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Poverty is a labor generating mechanism, amirite?
by Anonymous1 week ago
You should be able to rent an apartment and get good food and healthcare for minimum wage. Poverty shouldn't mean destitute in the most wealthy country on earth. I read a study that said if McDonalds was to give it's employees a 20% raise, the cost of a burger would go up less than a dollar.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Could you imagine even if they just had to pay taxes?? Lol
by Right_Host_78851 week ago
Minimum wage went up in California recently. It drove the price of the burger at a fast food place up by like $.13 and people lost their freaking minds over it! Lol I don't disagree... just pointing out how crazy people get over this.
by Right_Host_78851 week ago
Well, TBF, most places also fired tons of people as well to make up for the wage hike.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Labor has been a requirement throughout all of human history. Getting food requires labor. Building shelter requires labor.
by Anonymous1 week ago
True, and we keep falling back on the age old method: Keep some poor people around who will work hard for dirt pay
by Anonymous1 week ago
Who is keeping them poor?
by Anonymous1 week ago
Yeah this is what the democrats did to black people and the Irish indentured servants after the civil war there's tons of books on it. Arguably just another form of enslavement with less "community" and much more difficult to get out of because it's institutional and national now
by Normal_Magazine28201 week ago
true it was different times
by Normal_Magazine28201 week ago
same bird lol
by These_Lemon1 week ago
"I guess we have to pay you so here's a dollar. By the way, now you have to pay rent since you're not a slave. So I'll be getting two dollars from you tomorrow."
by Anonymous1 week ago
And then pitted poor immigrants against black folks so that neither focused on who did this to them. Nasty work
by Normal_Magazine28201 week ago
How is that keeping them poor?
by Anonymous1 week ago
You don't see how being evicted and having an underpaid cashier job would keep a person poor?
by Professional_Leg1 week ago
Being evicted? No, it just means that you can't stay there anymore. You might be evicted because you don't have money, you also might be evicted because you are a horrible tenant even though you can pay rent. For the underpaid cashier - i am trying to understand how you shopping there keeps that person poor.
by Anonymous1 week ago
I am not giving profit to the company out of the charity of my own heart, I am giving them money in exchange for a good or service provided to me. But me shopping there doesn't keep the person in poverty. I don't prevent the person from getting a better job. I don't disagree that they should be paid more money, but I don't understand your point about how retail shoppers are keeping people in poverty.
by Anonymous1 week ago
You do by supporting the business owner who decides how much to pay them. It's not that you are intentionally doing something ‘wrong', but you are, in fact, supporting his decision to not pay his worker a livable wage. You not thinking you have any effect or influence on the situation of others lends credence to the above point that it's so ingrained into our societal structure that it just seems ‘normal' or acceptable to exploit workers.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Idk i kinda like blaming people who dont actually work and just exploit others labor. Im not talking just billionaires and what have you but anyone who, by virtue of circumstance, exploits the labor of others for their own profit without putting in any effort.
by Anonymous1 week ago
what is "underpaid"
by Anonymous1 week ago
"underpaid" I would say if you can work 40 hours a week of focused labor and a 1 bedroom apartment is still more than 50% of your income you're probably underpaid. There are lots of measures but if someone is working full time they should at least be able to own property, provide for a child or two, buy a car. It shouldn't be possible to work full time, live cheaply, and still have 90% of your money dedicated to bills.
by Anonymous1 week ago
I think I know what you are trying to say but you conveniently leave out a lot of harsh realities. Whose really doing the hard work for dirt pay? It's immigrants or people in sweat shops in places like China. There are a couple problems there, that we may or may not be able to effect. Can we control the labor laws in some other country? As far as things that go on in the U.S. (if you are American) the agriculture industry takes advantage of cheap immigrant labor, but who do you know that would otherwise be doing that kind of work unless they were like a dropout with a criminal record who literally can't get another job? I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's reality and it's easier to say how "sad" and "unfair" it is than look at how you yourself are a part of that system and look at your own position in life. You're a consumer right? You like low prices right?
by Narrow-Meaning3761 week ago
I think people have a poor understanding of just how much labor and materials is required for everything in our economy. To build a condo complex probably requires about 1 man-year worth of labor per unit and tens of thousands of dollars of raw materials to build. The idea that housing should be free misses the point that lots of people have to put in the work to build the housing and provide the materials, and these people deserve to be compensated for their efforts. The same is true of everything in the economy. If someone refuses to work they're not contributing to society and don't deserve anything from society.
