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What the UAW is doing here is fighting for all workers. This sets precedents that ripple across all industries. What formed the UAW back in 1937 took some balls, and so does this.
It’s not communism to fight for dignity and a living wage. We’re practically fighting for some more table scraps, but the rich are acting like we’re threatening social fabric.
Go and get it Shawn, this is exactly what we all need right now. Support the UAW.
In the last 20 years, we’ve seen the most rapid rise in productivity since the industrial revolution, and just like in the wake of the industrial revolution, there was massive worker exploitation that led to reforms and eventually unionization that ushered in a golden age of labor in America where workers were fairly compensated for the work they provided, so much so that it was easy for a salaryman to support a nuclear family on his single paycheck.
Since then, the business owner class has been working hard to dismantle unions while refusing to pay their fair share of the massive profit windfalls to the bottom rung workers. We are long overdue for sweeping multi-industry unionization effort. Only then will we start seeing something more than just table scraps.
Fighting for dignity actually is literally communism. It’s capitalist propaganda that has you convinced otherwise.
Communism provides a theoretical framework to advocate for those things, but it is not the same as doing those things. I think the distinction is important because it allows you to have a plurality or support
That’s like saying physics only provides a framework for experiment.
I mean, I can see a utopian vision of Communism where dignity is forefront, but I’ve also seen where it’s dystopian. Correct me if I’m wrong but the basis is to each according to their need and from each based on their abilities. Dignity isn’t mentioned, but the happiness and contentment of all is the goal so I suppose it’s inferred but not specified.
Either way, it doesn’t have to be viewed with any kind of social opposition. If we keep following the slippery slope of late game capitalism, who’s to say companies don’t just purchase legislation that re-establishes full on slavery? We have a fucked up oligarch system, and moments like this where workers unite is a good thing in any system. Free market my ass, and this is a moment where arguing for semantics is a side-discussion, for now it’s us against the oligarchs.
I think a better way to describe the essence of communism is an end to dominance hierarchies. Authoritarians often use leftist rhetoric to gain power, which is why so many of them have called themselves socialist or communist, while being the exact opposite of the ideals they claim to support.
You are 100% correct, it is us against the oligarchs. That’s also the entire basis of communist theory, btw. Regardless of terms used though, we are on the same side of this fight, and I am glad that we are.
You don’t seem to understand that your distinction between the theory of communism, and communism as practiced, are both equally valid and accepted uses of the word. One is a theory, one created reeducation camps and killed millions of their own people. It is not capitalism that convinced me of this.
Your comment is fair, but please allow me to deflect for a moment with a few questions:
The nazis called themselves national socialists, do you believe they were socialists?
The north korean government has called their country a democratic republic, do you believe that?
I’m guessing you answered no to both. If that’s the case, why do you believe the ussr and the ccp when they say they were/are practicing communism?
Additionally, who benefits more than capital if you believe socialism and communism equal authoritarianism?
If you guys understood marketing, you’d stop insisting on your version of the word being the one people should embrace. Socialism sells way better than communism even though it still gets people as riled up as Sen Kennedy reading “not all boys are blue” while pretending that it’s legally mandated to be given to white Christian boys at birth. 9/10 you guys rail against European social democracy, regardless of the fact that it would be a far easier reach for the US and would dramatically improve the lives of workers.
Always play offense. Useful tactic, but easily avoided. Bye!
Billionaires the original welfare queens.
How does the working class not realise that the wealthy are the sodden bitch in a bog handing out the sword? Jeeebus
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Wasn’t it that same episode where Rom basically says word for word that he doesn’t support unions because one day he might own Quark’s bar and then he’ll be able to oppress people too? What a great show, some people dislike the ferengi episodes but they’re some of my favorites in the series.
Who could dislike the Ferengi episodes??
Ikr? Some people hate 'em. They’re really goofy and cartoonish so I guess I get it. Profit and Lace is pretty tough to watch. The Magnificent Ferengi is my personal favorite (Iggy Pop guest stars too, what a treat!) And I quote the Rules of Acquisition in real life somewhat regularly, heh
People with the same mindset as Ferengi and who don’t like to be called out for their shit.
Even China knows this. Give the hard working people a better job than mom and dad had and they won’t rebel.
The people who are rolling in their next billion have forgotten what happens when you take that away.
China is about to find out as well, they have something like a 30% new-grad unemployment rate, and Pooh Bear is on a bootstraps kick saying that social protections encourage laziness.
They’re on even thinner ice than the US.
I mean we all know what “didn’t” happen last time students got together in protest. Whatever became of the Hong Kong protest btw?
They are in the economic industrial boom that already happened to western countries decades ago. The problem is that eventually all booms end
That is just buying into accepting the current model where the rich can have it all at the expense of the poor. The model is the problem not the amount we have to distribute.
I like this Shawn. I really do. He’s saying the words and doing the actions. Go Shawn! Go!
That’s red hot commie stuff right there. I like it :)
There is nothing communist about that. He’s not advocating abolishing private ownership. Businesses and workers both operate in the free market, which allows workers to advocate for their position in the market.
The free market doesn’t exist in a communist economy. Communism uses a planned economy, so the government strongly regulates both businesses and workers. This eliminates workers’ leverage over employers.
There is nothing communist about that.
Seeking a new economy, based on the challenge that the current one serves the owning class, is the very essence of the communist movement.
He’s not advocating abolishing private ownership.
Billionaires are the owners, and they are being challenged, as well as the system that serves them.
