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Every Worker Deserves A Quality Work Life Balance and to be Compensated Fairly (Early SolarPunk Vibez)
Photo / Inspodon't keep recycling these or I'll start punting them to r/solarjunk
Societally we need to be overcoming and deconstructing the idea of individual productivity. Because what makes us human is taking care of one another whether or not they contribute to the economic bottom line. We take care of humans because they're humans.
Solarpunk to me is deconstructing ableism and holding space for artisans and artists and non economic contributors.
The challenge is aligning incentives. People are very sensitive to being exploited. If they feel like they are busting their ass to make society work while someone else is doing the bare minimum, people will quickly get angry and discouraged.
How about worker control of the means of production in a system of federative, socialized communes? This is solar PUNK, not solar pop.
agreed. in a true solar punk future there would be no executives. cause their job is mostly to figure out how to extract more wealth from the business. not really how to make it run better.
personally I think we should undo the whole "buying the rights to profit" model of government legalized property rights.
for example, instead of a education loan. what if you could sell 5% of your future earnings to get enough money for going to collage. so basically, what ever you earn for the rest of your life is now the property of who ever tossed enough money at you to sign a contract.
this is how we treat corporations. should we really have that model of ownership? I'm not so sure, I think you have to be occupying the land or business in order to own the land/business. also all occupants of land/business should have some sense of ownership.
better idea: what if it was just free because educating people is an investment not an expense
that wasn't a real proposal. it was a criticism of capitalism in a different context so its easier to understand what is happening. cause the propaganda of capitalist realism is hard to think around for a lot of people.
The flip side is that if you are heavily invested in your employer, then if it goes under you will both lose your job and a large portion of your networth.
That is why its generally better to invest in broad market index funds, so all your eggs aren't in the same basket.
I'm just ideologically opposed that such leverage of legalized ownership should be a means to fund someone's retirement. tho this would only make sense in a world without a stock market (only bonds/loans) and co-ops everywhere. so that there really isn't any stocks that you could even buy even if you wanted to.
So in that society, only the rich would start new businesses(nobody is loaning money to a new business without collateral or equity). It does limit options for the middle class.
The middle class would probably be best off investing in foreign markets where they could have equity, or investing in bonds/loans to other businesses if that is also banned.
Nah, in that society it would be impossible to start a business by just investing your wealth, as it wouldn't really be legal to own a portion of that cooperation that way. and no rich person would even want to because there really isn't much of a return on money invested.
and in this society any person dressed in rags without a penny to their name but capable of hard work and good organizational skills would be able to start a business. cause they could easily get a community banking loan or join any co-op generator group.
cause they could easily get a community banking loan or join any co-op generator group.
New businesses have a fairly high failure rate, and that's with a good bit of scrutiny and people putting up their own assets. A community bank that gave out money without collateral would under quite quickly.
I mean, banks are already quite willing to lend to risky customers. The main thing stopping them is government regulation to protect depositors.
and no rich person would even want to because there really isn't much of a return on money invested.
That could well be true. Plenty of countries have managed to convince investors to seek returns elsewhere. In this system, its likely most rich people would invest their wealth internationally.
democratic worker co-ops have a much higher 5 year success rate than your typical.
its likely most rich people would invest their wealth internationally.
could just ban that like china dose. lol. either way, I'm not painting a comprehensive picture, I'm sure if the principles were implemented the details would be quite a bit different than what I could flippantly say.
and how do we get there, voting!?
you do realize that both parties in the US serve the same goal: corporate profit
I don't think our masters will give us the life we deserve (and already have the means to provide for everyone) because we asked really hard. At least that never happened in history
You would have to change people first. Otherwise, the system gets ruined by people trying to exploit it.
Better idea: abolish capitalism
What we gonna replace it with? Because the non-capitalist attempts so far don’t go too well
Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism like in Star trek
Star Trek is post scarcity, do not confuse it with communism please, thank you.
we've been past food scarcity as a species since the 50's
Do we also passed logistic and energy scarcity?
to feed every human on planet? yes.
if we lack the logistic capacity to distribute food for everyone today is because we allocated it somewhere else
you can't argue that a system made exclusively to maximize profits is the most efficient for human quality of life. that simply isn't a parameter we maximize for
Perhaps
But then again, it seems Capitalism is the only system that actually made the most advancement in terms of increasing humans quality of life. Others failed miserably.
please reflect on why you try so hard to defend the system that makes your life miserable
at this exact point in time I have no idea if I'll have children because I don't know if the planet will be habitable by humans in 50 years because our systems values profit more than human lifes.
