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I don't think I could disagree more with the parent's argument. Essentially it's that if Walmart didn't employ they poor, they'd become a burden on the state.

I don't think I could disagree more with the parent's argument. Essentially it's that if Walmart didn't employ they poor, they'd become a burden on the state. Which is the same argument used to defend the exploitation of workers in banana republics. They go on to say that the government is the cause of high rents, by pointing to San Francisco which has the highest rent in the nation. An argument which is trivially dismantled when we look at rural areas like the ones in my state where housing costs are increasing so quickly that people are having to move away. Which is due to real estate speculation: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/07/22/investors-bought-a-quarter-of-homes-sold-last-year-driving-up-rents https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta... When we fit a curve to the data, we see that we're in the middle of a class war between the owner class and the worker class. Owners want to own even more so that they can quit working and have workers support them. Workers are so beat down and disenfranchised by 40 years of trickle-down economics that they're too divided to organize or even vote for candidates that would actually fix the problem. So they vote in fear to keep things the way they are. It's so tragic to think about that most people don't. Until we examine these root fallacies from first principles, we're stuck. Just how the owner class likes it.

Aunche 4y ago
> Which is the same argument used to defend the exploitation of workers in banana republics. This is a completely bad-faith interpretation of my comment. The OP and I were both talking about the cost of government services. If you want to frame that as a burden, that's on you. Banana republics didn't provide their citizens with trillions of dollars of government services. > An argument which is trivially dismantled when we look at rural areas like the ones in my state where housing costs are increasing so quickly that people are having to move away I guessed what state you lived in before I looked at your profile. Check where all the recent immigrants are coming from. NIMBYism in California is so bad that its effects spilled over to the entire west coast.
- zackmorris 4y ago
  Fair enough, things get lost in translation on the web sometimes. I'm concerned though that so often the government is blamed for problems started by the private sector. I might go so far to say that regulatory capture is the issue. Maybe unintended consequences are at play. But in my state, a certain potato and beef producing corporation irreparably damaged the high desert through unregulated grazing. Old growth forests were clearcut a century ago. Rivers and lakes are polluted with chemicals and heavy metals from mine tailings. We needed regulation constantly, but never got it until it was too late. So what feels counterculture in California, stuff like conservatism and the demand for smaller government, has had devastating consequences for red states like mine. I'm the minority here. I've been disenfranchised my entire life. We rely on you all to vote for the environmental protections that we have been gerrymandered out of voting for ourselves due to decades of entrenched one-party control. Also after sleeping on it, I realized that my "root fallacies" comment was a bit heavy-handed. I have my own blind spots from being radicalized by the constant division sewn by amoral politicians who got their playbook from guys like Newt Gingrich. But I've known that provincial glorification of half-truths wielded for political gain my entire life. What I was trying to say there is that we need a common context based in truth or we'll never be able to communicate civilly and settle our disputes. Which I believe is what you were getting at with your comment here.

Aunche 4y ago

> Which is the same argument used to defend the exploitation of workers in banana republics. This is a completely bad-faith interpretation of my comment. The OP and I were both talking about the cost of government services. If you want to frame that as a burden, that's on you. Banana republics didn't provide their citizens with trillions of dollars of government services. > An argument which is trivially dismantled when we look at rural areas like the ones in my state where housing costs are increasing so quickly that people are having to move away I guessed what state you lived in before I looked at your profile. Check where all the recent immigrants are coming from. NIMBYism in California is so bad that its effects spilled over to the entire west coast.

zackmorris 4y ago
Fair enough, things get lost in translation on the web sometimes. I'm concerned though that so often the government is blamed for problems started by the private sector. I might go so far to say that regulatory capture is the issue. Maybe unintended consequences are at play. But in my state, a certain potato and beef producing corporation irreparably damaged the high desert through unregulated grazing. Old growth forests were clearcut a century ago. Rivers and lakes are polluted with chemicals and heavy metals from mine tailings. We needed regulation constantly, but never got it until it was too late. So what feels counterculture in California, stuff like conservatism and the demand for smaller government, has had devastating consequences for red states like mine. I'm the minority here. I've been disenfranchised my entire life. We rely on you all to vote for the environmental protections that we have been gerrymandered out of voting for ourselves due to decades of entrenched one-party control. Also after sleeping on it, I realized that my "root fallacies" comment was a bit heavy-handed. I have my own blind spots from being radicalized by the constant division sewn by amoral politicians who got their playbook from guys like Newt Gingrich. But I've known that provincial glorification of half-truths wielded for political gain my entire life. What I was trying to say there is that we need a common context based in truth or we'll never be able to communicate civilly and settle our disputes. Which I believe is what you were getting at with your comment here.