Decades of talkings heads offering an explanation for rural decline, that’s how. Look back to Rush Limbaugh and his predecessors.
The irony is rampant immigration (and our tolerance to it) was an economic miracle for the US, an envy of the world. We’d be facing a population cliff like S Korea, Japan, China or Russia without it. But now that’s coming for us too :(
Definitely a misdirect from the corporate takeover of everything.
I grew up in a shitty small rural town, but while I was in high school I watched the shitty “mom and pop” stores slowly disappear and the local factory vote against unionization only to be closed a few years after I moved away. You know what immediately moved into the fill the void? Wal-Mart and Dollar General.
My dad was so focused on immigrants taking his job and other insane republican economic talking points that he lost that job when the company decided it wasn’t cost effective to operate in the US anymore.
TBH some of the points were right. Democrats took big bucks from corporations too, especially Big Tech and basically anything focused in metros.
And it was also a distraction.
Rural folks should have voted differently, yeah, but it was an easy trap to fall into. I blame propagandists and cowards taking money, not them.
The “population cliff” is a made up boogeyman for capitalists. That’s because they’ve relied on population growth for market growth. What’s the harm in population stagnation or even decline?
And I don’t want to hear about young people supporting aging populations. That’s a man-made problem that has solutions. Just not the kind of solutions capitalists can abide. (and if you think about it, it’s a temporary issue anyway).
And I don’t want to hear about young people supporting aging populations. That’s a man-made problem that has solutions.
Well, okay. I have a bridge to sell you.
Look. Everything is a “man made” issue with solutions.
It doesn’t matter what economic system we want or have; fact is something has to put a ton of work into taking care of old folks, unless you kill them off or let them rot. Hope and ideology isn’t going to fix one’s body/mind, and that has nothing to do with capitalism.
…Will we automate the problem away some day, WallE/Star Trek style? Sure. That’s the goal. But we aren’t close to there yet. Overloading the young taking care of the old IS our short term problem, and we have plenty of land to support a growing population with room for expanding conservation, as long as we don’t do stupid shit like ranch excessively and expand oil. Then we can level off the population. But we can’t do any of that if entire counties collapse from the pressure/burden of support.
But okay. Let’s say tomorrow, every country on the planet rises up, abandons capitalism, and embraces cooperative economics, with a magic snap of the fingers. That’d be great.
But we continue to let populations in developed countries age.
Then what?
How does that change the needs of elderly folks at all? How does that change the math of young people needing to devote more and more of their energy to them?
Reducing overconsumption and overproduction will help a ton. There are a lot of jobs these days that are just… not necessary. Take advertising for example, or all the job positions that are all about how to fuck over the consumers the most, then all the energy and work into fixing it or counteracting it, everything that is done not because it’s efficient, but because it’s profitable
We are far far more productive today than we ever were before in human history. It’s all about prioritization
I wouldn’t make that generalization.
We aren’t even close to post-scarcity in, say, healthcare. Keeping people alive and healthy is expensive and labor/education intense, even without the current structural inefficiencies.
Distributing healthy food is not trivial either, which ties into that.
You also shouldn’t overlook just how much is done because it’s profitable, and not efficient, though
The simple example is of course enshittifying services. But it’s also things like making 30 different versions of chips and candy and so on while putting lots of resources into preventing local homeless people from stealing any of the food they need for survival. Investing lots of research in making hyper-palatable foods that are addicting instead of how to make more efficient logistics towards everyone.
And then there’s of course the part where it being a competitive system means stopping others from making use of your research/effort and sharing things, because that means more and stronger competition, which leads to doubling of efforts and so on…
And I mean, I could go on, but the point is that, if you look closely enough, you’ll start seeing this everywhere. Inefficiencies made in the name of competition and profit seeking, not what is actually good for society and would be considered a job done well. A restructuring of society would help massively. From paying medical specialists more and making their jobs more tolerable instead of squeezing as much profit as possible, to opening up more human resources from other areas of society which could in theory help out more either directly or in the peripherals
We are massively massively more productive today than in the past. There is no excuse
Keeping people alive and providing healthy food is not as expensive as it’s made out to be. Socialism for the wealthy, now that’s expensive! Elon Musk could feed the entire world three times over! And there are lots of solutions, money just doesn’t back them.
For example, Holland had two issues. College students didn’t have places to live or couldn’t afford places, and they didn’t have enough people taking care of the elderly. So they put them together, the students have a place to live and the elderly are being taken care of. It was just something they tried and the results were spectacular!
