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Capitalism has accelerated the economic growth of human civilization. There's no doubt that. However, the unreliability of this growth as well as its quality and the fairness with which the system distributes its expanding wealth have all been criticized for many years now. Most recently, it's been done through memes.

Which is exactly what the Facebook page 'General Strike' is all about. Addressing both capitalism's theoretical structure and the way it affects people's everyday life, this fun and thought-provoking online project has proved to be relevant to over 50,000 folks who follow it. So let's take a closer look at its content.

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#1

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

joshuapotash Report

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adameve avatar
Adam Eve
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This should be upvoted, hats off, what's the point in protest for change if you don't acknowledge it when it happens

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#2

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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AsexualShrimp
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Listen to the Veggietales. They might be the only ones speaking sense recently.

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As Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution, pointed out, one of the main reasons why we can say that capitalism is failing is because it can not provide a decent wage to those who want a job.

"Before markets, before even money, there was work," Reeves wrote. "Our remotest ancestors, hunting and gathering, almost certainly did not see work as a separate, compartmentalized part of life in the way we do today. But we have always had to work to live. Even in the 21st century, we strive through work for the means to live, hence the campaign for a 'living wage.'"

The economist highlighted that it took two revolutions (one agricultural, one industrial) to turn 'work' into its own category but even after all of this effort, it still can't satisfy our needs.

#3

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Michele Wintzloff
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't understand people being fired when they attempt unionisation! Very glad to be here in Australia where union membership is allowed and voluntary for all sectors of employment. We have them to negotiate collective bargaining agreements that determine a minimum pay rate and everyone is on the same hourly rate.

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#5

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

anewkindofhuman Report

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MEB
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We have let them have it all! Let's take that power back! Our children are worth that much (and more!), don't they?

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"Industrial capitalism sliced and diced human time into clearly demarcated chunks, of 'work' and 'leisure.' Work was then bundled and packaged into one of the most important inventions of the modern era: a job. From this point on, the workers' fight was for a job that delivered maximum benefits, especially in terms of wages, in return for minimum costs imposed on the worker, especially in terms of time," Reeves continued.

"For Karl Marx, the whole capitalist system was ineluctably rigged against workers. Whatever the short-run victories of the trade unions, the capitalist retained the power; the ultimate control, over workers' time. And the worker would remain forever alienated from their work. The goal was to assert sovereignty over our own time, free of the temporal control of the capitalist, able 'to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner.'"

#6

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Zol
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

america always has a politically driven fear .... was communism decades ago , then terrorism , now socialism is the bogeyman .... all the enemy of freedom apparently

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#7

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Kelli
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My favorite dumb a*s line from a miser of a boss “the more you know, the better off you are” which equated to the more you know, the more I’ll have you do at the same crappy wage.

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#8

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Eric G
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Exactly. I've always never understood when veterans say, " I didn't put my life on the line so you could be making $15 flipping burgers." Then what did you put your life on the line for? For corporations to make billions while minimum wage workers have to work 2 jobs 60 hours a week and still stay in poverty?

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That sense of being powerless is what Slovenian philosopher-scholar Slavoj Žižek also thinks the western society needs to get rid of. To illustrate his point during the Occupy Wall Street protests, Žižek recalled an old joke from Communist times.

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"A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia," the scholar began the joke. "He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends: 'Let's establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say. If it is written in red ink, it is false.' After a month, his friends get the first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: 'Everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theatres show good films from the west. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.'"

This, according to Žižek, is how we live today. "We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom."

#11

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

rhymeswithvery Report

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Lisa Schmuff
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is so smart. Medical records cannot have erasures or any changes that cannot be read.

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#12

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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The Queen Of Upper Butt Crack
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not sure why you are looking down on a "burger flipper" since you seem to be incapable of feeding yourself without them.

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What makes it hard to have a constructive dialogue about capitalism for its supporters is the fact that it's not entirely broken. "In terms of material conditions of life, across the broad sweep of economic history, capitalism has delivered pretty well for most workers," Reeves said.

"Wages rose, hours fell, life (mostly) got better. Global poverty halved. As an economic system, socialism fell from grace, and, by and large, and in spite of recent rhetoric on the American political left, continues to fall."

#14

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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GVL
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Medical worker bosses: Come to work even if you have covid.

