#That can only happen if they pay their workers and living wage

[ktempestbradford]

We believe Powell’s workers deserve a living wage and affordable healthcare, but the Company has yet to bring a proposal to the bargaining table that would ensure every Powell’s worker has access to both. Their most generous proposal thus far included a base wage more than $5 below the living wage for an individual in the Portland metro area; annual wage increases that wouldn’t keep pace with inflation (and are a substantial decrease from the previous contract); and healthcare options that would be out of reach for most workers under their wage proposal.

Booksellers cannot subsist on their love for the job, and neither Powell's nor their customers benefit from a workforce that's constantly turning over because the workers can't afford food, housing, or medical care. Powell's leadership has a responsibility to both their workers and their community to do better.

Let Powell’s leadership know you support a fair contract for Powell’s workers, with a living wage and access to affordable healthcare! It’s important that they know workers have the support of the community in these demands.

[homunculus-argument]

I was born and raised American, but with everything that's happened over the past few years I've been considering moving to another country. but I don't know if this is just "the grass is greener". Not sure if this really fits with your blog, but as someone from Europe what's your attitude towards living in the US?

I've visited there a handful of times and most of my thoughts are "damn bitch, y'all really live like this?" People in Finland like to complain about the climate, the taxes, and how stingy the welfare systems are (if you currently rely on them) or how costly they are (if you're currently not relying on them), but honestly most of the time that's because people are used to having it so good, or don't really have a perspective of how bad everyone would be doing without the infrastructure that everything runs on.

Sure, nowhere is perfect, and there's always room for improvement, but honestly the people I've met in the US only really seem to think that their system is good because they've never been anywhere else and don't know any better.

Mostly it's stuff that you'd never think about if you hadn't been to both places, like being able to trust that tap water is drinkable or that you can safely walk/bike to wherever you need to go. The US really doesn't have the kind of ability to just hang out in public places, just walking to the town and sitting on benches. Having public parks and libraries isn't really the same if you can't just walk there, and you genuinely need a car to go anywhere.

I moan and lament a lot about how the winters here are hard to endure - at the darkest time of the year the sun rises at 9 and sets before 5 pm - but I wouldn't move from here just because of that, mainly because of how reliably everything is structured here. Sure, it's all run with funds from relatively high taxes, but that is a self-feeding loop on its own. The tax-paying workforce isn't a disposable resource that's wrung dry once and tossed out when it's broken, but even when you're just another cog in the machine, you're one that's maintained, not replaced if broken.

I had a lot of breakdowns when I was younger, largely due to depression and other mental issues I had due to the undiagnosed ADHD. When I started breaking down at work in my old factory job, they couldn't just fire me on the spot because of the workers' union fought tooth and nail to make sure that you can't throw people out for getting sick, and mental illness is treated no different from other health issues. I was allowed to take two years off work in order to study into a career I thought would fit me better. That didn't turn out well either, but I was still allowed to bounce back and forth between odd jobs, sick leave, and studying - all on government pensions during the spots when I wasn't working a wage - until I found the right diagnosis, the right medications, and the right job.

It's not a hyperbole to say that I owe my life to the ample and studry social welfare systems that Finland has in place. Sure, you're just another brick in the wall, a cog in the machine, but if you keep breaking down, it takes a long time until they completely give up on you if you can somehow make them believe that you're trying, because it's cheaper for the tax system to figure out how to make you fit into the machine than just toss you out. A human being is an expensive investment and if getting you to the right job, education, diagnosis, medication or even arranged housing is what it takes to get your ass back into the workforce, they'll at least try.

I'm perfectly happy to pay the taxes here to fund the system that helped me onto my feet when I was in no condition to function, and to support the people who never do recover, find their place, or be able to support themselves on their own. And I can live with the peace of mind that even if I fall apart again, that safety net is still there. It's brutal, pragmatic, and regards your health and welfare as a means to an end - to get you working and paying taxes again - but they still do prioritise your welfare. Cogs are cheaper to maintain than replace.

[lady-griffin]

It was very weird for me to go from Tumblr where I’ve been seeing a lot of good, supportive, and informative takes about the Writers’ Strike – where even the one or two posts I’ve seen being critical, still had a nuanced and sympathetic view.

To go to a community post on YouTube, where I saw some truly god awful, spiteful, uninformed, and just overall condescending takes on the subject.

And basically I was forced to remember that anti-union is not an uncommon stance at all, even by those who shouldn’t be anti-union in the slightest. Also, there are these dominanting ideas in our culture and society like - 

‘Someone else has it worse than you, so shut up’

‘You’re not owed a job that pays you well’

‘You should be thankful for what you have and work harder to get a “better” and even different job if you want more, rather than just demanding it.’

‘You don’t deserve that (and by that, they mean things like dignity, respect, or any kind of good paying job)

And I’m just like...

Wow, you guys really drank up that capitalistic Kool-Aid, didn’t you?

There’s just so many things to unpack and criticize, but I can’t help but focus on this somewhat ambiguous idea of ‘it’s wrong for writers to do this, when other workers, like teachers and nursers are being treated unfairly today.’

Do you think you can only care about one thing?

Do you think only some workers deserve to be treated fairly and earn a living wage?

Do you think there’s only x amount of strikes that can happen in a given year?

Or that there’s a limit to how many unions can exist?

Do you think that writers receiving protections or more that what they are currently being given will somehow impact how teachers and nurses are being paid or treated?

It’s weird and beyond stupid that you’re bringing up other workers being treated unfairly as a reason for why this strike is bad.

Also, I’m not sure what you think the WGA can exactly do for nurses or teachers.

I’m still honestly very annoyed and even angry about this one stupid comment I saw - “Just use ChatGPT”

And yeah... 

I forgot how strong and stupid anti-union rhetoric can be, as well as annoyingly pervasive. 

[creacherkeeper]

yall, its finally happening ... getting my tits shot off is simply so within my grasp 😭

i'm getting top surgery on january 8th 2024 and im so excited and so scared but im being so so brave about it

though i've tried saving the funds myself for years now, emergencies keep wiping them away, like vet bills, emergency moves, wage theft, a con artist roommate, you name it, its happened in the last two years. i never wanted to have to rely on crowdfunding for something so vital and important to me, but now that it's here im really calling on my community to help support me

top surgery is not only a dream come true as far as having a body i can finally call home, but also with living in one of the most conservative states in the bible belt as a trans, gay, autistic, disabled, jewish man, its a matter of safety as well. temperatures frequently reach 115f/46c in the summer here, and with some of my health problems, binding isnt always feasible in that kind of heat. but not binding also means i risk getting clocked, and i don't think i need to tell yall how bad that could go for me

i've really been scraping by on low wages for years as a social worker and now as a graduate teaching assistant. and the previously aforementioned vet bills, con artists, etc have just really squashed any hope i had for paying for this myself

it's not easy for me to ask for help, but it would genuinely mean the world if yall could share this around. i know this is the webbed site of unemployed disabled people and broke college students but every little bit helps

if not for me then please do it for my nanny, a 10 year old pit bull who simply loves to step directly on my tits and would really appreciate if i didnt weep and wail every time she did it

[ID: a photo of a tan pit bull wearing blue spaced-themed pajamas.]

godspeed little gay people in my phone and thank you!!

[freeworldallahexecutivembaclass]

This is my rule as the ruler

Getting them all with this champion sound

Getting them all with this champion sound

Getting them all with this champion sound

Getting them all with this champion sound

Getting them all with this champion sound

Hot song see you soon with it presenting my song Champion 🏆 sound

And

Now to present you with some of my accomplishments already

My New York City accomplishments

Trump is the whole package but he had boundaries he set boundaries and was strong against people especially the criminal element me I defend the proletariat the common man and woman with real issues and get them the laws passed that they need boost the economy with more money legalize weed get free college education for the city citibikes more money for people on Human resources administration and permanent employment from temporary seasonal jobs from decades long however much months work program they learn and then get kicked out and you can't support yourself and your family I made it where that after you finish that probation period you get the job the job security meaning your secure because you got a steady paycheck and now could build a future from there I got union contract for Starbucks workers and Amazon workers and more money on the city feps and seps voucher for their housing the city pay more rent for you so you and your family could rent in the neighborhoods you want with better schools and employment opportunities for the parents to provide a good future for their kids

I got hotels for the homeless in New York City 2021 it is now happens where everything that happens in New York City is under my name and my control of the city which is good because I do good for the people my name is Allen Henry notice the Henry Hall building with the Henry lives here sign on it next to 42nd Street Port Authority yes I live in New York City and thanks for the big announcement on your building symbolizing radio city music hall at Rockefeller center in New York City is shouted out about from a building with the Henry lives here sign on it let radio city music hall know I'm coming soon and thank you my super hero Batman and Superman my superhero days are just starting that's on 38th Street on llth Avenue in New York City Manhattan next to port authority on 42nd Street you could actually drive pass it and see it now it is actually a tourist site wow thanks that's amazing I love it thanks I'm honored I appreciate it again like the sign says I live in New York City and thanks for the big announcement on your buildings and don't forget the Henry apartment buildings in Brooklyn New York thank you I'm honored

I got Amazon workers their union contract

I got Starbucks workers their union contract

I got the minimum wage increased from $ 11 dollars an hour to $ 15 dollars to $ 17 dollars an hour put 100 million $ dollar boost in New York State economy proven math governor Kathy Hochul is signing that into law from where I already got it she is going to give it boost we need oh yeah very great and lovely governor we got now she is pretty good at doing her job I like her a lot and wish that the government of America go through with wage increase for all states and have the new federal minimum wage for a better rate of pay for all workers from the dishwasher , to the bike messenger to the Mexican American and union for job security is created for them to help immigrants and Kathy Hochul signs off on a new money adjustment plan to balance out against inflation and new tax cuts that help the common man and woman the employees that provide services in the places me and you have to visit

I got more money put on the housing vouchers the city feps and seps voucher so that homeless individuals and women with their kids and husband and wife can have better housing and a better life for themselves and their family And it's only going to get better more housing more safer housing where the housing crew does it's job and provide safe clean housing cleaning the apartment from Asbestos and using the wrong products that could harm the people in the apartment and their should be more NYCHA the projects job openings to the people in those surrounding neighborhoods the hood and any hood in the world to help clean their neighborhoods 20 men and women crews clean up crews drivers and even regular normal everyday people of those neighborhoods newly hired people that take pride in doing a very good service for the people of their community they have to educate the tenants on lead paint and checking their apartments carbon monoxide levels how to use a stove fire safety plans and evacuations plans in those apartments safety with electrical sockets for their children and toxic free apartments air conditioners and heating free cable so they can watch some good TV shows and movies and enjoy their summer and winter and they get WI Fi now hooked up with their house packages and hopefully more money on the voucher to help rehabilitating families to get their lives together better housing and better schools for their kids equal a better future don't forget to give New people moving into their apartment fire safety 🦺 training courses on unplugging their wires from the outlets and child safety outlets not leaving the oven on or stove on or leaving the stove and ovens on unattended child safety windows no water near electronics and electrical devices carbon dioxide early detectors and smoke detectors no smoking 🚭🚬 around fire hazardous materials and we should reduce the number of accidents and tragedies in NYCHA called the housing projects in our neighborhoods and enjoy your cable wifi air conditioning heat in the winter and your Citibikes .

