6 ms·

"we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us"

oldsklgdfth 7y ago
As a holder of a semi-bs job, I feel I am in a similar situation.
babuskov 7y ago
People in underpaid jobs in my country have a similar saying that translates roughly to: "I can always work less than you pay me".
collyw 7y ago
It amazes me that so many millennials seem to be pushing for communism.
- petrocrat 7y ago
  I don't see that many pushing for communism. Now, a lot are pushing for universal healthcare and similar social safety-net programs. Confusing these two things is a hallmark of either a propogandist or one of their rubes.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    I see a decent number, though I'm not sure I would call them millennials as they seem to be a bit younger. Many I've spoken with seem happy to compromise, and if you asked them further details they all seem to have quite a different view of what they want. It's kind of like a bunch of people who all believe in God but once you start pushing for details you find that every one of them has a difference concept and many haven't spent much time even thinking beyond the common schema. For example, does their view of communism allow for some private property or not (and often with some special subset that I've commonly see named personal property instead of private property). It is also a bit like those who advocate for the free market. Many advocate for a free market. Very few advocate for a market so free that humans can be traded. And there are many products that you will find some think should be regulated within their free market while others do not.
- oldsklgdfth 7y ago
  Communism is a very broad term. Unfortunately, propaganda (from both sides) has made it synonymous with full blown authoritative Soviet unions style regimens.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    Agreed. Many people identify Communism with Stalinism, Stalinism with Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism with Marxism, Marxism with Marx & Engels, Marx & Engels with Marx, and finally Marx with Communism. All of these identifications are heavily suspect, and are considered as such by the relevant experts (whether philosophers, sociologists, historians or political scientists). Unfortunately, few people on either "side" take the time to look deeply into the movement(s) they support or rally against.
  - cbnotfromthere 7y ago
    "Unfortunately, propaganda (from both sides) has made it synonymous with full blown authoritative Soviet unions style regimens" Please shock me with even 1/one example of any Communist regime which isn't / wasn't "full blown authoritative Soviet unions style".
  - yters 7y ago
    How do you propose to take away everyone's possessions and give them to the state without full blown authoritarianism? I assure you no one will do so out of the goodness of their heart.
    - Talanes 7y ago
      Taking everyone's possessions is not a fundamental tenet of Communism.
      - SkyBelow 7y ago
        But it is more of a derived consequence. Maybe not all of their possessions, but enough that you don't enable people to engage in free trade and capitalism.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Marx never witnessed a fully-automated factory in operation. He'd poop out 26 pallets of perfectly-stacked, completely-uniform dry-stack quake-resistant mortarless bricks onto the trailer of an all-electric self-driving truck, and his jaw would have to be picked up off the ground by a robot arm executing an optimized gape-stopping program. They're pushing for communism, because it is increasingly apparent that they have been screwed by the existing system from a moment dating to some time before their parents were born, and they'd prefer not to be. Since no other system has been publicized such that it has given them some hope of not being screwed, they are increasingly choosing the option of being slightly less screwed personally at the cost of the whole economy being more screwed. It's just the Nash equilibrium. Once the voting leverage for screwed people passes a tipping point, their choices will become reality, and everyone who might prefer some other option will have no better chance of a President of the United States trying to get a Supreme Court justice appointed within the last two years of their term, when a unified voting bloc controls Congress.
  - hwillis 7y ago
