STOP. ELECTING. CAPITALISTS.
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
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- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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Yeah this is way beyond voting. Even in the context of just voting, it's often necessary to vote for a lesser evil. Case in point, all the "Kamala didn't earn my vote!" dipshits who handed Trump the presidency on a silver platter.
You gotta make strategic choices with voting, and sometimes that kinda sucks.
So do that. But also break out the guillotines when the people you voted for start behaving maliciously. That's what we're failing, and that's why things have gone so far shit.
Case in point, all the "Kamala didn't earn my vote!" dipshits who handed Trump the presidency on a silver platter.
That line has been dead for over a year, you need to find a new scapegoat.
"Stop voting for those you have no choice but to vote for"
Hey! There is usually an honest Christian nationalist further down the ticket you can give your vote.
/s is mandatory
Sadly it is only the tone and not the facts that are sarcastic.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this isn't part of what radicalized me back in the early 2000s.
However, as my world expanded through my life experiences and reading I came to understand that so much of what seems like a natural reward is artificiality propped at the expense of people in other parts of the world. That's the system. Western workers have access to a wide range of material goods with prices kept artificially low because they are produced by workers who are paid less. What manufacturing that exists is much cleaner than it used to be, because the dangerous stuff is off shore, far from our eyes. Hell, we don't even have to deal with the huge mountains of waste we produce! Temporary Migrant workers in agriculture and domestic work fill the same role except it is their labour that is exported cheaply.
I know the meme is about housing and the 'cheaply made goods' apply to that too. I live in a house built in the 1960s that is kind of the icon of cheap and cheerful working class post war period sprawl boom. Block foundation a wood frame with vinyl siding. Cheap to build, but can get expensive to maintain.
I guess all I mean to say is that I hope people who are seeing this problem are not easily swayed back into complacency if the capitalists recalibrate the feed of crumbs they give to the workers to ensure compliance. I hope for an era of world wide worker solidarity as it is the only way to tackle the problems capitalism has left us with.
I'm not going to try and convince people to have the exact same beliefs and analysis as I have because that's silly and futile. I think most people would not find this documentary to be too radical: https://www.storyofstuff.org/
Maybe give it a watch if you have the time and the comparison to depression era housing practices sounded reasonable lol. It's so easy to take for granted how much things have changed in the last 150 or so years in north america, especially post WW2.
(You can save yourself the well acksualy about Henry Ford and his approach to wages in the 1910s. They are an important piece of the puzzle but reducing the cost of consumer goods allowed western wages to stay low by retain buying power so the appearance was of increasing standard of living that was increasing dependant on the ability to exploit global workers.)
Well articulated.
Just to fill in with a random fact: it's normally the manufacturing country that gets the blame for greenhouse gas emissions. Many rich countries managed to "go green" by shutting down manufacturing, and dumping dirty production onto poorer countries.
Cheap goods are a trap. One actually well made thing will last you as long as ten cheaply made things, the idea that you're "saving money" is a lie.
The system works fine. Just not for us.
it works exactly as intended
That depends on who you ask. Billionaires think it works great.
Working precisely as intended.
the system works exactly as it's supposed to, which is why it must be destroyed.
A majority of Americans continue to fall for GOP lies and take no responsibility for learning how to read and/or comprehend what they read. Americans deserve this because, on average, they are stupid cowards.
A system can become disordered, acting counter to its evolved purpose, sometimes in a way that's fatal to function. I wonder if historians have a DSM for governments/societies.
My suspicion is that institutional dysfunction results not so much from the dynamics of the institution itself as from other systems evolving to more effectively exploit it.
Sure it does. It works as intended. Thinking otherwise makes a person the fool.
The system only works for the few, as capitalism has always done so. As feudalism before that. The secret ingredient to both systems is systemic racism, oppression, and exploitation.
What age range is young adult here?
Do we have a link?
I think I found it. A Pew Research Study from 2020 during the height of COVID.
