#WageSlavery
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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Exactly. If your literal health and wellness are tied to being employed, you're going to be way less likely to rock the boat.
I'll just copy my comment from another post of this article:
History lesson time: This wasn't done on purpose. It's an artifact of decisions made by Congress during World War II to support war production.
So many young men were away at war that it created a labor shortage, even with some women entering the work force. This led to spiraling increases in wages that were threatening the viability of critical war manufacturers.
In an effort to protect this manufacturing sector, Congress capped wage increases. But those corporations were still competing for workers and now they were no longer able to offer them higher and higher wages. So instead, they started offering them "perks" like health insurance, pensions, and paid time off.
THEN:
"In 1943 the War Labor Board, which had one year earlier introduced wage and price controls, ruled that contributions to insurance and pension funds did not count as wages. In a war economy with labor shortages, employer contributions for employee health benefits became a means of maneuvering around wage controls."
Emphasis mine. And guess what? When those young men returned from war and re-entered the work force, they wanted those perks too. So which company was going to be the first to deescalate the arms race and NOT offer health insurance?
And those perks being so ubiquitous meant the government never had an incentive to provide health coverage directly to anyone of working age, so we only have Medicare for retirees.
Because America is a big fat fraud!
Because they're currently winning at capitalism, but don't worry, the rest of us are on a race to the bottom trying to catch up..
Capitalist greed.
It’s important to ask why employers would be actively fighting against any significant healthcare reform. They spend countless hours annually negotiating insurance contracts which always ends up costing them and their employees more money. The only reason to continue to do this is that it allows them the ability to control employees.
Because of the American dream. The freedom. It is there, but you guys forgot to restrain it to individuals not corporations. They have the freedom too and they use it to fuck the individual's freedom. System working as intended. Capitalism at its finest.
It's not the only one, many countries have Jobs that offers good private health insurance, but all of them have free health care too, so you don't need it to live, it's just an improvment or luxury that the job offera. Like staying in a private room, going to private less crowded hospitals etc. But again, if we don't have a job we still have a good enough free health care
Because we're fucking stupid.