I got the fair chance to compete for a job act of 2019 in New York City and California hopefully other cities and countries are going to follow suit

I legalized marijuana in New York City on March 31 , 2021 no violence in the hallways of the projects that we are from fellas respect people space and their kids in those hallways don't bring an violent atmosphere and environment around those kids when hanging out with our friends in the lobby that means no violence and violent talk around the kids while walking through projects NYCHA hallways go outside and enjoy the sun or the nice breeze that passes us and chill and enjoy outside that is so no laws will be passed restricting our laws .

I cleaned up fox square in Brooklyn , NY

Free college education in New York City

Free gym membership for people on Medicare

Citi bikes for New Yorkers

I got the second stage theatre in Manhattan , New York City meaning I got my second chance to perform music 🎼🎶 on a stage record and performing music, I rap .

Pictures of me as Christopher Wallace Biggie Smalls the Notorious BIG in Brooklyn New York City that is a big big accomplishment shout out to his moms how are you doing Ms . Violetta Wallace I'm very honored thank you Governor Cuomo legalized weed Marijuana the gaunja off of those pictures and across the street from the picture I got apartment buildings in my name the Henry apartments in Brooklyn on Rockaway Avenue in Brooklyn New York City

I brought Yo MTV raps to the Brooklyn Museum 🎨 an Art museum since I'm of the sophisticated crowd and Talented tenth from W . E . B . Dubois book and I'm a rapper from Harlem and Brooklyn New York City via Saint Croix U.S. Virgin Islands

I got my own subway street named after me called Respect Avenue in New York City New York and Brooklyn New York

Governor Andrew Cuomo gave me and opened an hospital named after me in Brooklyn , New York back in 2015 Brooklyn's 760 Parkside Avenue where my family is originally from when they landed in Brooklyn , New York City my uncle and his family 760 Parkside Avenue downstate biotechnology incubator hospital 🏥 thank you I'm honored and actually do put my sponsorship behind it not being funny it's just that it's an hospital and hospitals heal people and take care of them and I love that caring nurturing loving and nourishing environment of hospitals and the hospitality of the nurses doctors and specialists we never tell them we love them and thank you and I love you enough tell your doctor if he is doing a great job correctly say hey doctor I love you I love you all of my hospital staffs for providing a great service in my name I love you for taking care of God's people all of God's people I mean people from all communities we are all good people and deserve the best in treatment and the care that is given to patients when you visit my hospital and counselors should know the nutritionist and give out good advice even while your A casac counselor therapist and clinician do your job with passion , love and the intention of betterment for your patients and even those that come to work under and learn from you teach them how to doctor truly heal human beings through laughter , love a d being strong for them and doctor the soul through a warm smile and hug for all patients and pediatrics should know you have a great responsibility to love provide and care for all patients you have a very very important job and I love you we never know when you might need somebody to take care of our every needs, I love hospitals they should actually play Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen in the care units to help heal the people in special care units play their TV shows and audio all through all units of the hospital

I won the Super bowl with Patrick Mahomes I got Clinton Dannemora back and I came home and took over the streets of NYC in politics Errol Louis of Channel 1 news would be proud of me

President Joe Biden presented me with a medal 🏅 of honor in the year 2023 for my heroism

Watch out Donald Trump my movement is doing very good now

I'm on 5th Avenue in the heart of New York City now

My gift 🎁 from Nicki Minaj the female rapper from her Young Money Crew thank you Nicki I got my own library in New York City thanks to her in the heart of New York City it is pleasing to me to be able to have a library that host after school programs for the kids and storytelling fun with their teachers and parents with Barney the dinosaur type characters to make the kids laugh and enjoy their selves that is a blessing for me coming from where I come from I had a rough life I grew up in Harlem New York City running the streets but I kept my nose in a book and part of that reason is because my mom was in college she would have tons of books on her bed and I fell love in books because of her she went to Monroe College in the Bronx and got her degree and even worked for the Board of Education for awhile and I got my love of books from her and to see that they give me a library is beautiful to me I know she is proud of me I made something of myself reading books I learned my way in anyway the library have costume animals Barney the dinosaur type costume animals for the kids to make them laugh and enjoy life is a blessing for me and it is in my building thank you I'm honored New York City and yes it is in the same building that I got my GED from in 2003 so I had already been going their for awhile they gave to me in 2022 thank you New York City and it's on 40th street and 5th Avenue right next to Grand Central and Times Square New York City and the same block wow as the Joel Osteen store so go get some Coffee ☕ and bagels and enjoy your day , their programs to help people returning to work , Cafe on the seventh floor outside rooftop so you could watch New York 5th Avenue like the empire state building and their are regular programs special instructors from any career is their to teach and instruct you on how to get where you would want to be in life it is so so clean the water fountains are the new ones where you place your bottle under some kid of water dispenser and it fills your bottles you could stand there and get as much refills as you want self service sanitized napkins to wipe your area where you are going to be reading I own the building so I eat at my seat the security guards is very professional that is their brand professionalism and high quality service with a smile they greet you warmly and treat you like you are at home it's mines so it is your home of course I'm like yeah yeah whatever but you would love it there make it a tourist attraction when you come to New York City I left school early I wish I didn't but the library is to give me a new start to learn all the on the job skills I need to excel in my career and it is there for you to hang out have fun meet some good people all New Yorkers are really good people and watch movies listen to music and to learn anything you want to make it there and enjoy yourselves

I won the Nobel Peace Prize 🏆 once for my caring Martin Luther King jr would be proud of me and love of humanity and with the helping of this page and Nobel memorial prize for economic sciences twice so that makes three Nobel prizes I won three Nobel prizes

Benefit monetary assistance increase for snap and cash assistance recipients

I'm John Wick in the movies John Wick series and I'm Neo in the Matrix and Matrix series congratulations to me I'm very Honored thank you Keeanu Reeves I'm very Honored thank you so much with tears in my eyes 💞 I love it everything I am now is bigger than what I been through in life and it is all because of people like you thanks and to my very close friend Laurence Fishburne true story real friend I mean we go back while he was studying to do the Matrix and I turned out to be a fine gentleman thank you and I found out I'm the one but the ones are the ones that study hard and work hard and making themselves into great people efficient and effective in constructive productivity their good at school , music or their career whatever they are good at is because they worked hard at it and that how we all can be an anomaly in society the good people .

Rikers Island tablet program podcasts and video games for inmates in jail to help stop crime violent crime in prison and to help rehabilitate the guy or woman and stop the back and forth of them going to jail . The tablet have podcasts and programs for Job Search legal research and books to read to help them become better citizens in the free society .

I was named The 16th Captain of New York City that is New York Yankees history and current captain of New York city New York Yankees hat history and time magazine 2022 man of the year the 16th and current captain of New York City , thank you .

I got meteors in front of the courtroom in New York City right in front of City Hall , 80 and 100 Centre street symbolizing I'm superman and I'm not the people of New York enemy I'm a friend and employers are there to help me if I just meet them halfway with some job skills they will employ me get me a job and for all that I say thank you for letting me work my way back into America's good people list thank you so much I mean I'm working and learning to give myself a job start my own business I'm learning how to do that but it is good to know that I got y'all white people the decent ones on my side not the ones that side with my enemies and haters but the ones that rock with me to be there to give me my life back with the meteors real live meteors thank you so much now in front of City Hall the famous New York City at 80 and 100 Centre where I first caught my first case at 16 years old🥇Joe Montana number thank you goodness for Bill Walsh is now in front of the courtrooms thank you for the chance again in my life to work and not stay idle in dangerous neighborhoods and environments which I'm teaching my way out of but thank you so much and I honor that thank you so much I'm proud to be an American 🏈

Laws I'm proposing

Job Safety and secure act - 2022

Fair banking act - 2022

Retirement investment plan for employees IRA act - 2022

Ready , willing and able Expansive territory act - 2023

Riverside drive Expansion project act - 2023

The new ferry from New Jersey to New York City - 2023

School sports culture expansion Act Copperas Cove , Texas

Rikers Island schooling expansion act Added on Basic education classes on Rikers Island on the tablet , college programs on the program , online school on the Tablet . -2023

NYCHA ( New York City Housing projects ) plans and ideas for improvement

The New Trench town rock - 2021 , 2022 , 2023

And many other pitches and proposals rebuilding the workforce , wages and structure of New York city and cities like New York .

Next order of business : My Plans for infrastructure in a utopian society hotels jobs pay raise on citizens paycheck from 15 $ - 17 $ dollars minimum wage pay to 19$ dollars to 20$ dollars an hour to better provide for all costs emergencies uncovered insurance payments due to partial health care coverage and full union membership granted to employees of any company free education grants and school loans payment plans

Pay raise for school teachers in every city at junior high school , high school and elementary school level since they are stewards of our children's future .

Pay raise for civil service workers and Civil service exams made and updated daily to the public , school crossing guards , correction officers , supervisors , probation officers , construction site supervisors .

Pay raise for day care workers

Free day care services for temporarily unemployed mothers and fathers

Pay raise for city fire fighters and police officers .

Job contractors fulfilling contracts with back to work public assistance programs that train and employ job candidates without their high school diploma or GED and granting them full employment with full medical and medicare coverage union membership and back to school Acces Vocational rehabilitation counseling and restoration of financial aid assistance for non violent crimes like drug sellers and abusers to stop recidivism to prison and to cure an addiction to a habit of committing perpetual crimes thus creating repeat offenders .

Jobs moving back to inner cities through the effort of study and research groups from urban planning courses from their neighboring colleges .

Tax abatement and financial incentives and business incentives and tax breaks .

Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris should include this law into all of their plan for cleaning up America I'm glad to see it go beyond New York City and other counties in New York I want to share this honor with author Michelle Alexander who I did my research from her book about mass incarceration of the black and Latino community and the political office and my friends that help put this law in place I reached out to hopefully stop the recidivism to prison and hopefully to help some of my friends and people that go back and forth to jail because they couldn't get a job due to the felonies on their record I recommend a certificate of relief of disabilities to all people returning to society if they haven't given you one go get it from your county's or borough courthouse it works wonders .

Next order of business : Tax cuts to help the everyday person keep more of their check in their pockets cut the tax rates in New York City by 4 percent I see it as New York State taxes % 8.82 to % 4 percent and business tax cuts to create more jobs Proposal For a Wage increase of $ 22 dollars an hour Including : Fire safety directors Security guards Librarians Fed Ex workers UPS workers Ready Willing and able with free vocational grants from access vr programs they should hire vocational rehabilitation counselors and job developers finding permanent housing and permanent job placement after the clients training Stock Clerks and cashier's at major stores like Gristedes , C Town , met foods , Burlington coat factory wage increase for all warehousing and factory workers jack pallet and forklift training for people with no experience and a starting salary at $ 17 - 19 $ dollars an hour and it increase with more time on the job how about the first year at that base salary of $ 17 - 19 $ dollars and on the even of that year the employee gets an raise of $ 2 dollars more on their check and other financial incentives as cash allocation from their check for newly place employee mutual fund packages besides with other benefits that said company is offering this helps to place that company on the stock market and grant their employees preferred stock options from their company that they work for at that current moment and because of the huge huge employee buy in it is like the employers are investing in their employees and their stores and company .

Educational requirements for jobs posted is less than a high school diploma but the job candidate has to be in a vocational program or GED preparation course half or full time hours .

Civil service jobs and exams posted weekly .

Sales professional salary plus commission on sales and stock options for mutual funds packages as bonuses with an wage increase to $ 19 dollars to $ 21 dollars an hour .

