TLDR: capitalism sucks and I think it's too big to dismantle. Do we have any ideas on breaking away from the employment system and making a world of family sized businesses?
I worked as a project accountant for a multinational construction management company. I worked for two years on a half a billion dollar renovation project in New York City. After 2 years of struggling through the pandemic, we lost the contract and I was offered a transfer to the New England office along with a 10k raise, title change and more responsibility.
The raise never materialized. Despite the fact that I was told the company was doing extremely well given the pandemic and lower economic expectations. Nonetheless, the company still couldn't afford to raise my salary from 72k to 82k.
I was the only minority in the New England office, I faced aggressive discrimination. I was regularly insulted and given less responsibility than I have ever experienced in a decade of working in the industry.
After two years of this abuse I was totally burned out and have been unemployed for a year and two months.
This post isn't really about me. I just wanted to introduce my background to give some perspective. It may be completely irrelevant.
I don't believe that a person has to earn a living. Because the concept implies that a person doesn't deserve to exist. The world I've grown up in is incredibly depressing and spending my life enriching others is not some thing I look forward to doing in the future. It's why I am unemployed now, and haven't been seeking new positions.
I identify with the majority of posts on the sub Reddit, and understand that I am fortunate to have the status that I have reached in my career by the age of 29.
I am trying to relocate to California for a different perspective of the country since I've spent my life in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. I want to try and blog or become an online reseller to survive, until I ultimately pass on. I will do anything to avoid taking orders or sacrifice my life to make some other person's dream come true. I'm having a hard time because it is near impossible to secure an apartment without employment even when significant savings are present. I've been trying to move for over four months and have been unsuccessful.
The first thing I read this morning was the top posts this month from this sub Reddit. I have to admit it depressed me and made getting out of bed very difficult. I also should you admit that I am technically clinically depressed, but have reduced my participation in treatment after 200+ hours of therapy and psychiatric interventions that have not changed much. I read a book by Thomas Szasz and I have suspicions that “mental illness” is a code word for a person “who behaves any way that isn't accepted as normal”. I am borderline suicidal not in an acute manner. Just in the sense that I would rather kill myself than sacrifice my future to enrich some other stranger. Meaning after I burn through my savings, trying to make my own living without being bossed around. I will kill myself before I ever go and try and get another exploitative job where I give up all autonomy to make someone ten times what they are paying me. I think it's the only way to ensure I don't perpetuate the awful economic conditions that currently exist.
The long and short of my post is that I am curious as to why this sub Reddit doesn't offer ideas and options for people being exploited to try and make their own living without working for somebody. I hate the economy of the western world, because it requires hurting others in order to succeed. I may be delusional, but it seems like our education system is a conspiracy to encourages teamwork and working for others to prop up the rich. When it should encourage independent enterprise. A life of working for oneself and one's own family to achieve true freedom. It's the only realistic middle ground I can see when capitalism is the only form of maintaining civilization. I say this because it seems humans are too selfish to work hard, unless that work directly enriches the individual.
I think communism gets a bad rap, because it was executed in one of the most oppressive nations that has ever existed. But it seems that reputation is unshakeable.
I wanted to ask if there were any people that had good ideas or strategies/approaches to breaking free of the employment system and generating your own income to live the life that you want to live. I identify with the sub Reddit, but I have trouble reading it because it's so depressing. I wanted to know if there were any people that could possibly help other people who were being exploited to break away from their employers. To ultimately live their own lives, and make their own money for themselves, instead of some executive board or “shareholders”.
TLDR: capitalism sucks and I think it's too big to dismantle. Do we have any ideas on breaking away from the employment system and making a world of family sized businesses?