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If you work, you and your family should have their needs met, aka, we should all be able to help our community have all of our basic needs met
This same worker should also have capital F free health care a house or condo he and his family like or she and her family, or their family, yours or mine
This worker should be able to have paid leave, both vacation and sick.
…
I’ll do you one better. If you exist you and your family should have their needs met. We have the ability to feed, provide medical care, and house everyone on the planet many times over yet we don’t. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why we don’t.
We should put the psychopaths that can’t care about others in a reserve, where they can make their own hellscape, away from normal people.
So we can have a normal society without some insane psychopath arguing about healthcare, because he happens to not need it.
We will see who’s society is better
We should put the psychopaths that can’t care about others in a reserve, where they can make their own hellscape, away from normal people.
Digitally, we’ve already done this, and called it LinkdIn!
But somehow we got pulled into having to play their stupid games. :(
We will see who’s society is better
Did you ever read “A libertarian walks into a bear”? It’s a non-fiction book about a bunch of libertarians that moved to a small town, and used their new voting bloc to try to bring about their libertarian paradise. It went badly. There were bears.
The author points out how a nearby town that was otherwise very similar. It had prospered during the time libertarians were driving their town into the ground
I don’t read proper books very often but the title of that book got my curiosity, and tried the first three chapters and I don’t know if I have a really fucked sense of humor but it really got me laughing at how absurd early US history is in hindsight, not having to live through it. Anyway thanks for that, probably gonna finish it.
This sounds like a fascinating read lol. I’ve never heard of that before!
Regardless of ideology, I do find those “let’s start our own society” accounts very educational, because everybody thinks they can do it better, but there’s a lot of pitfalls and footguns to learn from.
Have a look at this: https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
It’s about the book, about that town, Grafton. Great read. The book itself is great too.
Funny enough, I hear it worked decently until then.
A dude died of exposure because he couldn’t afford his heating bill. If you think people who don’t have money should simply die, then I guess it was working decently.
I’m chill with safety nets for poor people and regulations on large companies
what I consider far left is when people start saying that the govt should own everything and there shouldn’t be private property. that’s an extreme and I am against that.
You’re certainly entitled to you opinion, and we’re chill on the same things, but I do think more industry – especially the kind which are utilities – should be nationalised. I’m even open to the abolishment of private property. But I think we need an updated democracies (better representation, maybe try local direct democracy nodes?) before we start getting close to seriously considering these questions as policy.
i think a one of the largest problems with democracies nowadays is the influence of money on them. if that were removed we could actually move to a more reasonable world
Modern leftists (i.e. anarchists) are against the government at all.
that’s only the case if you exclude authoritarian communists and other similar systems that want a govt from your definition of ‘leftists’
Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods. (Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism, 1847)
Communists ain’t taking away my beaten up electric bass and my microwave oven
One of my friends described it as there’s difference between private property and personal property. Your toothbrush is personal property. No one cares about that. Your factory where you assemble widgets is private property, where you’re paying people to convert labor into stuff you can sell.
I should read more left-wing theory. It made sense when he explained it.
How does that apply to things like computers? My personal PC can also double up as a server from which I run the applications that I sell to people. The PC is the means of production, and it is mine, but I don’t necessarily write all the code myself.
Private property that isn’t personal is someone elses property
Anyone that states “I’m completely correct” is laughing matter.
you want the govt to own everything? if so you are a communist. that actually is the definition
The rational left (i.e. not the authoritarians) only want the “government” to own everything insomuch as the “government” is profoundly democratic representative body, in an administrative capacity.
Don’t confuse “private property” (industrial machines and other means of productions held privately by an investor class in order to extract profit via the arbitrage between the productive value of employees and their flat wages) with “personal property” (your house, car, clothes, dishes, toothbrush, etc.). There aren’t many leftists who think there shouldn’t be personal property.
Private property that isn’t personal is someone elses property, and if I want to have my own property it makes sense for others to also have it
I don’t want the govt owning my home, or having to rent from a govt, and I dont want to drink water from govt owned companies because at that point it truly is authoritarian simply because the govt has way too much power over your life
There aren’t many leftists who think there shouldn’t be personal property.
