I see a lot of the #capitalism doomsayers parroting (apparently unknowingly) old Soviet rhetoric.

Again, the power of corporations IS a problem. But it is neither a new, nor a hopeless problem.

In fact, well-known Linux kernel contributor Jon "maddog" Hall wrote a story from nearly 50 years ago, in which a CEO knowingly made a product less safe, because making it safer would be more expensive than paying higher insurance: https://www.facebook.com/maddoghall/posts/pfbid02LarmY3jeGhpfdMKejnAy1U7tR6hjaps4wrJvVxADTgpcGhtB7W9V6nJvuTs5hupxl

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How about late capitalism? A lot of people (rightly!) cite the power of corporate greed, oppressed workers, etc. and then (wrongly!) throw up their hands as if there's nothing we can do about it. "It's just more evidence of late capitalism." And they never suggest something better, either.

Would it surprise you to know that people have been saying we're in the midst of late #capitalism for nearly 100 years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism

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The absolute gall of this question. A required question, mind you.

I will likely not be getting called in for an interview, but it was totally worth it.

#jobsearch #jobhunt #capitalism

When self-described capitalists don’t actually seem to know what capitalism actually is.

#capitalism #capitalists #workers #unions #labor #markets #scarcity #shortage #WorkersShortage #economics

"This isn't just happening with diapers. It's happening across our entire economy. Inflation rose 14% between July 2020 and July 2022. But corporate profits rose by 75% over those two years — five times as fast as inflation. Remember when the media said “greedflation” was a fringe theory? Now looking back, it's undeniable."
-Robert Reich @RBReich

#Greedflation #Capitalism

For those who haven’t seen it before, here is my review of The Climate Book, by Greta Thunberg…
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I've read dozens of books about climate change, and this one is easily the best. It's packed with information, written to be accessible for anyone from high school (or a bright middle school student) on up, and most importantly it does NOT shy away from the true severity of our situation and the imperative need not only for individual action but for system change.

It's stunning to me that a young woman who just turned twenty years old was able to pull together such a massive project — coordinating the submissions of more than a hundred scientists, activists, and educators — while also writing a large part of the content herself. A truly amazing accomplishment.

This essential work should be in every school library and in every home. It will remain relevant for years to come, I believe, because although there certainly is plenty of data, mostly it's about *ideas* which will never age.
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https://bookwyrm.social/user/BreadAndCircuses/review/1196642/s/essential-reading#anchor-1196642

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #ClimateAction #ClimateJustice

Just finished reading a recent (2023) article on organizing #GigWork #GigWorkers by Rafael Grohmann, Mateus Mendonça, and Jamie Woodcock. It investigated how digital communication platforms play a more central role in organizing delivery platform drivers/riders, (1) due to the preconditions of having a smartphone to engage in the work at all, and (2) due to the affordances/circumstances of both the gig work platforms themselves and the various social media platforms that the workers flock to.

It investigated (1) the lack of direct communication with bosses and its replacement with algorithmic management, (2) the migration of gig workers to social media in search of solidarity (typically into cohorts along territorial and personal lines), and (3) how both (1) and (2) ultimately led to meaningful in-person labour struggle in the form of successful pickets of local vendors and public shaming protests of their working conditions.

Social media organizing took the place of the traditional shop floor and break room chats; group admins took the place of traditional union stewards; public shaming campaigns took the place of traditional strikes.

Ultimately, the "public shaming" approach, organized over social media and branching out into social media and traditional media relations, while ultimately not bringing immediate, material *wins* to the *workers*, *did* nevertheless take *off* 2 billion dollars of the #Deliveroo IPO in #london

Their conclusion notes that social media conglomerates were not built with worker activism in mind, and that any successes built upon their backs are thus contingent. I strongly agree there, and also agree with their suggestion of building alternatives. I think community-owned and co-operated delivery platforms could be such a viable alternative, especially if mandated, preferred, or at least permitted by local statutes.

The methodology of embedding within the struggles, personal interviews, and systemic monitoring of social media I think lends credence to their analysis.

Journal URL: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17764

PDF URL: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/17764/4211

#socialism #communism #marxism #capitalism #TradeUnionism #TradeUnions #LaborUnions #LabourUnions #union #unions

We can have one of two things — but not both.

We can either have a society that tolerates millionaires and billionaires polluting the planet and destroying the biosphere. Or we can have a planet with a healthy biosphere but with fewer millionaires and no billionaires at all.

This is from a recently published peer-reviewed scientific paper titled “Millionaire Spending Incompatible with 1.5 C Ambitions”...
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Much evidence suggests that the wealthiest individuals contribute disproportionately to climate change. Here we study the implications of a continued growth in the number of millionaires for emissions, and its impact on the depletion of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Our findings suggest that the share of millionaires in the world population will grow from 0.7% today to 3.3% in 2050, and cause accumulated emissions equivalent to 72% of the remaining carbon budget. This significantly reduces the chance of stabilizing climate change at 1.5°C.

The concentration of wealth at the top means that a significant share of the remaining carbon budget to 1.5°C is depleted by a very small share of humanity. This comparably small group is also likely to invest its wealth in ways that further increase emissions.

Continued growth in emissions at the top makes a low-carbon transition less likely, as the acceleration of energy consumption by the wealthiest is likely beyond the system's capacity to decarbonize. To this end, we question whether policy designs such as progressive taxes targeting the high emitters will be sufficient.
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Like I said, we can have one thing or the other — but not both.

READ THE PAPER --https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666791622000252

#Politics #Capitalism #Inequality #CO2 #Emissions #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateJustice

Capitalism has not really raised people from extreme poverty. Most probably it has just pushed more and more people into extreme poverty over hundreds of years, in addition to making life miserable in general for so many.

The only time things have gotten better for regular people within capitalism is when workers organize and when people participate in anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist action.

New study on the topic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169?via%3Dihub

#Capitalism #AntiCapitalism #Socialism #Poverty