    somebody has no idea what Marx was actually like, said or wrote... > But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; Early Marx's entire vision is foundationally based on the scarcity labor tipping point you're describing. He wrote a lot more after that as well.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Marx is irrelevant to younger generations in the US. Obsolete. We don't really need to discuss him. They can see with their own eyes what he could only imagine and speculate upon, and then some. And what they see is that not only are factory-owners richer than non-owners, who aren't really even "workers" any more, but that some owners have insignificant need for labor, and that even they are inferior to the owners of the machine specifications and procedures, the holders of patents and trademarks. They can also see the output of factories that produce modern war materiel. Pilotless aircraft can carry missiles aloft, linger a while, and then rain fiery hell down upon people who never even knew they were up there. A single bomb can end tens of thousands of lives in a flash of light. Even a single person can unremarkably buy enough firepower from the consumer supply chain to terrorize an entire city for a few hours, from a rented hotel room. A private company can reach orbit. A religious cult can synthesize and deploy chemical weapons. Seaworthy cities, powered by uranium, with miniaturized airfields as their roofs, are becoming obsolete, thanks to machine-controlled weaponry. Nobody is that visionary, as to predict the politics of a world that has reached the bounds of human imagination, and then continued to progress another 50 years. When people stay home, and don't go to work--either voluntarily or laid off--for fear of a global pandemic, the stock market still rallies. The event that is as near to a general strike as I have seen in my lifetime is being dismissed as a temporary inconvenience to business owners. We all saw how the former Soviet Republics delivered up all their capital into the arms of a few oligarchs within a matter of years as the former government order crumpled. Who now has the power to wrest control of Gazprom from Vladimir Putin? The youth in the US need never have even heard the name Marx. They can come by their new brand of communism completely from scratch, just by reflecting upon the history of the last 50 years, and extrapolating the simplest of models into future decades, and onto additional simple models of water use, housing starts, and climate change. It is easy to see that a mere handful of people are looting the entire planet, and if that is allowed to proceed unabated for a few more years, an inflection point will be passed, such that even a concerted, aligned, and organized effort by 99.9% of the human population cannot stop it peacefully via the existing institutions.
- danbolt 7y ago
  I get the impression of Democratic Socialism more than Communism in the United States. It's not hard to understand why young people now seem fond for FDR/Eisenhower New Deal policy compared to the post-Reagan world they live in today.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    Yeah, that burning food while people starved and a generation grew up malnourished because of that FDR central planning. I mean good memories, right?
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    There's a strain of enthusiasm communism among millennials that most definitely goes well past Scandinavian-style democratic socialism: * Communism is viewed favorably by 37% of millennials. * 22% of millennials believe society would be better if private property were abolished. * 15% of millennials believe the world would be better if the Soviet Union still existed. https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/2019-annual-poll https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/2019-annual-poll
- StandardFuture 7y ago
  While I am not a fan of anything resembling communism. It really should not surprise you that a generation that grew up with the rising wealth of their baby boomer parents (so were used to some comfort), and were suddenly cast into a world as independent adults and yet simultaneously completely fucked over by the Great Recession ... would find things that are drastically different from the current status-quo (e.g., Communism) as appealing. That being said, most Millennials would not want anything close to actual communism ... I think.
  - yters 7y ago
    It seems all millenials have vastly better lives and prospects than previous generations.
    - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
      Technological progress can be deceiving like that.
      - yters 7y ago
        how are they worse off?
        oldsklgdfth 7y ago
        I don't think you can compare on average someone today with someone from 40 years ago and reach a conclusion of which is better. I would say that prospects are always better for those that command expertise in the technology of the day. Ex: A developer has much better prospects today than in the past. A library probably has the same prospects now as then.
        yters 7y ago
        Barrier to entry for coding is very low. Even working as a burger flipper they can get a degree, move up the management chain, etc. A couple generations ago people were starving and out of work due to the great depression. We had a recession in 2008, and had no where near the same impact. Just more people on welfare, and people lost money on houses. Plus, everyone always can be an entrepreneur, which is the source of all our current wealth anyways.

