[WeylandYutani]

It's heart warming to see the US rediscover labour unions Republicans wrote American socialists out of the history books but you can't keep the people down!

You'll see increased lobbying from companies for increased migration to keep wages down.

[winReInstall]

Or, hear me out, they could ditch the lipservice to democracy entirely and push some ursurper on a throne.

After all strong hierarchys controlled by a godking are closer to a company anyway.

What has democracy ever done for us?

[thr0wawayf00]

> What has democracy ever done for us?

The labor movement gave us the 40 hour workweek, weekends off and the minimum wage. They're the reason you have time to opine online right now instead of working.

https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-40-hour-workw... https://exhibitions.lib.umd.edu/unions/labor/living-wage

[indymike]

>> What has democracy ever done for us?

Labor unions, for one thing.

[fundad]

What has democracy done for whomst?

[wahnfrieden]

That's a paradox of the left - is the fight to keep people laboring, or to do away with it (through automation etc.)

[Bilal_io]

Is it really?

There is nothing wrong with fighting for workers rights while automation is not here yet.

The problem is that automation has to be taxed accordingly to allow us to live with dignity when there is no job to occupy (i.e UBI), and guess who's against taxation? "The left" would be the wrong answer.

I don't see any paradox. 1.Tax the rich now. 2. Improve worker rights which will push us faster towards automation. 3. Prepare legislation to tax automation and implement UBI.

What happens if we don't do that?

1. The rich will continue to take advantage of people's labor while paying them peanuts. 2. The middle class disappears, we end up with a system of two classes, the slaves and the lords. 3. Automation will come regardless and we won't be ready for it regulation wise, and people will die from hunger.

Pick

[wahnfrieden]

See https://therealmovement.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/real-commun...

[Bilal_io]

Yeah, label anyone you agree with as a communist. That's nothing more than a scare tactic.

Is there anything specific you want me to get from this article?

It's a hilarious argument that people advocating for workers rights and want wages to go UP are communists that want the wages to go DOWN...

[wahnfrieden]

well, I think we'll exit this conversation - too many different reference points to explain. goodbye

[kelseyfrog]

I've never heard of this before. Are there other political paradoxes you're aware of, say for example, a paradox of the right?

[lexiPrime]

Is the answer to this supposed to be obvious enough to not actually require a response? Whether or not that is the case, it seems useful to lay out an example.

A paradox of the Right is that they say that they fight for peoples' freedoms, yet they continue to fight to restrict freedoms. See any of the Right's stances regarding the freedoms of LGBT people for a salient and current example.

You could say "the Right is against rights", if you want to be cute about it.

[kennywinker]

The promise of automation has always been that you'll get a better job with less menial labour if your job is automated. But I don't believe that's been the case, overall. It seems to me that automation causes people to be displaced from jobs where their skills are valued, to jobs where their skills are seen as replaceable. In a capitalist system, without something like UBI, that's a huge problem because once you're at the bottom it's easy to fall out of the system entirely. So, you frame it as a choice between hard work and easy work - but I think ultimately it's closer to a choice between hard work and poverty or death.

There is no mechanism in our capitalist system for allowing people to be automated out of a job while still living a good life.

[wahnfrieden]

Yes, workers don’t benefit from automation under capitalism. Productivity increases far outpace wages earned which have even moved in opposite directions

[ajsnigrutin]

> You'll see increased lobbying from companies for increased migration to keep wages down.

I find it funny, that here (my country, slovenia), we have right(ish) parties against immigration but more liberal workforce rules, and on the other side, we have both leftish and pure "communist" parties (even with a red star in the logo), supposedly "fighting for the workers" and at the same time supporting more immigration.

[martimarkov]

You fight for more votes. Get more workers to fight for and more ppl vote for you. ;)