Like the title says.
Every. Single. Time. I see or hear about anything remotely progressive about poor workplace conditions, low wages, billion-dollar multinational companies, and anti-competitive practices, there are always someone that says something incredibly ignorant like:
- Why don't you just find a new job?!
- You should just try negotiating your wage, liberal
- Just don't shop at [Insert company like Amazon, McDonalds, Walmart, etc.] if you don't like how they treat their workers. Vote with your dollar!
- Just get an education you lazy POS
- Clearly, people would rather just CoMpLaIn than do their jobs
- Unions just prop up workers who are lazy
- OH, you think companies would be run better as a co-op? You're stupid, remember Yugoslavia?! LIBERAL?!?!?
I just gotta say, you need to think a little deeper.
Why can you all just get it through your heads that just maybe everybody's life wasn't as easy as your own. There are a LOT of people in the US that cannot just pick up everything they're doing to go find a job “somewhere else” that will just magically pay them a ton of money.
Most low-(economic)class people do not have the money, resources, energy, training, or grit to just magically, through sheer force, make their lives wonderful. All of this through no fault of their own. Some people are just born poor, in a poor place, with not a whole lot of opportunity.
People are not going to stop buying things from, and therefore giving more power to, giant corporations because they either do not have another place to buy things or other places are too expensive.
Some people cannot afford or do not have the time to just magically get a college education. That takes time out of their work days, money that they don't have, lots of energy, and some people even get taken advantage of by for-profit colleges.
I get it, you have a success story, and that's fine. I am super happy that you are living you're best middle-class life, and you should be so proud of yourself for picking “yourself” up, but I think it's sad that you think so little of disadvantaged Americans and ASSUME THEYRE LAZY instead of realizing that a lot of people are being taken advantage of because of their situation. You would rather dismiss the exploitation that they're being put through than to actually help them.
UNFORTUNATELY, THE FREE MARKET IS NOT FREE.
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Companies routinely take advantage of their employees to make a profit. A company's incentive, via the profit motive, is to squeeze as much productivity out of workers and pay them as LITTLE money as possible.
- There are companies that certainly do a better job at “taking care” of employees than others, but it's ONLY as long as it increases their profits. That is not all or even most of the time.
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Companies get big and buy out their competitors or stomp out competition consistently
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Companies routinely manipulate consumer choice and their interests by spending BILLIONS on advertising and manufacturing consent.
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Companies are absolutely DESTROYING the planet because it's profitable.
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Companies routinely work in markets that are very much NOT free (China) and that OBVIOUSLY suppress human rights because it's PROFITABLE.
All of this I think should be very obvious, but again, people would rather stick up for people like Elon Musk than to stick up for the weakest people among us.
ALL OF THIS and I KNOW people in the comments will be like “You're a commie. This is the best system in the world. How else would you propose to do all of this?!?!”
Look, I don't have a perfect solution, I'm not trying to take your property, your job, your way of life, religion, NOTHING. I just think that it's very reasonable to ask that we change society so that people who work 40 hours a week, regardless of what that job is, are NOT impoverished and do not need to live paycheck-to-paycheck or go bankrupt over a single medical emergency.