I do not think that the US is a democracy. The electoral college is not in any way democratic.
Gerrymandering, vote caging, mass disenfranchisement, consolidated power in appointed positions…
A very curious was to run a republic.
It is an indirect democracy, rather than a direct one. Its less democratic, but not completely undemocratic.
That being said, I do think the system is broken in a much more fundamental way.
FPTP?
It is an indirect democracy, rather than a direct one.
Ahem. Indirect democracy AKA representative democracy AKA republic is political system, where laws are voted by representatives who are elected by citizens. USA is indirect indirectracy. Or idiocracy. Like Putin’s Russia, but with bells and whistles.
Direct democracy is rare beast. In it laws are directly voted by citizens on referendums.
Its less democratic, but not completely undemocratic.
It’s completely undemocratic. Public opinion has no influence on policy whatsoever. Most Americans are in favour of Medicare for all, of legal abortions, of rising taxes on corporations and the most rich people, and much much more. But study after study shows that public opinion has no influence on policy, as in, they’re not even correlated.
I feel like that’s less of a problem with the way a representative democracy works, but rather with corruption and thus capitalism
Yeah, I wasn’t referring to the concept of representative democracy itself, I was referring to the particular case of the US (though I’d extrapolate it to most liberal democracies in western countries)
I keep telling you, people.
I’d like to see someone try a UBI system that was genuinely universal. Literally everyone gets it, employed or not, regardless of income level, but at the same time minimum wage is removed because your living expenses are already ostensibly covered. So if a business can get someone to come in for $1/hour, or even for free, great. All wages just become “gravy” if someone wants luxuries above and beyond basic living expenses.
Under such a system I’d be interested to see how much what are currently minimum wage jobs would need to offer on top of UBI to get people in the door. I could absolutely see things like hobby shops employing people for pennies who’d be happy to be there just due to interest/passion in the subject of their work. Conversely I could see the wages for dreary or abuse prone jobs like gas station attendant or fast food cashier going up because no one in their right mind would want to do it for a pittance if their basic needs are already covered.
but at the same time minimum wage is removed because your living expenses are already ostensibly covered.
Except a UBI doesn’t necessarily cover all living expensives. It’s just a little boost to help people out.
Suddenly every bodies rent goes up about as much as their ubi check
It is really simple if you eliminate social welfare and make UBI part of taxes, you free up a lot of money. Everyone gets $35 000 a year or does not pay any tax on their first $35k. This creates a system that is already less expensive to operate than the current mess and injects a lot of money into an economy. The ruling class hate this idea because if people are not jammed into a corner living paycheck to paycheck or worse, they tend to quit their jobs where their employer was abusing them and get a better education. Or say fuck you to your employer and live poor until you get a new job.
This is A very interesting thought. I think you might be not to wrong with your assumptions about jobs. I also would really like to see this in practice.
It’s paradoxical, though, because anti-labour tactics make those jobs paid so badly that it is not worth automating e.g. trash collection, packet delivery, cleaning staff.
They say this like EVERYONE is working 60 hours, like some kind of… reverse strawman? Weird statement to make.
They say this like EVERYONE is working 60 hours, like some kind of… reverse strawman? Weird statement to make.
NO ONE should have to work 60 hours to meet those goals.
Is it pretty common for people to work 60 hours to pay the bills? I’m not disagreeing with you — no one should have to work that much — i’m just saying the way they worded it as if “we all work 60 hours” seems strange, but maybe i’m just ignorant and the odd one out.
I’d say yeah because even if you make enough money to live comfortably(100k usd), the type of jobs that are employing you at that rate are going to squeeze every dollar value out of you. I’ve been doing 60+ hour weeks for about two years now thanks to my first six figure job.
It’s not uncommon for people 20-45osh to work over 40hrs especially over 40 hours at 35 hr part time jobs which leaves then working 70hrs a week and still not qualify for employer insurance or benefits.
Thank you! That’s definitely not cool, if you work around 40 hours you should be set, and if you CHOOSE to work over that you should be, well… MORE than set. Hopefully we can get these kinds of changes made… just need to kick out the MAGA trash that has a stranglehold on this country first.
