Oh so baity!
You can remove “western democracy” there I guess.
Also nah, I can speak out against my boss, my eventual landlord and protest in the streets, because I live in France, a western democracy.
YMMW.
I bet OP hasn’t actually done any of the things they listed. Reads like an edgy teenager.
And yet most of the political forces in France are advocating to remove all these rights. Sindicalists are arrested under terrorist laws, as are eco-activists. And maires trying to enforce price ceiling for lawns in cities are considered like Staline.
Sure and that is bad.
What does it have to do with the discussion though? Or is it “west bad” whatever happens?
So as long as the litteral nazis are not in charge genociding people it’s fine and there’s nothing to worry about? Syndicalistes and ecoactivists being arrested for terrorism is fine already?
Doesn’t matter whether you consider the US a western democracy, they consider themselves one and what OOP says is that that can’t possibly be right for the reasons following. It seems you are in agreement after all.
eventual landlord
So you’re a child? Lol good luck speaking out against a landlord, don’t you know it’s like a job interview nowadays with references from past landlords and all?
That is completely dependent on country and who you try to rent from. In Norway the most I ever had to do is consent to an automatic check to prove I don’t have any reports of not paying bills.
You ever rent from a private landlord, instead of letting agency?
I’m Finnish, and what you say has been true for me — aside from when my credit got fucked (due to some semiauthoritarian bullshit), when I had to rent from a private landlord.
That was more or less exactly how the earlier commenter describes it; an interview. Luckily I was just over 20 and out of the army as an NCO, so the old couple were really into that and gave me the apartment.
I also used to believe our cops weren’t that bad. Until I was detained and saw how they act behind closed doors.
In France you need to earn 3 times the price of the lawn, and you need warrants (garants) : people who will be forced to pay if you ever don’t. To prove you can pay, you need 3 months of salary sheets. You need to prove your job is not a CDD (short determined time). You need to show insurances and prove your identity too of course. Half of those are not legal, but landlords don’t care because you’re in competition : you visit the apartment with a dozen of other people who want a place to sleep too. And the landlord will choose the chosen one as he pleases.
It depends on the place, but Lyon is absolute madness to find an apartment.
I own my appartement but I have rented over 20 different ones before that.
No need to namecall just because you don’t understand 😊
Oh ok so you haven’t rented in the current market. So actually it’s you who doesn’t understand eh?
Idk what you meant in that case by “eventual landlord”, maybe try actually making sense first and then maybe you won’t get name-called as much. 😊
From what I can tell, France still has essentially no-fault evictions and nowhere near sufficient renter protections, while there is a housing crisis going on. It’s not anywhere near as bad as the UK, but given the regulations as I can see them, I wouldn’t risk speaking out against the landlord in any capacity there either. This doesn’t even touch the fact that France is also fairly centralised, in that job opportunities are richer closer to the city and the bigger the city, and Paris is even worse for living expenses overall than London.
lol ever heard of renter’s rights? it’s incredibly fucking difficult to kick out a renter here in sweden, they have to repeatedly be a massive nuisance to everyone around.
For the first 2 points: Don’t use “Western democracies”. This is a US problem. Canada has much stronger labour and home protections.
3rd point: Getting banned online is a “you” problem. Your government has nothing to do with why your shitty opinions get you banned or muted. The fact that you even have the ability to complain about your government online is a luxury many other governments don’t afford to their people.
4th point: Whining about cereal variety makes the entire argument hold less water. Who the fuck cares about brands of cereal. Buy your cereal or don’t, but shut the fuck up about it. This is an empty complaint about capitalism.
5th point: Fair enough.
I don’t directly mean you, OP. Unless you made the meme… In which case I do mean directly you.
I think cereal is brought in to demonstrate the absurdity of the situation, where something so basic as worker’s or renter’s rights are non-existent but somehow energy already has went into something so stupid as cereal, which indeed nobody cares about.
It’s more about how one of the big reasons America is supposed to be great is all the options you have. 40 brands of cereal is worth it all, is it not?
