Anyone else find it ironic that so many people in this thread are defending the current labor structure? Seeing as this is a forum dedicated to getting out of it as early as possible?
It seems foolish to think that capitalism in it’s current form is the best economic system that humanity will ever come up with. But I suppose people were having the same arguments defending monarchy back then, never imagining what could come after it.
It also astonishes me how many people in this thread who make good money talk about people who do unskilled labor as being lazy. Has anyone ever thought that “someone” has to clean the toilets, run the machines, do the cleaning etc... and that there are many, many people who don’t have the capability to do the higher skilled labor that they happened to win the genetic lottery to be able to do? I work in a manufacturing plant with many wonderful people, who just could never be engineers, or managers. A good work ethic helps, but it can only take you so far. Some people could work 150 hours a week, and never get ahead in an economy that values mental over physical labor.
Capitalism has been an absolutely fantastic economic system that has brought the standard of living for billions to the highest point in human history. However, it has flaws, obviously, and I have hope that we can find an economic system that works even better.
I was having a conversation on my walk this morning with a friend, on a similar vein. We talked about homelessness, and poverty. About food security - I recently read an article about childhood hunger in my town, and they interviewed the head of the Boys and Girls club about how he helped started a dinner program with the school district. And how he noticed that near the end of the month, parents (who have to pay $4 for a meal, kids are free) were splitting the meal.
I think what we kind of agreed on (and so did the older lady jogging by) is that for some reason, it is really really hard for people to put themselves in someone else's shoes. Especially if they've never been there.
So, I grew up kind of poor. I remember getting some government cheese from an uncle (we weren't eligible). I remember having 16 cents in the checking account that had to last 10 days till the next payday. I live in a town with vast amounts of poverty and homelessness - and extreme amounts of wealth.
My first job was bagging groceries. I also dug ditches, cleaned toilets, painted dorms, washed trucks, loaded and unloaded pipe, mowed lawns, etc. So, I've worked those jobs. My family is still about half blue collar. They are not stupid. They are not lazy. I worked with people at the grocery stores who could run circles around you, and some that were never going to be able to hold a job above stock boy.
I've worked with people who rented a room and had no kitchen privileges. My kids go to school with kids who are homeless (about 20% by the stats). Homeless may mean in a car or a shelter, and it may mean multiple families to a house.
I read comments about lazy poor people. Or fat people who eat too much pizza, and I wonder - how insulated are you? Because it truly feels like some people have never been around poor people. And they don't know them. So they project their own level of "normalcy" to everyone else. "If you don't cook, you must be too lazy to fry up a burger and cook some broccoli." What of the family living in a car? Or in a garage with no method of cooking? Or in a rundown apartment with no car and no grocery store?
I hear a lot of it from various groups, and especially from family/ hometown friends who have "made it". Grew up poor, worked hard, went to college. But some of them are STILL completely incapable of understanding the effects of poverty and racism. Because they are projecting their own (white, unaddicted, Christian, hardworking) experience to everyone else. It *doesn't* mean people shouldn't work hard. It doesn't mean you should feel embarrassed by your success, or ashamed of your hard work. It *does* mean the playing field is not level.
I grew up with people who were janitors, cooks, cashiers, and you could make a living like that. It was good, honest work. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Nowadays, I read so many people lecture "just get a better job, work harder, go to school" like working hard at a manual labor job is something to be embarrassed by. It's absolutely not. Has the world changed, or has my circle changed? Or both?