this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
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- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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I'm chill with safety nets for poor people and regulations on large companies
what I consider far left is when people start saying that the govt should own everything and there shouldn't be private property. that's an extreme and I am against that.
edit: all of you downvoters are actually far left commies and I'm completely correct
The rational left (i.e. not the authoritarians) only want the "government" to own everything insomuch as the "government" is a profoundly democratic representative body, in an administrative capacity.
Don't confuse "private property" (industrial machines and other means of production held privately by an investor class in order to extract profit via the arbitrage between the productive value of employees and their flat wages) with "personal property" (your house, car, clothes, dishes, toothbrush, etc.). There aren't many leftists who think there shouldn't be personal property.
Private property that isn't personal is someone elses property, and if I want to have my own property it makes sense for others to also have it
I don't want the govt owning my home, or having to rent from a govt, and I dont want to drink water from govt owned companies because at that point it truly is authoritarian simply because the govt has way too much power over your life
I've been on .ml before and theres more than a few people than think NK and Stalin are/were good, and are anti-private property
edit: I honestly kinda think some of you are downvoting this because other people have downvoted this. these aren't unpopular or insane ideas, and anyway I only used water as an example of govt ownership because that's the first thing that came to my mind. a better example would be that I wouldn't want my food to be grown by the govt
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Everyone is entitled to personal property, the things they have for personal use (e.g. your house or toothbrush). Private property is not someone else's personal property, it's the things for group use which generate value to the group (e.g. the industrial equipment necessary to create your house or toothbrush) which under capitalism are owned and controlled by investors.
The leftist position is that those "means of production" being owned and controlled by investors leads to the investors paying their staff as little as possible while charging as much as possible, so that they can thrive on the difference between prices and wages.
The leftist solution is for those "means of production" to be owned collectively by the people who actually use them to produce things. There's a whole spectrum of exactly what that looks like.
On one side are those who think the government should own everything. The argument being that, assuming you can trust the administrators to not be corrupt, that is the best way to coordinate resources. This is logically sound, since the resources which would be wasted on marketing, and redundant R&D in competing companies, and other capitalist inefficiencies, could be directed productively. The flaw is in the "assuming you can trust the administrators to not be corrupt" part. That's a big reason why the USSR failed.
On the other side, there are those who think that the basic concepts of market economics are sound, the problem is simply the capitalist-worker relationship. The argument being, capitalism can be subverted while retaining the benefits of market economies through co-ops: instead of revenue being paid in part to wages with the remaining profit being divided along shareholders, the revenue after costs is divided totally among the employees, who are themselves the only shareholders. This preserves the competitive innovation of the market, while excising the parasitic capital class.
Only the most extreme zealots in the Soviet camp ever push for abolishing personal property. That's a fringe position even for the left.
after you say this
you say they are this
that stuff is the investors personal property (or the corporations but that is a technicality) and them selling it to me is fine as long as there is meaningful competition and no monopolies and govt regulations stopping them from putting toxins in it or something. I dont think the best solution to high prices and wealth inequality is taking the personal property away from these investors and handing it to their employees (who lets be honest probably don't know much about economics) who aren't motivated to take risks with the company and aren't motivated to lower their wages when the company needs to save money or isn't production much money. This lowers the competitiveness of the company, but having a CEO to manage all this while being kept in check with a union is a fine solution to this.
If there is a wealth gap higher taxes on the wealthy is all that is really needed to even it out
Without capital new factories wont be built btw, unless you have a bank or investor financing them. And I don't think bank tellers should get a say in what the bank invests in (if its run by the workers this would happen, as the bank teller is a worker at the bank), because they very probably don't know about the finances and economics of the industry the bank is investing in and wouldn't have an educated opinion on the matter. I would rather have investors (who may have more money than others, but if its too much taxes can fix that, not funky ownership stuff needed) picking small companies, giving them money and later getting back their money as the small companies grow.
edit: I'm an honestly convinced most of the downvotes here are from people that see a large number and are inheritily inclined to increase it. I really don't believe 9 people read this and honestly disagreed. And if you did disagree, reply and say why, because this is just iritating