Not to mention the huge variety of great cheeses, wines, beers and deli meats you should be responsible and not waste your money on.
I’d have thought that the emphasis is on the 40 brands vs 3-4 companies. So the theme is partially the illusion of choice but mostly it underlines the inherent problems with current capitalism.
Increasingly your money is being funneled into fewer and fewer hands. While marketing/advertising maintain the illusion of diverse companies with individual character/ethos.
This combination is repeated in some form or other time and again.
I think it’s more because in American anti communist propaganda the ability to choose between different brands and varieties of products was often highlighted as one of the great strengths of capitalism. It is certainly a benefit of markets over poorly run centralized economies, but there’s everything from market socialism to centralized economies that place more emphasis on ensuring consumer satisfaction.
But yeah it’s often a thing that new socialists in America mock
First point is definetly a problem in other western democracies. In Sweden there is the “loyalty obligation”, which states that you have to – according to one of the centrist unions here – “put the interest of the company above your own”. It is a strong intrusion in your freedom of speech.
Sweden is a western democracy?
Sounds like that Swedish centrist union should pound sand
“Unionen”. I think they focus a lot on like engineers and bosses, and other upper middle class jobs.
I don’t think the union is really to blame there, “loyalty obligation”, lojalitetsplikt, is afaik a set of laws that really does what Unionen says about it. It’s not the union implementing it.
To be frank, I think its quite a refreshingly honest phrasing they are using. A more company-friendly way would be like “we all like to be teamplayers, and that is what the loyalty obligation is all about”, or something like that. Now it sounds like “you are the guy on the track in the trolly problem meme, get fucked”, and to some degree, fair play to you.
They complain about cereals because they’ve been fed so much CCP and USSR Propoganda that they think food variety is a bad thing. They’re not one of us.
The point is, all the different brands you see are owned by the same handful of megacorporations So you’re not getting actual choice, just the illusion of choice. You’re like a dog who gets excited when your owner feeds you dog food from his hand instead of the bowl, because you think it’s a treat.
I thought the meme was clear about that, but the average American reads at a third grade level, so I understand reading comprehension can be difficult for you.
Pretty shitty thing to say, but anyway…
Just because a few big corporations make cereal, doesn’t mean you have an “illusion of choice”. It’s kind of how the system works. A company that makes 1 brand of cereal also makes dozens of hundreds more. They are using processes and equipment already in place to make a slight variation on existing products. It’s kind of just how things work. Same with companies like Asus making dozens of hundreds of variations of monitors. I don’t think that’s illusion of choice. That’s actual choices, with actual differences.
If you want to make an argument that some dickhead company like Mondelez owns fucking everything, I’m right with you, but whining about cereal variety makes the argument really weak.
I only have an illusion of choice because I can pick between corn flakes and chocolate cereal instead of corn flakes from a mega corp or locally produced corn flakes?
I have been played for an absolute fool!
(also, this is an non-issue in Sweden, which apparently is not a western country)
I agree with the fish that what you say is USA only isn’t.
Basically where economy (power) is dominated by the few such problems exist.
But I would just like to add that I still cringed when you brought up Canada as the counterpoint to USA. Its not that I disagree with what you wanted to compare, its just that to me those two countries are such an extremely similar shade of late stage systems they seem the same unless in direct comparison.
Canada is very different from the US in many ways relevant to this post.
Canada doesn’t have “at will” work. Medicine is purchased by the government with immense buying power. Canada has anti-hate laws that supercede free speech, and still have the right to protest and assemble (which has basically been removed in the US). Women’s health is protected, and hopefully soon they will offer free hygiene products for women. Maternity/paternity leave is protected. No abortion bans here. Weed is legal, and harm reduction therapy is a common thing.
I could go on but i feel like you just wanted to cringe at people who don’t think the US is a proper “developed” country.
