#and these were still some dogshit jobs. like walmart

[abimee]

the range of answers im getting just goes to show that retail is a network of evil in a multitude of ways almost unfathomable

[ultraviolet-techno-ecology]

People get genuinely shocked that I know so much about Capitalism in an "Inside Business" kind of way. Since I'm a rabid communist and all...

Let me break this down: the white side of my family were high ranking members of the VoC and the subsequent government of the Dutch East Indies, which is arguably the first literal "Mega-Corporate Government" (Whose neo-colonialist descendants would in no uncertain terms, put me in the ground if they could get away with it.)

Meanwhile, I was a fucking child farm-labourer breaking my body for less than minimum wage. I was watching as farm-after-farm got bought out by corporate agriculture, while my Agro-Economics classes in middle school claimed being a small-time farmer was a viable career choice!

I watched mainstreets dry up, the local grocery store go under because a WalMart opened up 20 some miles away! Then I saw rich Californians swoop in and buy up those failed buisinesses for their yoga studios, while refusing to interact with the former residents of the region.

Then I watched those hipster-businesses die every year because THE ENTIRE THING CAME DOWN TO TAX BULLSHIT. An entire mainstreet turned into unviable boutiques for the singular purpose of keeping prices too high for the local community and ultimately serving as nothing more than tax write-offs.

I read analysis of capialism and it's contradictions in my spare time. Literally the reason it's called "Das Kapital" is because it's an analysis of Capitalism which comes to the conclusion it's dogshit.

My first proper job after high school was in capital gains tax, where I was also an accountant in charge of payroll. A job which had me regularly doing straight up illegal shit (On both sides of my job) because THAT WAS THE NORM.

I watched people in that company go weeks with delayed pay, people getting their hours rounded down for being 5 minutes late or early. I watched people working without adaquate water, a guy with autism in IT getting a low wage despite being the single force keeping the entire company running! I WAS PUNISHED FOR FOLLOWING THE LAWS AND GETTING PEOPLE THEIR PAY ON TIME.

I was a disabled homeless person living on the street in an unfamiliar town, learning firsthand how it's impossible to get ANYTHING without an address. You can't even get a P.O. Box to use as a temporary address while you apply for aid!

Years later I watched a homeless man cry because I handed him a $100 because I KNEW what it was like to be on the streets. And to this day whenever I give homeless people what I can, I get lectured about how #TheyAreJustGoingToBuyDrugs.

Even people who considered themselve charitable, religious people who would preach about that, you can still see any empathy they have for other people vanish from their eyes the moment they spot someone on the street. (And if the person is black, you get to watch well-to-do white women literally run away sometimes!)

Immersion in a hyper-capitalist context only proved to me - from direct personal experience - that this system is fucking evil and the nemesis of life itself. You don't survive in Business if you have a heart.

Anyone who comes to the conclusion I just #DontUnderstandCapitalism can get stuffed.