Don’t ask your government for a living wage. Or your employer. An education that gives you leverage to negotiate a living wage tough… that’s totally a governments responsibility and in its range of possibility. Everything else is a social subsidy which is fine as long as you call it by its name which is disability pay and unemployment pay. Ask your government for that too.
Teachers are very educated and yet have very low wages. The problem is not that workers are not skilled enough, it is that system isn’t giving them their fair share. All the profit goes to the rich, while poor are getting poorer.
Teachers are state employees. Their pay is a disgrace.
Would be nice if Capitalists would stop lobbying to lower public funding.
We all agree with this premise and mostly that the FPTP system is a large contributing factor to the TPS saying how it has based on seeing how places that don’t have a TPS appear to do so because the have different voting systems like different iterations of ranked choice voting.
What I am wondering is what ‘we’ think the best way to implement voting would be?
Can’t remember which South American country did it, might have been Venezuela, but at least one of them has an official app. You register to vote on your 18th birthday, and get daily notifications about the various proposals at each level of government that applies to your address. They also created a team to boil the proposals down into plain language. You vote personally and the government has to, in theory, listen to the will of the people.
Of course that system will still be susceptible to propaganda, as evidenced by the fact that whatever country did it, still has some serious issues.
I was curious about the app you mentioned and understanding how they solved the privacy & anonymity requirements.
This is the only similar app I could find but it’s not exactly as you mentioned. Can it be this one?
If not I would be glad if you can share any reference to the one you mentioned. That would be really helpful.
Sorry. I remember the article from around 2016. I searched as well, but came up with way too much noise to find the actual one that I was referencing
Thanks for looking. Appreciate it. 🙂
The democrats seem more… ribbed in this drawing.
Its always refreshing to look at the american political system if i am disappointed by the German one. Sure our sucks too, but at least we have more then 2 unvotable major parties.
In the German system (or any other multiparty system), voters can effectively punish a political party without wasting their vote, because there is a lot of overlap between the parties.
If you don’t like the current coalition but are a left-leaning person, you can vote for Die Linke. You might not agree with all of their positions but you at least can agree with some of them. Even if that is not palatable if you previously voted SDP you can switch your vote to Green or vice versa to punish the specific officeholders representing your constituency. If you voted for the FDP last time, maybe try Union next time. There are many ways to do this, and overall I think it makes the parties themselves more accountable to the voters because voters defecting their party list votes can drastically change the makeup of the Bundestag.
Similarly, right-leaning UK voters are punishing the Conservative Party by threatening to or actually voting for Reform candidates. Scots can punish the SNP by voting Labour.
You can’t do this in the US. In the USA, the only recourse the voters have over the parties is to vote out undesirable candidates through primary elections so that the party cannot nominate them. This works alright, sometimes, but it is not an effective way to punish party leadership for bad decisions, and many primaries are uncompetitive anyway.
222 downvotes lol this really struck a nerve in liberals huh
It’s just shallow and disappointing.
Your idea of what politics is about has to be bigger than shitposting and trolling.
Sorry that you expected a 200 page analysis of politics from a meme
I love this, nobody can actually defend this as a healthy way of engaging with politics.
Sir, this is a c/memes
Oh phew, I was worried. Okay okay, what year is it? Do you have any plutonium? I need to get back to my dimension and you’ve been so helpful so far
You need to learn a skill that leads to a living wage. Demanding politicians to directly do that is pointless, they are absolutely unable to give you that. The only thing they can directly do is set a minimum wage, which is essentially a lie. It doesn’t actually give you a minimum/living wage, instead it makes you completely unemployable if your wage level is between 0-(minimum wage).
As u/nomad mentioned, demanding structures that make getting an education easier is something politicans can do, however.
The solution is UBI.
You need to learn a skill that leads to a living wage. Demanding politicians to directly do that
This is a perfect example of traditional neoliberal rhetoric, attributing success solely to individual effort and downplaying structural obstacles. It operates under the assumption that everyone has equal opportunities for success, which is simply not the case. This ideology perpetuates the existence of a low-wage sector for those who may not have had access to the same educational opportunities, such as migrants, single parents, and others facing systemic barriers. The American Dream, often touted as a symbol of success through hard work, is a myth perpetuated by neoliberalism. It is important not to buy into the narrative that one’s circumstances are solely their own fault. Statistics show that social mobility is much lower in the US compared to many European countries, which further disproves the idea that hard work alone guarantees success.
