Yep, all of this “inflation” and “rising cost of housing” bullshit is essentially wealthy people turning the screws. They know regular people can barely make this work, and they love that.

Amen.

You can't keep slaves anymore, but you can own a company and pay your workers an amount that makes it hard for them to pay for basic necessities so they don't have time for leisure, or organising unions, or finding other jobs. The workers are free to go, of course, but then they'll fall into financial ruin and not have healthcare.

Reminder that slavery was never outright abolished in the US, the constitution explicitly allows slavery as punishment for a crime which is why private for-profit prisons are a thing in the US.

I wish one of the bigger industrial countries had the balls to curb the state-like influence of billionaires, by flat out capping the amount of wealth they get to wield. It's not even that people should not be allowed to be "rich". But "rich" should mean owning 1-50 millions or so. Not billions.

Progressive history nerd with an "aKshUlLy" for you to consider:

Slavery was never abolished, it was moved. There are more slaves in the world today than ever before and the US (among others) is funding it. Our stores are full of goods made by slaves. It's worse now than when slaves were just farmhands because those old high paying factory jobs were still a boon for the domestic worker. Those are slave jobs overseas now. A foundational economic pillar of stable, unionized labour was removed and never replaced.

So certainly, stagnant wages and everything is costing more and giving us less. Our current spiraling situation for workers at home is deplorable and getting worse, a true dystopia. But slavery is another kettle of fish. There's a scene in Roots, the miniseries from the 70s about slavery. When we get to the aftermath of the civil war in the south, a governor told the nervous former slave owners that like peter rabbit trying to get into the garden, when the farmer puts up an obstacle, you just find a way around it. For a time, that meant chattle slaves simply become indentured slaves, working to pay off costs they can never quite catch up on. Once that was abolished, we just laundered our slavery through international borders. Out of sight out of mind for the average American. It's the same people doing the same thing, it's just a shell game. The oppression of the working class is intersectional as fuck with slavery, has the same root cause, and evolved along side slavery, but the human suffering experienced by actual slaves is much worse than the typical underpaid worker, so for me, I don't think it's quite the same thing. But this is just symantics.

This has always been the case. Look at immigrant exploitation, the truck system, sharecropping, child labor, exporting work to undeveloped countries to exploit unregulated labor forces there.

It was always about bringing back slavery without calling it slavery.

And it will always be so long as we let them keep trying.

Violence is not the answer until the hour that it is.

Trying? Abolished? Sigh. Words. Slavery never left. Put all the pretty paint you want on those bars. It's the change of perspective that comes with wisdom. Use that power well.

Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.

Nothing divine or important about that.

So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.

Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.

Lets finally change it. Lets just get up and act, fuck it. I don't want to play the game anymore.

They've lured us in with the promise of overtime to get us to work for them more, while keeping our wages artificially low so we have to work overtime.

Amazon workers with their forced over time go unheard.

Our only hope is to become a strong union country. Without collective power we'll never reign in the greed of the billionaires

This is actually a way better and more efficient form of slavery. You need to feed, clothe, house, and medically treat slaves. WAY cheaper to pay minimum wage and tell them to fuck off.

What's this "trying to" bullshit? The for profit prison system and a legal system that punishes people for being poor would suggest they have already largely succeeded. Never mind that slavery is explicitly legal when it comes to prisoners.

Humans get powerful and don't see the point in power unless they can abuse people

Too many elite shitbags think they’re rich because it’s ordained when in reality their grammy and pee paw just fucked first.

Nothing divine or important about that.

So the next time you see a rich person give them the finger and a bad look because their family is probably a bunch of tax dodging cock sucking thieves.

Legacies are for insecure shit cunts.

You guys don't have a 40 hour work week?

Is this an American thing or a certain industries thing?

With enough inequality and without a strong social net, wage labour is equivalent to slavery. They cover the minimum costs of your survival and you spend as much time working as they ask or else they'll find someone more desperate.