Newly added benefits to a job description benefits an employer on jobs posted give to their employees an employer get to hold back cash or take money out of an employees check to put towards a mutual funds stock fund option to help that client make more money as a second job the municipals funds and stock and funds and stock and then you gotta get hedge funds option packaged in to help the employees money make more money for them talk about overtime whew and at the same time that local market and store owner can put his company on the stock market and give out public shares thus in the end making it a good investment a regular place of shopping in a family like environment it is like getting to know your deli clerk , butcher , bakery attendant again only this time you are making money with the people you are spending money with Think about it that in turns build better communities better stores customer relationships safer neighborhoods and the beautifying of economically depressed environments more money for your kids college tuition school supplies newer roads being built leading to and from better neighborhoods and businesses and this is a future that we all as fellow New Yorkers can build together .

[txttletale]

what does it mean when people say stuff like individual morality or action is incompatible with class analysis or class struggle?

alright so like one of the key ideas about class analysis is the idea that classes (as a whole) have economic interests that affect all their members but don't extrapolate out to an individual analysis.

for example, let's say that you can't find a job, and somebody offers to pay you below the table for below minimum wage. it's in your individual interest to do this--it beats having no job! but as a member of the working class, once this practice becomes normalized, suddenly the standards of pay for everyone are lower because people know that they can just pay less than minimum wage under the table. competition between workers for jobs drives wages down for everyone, leaving them all in a worse situation overall even if each individual choice to scab, to accept lower pay, to resist unionization, etc, leaves the person who makes it better off. cf. karl marx on what happens when wages and working conditions deteriorate:

The labourer seeks to maintain the total of his wages for a given time by performing more labour, either by working a great number of hours, or by accomplishing more in the same number of hours. Thus, urged on by want, he himself multiplies the disastrous effects of division of labour. The result is: the more he works, the less wages he receives. And for this simple reason: the more he works, the more he competes against his fellow workmen, the more he compels them to compete against him, and to offer themselves on the same wretched conditions as he does; so that, in the last analysis, he competes against himself as a member of the working class.

— Karl Marx, Wage Labour & Capital

similarly, any individual member of the working class is completely dispensable and replaceable by capital. if one person refuses to work unless they're paid a higher wage, they'll be fired and replaced with somebody who doesn't. the individual worker has no economic leverage whatsoever. but the working class has incredible economic leverage! and so does the intermediate stage between the working class and the individual--organized segments of the working class (e.g. trade unions) have economic leverage. if one person strikes, the capitalist can fire them. if 40,000 people strike, your industry is going to shut down.

so the reason why class analysis is compatible with individual action is that your incentives measurably change when you start organizing--it's in the interests of the individual to compete, but in the interests of the class to cooperate. and obviously you cannot just expect everyone to spontaneously coordinate! you, the individual, are disposable to capital! if you, personally, refuse to take the under-the-table offer, either on moral grounds or because you recognize your class interest, your neighbour's going to take it--unless you and her get together and agree that neither of you will take it. that's the only way that the guy making the offer is going to have to give in and offer the job for a living wage.

and this is what organization is--trade unions (although they have severe limitations!), communist parties, and other worker's organizations allow the working class to pursue their collective interest--which can only be pursued by collective action, because engaging in the strategies of collective action as an individual, without the cooperation of your peers, is high risk for no reward.

[campaignskyjacks]

The more I think about piracy, the more I believe it is the most structurally sound work situation under capitalism.

Every pirate ship was a worker owned company. If you were part of the crew, you were a literal shareholder. You got paid at least one share out of whatever venture you were involved with, and you got to vote on what the ship would do and who would be captain. That's already a pretty ideal situation, but it gets better.

The Captain is paid a double share as the position was seen as difficult and important work. But that is only twice as much as your general crew. Compare that to today's CEO and it's laughable how much more reasonable it is. It goes even further than that though.

The Captain is likely actually working way more than the rest of the crew. Most pirate ships were heavily overstaffed. The general strategy was you would catch up to a prize, board their ship and have like 200 guys. Merchant ships were staffed by capitalists, so they favored lean staffing. They wanted to pay as little wage as possible to maximize profit on the cargo they were transporting. A ship that would be comfortably staffed by 40 was probably being run by 25 to 30. Pirate ships would have way more people, so if they caught up to you there would be absolutely no way you could fight them off.

All of that means pirates didn't actually have to work that hard¹. There were way more people than actual things to do on a pirate ship. Even considering the fact that there is alot to do to keep a ship running, it's diffused over so many people that you really have a lot of down time as a crew. People like the Capitain, the quartermaster, the navigator, the doctor, or the cook all got somewhere between 1.2-2 shares, but they are working so much more than the average buckaneer.

I know some of you must be thinking "well that sounds very nice but the job gets pretty ugly when you're raiding." And the answer there is sort of. Pirates most certainly engaged in some pretty unsavory work and as crew you would be on the front lines of a lot of that. However situations where crew were actually getting in fights and putting their lives in the line were not the norm. A lot of the time pirates were hitting merchant ships, which once again were really understaffed. These people aren't crazy these people are hired to do a job so they're not going to throw their lives away over a couple dozen barrels of coffee or spice. Most of the time a pirate ship would catch up with a merchant ship, raise black flags, and and the captains of each ship would negotiate a surrender. Most of the time pirates were not requesting all of the cargo because the ideal situation is being able to hit the same ship over and over. You want to skim enough cargo that whoever commissioned the merchant ship isn't going to gripe too much about cargo being lost and complain to the navy. That way your crew can have a steady stream of whatever goods coming through to keep your vessel afloat. So most pirate merchant relationships were pretty transactional. The pirates would show up the merchants would give up abortion of their goods and everybody would go on their way.

Which means most of the time your average crew didn't have to do shit!

Pirates also had benefits. Remember when I mentioned you were going to be paid out "at least" one share? Well, if you lost a limb or something in the line of duty you would be afforded bonus shares to compensate the loss. They had entire systems of calculating disability compensation based on what injuries could be expected and how they saw it affecting your life. So if something bad did happen, you'd have pay to cover it.

It gets even better than this. The name "buckaneer" comes from "barbacoa" which was a type of mobile grill that was popular aboard ships². The folks who sailed were so commonly associated with these grills that people created a nickname for the profession based on the grills they used all the time. You'd see a privateer or a pirate at Port Royal and go "oh look, it's one of those guys who barbecues all the time."

Also, they were fucking queer. You've probably already heard that the term "matey" was a form of piratical gay marriage. If you designated someone else on the crew as your mate, if you died your share would go to them. I have to acknowledge that there is a slight chance that this isn't a 100% gay practice, there are conceivably reasons that someone might identify another person as their mate that doesn't have to do with romance or sex. Not a lot of pirates were literate and not many of them kept records of day-to-day life that really survived for historians to document. We can guess but in most circumstances we don't know for sure. But come on, grow the fuck up. These seadogs were banging.

Piracy and the type of sailing adjacent to piracy was a way for a person to make a life for themselves very far away from most of European society. And because of the way gender roles existed at the time, it's pretty much only men hanging out with men. If you happen to have desires that are unpopular at that time which involve other men, this is a pretty good situation for you.

So yeah piracy is a worker owned endeavor with reasonable compensation for management, benefits, frequent barbecues, and plenty of downtime to have all the queer sex you want.

It's one one those things that only exists because of capitalism, but as a response and a rebuke to it. These were endeavors that were so much more reasonable and fair then the legitimate businesses operating at the time.

And yes there were horrors. There was fighting and killing, torture, and worse. That is what the capitalists and colonizers would like us to remember. These things did really happen. However part of that was an effort to preserve and defend this better life people had made for themselves. To keep it alive inspire of the corporations and nations who would exploit or destroy their way of life.

So yeah, there was a lot about piracy that was violent and fucked up. But the truly wild thing is that it probably made more sense for the people involved then whatever you do right now. The next time you get bummed about your job or place in the world remember that piracy makes more sense.

Then go eat some barbecue and have queer sex.

¹This means in OFMD when Izzy was being a little piss baby about the Stede's crew not working hard enough he was 1000% wrong that's how the vast majority of pirates live their lives.

²Worth mentioning that these grills were originally used by native people, so this cool thing was adopted/appropriated by sailors. It did not originate with them.

[rsitb-second-account]

Okay, I don’t make original posts often, but this has annoyed me. People miss the point of A Christmas Carol so often.

A nice person who happens to dislike Christmas is not a Scrooge. 

A person with more money than they would ever need, who underpays their workers and thinks of people as a statistic and blames people for their own poverty and has the idea that people are choosing to revel in poverty so they can get money from others without working, however... THAT is a Scrooge.

Scrooge in the beginning of the novella was rich, and hated the idea of Christmas because he found it to be an excuse for people to be payed a full day’s wage (out of his own pocket no less) for a day of no work

He refused to donate to charity, because he didn’t want to pay to make ‘idle people merry’. He had the idea in his head, like so many modern people do, that those too poor to celebrate simply weren’t working hard enough. He also said that if they refused to go to the workhouses that ‘if they had rather die, then they should better do it, and decrease the surplus population’

He thought of people as statistics, and it’s implied that he thinks that they are wilfully denying help and shelter for themselves because they want to live off of other people’s money.

While this attitude is eventually changed, it’s not until he sees Tiny Tim. He was fine knowing that people would perish as an indirect result of his actions because it would decrease the population (and get rid of poor people, but...)

When he sees Tiny Tim, he realises that if the boy was to die, that would be his fault. He hadn’t payed Bob Cratchit (Tim’s father and Scrooges clerk) a liveable wage. Not only Tim though, he seems to realise that he would be responsible for the deaths of many, since he refused to help just about everyone. 

That’s when he starts seeing more than statistics. That’s when he becomes a sympathetic character who is trying to be better. He realises that it is pointless to hoard wealth he’d never spend, and started giving to charities and paying Bob Cratchit more.

He became a charitable man and thoroughly changed his ways for the benefit of the many. 

Charles Dickens was a social critic, and I’m sorry to tell you that he wasn’t criticising the hatred of Christmas

[sreegs]

‼️READING COMPREHENSION WARNING‼️

Read and comprehend the topic of this post above the "read more" link before attempting to respond. This is your only warning. Violators will be mocked and blocked.

A GUIDE TO TIPPING IN AMERICA FOR TOURISTS AND VISITORS

AND ASSHOLES WHO SOMEHOW LIVED HERE THIS LONG WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THIS

This post is going to cover tipping people in restaurants/eateries and private transportation. Tipping can also apply to many, many other service industries including but not limited to: movers, handypeople, mechanics, etc. Since this is meant to be brief and focused on info relevant to visitors and tourists, I won't discuss that here.

You're tipping 20% minimum on your food and public/private taxi rides (including lyft, uber, etc). Include this in your budget calculations for engaging with these services.

I was going to jokingly just end the post here but let me explain. Minimum wage laws in the US allow employers to pay their employees UNDER FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE if they're in an industry that receives tips on the regular. Taxi drivers are self-employed and have to pay for the costs of the lease on their vehicle, gas, and give a cut to their garage or ride service provider.

Therefore, capitalists have shifted the cost of paying a living wage to these people on to the consumer rather than the employer. No amount of arguments against tipping culture is going to magically fix this overnight. That's the long game and we're trying to abolish this shit. Therefore, you are tipping 20% minimum. Today.

Even if you did not like the food.

Even if the food was cold.

Even if the server didn't seem cheery and smiley.