This got me chubbed up. Preach, Chad.
Precisely this. People are taught by the wealthy class to devalue certain jobs because they are deemed “lesser than,” and that the people that occupy those jobs are “not worthy” of a living wage, benefits, a stable living situation, respect, and more. This systematic dehumanization prevents us from realizing the true harms that working class people of all backgrounds are experiencing. Of course, the harms are compounded if you identify as a woman, a person of color, as having a disability, or if you don’t speak the native language.
Environmental Justice is what we need - a sense of community, mutual support, and a collective realization of past harms that have been baked into every policy, from the local to the federal level. These harmful policies have to be disrupted and dismantled, which can only be possible through education and action. The more people that engage in collective action under the banner of Environmental Justice, the better chance we have of really making meaningful, positive change.
/rant
Sure, it is my fault that even though there is enough food and most of the farming is automated, I still need to work for it because I don’t own the land. We shouldn’t ask them to fix it for us, they never will. We need to take control of the land that feeds us.
I don’t know you, but I can guess: it’s almost never the individual’s fault. But we should still look for efficient solutions, not populist non-solutions.
UBI is very efficient. Efficient for the working class, not so much for the capitalists.
I agree on UBI. That would be a good solution.
Lmmfao, so you’re against minimum wage claiming it’s a non-solution (and also that some workers must gain further education to even “deserve” it) while advocating UBI, which is a solution on the exact same level as minimum wage is - the level that still allows capitalists to exploit the labour of others for profit (except with UBI, it is the government compensating them from the tax pot, either way, it’s working people paying the highest price - freedom).
Never mind that the meme doesn’t offer it up as a solution to anything, but more of a bare minimum that neither democrats nor republicans will give, because, and this is the point the meme is actually making which seems to have gone completely over your head - both democrats and republicans work for capitalism, not you.
Truth is, you’re just here to flex your “economist” muscles, but instead you’re just spewing confident incorrectness all over the place… 😂
Not sure what you have against minimum wage, it works well in other countries (I’m from the Netherlands). Obviously it doesn’t solve everything by itself, but it’s definitely a valuable part of a range of measures to treat people fairly. It’s a fantasy that everyone can be educated to a level above minimum wage.
Not sure what you have against minimum wage,
Having bit more than basic education in economics, I suppose.
It’s a fantasy that everyone can be educated to a level above minimum wage.
Is it more or less a fantasy than the fantasy that every employer is able to pay the minimum wage?
You clearly don’t have even a basic education in economics. There’s enough data across a variety of jurisdictions and history at this point to establish the effectiveness of the minimum wage.youre choosing to ignore that and simp for managers and capital owners.
Removed by mod
If company can’t pay it’s workers a living wage, that company shouldn’t exist.
Indeed. That’s exactly what will happen. And then people whose wage level is below the minimum wage will be unemployed.
And should be given welfare check.
Or UBI as we seemed to agree on other part of the thread. Either of these are better solutions than minimum wage.
Minimum wage works. Here is an article from the german newspaper FAZ (leans economically right) that presents a study that shows the low income sector has shrunk since the implementation of minimum wages.
Germany before had one of the biggest low income sectors in the western world.
And no, the unemployment rate did not skyrocket. In fact, Germany is as close to full employment as it gets.
Ah, got it, so all our problems are the fault of those pesky workers wanting to afford to survive, and not those who refuse to function unless they’re exploiting others…
Makes perfect sense, “economist”… 🙄😂
These folks seem to have a different understanding than you.
Specifically:
Since as many as 10 percent of the lowest-wage workers leave or start jobs every month, any decrease in the number of full-time equivalent jobs will mean that some workers will take more time finding a new job, or will work fewer hours. But many of these workers may still see their annual earnings rise because of their wage increase.