For those curious 2025 is about 33%
and only 33% in certain areas, average closer to 20%
Yeah, I really wish it was a general Lemmy requirement that any post containing statistics be required to provide a source for them unless it's a non-serious community/post.
Mods could police it. Would be a good rule
The purpose of the system was not to get you a decent job, it was to get you to take out a massive loan for the promise of probably getting a good job hopefully but it's all your fault if you can't.
Not saying there is nothing wrong with the system, but what's wrong with living with parents?
Why must everyone move out and be alone instead of being with family and sharing the costs?
If you get along with them, nothing. But for a lot of people being able to live independently from their parents is literally life saving.
The system works exactly as intended. This is Free Market in its full glory!
the system does not work for you. it works perfectly fine for the politicians and billionaires.
politicians and billionaires are the only ones who can change the system so don't hold your breath waiting for it to change 🙄
yeah things are fucked but not getting booted out when you hit eighteen is pretty normal. what does 'young adults' mean here?
52% of young adults live with their parents
Curious to know what defines "young adult", given how many people are still in college into their early-20s.
Also curious to know why multigenerational households are something we're supposed to be afraid of. This is normal practically everywhere else in the world.
Even if rents weren't skyrocketing, it's very hard to argue with "my old bedroom is rent free" when I'm at an entry level position.
I would be much more worried about the percent of young people who don't have a parent's home to move back into - because their parents are also homeless, or in care homes, or are otherwise unable/unwilling/openly hostile.
Feels a bit like I'm looking at a picture of the bullet hole airplane
My experiences don't reflect everyone's, but I was taking care of my mom and my sisters, and could not find upward momentum until moving out. I did have a sense of responsibility though, and paid 'rent' when I was not asked to. It prevented me from affording to go to college and focusing on my own needs. I was fortunate I could leave that behind, even if it took time.
Today, kids (including my sister's kids) can't do that now. Even worse, because of layoffs and poor decisions by their parents, all of them have to pool their money just so they have a house. The kids want to leave, but because all their money goes to 'rent', the only other option is the street. It's really hard, and I think assuming that "my old bedroom", well it does a lot of heavy lifting.
It prevented me from affording to go to college and focusing on my own needs.
I mean, was the ability to live independently the problem? Or was your mom and sisters needing your attention and support what held you back?
Because... obviously, you could have just left them in the lurch and gone your own way. I made similar choices when I came out of college - staying close to home so I could easily visit and help, as my own sister prepared for school and my mom entered retirement.
Today, kids (including my sister’s kids) can’t do that now. Even worse, because of layoffs and poor decisions by their parents, all of them have to pool their money just so they have a house.
I mean, that's bad in so far as they're caught in a tight economic spot. But being able to afford a house, even with the help of multiple generations, is significantly better than being homeless or stuck in a slum, because you'd been foreclosed on. Living together and minimizing expenses seems like a good thing for everyone involved. Atomizing into single-unit apartments would be far more expensive, even if its the sort of thing the American culture tells you to do.
It’s really hard
Inflation driving prices up. Wage stagnation dragging the working class down. It absolutely fucking sucks all around.
But the statistic seems to focus on the people who have a family to stay with, while missing the people paying through the nose for a single-bedroom unit or live out of their cars or on a friend's couch.
I think you misunderstood. I'm saying it was optional in my case, and I was able to make it work somehow. In today's environment, I don't think any young adult would be able to do the same, as an option. Most are being forced into it or risk getting kicked to the street. And if I had no upward mobility due to circumstances of my own choosing, what about the ones that don't get a choice?
And keep in mind, I was talking about the bedroom being free. If we tangent towards actually contributing toward a household ('rent') then that's a whole other issue entirely. Because that isn't happening either.
In the south there are people who believe that as soon as their kids are able to work (ie: not an adult) that they should start providing for themselves. And by that I mean, "You are responsible to work, but not with money. So give it to me." It's maddening, but that's the normalization occurring here and everyone seems to be okay with that. This mindset is weaponized once the kid turns adult - "keep giving me all your money or get out."
