Unpopular Opinion
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Good point. It's way easier in other countries as they have labor unions, strike funds, solidarity... All the while you're subject to systematic exploitation for so long, you don't have anything. They have a tight grip on all of your balls.
I think sometimes we all need to recognize we're still living in the richest countries on earth. Maybe we're fine with eating rice and ketchup for a week to make it work. And not only that, it'll cost some extra to pool money so even people at their credit card limit but with 4 kids to feed can participate. It just won't work unless everyone is on board. I mean other people in other countries risk their lives, while fighting for freedom. And missing a rent payment is still a comparatively comfortable position to be in, in contrast to dying by the thousands in Iran. You're gonna decide what freedom is worth to you. And maybe you want/need to reach rock-bottom first.
But I think if you decide to not pay the cost, they'll still take that amount of money out of your retirement fund, or from your kid's school lunch, or from your economy by doing some insider trading on the upcoming war, etc... The way I see it, that money is long gone. It's just that you either find a way to muster it up right now and invest it in freedom. Or let them steal it from you over the course of the following months. Keeping the money is an illusion, that's the one thing that won't happen, either way.
But yeah, fighting for freedom hurts. It should come for free, but it doesn't.
Retirement fund? Ketchup? Kids? Credit?
Food isn't cheap, but compared to rent it absolutely is. Eating ketchup and rice versus something that will actually sustain you isn't the difference between paying rent and not paying rent. And not paying rent means homelessness, which is rampant in the US exactly because income and living expenses are so detached from one another. For middle class people with savings and security, sure, they can take a few days off work without destabilizing their lives. For a lot of people, though, that's literally not an option.
Praxis in this case for people who do have retirement funds and access to credit that isn't explicitly predatory and aren't struggling to pay the bare minimum to have somewhere to live may be a matter of actually being willing to help make it possible for the people who can't to participate in something like a general strike. If the people who do have financial stability were willing to help prop up the people who don't we might not need a general strike to begin with.
I don't think the solution is for the poorest people in our society to let their lives implode with no assistance while the middle class takes a few vacation days.
Sure. I just start to question whether the poorest people can afford to NOT come up with a solution. I mean they don't get any tax cuts. They also suffer disproportionately from inflation, added costs due to mismanagement, tariffs etc. And we're not just talking Trump here. The situation has been deteriorating for quite a while. And now it's dire.
And I (personally) believe it's going to get even worse. Substantial amounts of the US economy are currently doing well because there's some AI investment bubble. Once that crazy growth stops (for any reason), the overall situation will look considerably worse. Then prices are somewhat stabilized due to subsidies. But that's just a short term solution. And it's a cheap trick to invent that money by adding national debt. I'm not sure if agriculture and long-term food prices are looking great. And then companies have been absorbing tariffs etc. But at some point they can't do that any more. Gas for the car is getting more expensive, etc.
My ketchup suggestion was only exemplary, in reality people of course need to come up with their own way.
But I don't see any good alternatives? Is there any free, or more affordable solution available? Is there a realistic chance the established political system is going to solve the issue?
I mean, I think that's part of the responsibility of people who aren't being restricted economically. There are people living in massive expensive mansions within a few miles of people who live on the street or struggle to afford tiny apartments. The contribution from the people who are sitting on enough money to do basically whatever they want needs to offset that. If you've got a 6 figure income and the extent of your contribution is going to a protest or pushing for the idea of a general strike without actually making material contributions or logistical planning to make such a thing possible, that's not really going to cut it.
Just saying you want a more equal and just society when your own life helps to prop up the current status quo of massive wealth inequality isn't how we're going to get there. Doing something like offering cheap and well maintained rental properties for substantially less than their market value would go a lot further than taking 3 days off of work. Taking practical measures like directly sponsoring low-income families and providing them with things they can't afford would have a greater impact than walking around with a sign. Picking a random service worker and paying their rent for a month would have a greater impact than posting on social media. Seeking out homeless people and setting them up with housing with the weight of your financial ability would have a greater impact than passively wishing them well or giving them a couple of dollars.
Someone buying a new car and then going to a few protests a year or briefly excusing themselves from participation in the economy may make them feel good, but it doesn't undermine the systems of power that make it trivial for them to do things that would take actual sacrifice from the people who are already paying for the status quo with their labor and their suffering.
If your solution to injustice is to go ask the people who are disproportionately harmed by that injustice to be the ones doing the most legwork, your solution isn't a solution.
100% agree. And I think that's the basic idea behind labour unions. You'll pay some percentage of your salary. That means some person at the poverty line will chip in some small amount (in absolute numbers). And middle-class people chip in the lion's share. It's the same relative number for everyone, but obviously some fraction of a percent is way more if you take it from $120,000. I think it's roughly the idea you outlined.
And it's kind of an investment because unions provide all people with the ability to go on strike. They'll have lawyers ready in case you get in trouble for fighting for your rights. And they're supposed to keep an eye on things and demand more pay due to inflation and these things, so you'll get a direct return on your contribution.
They also tend to have rent on their agenda, where I live. I suppose affordability of rent is a worker's thing, too. (Or leftist?!) But ultimately I think this is a government thing. They're the entity who is supposed to regulate, and make society work. In the long term, you can't pay taxes towards a good-for-nothing government to break things. And then after that also pay towards some benevolence fund to fix it again. That's silly. And a bit undemocratic, since they're not legitimized by the people. They'll likely need to push for whatever is on the agenda of their contributors, not what's good for the people in total. And the entire approach is limited since it's just a private organization. They can't pass law or anything like that to properly change the situation.
I think ideas like that might work. But it's more an intermediary state. I don't think there's a way around fixing the government. It's their job and the major reason we have governments in the first place.
(And I'm not saying it's the disproportionately harmed people's responsibility. I said we need them on board. And find a way to enable them to do it. My reasoning is: Nobody will even notice if you have some nice 6-digit office job as a paper-pusher and don't come in for 3 days. Or you're a computer programmer and write a bit less code for your employer. Your team will be fine even if the manager is absent for a few days... But(!) even the richer people will start to notice something is wrong once their door-dash food doesn't arrive. The truck drivers don't refill the vegetable section in the supermarket on a daily basis. Maybe the daycare is on strike so even you as some middle-class person gets to care because it ruins your day. Or a substantial amount of the small underpaid cogwheels in the machinery make manufacturing grind to a screeching halt. That has some big effect. And it directly points at the issue at hand. That's why I think this kind of struggle regularly happens bottom-up. Not top-down. And moreover I think it's a bit questionable whether higher class people even care. I mean why should they, the situation is still kinda alright for them. And in practice, the USA are a bit more oriented towards individualism. There isn't a lot of solidarity with poor people to leverage, here.)