Capitalism is the only system that actually made the most advancement in terms of increasing humans quality of life
first of all, false. the thing that makes our lifes minimally bearable, social democracy, only exists because our masters were scared that we would see what the URSS was doing at the time (0 unemployment; first country to institute the 40h work week; 0 hunger; etc) and rebel against them that they gave us the little comfort we have
over time they destroyed every country that tried another form of organization and realized that they could simply use propaganda to convince people like you, that would benefit the most from a socialist experience, that it would be bad for you
second: let's take what yous aid as truth. Feudalism, at its time, was also the most advanced system. should we not have moved forward to capitalism!?
you're in a subreddit about imagining a better future. can't you see the irony of arguing here that "the way we do things is the only possible way of doing things" !?
I get that propaganda is a very strong form of control. it's really hard to break free. but answer me this: do you know what socialism is? have you ever actually read any books (by socialists) about it? would you feel as confident to criticize a theory in another field of knowledge instead of politics, like physics for example, that you didn't fully understand? have you ever thought that maybe the means you use to inform yourself are biased? that maybe the people that have power in our current world don't wanna stop having power and maybe wouldn't present you the full story if didn't benefit them?
You don't have to reply those answers here. I get that online discussions make we feel like we "have to win", it's not the best place for learning. But I urge you to reflect on those questions
Does Capitalism makes my life miserable!? News to me!
Why am I miserable when I can get food pretty much anywhere, have internet and a roof above me, and the requirement of those is to file away papers and complete reports so I recieve a sum of funny shaped papers? Sure, some people have more funni papers then me, that just mean I need to get good. As suppose to a guy from the top saying what class of citizen I am because I said something not inline with what they think, Capitalism is a much better system, and let's face it if Solarpunk ever run on any socialist/Communist ideology it will devolve into hyper centralized totalitarian state. And before you say Anarchist is key, Chaz/Chop is mandatory read.
To respond to you calming USSR has zero starvation, I would like you to apologize to the Ukrainians, Holomodor is a thing and if you don't then you have proven yourself unworthy to be classified as human.
And about the second point: Capitalism makes life better, since even the Feudal lord also Chip in. Communism/ Socialism have proven they are worse, that is way even North Korea abolished that.
I am in a Subreddit that imagines a better future, it is my duty to call bullshit on ideas that will only end is failure.
Lastly I would like to ture those questions back to yourself. Do you know what Capitalism is, do you actually know everything on how we run an economy? Thinking you are free of propaganda is how land yourself in another.
just so you know, at some point I thought exactly like you. but then I realized that I didn't have the slightest clue of what socialism was besides "the bad system that make people go hungry" and read some books
My experience is exactly the opposite, I use to like socialism until I read some books.
So you are a Marxist-Roddenberryist?
there are a lot of non-capitalism biased market solutions. its actually imperative to implement some in order to keep capitalism going because pure capitalism has a tendency to self destruct.
Well no one does pure capitalism anyway
🤦
The reason a lot of non-capitalist states failed is because the US has made it an avid objective to stomp out other forms of government.
CIA did a lot of bad stuff but it’s not the reason communism failed pretty much everywhere
The reason a lot of non-capitalist states failed is because the US has made it an avid objective to stomp out other forms of government.
if your economic system is that weak and vulnerable to corruption better don't even try it. 🤷
Every system is vulnerable to corruption. Literally look at our own government.. politicians don't serve the public, they serve the mega-corporations that pay them
My people, the Métis, have something going.
Fr
Honestly, most of these are pretty standard in quite a lot of countries outside of the US.
Let's go for something more bold!
are you talking about the social democracies that are turning into fascism in europe, or the socialist experiences in Asia?
This might be standard in Europe, we’re still fighting for it in the USA. I think a moneyless, stateless society is a great long term goal, but pursuing it before we achieve the above is pointless. If so much of the US is apparently so opposed to the above, there’s no chance they’re going to be open to ditching the system and just giving people what they need.
Even in Europe, none of this is standard.
None of this is standard in the EU.
Bloody hell this is such a soft sell.
A living wage? Guess people unable to work don't deserve to live. And guess people who do work don't deserve stuff beyond what is strictly necessary for survival.
Also, if both members of a couple need to go to work 30 hours per week, they're spending more hours at work than the average couple in the 1950s.