Even if the taxi wasn't as fast as you wanted it.

Even if the taxi smelled a little funny or the driver didn't talk the amount you like.

If you did not suffer immediate physical harm or harassment or discrimination at the hands of the service person who provided you the service, full tip. Five stars if you have to rate them in an app. Perfect marks.

Does the above statement seem strange to you? It shouldn't, because remember: capitalists have forced you to cover the full cost of the service. THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE SERVICE WORKER.

Cash is King

Tip in cash if you have it. Credit card companies can't take a chunk out of cash tips. And if someone who works a low-paying job can grab a bit of cash under the table, away from the eyes of the IRS, then they will do more economic good with that money than the tax cut that goes to pay for bombing other countries.

How do I figure out a 20% tip?

Easy. Look at the total (THE TOTAL, WITH TAX YOU FUCKING CHEAPSKATE). Double it, then divide by 10 (move the decimal place one over to the left). Round up the remainder to the nearest dollar. That's going to be at least 20%.

What about counter workers?

There is some confusion on how to tip people who work at a counter in cafes and fast food establishments. Because they are not considered tipped employees and they get minimum wage.

The rule is, if during your transaction the POS (point of sale) register asks you to add a tip, you add a 20% tip. If you see a tip jar, you tip. If neither of these things happen, you don't tip

What about food delivery?

20% minimum tip. You called/ordered via an app, and magically food showed up. In any weather. 20% tip.

Bonus Holiday section:

Let's say you're visiting America during the peak American holidays when it's either a common "dining out" holiday or a holiday where you usually spend time at home with family. This includes, in chronological order:

Valentines Day, Fourth of July Weekend (the whole weekend), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve and Day.

You tip even more on those days. 30% minimum. I've tipped 100% on meals and rides on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Because those people are taking the time out of spending the day with friends and family, what everyone else is doing, to make sure they have enough money to pay bills and survive in America. And no you fucking bigot, you don't get to eye up the server and figure out if they celebrate Christmas or not.

FAQ:

I can't afford a 20% tip. How do I pay for this?

You can't afford the full service or experience. You don't buy it. Next question.

Where I come from, we don't tip that much/not at all. Why do I have to do this?

You're in America now. You have to do this. Please, feel free to engage the worker in a spirited debate about tipping culture if you feel like you need more info. I'm sure you'll learn something new.

I have a tipping system. You see, first I start at 10% and for every...

Your system is bad and you're a cheapskate. 20% minimum.

Hey wait a minute, I'm an American and I have strict rules about who I tip and how much. And 20% is too high! What are you talking about?

Every decent human being quietly judges you for being an asshole. You are disliked by the people around you who tip like normal people. You are not going to become rich some day because you saved $5 on a tip. Own up and tip.

I ate at an expensive restaurant. Surely I don't have to tip 20% on a bill like this, do I?

Yes you do.

Holy shit. I'm going to follow this guide but wow. Do you Americans really live like this?

Oh buddy wait till you encounter states that don't list the tax on the price tag.

OH MY GOD TUMBLR KEEPS BREAKING THIS POST. ANYTHING BELOW THIS GIF GETS FUCKED PLEASE TRY TO BEAR WITH ME

[betterbemeta]

'Like they know how intolerable it is right now, that's why they promise their followers slaves to relieve the burden.' i promise this is a genuine question but what does that have to do with hello fresh

It has to do with the 'convenience economy' being built on the back of exploited labor, and meal subscription services are part of that economy.

It's sort of like... "what if instead of improving conditions people find intolerable, we make money or gain political power off of those conditions instead?"

On the scale of the home: slashing wages and understaffing positions and the scarcity of jobs that pay a living wage means that people have fewer resources and less time to support themselves. The right wing in my country drives this: destroying unions, opposing labor rights, and by other means. The right wing in my country also is very strongly affiliated with the idea of the 'traditional family' where a male parent is a breadwinner and a female parent is a homemaker. They sell this white middle class fantasy for a lot of reasons but one of them is to maintain a special division of labor between men and women... where women function mainly to automate the household that belongs to the man, and more privileged women can defer this to less privileged women. While this is not directly 'related' to Hello Fresh or similar services in specific, these services exist to profiteer off of the worsening of conditions that make right-wing hierarchical promises more 'appealing' to some. If independent life is too 'hard' and there are no safety nets remaining, then the options are to get a wife or be someone else's wife and that's what our right wing wants for its core base. While everyone else becomes a second tier servant automating the lives of the most wealthy households in some way in addition to having to live their own lives.

On the scale of supply and distribution: food subscription services do not actually have as big of supply chains as major grocery stores, and supply chains are actually where most of the money in food production goes: for example, in 2020 the median price paid to broiler chicken growers was around 6.79 cents per live-weight pound. But nobody pays that in the store for chicken because the labor, materials, and fuel to slaughter it, package it, inspect it, transport it, is expensive even before we get into profit at every step. So when services like hello fresh say they can charge less than grocery stores but also do not own any of the steps in between you and the food, and aren't eliminating that many steps other than the grocery store itself... if you aren't eating the cost of that once the one-time discounted rate expires, the economy of low-wage workers, or even unpaid workers, likely is at a point in the process. Eventually the only way to get cheaper labor is to use prisoners (read: slaves) which already happens everywhere in the USA's food industry. Our right wing is really REALLY opposed to prison reform because of this economic exploitation and worsens conditions such that people can only rely on cheaper and cheaper products... and meal subscription services exploit this same desperation. It's in the interest of both for desperation to get worse.

and I'm not gonna get into how 'logistics workers' or 'last leg delivery' has its own human rights discussions involved.

TL;DR-- there won't be a simple causal answer like "hello fresh uses slaves" because I don't know that. But the intolerable conditions that services like hello Fresh Style themselves as a 'relief to,' ARE linked to slavery in the domestic and industrial spheres. They are both 'relief options' for what would otherwise be completely unsustainable. This isn't new; fast food, fast fashion, etc. are also considered conveniences like this that ultimately promote the conditions where slavery thrives... but the situation is escalating as economic inequality gets worse over time and the demands of infinite growth get steeper every year.

Our right wing makes things so awful that it feels impossible to get through life without paying a massive convenience fee (being wealthy) or without a servant to do things for you (being wealthy, x2).

If something says its cheaper than the grocery store it has to be lying because you can't be cheaper than owning the factory and having slaves operate the factory. Either it isn't less expensive, or it's taking advantage of all of that exploitation too.

and if you can sell one way to be 'faster than the grocery store' so widely, way way beyond only exploiting disabled people or isolated people without personal transportation... somebody else can probably sell another way to be faster than the grocery store. which is to have a tradwife to take care of all of that for you instead of hello fresh.

[sapphicteaparty]

i've NEVER seen a single good faith discussions about pleather on this website and i want ppl to think critically for one second about the way businesses talk about their products. "vegan leather" is purely a marketing term and nothing else. it was invented by the fashion industry and it has nothing to do with vegans or veganism.

"vegan leather" is basically made of polyester (a type of plastic), but crucially a lot of clothes nowadays are made of polyester either fully or partially because it's cheaper to produce. so of course clothing companies are going to be producing and marketing things that make them more money.

these products are not even targeting vegans, they're making an average customer feel better about their purchases, same way they are now putting "eco" labels on some of their organic cotton clothing. it's just greenwashing. NOTHING in fast fashion is eco friendly in any way - this whole industry is extremely wasteful an exploitative on every level. when are ppl going to realize that these companies just say anything they can to make it seem like they care about anything other than their profit margins. because they don't.

my wish is that ppl that talk about how bad pleather is and how vegans are apparently responsible for all of the microplastic pollution in the world also talked or cared even a little bit about the absolutely horrific abuse and exploitation that happens in the clothing and fast fashion industry. talk about how this industry consistently fails (or outright refuses) to pay its workers a living wage or how they don't provide them humane working conditions - and how that led to thousands of garment workers dying and getting injured when a garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh (and that's not the only tragedy this industry is directly responsible for).

also microplastics are only the tip of the iceberg if you want to talk about the pollution that the clothing industry is responsible for (toxic chemicals and pesticides used in cotton production, garment dyes, the disposal of textile waste etc) - all of which has direct human costs tied to it.

but if your only concern ever was microplastics that clothes can shed then great! avoid all polyester and plastic clothing. but did you know textiles aren't even the primary microplastic contaminants? it's plastic bags, bottles and fishing nets by far. most ppl can't always avoid these plastic items in daily life. but do you eat fish? vegans don't.

i'm just so tired of the pleather discussion focusing on the wrong thing (vegans) when there are so many more aspects about the clothing industry and plastic pollution that never get addressed when they should. and the amount of misinformation on these topics is just laughable at this point. ppl sure enjoy reblogging posts that confirm their biases and free them from having to critically engage with complicated issues because it's so easy to just blame a group of ppl for it.

anyway if you're concerned about ethical clothing (i hope you are) then basically these are your best options:

wear what you already have and don't buy new clothes unless necessary

get second hand clothes

get upcycled clothes

this may seem a bit extreme but these are the only options that don't result in new clothes and textiles being produced because there is an overproduction issue in the clothing industry which is why over 80% of clothes end up in landfills. obviously these options aren't viable for everyone all the time but if the goal is sustainability then that's just the reality of things for now.

you can also do things like mend your clothes so they last longer, learn to sew to make your own clothes etc all of that is better than buying new clothes. donating clothes to a thrift store is also not ideal since they get so many donations that a lot of it ends up in a landfill anyway and recycling clothes is also not straightforward or even possible in a lot of cases. so not buying new/more clothes is the most environmentally friendly option. and before you go no ethical consumption under capitalism blah blah yeah we know. doesn't mean you are powerless and have no choices in anything ever.

please learn more about microplastics, the clothing/textile industry and veganism before you uncritically reblog another misinformed post about "vegan leather" or microplastics. also please don't uncritically believe what i wrote here either. if you're seriously interested in these topics then your source for this information shouldn't be some tumblr post in the first place. there are lot of studies, documentaries and articles about all the things i mentioned. i'm not a researcher or a scientist, so don't ask me. i'm just tired.

[mistprints]

9 to 5 is an insane amount of the day spent working. We just aren’t being paid enough to work fewer hours because we aren’t paid what our work is worth. Bigger companies hide behind small ones with the “we can’t all afford to pay workers fairly” excuse. Well then the business fails at being profitable because workers’ wages are not margins you can cut to be profitable.

And then the big corporations spend obscene amount of money bribing politicians to make sure things stay this way: that minimum wage stays below cost of living so people are forced to work often multiple jobs just to survive, keeping them desperate and forced to work jobs with poor wages.

Education advancement is a potential major debt that many people cannot afford or risk even to get into the highest paying industries. Not all school systems are created equal due to budget cuts and poor, outdated standards, putting many students at a disadvantage for college already. People who would be amazing teachers are dissuaded by the state of these schools and the lack of support they get. It is one of the most important jobs of society and much like many vital services, is taken for granted.

We pretend the threat of homelessness is only for people who are “undesirable” and just didn’t want to work when in reality, many people are one missed paycheck away from being out on the street due to predatory housing situations and unchecked landlords that can give as little as a week’s notice for eviction if not less in some places.

“Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is an old saying that’s been twisted. It’s an impossible task. That’s what it means. It’s a tongue in cheek saying that’s been mockingly turned into a political statement and I think the people using it know that people aren’t going to look it up or know this. You cannot pull yourself up by them, you need help.