The problem in the states is that we don’t even TRY ANYTHING! We have more resources than smaller countries and we don’t even try. We could try 50 different solutions in 50 different states, use the scientific method to measure the results, and then implement the methods that worked. We could even try thousands of different solutions by trying different methods in different counties of each state. But instead, we CHOOSE to continue to argue and bicker between ourselves. What a waste of time and energy!
I agree that the capitalists economy is a complete scam. Americans are so used to having so much land, that we just continue to shit up as much as we want and then move on to shit up another area. The earth cannot support continued population growth, especially with climate change. And even America will eventually run out of land to shit on. Other smaller countries have to respect what land they have and how to use because it’s limited. We could learn a thing or two from these smaller countries.
In France we have the “30 glorieuses”, 30 years of unprecedented economical growth. Guess who came and worked tirelessly to make it happen? And guess who waxes poetic about this blessed moment in time?
Of course the difference is that at the time, the immigrants lived in slums outside major cities, and they knew their place if you catch my drift.
Brace yourself for the mask-wearing lemmyites who are going to say *“that’s too reductive! There are very real issues with how brown people over there have different and incompatible cultuuuures, we can’t just let annnnyone in, what will happen if they all rush in and replaaaaace us?” *
I’ve been fucking dealing with weird lemmy nazis for days, someone must have left out a piece of meat so they started spawning.
I’m not versed enough in the different instances, but I run into them holistically, particularly in any post or thread that brings up immigration. It’s not nearly as much as Reddit has, but they’re around, they keep masks on for a little longer than in other places but usually it slips after a while.
You can tell when they’re desperately trying to come up with a way to wedge their hate feelings through the door when they start “just asking questions” about how to integrate cultures and what to do about “too many people coming in.”
there aren’t any.
lemmy users just call anyone who disagrees with them slightly on any social or politicial issue a nazi. especially if they argue that those issues are complex and multifaceted instead of being a black/white moral issue.
I just adore when they talk about how other cultures have things like child-marriage as examples of what we need to protect ourselves from
Child marriage is legal right now in a bunch of states. Can’t blame immigrants for that one.
Live in Manhattan. Can confirm, they’re the best.
Close runner up are the kitties that live in the plant shops in the flower district.
Theoretically. But. Not really true.
We know who devalues labor. It’s the companies that only pay the bare minimum wage cause it’s the law. Otherwise they wouldn’t.
It’s the companies that pay under the table to desperate people so they can avoid paying them the legal amount and often commit wage theft and there is nothing undocumented people can do about it.
Exploitative businesses are the ones devaluing labor.
Sure, but if almost nobody will do the job for minimum wage except for immigrant workers, should those businesses be allowed to exploit those workers instead of paying the wage they would need to staff their businesses?
Even though the businesses are the “guilty ones” it seems more like a policy issue than a business one, as the business will always do the bare minimum it can get away with. Especially egregious with temporary foreign worker programs. Why have programs that essentially subsidize industries that just exploit minimum wage workers and depress wages? And now racist assholes have a scapegoat in the people accepting the bad deal instead of the people who allow it in the first place.
Because any kind of minority is inferior to white straight people and they’re the reason for every ill in the world today.
It’s truly just racism. It’s worked for 4000 years, since the establishment of civilizations.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” - LBJ
I agree with the post but it conveniently avoids the actual issue. They are blamed for:
I’m not saying that they do affect these negatively, but that these two subjects are making life harder for regular people. So when someone sees something like “immigrants don’t affect me”, they just assume the poster is rich enough not to be squeezed like the rest of us.
Capitalism gotta have its scapegoats or else it won’t work.
I’m poor as shit and I’ve never been affected by immigrants raising the cost of living or taking jobs.
Raising costs are caused by greedy business owners raising prices, and the lack of jobs is caused by greedy business owners only hiring skeleton crews and making them work harder for less.
Yes, my point was that even though educated people would agree, you would push the uneducated further with rhetoric like.
Having said that, that’s not a problem with an audience such as us.
You don’t think flooding the labor force reduces the value of labor? If it was harder for business owners to just replace you, don’t you think that would increase your ability to barter for better conditions, and wage?
On-top of that, do you not agree that flooding the population of an area can create greater demand on it’s resources, like housing and food, which allows businesses to charge higher?
