• 4 Posts
  • 42 Comments
Joined 3 年前
Cake day: 2022年3月4日
  • TarkovSurvivor@lemmygrad.mltoComradeship // Freechat@lemmygrad.ml•How to respond to people with "bad" aspirations?
    15·
    11 个月前

    “You want to be a cop/soldier/agent? What’s more appealing to you, shooting brown people or being a jackboot for our capitalist overlords?”

    Don’t be nice to acquaintances, stinging critique will stay on their mind more than gently prodding them. If it’s friends or family and you think they won’t want to talk to you if you use such rhetoric then maybe you hold their hand and try and engage in a longer, more nuanced and less hostile discussion but be clear about your views and present them evidence as to what these organisations really are.

    Cop? What happens to do gooder whistle blowing types? They die.

    Soldiers? What the fuck were they doing protecting poppy plantations in Afghanistan?

    CIA? show then the Stockwell interviews on what they did

    Fbi? Murdered Fred Hampton

  • TarkovSurvivor@lemmygrad.mltoAsk Lemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml•Why is UBI not a good solution to poverty?
    10·
    11 个月前

    Perhaps it’s because they already have these basic necessities covered by their wage and don’t see how such things being free would enrich their lives. Free money is more money and they perceive that as a universal improvement.

    Talking to people who struggled to give their children an education during lock downs - who can’t afford even twenty dollars a month for Internet, who struggle to afford bus fares and pens and paper for their children - making such things free is very popular down here.

    Ubi is still subject to the same question of who will pay for it, interesting how workers in the core perceive their tax refund as some form of “free money” and not what it really is.

  • TarkovSurvivor@lemmygrad.mltoAsk Lemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml•Why is UBI not a good solution to poverty?
    21·
    11 个月前

    Under a free market system most of the increase in workers purchasing power would translate into bid up rent prices and higher profits for landleeches, higher rents and not much benefit for the ordinary worker.

    The proposals for ubi presented by presidential candidate Andrew Yang would require recipients to stop recieving other forms of government assistance - no more food stamps, no disability benefits, no housing assistance. This would endanger disabled comrades and put them in s position of relative disadvantage and take away their currently existing accommodations within society. While the average worker may be slightly better off with ubi, a disabled person would receive much less benefit from such a change in the system.

    Many proponents of ubi wish to tie it to the undoing of minimum wage laws, claiming that ubi would offset the need for such protections.

    Who would pay for it? Rich people have found a myriad of wayd of avoiding taxation and so the burden of ubi may well fall on workers themselves, with higher taxes offsetting the direct payment of ubi - this may benefit lower paid workers slightly but would cause division between higher paid workers and lower paid workers. It may well end up having s very similar effect to the prebate/negative tax systems favored by libertarians.

    Ultimately as Marxists we seek to empower workers with ownership over the means of production, ubi is just some crumbs thrown at workers by the owners of the means of production - tho likely paid for by the workers themselves. It will dampen revolutionary energy and cause increasing division within and with the outside of society.

    Will migrants be eligible? If not will we create an underclass of struggling workers excluded from the ubi programme, unable to afford higher rents. Will this not lead to calls to restrict migration/extension of citizenship?

    As a resident of the global south, where discussion of ubi is almost nonexistent and the likelihood of such programmes being implemented is very low - it seems like ubi is just rich nation people arguing over how to divide the spoils of empire and I’m pretty sure it will in no way benefit the poorest people on earth. If rich nations want to offer cash money to people in the global south, that would be great but let’s be real - that is not what is being proposed. All we will see is higher barriers to migration.

    As Marxists we are not asking for “free” money. We are asking for fair pay. Ubi is a right wing band aid on capitalism and not something we can endorse. If implemented it would only make worse the situation for the poorest.

    Making basic necessities (housing, public transport, food, electricity, water, internet) free at the point of use would be a better programme and one that perhaps we could find some liberal allies to support.

  • TarkovSurvivor@lemmygrad.mltoChina@lemmygrad.ml•What is it like getting citizenship in China?
    141·
    11 个月前

    Citizenship is extremely hard to obtain - basically impossible, a few western comrades have achieved it but their contribution to the PRC was extraordinary.

    Without a university degree it’s not possible to obtain a work visa.

    If you want to move to move to China you’re going to have to improve yourself so that you won’t be a burden upon their society first. Complete a university degree in a useful field first.

    This may not be what you were hoping to hear but this is the reality of the situation.

    There are programmes that can help you obtain a GED at minimal cost. Once you’ve finished your high school equivalent qualification, you can get government grants or loans to obtain higher education. Most debts are unlikely to follow you if you move far away.

    The days of China accepting people just for being white westerners are over. Please consider continuing with your education even if you are worried about being “too old”