Think about this fact before you say "the poor still have choices"

Imagine if animals woke up and thought that this was a choice. Work or don't eat. Food just doesn't drop out of the sky.

Tell you what...you stay at home and wait for bread to fall from the sky and I'll go out and spend my "earned" money on some food.

I eat...you don't. Sure...good idea.

No, but it comes out of the ground lol

if someone works...yes, it does. Someone always has to work....hunter gatherers and all that mumbo jumbo.

Who plants grass? You're talking about animals not having to work. There are plenty of grazing animals who don't need to work.

Grazing is work. Grazing animals live to move and feed, but are also on the constant search for more grazing land. If they stayed in one spot and waited on grass to grow back they'd die. That's why pastures have to be set aside and preserved. Our horses are constantly being moved or rotated to new pastures for that very reason. In the wild, they have to find pastures for themselves and starve if they can't. That's the point. In civilization, people produce their own food. If someone doesn't produce, then no one eats. Work is a part of the equation.

Wow, that's a real appeal to the extremes there to validate your worldview. I mean, that kinda harkens to the Jewish Sabbath where "No Work is to be done on the Sabbath." Where they prepare their meals for themselves the previous day so that no one has to prepare it. The food is prepared, it's there to eat. Granted, the work was done beforehand. But, if all you have to do is walk to find more food, is that work? Especially in the great plains where it's nothing but grass? It's kinda hard for me not to appeal to similar extremes here that I am thinking of. But I hardly call walking for your grass as a grazing animal work. Not in the same context you're talking about.

The point you're missing in the original meme is that the employer offers an ultimatum of "work" or "starve." In this, you're ignoring the context that runs in this sort of conversation. That being, "work" given by the employer is usually under terms that favor the employer to an unreasonable extent, and screwing over the employee. Further, the extent of exploitation right now is that in order to not starve, you have two work for two different people doing full time jobs to support a nuclear family.

That's not "work." That's modern corporate slavery for the poverty class. They're now trying to figure out how to match conditions for the middle class.

Change my mind.

Nevermind how pitcher plants literally sit and wait for their food to come to them.

Capitalism

Nature must be capitalist...or Capitalism must be natural. Imagine a segment of society just sitting around while others work to make sure that these entitled tards can live and eat off of other people's labor.

Have you even heard of queen bees or ants? Lady gets laid all day and fed

So let me guess...you want to lay around all day, get laid and fed, while others do your bidding. Such a wonderful government you crave. Doesn't sound like slavery at all.

I've given you sunshine
I've given you dirt
You've given me nothing
But heartache and hurt…

Are you trying to make a statement by that quote? Seems sus.

Thought it was appropriate to the topic and your image choice. The lyrics share the kind of "worker's lament" vibe that starts in the Skid Row song.

Cool, I thought you were going somewhere else with it...

Not at all. I'm saying that affixing the model of capitalism is in itself flawed. If you look at the rest of the colony, they all work and tthey all get equal treatment. Socialism under a monarchy.

You want a monarchy? Ants don't have a depraved nature like we do. We're selfish as a rule, a trait that got us out of the trees. Even our Altruism is based on a selfish motive for survival. It can't be legislated away...been tried and failed. It can be harnessed, however, which is the fundamental principle behind the value argument in Capitalism.

Dude, stop with the strawman arguments. I never said I wanted a monarchy lol. You aren't talking about people, you used an analogy of other species and work/getting stuff for free. Stay focused.

But, since you want to focus on capitalism, there's an intrinsic flaw that we're rapidly approaching that few people talk about, when the larger majority of the discussion blame it on immigration: automation.

The more automation we get, the fewer jobs will be available. The more automation we have, the more specialized jobs we'll need to program and design such automation. Labor, as a commodity is going to be severely reduced as we are trying to use innovation to minimize that labor as labor costs money. We cut costs, raise profits. If labor becomes even half way automated, the job market cannot sustain the demand for job seekers. Then, those who own the automation, (the means of production) will then dictate the terms for employment and will be able to evaporate labor unions as the employer holds the supply of labor.

On top of this, with labor jobs disappearing, we have the cost for education creating an obstacle that places you in automatic debt if you do not already have money to get the education to be relevant in the job market. So, even if you get the specialist job, you start out in debt if you start from poverty. The pursuit of such education is a full time gig. Nevermind the rising costs of living that require nearly two full time jobs in some places.

This then, requires the dissolution for the nuclear family in order for the household to survive IF a father and mother, both pursuing college degrees and holding full time jobs to support their children. In this, more people are added to the family to create the "extended family" to mitigate the costs of living and share living expenses. Now, adults live with their parents and are chastised by the right wing if they try to do anything outside of this outline for living.

So... What're you getting at? That capitalism is great? Hardly, has many flaws that the right wing doesn't want to address. Everytime poverty class tries to address it, right wing strikes back saying "FILTHY COMMIE SOCIALIST!" When they're just trying to survive in the system that was designed to put more and more people into poverty rather than lifting them to the classically known "American Dream."

Before the real plague (bubonic) the land owners would require an animal to be given to them if a male worker died, to compensate the landowner for the lost productivity of the family working the land. During the plague, landowners had such large quantities of animals from this death tax that they needed more workers for their growing herd as well as for their lands. The remaining workers were able to relocate to places that could pay them well and a middle class was created. Also, the death tax ended. The plague was one of the most potent forces of income equality the world had seen.

Actually, come to think of it, it's really depressing that the most potent force of income equality was that long ago. You'd think by modern thinking we'd have come up with something better by now.

I remember the professor talked about how the emerging middle and mercantile class began to adopt the clothing styles of the landed gentry, so it sounds like you're spot on about it being right at the start of mercantilism. My workplace tried hiring staff for this season, but ended up telling the current workforce that they could have all the overtime they were willing to do. My paycheck grew by 50%. Scarcity!

Yes, certainly a pandemic places a lot of demand on labor as those who own the commodity of labor are scared to expose them to other labor owners. So, the employers start getting desperate. This plague has actually shown the working class that we hold more power than the employers were willing to admit. In recent years, it's been "you're lucky to have a job" since the recession of 2008. Can testify to that.

Ah yes, and what economic model was that?

I don't remember. What was the system that reacted to a scarcity with an increase in value?

What you describe is capitalism. The timeframe you refer to was feudalism. Or, at the most, mercantilism. But, that's a stretch.

Andrew Yang is that you?

I like Morgan Freeman's thoughts on the subject
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