I'm proposing replacing minimum wage w/ something like UBI (my preference is a Negative Income Tax for more of a direct replacement). That way that $100 isn't being added to peoples' means, but instead it's replacing wages
So it will just accomplish nothing, as people will work the same (more if we follow current trends) for $9.00 and hour instead of $12.00, but will have an extra $3.00 from taxes on the middle class (the rich will avoid taxes always).
This is certainly a proposal.
which can keep total inflation stable
Ah yeah, like right now where inflation is low and even decreasing, but things keep getting more expensive, jobs more and more scarce and actual value is ever smaller, while building true wealth through home ownership is ever more unreachable, while being poor is only more and more expensive and social mobility is at an all time low? Lol.
Measures of inflation are like COVID cases being low before we started testing more people.
That gives employees the freedom to say no to poor working conditions and inadequate pay without worrying about where their next meal is coming from.
That's the thing - it won't. Capitalists won't like this, and competing with one another by offering better working conditions will only make them worse off - they will instead band together and price fix the market, or simply complete the ongoing switch to using gig economy "contractors" instead of employees.
Capitalism is a race to the bottom. This is ofc a hypothetical, IRL they would never allow any such laws with actual teeth to pass unless a dictatorship of the proletariat showed them to the guillotines.
Sure, and moving to socialism won't change that, all it does is replace "the rich" with "the well-connected."
This is an argument so old Marx debunked it himself. But I'll say this: even if this is true, corruption is indeed possible in any system, but only in capitalism we worship it and call it "lobbying".
People being rich isn't a problem, especially since generational wealth is often gone after 3 generation
So just because it hasn't been 3 generations yet, Musk isn't a problem? Bezos? Zucc?
The important thing is that who "the rich" are changes periodically so we don't get into a Russian oligarch situation.
The Russian oligarchs are actually new rich too, most of them got wealthy by picking the corpse of the Soviet Union, during western enforced shock therapy, while the poors were left to heroin and dying of AIDS. What a woopsie that turned out to be with fascist Russia now eh?
As long as that's improving year-over-year, things are getting better. Whether some people have tens or hundreds of millions doesn't really impact me day-to-day.
Things have declined since the 1980s in terms of buying power of the middle income young people of today across the board, and that's before we get into the fact life itself got more expensive (e.g. now a starter crappy job needs an MSc, used to be they hired barely literate lead eaters, who are now bosses).
It's slightly offset if you measure happiness by socially-funded scientific and technological progress (internet was a government project) but even that is now debatable, as capitalism has sunk its teeth into that also, and more and more social services of the 20th century are privatized into oblivion.
And that's just the local, street-level stuff. What about the global evil of capitalism? Israel? Afghanistan? Iraq? Neo-colonialism of the global south, American corporations licking dictatorial boots the world over? the blockade of Cuba? Police racism and brutality? Sexism? Ableism?
The neoliberal imperialism of the United States through it's client-state in Israel alone is enough to wonder, whether this system should be left as-is.
Now the USSR did a fair bit of shit too, and China does a lot even worse, all of it is deserving of critique, but US's (and it's western vassals') issues are precisely as a result of its system. The US is very much an oligarchy, and is three corporations in a trenchcoat, and occasionally, when whistleblowers, whether corporate or military wind up dead, people look up, and it's important that they blame the right people, because otherwise, they'll blame each other, and fascism - the final form of neoliberal capitalism - wins.
Read pretty much any story from those who left the USSR to get a better picture of how life was there.
A very unbiased account indeed
but I find real stories of people trying to flee more valuable in understanding life in an area than books with economic figures.
I don't. People for the most part are morons that gulp down ivermectin and bleach enemas by the truckload to make their healing crystals work in time for Sunday church, so they can pray away the gay. People are fickle, and are often at odds with facts. As a trans person I know this well.
If life was so good there
That's the neat part, I never claimed that. The USSR was a shithole, but the user I originally responded to was wrong as well. Two things can be true at once.
UBI
Or just nationalize necessities to cut out capitalist middlemen taking a cut. All a UBI of $100 will do is raise prices by $100 because people now have $100 more, and landlords et al. will want those $100. Under capitalism and neoliberalism the rich will always be at the top of the food chain in this manner.
Socialist policies should be limited, imo, to voluntary associations, like co-ops and private unions.
So they can be easily crushed by capitalist lobbying in western """"democracies""".
I admire neolibs who genuinely want to make things better, and you have my respect for that, but I think you're just a bit naive and haven't quite thought everything through.
Lolwut? USSR recovered from being a devastated bomb crater of a country faster than Europe did on American dollar while waging a cold war against the rest of the world. They beat the US to space time and time again too.
Come the 80s, their manufacturing was well ahead of the west, and there weren't any food issues either, so I'm not sure what you mean? The horrors of Stalin's collectivisation efforts were a good bit before the cold war, and that wasn't really an issue of food manufacturing.
Nobody was forced to do any type of work more than anybody is under capitalism, if anything under capitalism as it is today - you take what you are given.
