Having lived in a few countries now (Canada, Netherlands, UK) I can categorically say that when workers get more free time, they tend to have better political outcomes, which trend toward socialism because of course they do.
This shit ends today
(Walks the fuck lot of my call center job)
(I did literally do that last summer. It feels good to just walk the fuck out)
Karl describes an American IT worker.
Workers in general.
And white and blue collar jobs in the PRC.
They also have upwards of 96% homeownership. At least their hard work produces benefits for them and not the wealthy
Sadly, it produces much more their the upper classes if they’re a middle class worker with the Chinese goal of a “stable job”. But yes, property ownership in the PRC, outside of Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong/Macao, is very high, and access to food and shelter is probably higher than any anglophone or European nation.
Chinese petite bourgeois have quite a decent time, and have been given a lot of space to engage in commerce and money making in a way that as a British person am actually kind of envious of. And they do indeed gain a lot from their hard work.
The working class in the PRC sadly don’t have much in the way of pensions, and are about one serious illness or injury away from poverty. Which combined with lack of employee rights, makes it tricky for them. Post retirement people can often be seen rummaging through bins for things to sell to municipal recyclers (via local petite bourgeois middle men).
The PRC has a larger middle class than the entire population of the US. But yeah they do need to do more, conditions for the lowest workers are still unacceptably poor, despite improvements.
Yes, it is also the second most populous nation.
It has a population of about 1.3 billion - 0.4 billion = 0.9 billion.
And that 0.9 billion ain’t 30:70 upper vs. working class.And of those 400,000,000 who are middle class - that comes with very long work hours and a huge level of stress. Maybe Capitalism with US Characteristics has that level of stress, competition, and grindset too. I’m European, so to me - the middle class of China seems overworked and stressed.
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious…
