Yep and you are pointing directly at the single greatest cause for societies to often turn to a dictator in this process… desperation. People give up on “the system” and turn to one figure promising everyone the ability to get their lives where they want it to be. Communism is that populous promise… a promise that is never kept because it’s a lie almost every time. The most glaring example being the Nazi movement and Hitler. The Beir halls that he spoke at were essentially labor union meetings for Germany at that time. Here in the US we have a much more spread out and diversified labor force so I don’t want to get our labor union situation confused. Apples and Oranges but you get the idea for where the historical strongman comes into power and the governing system overhaul is really just window dressing or a fantasy they are selling. The real perpetrator to the violence and suffering is from the brutal dictator who comes into power because the society has given up on a system that isn’t working for them. People get desperate and it’s the person they cede their power to more than the system. The fantasy falls flat on its face and the people suffer because the system is really just there to serve the elite and corrupt regime.
I don't think the situation in Weimer Germany was a system that served the elites. It was a country under burdensome war reparations and hyper inflation. The situation in Germany then was less class warfare and more that the whole country was suffering.
Well as I said the key world is desperation. Many countries that turn to a dictator/communism/whatever are not in a system that is currently serving the elite. However once that strongman comes into power and holds onto power via brutal means, then it almost always sets up a system that serves the few and hurts its citizens in the process. My point is that it’s not really the system anyways… it’s usually the person at the top. It could be any system you can think of… once a strongman comes into power all bets are off on the system doing anything other than helping one person while hurting nearly everyone else… yet societies keep falling for it over and over again.
Human nature tends to look for easy answer and certainties in a world that doesn’t usually provide easy answers and with no real certainty. This is the appeal of the strongman and it has been with us since antiquity. This is why the Constitution is as cumbersome as it is as the founders were very worried about a demagogue taking power through mass appeal and becoming a tyrant. It was a very legitimate fear given they had just a few years after the US Constitution Napoleon did that very thing. It’s history like that that has made me much more suspicious of populism and movements or leaders driven primarily by grievance.
A bunch of poor undereducated laborers being **** on and then turning to desperation usually doesn't result in the best most thought systems in place but maybe we shouldn't blame the laborers for that but the system that put them down to be so desperate. Humans can be very tolerable of their conditions unless it becomes extremely unbearable. There isn't an uprising still with large swaths of the population working 60 hours weeks and still having to put 60-70% of their monthly income into rent. But maybe we shouldn't make these conditions worse to the point people feel no choice but desperation and populism and violence to change the trajectory of their miserable existence.
Libertarianism was always fake. Thomas Jefferson was waxing lyrical about liberty to his French buddies and how men should be independent farmers pointing to some proto- libertarian ancient Roman "farmers" all not having the self awareness to realize they aren't farmers. Their slave laborers are. It's always been about the freedom to exploit. That has always been the center of libertarianism. There is a reason why the ideology didn't come from the proletariat class and why it originated by educated landed gentry who never had to do physical labor.
Thomas Jefferson saw himself as a moral person who reluctantly held slaves while waxing lyrical about independent subsistence farmers just minding their own business to his French buddies who were scratching their heads about the cognitive dissonance he had.. The libertarian wet dream. Libertarianism has always been an ideology that masks exploitation with "liberty". Today the same strain of ideology that tap danced around slavery while singing about liberty are the same people people who justify humans who dedicate 40+ hours of their week to someone else's profit motive and still fear eviction and homelessness because they believe those jobs are meant for part time kids, not making a living.
Libertarianism as a political ideology didn't exist until the mid-1800s in France, so Jefferson pre-1776 was not a part of it. Jefferson was one of the most important figures in the liberty movement though, as an author of the Declaration of Independence. His ideals, though he failed to live up to them, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights is an enduring call for human freedom. If you do not provide enough value to be compensated with enough money to "make a living" working 40 hours per week, then you should not be paid enough to "make a living" working 40 hours per week. Your labor is worth what someone is willing to pay you for it. The goods you want are worth what you are willing to pay for them. If the labor you provide is worth less than the goods you want, either provide more value or settle for fewer goods.
You know why a retail worker deserves a living wage? Because the economy the wealthy elite have created thanks to what they did to companies like GE and gutting its manufacturing to third world countries has created a demand for a 40+ hour a week retail worker. Are you going to stock the shelves at HEB? Because I can guarantee you that if only part time youngsters held those type of jobs, we would be in a severe shortage. Are you going to do less groceries to lower the demand for these type of laborers? It would need to be a collective action to consume significantly less. If a human has to dedicate 40 hours of their existence to another entity's profit motive, it don't matter if that human is doing the most basic function of work with moving a box 10ft from one place to another, they deserve a functional place to live with working utilities, no fear of missing rent payments, transportation, groceries, time to spend with children and raise them, time for themselves. Yes every human deserves that. Maybe that menial job doesn't let you afford a new BMW, a summer beach home, or a 70 inch 4k OLED.... But it damn well better compensate enough to live with basic dignity and an ability to do basic human things like raise your damn kids. When it comes to "rights" since I believe in a secular framework i don't believe rights are ordained by a greater power. I believe what is "common sense" to perpetuating a healthy society. And to me a society isn't healthy when you create a dedicated class of wage laborers who fear month to month homelessness and have to work a certain amount of hours per week that eliminate the ability to raise children in ideal condition or have time for self improvement to move on from that cycle of existence or to destress to prevent things like violent crime. So the right of a human to have basic necessities covered if they are dedicating more than 2/3rds of their waking hours to other people's profit motive is based in a desire to perpetuate a sustainable society that doesn't have economic collapse and violent revolution cycles for the rest of human existence.