Well to be fair it’s the thought that it’s a Republican issue, it’s not. Both parties are ran by business monsters and lean right and center right respectively.
Can’t have a view that matters when you are hungry, stressed, are left with like 1 hour a day to yourself, and with constant other random threats to your existence you get to manage.
The system is working as designed, ppl forget how much work such a system needs to sustain itself actually.
The system is working as designed, ppl forget how much work such a system needs to sustain itself actually.
The problem is that Capitalism, and by extension Imperialism, is unsustainable and constantly decaying.
Yes.
And one of the constant maintenance being performed to sustain it is convincing us how sustainable and overall the best thing ever possible it is - how at the same time it has by default only one single goal, a goal of which by default the only end-game of a properly working system is a single complete concentration of power, yet it is widely “believed” how much that is in everyones best interest.
The Nature of Capitalism https://youtu.be/WseyrYuD8ao
Billionaires are doing their part to fix this problem! In the next 50 years you wont be able freeze to death with rising global temps. Problem solved!
Because mEriTocRacY, those wealth
thieveshoardersaggregators worked sooooooooooo hard for their money, they totally deserve every penny. If only people would work as hard as them, they wouldn’t be hungry or cold!US Democrats are the equivalent to our countries conservatives, and US Republicans are basically our rightwing/neo-nazi party pedant. It is noteworthy here that this Republican-equivalent rightwing party here is under active surveillance by the national security agencies for being a threat to our democracy.
And people still wonder why the US f-ups their people up and down.
I keep trying to tell people this but they don’t want to hear it.
Because it’s not the rich robbing you, it’s the blacks, queers, loudmouth women, and Satan robbing you.
Vote Republican.
/s
Work is punishment for original sin.
You mean breaking away from the UK?
No, we meant throwing away good tea.
I think the most damning thing is that the US is regressing where others are progressing.
DeSantis Signs Anti-Worker Bill Against Heat Regulation in Florida
As a European, I wish you were right. Europe hasn’t recovered from the austerity policy imposed in the post-2008 crisis. I’m Spanish so I can tell you about my country. Job termination payment was halved and hasn’t recovered, firing people became easier and cheaper, stricter laws against protesting were created (“ley mordaza” or gag law) which enabled more police violence and increasingly violent mall-cops, and we’re right now suffering the rise of the far right in Europe with Meloni winning in Italy, Marine LePen close to doing so in France, and rising AFD in Germany (many other countries as well).
We’re all fucked, buddy.
This is the standard view of the majority under 50
The older I get the more I agree with this.
Like, we won. We did it. We have enough food, we can build enough homes, we can build enough clean energy to fulfill our requirements if we’re halfway smart about it. What the fuck are we doing?
What made us successful as a species, required us to be ruthless by design.
Nonsense.
I feel like it was more learning to work together that’s made us so successful compared to other animals. Not having to spend our lives solely dedicated to hunting/growing food for ourselves and our families has allowed people to specialize in other fields. The advancement of science wouldn’t have been possible without people collaborating and working together, though conflict has also played a role as well. Ruthlessness only works for a small number of individuals who exploit the good will of others, but the whole thing falls apart if everybody was always ruthless.
Somebody read and agreed with Might is Right…
What made us successful as a species is our societies and those came as a direct rejection of ‘ruthlessness’. Society is built on cooperation.
Sure, we’re still bloodthirsty monsters. But that will be our downfall.
That’s patently false. Before agriculture, societies were just tribes of at most a hundred individuals, with not much in the way of hierarchy due to the lack of division of labor, essentially a very primitive form of anarcho-communism. Humans are extremely empathetic and there’s plenty of evidence that prehistoric humans took care of people with disabilities or with serious injuries despite them possibly (not necessarily) being a liability for the tribe in terms of food-to-labor ratio.
Tribes that fought each other for hunting grounds
The taking care of your own when it’s a handful of people doesn’t scale up to millions
Tribes that fought each other for hunting grounds
So you agree that by human nature humans can do both good and bad things, and that society is the one that imposes which ones we do?