The "executive to worker compensation balance" is also horridly vague. The picture shows profit linking up with pay which is an entirely different concept, and 'balance' can be anything from 1:1 to 1:10,000.
Bloody hell this is such a soft sell.
I mean you're not wrong, this is basically just western Europe now; not really Solarpunk
A living wage? Guess people unable to work don't deserve to live. And guess people who do work don't deserve stuff beyond what is strictly necessary for survival.
This is a bit much given that the sub-title is "every worker should be guaranteed" - it's clearly not saying anything (good or bad) about those who can not work.
My god, I hate this logic so much. someone says they like vanilla ice-cream and you accuse them of hating disabled people. cause they are unaddressed in the idea of enjoying ice-cream. its a non-sequester
the other images in this serries of images addresses people who do not work. this image only addresses people who do work. get that though the thick head of your white horse you're riding on.
one of OP's points is defending profit...
the moment you allow profit you're allowing the system that doesn't let people who can't work live a decent life
I'm unsure what you are referring to. cause that wasn't what I was responding to.
A wage necessitates me having a boss. I do not want a boss or a future where my means to feed and shelter me and mine are at the whim of some rich prick. This isn't solarpunk, this is social democracy. You already have half this shit in Norway and it's still based on that country's place in a global death machine oiled with the blood of the global south. Pass.
I recently had a discussion with two fairly left-leaning people, who were vehemently opposed to the idea of reducing working hours. They were adamant that the reason for economic struggles in France and Germany were their 35 hour work weeks.
Isn't 35 about the standard? 9-5 Monday to Friday is 37 so 35 seems pretty close to avg
We work 42.5 in Switzerland. 8.5 a day.
Actual 9-5 jobs are fairly rare. Most schedules are more like 8-430 with an unpaid 30 minute lunch break.
Germany has a 40 hour work week. Also it is doing decently economically. It's one of the longer working countries in the EU.
Also it is doing decently economically.
They are, as a country. But the phenomenon of working poor is significantly more widespread and pronounced than in Switzerland. So...the solution is working more instead of getting paid more, I guess?
The Swiss actually work more hours than Germans.
Yea, but I doubt it's the explanation for the difference in personal wealth and financial stability.
Agree on that. The Swiss did a great job positioning themselves as a great place to do finance and brought a lot of wealth into the country through banking.
We can do better than these Moneyless classless stateless Society. A society based around our needs as humans and not the needs of economy
...I don't think the ruling classes will go for that...
It’s very interesting to observe people, which to me seem to be clearly from the US.
I’ve been born in a communist country. No capitalism doesn’t equal no labor.
People under communist rule work and work quite a lot. Often in borderline inhumane conditions (see Vorkuta or Belomor Canal).
IMHO — Solarpunk is about making the work easier, payments fair and the ability to create your own enterprise possible.
The only way these would work is when every businesses are run as worker cooperatives. I cannot see this would be compatible with traditional businesses.
How about we just tell a money and work system to fuck off?
Lol, what a bunch of fantastical malarky.
Did you want to give a little more context; I already have 4 of the six here and my full time working week is 35 hours, so close there as well. The only thing I'm really missing is the "executive to worker compensation balance", not really "fantastical malarky".
uh huh
Ah touché - I can see I'm not able to match the eloquence or logic of your reply..
and when the profit is down does the worker gets his wage reduced as well? lol
That's actually what worker cooperatives tend to do in economic hard times, which I'd say is preferable to the alternative, and what usually happens in our system - that being, laying off tons of workers so the executives don't have to cut their compensation
Yeah, workers in our current society still take a pay cut during hard times. It's just that not all of them do, and the ones that do take a 100% pay cut
Solarpunk was always political. Specifically, it's always been anti-capitalist.
I can agree that the economic system solarpunk envisions is not capitalism. I guess we simply have a disagreement on the word for it.
Anti-capitalist and post-capitalist.
In any case, whatever is shown in the image OP posted barely illustrates anything close to that, in fact and for all I know, it's still capitalism.
Of course, which is completely reasonable and preferable to mass layoffs.
That's how it works today... down in recession, but never up.
You got baited masterfully... You got Master baited HARD
As opposed to today, when workers get their wages reduced when profits are up, too.
Actually I'm fine with a 40 hour work week, heck I would take a 60 hour work week as long as the boss is reasonable. Not for any less than a living wage based on the property value required by law.
It's like with school, let the teachers have freedom to decide and you'll get better results.
We are reaching a capitalism peak, can't grow when you've maxed out( there's a proper term for it )
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