I’ve been on .ml before and theres more than a few people than think NK and Stalin are/were good, and are anti-private property
.ml folks aren’t far left, they’re full on authoritarian dictatorship apologists. They’re no more leftist than China is communist
I think that depends on what you call far left. If you ask me thats exactly what it is, other than the exception of more libertarian- or even (another exreme) anarchic- communism
I guess I wouldn’t call them right wing either. The authoritarian side of the political compass kinda looks the same on every side, when it boils down to the actual policies they want
I dont want to drink water from govt owned companies because at that point it truly is authoritarian simply because the govt has way too much power over your life
Been drinking tap water straight from government-owned companies for decades. Taste is okay (a bit hard for geological reasons), but it couldn’t be healthier.
Still, though, you’re right that the question of the state not owning everything is a very serious one that needs to be addressed.
What are your thoughts on cooperatives, libertarian socialism, or anarchist communism?
My government owned power utility is selling me the cheapest electricity of all the OECD, and still turning a profit that’s returned in the government’s coffers to invest in research and social services. It’s awful!
What I don’t like isn’t the fact that the profits of the service aren’t going to shareholders, but because it gives the govt more power over you. This is fine if you trust the govt, but at some point there is an extreme of trusting the govt with too much. like I wouldn’t want the chinese govt controlling my finances
Yeah you’re right, the shareholders really have my best interests at heart!
Thankfully in this case I AM THE SHAREHOLDER.
no ur not 🤦
your government is
how about you tell me right now what a shareholder is because it really seems like you don’t know
the shareholders only care about themselves, but the system that they collectively create through mutual competition and distrust for each other provides (ideally) cheap and (ideally) high quality products for the costumer. Why isn’t this the case irl? Not enough competition, which the govt can safely encourage with antitrust laws.
I think a major problem with decentralizing too much is that basic goods that the modern world needs, like artificial fertilizers and computer chips cant be produced or if they can be produced they cant be made in large quantities. What I understand anarchist communism to be is many small communities of people that collectively grow their own food and make their own medicines, without much large scale trade. With libertarian socialism and cooperatives there’s still the issues that if the workers own the factories they aren’t going to be incentivized to take risks with the company, the average worker has no idea about macro-economics and how to run the business, and they also wont want to lower their wages if its necessary (like if the company is doing poorly or if there needs to be additional financial motivation for low preforming workers - obviously that can get out of hand but some of it makes sense). To somewhat even out the wealth gap I think higher taxes on the wealthy and more rights for unions is pretty much all that is needed.
Private property that isn’t personal is someone elses property
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Everyone is entitled to personal property, the things they have for personal use (e.g. your house or toothbrush). Private property is not someone else’s personal property, it’s the things for group use which generate value to the group (e.g. the industrial equipment necessary to create your house or toothbrush) which under capitalism are owned and controlled by investors.
The leftist position is that those “means of production” being owned and controlled by investors leads to the investors paying their staff as little as possible while charging as much as possible, so that they can thrive on the difference between prices and wages.
The leftist solution is for those “means of production” to be owned collectively by the people who actually use them to produce things. There’s a whole spectrum of exactly what that looks like.
On one side are those who think the government should own everything. The argument being that, assuming you can trust the administrators to not be corrupt, that is the best way to coordinate resources. This is logically sound, since the resources which would be wasted on marketing, and redundant R&D in competing companies, and other capitalist inefficiencies, could be directed productively. The flaw is in the “assuming you can trust the administrators to not be corrupt” part. That’s a big reason why the USSR failed.
On the other side, there are those who think that the basic concepts of market economics are sound, the problem is simply the capitalist-worker relationship. The argument being, capitalism can be subverted while retaining the benefits of market economies through co-ops: instead of revenue being paid in part to wages with the remaining profit being divided along shareholders, the revenue after costs is divided totally among the employees, who are themselves the only shareholders. This preserves the competitive innovation of the market, while excising the parasitic capital class.
Only the most extreme zealots in the Soviet camp ever push for abolishing personal property. That’s a fringe position even for the left.
after you say this
Private property is not someone else’s personal property…
you say they are this
…are owned and controlled by investors.
that stuff is the investors personal property (or the corporations but that is a technicality) and them selling it to me is fine as long as there is meaningful competition and no monopolies and govt regulations stopping them from putting toxins in it or something. I dont think the best solution to high prices and wealth inequality is taking the personal property away from these investors and handing it to their employees (who lets be honest probably don’t know much about economics) who aren’t motivated to take risks with the company and aren’t motivated to lower their wages when the company needs to save money or isn’t production much money. This lowers the competitiveness of the company, but having a CEO to manage all this while being kept in check with a union is a fine solution to this.