Businesses and workers both operate in the free market, which allows workers to advocate for their position in the market.
No. Markets confer freedom only to those who enter them already having the more advantageous position.
The free market doesn’t exist in a communist economy.
You previously gave an accurate definition of communism. Markets are not specifically or fundamentally rejected by communism, even though many would wish to see their eventual abolition.
Communism uses a planned economy, so the government strongly regulates both businesses and workers.
Communism seeks direct control of the economy by workers.
This eliminates workers’ leverage over employers.
Workers have no leverage over employers, because employers already own everything. Workers have only the power to withhold their labor, though doing so carries great risk.
Holy based, I didn’t know there were any unions with a backbone left in America
The UAW has always been pushing for Americans as a whole. Hats off to them.
Image Transcription:
X/Twitter post by user Teddy Ostrow @TeddyOstrow reading ‘“In their economy, workers live paycheck to paycheck while the billionaires buy another yacht… So we’re gonna wreck their economy cuz it only works for the billionaire class,” says @UAW prez Shawn Fain in Detroit.’
Attached is an image of UAW president Shawn Fain speaking passionately at a targeted strike rally against the Detroit Big Three automakers (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis).
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
I’m happy to see this transcription “service” here on Lemmy. Thank YOU!
Fuck yea, love to see militant labor fighting for what they need
I vote for wrecking the rich’s yachts. There’s even a great capitalist reason to do it: the companies that build them might make new sales! Win-win!
When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
It’s like trickle down economics, but we gotta shoot some holes in the water tower to make it trickle down.
This is actually an example in The Wealth of Nations; Adam Smith considers whether a hooligan smashing a window is a benefit to society because it creates work for the glazier.
Smith concluded that no, it isn’t a net benefit because the glazier could have made a new window instead.
However, given that megayachts are net negative to society, I’m not sure how he’d view this case.
The argument is sloppy.
The working class makes gains when our work helps us as a class, not when we are forced to serve.
If the wealthy are able to support the creation of wasteful luxuries for their own vanity, then they must be able to support activities that help the working class.
The difference is that the latter may require some encouragement.
My comment was satire. Stop arguing with the wind.
Many comments being posted are intended as satirical, but the actual apologia resembles satire so much that I think the intentional satire is rather creating confusion above all else.
Creating confusion for you maybe. Nobody else took my comment that seriously.
I said “shooting holes in a water tower to make trickle-down economics work” as a reply to someone making an obvious quip. IDK if you’ve just never been around leftist discussions, but joking about how fucked trickle-down economics is isn’t an endorsement of building megayachts that wreck the environment and provide no good to society.
Stop being intentionally obtuse, or just don’t blame others for your inability to read between the lines.
EDIT to add: I also explicitly stated it was satire in response to the only other comment that replied to mine taking it seriously. But even their comment just seemed more like a clarification for anyone else reading, not someone actually taking my comment seriously.
Creating confusion for you maybe. Nobody else took my comment that seriously.
The general view is one I have reached after reading hundreds of threads or more.
So then why reply to my comment with a hostile argument when there was already a thread in reply to mine which cleared up any possible confusion?
You can’t read satire, got confused and replied without spending the time to even read the other reply saying the same shit you said.
And you wanna blame satire for creating confusion.
If u smell shit everywhere you go, check ur own shoe bud.
When you think about it, at that point at least the rich are spending their money again in order to buy another yacht, actually putting money into the economy.
People who think the rich just have vaults full of money are so fucking ridiculous.
Poor people sit on cash. Poor people hide cash in their house. Almost the entirety of any rich person’s wealth is invested, because rich people generally pay smart people to handle their money.
“We were very wealthy,” says Errol Musk. “We had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe.”
With one person holding the money in place, another other would slam the door.
“And then there’d still be all these notes sticking out and we’d sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.”
You are willfully ignorant.
Poor people live paycheck to paycheck, 1 disaster away from bankruptcy and absolute poverty. What the actual fuck are you taking about??
That… is a very…VERY BAD IDEA.
Billionaires have enough money to survive an economic crash without batting an eyelid. Do you?
Most billionaires aren’t billionaires in cash. If the market crashes, so do they. Now they might be reduced to “only” a hundred million or so but that can be catastrophic when your personal finances depend on billions in stock backing up a series of long term rotating loans.
They wanted to use the market to exploit the people. But that makes them vulnerable in a way rich people didn’t used to be vulnerable.
Yeah, but that “catastrophe” you and I won’t see it. We would have died already out of hunger or disease. You cannot survive only on hate itself.
Edit: typo
Eh, when food gets scarce there’s a few ways things can go. Usually the people in charge try to stop those kind of extreme events by handing out food. It’s when there’s a dust bowl at the same time that things get nasty.
Yeah, go ahead and think you can live on handouts from the rich and powerful, whose economy you’re trying to wreck.
That’s uhh not how real life works. It ain’t a story where morality (yours or mine) matters. Hungry humans get very desperate and has been the cause of more than one period of extreme violence. That’s why people get fed when governments can do it. Not because of any sense of charity.
In a wrecked economy the government can’t do it. Because the government is not a magical entity. Then what?
The government is more real than the economy. It’s made of actual people doing actual things. In a total economic collapse but with a good food supply government ration stamps become the new form of pay. Again. This has happened before. They can’t wave a magic wand but they can physically work together in their pre-existing hierarchy.
The “economy” will exist whether it’s a capitalist system or something else. Blaming the system is a stupid take when it’s the actors within it causing the issues you complain about.
It’s like blaming gravity.