You are not entitled workers just because you started a business. Pay them well or don’t run a business
Yes, that’s what happens in a minimum wage environment, although not every single time like people have shown in these threads. But when somebody doesn’t start a business, that’s invisible.
What is visible is when an existing business’s costs rise above the minimum wage level. There are plenty of reasons why this could happen, 9/10 of them not being “the C-levels are paid too much”. That’s when they start firing people or just go under which essentially fires everyone.
Perhaps we want a society that don’t have employment for the people who can only work below a minimum wage level. That’s some sort of a decision, I just want to be honest about making that decision.
It doesn’t even happen a statistically significant number of times, you’re just parrotting what executives want you to believe, believing they know what’s best for you
I’m afraid that it’s really only a tiny bit more than basic education. Empiric studies refuted the negative effect of minimum wage on employment.
That video does give good arguments, but to suggest that this is not a controversial issue in economics is perhaps a bit dishonest. Granted, I suppose I suggested that as well.
e: that channel’s Breadtube vs Economics series seem pretty good, thanks for the pointer. Seems like the channel is left-leaning, and this makes me doubly happy. A political left with good knowledge on economics would be a great thing.
Sorry I was a bit oversimple. Had to get off the pooper.
Having bit more than basic education in economics, I suppose.
Good for your family I guess. Now study cybernetics.
Is it more or less a fantasy than the fantasy that every employer is able to pay the minimum wage?
Is that why it seems you have negative wage?
You clearly don’t have more than a basic education in economics if you’re peddling debunked bullshit.
Having bit more than basic education in economics, I suppose.
Well there’s your problem: neoclassical / neoliberal / Chicago School economics, which has become hegemonic in universities around the capitalist world, is garbage.
If they can’t pay the minimum wage they should not exist
Other countries don’t exist, silly!
This is actually pure bullshit, by the way! Minimum wage is proven to be beneficial.
But don’t demand stupid things like minimum wage
Wow. Let’s come back to reality for a moment.
There are millions out there that cannot afford to make themselves employable. They work long hours, possibly two jobs, plus a hustle just to not make enough for ends to meet. How do they go back to school? Learn a trade?
I am one of them, except I haven’t found my hustle yet. I work 40+ hours each week, but I take home so little. I was able to make rent two days ago, for last months rent. I have to hold off on a one of my meds, because paying rent took precedent over everything else, again. People like me don’t give a shit about programs that cannot help us in the short term. We already know our long term: work until we die, with nothing to show for it.
We could turn down the heat, so that the frogs might be able to escape their boiling fate? No, let’s design a better pot that won’t boil the frogs. The ones in there now won’t make it, but their progeny will also likely…not make it.
You ought to check yourself before you call what can be a major relief for millions, stupid. Seriously.
Minimum wage works. Here is an article from the german newspaper FAZ (leans economically right) that presents a study that shows the low income sector has shrunk since the implementation of minimum wages.
Germany before had one of the biggest low income sectors in the western world.
And no, the unemployment rate did not skyrocket. In fact, Germany is as close to full employment as it gets.Germany is as close to full employment as it gets.
I wonder what they do in 21st century when everything is mechanized and automated like never before.
That’s literally the exact same thing they said about the 20th century.
UBI and nordic-level welfare should have been implemented in 20th century.
I’m just here to watch the complete and total dumpster fire in the comments.
2 party system is almost the same as 1 party dictatorship. You do need unlimited amount of parties to have any kind of democracy
We definitely don’t have a two party system. Trump came in and invented a whole new party just like that. We have republicans, democrats and trumpers.
Pro-Trump Republicans and anti-Trump Republicans are not at all separate parties, and 99% of anti-Trump Republicans still support him in practice when the alternative is working with Democrats.
Saying they’re separate is like saying AOC and Nancy Pelosi are in different parties.
Is it a LEGALLY different party though?
If you want to get pedantic then the US has MANY different legal parties. Functionally only three that matter.
Still I think people should pay more attention on smaller parties. But nice to see a third big party forming
Oh look, more both sides trash slapped on top of someone else’s work. Lazy fucks can’t even propagandize properly.
