change that they identify as valuable?
I am not understanding how you are deriving your understanding about how societies occur and evolve.
Do you sincerely think that most in every society are revolutionaries?
Why do systems last so long, if everyone is constantly trying to depose the current one?
Are you simply lamenting that every society eventually transforms into a different one, that none last forever?
In every society, some will conform better than others. Every society has systems of accountability, to discourage and to repair harm.
Are you suggesting that no society is stable, because not everyone is always content with the status quo?
Who has done so? Are you referring to a particular antagonistic? Are you generalizing about everyone?
Systems express a set of structures, relationships, and values.
I am not sure you understand the meaning of capitalism and communism.
I mean what I've said. The more people you have, the more time you consider, the more likely that some outliers in that group will seek to exploit the system and game it in their favour. Given that all societies now are quite large, this probability becomes an inevitable certainty; all societies have this problem, so we can generalise and say "people behave this way".
Peter Thiel has been doing this on private islands. Not that I support that jagoff in any way, but that was the answer that instantly popped into my head.
Any of those. I'm not talking about any specific social structure, just human nature. I'm saying that social structure needs to account for fringe aspects of human behaviour, because once society becomes large enough then these fringe aspects become significantly large also, even if overall they are the minority.
I'm not talking about how societies evolve, or any specific structure, just a specific aspect of human nature.
No. I'm talking more about sociopathy, ie those who manipulate others for their own benefit. However, I would say sociopaths are a minority, but when a group of people is large enough the number of sociopaths and their behaviour becomes a significant problem.
Most of what you've been saying here is focused on the system. The argument I'm making is system agnostic; I'm talking about human behaviour, in particular the fringe behaviour that becomes inevitable in large groups of people, ie in modern societies.
It seems like you're speaking in defense of a specific social structure, but you're reluctant to actually talk about that structure or even name it.
This is kind of a running theme with you. You imply that I'm wrong, but don't offer any counter point in return. This is an incredibly disingenuous way of arguing, you don't really say anything of any substance but expect me to provide your argument for you.
If you want to talk about the merits of communism, or any other system, I'm game, and I'd love to hash out definitions with you so that we're completely on the same page. I think your reluctance stems from the ways in which the terminology is poisoned - much like "retard" was once a technical medical term but since became a slur, "communism" has become something of a dirty word in some circles. That doesn't mean the ideas behind it are wrong, and I'm happy to talk about the ideas using whatever words.
I return to my original observation, that you are viewing human behavior as inflexible and prescribed, rather than being shaped by personal experience and social context.
In your view, every society is a failure in its essence, because humans are in their essence incapable of forming any society that is not a failure.
I encourage you to think about how societies may differ, one from another.
It is the only meaningful path.
Dwelling on the presumed intransigent darkness of humanity leads to nowhere. It is neither constructive nor particularly accurate.
It's not that human behaviour is inflexible - indeed, it's the opposite, humans are so flexible that they do things that are hard to predict. Given a large enough population and enough time certain negative behaviours will inevitably happen. With modern societies, this becomes a near certainty. If you stretch it to the absolute limit, then all things will happen, good and bad.
Still, you're trying to put words in my mouth, twisting what I'm saying into an absolute statement that I have not made, so you can argue against that. I do not appreciate this. You are being offensive.
Ignoring the capacity for people to do bad things is the height of negligent ignorance. That isn't to say that everyone does bad things and has bad intent, just that everyone has the capacity to, and if you have enough people and allow enough time bad actors will surface. Any society of any significant size that purports to last long enough must acknowledge and accommodate this fact. This is the foundation of criminal law, which is present in every society.
That doesn't mean that every society is a failure, just that there is room for improvement. I'm simply saying that the models currently used to form a society aren't accurate enough and don't adequately account for human behaviour. We need to adapt our models and make them better, not rely on philosophy from 100+ years ago.
I feel doubtful that a society being permanently stable is necessarily the most important objective.
Try to understand what people need and seek in their lives, and consider how certain organization may promote or impede their capacity to reach or to achieve such needs and wants.
Try not to worry about the absolute count of negative events or negative actors. Most important is the structural resilience against such stress.
That's exactly what I've said from the beginning. Society needs to be more flexible, and if our current models are to be effecitve they need to be "shaken up" so as to prevent extreme exploitation by those who gather power and influence over society.
Again, that's what I said near the beginning. Society should aim to meet the core needs of the people. After that, society should provide the opportunity for people to meet their desires - but this must be tempered so as not to meet the desires of some at the expense of other peoples' needs.
It's not about any asolute count of negative events or negative actors, rather that such things will inevitably happen. Structural resiliance against such things is exactly what I'm saying is lacking in most societies - all too often sociopaths are allowed to take the helm and steer society towards depravity, for their own personal gain. A perfect societal structure must account for this, and our current implementations across the globe do not.
Exploitation and autocracy are expressly encouraged by particular structure, though, whereas antagonized by other.
I encourage seeking to develop those structures protect the empowerment of everyone.
Again, you're skirting around saying things. If you want to say that capitalism is bad and communism is good that's fine by me.
Personally, I see flaws in both systems. They're different, but both are susceptible to exploitation, albeit in slightly different forms. It's only through constant review and viligilance that the rot can be kept away.
Communism is not complacency or obedience.
It is simply the eradication of the systems of exploitation.
And yet, in many countries that have applied communism people still get exploited.
If worker exploitation has not been overcome, then communism has not been achieved.
As I say, I feel doubtful that you genuinely understand communism.
I'd agree with that. Communism has not really ever been implemented successfully, for a number of reasons. One of those is incumbents from the old system trying to twist the new system into something else, all for their own benefit so they can stay on top. Another is influence from non-Communist nations eg the US.
You keep saying that but offer no actual corrections to say where I'm wrong or what is right.
The reason is because of much of what you have written, for example...
Various examples occur throughout your comments appearing as reactionary or liberal obfuscations of communism, and its differences with capitalism, or that seem unaware of general criticisms of capital.
You may feel my characterizations are inaccurate, and you may be correct, but I feel that they are representative of your argumentation, by its heavy assimilation of various tropes common within bad faith engagement with leftism.
Now who's using terminology they don't really understand. Just because you're a member of a clique/cult with its own specific definitions for terminology does not make that terminology valid. The bad faith engagement is your own, as you assume your definitions are universal, rather than taking a common sense approach, or even establishing definitions before building an argument.
To some degree money is creating problems and obstructing solutions, but as long as our society is based on money, it is necessary to antagonize wealth consolidation and to support universal income.
Can't agree more.