If there is a wealth gap higher taxes on the wealthy is all that is really needed to even it out
Without capital new factories wont be built btw, unless you have a bank or investor financing them. And I don’t think bank tellers should get a say in what the bank invests in (if its run by the workers this would happen, as the bank teller is a worker at the bank), because they very probably don’t know about the finances and economics of the industry the bank is investing in and wouldn’t have an educated opinion on the matter. I would rather have investors (who may have more money than others, but if its too much taxes can fix that, not funky ownership stuff needed) picking small companies, giving them money and later getting back their money as the small companies grow.
You’re a liberal then, pro-market with regulation, maybe a social democrat using Nordic countries as an example? With the overton window changing so much you’re not really a leftist anymore
I kinda dislike all these terms like left, socalist, communism, ect because everyone has different understandings of them.
If you ask a right-leaning libertarian about the differences between socialism and communism, I imagine that they would say that their the same thing, and point to China or the USSR calling themselves socialist, while being communist (china not so much nowadays though)
I try not to categorize myself too much because of that
I dont want to drink water from govt owned companies because at that point it truly is authoritarian simply because the govt has way too much power over your life
I’m pretty sure private for-profit water is absolutely worse than government run water. Everyone can at least nominally vote to change the government. A private org is beholden to no one except shareholders (if they have any), and maybe laws (if they exist, are relevant, and are enforced).
We already had a gilded age where we learned how low for-profit entities will go. We had saw dust in bread, chalk in milk, and worse.
For profit food production is giving us price gouging and a water crisis. Would government do better? Well, given the current administration maybe not.
i edited my comment before your reply to note that I simply used water as an example because it came first to my mind and there are better ones
As I wrote in my edited comment (that was changed before you replied) there are better examples of my point that I don’t want too much govt control, for example I wouldn’t want all the farms in my country controlled by the govt
A private org is beholden to no one except shareholders
And their consumers. An orange juice company tries to make their product sold, and at the end of the day they rely on you to buy it. If enough people don’t, they will increase the quality of their juice or decrease the price to increase sales.
We already had a gilded age where we learned how low for-profit entities will go. We had saw dust in bread, chalk in milk, and worse.
You should realize that companies need to compete with each other, and because of that they cant visibly increase the price of a good too much or lower its quality because they will lose sales. Anywhere where this doesn’t happen laws can be written to force them
You should realize that companies need to compete with each other, and because of that they cant visibly increase the price of a good too much or lower its quality because they will lose sales. Anywhere where this doesn’t happen laws can be written to force them
Meanwhile, we have “shrinkflation” and consolidation into fewer and fewer companies.
For vital services, what are you going to do? Not get health care? Not buy fruit anymore?
The natural end state of private ownership is monopoly/cartel. We’ve done all of this before and it sucked. Being “beholden to customers” doesn’t matter much if they’re a captive market, or there’s really only one seller with no vote
Maybe if we actually enforced laws about competition it would be better, but good luck getting people to learn from history.
Yeah but see this doesn’t contain the cruelty that’s in line with the biblical teachings the form the backbone of conservative values.
I don’t think they flip them anymore. They just cook both sides at once
I washed dishes part time and afforded a crappy apartment and beer. In our neighborhood many of the houses are rented out by invitation homes. We never have a neighbor for long as there is a lot of turnover. It’s bullshit these companies can just take over the neighborhood.
Invitation Homes Inc. is a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It is headquartered in the Comerica Bank Tower in Dallas, Texas. Dallas B. Tanner is chief executive officer. As of 2017, the company was reportedly the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the United States. As of July 2024, the company owned about 84,000 rental homes in 16 markets.
they run them down a conveyer belt or something now i think, they got a location thats totally automated and has no employees
I wanna work in a library. Not much people, quiet, simple.
But it doesn’t pay, like, anything.
Then again, nothing I have ever done pays enough. Not even the things that used to be considered well-paying back in my father’s time.
I always wanted to be a teacher. I have a passion for teaching people new ways of looking at the world. I manage a team and used to open every Monday call with a chat about science news until the higher-ups started cracking down on “unproductive time.”