by Anonymous1 week ago
(Almost) everyone can contribute to society, whether you have Down's Syndrome and can only bus tables at McDonalds or you have a physical disability. We have an obligation to ensure that the least capable of us have an acceptable standard of living but are under no obligation to provide that same standard of living for those who are capable of providing it for themselves.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Affordable housing was so nice in the 60s and 70s and they were wrecked/destroyed.
by Mundane_Walrus1 week ago
Well put. Ever since the beginning of civilization there have been winners in losers in the rat race. Some people are just given better starting positions.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Marx would be a Tumblr addict for sure
by Anonymous1 week ago
If there aren't poor people to exploit for their labor how else are you supposed to get rich?
by AdDependent5101 week ago
Lol The evil geniuses who designed food and shelter in a way that requires work for it to be realized! Oh the horror!
by Anonymous1 week ago
There are jobs where you can work 40 hours a week and still not ever afford to buy a house. Of course food and shelter require labor but that labor shouldn't be placed on people being forced to do it from threat of eviction.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Would you say that school lunches shouldn't be free because children don't contribute labor to society?
by Anonymous1 week ago
Poverty is a labor generating mechanism, yes. But Poverty is not the only labor generating mechanism. We also have greed that keep our world running. I am not so worry that no one will work if we eliminate poverty (If that's possible) because everyone wants more things once they have escaped poverty.
by imelda671 week ago
I would qualify: " … a low-skill labor generating mechanism".
by Anonymous1 week ago
Video good yes
by Anonymous1 week ago
This isn't an opinion it's just fundamentally wrong. I mean you're close to the truth, but we don't rely on poor people because they work harder. We rely on poor uneducated people to do all the simple jobs noone with an education would want to do. Poor people uneducated people often aren't prepared to get an education and if they are they probably can't afford it. As a result, these people are the ones with the working class jobs and they are the ones in the military. Without these uneducated people to work the hard labor jobs, society would "collapse". Hard labor would become a lot more expensive. There are also other more fundamental reasons unemployment is necessary.
by Anonymous1 week ago
You're agreeing with me, I think. There need to be poor, uneducated people with little social mobility for society to continue functioning how most people expect, whether we like it or not.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Moloch consumes everyone, ignorant or aware
by Anonymous1 week ago
Certain people would be worse off without an extremely poor underclass, but it makes no sense to think that an economy requires it.
by Mundane_Scholar1 week ago
Those middle class people need poor people who will do the work to actually fulfill all that. Middle class people can only chase after iPhones because there's a kid in China being forced to make iPhones.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Yeah exactly, it's the crappy reality of what's happening. It's cheaper to get children in the congo to mine our batteries than to do it ourselves, so that's what happens
by Anonymous1 week ago
There's more to it. Giving everyone more money so they can afford more things generates inflation and makes prices go up, so our economy is dependant on a (large) part of people not being able to aford stuff. Plus look at Maslow's pyramid theory. If everyone can afford basic necessities, they'll start wanting ideals.
by UnhappyWork1 week ago
You just need to shift the motivation of work from survival to supplementation. We're getting there. Maybe in a couple decades.
by Anonymous1 week ago
Labor is needed for everything. EVERYTHING. there's is a weird leftist circle jerk around the idea that, if everyone was provided with universal income and free housing etc, that the people would continue to work. The truth? They won't. Why work? Why do anything like that when one can live without putting in labor? It's the old joke. "There's a reason why we can't have nice things". There will always be the dirt of humanity that will ruin it for everyone. They will take and take without contributing. You think billionaires are bad? You should visit some of the non working people in the hood. Those are the real gem of human beings too. That's when society falls apart. People are intrinsically selfish and flawed.
by MinimumAgitated1 week ago
if everyone was provided with universal income and free housing etc, that the people would continue to work. The truth? They won't. how do explain billionaires not quitting their jobs?
by Anonymous1 week ago
I feel the same. Starting from 0 should be hard but not impossible. In America the treadmill sucks away so much money that starting at 0 is actually starting in debt. Public transport but only accessible by car. Predatory loans. Doctors appointments in the $500 range. Plus most people giving advice about how to escape poverty are just trying to make a quick buck themselves. Seems impossible to escape from an outside perspective, I don't know how people can say "just work harder" to those people
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