cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29566496
So slavery as indentured servitude is the American future. Way to “new model” the old model.
You must log in or register to comment.
Your labor will be so cheap the robots you build for the wealthy will have a higher standard of living.
They’re living in the past, trying to stimulate an economy that no longer exists, and not realizing they are the reason that economy doesn’t exist anymore.
Late Soviet union Perestroika vibes 🫠
There are just so many layers of delusional here. If you are going to paint a delusional fantasy, why paint a dystopic one like that, why not tell people everyone is going to get their own pet unicorn that poops gold nuggets?
That’s honestly a more realistic prospect than bringing back American manufacturing.
Producing what? For who? No one wants expensive Nazi crap internationally and you can’t have a domestic economy worth half a shit without international trade. See N. Korea for reference.
The children are yearning for the mines
Makes perfect sense when we’ve spent the last couple of decades pivoting to a service economy.
/s if it wasn’t obvious.
Minus unions, pensions, and freedom.
No thanks. I’d rather die in this homeless shelter.
Sorry, the homeless shelter got defunded. Don’t worry, they’ll turn it to luxury condos.
“Arbeit macht frei”
Alright folks, I agree that this dude is tone deaf. Buuut…
Coming from a factory worker - life in the factory doesn’t have to be as shitty as it currently is in my opinion. I see it as a failure of management that factory work is so soul sucking.
And as a society we rely on the efficiency that factory production brings - my understanding is that without factories, an economy is generally less able to support artists etc.
I feel like the core idea that many people will be working in factories isn’t necessarily bad…
It’s a failure of ownership not management. If the people doing the work had ownership over the building, tools, process and products, it would only be as shitty as desired.
cf. Mondragon
Not necessarily wrong buuut that can only come true with strong labor protections, fair employment practices, guaranteed benefits and solid wages. The reasons we have labor unions, OSHA, EPA, etc. All things conservatives want to destroy.
Trump’s SOC may promise this utopia, but he will not deliver. They want Great Smog of London-producing factories. They want 1 week of PTO per year, no sick time, no parental leave, no retirement, bare minimum healthcare to keep your ass working until you drop.
Why, asked Legasov? Because it’s cheaper.
Edit: Heck, they’re already throwing child labor laws out the window, and it’s not about “letting kids learn the value of a dollar.” It’s about explicitly exploiting people who don’t yet know their own value, in the short term. And in the longer term, it’s about making sure they never know what it was like to have a desk job, or a service job, or a job in education or the arts. Never let them yearn for a better life, by never letting them figure out that one could exist.
So then it would seem more productive to bash the Trump administration’s labor policies than to bash the idea that there should be factory workers. The take away from this article for me is not that it is crazy for people and their children (once grown) to work in factories, but that we need to advance the policies you point out to make that into a reality that is sustainable.
Sorry this comment is a doozy, I had a lot on my mind with it lol
While I agree with you, I did not come away from that article with the same conclusion. Nowhere in that article did the SOC mention supporting strong labor protections or progressive labor policy.
In fact, we know from experience that Republicans hate those things, because they’re backed by wealthy industrialists. This is absolutely crucial: the things that would make factory work a worthwhile career, like good wages, lots of PTO time, safe workplaces, low pollution, retirement funds, etc are not only expensive to capitalists, they are also the things people need in order to leave a factory job.
Our hypothetical factory worker is happy, but he’s getting older, slowing down, his hands hurt from all the work, its unavoidable. So he wants to move up the corporate ladder and into positions that require more soft skills. To that end, he pursues higher education, which requires money and time off. And once he gets his degree and reaches the top of this corporate ladder, he can now transfer his very desirable skills to new jobs, new industries, maybe even white collar work.
You see how this is at odds with Lutnick’s vision of intergenerational factory workers? Like, this utopia I’ve just laid out is not what he’s selling. He’s selling the complete destruction of class mobility. He wants people who can’t leave their jobs, who can’t pursue better prospects, and who can’t create a better life for their family. He wants your children to know “you will never amount to anything more than your father, or your grandfather.”
And that’s very appealing to the factory owner. He doesn’t have to maintain a safe workplace, because the alternative is jobless and homeless. He doesn’t have to pay a dignified wage, he doesn’t have to schedule work around your vacation time, and he won’t have to pay for the tools you need to escape. And, the cherry on top, he has the next two generations of workers lined up, learning from Pops!
I grew up watching my father go from field technician, to night school bachelor’s student, to software engineer. I saw my uncle become a car mechanic, stay a car mechanic, and is now too old to keep working but doesn’t have enough saved for retirement. My grandfather worked in a glass cutting factory. Believe me, I’m not shitting on factory work. I’m shitting on the people who want to create shitty factory work. And the article is very captivated by the guy who wants to create shitty factory work.
Fair to point out that Trump and Lutnick suck bad and aren’t really going to do anything to help factory workers. I guess that point feels obvious to me so I gloss over it in my comments. When I read an article like this, my takeaway may not always be the author’s intended point.
I still resist the idea that it must always be better to “escape” the factory and work elsewhere.
You say you aren’t shitting on factory work. But you also seem to feel that the ability to exit the factory is fundamental to having a good life. I agree that people should be able to choose what field they work in, so no I don’t think that every person should feel locked in to factory work, but I do think that we should focus on how to make factory work appealing, unlike it is now.
We need to be talking about more than just worker protections (although that is where policy needs to start and I agree they are the foundation for any further progress). We need to talk about government recommendations for management practices, grants for labor research, and possibly incentives for progressive management styles. We need to make factories into places that people don’t want to escape.
And as consumers, we need to push for the reality we want to see. If we have the ability, we should do our best to support companies with better labor practices - for example, the B corp and the Well certifications require certain employee wellness minimums, so when buying mass produced goods, prioritize ones with a certification like that.
Yeah I’ll admit “escape” didn’t do me any favors LOL, but I meant it more in the context of my family and the difference in social mobility. Factories can be, and ought to be, great places to work, I just don’t think a person can do that work for their entire life. Just like a factory should be a great place to work, it should also be possible for people to find other places to work.
By the way, it’s nice to be able to talk about it without it getting hostile in the way social media tends to do. :)
No, standing in front of a blast furnace all day just does kinda inherently suck and people tend to not do it when given the choice, and it puts a lot of stress on your health so it’s reasonable for people to want to exit. See the Soviet experience of industrial development - this was a country that had all the social benefits you mention but they still struggled to attract people to jobs in heavy industry especially after the war.
They came to the same conclusion - If you want workers in those kinds of jobs you have to add extra incentives.
I think we are generally in agreement that standing in front of a blast furnace all day would suck pretty badly. But I am not sure such work must always be miserable. To be fair I have never worked with a blast furnace, but I don’t see why someone’s job should be to do the same thing every day for years on end. Management should switch up worker roles frequently, perhaps multiple times a day if the task is particularly odious. And if there are ergonomic or environmental reasons it isn’t tolerable or safe, those reasons should be addressed, such as providing better PPE or custom built tools.
Adding extra incentives is part of making factory work sustainable in the long run, but it’s going to take more than an extra $(insert number)/hour to make workers safe and happy. And I really don’t think we should give up on trying to make factory workers safe and happy.
you want to be productive and efficient and that means promoting specialization/division of labor as much as possible
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jg047oJf1B4&t=45s
Shaddup an’ eat yer gruel!