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But over the last decade, the logic of markets and the workings of capitalism have been intensely questioned and challenged, both from the populist right and the socialist left. "Young Americans and supporters of the Democratic party are now more enthusiastic about socialism than capitalism (by 6% and 10% margins, respectively)," Reeves highlighted. "Leading candidates now proudly describe themselves as socialists – unthinkable just a few years ago. (Whether they are in fact socialists by any sensible definition of the term is of course another matter.)"

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#19

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Random Panda
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yup, doctors have to wear 3 masks and yet people still complain about wearing masks as if we didn't need to and corona would not infect them if they didn't wear masks

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#20

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Steve Riddle
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And no regulations by US Govt. on GASOLINE price. $99 a Gallon is their DREAM!

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According to Reeves, there are two explanations for what happened to tear the connective tissue between growth and wages: the Productivity Story and the Power Story.

"The productivity story goes as follows: wages reflect the productivity of the worker; the modern economy rewards skills more than in the past; and lots of people have not upskilled quickly enough," he explained. "Under the wonky label 'skills-biased technological change', this view prevailed across most of the political spectrum well into this century. Free markets could deliver fair-enough outcomes, so long as everyone got the education and training they needed. 'Lifelong learning' became the mantra of all, and the cliched answer from politicians and scholars to the deepening problem of inequality."

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#23

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

#24

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Brian Leahy
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Brilliant, and no joke. Better pony up fast, because de price she's a going up.

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There are two problems with the productivity story. First, the necessary investments in education and training were never actually made—community colleges, the most common post-secondary destination for students from families in the bottom 80% of the income distribution, are underfunded, overstretched, and largely ignored by the policy elite. Lifelong learning never made it from the think tank policy briefs and Davos panels to the real lives of real people.

"The second problem is that productivity turns out to be only part of the story – and perhaps not even the most important part," Reeves said. "It is certainly wrong to claim that there is no relationship at all between productivity growth and wage growth. But the connection has certainly become less clear over time, and harder to square with the trends in wage inequality."

#26

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

DrDooleyMD Report

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FunOldGuy
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Capitalism is not about creating good jobs or improving the lives of ordinary people. Simply put, capitalism is about putting more in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. It is not at all remarkable that some individuals try to take more than they need. What is remarkable is that so many people allow it to happen, and even think that is how it is supposed to be.

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#28

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

perfectsweeties Report

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Littlemiss
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Welcome to our world. We no longer have cookies due to allergies, covid and the price of basic resources costing more than a bottle of coke and a bag of chips.

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The power story, on the other hand, states that wages do not reflect the productivity of the worker, but their power. Lower wages are a reflection of growing powerlessness, the result of four intersecting trends. "First, unions have become almost mythical creatures, unicorns of the labor market," Reeves said. "Just one in 20 workers in the US private sector are members of a trade union, down from more than one in four in the 1950s. Sometime around 1980, US businesses declared war on unions, and won."

Second, the wage gap between similarly qualified workers in different companies has increased. "One widely cited study finds that one-third of the increase in the earnings gap from 1978 to 2013 occurred within firms, while two-thirds of the rise occurred between firms. It is the market power of one firm versus another that determines wages, rather than the power of a particular employer versus its workers. Even if workers can get organized, they cannot force a completely different employer to share more of their surplus with them. (Now that would be socialism.)"

So the question is can we rewrite these stories?

#32

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Alex Luiz
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes! I can't remember the study, but it exists-up to a certain point (I think at the time the study was done it was £40 000 a year, but inflation) money DOES actually make you happier. Then AFTER that point it has no significant effect on your happiness.

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#34

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

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Will Cross
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How on earth can anyone think that food, water, shelter, healthcare, and education are privileges and not human rights? People really think those things are not human rights. Those in power really have some people so brainwashed that they are against their own human rights and have been convinced that they don't deserve to have those basic things. It's just sad the state of this country and so many peoples mindset on existing in this world. It's like people want us homeless, starving, unhealthy, uneducated, and to live the most uncomfortable existence. And it shouldn't be like that and doesn't have to be like this.

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#39

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

existentialcoms Report

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phil bishop
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Read Lenin and Trotsky. Just saying. You might learn something unexpected...

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#42

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

fellawhomstdve Report

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Will Cross
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's heartbreaking how many people are convinced that this way of living is normal and ok. It's like they refuse to believe what's really happening. It's easier to fool a man than to convince a man he has been fooled rings true with to many people.

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#45

People-Against-Capitalism-General-Strike

General Strike Report

Note: this post originally had 128 images. It’s been shortened to the top 45 images based on user votes.