When I was a kid, America was often contrasted against Britain in that they were aristocrats and nobles who would run roughshod over their people, but American democracy would lead people to the light.

Obviously that is a steaming pile of poopaganda, but as things develop I start to realize that it’s actually correct, it just only applies to one side, in that the “running roughshod” part has always been the case, and any laws made that supported the rights of workers were in place only as long as it took the capitalistocrats to lobby them back to nothingness, sometimes even worse than before.

I often think of that when conversations are held about logical, productive changes to the current way work is done.

Wherever there is talk of a 25-hour week, or a four day week, or any other measure that would improve quality of life while allowing work to get done as well - or sometimes better - this conversation quickly turns to how much less money these people would have to make and how the total number of hours of work per week would have to be delivered anyway.

It feels like somewhere there is an American capitalist with an uncut ruby the size of a cherry on their pinky and a freshly laundered wig of tight white curls raging at the perception that somehow they are being robbed of their due by this subhuman mass of parasites who are unwilling to meet the expectations of someone who could never meet those expectations themselves, and fully believe that obscene wealth and power are their right.

Anywho, I believe that the benefit that would come from normalizing 5-hour work days with a minimum wage of $20/hr is vastly underrated, and the resistance to that comes only from people at the absolute pinnacle of wealth, who are petrified that their influence and power might erode even a little bit, because they have not only seen what happens to people whose influence and power erodes, they have destroyed those people for their own gain. /rant