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Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

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Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#191
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing driving someone to suicide is then justified in the struggle for labor rights? I’m trying to understand the point you are making?

I'm trying to explain where the anger comes from. Why do you blame the workers and not the conditions where this anger developed?

I’m not sure any conditions justify driving someone to suicide?

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#192
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you will just have different classes: "people who have the public apartment" and "people who don't, and have to stay out of opportunities". The inequality: still there.

From "not being able to afford" to "stuck on a waiting list for an indeterminate time" heh

And of course there will be ways to move to the top of the waiting list... if you have money, and know the right people.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#193
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to explain where the anger comes from. Why do you blame the workers and not the conditions where this anger developed?

I’m not sure any conditions justify driving someone to suicide?

He's saying the strikes are justified.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about who are the actual parasites in the movie...

They literally behave like parasites, thus the title. Reminder that this is the plot: The Kims - mother and father Chung-sook and Ki-taek, and their young adult offspring, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jung - are a poor family living in a shabby and cramped half basement apartment in a busy lower working class commercial district of Seoul. Without even knowing it, they, especially Mr. and Mrs. Kim, literally smell of po…

> They literally behave like parasites

This is the whole point of the movie. You'd think that the Kims are the obvious parasites, but if you look further, you realize that the Parks are the ones benefiting the most from other people's hard work.

https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/youngreporter/18401889.p...

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#196
post #184
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right when you say that the discretionary spending of the ultra-rich doesn't matter, but there are consequences to increasing or decreasing the percentage of capital they control. If you e.g. diluted the S&P 500 by 20% and spread the new shares equally across the global population, it would definitely cause "something of global consequence" to happen, although I have no idea whether it would be world war 3 or…

And what would the S&P500 companies do with 20% less capital? How many people laid off? How many factories shut down?

Probably go bankrupt and/or lay off a lot of employees in a globally consequential way. I'm not arguing it would be a good idea, I'm arguing that it does in fact matter who controls that capital, as evidenced by what would happen if you redistributed a fifth of it in the dumbest way possible.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#197
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many of their recent films with worldwide acclaim are about rampant classism and economic inequality. Even as someone not super in touch with Korean social sentiment, I still get the feeling that Koreans are getting super fed up with their status quo. Might not be "having an effect" so much as "reflecting the way they feel".

Given most people are not super-wealthy, popular shows are much more likely to have been sympathetic to that view. No one wants to watch a show that says "Actually things are pretty good compared to how they were, and still improving, and while there are a few really rich people in the world, it wouldn't change your life for the better if they didn't exist."

Most people wouldn’t watch that show, but well-off people would definitely read that Steven Pinker book to feel better about their insulated comfort in a suffering world. I guess people have different media preferences.

To Pinker’s credit, even he wouldn’t make such a wildly hyperbolic understatement of global inequality. At least not in public, maybe on Epstein’s plane.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#198
post #148
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should rewatch it while actively looking for this perspective. I think it's a rather clever satire about class exploitation.

It is clever satire. And it is not nearly as simple movie as you this makes it to be. When you actively watch for perspective in the movie, you will find it. You will find those 10 minutes that confirm what you want to see.

That is because the author didn't intend for a personal critique of class exploitation, but for a societal critique. So if you think that a critique exploitation means that the movie has to portray rich people as personally evil you won't find it. If you admit that such a critique can be predominantly systemic you will find it.

The lower classes fighting amongst themselves needlessly because they don't see that they can work together is like, class struggle 101.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#199
post #86
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sorry I'm not sure what nonsense you're implying.

Corporations are the government.

Trying to pretend like one is in any way contrary to the other in industrialized nations is a display of your own naïveté.

Re: Half a million South Korean workers walk off jobs in general strike

#200
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine anger when you live in poverty, you work 9 hours/day (minimum, from workweek in Korea) manual labor, some people at work die or get disabilities in work accidents. As a worker you know that everyone lives from surplus you produce, the food, etc, programmers do not make food. You can only do programming since they made food for you. So as a worker, you know you do something useful, right? So you deiced to talk…

Are you arguing driving someone to suicide is then justified in the struggle for labor rights? I’m trying to understand the point you are making?

Can we blame a manager for the suicides of burned out workers?
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