I’m the chimney sweep now!
While there were indeed child chimney sweeps, this particular image isn’t from the 1800s, nor is it an actual child chimney sweep.
That’s a great bit of research. What an awesome website.
Interesting and informative site. Thanks
Alright, let’s not pretend that today is somehow just as bad or worse than this when it comes to developed countries, but we still need to make changes.
What’s bad is that even with the preponderance of historical evidence, there are still people who would absolutely return to these practices if the government let them. In many cases they do it anyway.
Child immigrants have been dying in meat plants left and right lol.
While they aren’t as young as this stunted 10 year old, there are absolutely kids crawling through little spaces for family business or shoveling cow shit all over.
We’re already doing it in the US. Republicans are pushing to repeal child labor laws. At the same time, multiple meat suppliers have been found using migrant children (as young as 11 IIRC) in dangerous jobs in their factories. This is at the same time that the greedy fucks are hiking prices on your groceries.
And those are just the known, publicized cases.
This brings up one of the questions I have in regards to capitalism criticism. I understand that child labor is bad I would prefer labor be done safely and with respect. In a capitalist society undereducated and vulnerable people get the short end and often do these jobs. In a communist system dangerous and dirty work still needs to be done. How would labor be allotted that would cause a more egalitarian outcome. Personal example of my family were migrant farm workers. Uncle fucking hated doing field work he saved capital, went to community college, got a good paying job, is now paying my cousins way through cal poly. If the system is set up so that work is done by those who can then realistically he could still be a field hand and my cousin would probably follow him. How does a non capitalist system deter formation and unintentional enforcement of caste systems.
Leftist organization, regardless of Tendency, proposes numerous solutions. Lower working times for dirty jobs, focusing on automating undesirable jobs as quickly as possible, and rotating who does those jobs are all proposed solutions.
I suggest reading leftist theory.
You’re on Lemmy. Every ill of the world is caused by capitalism, cars, and any operating system other than Linux. Occasionally they leak out of their echo chambers like this post here. You’re best bet is to block the creator and move on.
Things get a lot more enjoyable here when you block the problematic posters, communities, and instances.
Linux is too unstable to use outside of a virtual machine. Windows 11 is preferable to Linux in many cases.
There are many valid criticisms and potential criticisms of Linux, both as a desktop OS and in general.
Stability is absolutely not one of them.
There are all kinds of weird bugs that happen when I try to run certain Linux distros. There are some that will work fine, mostly, but it’s not stable enough for mainstream desktop use.
The left is primarily not concerned with the wealth disparity caused by different wages between jobs. What drives inequality, which makes our society less democratic and just, is the private ownership of capital (meaning means of production in this context). It would be totally fair in a socialist society to add bonuses for harder or more dangerous work. What is not compatible is private ownership, not personal ownership of stuff.
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Capitalism bad, as evidenced by a photo from a couple centuries ago…
Do you think Capitalists fixed this, or do you understand that child labor was stopped by Worker struggles?
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Repealing child labor laws is a mainstream conservative position in the US.
Numerous, and yes. The US is re-introducing it in many Republican states, as a quick example, and Nestlé is in a lawsuit for employing child laborers in the Ivory Coast, also Capitalist. It’s unfortunately far too common in developing countries for international corporations to take advantage of them and exploit them mercilessly.
The US does.
I’m more interested how people in USSR had their chimneys cleaned.
ok Advocatus Diaboli, what are some good things capitalism has done?
It’s important to remember that even under a Marxist reading of history that capitalism was good/progressive for its time and that it was an essential stage of human development. Iirc he wrote specifically how it had a much better ability to unleash productive forces than feudalism and also allowed for more freedom than feudalism.
This isn’t to say it doesn’t have contradictions and drawbacks, of course, or even that it shouldn’t be replaced currently. It’s just to say that hostile responses like “what are some good things capitalism has done?” are ahistorical/unproductive even under a Marxist lense.
Thanks for the tempered reason. It is sorely lacking in online spaces.
isn’t that subject to the same criticism in the post I replied to, that a snapshot of something from history being a net benefit is not a justification of its current worth?
That’s exactly what I’m saying though. In my humble opinion it has greatly outlived its worth, but the fact it had worth in the first place means statements like “what good has it ever done” are wrong, because even under a critical lense where it’s no longer needed, it has done good in the past.
its not “wrong” to ask a question polemically — I was expecting an answer like “made iPhones” and I could respond with how the expansion of technology has always been firstly a socialistic act, followed by captialism enshittifying it, from running water indoors to the steam engine to pharmaceuticals to electricity to the internet and infact patent expiration is usually tied to an explosion in technological innovation.
That’s fair. It just never helps to be hyperbolic around the pedantic assholes that capitalist apologists can be. There are certainly good things that came from capitalism, and if a Marxist can see that, then the apologist certainly can too, and that’ll just make them feel as if they can write off whatever you say.