Society works when we rely on the group. That’s how all civilizations have worked. Others have fallen for not doing this or for doing so poorly with too many people at the bottom of the ladder holding it up (capitalism relies on this to function). Social programs have always been a facet of this and grouping it all into one big negative buzzword drives me insane.

The fire department is a social program. It’s free to call them and it’s paid for by the city because the rich decided that a poorer neighbor’s house fire was a risk to their property and so there should be someone that handles that without costs to an individual that would deter them calling for help. Same with 9-1-1 (unless of course if the person is in the US and needs a personal ambulance ride. Then they’ll charge thousands).

All I’m saying is with the state of the majority of people in the U.S., we could stand to have more support beams to help out before it collapses around us.

People are reaching a breaking point and this stress test of how much they’ll take (costs rising while what you get decreases and wages remaining stagnant; the growing population of homelessness and their solutions being to make homelessness illegal; cuts to people’s rights to their own body by people who are not doctors and should not have anything do to with it but want political points to remain in power by voters who are too uneducated to know better—again, keeping the populous too tired and poorly educated to realize the branching issues with this outside of their narrow-minded ideals they want to force on everyone else) won’t end well.

These problems all branch from a source. That source is always, ultimately, corrupted people in power, driven by money. They are shortsighted and only care about their own benefits. And by letting them, believing their lies and keeping them in power blinded by promises that are at best empty and at worst detrimental, it’s making this world a lot worse to live in for the rest of us. Even if the consequences haven’t reached you directly yet, we are already seeing what happens in this Tragedy of the Commons situation with the greed of a few.

We have to stop people from being able to exploit it. There needs to be laws in place that even the rich are subject to for this to ever work.

[dailyanarchistposts]

J.4.2 Won’t social struggle do more harm than good?

It is often argued that social struggle, resisting the powerful and the wealthy, will just do more harm than good. Employers often use this approach in anti-union propaganda, for example, arguing that creating a union will force the company to close and move to less “militant” areas.

There is some truth in this. Yes, social struggle can lead to bosses moving to more compliant workforces — but this also happens in periods lacking social struggle too! If we look at the down-sizing mania that gripped the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, we see companies firing tens of thousands of people during a period when unions were weak, workers scared about losing their jobs and class struggle basically becoming mostly informal, atomised and “underground.” Moreover, this argument actually indicates the need for anarchism. It is a damning indictment of any social system that it requires people to kow-tow to their masters otherwise they will suffer economic hardship. It boils down to the argument “do what you are told, otherwise you will regret it.” Any system based on that maxim is an affront to human dignity!

It would, in a similar fashion, be easy to “prove” that slave rebellions are against the long term interests of the slaves. After all, by rebelling the slaves will face the anger of their masters. Only by submitting without question can they avoid this fate and, perhaps, be rewarded by better conditions. Of course, the evil of slavery would continue but by submitting to it they can ensure their life can become better. Needless to say, any thinking and feeling person would quickly dismiss this reasoning as missing the point and being little more than apologetics for an evil social system that treated human beings as things. The same can be said for the argument that social struggles within capitalism do more harm than good. It betrays a slave mentality unfitting for human beings (although fitting for those who desire to live of the backs of workers or desire to serve those who do).

Moreover, this kind of argument ignores a few key points.

Firstly, by resistance the conditions of the oppressed can be maintained or even improved. If the boss knows that their decisions will be resisted they may be less inclined to impose speed-ups, longer hours and so on. If, on the other hand, they know that their employees will agree to anything then there is every reason to expect them to impose all kinds of oppressions, just as a state will impose draconian laws if it knows that it can get away with it. History is full of examples of non-resistance producing greater evils in the long term and of resistance producing numerous important reforms and improvements (such as higher wages, shorter hours, the right to vote for working class people and women, freedom of speech, the end of slavery, trade union rights and so on).

So social struggle has been proven time and time again to gain successful reforms. For example, before the 8 hour day movement of 1886 in America most companies argued they could not introduce that reform without doing bust. However, after displaying a militant mood and conducting an extensive strike campaign, hundreds of thousands of workers discovered that their bosses had been lying and they got shorter hours. Indeed, the history of the labour movement shows what bosses say they can afford and the reforms workers can get via struggle are somewhat at odds. Given the asymmetry of information between workers and bosses, this is unsurprising as workers can only guess at what is available and bosses like to keep their actual finances hidden. Even the threat of labour struggle can be enough to gain improvements. For example, Henry Ford’s $5 day is often used as an example of capitalism rewarding good workers. However, this substantial pay increase was largely motivated by the unionisation drive by the Industrial Workers of the World among Ford workers in the summer of 1913. [Harry Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capitalism, p. 144] More recently, it was the mass non-payment campaign against the poll-tax in Britain during the late 1980s and early 1990s which helped ensure its defeat. In the 1990s, France also saw the usefulness of direct action. Two successive prime ministers (Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe) tried to impose large scale neo-liberal “reform” programmes that swiftly provoked mass demonstrations and general strikes amongst students, workers, farmers and others. Confronted by crippling disruptions, both governments gave in.

Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, the radicalising effect of social struggle can open new doors for those involved, liberate their minds, empower them and create the potential for deep social change. Without resistance to existing forms of authority a free society cannot be created as people adjust themselves to authoritarian structures and accept “what is” as the only possibility. By resisting, people transform and empower themselves as well as transforming society. New possibilities can be seen (possibilities before dismissed as “utopian”) and, via the organisation and action required to win reforms, the framework for these possibilities (i.e. of a new, libertarian, society) created. The transforming and empowering effect of social struggle is expressed well by the Nick DiGaetano, a one-time Wobbly who had joined during the 1912 Lawrence strike and then became a UAW-CIO shop floor militant:

“the workers of my generation from the early days up to now [1958] had what you might call a labour insurrection in changing from a plain, humble, submissive creature into a man. The union made a man out of him … I am not talking about the benefits … I am talking about the working conditions and how they affected the men in the plant … Before they were submissive. Today they are men.” [quoted by David Brody, “Workplace Contractualism in comparative perspective”, pp. 176–205, Helson Lichtenstein and Howell John Harris (eds.), Industrial Democracy in America, p. 204]

Other labour historians note the same radicalising process elsewhere (modern day activists could give more examples!):

“The contest [over wages and conditions] so pervaded social life that the ideology of acquisitive individualism, which explained and justified a society regulated by market mechanisms and propelled by the accumulation of capital, was challenged by an ideology of mutualism, rooted in working-class bondings and struggles … Contests over pennies on or off existing piece rates had ignited controversies over the nature and purpose of the American republic itself.” [David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labour, p. 171]

This radicalising effect is far more dangerous to authoritarian structures than better pay, more liberal laws and so on as they need submissiveness to work. Little wonder that direct action is usually denounced as pointless or harmful by those in power or their spokespersons for direct action will, taken to its logical conclusion, put them out of a job! Struggle, therefore, holds the possibility of a free society as well as of improvements in the here and now. It also changes the perspectives of those involved, creating new ideas and values to replace the ones of capitalism.

Thirdly, it ignores the fact that such arguments do not imply the end of social struggle and working class resistance and organisation, but rather its extension. If, for example, your boss argues that they will move to Mexico if you do not “shut up and put up” then the obvious solution is to make sure the workers in Mexico are also organised! Bakunin argued this basic point over one hundred years ago, and it is still true: “in the long run the relatively tolerable position of workers in one country can be maintained only on condition that it be more or less the same in other countries.” The “conditions of labour cannot get worse or better in any particular industry without immediately affecting the workers in other industries, and that workers of all trades are inter-linked with real and indissoluble ties of solidarity.” Ultimately, “in those countries the workers work longer hours for less pay; and the employers there can sell their products cheaper, successfully competing against conditions where workers working less earn more, and thus force the employers in the latter countries to cut wages and increase the hours of their workers.” [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 306–7] Bakunin’s solution was to organise internationally, to stop this undercutting of conditions by solidarity between workers. As history shows, his argument was correct. Thus it is not social struggle or militancy which perhaps could have negative results, just isolated militancy, struggle which ignores the ties of solidarity required to win, extend and keep reforms and improvements. In other words, our resistance must be as transnational as capitalism is.

The idea that social struggle and working class organisation are harmful was expressed constantly in the 1970s and 80s. With the post-war Keynesian consensus crumbling, the “New Right” argued that trade unions (and strikes) hampered growth and that wealth redistribution (i.e. welfare schemes which returned some of the surplus value workers produced back into our own hands) hindered “wealth creation” (i.e. economic growth). Do not struggle over income, they argued, let the market decide and everyone will be better off.

This argument was dressed up in populist clothes. Thus we find the right-wing guru F.A. von Hayek arguing that, in the case of Britain, the “legalised powers of the unions have become the biggest obstacle to raising the standards of the working class as a whole. They are the chief cause of the unnecessarily big differences between the best- and worse-paid workers.” He maintained that “the elite of the British working class … derive their relative advantages by keeping workers who are worse off from improving their position.” Moreover, he “predict[ed] that the average worker’s income would rise fastest in a country where relative wages are flexible, and where the exploitation of workers by monopolistic trade union organisations of specialised workers are effectively outlawed.” [1980s Unemployment and the Unions, p. 107, p. 108 and p. 110]

Now, if von Hayek’s claims were true we could expect that in the aftermath of Thatcher government’s trade union reforms we would have seen: a rise in economic growth (usually considered as the means to improve living standards for workers by the right); that this growth would be more equally distributed; a decrease in the differences between high and low paid workers; a reduction in the percentage of low paid workers as they improved their positions when freed from union “exploitation”; and that wages rise fastest in countries with the highest wage flexibility. Unfortunately for von Hayek, the actual trajectory of the British economy exposed his claims as nonsense.

Looking at each of his claims in turn we discover that rather than “exploit” other workers, trade unions are an essential means to shift income from capital to labour (which is why capital fights labour organisers tooth and nail). And, equally important, labour militancy aids all workers by providing a floor under which wages cannot drop (non-unionised firms have to offer similar programs to prevent unionisation and be able to hire workers) and by maintaining aggregate demand. This positive role of unions in aiding all workers can be seen by comparing Britain before and after Thatcher’s von Hayek inspired trade union and labour market reforms.

There has been a steady fall in growth in the UK since the trade union “reforms”. In the “bad old days” of the 1970s, with its strikes and “militant unions” growth was 2.4% in Britain. It fell to 2% in the 1980s and fell again to 1.2% in the 1990s. A similar pattern of slowing growth as wage flexibility and market reform has increased can be seen in the US economy (it was 4.4% in the 1960s, 3.2% in the 1970s, 2.8% in the 1980s and 1.9% in the first half of the 1990s). [Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity, p. 236] Given that the free-market right proclaims higher economic growth is the only way to make workers better off, growth rates have steadily fallen internationally since the domination of their ideology. Thus growth of output per head in the USA, Europe, Japan and the OECD countries between 1979 to 1990 was lower than in 1973–9, and 1990–2004 lower still. The deregulation, privatisation, anti-union laws and other neo-liberal policies have “failed to bring an increase in the growth rate.” [Andrew Glyn, Capitalism Unleashed, p. 131] What growth spurts there have been were associated with speculative bubbles (in the American economy, dot.com stocks in the late 1990s and housing in the 2000s) which burst with disastrous consequences.