The taking care of your own when it’s a handful of people doesn’t scale up to millions
It kinda does, look at Cuba. Peaceful as it gets, extremely high number of doctors per capita to the point of exporting doctors in times of crisis in other countries, fastest country to vaccinate its population against COVID, guaranteed housing for everyone, really low crime rates and no mafias or drug cartels… You can accuse Cuba of many things, but it proves you can take care of millions of people
look at Cuba. Peaceful as it gets
I take it that you’ve never been there
A comment as smart as your username. Why take actual data when you can take personal experience, amirite?
Oh you got me sir, well played being the one of us to cite sources
What the fuck are we doing?
A mortgage (not rent!) for a 3 bedroom house is $1,400. Live somewhere cheaper, you don’t need to live in/near a city.
If you do, that’s fine, just recognize that is something you are choosing to pay for.
I don’t really understand how you don’t understand that buying a house requires cash on hand.
The US offers a first time homebuyer credit to help with this exact worry. Furthermore, closing costs can be rolled into the mortgage.
You have no idea what people’s economic situation is like, do you?
Damn dude. Why didn’t I think about that? All I have to do is work 80 hours a week at the gas station, send my kids to substandard schools, not buy decent food, not have access to public transit, not have access to decent medical care, not have any cultural options, be white since rural areas are not kind to people of color, drive 40+ minutes to anything worth driving to, not have municipal water or sewage or possibly trash pickup, etc.
Why do I keep wanting to live in places with services and good quality of life in a capitalist country where I make 3x the median wage and still can’t buy a house? Silly me.
In case you didn’t pick up on it, I’ve lived in rural areas previously, and I’d rather rent for the rest of my life than ever do that again.
This mofo saying that living in a city (56% of humans, 4.4bn people, live in cities) should be a luxury.
This is what kills me about modern day living. What the fuck are we doing? Innovations (AI) dont fucking help people anymore. All we’re doing is chasing profits and letting everything else rot. I feel like I’m living in some FromSoft game before the player comes in to clear out all the ancients holding onto the decay.
That might just be because conservatives and liberals, have always been those ancients holding back society.
In 1776 the conservatives were Loyalists, the progressives were Patriots.
In 1789 the conservatives were Right Wing, the progressives were Left Wing.
In 1860 the conservatives were Confederates, the progressives were The Union.
In 1940 the conservatives were The Axis, the progressives were The Allies.
Innovations still help people loads, that’s a crazy pessimistic generalization.
Yes of course the trashy tech bro nonsense isn’t helping you, but what about RNA vaccines during covid? What about all of the medical work and innovation going into cancer treatment? What about all of the work and innovation going into reducing carbon emissions so we don’t ruin our planet? I could go on for a long time.
Real innovation in mainstream tech may be mostly stagnant and lame, but there will always be useful and helpful innovation.
Of course, there still are helpful innovations. I guess I should say it’s obvious 85% of corporations are just profit chasing and rent seeking at this point. There is no global drive forward anymore. Everything is about squeezing the most profit out of whatever. Our infrastructure alone is proof of that.
It’s the problem of “political deactivation” it’s in part a cultural issue, in part a byproduct of capitalism.
9-5 jobs kill a lot of political activism. Inculcation into cultural traumas that make the system seem unchangeable by “the little people”… These are the ingredients for “political deactivation”.
People want to stay an alert and informed member of society, but that doesn’t necessarily result in activism or change. In fact sometimes it makes people less likely to try to change things.
9-5 jobs kill a lot of political activism. Inculcation into cultural traumas that make the system seem unchangeable by “the little people”… These are the ingredients for “political deactivation”.
Welcome to 1916 Russia, when all non-Imperialists(not only Bolsheviks) were saying, that 6-day work week prevents prevents people from becoming citizens. Next step would be mandatory education.
Can we? So much of our modern standard of living comes from extractionary industry.