It’s true, I did write off what he said!
This is a perfect meme because Marxists still believe it’s the 19th century
Just go anywhere in the third world and you’ll see worse than this everywhere. That’s also where all your consumer products come from btw
All the more reason to give them better paying jobs and enable them to build strong institutions.
I very smart I incapable of seeing the good shit that we have improved and instead of using it as a sign we can keep improving I use it as a? Whatever tf that is
We can absolutely keep improving! Labor organization fixed this problem, maybe it can fix a lot more? We should explore that possibility!
Are you under the mistaken assumption that Capitalism got rid of chimney sweeps?
Are you under the mistaken impressions that Labor isn’t part of capitalism? Seems odd to claim these problems “can’t” be solved under capitalism when they literally were. Chimney sweeps didn’t end because we overthrew the means of production…
Chimney sweeps ended because of violent worker organizing and striking. It wasn’t because Capitalists felt bad. Unions and threat of mass worker revolutions have won every concession Capitalists have given.
Unions and strikes exist under capitalism, it’s dishonest to claim they are separate. Nobody implied “capitalists” are somehow noble or generous.
They exist in opposition to the forces of Capitalism. That’s like giving the US government credit for the Civil Rights Movement, completely absurd. It was Capitalism that created child chimney sweeps, and the blood, sweat, and tears of Workers fighting against the Capitalists that ended them.
Well they exist in the system that we have today, so what your statement implies is that our system has already have moved beyond capitalism. Yay us!
No, that’s not what I said. Again, you’re giving credit for the Civil Rights Movement to the US government.
If a Movement goes against the system itself, you can’t credit the system for conceding as though it was the origin of the Movement.
Wow, ok let’s see capitalism has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages that can be solved by social movements. But the way you interpreted what I said is mind blowing.
You might be able to read but does that mean you understood what I said?
The disadvantages of Capitalism cannot be solved in social movements, and can only be solved via economic restructuring. Having many mini-dictators control industry, rather than democratic control via the Workers, will always lead to instability and exploitation no matter the level of social progress.
Economic and social progress must go hand in hand.
I understood what you said, I just think it’s impossible to band-aid Capitalism into being a good system.
You seem to be choosing to ignore all the advantages that It brings. I hope that in the future (if we survive the next decade) technology will be advanced enough to allow for ways of govern we cannot afford to speculate about.
Ones with universal income and more equal standing for all. But unfortunately we can’t stop or we’ll die out, right now whatever we do or we find a way that can compete with other countries or we die out.
Or we find some way to unite the hole world willingly under one flag. Or someone in another country is going to keep doing what we are doing maybe variations of it but still the same thing. 3rd world countries will still be explored and keeped poor to ensure a steady supply of resources.
So right now or we keep doing what we are doing( improving within this systems, yes there will be setbacks) or someone else will perhaps with less hart. Yes we are not perfect, but we have had more equal standing benfore under our current systems.
I believe we can achieve them again thought unions, active participation in politics, and passing legislation that will actually help people. Tbh I think the church and the state should be as separate as corporations and the state. Stoping money flow to government except for taxarion.
Unfortunately this is the position we find ourselves in.
Sorry for typos and long text (I’m European some of these things might not represent the American situation)
I’m not ignoring anything. Tech is already advanced enough for Worker Ownership. Worker co-ops are already more stable.
You haven’t listed a single advantage, only taken a defeatist tone and claimed nothing can be done with no ground to stand on.
Unions are a great step towards Worker Ownership, see Syndicalism.
All in all, you haven’t really made a point. You’ve said I shouldn’t advocate for abandoning Capitalism because it has advantages, but listed absolutely none. You’ve said we can’t move beyond Capitalism, without explaining why. You’ve done a lot of posturing and offered no reasons why you actually disagree with me.
Some might be wondering what the issue is since he probably grew this one from a little thing.
So not unlike the chocolate industry today, to just mention one.
And yes, it’s predominantly owned/funded by western corporations.
Haha, nice try, but Wonka had too many work precautions & safety measures, his chocolate contained barely any children …
Ha, then explain that to me:
Misleading product advertising, testing showed it was mostly (non kinder) Oompa-Loompa meat, it was a whole thing, they settled out of court.
At the time Wonka blamed it on management board, fired them, & replaced them with random ppl chosen by chocolate-raffle method, but later some emails surfaced that showed managers basically had no choice in the matter.
All he needs to do for good public relations is a lame contest with, let’s say, a golden ticket to his factory and nobody asks questions about missing children or Oompa-Loompas anymore.
What if there is accidentally more than one gold ticket? Battle royale, last customer alive wins?
Hey it’s Arkansas’ future!
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“Look At Me. I’m The Captain Now.” is a quote from the 2013 movie Captain Phillips, in which an American cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates.
The good old days.
Capitalism is idolatry.
