this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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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.
Well said. But what I haven't seen mentioned, is that this system will require a high degree of social control. Religion and racism will be used to keep these multigenerational factory drones angry at each other. Otherwise, they may begin to resent the fact that their wealthy masters have health care and leisure.
The real struggle is the class struggle. For capitalism to function, the average low-info worker can't be allowed to see that.