Sorry, that isn't the way life works. If there is a shortage at wage X, then the wage will be raised until there isn't a shortage. It is called supply and demand. I don't give a **** if the guy stocking groceries at Safeway can afford rent or a car or raising children or whatever. If there is someone willing to stock groceries competently for $3.08 per hour, then hire that guy. Labor is a commodity like anything else that you can sell, and the price should be determined by the market. Maybe someone doing unskilled labor should have roommates instead of kids. Fortunately, I don't care what you believe. You can imagine rights come from wherever you want. There is currently no enforceable right to do whatever unskilled labor for 40 hours and be provided with all the various benefits you want. It just isn't worth it to people to provide someone a middle-class lifestyle to do labor that a high school dropout can do without training. If someone isn't happy with their compensation, they should hold out for more. If they don't get it, it is probably because someone else will do the same work for less.
Nothing I said has to be justified with bleeding hearts. Pure pragmatism for a society that is sustainable where upper middle class humans don't fear their property being violently taken over is why you should care that people working fourty hours a week can't afford basic living expenses and basic ability to spend time with their children. You want to pretend you are some arbiter of "common sense". "if the market doesn't ask for a livable wage, then the market is the final arbiter" is nothing more than you virtue signaling with no analysis on the long term effects of this mindset even to your personal safety of your own property and the way of life you are comfortable with. The only thing your ideology makes certain is an inevitable path to violent revolution. The market doesn't work when capital has all the leverage until they don't(violent retribution). So when the labor class loses all their economic leverage to dictate wages that can sustain a basic standard of living to raise children and have time for basic self improvement and destressing, they resort to violence. This isn't me making moral claim. I'm making a claim of basic human nature. How sustainable do you think it is to create a class of humans who work full time hours but don't have time to spend with their kids, fear eviction constantly, have no time to destress, no time to self improve etc? Your failure here is believing my arguments are based in morality. Its based in sustainability. For you the concept of "rights" is tautological. As in the right exists because it was ordained through authority rather than reason. My concept of rights is based on what makes society sustainable.
The EU and Germany have become a bureaucratic nightmare. They try to regulate every little ****ing thing they can possibly think of, and they keep creating more bureaucratic institutions. In Germany alone, every single state (of 16) has "data protection agencies" with like 100 people, and then there is also a federal one. One of the newest things they have come up with is that every new car has to have a nagging noise as soon as you are above the speed limit. Germany and Europe need a Javier Milei. Or several of them. This has gotten out of hand. A FUERA!
Your posts are not internally consistent. On the one hand you say that capital has all the leverage and that the labor class has no economic leverage to dictate wages, on the other hand you say that there will be severe labor shortages at jobs like stocking the shelves at HEB. Severe labor shortages due to low wages IS the labor class exercising their economic leverage to dictate wages. Especially in an era with extremely low unemployment, labor has a huge amount of leverage. I have no concerns there will be a massive communist revolution in the United States. The masses aren't living in bread lines and workhouses. This isn't Victorian England.
I said that our economy requires a class of humans that make stocking shelves their primary means for making a living. That doesn't provide leverage to the worker. I was basically predicting a talking point of yours that those jobs should only exist for part time kids making side money. Our economic system requires full time laborers in those positions. If you demand someone to work full time hours regardless of how menial the job is, it is your responsibility to make sure they can live without the fear of homelessness and have time to do things like raise children because the economic system we have demands that person to have 2/3rds of their waking hours to your profit motive. I'm not even making this argument out of a bleeding heart position. It's from a pure pragmatic approach. Having an entire class of humans in a society that fears eviction, doesn't have time for self improvement, doesn't have time to raise children etc results in long term unsustainable outcomes that eventually leads to increased violence, increased chances of sporadic riots, increased social unrest etc. If you have full time laborers that you demand spend 2/3rds of their waking hours on your profit and you can't pay them enough to not fear eviction or spend time with their children, your business model is bad. You shouldn't own a business. You haven't created a business model that is profitable without long term exploitation.
Libertarians are child like in their thinking.......we need fire departments, police departments, schools, roads, government, military, etc..etc..etc.... Everyone should pay a little so we have a nice safe society that lifts everyone up.... Libertarians have jr. High level expectations - they are selfish twats. DD
