this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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We draw the line at wages that actually provide people enough to live a life worth living. Minimum wage in 1956 earned 60 ounces of gold a year in 1968 it was raised to $1.60/hr or 95 ounce of gold a year/ $250,000 today this was the 8th time minimum wage was increased since minimum wage was legislated by the fair labor standards act of 1938. Meanwhile today federal minimum wage has not been adjusted in 15 going on 16 years. This is the longest its gone without adjustment in the 86 years of minimum wage. The current inflation statistics regurgitated by wall street the imf and world bank are based on consumer price index which does not take into account the devaluation of currency due to the increase in circulating currency supply. Nixon ended the gold standard jn 1971 and by 1981 the usa had printed its first one trillion dollars. For the first 172 years after the us instituted a national standard currency the price of gold only increased 80% from $19 to $35 but since then its increased 7500% to $2650 meanwhile minimum wage has only increased 450-1300% and corporate executive pay has ballooned 3300%-16,500% so minimum wage value has actually decreased by 84-93% these corporations are literally robbing us all. 2/3 of working people are living paycheck to paycheck with no emergency savings. A majority of Millennials and gen z are on track to never own a home or be able to retire. They will have to work until they are too sick to be able to with the hope that social security still exists in 30-50 years. Retailers already increase prices to account for shrink and they take out massive insurance policies that reimburse them for shrink so the idea that this hurts big box businesses is just ridiculous propaganda
Wages converted to oz of gold is a completely meaningless metric. Gold has no bearing whatsoever on the ability to purchase things and fluctuates way more than actual money.
Completely untrue. Gold has been considered an inflation proof asset since the dawn of investment banking. Unlike cpi its price is directly tied to the amount of currency in circulation here are 2 articles highlighting my points
https://www.reuters.com/plus/beyond-cpi-gold-as-a-strategic-inflation-hedge
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/09/measured-in-gold-the-story-of-american-wages-is-an-ugly-one/
But go ahead and believe whatever the wall street military and prison industry profiteers tell you, they are masters of fraud, deception and propaganda.
I may not be an expert, but I do have a minor in economics, so I have a basic understanding of the math behind it. And you aren't going to convince me that math and statistics aren't real.
One thing I would point out is gold is inherently deflationary, because the money supply can't grow with the economy.
It's not as simple as more dollar bills=inflation, less dollar bills=deflation. For one thing, if the population grows and the money supply doesn't, everybody has less money. Also, if we have a recession and people stop spending money as quickly, the money supply goes down. Interest rates effect money supply as well. There are a ton of factors. This is not propaganda, it is basic math.
Based on your argument, do you really think someone making minimum wage in 1968 had the same purchasing power as someone making 250k in 2024? This is absurdly false.
I agree with you that the system is broken, but your numbers are completely meaningless.
Is it, though? Like, let's sit with this thought for a second. Everyone I've asked who was working age during this time says that either our standard of living has stagnated or markedly worsened since the 70s. In fact, my experience with a lot of the boomer generation and listening to them be confused about why millennials were/are so angsty, this makes a lot of sense. You really could do a lot with a minimum wage job back then; pay your own way through college, live independently, own your own car, and still save up for some luxuries like retirement. Idk, man, just basing this off the older folks in my own life, this actually passes the sniff test for me.
Economics is a made up science the only purpose of which is to defend the exploitation of others through capitalism at all costs.
From 1945 till 1975 one adult working a full time minimum wage job could support a family of four with enough left to save for retirement, their children’s education and enjoy a modest yearly family vacation. How much money today would it take to earn the same quality of life? Maybe you can get there with $150,000 but families of 4 with 2 adults working full time and earning $30 an hour each thats barely scraping by at $124,000(pre taxes and dedictions)
I saw an msnbc article about abyear ago that i wish i saved because i could never find it again but the article gave the amount of money whomever wrote it had estimated one needed to earn anually to be middle class with a family of 4 today and middle class means you can afford a yearly vacation and lived to the same standard of life people had 75-40 years ago the number was just under 200,000 and this was when gold was just under $2200/ ounce so it pretty much added up to my math within a few thousand dolars. So this is why i think someone making minimum wage even in 1956 till 1971 had mucu more purchasing power, you could huy a house for $7500 or even less if you found a fix me up (my grandfather bought a house they were going to burn down in providence rhode island for $2700 in 1955) but today the median house in the usa costs over $400,000
Paper money is worthless. We only give it value because ultra wealthy people tell us to. But the reality is that every currency in circulation is inextricably tied to the price of gold. Also when you look at the exchange rate between any two currencies you will see they all add up to whatever the price of gold is. For instance if a gbp was equal to $1.30 per 1£ then an ounce of gold in £ will be 10/13 of the price of gold in usd.
