That depends on who you ask. Billionaires think it works great.
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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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.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Working precisely as intended.
the system works exactly as it's supposed to, which is why it must be destroyed.
STOP. ELECTING. CAPITALISTS.
Yeah this is way beyond voting. Even in the context of just voting, it's often necessary to vote for a lesser evil. Case in point, all the "Kamala didn't earn my vote!" dipshits who handed Trump the presidency on a silver platter.
You gotta make strategic choices with voting, and sometimes that kinda sucks.
So do that. But also break out the guillotines when the people you voted for start behaving maliciously. That's what we're failing, and that's why things have gone so far shit.
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I agree. But also, they're all capitalists. Even the so-called Democratic socialists are capitalists.
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A system can become disordered, acting counter to its evolved purpose, sometimes in a way that's fatal to function. I wonder if historians have a DSM for governments/societies.
My suspicion is that institutional dysfunction results not so much from the dynamics of the institution itself as from other systems evolving to more efficiently exploit it.
The system does work. Perfectly. For those who installed it. Which are the top 5%.
Sure it does. It works as intended. Thinking otherwise makes a person the fool.
There is a nuance to make here.
Children staying at home longer isn't a bad thing per say. Most of the world is like that.
Children staying at home because they have no choice is a big issue, because it was possible before.
What age range is young adult here?
Do we have a link?
I think I found it. A Pew Research Study from 2020 during the height of COVID.
Yeah, I really wish it was a general Lemmy requirement that any post containing statistics be required to provide a source for them unless it's a non-serious community/post.
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I feel like I was lied to all through school. Work hard, get good grades, and everything will work out.
Nope, unaffordable rent, suckass job market. I feel like I'm being exploited every day I'm at work, even when I like the job and the people.
I finally got into a proper career path in my 30s, and it wasn't because of my degree or my skills.
It was because I had an old friend working for that city that told them to pull my resume from the stack for a low-level position that I was way overqualified for. That got me an interview. That got me the job. I kicked ass once given an opportunity which lead to my promotion within 6 months. I quickly became known in the area and was poached by another city a little over a year after that.
Getting my resume pulled by a friend lead me to more than tripling my income within 2 years. I still don't make amazing money, but I no longer have to worry if I'll be able to pay the bills.
But like 7 white dudes have all the money on the planet. Things seem to be just fine.
This is also evident in germany where most teens live separately from 17 yrs of age and up. Anybody not doing so used to get ridiculed by their friends group. These days teens are increasingly living with their parents again in germany just due to rising costs and lower job opportunities. But hey, AI is cool!
Seriously, it was common? I knew only one person who lived by themselves at age 18 and it was someone who went to Hauptschule and became a kindergarten teacher by that age and his step dad paid for the apartment.
At 17, I was still in school for two more years and no one in my school (Gymnasium) lived alone. This was like 15-20 years ago. In my sister's year (she graduated in 2003) I also don't recall anyone living by themselves.
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The system does work as intended. Sadly, it was not designed for us.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this isn't part of what radicalized me back in the early 2000s.
However, as my world expanded through my life experiences and reading I came to understand that so much of what seems like a natural reward is artificiality propped at the expense of people in other parts of the world. That's the system. Western workers have access to a wide range of material goods with prices kept artificially low because they are produced by workers who are paid less. What manufacturing that exists is much cleaner than it used to be, because the dangerous stuff is off shore, far from our eyes. Hell, we don't even have to deal with the huge mountains of waste we produce! Temporary Migrant workers in agriculture and domestic work fill the same role except it is their labour that is exported cheaply.
I know the meme is about housing and the 'cheaply made goods' apply to that too. I live in a house built in the 1960s that is kind of the icon of cheap and cheerful working class post war period sprawl boom. Block foundation a wood frame with vinyl siding. Cheap to build, but can get expensive to maintain.
I guess all I mean to say is that I hope people who are seeing this problem are not easily swayed back into complacency if the capitalists recalibrate the feed of crumbs they give to the workers to ensure compliance. I hope for an era of world wide worker solidarity as it is the only way to tackle the problems capitalism has left us with.
I'm not going to try and convince people to have the exact same beliefs and analysis as I have because that's silly and futile. I think most people would not find this documentary to be too radical: https://www.storyofstuff.org/
Maybe give it a watch if you have the time and the comparison to depression era housing practices sounded reasonable lol. It's so easy to take for granted how much things have changed in the last 150 or so years in north america, especially post WW2.
(You can save yourself the well acksualy about Henry Ford and his approach to wages in the 1910s. They are an important piece of the puzzle but reducing the cost of consumer goods allowed western wages to stay low by retain buying power so the appearance was of increasing standard of living that was increasing dependant on the ability to exploit global workers.)
Cheap goods are a trap. One actually well made thing will last you as long as ten cheaply made things, the idea that you're "saving money" is a lie.
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The purpose of the system was not to get you a decent job, it was to get you to take out a massive loan for the promise of probably getting a good job hopefully but it's all your fault if you can't.
No you see we have more billionaires than ever, which is a very good thing because shareholders.
On the contrary; the system creates divides and imbalances that aid in consolidating power, influence, and wealth to a very small subset of individuals who spend a portion of said power, influence, and wealth to keep it that way.
The system is working exactly as intended.
A majority of Americans continue to fall for GOP lies and take no responsibility for learning how to read and/or comprehend what they read. Americans deserve this because, on average, they are stupid cowards.
It works wonderfully well for those who designed it, they made enough propaganda, destroyed enough countries who tried to change it, and made people think that those countries didn’t worked because their system was wrong, but what destroyed them was the constant threat and war from the greatest country on earth. Democracy and capitalism cannot exist together
There is no "system" causing high housing prices. In fact, high housing prices are due to the lack of a system: It's bunch of homeowners each acting in their personal interest by impeding housing construction in order to increase the values of their own properties. That's why California introduced a system. Now all cities must build housing proportionally, or else their local zoning restrictions are nullified and builders can build whatever they want. It's working.
Nimby, corporate landlords(aka blackstone), airbnb are the major causes of the increase cost of rent and household prices.
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It sucks even more when the kid brings a "friend" and the friend's kids while you are trying to take on the kid, their kids, the spouse, and the house...good times
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Can't when your parents aren't around or don't have a place themselves. You find another way and it's usually way less comfortable.
Not saying there is nothing wrong with the system, but what's wrong with living with parents?
Why must everyone move out and be alone instead of being with family and sharing the costs?
If you get along with them, nothing. But for a lot of people being able to live independently from their parents is literally life saving.
i saw alot of posts elsewhere about this, especially after the layoffs. plus it somewhat more common in american to force your child to leave home after 18,
that system being fascist-driven kleptocracy
yeah things are fucked but not getting booted out when you hit eighteen is pretty normal. what does 'young adults' mean here?
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