Then I got to know a few teachers, and the way they have to work one or two other jobs on the side so they can afford to bring their kids art supplies and science books and I just don’t have it in me. Massive respect to the men and women who stick with their teaching careers despite not being paid, respected or honored in any way by Western society.
Massive respect to the men and women who stick with their teaching careers despite not being paid, respected or honored in any way by Western society.
America isn’t the entirety of western society
I loved working in libraries. But even after becoming a manager, I couldn’t feed my kids on the pay. It sucked. I miss it.
If a job at McDonald’s doesn’t pay your bills and groceries then who do you think would even do this job?
People who are already wealthy and do it just for the fun of flipping burgers?!
So many people believe those jobs solely exist for highschool college kids to get started in life until they ‘develop skills.’ I can’t even imagine the lack of empathy you have to have for all those not in that position desperately trying to live.
They are trying to get us to accept the the new American Economic Paradigm that ALL households require at least two paychecks to exist, and 3 or 4 if you want to get ahead.
Of course, employers want us to be enslaved to them for our entire schedule, so they don’t like us working second jobs or side hustle.
Time for Robin Hood economics (take from the rich, give to the poor).
Maybe! I have long maintained that if I ever luck into being obscenely wealthy, I will absolutely open some manner of food service or retail establishment similar to those I’ve worked at in the past, but not give a fuck about turning a profit and make a cornerstone of my business telling off customers for being the rude, self-centered, and entitled little shits that so many of them are. I’ll consider it a much needed public service.
I’ve occasionally dreamt about doing this with a bar. I picture it like the sitcom Black Books, but with booze instead of books.
I think it should come paired with a heavily unionised workforce, otherwise you end up like the UK where the minimum wage keeps going up, but salaries of people who were previously not on the minimum wage stay the same, so now everyone else is actually earning less because prices are rising but salaries are only rising at the top and bottom, eliminating the middle class entirely. A doctor is NOT a minimum wage job, and yet doctors in the UK are earning almost below the minimum wage, given the number of hours they actually work.
I’m the US, people we have the same problem with college degree+ level jobs being underpaid, but people without them are just impoverished for life. And some of the ones with the college degree jobs too!
Starting pay at many office jobs isn’t much more than minimum wage, but at least young workers can tell their parents that they work in an office instead of running a cash register, and they wear a tie instead of an apron. That’s supposed to be worth a lifetime of student loan debt.
I know it’s not for everyone, but if you’re reading this maybe it’s for you. The trades! Be an electrician, HVAC, plumber, mechanic, etc. It pays well. I mean you’ll probably never get rich, but you’ll definitely be able to support a family. And, once you’re established you could open your own shop. Be your own boss. Know the satisfaction of building something, working with your hands.
Not everyone needs college. I suspect we have enough art historians to get by. We definitely need more trades homies!
If I could start over that’s probably the route I’d go. I’m in a reasonably good spot - I just know plenty of people who aren’t.
That is an issue, but it’s still a better world than the one in which only two of the pay bands are making ends meet rather than all three.
Exactly. Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.
It’s actually frustrating how some version of this “problem” is brought up whenever conditions become better for people who earn the least. Like, yes, it makes people like you or me feel poorer compared to the rich fucks of the world, but would you rather go back to poor folks being literally destitute, unable to care for their families?
Problem’s coming from t’other end, gov. Not those poor chaps.
Sorry not directed at you of course; just took the opportunity to go off lol. :P
This comment doesn’t really mean a lot without context. The pay for doctors in the UK varies quite a bit depending on which level of their career they are at. Resident doctors (Foundation Year 1 & 2) earn anywhere between £33k and £37k, Trainees (training in a specialized area of medicine, CT 1-3, ST 1-9) can earn between £43k to £63k. All of these are considered Junior Doctors, who work under the supervision of a Senior Doctor. When they have completed full medical training in a specialized area of medicine (7-10 years), they are Consultant level, which is a Senior Doctor. This can pay between £93k and £126k per year.
For further context, the median individual wage in the UK is £37,430, which is about what second year Resident doctors earn on average. Much like the US, this can be good or bad, depending on where you live. In the North of England, an FY2 earning £37k is solidly middle-class. In London? He’s working-class, but still making far more than minimum wage, and his income will only increase from there.
