I'm looking for answers and to be educated. If you'd like to read what I have to say and try to help me by giving me information or sources where I can find it, I will be eternally grateful. I am willing to dedicate my life to workers rights and human rights after my life experiences. I'm trying to figure out what that looks like here.
In my adult life I've worked in the trades and served in the Infantry. I'm from a small town in Virginia and have grown my entire life with conservative views on everything. I decided to spend a couple years abroad and looking at things from the outside the US really made me have a lot of questions and realize we can do better than what we have now.
I've always made good money working in the trades. I've always worked hard, come home dirty, tired, and hungry and been proud of it. I've always thought that people bitching about capitalism and being poor needed to work harder and they wouldn't have to worry so much. I grew up poor with a mother that used to steal from the grocery store to feed my siblings and me when we were young. She wasn't lazy. She worked her ass off to give us a fair shot at life and to make sure we never realized we lived in poverty. One hell of a woman.
After my world tour, I came home to my old line of work. Wrenching and welding in industrial settings. Hard, sometimes dangerous work that keeps the world turning. The world cannot survive without hard working blue collar people. The world can survive without architects and accountants (no shade meant), but not the people that support the industries you dont even think about that give you everything you look around and see that you often take for granted. People that I work with are salt of the earth, tough sons of bitches that bust their asses to keep the world turning. Often times these hardworking people are taken advantage of by their employers.
When I came home I got a job at a small mom and pop shop who offer the services mentioned above on contract to plants in my area. It's a very well known company in my area that people respect. I told people I worked there and they instantly respected me more. After my travels I was kind of jaded though. I worked hard for $19 an hour, which is the same I made 8 years ago when cost of living was much more manageable, and less than I made before I left. We do hard work that requires a lot of skill and knowledge to not get hurt or fuck things up, and that skill and knowledge is only acquired through experience and years on the job. 4 years in this trade, $19 an hour to move, set, and repair machines weighing sometimes 60,000 pounds to tolerances measured in thousandths of an inch. Where I'm from there aren't any unions, and this is what it is.
Company man said we were all going to get big raises to account for inflation and to put us on par with the plants around here. Payday came and we got $1. I fucking quit that day, on the spot. Why should I have to work so hard to barely make ends meet. Nobody that busts their ass 40, 60, 80 hours a week should have to live in poverty. Nobody should have to work 80 hours at any job to make ends meet. Nobody should have to go without the ability to receive healthcare that doesn't financially ruin them. People should not have to fucking work their lives away to still live in poverty. Every person has value and contributes something to society and deserves basic necessities-food, shelter, water and healthcare. The motherfucker I used to work for sits on his high horse snubbing his noses at hands like us, but without us he would be nothing and as poor as we are. Why is he able to fucking exploit us and live like a king off our labor while we struggle? Can I get another job that pays me more? Yes. Is that the point? No. The fucking in point is that these circumstances I just described should never be the case to begin with.
I'm a Millwright and an Infantryman. Above all those I am a man and a human that deserves a basic standard of living in a world where I believe this is completely possible. I deserve safe working conditions and laws that prevent me from being exploited by the company man and that promise basic human and workers rights.
I'm not asking you to convert me to socialism. You might give me all the info and reading in the world and I may come to another conclusion. I'm asking for resources to educate myself and come to my own conclusion. I've done some googling, watched some YouTube, but I'm not sure I'm getting the real biscuits and gravy of the situation, so I'm asking those who know to potentially enlighten me.
Along with information to consume on my own, I also have a few questions.
Looking at the state of socialist and communist countries like Venezuela and Cuba, they are in shambles. How is this prevented under socialism? It's my preconception that these countries are the way they are BECAUSE of socialism/communism, not in spite of it.
Another preconception I have is that socialism actually increases the cost of living beyond reasonable measure. If jobs are ordered to pay their help a higher wage, prices for services and products rise. Is this true or not? How is this prevented?
Where does money for things like a socialized healthcare system come from?
Won't we be taxed out the ass?
Thank you X.