Healthcare plays a big part. If we had socialized medicine people would feel much more comfortable moving jobs.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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When I was unemployed, healthcare was free. When I took a quick min wage job to pay rent, healthcare ate like 30% of my paycheck.
Decided to just... Not have healthcare for a while until I could get back on my feet.
homeless are free from the soul crushing. at least. met a railroad hobo. he claimed he used to be a doctor. stress was too much.
People acting like slavery was a thing of the past 🤣
The slavers figured out it was easier to make you an economic slave rather than a literal one. They still get the majority of the profit and they are not responsible for your health, lodging, or anything else.
Also, there are more actual slaves today than at anytime in history.
The people who make this kind of argument are the same kind of people who will say that God gives you free will, even though you'll literally be eternally tortured for doing things that God doesn't want you to do. Some people have a real interesting idea of what "being forced" consists of lol
ehhh i have had plenty of jobs i fucking hated, the good news is you can look for a new job and enjoy an entirely fresh new hell!
That sounds an awful lot like joining the army.
However, the army loses interest in veterans the moment they return home, which is why there are so many homeless veterans.
You can work at any soul-crushing job you like, assuming you are willing to submit yourself to the nightmare machine of corporate hiring every time you want to change companies.
Get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into Jobland, where jobs grow on jobbies
And the health"care" insurance, dont forget that!
Yeah, this is a big one in the US. I lost my job in May. The COBRA continuation of coverage costs over $2000 per month to maintain my previous health insurance and around $700 more for dental/vision. It's insane.
Don't forget the health insurance anchor.
Man, I'm embarrassed I needed this explained to me, but anchor is such a good description. Imagine what people could/would do if they didn't have to be bound to their employer by health insurance.
These places would have to provide actual incentives to work in that misery or alleviate how miserable it is to draw people in. All which costs money.
If I didn't need health insurance, I would make all kinds of things in the shop for fun. Literally all day, working with my hands.
But I need insurance.
So I spend all day typing.
OMG, yes! I know people typically think of universal healthcare as a socialist policy, but I really think it is a capitalist one for this s very reason. How many innovations have we missed because someone needed to stay at a shitty job for the insurance?
I don't think capitalism has anything to do with innovation really. I mean its not inherent. The essence is really just the more capital you have, the more you can get.
Capitalism isn’t about innovation though.
I think this is one of the big ones that a lot of people in the civilized world don't get. If I lose my job, right now, I lose access to my medications unless I wanna pay the $250/mo to buy them out of pocket. A simple doctor's visit to my NP is about $400 out of pocket assuming no blood draws or anything.
Medicaid exists, but it takes time to kick in, and now I also have to do, and provide proof I did, at least 80 hr/mo of acceptable (validity up to my state) work, community service, or volunteer work, ON TOP OF having to look for a job, in order to keep my Medicaid.
I'm not sure as I've never used them, but costplusdrugs.com might be an option?
Right. So, if yall just quit buying in we will be rewarded with universal healthcare.
Some people will need to suffer. It’s just, by choice now or by force for way more later.
And yea, I put my money where my mouth is. I’ve been homeless before even getting one of these awful miserable jobs. I don’t work for anyone but myself.
This was my mind set in my early twenties and our collective society never aligned to actually change the system.
I had to finally get a corporate role and join the machine but I have good benefits. I feel defeated but I need the benefits.
Slavery never went away in 'Murica
It was just re-branded
and in canada we copy homework from the states a lot. just the wrong answers.
"Anyone can get a better job" /= "everyone can get a better job."
You're a slave?
I'm a person and my name is Anakin!
I had a conversation about The Phantom Menace about how Anakin and Shmi live in a multi-room dwelling by themselves, are given time off, and have enough free time and resources for Anakin to build a protocol droid and multiple pod racers (remember: it's said that he's never finished a race, so either his earlier racers broke down mid-race and had to get towed or else were wrecked).
How does this lifestyle comport with them being slaves?
