‘Workers Strike Back’: 29 Times People Realized That Modern Capitalism Is Starting To Look Ridiculous

The online community presents itself as an unabashedly “leftist, anti-capitalist subreddit.” They stress that they are not a place for debates. To them, capitalism is exploitative and evil, and they’re not willing to talk about these basic assumptions.

It’s all very black-and-white. So if you’re going to be posting on the sub, keep in mind that the goal is to give workers more negotiating power at work, not to analyze the nuances of economics and politics. There are plenty of other places to do this. This isn’t one of them.

“Worker exploitation is not up for debate. It is evident. If you intend to debate, go elsewhere,” the mods explain. “Capitalism is an inherently exploitative economic system. This is not up for debate.”

The community believes wealthy special interests groups have corrupted governments everywhere, meaning that they do not represent the will of the people. As a result, wages remain stagnant, affordable medical coverage remains difficult (mostly in the United States), and the climate crisis continues to get out of hand.

In the subreddit’s view, mass striking is what leads to real change. However, it has to be done as efficiently, as widely as possible. They have a handy guide in the subreddit’s sidebar on the right with a whole host of resources for anyone who is thinking of organizing a strike at work.

However, r/WorkersStrikeBack isn’t the only online community that is concerned with better working conditions and showing the dark, dreary underbelly of capitalist society.

Earlier, Bored Panda interviewed Angel, the founder and moderator of the ‘Humans of Capitalism’ page. They told us that the current capitalist system is flawed, absurd, and unjust. What’s more, this injustice permeates every layer of our lives, not just work, according to them.

For Angel, the future looks bleak. They don’t have much optimism that capitalism as a whole can be replaced easily. In fact, they think that capitalism evolved into corporatism.

"We often see many small businesses collapsing because they are not able to fight with the current trend or to combat with the giant competitors. So they have two options, close the business or sell it," Angel mused.

"We have many companies that have been bought by enormous giants that I do not want to mention and they won't stop there, they are trying to get their hands on any business category. Is there a solution for it? I believe that there can be some solutions, but capitalists will work and find a way to bypass those solutions and continue with the destruction of the system while being totally ignorant about it," they said.

In Angel’s view, any system and society, capitalist or not, has the potential for corruption. "If we go back in time where socialism or communism were at their prime, we can see that the top of the head of the system was corrupted and that resulted with the fall of the system," they pointed out that people ought to have a realistic view of history, not an overly-romanticized one.

The founder of ‘Humans of Capitalism’ told Bored Panda how they envision the future. They believe that we’re in for an automated ‘utopia’ where machines will produce, deliver, and take care of everything. From food and clothing to health. However, that wouldn’t necessarily make things perfect, as someone would still control the system of distribution.

"The idea of getting free food, water, health, clothing, is nice and, in reality, if we take a closer look at the current system we can see that more people are let off and replaced by machines. For example, we can see that McDonald's workers are fired and they have been replaced with machines that work on touch or by sound and they take orders, forward orders to the employees, etc."

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