We pollute our waterways with our mining and drilling. We increasingly rely on prison labor for everything from agriculture to fire fighting. We’ve de-industrialized the Rust Belt so we could exploit low wage workers abroad. Our biggest sectors are Finance (which creates nothing material) and Tech (which increasingly focuses on Crypto and LLMs). Our airline industry is failing. Our semiconductor industry is failing. Our steel industry is being sold off to Japan.
That’s before you get into how natural disasters routinely shut down major urban centers for days or weeks at a time. And how flooding is obliterating enormous chunks of our housing stock. And how our roads and bridges are decades past their expiration date.
Idk if we’ve won. I get the feeling that we’re all living on borrowed time, and we’ve actually lost big relative to what we could have enjoyed.
We increasingly rely on prison labor for everything from agriculture to fire fighting.
Only USA does. The only country that did similar things was USSR. It was. Now USA the only is.
Even EU has better standards of living AND not use slave labour of prisoners.
Our semiconductor industry is failing.
Assuming you are from USA, your semiconductor industry is just fine.
The only country that did similar things was USSR.
The USSR by all accounts decreasingly relied on prison labor after WW2 and Stalinism ended. By the 60s, forced labor was anecdotic, and the conditions of people in the gulag system (which shifted from forced labor during Stalinism to mostly reeducation afterwards) were better than those in normal prisons to the point of prison being a punishment to rebellious gulag workers.
The only country that did similar things was USSR.
Americans are the most propagandized people on earth.
I would think that’s North Korea, but that’s kinda a given.
We’ve made farming a capitalist system. It only functions if there’s scarcity. A farmer can’t feed their family or farm their fields without paying bribes to machine companies…
Even worse, we have been producing, and throwing away, so much food that the US by itself could feed the entire world a couple times over. We don’t need to spend more money to fix food production and healthcare, we need to spend less.
Yeah. This is wild. I bet it’s very similar to solar or wind power production. The places where it’s cheap to produce, doesn’t have a lot of need. The places where it’s needed, it’s difficult to get.
There’s probably a lot of logistical problems that need solving… but that’s easy stuff. Humans can catch fish in the north sea, send it to Malaysia to be cut and frozen and boxed, to be sold to a person in England within a few days…
The Nature of Capitalism https://youtu.be/WseyrYuD8ao
Once anyone understands this , nothing else politically matters. There is no left or right. There is no tankie or liberal.
There is only rich… and poor.
There is no left or right
There is only rich and poor
So you’re left?
Feel like you didn’t understand the message
I’m not rich 🤑
What the fuck are we doing?
Making the shareholders rich.
We don’t need to, we’re forced to because a minority of ultra rich hold all the power.
Now wait for raid from twitter canceling you for hurting feelings of rich minority.
That’s why we need to work together
Correct.
Don’t forget that scarcity is literally the goal of many people trying to make sure we avoid climate change.
It’s not my view, but many many people are talking about “reducing consumption” for humanity. They never come out and acknowledge that their economy-shrinking tactics are making life miserable for poor people, but they’d have to be blind not to understand it.
Ideally what we’d do is shift from polluting to non-polluting forms of consumption - such as by switching from coal and natural gas to renewables. Some would claim this is “economy shrinking” because we’d be pushing people away from one and towards the other by artificial means like taxes and subsidies.
But what these arguments fail to recognize is that we’re already doing that. We can’t pretend that the government has nothing to do with setting incentives when it lets coal plants pollute for free, and also gives them free police and military protection to stop any citizens or foreign countries that may be on the less beneficial end of that pollution from doing anything about it. So in essence discouraging and eventually ending the burning of fossil fuels is putting an end to the tax we all already pay in the form of bad health outcomes and lost current and future land value from pollution.
You’re talking about a completely different kind of scarcity.
The artificial scarcity we’re talking about is things like monopolistic industry restricting the theoretical max output of a good solely for profit (i.e. throwing out perfectly good food/product to make way for new, but not necessarily better stock, making farmers re-buy seeds every year through utility patents, making defective-by-design products to require the purchasing of new goods over repairing old ones, intellectual property rights restricting who can manufacture and build upon technologies and ideas, etc)
The “scarcity,” or rather, reduced material use and consumption being promoted by environmentalists is completely different. We should sell and use the stock we already have before we create entirely new products, while claiming the old ones are now irrelevant. We should still sell fruits and vegetables that aren’t as aesthetically pleasing, instead of throwing them away. We shouldn’t buy products solely designed to temporarily relieve us of the effects of the Hedonic Treadmill, instead focusing on building a society where consumption is not the primary means of self-worth and growth.