It’s not really propaganda when it’s true, at least not in the negative sense of “false manipulative information.” If it wasn’t true we’d already have it. Republicans don’t have complete control everywhere, and there are states where Democrats have complete control and they don’t do it because corporations have complete control over most Democrats.
“We” have like a handful of actual progressives in the entirety of our government, state or otherwise.
How about spending some of your time and energy telling moderates they can either compromise with leftists and progressives or lose to fascists a second time?
The dip shit fascist lost like a punk bitch even though they cheated like hell. He’s going to lose again.
Biden had a lot of help in the 2020 general election he won’t have this time around. I won’t be voting for him again. I’ll be voting 3rd party or write in.
All you said is that you’re voting trump. Lots of people said the same dumb shit last time and trump lost his ass. I’m not worried about folks like you. Plenty of you folks aren’t even real anyway. Lots of far right astroturfing.
I voted for Biden in the 2020 general election. That was before he decided to block the rail strike and support genocide.
I’m totally sure you did bud. Enjoy supporting fascism in the next election.
I’m not the one supporting fascism. Moderates are doing that in every single primary election.
block the rail strike
You are such an uninformed idiot. No wonder you have such bad takes… it’s on brand.
Biden called on congress to block the rail strike. He got 44 Democrat senators and 36 Republican senators to vote against American workers. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-calls-on-congress-to-block-potential-railroad-strike
…as long as we all do what we can to stop him.
You can’t just leave it as inevitable. We cannot afford ANYONE to become complacent!
Both sides are fascists, you can’t compromise with either.
But if they compromise with leftists instead of telling them to suck an egg, they won’t have a scapegoat anymore to blame all their losses and woes on!
Sure, they might just win instead, but that’s like at best third on their list of priorities behind corporate donors and the status quo.
Socialism 2024
Same comic, just change the little guy to “Socialism 2024” and the two big guys to “DNC & Biden”
You have the power to change the world brother.
I definitely don’t, but together we have some semblance of power.
No we don’t. Not so long as the moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with leftists and progressives.
That’s on them, then. I will vote with my conscience.
All you’ll be demonstrating to the DNC, establishment Democrat politicians and moderates is that you’ll vote blue no matter who so they’ll continue to slide to the right.
The democrats have been trying to raise minimum wage for idk 15 years now, they just haven’t been given a functional enough majority to make it happen at the national level, though they have absolutely done so at the state level. I think your complaint might be misdirected, and could better apply to the fundamental structure of our bicameral legislature, and especially at the filibuster rule that is getting increasingly unpopular with senators themselves. When the filibuster is gone sometime in the next 6 years I expect, you will see a noticeably more functional senate.
I am thoroughly confused as to why this comment is getting downvotes. It corrects the misinterpretation of the poster in a polite and civilized manner, while bringing forth interesting discussion as to what the future may hold and possible solutions to our country’s predicament.
Unfortunately I think a lot of people find it easier to feel nihilistic than recognize that there is a path forward
Let’s break that shit up!
Approval voting and proportional representation! So long as we have single-seat elections using choose-one voting, we’ll be stuck with two parties.
I’m so glad to see more people around here realizing this.
None of these things will pass so long as moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with leftists and progressives.
That’s why you gotta pass it using a referendum. Take it out of the hands of the legislators and into the hands of the people. Ohio just enshrined abortion protection into their constitution that way.
Odd that Democrat controlled states like California haven’t done the same thing.
Voting reform is absolutely the key… which is why neither entrenched party will do it, of course.
Criticism of the comic aside, two party system is still definitely undesirable. I believe it is a side effect of first past the post voting. What we really should implement is ranked choice voting. It gets rid of the dumb “voting third party is voting for [opposite party]” argument by letting you vote for who you want guilt-free and falling back on your lower-ranked votes if #1 wasn’t popular enough.
But you know, this will always meet resistance because politicians would lose their jobs for implementing this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting
STAR voting allows you to say “I refuse to vote for this candidate at all,” which certain implementations of RCV do not. It can and has ended up with candidates no one wanted winning in Australia, and other places that have implemented RCV
