There seems to be some weird short-hand a lot of Americans tend to use when it comes to negatively describing things they don't like, resorting to calling it "Communism," or "Marxist," even "woke." What these people fail to understand is that the words they are using to describe the things they don't like are so far removed from the things they don't like that they do not realize they are unwitting pawns subject to racist and antisemitic dog whistles that lead to saying dumb things like, "Dodge put this stupid lockout module that means you have to go to the dealer to read codes and is therefore Communist because Dodge wants it's workers to collectively own the means of production," revealing themselves as being extremely ignorant and convinced it's relevant to hindering right to repair. If this person knew anything, they would find that Communist would actually champion their fight for right to repair because allowing corporations to bilk their customers is antithetical to what they stand for.
So many of these Midwestern and southern dudes that build themselves up as being "rugged individualists," and describe themselves as being highly "capitalist," don't realize the reason their backwater town of three thousand people is so economically repressed is precisely due to those very Capitalistic pressures being taken to their logical conclusion. When corporations realized in the 80's that they could ship jobs overseas and pay those people significantly less than an American worker, well, Americans were no longer competitive any more and more and more while Americans gained access to cheaper and cheaper shit made in China, we were not paying the true cost of those products. Americans were happy as long as stuff was cheap, but wages stagnated and collective bargaining all but disappeared, leaving workers having to accept increasingly worse and unsafe conditions. Safety costs money, why spend that money protecting the people that work for you when you can operate in a country that has none of these protections, and even if they do, they are so limply enforced that they are a none factor. Whatever Capitalists pocket by ignoring working conditions goes back to the shareholders.
In America, where everyone is equal under law, shareholders happen to be more equal. See, workers do the work, they put their bodies on the line to produce the products that Capitalists sell back to us, and when Capitalist decide the majority of us should live in poverty while also with holding the resources we need in order to function and survive within society, those corporations have broken the social contract. Capitalists take advantage of the roads that our taxes paid to pave, they take advantage of the police and emergency services our taxes pay for, they use the air traffic controllers that are so burnt out that they cannot even think straight, yet consistently Capitalists will tell their employees to "be smart with your money, invest early and be consistent," but when their rent goes up $250 but they only got a twenty five cent raise, how exactly do you expect that worker to cover the difference? Should they work a gig job that places all the burden of cost on the "contractor," because you don't actually work for the company, you just use their platform, a platform that often gaslights and obfuscates how much money you will be making and the majority of the time you are reliant on tips, tips that can easily be retracted for arbitrary reasons.
A few years back I got a real dystopic email from Capital One in regards to an Uber Eats order I made, apparently the transaction was flagged because I have the driver a generous tip, I think it was $25. At the time I was working two jobs and I was tired and hungry and just glad to get some food so I tipped the driver accordingly. Which brings me to my final point, American workers having been working to damn hard for too fucking little, and even with a decent paying job costs have risen so much that it's largely wiped out by not keeping up. There was a brief period of time during COVID where many people finally had some bargaining power and forced corporations to capitulate or lose workers, but all of that progress was quickly reversed the moment the pandemic was declared "over." Speaking of progress, there was a time in this country when religion was the single greatest force for social change, yet when you look at it now, it's largely steeped in Capitalist mystique and instead pushes for "prosperity," convincing religious people that if they give money to the church that God will some how pay it forward to them, so while the people who attend these mega-churches are living in squalor, their pastor owns several private jets and mansions. Couple that with the people who claim that they don't like "woke," Jesus and you have a recipe for social stagnation, not just wage stagnation.
While corporations and individuals increasingly become more and more wealthy while also paying fewer taxes, guess where the majority of the tax burden ends up? On us you fucking morons. Tax the rich, national all industry and allow workers to decide for themselves the direction of economy, because right now a very small group of people benefit from the work of the rest of. Guys like Elon Musk with his DOGE claimed to be looking for fraud, waste and abuse with our government, yet he never put that scrutiny on himself, because if he did hed reveal that he's actually one of the biggest welfare queens of all time, receiving billions from the federal government for his SpaceX company. So while 42 million Americans lost their food stamps, children went without formula, Musk was taking money that could have been spent providing these services for citizens. Taxes, as many don't seem to comprehend, pay for services that we all use. Want better roads? Higher taxes. Universal healthcare and education? Higher taxes. When you spread them out among every American citizen and those big numbers ultimately become small, so while your taxes may have risen $500, that $500 pays for your healthcare and education.
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