None of this means you don’t eat, don’t have clothes to wear, don’t have a roof over your head, don’t have transportation to get around, or don’t have luxuries. It just means that those same actions are done using less, and getting more, not for the sole sake of profit, but for the sake of the planet, and the individual themselves.
Artificial scarcity is production that goes straight to landfills, ideas that are restricted from free use, artificially expensive goods, and an inefficient allocation of goods and services in an economy.
Reduced consumption is a reduction of waste, fair pricing, and longer-lasting goods that don’t just serve to provide recurring revenue to a corporation’s shareholders.
The artificial scarcity we’re talking about is things like monopolistic industry restricting the theoretical max output of a good solely for profit
Yeah monopolies are really bad. Which industries do you believe are monopolized right now?
I mean, it’s a pretty long list 😅 Pretty much every industry has major players that engage in monopolistic practices, whether it be software and hardware companies like Apple, Google, or Microsoft controlling operating system and hardware distribution and production in a manner that effectively creates a duopoly for both the smartphone and PC market, or grocery store chains like Kroger buying up all the smaller brands, then using that to jack up prices.
I did bring up a specific case in my prior post that I think is a good example though, and that’s utility patents on seeds to restrict their re-use, primarily done by companies like Bayer (which has bought up and killed off many seed brands over the years to form a near-monopoly on the industry, with only a few other major players) essentially requires that farmers can only use their seeds a certain amount of times before they’re legally obligated to re-purchase new ones. (even though the old seeds still work perfectly fine)
Not only does this mean you have to pay more money for produce (and the goods made from it) because farmers have to raise prices to cover costs, but it also means that the theoretical max capacity for food production is limited by how many new seeds farmers can afford to purchase year after year, and the fact that they can’t gift them to anyone else to help spread agricultural practices to new farmers.
We have antitrust laws, many are already advocating for them to be used against these monopolies, yet the government does nothing to stop them.
It’s disappointing, to say the least.
There are many, many different ways in which the economy could be shrunk. Many have the downside which you mention; making life miserable. But also many, other ways avoid this problem. A few examples how this could look like:
- reduce consumption of the super rich
- reduce production of trash products like plastic toys or single use vapes
- remove laws which enforce waste, such as minimum parking spots
- in urban design: prioritize mass transit, biking and walking over motorized individual transportation
When discussing these things, we should never forget that too little, too late action will certainly lead to what you wanted to avoid; making life miserable for poor people.
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reduce consumption of the super rich - interesting idea. sci fi at this point. all the consumption-reduction is hitting the poor so far
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reduce production of trash products like plastic toys or single use vapes - eliminating those jobs, removing choice from people over what they use
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remove laws which enforce waste, such as minimum parking spots - agree, zoning in general means enormous deviation from market equilibrium, meaning tons of economic value wasted
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in urban design: prioritize mass transit, biking and walking over motorized individual transportation - as usual, ignores the time cost to people. Time is people’s most limited resource. Taking away people’s time makes them poorer
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My understanding is that issues like universal healthcare and paid leave for parents poll at around 80 percent. The reason the US doesn’t have those things is not because the people don’t want it. So the representation we elect are center right and don’t actually support the will of the people. They represent the will of their donors.
I agree with what you say, but we should also be very careful of expressions like “center right”.
If we have issues where the vast majority of the people agree, that should by definition be the center. However, quite clearly that’s not how the words are used. Instead, mass media and politicians always refer to everything in reference to the two-party system, when representatives of both parties are actually way off in the fringes, at least some of the time, on issues like these.
![The US is Politically to the Right of [Other] Democracies](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/21301eb3-0348-4db4-9f02-82fd35987e02.jpeg){kind=link}