Microblog Memes

Cost of living differs across the world. While you may think that someone living in the US is "rich", and that might be true compared to the rest of the world, within the US it may mean middle class or borderline lower class depending on the living context.

Say you make $60,000 USD per year as a single adult with no dependents. You'd do ok in Chicago, but would be scraping by in New York City.

Compare that same $60,000 to somewhere outside the US like Rio de Janiero in Brazil, and you'll see that the you'll make over 12 times the average living wage there. Conversely, if you took Brazil's yearly living wage of ~$4,700 and applied it to the US, then you'd be below the average poverty line.

It does us no good to debate how good we have it vs you, or vice versa. (Almost) all of us live under capitalism, and although costs of living vary across the world, this isn't an argument against UBI. The same issues the US experiences likely are also felt by citizens of many other countries, unless you live somewhere that has already introduced these sorts of safety nets.

Your point about "hard" labor (work done with body) vs "soft" labor (work done with mind and/or little body) doesn't argue against this either. The economy is greatly stratified. We all don't have to do the agriculture anymore, like when humans first transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers. There are many other things to do and things we can provide for each other, some good some bad. And this also isn't to say that hard labor is worse than soft labor, or vice versa. They are mainly different kinds of experiences. No judgement need be applied, although many cultures tend to do so. This is one of many reasons why you see and have seen across history labor unions stick up for hard laborers against the "soft laboring" wealthy. This prejudice needs to be uprooted across the world imo.

I 100% agree with you that many formulations of "rich countries" depends on colonizing and extracting wealth from "poor countries". That is not right. Every country should be able to produce for its own, with help offered in the form of imports/exports of goods & labor to every country. It is not fair that the Global South essentially funds the Global North.

Instead of pointing that out and blaming an entire hemisphere of people for that, we should instead be looking to those in our countries that wield power and make this system the way it is. A farmer in the US Is no different than a farmer in Brazil, at least in terms of the class struggle. It would all benefit us if we see that class divide everywhere in the world, and join together to try to defeat it.