Socialists do not want "free stuff" -- they want a humane society in which people ALL pay their fair share and in which a minority do not exploit the majority or abuse the weak and poor.
@Reason10 The post is about remunerating workers sufficiently so they can support themselves without external assistance. If Walmart, Amazon, et al paid their workers reasonably there would be no need for the state to step in with benefits for working people. This would have the additional impact of making work seem more attractive and perhaps reducing the number of working age claimants.
But this would remove one major category of the conservatives' perennial social scapegoats, so is unlikely to happen . . .
It's all part of the manipulation of thought. Just think about the difference of mindset it brings to say "Our Leaders in Washington DC" vs. "Our Public Servants in Washington DC". By constitutional law, the latter is more correct. But because everyone speaks in the former, we grant them leeway to act superior and they take it. Claiming socialists want free stuff is just the way to mask that capitalists don't want to support society.
For anyone to think that in capitalism people are truly paid according to their worth, their value, is delusional. Smarter more ambitious, greedy and ruthless (not always true but often) keep far more than their worth. NOBODY is worth billions of dollars a year when others struggle just to meet basic needs while still working. Entertainers and athletes certainly are not often worth what they get...and nurses and policemen, firefighters and teachers are all undervalued
Life itself would collapse if you had to expend the same exact energy to acquire something that it gives you. Does that mean you can't critique socialists if you are alive?
@Jackaloftheazuresand I bet if the word Graham was changed to Lohan, suddenly it wouldn’t be sexual harrassment, #amiright? You are one of the funniest and most predictable trolls on here😂
@wishforthenight It's sexual harassment because he's targeting me for being gay and trying to use it to insult me. I don't know who Lohan is but it would be the exact same.
And you haven't even been here that long so unless you're an alt I highly doubt you know me
@missyann No he is not. He is being deliberately dishonest.
And you are being dishonest too. Slavery is not the only form of exploitation and you damn well know what. And most of the fortune 500 uses slave labour through for profit prisons so you are even objectively wrong on the slavery part too.
You just proved my point. Profit literally cannot exist if you pay workers fairly for their labour.
And quit pretending that the lowest wage they can legally offer is some form of saintly deed.
And please stop the bullshit about the owners taking all the risk. Losing a job for the works means potential homelessness and starvation.
The vast majority of businesses are started by people who came from wealth so at best for the owner losing the business is like losing a hobby that makes them money. This is never a case of survival.
Even during the great depression most business owners were not in a position of losing their very survival.
And great jobe proving you have no idea what socialism actually is. Nobody is promising equality of outcomes. And you even used the wrong word. Equity implies everyone starts from the same fair starting point. That is objectively false under capitalism.
Again, you are deliberately pretending socialism is something it is not.
And literally none of the people you are referring to are socialists in your hypothetical.
But those very people you describe are capitalists.
@AdriftLabor costs go up, and so do the costs to the customer. The world goes round and round.
It's all in the accounting. Costs went WAY up to the consumer thanks to the socialist policies of Pedo Hitler.
When you flood the money market with trillions of newly printed dollars, the value of those dollars tanks. Costs to the consumer go up because the dollar is not worth anything. THAT comes from DemoNazi policies.
To bring you up to speed with a concept you apparently never could understand, worker pay is based on a VOLUNTARY agreement between employer and employee.
Workers in America are PAID what they are worth. And they are only worth what some employer is willing to pay. And employers have to pay a certain minimum to get workers who will not work for less.
Workers ARE PAID WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.
In a hospital, a janitor is not worth as much as a heart surgeon.
Certain jobs are worth less than others. And NO worker is ENTITLED to anything other than what an employer is willing to pay.
If you think it's bad here, you are welcome to move to China, where most of the country is starving to death and working for ZERO wages. America's homeless are Elon Musk compared to workers on the other side of the world.
To bring you up to speed with a concept you apparently never could understand, worker pay is based on a VOLUNTARY agreement between employer and employee.
Lest start with the first lie. An "agreement" made under coercion is by definition not voluntary. You can quit pretending otherwise.
"take what I offer or starve" is not some peacenik voluntary agreement.
It is exploitation.
[Workers in America are PAID what they are worth. And they are only worth what some employer is willing to pay. And employers have to pay a certain minimum to get workers who will not work for less.
Workers ARE PAID WHAT THEY ARE WORTH.
Lie number two. That is literally impossible in a capitalist system. It literally cannot work if that is true. If it were literally every company in the USA would be a charity running at a loss.
Whatever random wage a rich person decides on is not what someone is worth. That is idiotic on it's face. And capitalism incentivizes and with larger companies requires companies to pay as little as they can legally get away with.
And great job proving you have no idea what is going on in other countries either.
And congrats proving you have no idea what the poor in America deal with either.
Great job outing yourself as a trust fund baby.
Forget defund the police.
You are what happens when you defund public education.