So the rate of “wealth creation” (economic growth) has steadily fallen as unions were “reformed” in line with von Hayek’s ideology (and lower growth means that the living standards of the working class as a whole do not rise as fast as they did under the “exploitation” of the “monopolistic” trade unions).

If we look at the differences between the highest and lowest paid workers, we find that rather than decrease, they have in fact shown “a dramatic widening out of the distribution with the best-workers doing much better” since Thatcher was elected in 1979 [Andrew Glyn and David Miliband (eds.), Paying for Inequality, p. 100] This is important, as average figures can hide how badly those in the bottom (80%!) are doing. In an unequal society, the gains of growth are monopolised by the few and we would expect rising inequality over time alongside average growth. In America inequality has dramatically increased since the 1970s, with income and wealth growth in the 1980s going predominately to the top 20% (and, in fact, mostly to the top 1% of the population). The bottom 80% of the population saw their wealth grow by 1.2% and their income by 23.7% in the 1980s, while for the top 20% the respective figures were 98.2% and 66.3% (the figures for the top 1% were 61.6% and 38.9%, respectively). [Edward N. Wolff, “How the Pie is Sliced”, The American Prospect, no. 22, Summer 1995] There has been a “fanning out of the pay distribution” with the gap between the top 10% of wage-earners increasing compared to those in the middle and bottom 10%. Significantly, in the neo-liberal countries the rise in inequality is “considerably higher” than in European ones. In America, for example, “real wages at the top grew by 27.2% between 1979 and 2003 as compared to 10.2% in the middle” while real wages for the bottom 10% “did not grow at all between 1979 and 2003.” In fact, most of the gains in the top 10% “occurred amongst the top 5%, and two-thirds of it within the top 1%.” Unsurprising, the neo-liberal countries of the UK, USA and New Zealand saw the largest increases in inequality. [Glyn, Op. Cit., pp. 116–8 and p. 168]

Given that inequality has increased, the condition of the average worker must have suffered. For example, Ian Gilmore states that ”[i]n the 1980s, for the first time for fifty years … the poorer half of the population saw its share of total national income shirk.” [Dancing with Dogma, p. 113] According to Noam Chomsky, ”[d]uring the Thatcher decade, the income share of the bottom half of the population fell from one-third to one-fourth” and the between 1979 and 1992, the share of total income of the top 20% grew from 35% to 40% while that of the bottom 20% fell from 10% to 5%. In addition, the number of UK employees with weekly pay below the Council of Europe’s “decency threshold” increased from 28.3% in 1979 to 37% in 1994. [World Orders, Old and New, p. 144 and p. 145] Moreover, ”[b]ack in the early 1960s, the heaviest concentration of incomes fell at 80–90 per cent of the mean .. . But by the early 1990s there had been a dramatic change, with the peak of the distribution falling at just 40–50 per cent of the mean. One-quarter of the population had incomes below half the average by the early 1990s as against 7 per cent in 1977 and 11 per cent in 1961.” [Elliot and Atkinson, Op. Cit., p. 235] “Overall,” notes Takis Fotopoulos, “average incomes increased by 36 per cent during this period [1979-1991/2], but 70 per cent of the population had a below average increase in their income.” [Towards an Inclusive Democracy, p. 113]

The reason for this rising inequality is not difficult to determine. When workers organise and strike, they can keep more of what they produce in their own hands. The benefits of productivity growth, therefore, can be spread. With unions weakened, such gains will accumulate in fewer hands and flood upwards. This is precisely what happened. Before (approximately) 1980 and the neo-liberal assault on unions, productivity and wages rose hand-in-hand in America, afterward productivity continued to rise while wages flattened. In fact, the value of the output of an average worker “has risen almost 50 percent since 1973. Yet the growing concentration of income in the hands of a small minority had proceeded so rapidly that we’re not sure whether the typical American has gained anything from rising productivity.” Rather than “trickle down” “the lion’s share of economic growth in America over the past thirty years has gone to a small, wealthy minority.” In short: “The big winners … have been members of a very narrow elite: the top 1 percent or less of the population.” [Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal, p. 124, p. 244 and p. 8]

Looking at America, after the Second World War the real income of the typical family (“exploited” by “monopolistic” trade unions) grew by 2.7% per year, with “incomes all through the income distribution grew at about the same rate.” Since 1980 (i.e., after working people were freed from the tyranny of unions), “medium family income has risen only about 0.7 percent a year” Median household income “grew modestly” from 1973 to 2005, the total gain was about 16%. Yet this “modest gain” may “overstate” how well American families were doing, as it was achieved in part through longer working hours. For example, “a gain in family income that occurs because a spouse goes to work isn’t the same thing as a wage increase. In particular it may carry hidden costs that offset some of the gains in money.” This stagnation is, of course, being denied by the right. Yet, as Krugman memorably puts it: “Modern economists debate whether American median income has risen or fallen since the early 1970s. What’s really telling is the fact that we’re even having this debate.” So while the average values may have went up, because of “rising inequality, good performance in overall numbers like GDP hasn’t translated into gains for ordinary workers.” [Op. Cit., p. 55, pp. 126–7, p. 124 and p. 201]

Luckily for American capitalism a poll in 2000 found that 39% of Americans believe they are either in the wealthiest 1% or will be there “soon”! [Glyn, Op. Cit., p. 179] In fact, as we discussed in section B.7.2, social mobility has fallen under neo-liberalism — perhaps unsurprisingly as it is easier to climb a hill than a mountain. This is just as important as the explosion in inequality as the “free-market” right argue that dynamic social mobility makes up for wealth and income inequality. As Krugman notes, Americans “may believe that anyone can succeed through hard work and determination, but the facts say otherwise.” In reality, mobility is “highest in the Scandinavian countries, and most results suggest that mobility is lower in the United States than it is in France, Canada, and maybe even in Britain. Not only don’t Americans have equal opportunity, opportunity is less equal here than elsewhere in the West.” Without the blinkers of free market capitalist ideology this should be unsurprising: “A society with highly unequal results is, more or less inevitably, a society with highly unequal opportunity, too.” [Op. Cit., p. 247 and p. 249]

Looking at the claim that trade union members gained their “relative advantage by keeping workers who are worse off from improving their position” it would be fair to ask whether the percentage of workers in low-paid jobs decreased in Britain after the trade union reforms. In fact, the percentage of workers below the Low Pay Unit’s definition of low pay (namely two-thirds of men’s median earnings) increased — from 16.8% in 1984 to 26.2% in 1991 for men, 44.8% to 44.9% for women. For manual workers it rose by 15% to 38.4%, and for women by 7.7% to 80.7% (for non-manual workers the figures were 5.4% rise to 13.7% for men and a 0.5% rise to 36.6%). [Andrew Glyn and David Miliband (eds.), Op. Cit., p.102] If unions were gaining at the expense of the worse off, you would expect a decrease in the number in low pay, not an increase. An OECD study concluded that ”[t]ypically, countries with high rates of collective bargaining and trade unionisation tend to have low incidence of low paid employment.” [OECD Employment Outlook, 1996, p. 94] Within America, we also discover that higher union density is associated with fewer workers earning around the minimum wage and that “right-to-work” states (i.e., those that pass anti-union laws) “tend to have lower wages, lower standard of living, and more workers earning around the minimum wage.” It is hard not to conclude that states “passed laws aimed at making unionisation more difficult would imply that they sought to maintain the monopoly power of employers at the expense of workers.” [Oren M. Levin-Waldman, “The Minimum Wage and Regional Wage Structure: Implications for Income Distribution”, pp. 635–57, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 639 and p. 655]

As far as von Hayek’s prediction on wage flexibility leading to the “average worker’s income” rising fastest in a country where relative wages are flexible, it has been proved totally wrong. Between 1967 and 1971, real wages grew (on average) by 2.95% per year in the UK (nominal wages grew by 8.94%) [P. Armstrong, A. Glyn and J. Harrison, Capitalism Since World War II, p. 272]. In comparison, real household disposable income grew by just 0.5 percent between June 2006 and 2007. Average weekly earnings rose 2.9% between April 2006 and 2007 while inflation rose by 3.6% (Retail Prices Index) and 2.8% (Consumer Prices Index). [Elliot and Atkinson, The Gods That Failed, p. 163] This is part of a general pattern, with UK Real Wages per employee being an average 3.17% per year between 1960 and 1974, falling to 1.8% between 1980 and 1999. In America, the equivalent figures are 2.37% and 1.02%. [Eckhard Hein and Thorsten Schulten, Unemployment, Wages and Collective Bargaining in the European Union, p. 9] Looking at the wider picture, during the early 1970s when strikes and union membership increased, “real wage increases rose steadily to reach over 4% per year” in the West. However, after von Hayek’s anti-union views were imposed, “real wages have grown very slowly.” In anti-union America, the median wage was $13.62 in 2003 compared to $12.36 in 1979 (reckoned in 2003 prices). In Europe and Japan “average wages have done only a little better, having grown around 1% per year.” [Glyn, Op. Cit., p. 5 and p. 116] It gets worse as these are average figures. Given that inequality soared during this period the limited gains of the neo-liberal era were not distributed as evenly as before (in the UK, for example, wage growth was concentrated at the top end of society. [Elliot and Atkinson, Fantasy Island, p. 99]).

Nor can it be said that breaking the unions and lower real wages translated into lower unemployment in the UK as the average unemployment rate between 1996 and 1997 was 7.1% compared to 4.5% between 1975 and 1979 (the year Thatcher took power). The average between 1960 and 1974 was 1.87% compared to 8.7% over the whole Thatcherite period of 1980 to 1999. Perhaps this is not too surprising, given that (capitalist economic theology aside) unemployment “systematically weakens the bargaining power of trade unions.” In short: “Neither on the theoretical nor empirical level can a strictly inverse relation between the real wage rate and the level of unemployment be derived.” [Hein and Schulten, Op. Cit., p. 9, p. 3 and p. 2] As we discussed in section C.1.5 this should come as no surprise to anyone with awareness of the real nature of unemployment and the labour market. So unemployment did not fall after the trade union reforms, quite the reverse: “By the time Blair came to power [in 1997], unemployment in Britain was falling, although it still remained higher than it had been when the [last Labour Government of] Callaghan left office in May 1979.” [Elliot and Atkinson, Age of Insecurity, p. 258] To be fair, von Hayek did argue that falls in unemployment would be “a slow process” but nearly 20 years of far higher unemployment is moving backwards!

So we have a stark contrast between the assertions of the right and the reality their ideology helped create. The reason for this difference is not hard to discover. As economist Paul Krugman correctly argues unions “raise average wages for their membership; they also, indirectly and to a lesser extent, raise wages for similar workers … as nonunionised employers try to diminish the appeal of union drives to their workers . .. unions tend to narrow income gaps among blue-collar workers, by negotiating bigger wage increases for their worse-paid members … And nonunion employers, seeking to forestall union organisers, tend to echo this effect.” He argues that “if there’s a single reason blue-collar workers did so much better in the fifties than they had in the twenties, it was the rise of unions” and that unions “were once an important factor limiting income inequality, both because of their direct effect in raising their members’ wages and because the union pattern of wage settlements … was … reflected in the labour market as a whole.” With the smashing of the unions came rising inequality, with the “sharpest increases in wage inequality in the Western world have taken place in the United States and in Britain, both of which experience sharp declines in union membership.” Unions restrict inequality because “they act as a countervailing force to management.” [Op. Cit., p. 51, p. 49, p. 149 and p. 263]

So under the neo-liberal regime instigated by Thatcher and Reagan the power, influence and size of the unions were reduced considerably and real wage growth fell considerably — which is the exact opposite of von Hayek’s predictions. Flexible wages and weaker unions have harmed the position of all workers (Proudhon: “Contrary to all expectation! It takes an economist not to expect these things” [System of Economical Contradictions, p. 203]). So comparing the claims of von Hayek to what actually happened after trade union “reform” and the reduction of class struggle suggests that claims that social struggle is self-defeating are false (and self-serving, considering it is usually bosses, employer supported parties and economists who make these claims). A lack of social struggle has been correlated with low economic growth and often stagnant (even declining) wages. So while social struggle may make capital flee and other problems, lack of it is no guarantee of prosperity (quite the reverse, if the last quarter of the 20th century is anything to go by). Indeed, a lack of social struggle will make bosses be more likely to cut wages, worsen working conditions and so on — after all, they feel they can get away with it! Which brings home the fact that to make reforms last it is necessary to destroy capitalism.