As a holder of a semi-bs job, I feel I am in a similar situation.

People in underpaid jobs in my country have a similar saying that translates roughly to: "I can always work less than you pay me".

collyw 7y ago

It amazes me that so many millennials seem to be pushing for communism.

petrocrat 7y ago
I don't see that many pushing for communism. Now, a lot are pushing for universal healthcare and similar social safety-net programs. Confusing these two things is a hallmark of either a propogandist or one of their rubes.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  I see a decent number, though I'm not sure I would call them millennials as they seem to be a bit younger. Many I've spoken with seem happy to compromise, and if you asked them further details they all seem to have quite a different view of what they want. It's kind of like a bunch of people who all believe in God but once you start pushing for details you find that every one of them has a difference concept and many haven't spent much time even thinking beyond the common schema. For example, does their view of communism allow for some private property or not (and often with some special subset that I've commonly see named personal property instead of private property). It is also a bit like those who advocate for the free market. Many advocate for a free market. Very few advocate for a market so free that humans can be traded. And there are many products that you will find some think should be regulated within their free market while others do not.
oldsklgdfth 7y ago
Communism is a very broad term. Unfortunately, propaganda (from both sides) has made it synonymous with full blown authoritative Soviet unions style regimens.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  Agreed. Many people identify Communism with Stalinism, Stalinism with Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism with Marxism, Marxism with Marx & Engels, Marx & Engels with Marx, and finally Marx with Communism. All of these identifications are heavily suspect, and are considered as such by the relevant experts (whether philosophers, sociologists, historians or political scientists). Unfortunately, few people on either "side" take the time to look deeply into the movement(s) they support or rally against.
- cbnotfromthere 7y ago
  "Unfortunately, propaganda (from both sides) has made it synonymous with full blown authoritative Soviet unions style regimens" Please shock me with even 1/one example of any Communist regime which isn't / wasn't "full blown authoritative Soviet unions style".
- yters 7y ago
  How do you propose to take away everyone's possessions and give them to the state without full blown authoritarianism? I assure you no one will do so out of the goodness of their heart.
  - Talanes 7y ago
    Taking everyone's possessions is not a fundamental tenet of Communism.
    - SkyBelow 7y ago
      But it is more of a derived consequence. Maybe not all of their possessions, but enough that you don't enable people to engage in free trade and capitalism.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Marx never witnessed a fully-automated factory in operation. He'd poop out 26 pallets of perfectly-stacked, completely-uniform dry-stack quake-resistant mortarless bricks onto the trailer of an all-electric self-driving truck, and his jaw would have to be picked up off the ground by a robot arm executing an optimized gape-stopping program. They're pushing for communism, because it is increasingly apparent that they have been screwed by the existing system from a moment dating to some time before their parents were born, and they'd prefer not to be. Since no other system has been publicized such that it has given them some hope of not being screwed, they are increasingly choosing the option of being slightly less screwed personally at the cost of the whole economy being more screwed. It's just the Nash equilibrium. Once the voting leverage for screwed people passes a tipping point, their choices will become reality, and everyone who might prefer some other option will have no better chance of a President of the United States trying to get a Supreme Court justice appointed within the last two years of their term, when a unified voting bloc controls Congress.
- hwillis 7y ago
  somebody has no idea what Marx was actually like, said or wrote... > But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; Early Marx's entire vision is foundationally based on the scarcity labor tipping point you're describing. He wrote a lot more after that as well.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Marx is irrelevant to younger generations in the US. Obsolete. We don't really need to discuss him. They can see with their own eyes what he could only imagine and speculate upon, and then some. And what they see is that not only are factory-owners richer than non-owners, who aren't really even "workers" any more, but that some owners have insignificant need for labor, and that even they are inferior to the owners of the machine specifications and procedures, the holders of patents and trademarks. They can also see the output of factories that produce modern war materiel. Pilotless aircraft can carry missiles aloft, linger a while, and then rain fiery hell down upon people who never even knew they were up there. A single bomb can end tens of thousands of lives in a flash of light. Even a single person can unremarkably buy enough firepower from the consumer supply chain to terrorize an entire city for a few hours, from a rented hotel room. A private company can reach orbit. A religious cult can synthesize and deploy chemical weapons. Seaworthy cities, powered by uranium, with miniaturized airfields as their roofs, are becoming obsolete, thanks to machine-controlled weaponry. Nobody is that visionary, as to predict the politics of a world that has reached the bounds of human imagination, and then continued to progress another 50 years. When people stay home, and don't go to work--either voluntarily or laid off--for fear of a global pandemic, the stock market still rallies. The event that is as near to a general strike as I have seen in my lifetime is being dismissed as a temporary inconvenience to business owners. We all saw how the former Soviet Republics delivered up all their capital into the arms of a few oligarchs within a matter of years as the former government order crumpled. Who now has the power to wrest control of Gazprom from Vladimir Putin? The youth in the US need never have even heard the name Marx. They can come by their new brand of communism completely from scratch, just by reflecting upon the history of the last 50 years, and extrapolating the simplest of models into future decades, and onto additional simple models of water use, housing starts, and climate change. It is easy to see that a mere handful of people are looting the entire planet, and if that is allowed to proceed unabated for a few more years, an inflection point will be passed, such that even a concerted, aligned, and organized effort by 99.9% of the human population cannot stop it peacefully via the existing institutions.
danbolt 7y ago
I get the impression of Democratic Socialism more than Communism in the United States. It's not hard to understand why young people now seem fond for FDR/Eisenhower New Deal policy compared to the post-Reagan world they live in today.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Yeah, that burning food while people starved and a generation grew up malnourished because of that FDR central planning. I mean good memories, right?
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  There's a strain of enthusiasm communism among millennials that most definitely goes well past Scandinavian-style democratic socialism: * Communism is viewed favorably by 37% of millennials. * 22% of millennials believe society would be better if private property were abolished. * 15% of millennials believe the world would be better if the Soviet Union still existed. https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/2019-annual-poll https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/2019-annual-poll
StandardFuture 7y ago
While I am not a fan of anything resembling communism. It really should not surprise you that a generation that grew up with the rising wealth of their baby boomer parents (so were used to some comfort), and were suddenly cast into a world as independent adults and yet simultaneously completely fucked over by the Great Recession ... would find things that are drastically different from the current status-quo (e.g., Communism) as appealing. That being said, most Millennials would not want anything close to actual communism ... I think.
- yters 7y ago
  It seems all millenials have vastly better lives and prospects than previous generations.
  - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
    Technological progress can be deceiving like that.
    - yters 7y ago
      how are they worse off?
      - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
        I don't think you can compare on average someone today with someone from 40 years ago and reach a conclusion of which is better. I would say that prospects are always better for those that command expertise in the technology of the day. Ex: A developer has much better prospects today than in the past. A library probably has the same prospects now as then.
        yters 7y ago
        Barrier to entry for coding is very low. Even working as a burger flipper they can get a degree, move up the management chain, etc. A couple generations ago people were starving and out of work due to the great depression. We had a recession in 2008, and had no where near the same impact. Just more people on welfare, and people lost money on houses. Plus, everyone always can be an entrepreneur, which is the source of all our current wealth anyways.