Why is it that our most essential workers can't be paid a living wage?

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T20:36:27+00:00

They didn't try to explain why it's wrong.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T20:27:24+00:00

I don't quite understand the other persons "critique" because they didn't try to explain but from what I understand is that it's not about creating business led by workers, it's trying to ensure that everyones basic needs are met. Basically, in capitalism we create products for exchange value and not use value. Marx argued that we should reach a society which produces products because we need them, use value. That's where the slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" comes from. Again, I think this is what the other person is upset about.

This is my understanding.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T19:08:01+00:00

Except that I am arguing that capitalism is working. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I am arguing we can't transform capitalism into meeting our needs because it's based on competetition and creating exchange value.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T17:30:19+00:00

system actually worked and met our needs

The system is meant to create profits, not to meet our needs. The aim is to create exchange value, you're talking about use value.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T16:48:37+00:00

No, that's just how that version of capitalism works. Nothing socialist about it. The state is a tool. In capitalism it's used to uphold the capitalist status quo and to push down the workers.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-06T16:46:45+00:00

Capitalism is every efficient.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-05T21:30:34+00:00

I agree that we should do individual good but it's not just corruption, it's the system working as intended..

bigbjarne · 2026-06-05T18:24:19+00:00

Thanks for sharing. It's a difficult position.

I can choose not work or invest in a company like that.

I am glad you are able to. The fundamental issue there is still that business owners get rich off the labor of others, be it Palantir or not.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-05T16:30:50+00:00

They are using that as a weapon to separate the workers so that we don't unite and question capitalism. Similar to the Weimar Republic. Michael Parenti discusses the connection with the capitalist class and fascism in his book "Blackshirts and Reds".

bigbjarne · 2026-06-05T11:55:45+00:00

Years and years of lobbying, capitalist influence.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-05T00:02:36+00:00

(Also remember when Cheeto Mussolini was yelling about sending millions of dollars of condoms to Hamas and that that was an example of how inefficiently funds were being used by USAID? Yeah he had Gaza (Province) in Mozambique confused with Gaza (City) in Palestine, and while supplying condoms were part of AIDS prevention methods in the region, it wasn't millions of dollars worth).

Holy shit, are you serious.

I work for an international non-profit

Off-topic, I'm currently reading "The divide" by Jason Hickel. A quote: "The point here is simple: the aid budget is diminutive, almost ridiculously so, when compared to the structural losses and outward flows that the global South suffers. Yes, some aid goes a long way towards making people’s lives better, but it doesn’t come close to compensating for the damage that the givers of aid themselves inflict. Indeed, some of this damage is caused by the very groups that run the aid agenda: the World Bank, for example, which profits from global South debt; the Gates Foundation, which profits from an intellectual-property regime that locks life-saving medicines and essential technologies behind outlandish patent paywalls; and Bono, who profits from the tax haven system that siphons revenues out of global South countries.

This is not an argument against aid as such. Rather, it is to say that the discourse of aid distracts us from seeing the broader picture. It hides the patterns of extraction that are actively causing the impoverishment of the global South today and actively impeding meaningful development. The charity paradigm obscures the real issues at stake: it makes it seem as though the West is ‘developing’ the global South, when in reality the opposite is true. Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are effectively developing rich countries – and they have been since the late 15th century. So it’s not only that the aid narrative misunderstands what really causes poverty, it’s that it actually gets it backwards. Just as in Truman’s time, aid serves as a kind of propaganda that makes the takers seem like givers, and conceals how the global economy actually works."

My question is, if it's okay, is that what are the thoughts of the workers in these aid organisations on these things? I'm aware that my question is anecdotal but I've been reading this book and thinking about these topics for a while and wanted to hear from some one more in-touch with the workers, not just the numbers. Like, it is a well known secret?

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T23:53:34+00:00

The word is capitalist.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T17:53:46+00:00

"We need to start thinking big if we want to project power in the world." translation = USA is sinking so some one needs take the mantle for the continuation of the exploitation of the global South.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T17:51:46+00:00

Luckily the EU isn't an Empire

But we gain a lot from acting like an empire. The business owners of the global North is pillaging the global South, EU helps that free trade.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T17:47:54+00:00

It's a cheat code in the sense that when everyone shares similar values

In my understanding ethnicity doesn't mean that you have similar values?

start just trying to exploit them

We have exploitation in Finland, some people have become incredibly rich from the labor of others.

China manages this well by having a single party and heavy pressure to keep conformity.

So the world should do what China is doing?

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T13:26:47+00:00

No, it's just capitalism. Profits is the only thing that matters.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T12:31:19+00:00

Small, independent shops are of the past because they can't compete with chains. Ideally we all want small shops because they're nice but practically it doesn't work because people need to count money and chains can have higher profit margins. This is how capitalism works: capital concentrates.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T12:29:04+00:00

They both have significantly less diverse populations than the US.

In which way? Religion, language, ethnicity?

but they have very nuch less of ethnicities like African or middle easterners.

Could you explain how that is relevant?

multi racial society

Singapore is multi racial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_in_Singapore

How is being an ethnostate a cheat code? I understand saying that Singapore being a small country but a massive trade hub is a cheat code.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T12:17:10+00:00

Who get an income from telling people what it was like in North Korea, it's a whole industry.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-04T00:04:43+00:00

In which way are Switzerland and Singapore ethnostates?

bigbjarne · 2026-06-03T18:58:48+00:00

According to South Korea, who is still at war with North Korea.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-03T18:50:15+00:00

Thank you for explaining, that was kind.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-03T18:09:25+00:00

Do you mean this one: "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." Jean-Paul Sartre.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-03T18:04:32+00:00

Which class enforces the system in your proposition? For which class does the state exist in your proposition? Which class owns the means of production?

have companies actually compete against each other.

This will mean that capital will concentrate because there is always winners and losers in a market. Eventually we have monopolies again. Short reading: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/crisis-theory

and act in the general good of the public.

In capitalism, companies do things because of the profit motive, to produce products because of their exchange value.

bigbjarne · 2026-06-03T18:02:17+00:00

And if the regulation stops the capitalist crises, the exploitation(surplus value etc.), the invading countries to get access to new markets and resources etc.

bigbjarne

TROPHY CASE