Of course, no one can know that struggle will make things better. It is a guess; no one can predict the future. Not all struggles are successful and many can be very difficult. If the “military is a role model for the business world” (in the words of an ex-CEO of Hill & Knowlton Public Relations), and it is, then any struggle against it and other concentrations of power may, and often is, difficult and dangerous at times. [quoted by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton in Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!, p. 47] But, as Zapata once said, “better to die on your feet than live on your knees!” All we can say is that social struggle can and does improve things and, in terms of its successes and transforming effect on those involved, well worth the potential difficulties it can create. Moreover, without struggle there is little chance of creating a free society, dependent as it is on individuals who refuse to bow to authority and have the ability and desire to govern themselves. In addition, social struggle is always essential, not only to win improvements, but to keep them as well. In order to fully secure improvements you have to abolish capitalism and the state. Not to do so means that any reforms can and will be taken away (and if social struggle does not exist, they will be taken away sooner rather than later). Ultimately, most anarchists would argue that social struggle is not an option — we either do it or we put up with the all the petty (and not so petty) impositions of authority. If we do not say “no” then the powers that be will walk all over us.

As the history of neo-liberalism shows, a lack of social struggle is fully compatible with worsening conditions. Ultimately, if you want to be treated as a human being you have to stand up for your dignity — and that means thinking and rebelling. As Bakunin argued in God and the State, human freedom and development is based on these. Without rebellion, without social struggle, humanity would stagnate beneath authority forever and never be in a position to be free. So anarchists agree wholeheartedly with the Abolitionist Frederick Douglass:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. “This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” [The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. 2, p. 437]

Of course, being utterly wrong has not dented von Hayek’s reputation with the right nor stopped him being quoted in arguments in favour of flexibility and free market reforms (what can we expect? The right still quote Milton Friedman whose track-record was equally impressive). Still, why let the actual development of the economies influenced by von Hayek’s ideology get in the way? Perhaps it is fortunate that he once argued that economic theories can “never be verified or falsified by reference to facts. All that we can and must verify is the presence of our assumptions in the particular case.” [Individualism and Economic Order, p. 73] With such a position all is saved — the obvious problem is that capitalism is still not pure enough and the “reforms” must not only continue but be made deeper... As Kropotkin stressed, “economists who continue to consider economic forces alone … without taking into account the ideology of the State, or the forces that each State necessarily places at the service of the rich … remain completely outside the realities of the economic and social world.” [quoted by Ruth Kinna, “Fields of Vision: Kropotkin and Revolutionary Change”, pp. 67–86, SubStance, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 72–3]

And, needless to say, while three decades of successful capitalist class war goes without mention in polite circles, documenting its results gets you denounced as advocating “class war”! It is more than pass the time when working class people should make that a reality — particularly given the results of not doing so.

[lilacsmothership]

In 1943, there was a piece published by a Polish economist called Michał Kalecki – it’s 7 pages long, there is no mathematics – in a journal called Political Quarterly. It’s called Political Aspects of Full Employment, and he asks the following question: If capitalism produces full employment as a public good for a sustained period of time, what happens to capitalism? One thing that happens is that the “right to manage” by managers becomes questioned because if labour can move costlessly from job to job, then they’re the ones that have the political power, particularly if the macroeconomic framework limits the ability of capital to move around and particularly if you have high social costs which are internalised by the workers themselves and redistributed. You will also generate inflation because if I can move costlessly from job to job because there is very full employment, very tight labour markets, then the only way businesses can pay is if they push up their prices – but I will then say I need more wages. He predicted the 1970s in 1943. His conclusion to this article is what will happen. He says they will find a political economist or two to declare that the situation is manifestly unsound, that books will be produced and reports will be written that say we need a change and that we need to bring back the market. That’s what happened.

Now, follow this one through for another 30 years for me. When you get to the 1970s, let’s think about what the world looks like. Labour share of national income across all OECD countries has never been higher. Capital share has never been lower. Profits were at an all-time low as a correspondence of this. Inflation was high. Political parties were strong, parliaments were strong, central banks were incredibly weak and capital was restricted in its movement. Now what happened for the next 30 years as we reversed all those things and we now live in a world not where we increase the demand for labour, not where we push up wages, not where we create inflation? We’ve created a globalised liberalised integrated world that produces structural deflation across the entire planet. We have chucked, collectively – depending on how you count it – up to 30 trillion dollars into the global money supply since 2009 – and there is no inflation, anywhere. That is an anti-Kalecki world. Basically, capital got organised in the 1970s and finally broke labour’s resistance to the ability to push down wages as a way of restoring the profit share, and they have done this on a global basis. Now, every regime undermines itself eventually. And what we’re seeing now, whether it’s in the form of Trump, whether it’s in the form of AfD, whether it’s in the form of the Front National, is a reaction to this one story – which social democrats have been implicated in heavily – that globalisation benefits everyone, in a world in which it produces manifest inequities and falling if not stangnant wages for the majority of the people that social democrats are supposed to represent.

/…/

So why are the Swedes to blame for this? Here’s the fun part of the story. In 1974, Sweden was the most developed welfare state that there was – this was the social democratic paradise – and capital was feeling the squeeze. So, they came up with a proposal in the trade unions called the wage earners’ fund. And the idea was, we should really just leave social democracy behind and just get to socialism because things are going well, so we are going to declare a certain amount of profits excess profits, and we are going to use trade union money from this excess profit tax to buy the ordinary shares of the capitalists, and eventually, the workers will own everything. We are not going to expropriate them, we are not going to line them up and shoot them, we are going to buy them out. And it’s not even a leveraged buy-out. And here’s the interesting thing: in cash transfer terms, this is an incredible deal, right? Because what you’ve just said to Swedish capital is, we will use your profits to buy your shares, but you get the full value of your shares when we buy you out. It’s a money multiplier. So as a transaction, it’s a brilliant deal – take the deal. But they didn’t take the deal, they fought back. They mobilised, they spend 200 million dollars back then in the 1970s and 1980s advertising, campaigning, mobilising against this. Why? Because you wind back at Kalecki’s point. What this regime does is fundamentally challenge the right of capitalists to be capitalists. You’re taking away their identity, the reason for their existence. It’s not a cash transaction anymore, it’s a fight for who you are and the type of world you want to see. So the Swedes pushed us to the edge. Capital fought back. It started in Sweden, it went to the United Kingdom, it went to the United States, and eventually it caught Europe. And when we opened up the European Monetary Union project, we opened up the world’s largest common free zone of movement for capital – it’s in Europe, not the United States – and the consequences were a giant credit bubble, massively overbanked banking systems, and then a financial crisis that we are still trying to recover from.

— Mark Blyth @ Europe Calling: A New Deal for Europe (a Friedrich Ebert Stiftung event with Mark Blyth, Euclid Tsakalotos, Udo Bullmann, David Schäfer and Viktória Nagy)

I actually read that Kalecki article a while ago and I think I posted a quote from it. He really did basically predict the 1970s in 1943, and it’s really striking that when he described capital’s reaction to a strong welfare state and full employment, he described in 1943 a process that is still happening today.

(via ghost-of-algren)

reposted via because the old quote formatting is fucked up on new tumblr

[elementary-my-dear-daddy]

Earning Your Keep - Chapter 6 "I Really Wanna Make You Mine"

Analogical (Virgil and Logan)

Read the previous chapter here or on AO3!

Chapter Summary: After a very pleasant night with Virgil, Logan wakes up and realizes he's late for work. Virgil has a few ways to convince him to stick around.

Logan blinked awake. He was pleasantly warm under a soft comforter, with his head resting on a cool silk pillowcase. For a moment, he was about to return to his slumber when he realized that this was not his bed, nor his home, and the gentle snoring from behind him was a person and not the pipes creaking. Last night… actually happened. He and Virgil had-

He shifted up to lean on his hands and saw Virgil’s unconscious form snoring softly while deep in slumber. There’s no possible way he was comfortably sleeping with his arm hanging behind his head at that angle. He smirked and reached over to carefully lift his arm, laying it down by his side instead. This caused Virgil to scrunch up his nose and make a disgruntled groan, shifting into another uncomfortable position. Logan just rolled his eyes and scooted out of the bed. 

As he stood up, he noticed his clothes strewn about the floor. Sighing, he gathered them up and began to get dressed, pulling out his phone from his pocket to check the time.

“Shit.” He whispered to himself. How was it 10 already?! He should have been at work two hours ago and it was halfway across town- and 4 missed calls from his boss?!

“Mm, Lo? Where y’goin?” A sleepy virgil slurred from the bed.

Logan slipped on his shirt in a hurry, “Work, I’m late, and can I please use your restroom to get ready?

He looked around for his tie, meanwhile Virgil sat up and watched, “Uh, yeah, sure. You're not gonna call out?”

“I can’t.” Logan rushed into the bathroom to make himself look presentable.

“Why not?”

“I can’t afford it! I don’t live a life of luxury, Virgil! And I should have been there two hours ago which means I am already at a loss so I should really be-”

Logan scrambled out of the bathroom and nearly ran straight into Virgil, who was now blocking the entrance back into his bedroom with his arms crossed. He looked down at Logan with a grumpy expression.

“Can you calm down please.” He stated, “It’s too early for this.”

“Too early- It’s-” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, “Virgil. Thank you for a lovely night but I don’t think you understand that every minute I’m not at my job is money lost and I cannot-”

“Afford it, yeah yeah I heard you the first time.” Virgil didn’t move, “How much.”

“What?”

“How much do you make.”

“Virgil.” Logan huffed, “Please, just let me-”

“How. Much.” 

Logan sighed, resigning to the fact that bickering would only slow him down and answering Virgil’s questions would let him leave faster, “Minimum wage.”

“Hm. How long’s your shift?”

“Seven hours.”

“Wait here.”

Virgil slumped out of the room, leaving Logan to his own devices. Logan quickly buttoned up his shirt and checked to make sure he had his belongings before slipping out the door of the bedroom. He was, yet again, confronted by Virgil standing in front of him and blocking him from leaving.

“Hey, I thought I said to wait?”

“How many times must I tell you I am late. I’ll contact you aft-”

Logan paused as Virgil held out a few bills to him, “Call out and I’ll pay you double what you make.”

“Oh, um… No, I really, uh-”

“Please?” Virgil asked softly. He couldn’t let Logan go off and work himself to the bone at a place that could barely pay him and probably treated him like shit.