Also printing money is inherently inflationary
Lol economics is a made up science? What does that even mean? You are literally talking about economics right now. As long as money exists in any form, economics is real.
And we usually think about inflation in terms of purchasing power... How much can I buy with my paycheck? Not in terms of the value of some arbitrary element whose value is based entirely on speculation.
Also, let me repeat this again: the money supply is not literally the number of dollar bills (or gold nuggets or whatever) in circulation. It is only one of many factors.
For example: if a dollar bill changes hands 3 times in a year, it adds $1 to the salaries of 3 different people. That's $3 added to the money supply. That isn't propaganda, that is a factual mathematical truth.
Just because you don't understand economics doesn't mean it's not real.
https://evonomics.com/pretending-hard-science-ethics-free-julie-nelson/
You are absolutely crazy conspiracy theorist level nuts, you know that? Stop drinking the libertarian Kool-Aid
I'm not even going to begin to try to break down your comment because there is so much bullshit to unpack but I will at least say this:
Economics is the study of how people use resources and make decisions, and how those decisions impact the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services
That is not a made up science. The conclusions economists draw, the theories they promote, etc can be twisted and manipulated but there are fundamental truths about economics to be found. Calling it a made up science is a rejection of objective truth and makes you sound like a lunatic
https://evonomics.com/pretending-hard-science-ethics-free-julie-nelson/
Go ahead and trust the biggest liars on the face of the planet. War lord prison industry profiteering peices of trash who spend more on a weekend vacation than you could earn in a dozen lifetimes.
The price of gold has gone up in tandem with the amount of money being printed and the shift of wealth acquisition from the bottom to the top. 86 years ago till 50 years ago the share of wealth for the bottom 80% of society was around 90% now its the other way around the top ten percent control 90% of the wealth. 50% of Americans have less than 200,000 in assets and liquid. 60% of workers live paycheck to paycheck with no emergency savings a majority of millennials and gen z are never going to own a home never going to have retirement savings and be forced to work till they are too sick to do so with the hopes that social security isn’t gutted and nonexistent in 30-60 years
You may think im crazy however you and i likely have a much different intellectual capacity. Im guessing your iq is average at best? Maybe 110 at most? But whatever you want to believe. Even double the highest minimum wage today is garbage. People used to be motivated to work by the fact that the wages offered provided a better quality of life but today the only thing motivating a majority of people to work is the coercive threat of homelessness starvation and loss of dignity.
Ive received the same pushback for espousing these ideas and its always the same bullshit. Trust what wall street tells you, they are the experts, you’re just a conspiracy theorist nut job crackpot.
So really all I have to say is kindly go and Kick rocks buddy.
Ahahaha you're really trying to claim an IQ superiority on the internet 😂 Cry more
Have fun blaming others for your failures Mr $6000/yr High IQ. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
👍👌👋✌️
Boot flavored gum must be really tasty these days.
the difference between you and I is that I realized our society as it is currently ordered isnt worth participating in whereas you seemingly still believe capitalism rewards the amount of hard work one puts into the system.
So why are you even in this community? To troll people you deem less human than yourself? I bet you sleep alone at night.
Lol you think because I don't condone wanton theft and lawlessness, that because I'm not a psycho libertarian it means I support capitalism?
Quite narrow minded. You lack vision and nuance.
Sadly for you, existence is more complex than "capitalism bad". Some things with really well as a capitalist venture (like trying to start any endeavor that takes large initial investment to get going because it's only viable when produced at scale). Other things are fucking horrifying to manage as capitalist endeavors (like prison and healthcare and education).
You're like a puppy, easily distracted by the shiniest thing and unable to hold more than one concept at a time.
