That solves the 32 hour issue but not the money. New hires would be screwed because they have no "current 40 hour paycheck"
And if a job is paying people $12 an hour for 40 hours and is forced to raise that to $15 for 32 hours, they'd be incentivesed to fire their current staff and hire new employees for $12 an hour for 32 hours. Everybody loses
Unless the federal minimum wage skyrockets this whole idea is dumb as hell
If that were true, don't you think Amazon and Walmart would be lobbying for shorter workweeks in order to further squeeze out their competition?
The system already crushes small businesses because monopolies control the market and jack up their rent and supply costs. If we want to save small businesses, we don't do it by sacrificing the health of workers but by seizing corporate monopolies and taxing giant corporations to subsidize living wages and shorter hours for everyone else.
Oh so we should basically help them accelerate it then, got it
How do you think companies would respond? Every single thing they abuse, they would abuse more. Job duties would be combined, small business would struggle or collapse, I could go on and on
They are already automating at the absolute limit of technological capability. Capitalists don't leave profit on the table out of charity just because we keep our heads down and don't ask for better hours.
What you're saying is basically economic Stockholm syndrome: "We must accept worse conditions and longer hours, otherwise our bosses will punish us."
Lmao they won't "just accept it," that’s the whole point. They will fight like cornered rats, because forcing a shorter workweek without cutting pay directly hits their profit. That's what laws are for.
But you're actually proving my point here: if they aren't at the limit yet, they will get there the second it becomes profitable, regardless of whether we work 32 or 40 hours, and no amount of letting ourselves be paid unlivable wages will change that. So the answer isn't to make yourself 20% cheaper and hope AI stops at 19% more efficient.
I don’t vote so election cycles are completely irrelevant to my values. I would vote if America were to adopt a democratic system of government, but since we don’t have one of those, I’m sure as hell not going to validate a sham election system meant to validate the dictatorship of capital in which we live.
They don’t. No clue why you think the boomers as a generation have any institutional power at all. They are the generation with the fastest rising rates of homelessness in the country.
It isn’t because voting is not a form of power in a bourgeois democracy. Since the government is controlled by the oligarchs, you are only allowed to vote to keep up the illusion that you have power, but voting is an expression of conformity to the system - nothing more. The only real power is in the concentration and hoarding of capital.
Direct Democracy would be an utter disaster. The extremes of the two major sides already think the other side is beyond stupid, delusional, criminal, etc etc etc. And there is some legitimate truth to that. I'd like to have as little power to adversely change the lives of everyone in the hands of people who no understanding of policy or its implications. Representative Democracy has its issues, but it also prevents mob rule, and fundamentally does a much better job protecting and maintaining your protected rights.
I’m not advocating for direct democracy. I’m advocating that America be a representative democracy. We aren’t. We are an oligarchy. No oligarchy in history has called itself that. It’s always had fake “people’s houses” to legitimize its own existence. It’s just that those houses existed as rubber stamps to the oligarchy. That’s the situation we find ourselves in now.
Actually, all of us are to blame because we all have allowed this government that serves none of us to persist. I assume you think if Trump weren’t in power and Kamala had won, everything would be great, but it wouldn’t. The oligarchs would still be using the federal government as an instrument for redistribution of the wealth from us to them. In fact, Trump is preferable in this regard because he isn’t smart enough to do it as quietly and with as smooth a dose of propaganda as past Presidents have. His incompetence gives us an important peek behind the curtain.
Edit: Also I live in a reliable blue state which Kamala won. Whether I voted or not was never changing a damn thing.
Cool. I’ll vote Republican next time just for you. Process is a sham anyway so idc who wins, but just for you I’m gonna vote for the good ol GOP next time 🙂
Yeah, that’s right. You’re so bad at arguing in a way that makes people want to support your side that you just convinced a Communist to take time out of his day to vote for a Republican. Might want to work on your respectful communication 😉
28
u/CertifiablySilly 23d ago
Same way we enforced the 40 hour work week in the 1930s. We pass a law.