Alright. So you said you’re poor as fuck in your previous comment. So are you telling me there’s just abundant jobs in your area but zero ability for social mobility on your part?
There’s proof of what I’m saying everywhere, but if you’re conditioned not to see it no amount of proof is going to matter.
For me the one major pivotal point was seeing how much new housing we’re building vs the immigration numbers. Another was when I was working in a job with no future, I was at a customer’s business, and it’s a place I had applied to previously, and the manager was complaining to someone about needing to renew a workers visa. People frequently make the argument that immigrants take jobs that no one else wants. Having lived in poverty for years working with other people in my situation, I know that’s not the case. I know there’s ton of people killing themselves looking for upwards mobility.
Another situation that’s more recent. 10 years ago I moved to find work because my local economy was dead. This year I moved back. I looked for work all over within a 5 hour radius of my home city. #1, I wouldn’t get call backs for jobs I had years of experience in.^1^ #2, There’s no housing! There’s no affordable rental units! - All that said, do you know what else I saw this year? A new immigration program to bring people to my area. - I literally had to move across the fucking country to get ahead in life, to find work, and I’m watching in real time as my city that’s been in a perpetual recession for 15 years gets flooded with new labor.
Are greed businesses to blame? Absolutely! But one of the major mechanisms they use to keep wages low is flooding the market with cheap labor. It’s a simple matter of leverage.
^1^just to be clear, my KPIs are in the top 95%, my employee reviews are through the roof, I’ve had my old employers pretty much beg me to come back to work.
Long winded anecdotes aren’t proof. That’s why this bullshit won’t matter to anyone with half a brain.
If you can’t provide actual evidence of what you claim, your racist ass can fuck off.
The only racist here is you bud. The reality is… you have no problem creating a two-tiered system that promotes worker exploitation and creates racial underclasses, it feeds your superiority complex. Nothing I said relies on the anecdotal nature of my comment to be ‘proof’. All I’m doing the laying out the logic to see what’s right in front of your eyes.
Also, unfortunately I agree with you, nothing I’ve said will matter to 95% of people. I actually wish what I said would appeal to people with half a brain, but it won’t.
Anyways, you can go back to sticking your head in the sand. Enjoy ✌️
Illegals are KILLING People!
-Supporters of ICE!
I know you’re joking, but illegal immigrants do kill people, just at a lower rate than the general population.
A big part of the problem is that if you’re an illegal immigrant, then you have a huge incentive to keep your fucking head down and not be noticed.
So you don’t notice the vast majority whose only crime was illegally entering the country. Meanwhile, the ones who do commit crimes make national news because some people have an agenda in spreading that type of news.
60% lower chance of committing crimes. It’s been studied so many times in so many countries now.
Also, there’s been many examples of when large groups of migrants enter a community, there’s a short period of a year or two where there is an increase in crime, but it’s usually against the immigrants, and in the cases where immigrants are committing crimes or disturbing the peace, it’s almost always related to communities not having their basic needs met like services and access, and it always balances out within a year or two as the groups integrate.
I had to study a lot of this, the amount of disinformation out there that people willfully ignore or avoid even looking at is astounding, our species is deeply, deeply scared of changes and people different than ourselves.
Whew. Please keep in mind when reading the following that I am generally pro-immigration, hate ICE, and think that most of the anti-immigrant sentiment is driven by conservative propaganda and racism. Having said that, there are serious concerns surrounding immigration, especially unchecked immigration, even if they are overshadowed by problems caused by oligarchs and late-stage capitalism:
There is a TON of anti-immigrant propaganda. Whenever the economy is shit – which it often is now, because of the massive disparity between rich and poor – immigration is an easy target.
It’s easy to say things like market rates for labor are lowered due to an influx of immigrant labor, or that immigrants are taking jobs. There is a good case to be made that things like the H1-B program do artificially lower wages and do mean that there are fewer jobs for citizens – but the spin is always against the immigrants and never against the companies exploiting them.
Yeah, the problem has always been that we’ve given illegal immigration an easy system to exploit by having people out there employing them for less and paying under the table to avoid taxes and insurance. The whole solution that’s happening is equivalent to rounding up drug users while letting dealers go free, it makes no sense. There needs to be stiff penalties for employing people illegally. If there’s no jobs available, people will be less inclined to live and work here illegally.
Why things are the way they are we can attribute to whatever anyone wants, racism, capitalism, whatever. I’ll just lump it under people being shitheads and regular people paying for it.
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