Edit: I think another misunderstanding is the multigenerational aspect of American culture (especially in the south) in regards to this specific case. It simply does not exist. I let my mother move in with me once, and everyone I knew thought it was weird, that I was getting something out of it, or I was a fool and about to be taken advantage of. Everyone likes family, but at a distance.
In the south there are people who believe that as soon as their kids are able to work (ie: not an adult) that they should start providing for themselves. And by that I mean, “You are responsible to work, but not with money. So give it to me.” It’s maddening, but that’s the normalization occurring here and everyone seems to be okay with that. This mindset is weaponized once the kid turns adult - “keep giving me all your money or get out.”
Sure. Parents becoming landlords and neatly negating any benefit from their children accruing savings or experiencing financial responsibility. And then the end result is kids leaving the house hand-to-mouth probably sooner than would have otherwise been wise, to get an overpriced apartment in a shitty part of town just because it means "freedom" from their awful elders.
But that's bad.
Ideally, you stay at home and bank the balance of your salary and share meals with family rather than eating out and enjoy the efficiencies of shared utilities and car pooling and yadda-yadda-yadda. And then you help your parents when they're getting too old to take care of the house on their own, which guarantees the place doesn't fall apart before it's sold or inherited. And you bank more of your earnings, rather than paying it all out to a landlord. And you see more of your siblings, before you all go your separate ways. And you have a genuinely good final few years as a family that you can use to model the family you hope to build with future loved ones in your own home.
That's good.
I think another misunderstanding is the multigenerational aspect of American culture (especially in the south) in regards to this specific case.
I mean, I grew up in a Texas suburb. I went to school with lots of different people and dated around with people from a variety of economic backgrounds.
So I've seen the full spectrum. From "If you're old enough to work, you're my tenant not my child" mentality, that pushes people out way too soon and sets them back a decade or more in terms of quality of life. To "I need you to help keep the lights on, so please get a job" situations, where people stayed at home because it was way cheaper than going four figures out of pocket to pretend to be independent. To the "here's a trust fund, go buy yourself a house before you turn 30, just be back for Thanksgiving dinner", that builds strong economic foundations and deep bonds between generations, but only because you had rich parents who could afford it.
In my experience, young adults living a few extra years with their parents and building up a savings/retirement early on is generally good for them long term.
Getting a job where you're traveling all the time and living out of a suitcase in an apartment you barely recognize and going on Tinder dates (or straight up paying pros) because making money is more important than building relationships is generally awful.
And then coming out of school to a family that wants you to GTFO immediately, because you're queer or your politics are wrong or your parents are just libertarian psychos who think their kids are parasites, is the absolute worst.
The multigenerational aspect takes lots of shapes. It doesn't have to be parents exploiting their kids or kids exploiting their parents. It can be a happy time and make for a smoother transition to adulthood. I know cause I've seen it happen. And I've seen the alternatives when it doesn't happen.
Lots of kids fail to launch. They go off, they fuck up, they spend their 20s racking up huge debts just trying to pretend at independence, and then they end up right back at home again. Or worse, living out of a car or on someone else's couch or trapped in a relationship with a person they can't stand, because they couldn't get out of the parents' house fast enough.
I'm not disputing the economics of how it is beneficial when it works. I would also advocate for the same. I was mostly targeting the "free" part, because it just doesn't happen anymore unless privilege falls into your lap. We can idolize all we want about how it should be, but reality isn't so cut and dry. Most young adults are staying at home because there are no options, not because of a desire to transition into multigenerational roots, not because they "failed to launch", and not for saving for upward momentum. These are kids and young adults who've had everything stolen from them and expected to do more than I have ever done.
And not to sound overly confrontational, but giving these talking points to a young adult is a total slap in the face. It's not that you are wrong, and it is good advice, but it's that nobody is listening and addressing the root issues. And it's only going to get worse as time goes on. It's a bit, insensitive. And I'm sure you don't intend it to be that way, but still...
Better idea:
- every dollar you make in income over 10M is taxed at 100%
- net worth over 1B is assessed an annual tax of 2%