[FpUser]

>"until the middle class/upper middle class realizes that our current lifestyle and access to "cheap" services is being held up by a systematically abused and underpaid labor force"

They're not demented. They know it. They do not give a flying fuck.

[tehjoker]

There's no point in stopping consumption as an individual, but if there was a workers unionization movement to support or an organized consumer action such as a boycott...

[gkop]

Some people do find that it feels good stopping consumption as an individual.

[tehjoker]

That's yet another consumer choice rather than an exertion of political will. The point of political ideas is to change reality, to exert will and make it manifest. Individual consumer choices absent a movement don't do diddly squat.

[gkop]

I agree. Just quibbling over the unqualified "there's no point".

[orhmeh09]

OK. So what is to be done?

[Griffinsauce]

Support unions, vote for workers rights.

Then again, in the US it's very hard to focus your vote like this due to the two-party system. So... work on getting a better political system in place?

[lotsofpulp]

One party actually has advanced workers’ rights in recent decades.

[pverghese]

Like the police union

[Drakim]

There are unions that behave badly, therefore unions as a concept is broken and should be abolished.

Funny enough that logic never applies to corporations. If some corporations behave badly, murdering people, overthrowing democratically elected governments, kidnapping children, well, that's just how it is, we can't abolish corporations, even regulating them is criticized.

Unions help the small guy though, so those are okay to trash.

[coolso]

Legislative and executive action to disincentivize the manufacturing of cheap (and less cheap) goods produced overseas and incentivize the revival of US manufacturing.

China is the reason Amazon is so big.

[FpUser]

And who is going to pay for the goods most people would not be able to buy? You will relegate majority of the population to become destitute and may end up with a nice cozy revolt as the result.

Some industries may be able to get away with it and still be competitive - ones that can replace people with robots. This would cause mass layoffs though.

Decent guaranteed basic income could be a solution but something makes me think that North America would rather commit suicide than let people have something "for free" on large scale.

>"China is the reason Amazon is so big."

It was the decision of many US / other western manufacturers to outsource production to China. China was smart and used it to catapult itself from relative nobody to superpower it is today. The true reason is not China but a simple greed.

[FpUser]

For workers to fight for their rights / money. It is the only way. Owners will not out of blue get generous and decide to pay more money.

[lmm]

Move somewhere better. Or eat the rich.

[JadeNB]

> Move somewhere better. Or eat the rich.

"Move somewhere better" is the response of the (relatively) rich. It says "I'm OK with this problem, as long as I don't have to be near it." That's an OK position to take sometimes—we have to pick our battles, and can't right all the ills of the world—but it's not really taking a moral stand.

[lmm]

I consider it the best chance of sending a message that might actually be heard.

[popcube]

call your Congressman?