I'm done. I've wasted enough time talking to you, you walking, talking, "is it me who's wrong? No it's them" principal skinner meme 😂
Just to piggyback off your comment, I got wondering how much minimum wage is worth in ounces of gold these days. $15, which is higher than the federal minimum, yields 15 dollars per hour *40 hours a week *52 work weeks in a year makes $31,200 gross income. The current price of gold is $2637/oz, rounded to the nearest whole dollar, according to a quick Google search that brings up daily updates websites (today's date is 12/21/2024). To get how many ounces of gold a $15/hr minimum wage would get, gross wages and full work weeks, we would divide the yearly income of $31,200 by the price per oz of gold of $2637. 31200/2637 is 11.8 rounded to the nearest tenth. So, $15/hr minimum wage workers are effectively making anywhere from 1/6th to 1/9th of what their 1956 and 1968 compatriots were making. Wow.
Yeah i have those numbers on hand too. The minimum wage in California for select fast food workers is just over 15 ounces which is just barely more than the first established minimum wage after the FLSA was implemented of $.25/hr so minimum wage today earns between 6-15 ounces so that’s 7-14% of what it earned in 1968-1971 and I’ve also done the math to know that it cost more to purchase and maintain a slave before the end of the civil war than minimum wage workers are currently payed in the usa.
You didn't answer my question at all. What is the line for what is acceptable to steal?
Are you saying that until there is a fair minimum wage anyone can steal anything and feel no guilt or shame? That it's all okay, ethically and morally, because of the minimum wage?
That's bonkers, if that's what you're saying. But honestly your entire rant didn't address my question of when theft is okay and when it isn't
People are being robbed at every opportunity in society. Wage theft is theft its just legal because bureaucratic paperwork deems it acceptable. The amount of wealth distribution in the last 75 years has shifted from the bottom 80% owning 90% of thr wealth to the top 10 percent owning 85% of the wealth today.
Its not bonkers at all. Youre just saying bexause billionaires use militarized police and bureaucratic processes to rob the proletariat its acceptable whereas people who are desperate overworked and underpaid by design because the system has created this environment by design to benefit the owning class, taking what little they need to survive and removing a tiny amount of profit from businesses that earn hundreds of billions annually is unacceptable?they dint even loose profit because they are insured against shrink and have shrink built into their price walmart made $143 BILLION in 2022 and was crying about 3 billion in shrink while a large portion of its labor force is sk under payed they qualify for food stamps. Its a joke.does boot flavored gum really taste that good?
Now i don’t condone stealing from small mom And pop businesses. Unless they are equally shitty to their workers as box stores are then fuck them too but a small family owned business that has 5 or 10 employees and treats them well should not be a target of this reappropriating action
So you're an anarchist. You get to decide who deserves to be treated fairly and who doesn't. Cool. If I ever find out who you are I'll rob you blind and say it's all fair because something something wage theft and I don't think you deserve what you have something something. If you get to pick and choose who to steal from then so do I. And we'll all just kill each other over our disagreements. 😬
I have pretty much nothing for you to take.
There is only one class that deserves to have their wealth reappropriated and thats those who spend more on a weekend vacation than you could earn in a dozen consecutive lifetimes.
Do boots really taste that good?
Oh so you were lying when you said that you condone stealing from Mom and Pop shops that treat their workers like shit?
You can't even keep your own arguments straight. Completely done with you. Get blocked
If mom and pop employ predatory practices and pay and treat their workers like disposable cattle so they can leverage their wealth against working class people and live to a higher standard on passive income then they are no better than the walton family or the payseurs or the trumps thiels and musks of the world. Each according to their means is how we should live and thats not what we have today we have exploitation under the guise of fair practice so that a small group of 800 americans can each hold at least one thousand 22.5 pound stacks of hundred dollar bills while they guy at the top has wealth equaling 486,000 22.5 pound stacks of $100 bills. Youre basically saying they earned that fairly. Nobody needs more than $20,000,000 to live a good life. Any more than that is just greed. Where do tou draw the line? Should people be allowed to ruthlessly exploit others so they can hoard more than they could ever spend in a hundred lifetimes? Who’s side are you on? Definitely not your own.
Everyone of us watches heist movies and i guarantee a majority of us don't root for the police, we root for the ones sticking it to the banks. So I’m rather certain my sentiment is the popular one. But go ahead and keep on doing what you’re you’re doing. You may not be licking them but you are surely kissing those boots