Logan thought about the offer, carefully considering the consequences if he did. He probably would have to pick up an extra shift if he went in today to make up for the hours he missed. And he’d be berated by his boss for not giving notice. Although if he stayed he could very well be fired, but he did have a good reputation as a worker, being consistently punctual for the two years he’d worked there.

“What would happen if I did accept your offer?” He questioned.

“I’ll order breakfast, we can sit and talk for a bit again. Maybe about last night?” Virgil offered, “And of course I’ll pay you. I wouldn’t want you to not be able to pay your rent or something just to hang out.”

Logan frowned, “I want to stay, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to pay me. I refuse to take advantage of your wealth.”

“You saying that definitely helps, but I know you’re not. The fact that you wanted to give me back the money I gave you the first time makes me trust you.” He shrugged, “And if you’re worried about earning it, last night was enough reason to offer compensation.”

“I’m not a sex worker.” Logan said while very cautiously took the offered payment, folding it and putting it in his back pocket. This earned a soft smile from Virgil as he pushed past him to flop back down onto his bed.

“I know, Lo. You’d negotiate first before we did anything if you were.” He stretched out, much like a cat who’d just woken up. Logan just stepped out into the living room to call out.

 It was a short phone call. He called his boss, who expressed worry rather than anger, since he usually never showed up late or called out. A brief explanation of having to deal with a personal emergency was concocted as an excuse, and Logan was free from the hell that was his minimum wage job as a front desk assistant at a shitty hotel for today. He returned back to the bedroom and dared to sit down on the edge of the bed by Virgil.

“Now do you wanna eat and maybe talk about, y’know…”

“That seems appropriate, yes.”

It didn’t help that his answer was followed by a loud growl from his stomach. He quickly folded his arms over it to cover the noise, but it proved useless as Virgil snickered while pulling out his phone.

“Yeah, let's get some food first. What do you like?” He asked.

“It’s fine, Virgil, you’ve already given me-”

“Omelette?”

“I’ll be okay-”

“I am all for consent but this is the one instance I’m not taking no for an answer. Tell me or I’m ordering for you.” Virgil demanded.

Logan sighed, “There’s no way of convincing you to let me pay for my meal?”

“Nope.” He said, popping the ‘p’.

“Fine, just some toast then, please.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else, that will be suitable for me.”

Virgil stared at him with doubt.

“...and some scrambled eggs? If that’s alright.”

He nodded, entering the order into the delivery app open on his phone, “And?”

“Fruit? If they have it.”

“What are you talking about, you have one right here.” Virgil said with a smirk, earning an eye roll from Logan.

“You’re insufferable.”

“You’re hungry. One more thing.”

“Pancakes…with jam if they have it.” Logan offered shyly.

“Good.”

The response sent a shiver down his spine, as he was reminded of a similar tone of voice that Virgil used last night. Meanwhile, the other put in his own order and paid, now just waiting for the food to be delivered. He sat up against the pillows of his bed and tucked his knees up to his chest.

“While we wait, last night?” Virgil looked at Logan expectantly.

“Yes, what about it?”

“Any thoughts? You kinda just passed out there at the end.”

“Oh,” Logan’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink, “I had been up since five and it was late. Not to mention that intercourse is a fairly draining activity.”

“Since Five? Logan!”

“I had to get up for work!”

“Oh my god,” Virgil dragged out the last syllable and put his face in his hands, “How many hours of sleep do you normally get?”

“It depends, six-ish, on a good night?”

Virgil groaned, “That’s so bad for you!”

Logan shrugged, “I know, but either I don’t sleep and I’m on time for work or I don’t eat because I lose the hours that go toward my grocery budget. I’d rather have a meal and lose a few hours of sleep, honestly.”

Virgil knew what that kind of lifestyle was like, he was living it not too long ago, and he knew better than anyone the effects it had on your mind and body.

“Logan. You need to quit one of your jobs.”

Logan pouted, “That is simple for you to say. You have wealth. I have a rent that requires 80% of my income.”

“Then let me help!”

“No!”

“Dude get over yourself! Put your pride and guard down for a sec and just accept that I want to help you out here!”

The two sat in silence after his outburst. Virgil crossed his arms and huffed. He didn’t understand, he wanted to help Logan! It wasn’t like he begged for the cash either, he just needed it and he couldn’t get why he wouldn’t put his stupid pride aside and just take his help. When he realized that he didn’t have to have a shitty life anymore, he instantly bought better foods, dedicated more time to hobbies, and slept in for the first time in what felt like years. And it was great! He knew that he couldn’t help everyone, but he could help Logan, if he would actually let him.

“I thought this conversation was supposed to be about sex.” Logan stated bluntly.

Virgil sighed, “It still can be. Sorry. I’m just a little worried about ya, Lo.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just focus on last night, then.”

“We’re coming back to this.”

“Right.”

Logan was going to be the death of him, “Last night went a little fast. I just wanna know how things went for you.”

“I liked it.” The response earned an eyebrow raise to prompt Logan to give more, “I think you’re quite attractive and I definitely don’t regret anything we did. I just don’t want you to think I intend on taking advantage of your wealth-”

“Ah ah, nope. None of that. Only sex talk right now.”

“Fine. What else do you want to discuss about it?”

Virgil thought for a moment, “Well I took on a more commanding role when I wasn’t sure you were okay with that. I kinda prefer that since I panic when I’m not in control, but I should’ve taken it slower and asked you if that sort of behavior was alright.”

Logan just shrugged, “I didn’t mind it. I like taking a more, well… passive? Role?”

There was a slight blush already rising up on his cheeks. He wasn’t as oblivious to sex as most people in his life thought, since his typically calculated nature led others to believe he was either on the asexual spectrum or that he’d been too focused on a job or school to mess around. Much to their surprise, Logan thought he had a healthy relationship with sex. He experimented throughout college and knew what he liked, but telling Virgil made him… not embarrassed, but something close to the feeling. Meh, he’d always had vulnerability issues.

Virgil hummed in response, “Good to know.”

“Oh?”

“What?”

“Why is that ‘good to know’?”

Now it was Virgil’s turn to blush. He didn’t feel ashamed for what he said, but maybe it was a little too forward. Sex was like the one thing he wasn’t nervous about all the time, because it was supposed to be good, and if it doesn’t feel that way then normally people say something about it. At least in his world, that is. 

“Well, if you want, we could do it again. We both liked it.” He offered.

Logan bit his lip, “It isn’t that I disliked what we did, but perhaps we should slow down. And I really don’t want to-”

“-Take advantage of me, I know. You aren’t. How many times do I have to tell you that you aren’t.”

“Until I’m certain you know that I’m not.”

“Ughhhh.” Virgil groaned and rolled over on the bed to stare at Logan, “If we’re gonna date, I’m gonna spoil you rotten. So you better just get used to it now.”

“Nonsense.” Logan shot back, “If we’re going to date, we’ll put a mutual amount of energy into the relationship, as to not to create an imbalance of effort that leads to a disconnect.”

“If last night was any indication of what you consider effort then I’d say we’ll work out just fine.”

“Are you suggesting our arrangement be purely an exchange of sex and money.”

“No!” Virgil scrambled to sit up again, “No, sorry. I mean, it’s more than that. But I don’t mind that- ugh. Sorry putting this into words is difficult.”

He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. He knew what he wanted to say, but wasn’t sure how it would be interpreted by the other.

“Logan, do you know what a sugar daddy is?”

Logan paled at the question. Of course he did. Virgil didn’t… He didn’t… Oh. Oh.

“You would like me to be-”

“No! No no no! Well… Not exactly I just- Ugh! Why is this so difficult.” Virgil put his head in his hands.

“Hold on, let me try to make sense of it.” Logan tried, “Are you saying that the exchange of my company for your money appeals to you?”

“Kind of. It’s more like I want to date you and spoil you, take care of you, but I know you want to earn it. And maybe that’s a way to look at how we should do this. Does that…?”

“Make sense? Yes, it does.” Logan nodded, folding his arms, “I’m amenable to trying it, if that’s what you’d like. Although, perhaps we should still restrict our pace. Dates, rather than just sex. If the night leads us to an intimate time then so be it.”

Virgil took a moment to process Logan’s words. If that’s the sort of thing that he wanted, then Virgil would agree. Maybe he was just a little bit smitten, or horny, or a bit of both, but honestly, he didn’t see why that couldn’t work. 

“Okay. Let's try it.”

[peetapiepita]

Thoughts on what general audiences can do for the WGA and SAG strikes

I've read up a lot on the strike situation these past weeks because I'm someone who consumes A LOT OF media content. The strike will affect my daily life and I'm a curious girlie when it comes to show biz rules. So here are some of the takeaways I wanna share with my fellow audience:

1. Understand the strike

The strike is happening for 2 major reasons:

1.) The studios are refusing to pay the creators/actors residuals on streaming services.

This makes it hard for the majority of writers and actors to make a living by doing their respective jobs. They used to rely on residuals from old projects (DVD and blue-ray sales, renting, etc.) to pay bills. That's just not happening today.

To try to get out of paying residuals, the major studios started this trend this year to take old and new shows/movies off their streaming platforms and use them as an excuse for a tax write-off. Disney did this last month and got a 1.1 billion tax write-off. They can currently do that without consulting the people involved AT ALL, taking away their livelihood without warning.

2.) The studios want to retain the rights to use AI writing and performing.

In the negotiation with SAG, they proposed a plan to pay actors only one day's wage to use their AI image FOREVER without paying them ever again. And the actors wouldn't have a ground to argue that. This is straight out of Black Mirror Season 6 Joan is Awful. Netflix is really writing its own villain origin story right now.

So what would happen if the workers budge and give up mid-way?

They'll end up losing their means to survive and have their images stolen. So striking for a few months is definitely better than starving indefinitely.

What's happening right now?

Right now, no projects fiananced by AMTPT companies can film with SAG members or develop with WGA members, which means only a very small percentage of all Hollywood productions can still happen. (More to come about this.)

With finished projects, if they're being released in the next few months, they're going to be released without any promo from the actors. They can't take part in interviews, premieres, fan events, or even post about their projects on social media.

2. Help with the strike.

Now that the double strike has officially happened, what's the best outcome for the workers and the audiences?

If you're just a casual entertainment enjoyer:

Cancel the streaming services not essential to you. The studios are going to panic more when they start losing even more money.

If you're a fan of a fanchise/upcoming blockbuster:

Flood the companies behind it, demanding them negotiate with the SAG and WGA on their own and agree to a fair deal. Threat not to support the projects unless it's settled fairly.

These studios with upcoming big-budget movies are bleeding money and panicking right now, any added pressure is good.

If one company buckles, the others would follow suit.

If you have money to spare: (Congrats on being rich, btw!)

Donate to the unions and support the ones with lower income in the first place, they'd be struggling with bills if the strike goes on for too long.

For everyone:

Call out big studios who are still planning on filming projects during the strike.

Please note there are exceptions to the strike rule:

1.) Foreign productions.

Please note an actor has to be part of the foreign union to work on these. Some of the foreign unions are still in meetings to decide if they'll allow US companies to work with their members, the most notable ones being the UK one and the Canadian one. Fingers crossed they don't fall for the deals the US studios are offering.

2.) Indie productions.

Indie companies can make their own deals with the workers since they're not included in the overall deal. So a very small amount of US projects can still happen. Make sure a project doesn't fall into this category before calling them out for scabbing.

That's about it for now. I might add more later in the replies if I think of anything.