On The Left Side of Things

Currently, there is a visible conflict between workers and employers that exemplifies everything that is wrong with the capitalist view of human nature and the tendency of all problems caused by capitalism to be blamed on the working class. One of the best and most tangible aspects of America's COVID response to American workers has been the increase in unemployment insurance. This is obviously a good thing, especially because being paid minimum wage is not worth risking your life to work during a pandemic. Now, however, many are trying to claim that it is a problem, because unemployment benefits have risen higher than current wages and benefits at many restaurants and similar businesses. The issue presented is that people would rather sit at home and collect unemployment instead of working, and the culprit presented is, of course, the greedy working class who wants nothing more than to be paid for doing nothing.  This current situation shows so much about what is wrong with the ca...

 Recently, Joe Biden finally  came out in support of lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines, allowing other countries to use information related to the structure of the vaccine in order to develop their own. This is something that Biden promised to do during his campaign if a vaccine was developed. For the past two months, people have been pressuring the Biden administration to do so, and Biden has finally relented. During the last month, over 360 thousand people died worldwide of COVID, meaning that Biden's refusal to act quicker resulted in more completely avoidable deaths. Of course, not all of those could have been prevented, but if vaccines were allowed to be distributed worldwide earlier, then we would not see cases and deaths continue to be at this level. But, of course, Biden did come around on the issue eventually. However, most of Europe hasn't yet. Rich countries are choosing to protect big companies over poor people, as is expected under capitalism. Not al...

Today is Karl Marx's 203rd birthday, and although Marx died in 1883 at the age of 64, his ideas are still important today and have played a large role in what I believe about politics, economics, and society. I am a socialist and a Communist because of the work and theory that was done by Karl Marx and subsequent interpretations and implementations of his work. On this day, 203 years from when he was born, I have decided to list some of Marx's works that I think are must-reads or are at least important to learn about and understand, and to provide some places to learn about Marxist ideas online. Happy birthday, Marx! Wage-Labour and Capital I consider Wage-Labour and Capital to absolutely be a must-read in Communist theory. This is a fairly short work, and it outlines components of capitalism, namely, as the title suggests, how wage labor works. It can be pretty didactic at times, as Marx tends to get, but it is important in understanding how labor is valued under capitalism a...