this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
576 points (99.0% liked)
Work Reform
9977 readers
130 users here now
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Would be interesting. A peaceful general strike would lead to military intervention in about 45-60 days I think.
I'd say less than a week. Capitalism is something that we have to wake up and make happen every single day. How many days worth of food does the average person have? Definitely not 45 days. People would have to start self-organizing within 2-3 days, and in doing so, they would actively make something that isn't capitalism, which directly challenges those in power.
This is why every time there are emergencies or protests, the media is obsessed with "looting." If there's no food because of a hurricane or whatever, it is every single person's duty to redistribute what there is equitably. The news and capitalists (but I repeat myself) call that "looting," even when it's a well-organized group of neighbors going into a closed store to distribute spoiling food to hungry people.
Rebecca Solnit writes about this in detail in A Paradise Built in Hell. It's really good. She's an awesome writer.
This is the third time this book has come up in my life recently. I'm going to have to read it
I love her. You know all of those outlets that try to respond how all the news is bad by doing good news, but it's always just the orphan crushing machine all over again?
Solnit is like an actually rigorous and deeply insightful version of what that thinks it is doing. I think she herself would push back on anyone who says she tries to figure out "human nature," but insomuch as that's a meaningful thing to do, that's what she does. The book's central aim is to investigate what human beings are actually like when existing social expectations and power structures are removed, and it's both well-researched and surprisingly optimistic.
There are already mutual aid networks out there, food banks, community gardens, and neighborhood associations. The seeds are planted and the soil is fecund and ready. You cannot crush what is already dirt.
There is still much building needed for the networks and groups. The start is good, but participation and organization is currently still quite basic.
The publicity offers a motive for entry into local organization by many not yet joined.
Current conditions, as of today, would leave much of the population vulnerable, in case of loss of the established order, and much of the rest inclined to the brutality that produces such vulnerability.
And what is the military going to do? Force everyone back to work under the threat of death? Sounds like the catalyst to a revolution to me
Sooner or later, someone in the military would have to decixe between following an order, and not shooting a friend/relative. And as you say... revolution.
That long? Ain't no way the shareholders would let the government stay on its leash long enough to tank an entire fiscal quarter
Will somebody think of the economy?!
But at the end of the day, how do you task society to forcibly work?
Everyone can just start taking sick days, what's the Army going to do, go to door?
Blair Mountain.
I'm speaking more towards if workers stay at home en mass, etc.
Action and motion are necessary to sustain life in a community, through distribution, protection, and communication.
Nevertheless, whether workers are inside the home or outside, it seems reasonable to anticipate visitation by ACAB.
I don't know, the optics of police literally going into people's homes and pulling them out and forcing them to work doesn't seem like something the government would want, no matter what.
Which side of government would care? The coproratocracy or the facists?
The side that wants to get reelected.
Not just the optics, but the very real danger to the police themselves. This is the US. People get shot for arguing. When you know that sometime this month the police will show up at your door, you might take precautions.
Optics? Seriously? Do we live on opposite sides of the television screen?
You really think it would be a positive optic to see on the Evening News policeman going in the house and dragging people out and forcefully driving them to work and making them work at gunpoint?
Again, though... Optics?
Do you need a definition of the word?
A quick Google search will get you that.
Now, returning, just for a moment, to the real world...
The World is what you make of it.
No. It's not.
Yes, it is.
Listen, the system will not allow itself to collapse, instead of trying to preserve itself, simply due to a fear of outside judgment.
Usually it gets to a point where collapse doesn't ask system for permission.
The collapse is the striking workers you believe are definitely safe from ACAB.
The system is ACAB.
Get it?
Yes, usually when my partner is in the mood.
I'm not.
You're not my type.