In the USSR, higher education being free (as is the socialist tradition) gave people a lot more choice, no need to balance student debt against future potential earnings and as such ability to pay health expenses, like we see in the US today.
They suffered from consumer goods issues because things like game consoles and tamagotchi can't exactly be planned in a planned economy.
It's why I personally believe in a dual-economy, where necessities are planned centrally, from housing to infrastructure to utilities and independent worker co-operatives do the rest, I think that's the lesson there ultimately. Oh and fuck the Russian Federation.
I would learn to sing, fly a plane, restore a car, dive deep into music writing and production, Id learn After Effects, make fan edits of my favourite films, I'd grind to get decent at racing Sims, I'd get back to writing my crappy alt history sci-fi novel, I'd try to get into board games, I'd try to reconnect with my family and I'd spend more time with my friends, and I'd try to build a house and make it run as much on renewable energy as I could, and have efficient heating.
Then there's all the languages I wanted to learn - French, Italian, German...
So much I could do. I would cook a lot more, I like the food I make, and so do others who've tried it, I just wish I had the energy and time to cook more.
Says it has allergic effects. No shit? It's full of citrus, as it says on the Lush website.
Says it has irritation for eyes potential. No shit? Don't put citrus in your eyes, somehow this isn't an issue for denatured alcohol though, which is toxic on purpose (so as to prevent it's consumption as surrogate alcohol).
Then says it has Fragrance in it, fair enough that is proprietary, could be some shit in there.
The page for it says Allergies & Immunotoxicity is the only high common concern.
Again obviously you can have an allergy to everything so it's a bit redundant, no? A full list of potential allergens would just be a list of everything, no?
If citrus fruits are a potential irritant, then so is ethanol, no?
This is commonly used in perfume, you can find this on sale for DIY fragrance makers as well with a quick Google search. The safety data sheet lists quite a few hazards, one of which is irritation and being harmful if swallowed.
The ingredient page doesn't even list potential irritation as a low risk issue. Idk, I'm not a chemist, but I wouldn't spray perfume into my eyes, not any ethanol for that matter.
Well what about the problematic ingredients in that lush spray, "fragrance", what does it say?
For immuntoxicity, the table just shows a bunch of vague and uncited claims, referencing some mystery "open science literature".
Neither the product nor ingredients pages explicitly link to specific claims from peer reviewed sources such as journals doing literature reviews on the topic or even studies or papers on the subject, nor do they include a mechanistic explanation for the phenomena.
Known human immune system toxicant or allergen
How can it be known if the whole point is that it's unknown and proprietary?
Human immune toxicant or allergen - strong evidence
What evidence? Where is it linked?
One or more human case studies show significant immune or allergenic effects
So is it one, or is it more? Which study? Where?
Then in Data Gaps it says:
"6578 studies in PubMed science library may include information on the toxicity of this chemical"
May? So do they or don't they? Which studies?
I'm not a scientist, but this doesn't scream exactly scientific, you can't just write "Source: science literature" I would've been expelled from uni trying to pull that shit even at first year bachelors' level in an engineering course.
So it seems that this isn't science or even evidence based, cursory Google search seems to suggest this EWG is a dodgy lobbying group that claims to be a non-profit. Where there is lobbying - there's power/money and incentive/goal.
They also made a film called "Not So Pretty", which urged people to throw away their "toxic" and "harmful" existing beauty products per the ratings, and buy ones that EWG recommends in the app and database they very conveniently provide with direct purchase links for your convenience, where they lay out unsourced unscientific claims about the safety of various products.
It doesn't help that instead of taking donations in a more true non-profit spirit, the use referral links, which they do state to be fair:
When you make a purchase through retailer links on our site, we may earn commission through affiliate programs. All affiliate fees EWG receives support our nonprofit mission.
With all that in mind, I gotta say I have doubts
Take this as you will, but if you ask me, this seems like a simple marketing scheme to prop up certain products and sell them to those who want to do right by the environment and look after their health by creating a fake "certification" of sorts with no basis in or reference to science, from a dodgy lobbying group complete with convenient referral links to buy said products right on the page, no different from recycling symbols on soda bottles, this appears to be more marketing than truth.
EDIT:
Their legal disclaimer reads:
Accuracy. EWG has worked to ensure the accuracy of the information it provides through its products and services, including through EWG’s web, database, e-mail, and mobile application properties. The product ratings, images, conclusions, recommendations, and findings that appear on EWG’s web, database, and mobile application properties, or in e-mail messages, reflect EWG’s research at the time of publication
So it seems like this is just entirely their research. They don't state how they have "worked to ensure" accuracy of information, just that they did, which is corporate bs speak, and not very advanced at that. The fact it also says this is just "EWG's research" seems to suggest they don't want to explicitly cite evidence either.
And somewhat more damning is that they say they obtain information from "many sources" but once again don't specify it, and don't guarantee any accuracy:
Please be advised that this information frequently relies on data obtained from many sources, and accordingly, EWG cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided or any analysis based thereon.