You are also wrong about the economy being controlled by a few. When there is actually only a few, like dictators, they come and take your entire crops for almost nothing, which is an unthinkable tax rate for democracies. You don’t get education, and you don’t get highways or drinking water. These things are offered to you because the government needs productive citizens to make money. It’s The rules for rulers. Democracies are complicated and full of corruption specifically because it takes many people to do anything, not a few.
Tl;dr It takes 2 seconds of research to see you are wrong on every point.
I think you have not understood me when I explicitly agreed with the point - twice in the same post.
What did you even “research” (and why/how was that new to you)?
In the US, maybe. But that’s considered a flawed democracy and getting worse all the time. Only 8% of the nations on earth are full democracies, a number that continues to fall because of the pessimism and stupidity promulgated by authoritarian regimes.
Germany on “full democracy” at the same time it bans symbols of Palestinian support and uses the state’s violence to contain such manifestations.
Nobody’s perfect, and if you’re in Germany you should reach out to your politicians about it.
??? I am allowed to fly the Palestinian flag, attend the marches, and say the chants whenever I want. The only thing we really cannot do in America is disrupt college campuses while classes are in session and riot. The three things I listed earlier are completely banned in Germany.
Haha! Australia is a full democracy? What a joke!
Australia is America’s bitch. Even if our politicians gave a shit, they couldn’t do anything.
UK is a full democracy? That’s a fucking joke, literally all of this applies here. Including no-fault (read: spoke out against landlord or asked for repairs) evictions.
Finland is also a fucking joke.
Reminds me of the time that Madventures bros were in India, talking to a local policeman, and said “Finland is said to be the least corrupt nation in the world” and the Indian policeman laughed so heartily into his moustache I almost fell off my chair.
You can do all of the shit mentioned in the post without getting the consequences.
“Finland is said to be the least corrupt nation in the world” and the Indian policeman laughed so heartily into his moustache
Which country did the policeman think was less corrupt if we rank so low in his opinion?
Technically, it isn’t clear if the crown could take back the rights given by them to parlaiment to govern the UK, but currently all decisions are handled by parlaiment including budget allotted to royals who are actually a net possitive from tourism.
For any Tankies in here, Tourism is a thing where people come from far away to share their resources in order to experience food and culture. China unfortunately is such an oppressive and bleak place that nobody wants to go there unless they have to or if they’re doing so accidentally by not realizing what happened to Hong Kong.
Are these tankies in the room with us right now? Fuck the CCP, but we’re talking about the west right now, stop trying to divert attention.
all decisions are handled by parlaiment
Who is backed by the undemocratic FPTP system, extremely pro-establishment press owned by capitalists waging open class war and a literal house of “lords” who have direct and legal legislative influence, not even lobbying. Imagine if Elon musk could reject legislation. Yeah, democratic af.
It’s a ruse you fell for, nothing more.
who are actually a net possitive from tourism.
Myth. Many countries do not have geriatrics riding around on golden thrones amidst record food bank use while having far more tourism than the UK, and I mean western European nations, not typical global south tourist destinations.
China unfortunately is such an oppressive and bleak place that nobody wants to go there unless they have to or if they’re doing so accidentally by not realizing what happened to Hong Kong.
That’s counterfactual and undermines your argument, the amount of tourists from Japan, the US and EU alone is immense and I fear most of them know, but don’t give a shit about Hong Kong (though they really, really should).
This infographic is produced by a capitalist propaganda network, Visual Capitalist, using data from a capitalist think tank, EIU (Economic Intelligence Unit). I would download the report and scrutinize their methodology but it requires you enter a ton of personal information.
How the fuck made that chart that put USA on top of Brazil, here the president isn’t immune to prison just because he has money
Wait until they find out about non-American western countries
Except they tend to have higher union participation so it’s harder to fire you and more permissible to speak out about your boss.
if I speak out online I could be muted or banned
Do you have any idea what social platforms look like when this is not the case?
The random board on 4chan is a good indicator for how that would look like (very NSFW and depending on your location illegal content there)