Sure, they have explosive neck bolts and can be bought and sold, but their lifestyle seems rather outside of what we think of today as slavery.
My conclusion is that the Galaxy Far Far Away has a broader definition of slavery.
There's a few types of employment in the GFFA. There's self-employment and business ownership, like bounty hunting, running your own diner, playing in a band, or operating a cargo business that avoids Imperial entanglements.
There's employment within a military or paramilitary organization, like Grand Army of the Republic, the Empire, or the Jedi.
And then, there's being a slave. You need to work for someone else or you die. Maybe you can or can't be literally sold. But you don't have a choice about the fact that you need employment or you will flat out die in the streets. If you aren't defining the terms of your own employment or you aren't earning rank in a military organization, then you are a slave, by the terms of the Star Wars galaxy.
Something I realized years ago.
There are many "dystopian" works of fiction where the characters actually get housing and enough food for their needs provided by the government free of charge in exchange for ideological compliance or at least pretending to. In these settings the government functions as a totalitarian entity micromanaging all aspects of existence, so the "freedom" to starve to death is effectively eradicated along with other freedoms.
By decoupling survival from labor market participation, or more accurately, by making the labor market an extension of the state, the system achieves a level of physiological stability that is undeniably attractive to anyone who has ever experienced the existential dread of housing insecurity or food scarcity in the current system.
In many dystopian settings, such as the works of Huxley and Orwell, the terror comes from the watchful eye of the state and the fear of punishment for deviation. In our current system, the terror comes from invisibility and abandonment, being ignored by a system that definitely has the resources and the means to feed you (roughly half the food produced today is being wasted) but refuses to do so unless you prove useful can definitely feel more dehumanizing and dystopian than being strictly micromanaged by an overbearing authority.
there are other jobs dude. sure, i get you don't want to take the risk of changing them, but if you have a job already, it's actually way easier to get another one, than if you are unemployed.
and not all jobs are the same. different companies have different policies and procedures and cultures. and sometimes you ahve to take paycut to get into a company that has a better quality of life or benefits.
it's funny to me. my income is lower than people expect, but i love my job because my company has great benefits and the culture is very easy going. But people typically only look at the income and refuse to look any deeper, and they wonder why they are at companies that are interested only in the bottom line... well because you are too.
Personally I don't really care anymore about people whining about their jobs. It's your life, your choice to be miserable. And these people, when presented with alternatives, always systematically deny any alternative in possible... it's almost as if they refuse to make an effort and expect things to me magically handed to them.... and no I'm not at all speaking from experience with partners and friends who were like this...
"freedom to work" is actually "freedom to starve yourself"
People really don’t get this. You can’t just leave.
https://www.nber.org/reporter/2024number1/monopsony-power-labor-markets
Hot take: this also applies to military servicemen and women. Lemmy loves to shit on them, but some people make the best of the draw in life in the military. I know a young airman who was spit on and called a baby killer while he was having lunch in public (wearing fatigues). He's never been in combat, and his position in life is drastically improved from military training and benefits.
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Choice always exists but change is scary.
Also, the grass isn't always greener on the other side... sometimes it's just spray painted. Then you get over there and its just as bad if not worse.
And sometimes it's one of the most amazing things that you can actually do
And that's the problem you never know. But you can always change again.
You’re implying that there is always employment choice which is untrue. I guess you could choose to be unhoused without medical care and food.
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When people ask why you don’t just leave your terrible relationship…
You have to be in a relationship to live?
You do if your abusive partner threatens to kill you if you try to leave.
When you live in a capitalist society and cannot support your needs alone in order to live? Yes
I don’t choose to live in a disabled body that needs tens of thousands of dollars on medicine a month to live, but here I am, a completely unsustainable human who needs others to survive
Sorry, I thought you meant a romantic relationship, not your relationship with the rest of your community.
I mean I have been lucky in that most of my jobs are less soul crushing than others but work is always going to be somewhat soul crushing.
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