Speaking of minimum wage… For people 21+ years old, it’s £12.21 an hour. At 40 hours a week, that’s £25,396 per year, or about £7k a year less than a first year resident. There are ZERO doctors in the UK earning “almost below the minimum wage, given the number of hours they actually work.” Unlike in the US where doctors work a billion hours a week, doctors in the UK are unionized (most with the BMA, but there are other unions), and their contracts prevent this. On average, the workload for FY1 & 2 (Residents) is 48 hours per week. They do occasionally get hit with longer weeks, but it’s not normal. Their union contracts are designed specifically to prevent overworking and allow them time to work and study/take exams. Doctors working 80 and 90 hour weeks is mostly a thing of the past.
The bottom line is that Doctors in the UK generally make a good living and have strong unions that ensure they continue to do so. That’s not to say things can’t or shouldn’t improve, but their situation is far from bleak. If the only reason you’re getting into medicine is to get rich, then please get the fuck out of medicine. There are much easier ways to get rich than spending the next 20 years studying while you watch people die in front of you.
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Yes, both are very important points. I’ve never met a British doctor who had to drive for Uber or suck dick on Backpage to pay off student loans.
Doctors do still work more hours than someone in an office, meaning their pay is much lower than their salary would first tell you. Also considering the hours they have to work, and the way shifts are operated, their pay needs to be much, much higher. There’s a reason doctors are fleeing the country to Australia where the pay is better and so are the conditions.
Yeah, this is a big problem with the early stages of practicing medicine in the UK. Once you make it past about the 7 year mark, it’s all well and good, but those early years, you’re kind of on par with retail workers, which can be demoralizing. A big mistake the UK made was when the pandemic hit, they didn’t raise wages for doctors to compensate for the absolute chaos. BMA should have gone to war over that the way the French did over retirement age.
Things definitely could be better, especially for young doctors, but I would still rather be a doctor in the UK than in the US. No amount of money is worth that kind of burnout, and I don’t want to be treated by any doctor who thinks it is.
“McDonald’s is a job for high schoolers, it’s not a career!”
Then why are they open during school hours, and why do you go there during your lunch break, Gladys, when kids are “at school” and can’t “flip burgers”?
I’m glad you asked, the answer is:
CHILD LABOR
Yeah if they pay a living wage to everyone then high schoolers could work part time for real too which would also be better.
Florida: Let’s expand the work experience program to backfill immigrant labor!
If you think flipping burgers is easy, why aren’t you doing it yourself?
Pay all workers a living wage!
But if I don’t have my boot on somebody else’s face, how am I supposed to accept the boot on my face?
Checkmate, communists!
That’s the neat part .png
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We do. Have you not noticed the prices? In 2000 a bigmac cost $2.24 now they cost $5.99. The real tell, tho, is that mcdonalds had $25 BILLION in profits in 2024. Money they made from consumers buying their products. Somehow it seems like they absolutely have the money to pay a living wage, but im no mathematician.
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individual is shit compared to collective
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You’re a part of the problem
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This one is defective, a shame we can’t RMA you.
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They’re a troll & not worth engaging. Funnily enough, their sole argument for seemingly every interaction is “well why don’t YOU do it”.
Willfully ignorant.
But if no one has to struggle, how will we know who’s beneath us??
Hint: we’re all at the bottom and there’s only another layer
Lateral poverty
He struggles so the billionaire can own a yacht.
Third yacht.
their con man idols tell them that the reason their lives are shitty is because of the mexicans, gays, black people, women, librarians, immigrants…everyone except the people who are literally paying them nothing and laughing at them for it.
and the people are all too happy to believe it
Well… You ought to know to listen to your betters, too!
Everything always boils down to people being dumb and if magically the people would become smart, all problems would just get fixed.
Not even smart , in a genius-like sense. I’d settle for merely cooperative.
Like if people could drop the petty “movement purity” squabbles and just rustle up that meme energy “apes together strong” for each other as the working class, instead of individualizing their struggles and settling for misery, we could really get somewhere!
You mean unions?
Communist!
I think a lot about something i read somewhere - “you hate every piece of capitalism but won’t connect the dots to see that’s the picture”.
I have this conversation with people all the time.
Cookie clicker irl
