I have read many comments here about how horrible it is that the rich get everything and we need to make the opportunities equal for everyone, I think they are missing the point of the comic. At the end, Richard’s view has been filtered through the things he was given as something that happens to everyone. Nobody told him that he was given privileges that Paula doesn’t have access to. To him, everybody has access.
Yep, which is why over the course of history Marxism took hold of the Socialist movement, rather than previous Utopian Socialists who believed they could simply “convince people” of Socialism being better, and reality would form around that, like the Owenites.
Marx added that the ideas people have come from their Material Conditions, which is a core concept to Dialectical Materialism.
So what you are saying, in plenty of words, is that because the dude has the material privileges he thinks that the world has the same access to them too?
Not quite. That’s one part of it, but not necessarily.
People hold ideas based on the physical reality they experience. People who grow up in wealthy environments are more accepting of worldviews that either justify or rationalize this, ie the myth of “meritocracy.” They can believe that others do not enjoy the same access, but can believe that hard work can get anyone where they are, as an example.
This has further implications. Fascism, for example, isn’t spread because it’s an “appealing idea,” but as a response to decay of Capitalism, typically. Anlyzing the mechanics of why certain types of ideas become broadly accepted based on change in material reality is useful for preventing dangerous ideas as well.
I wish we could make a population with even the basic reading comprehension to understand these facts and then people might start taking advantage of our most powerful tool, democratic voting, to make real changes to how wealth is distributed.
But to this day when you suggest such a thing, people will default to images in their mind of everyone being forced to wear grey jumpsuits and stand in line for hours for a potato. We have the technological and productive means now to socialize many elements of our lives that would give everyone access to more resources and benefits and lower poverty and needless suffering, which helps everyone, even those already privileged.
But the capitalist narrative will push back on these ideas to its last, dying gasp, even as the world starts to burn and people lose everything, we will still see people arguing for “job creators” and how the wealthy are responsible for all our comforts, and that the socialist alternative will mean people will never own anything… as capitalism takes people’s ownership of everything.
I wish we could make a population with even the basic reading comprehension to understand these facts and then people might start taking advantage of our most powerful tool, democratic voting, to make real changes to how wealth is distributed.
That’s why Leftists abandoned electoralism a long, long time ago. The system is deliberately designed against significant change in Class society, ergo Leftist theory is centered around organization and building dual power.
But to this day when you suggest such a thing, people will default to images in their mind of everyone being forced to wear grey jumpsuits and stand in line for hours for a potato. We have the technological and productive means now to socialize many elements of our lives that would give everyone access to more resources and benefits and lower poverty and needless suffering, which helps everyone, even those already privileged.
People’s ideas are generally a product of their Material Conditions. Socialism may be correct, but people’s class-interests largely influence what ideas people accept.
But the capitalist narrative will push back on these ideas to its last, dying gasp, even as the world starts to burn and people lose everything, we will still see people arguing for “job creators” and how the wealthy are responsible for all our comforts, and that the socialist alternative will mean people will never own anything… as capitalism takes people’s ownership of everything.
There is a rising Leftist current as a response to Capitalism’s decay, what remains is organizing that response and building up dual power.
The concept of noblesse oblige really needs to be restored and expanded. Most of us have advantages we don’t understand. It’s why charity and compassion is so important.
Noblesse oblige is unnecessary if you work to eradicate Class society in the first place. Convincing Capitalists to work against the forces of Profit to be nicer people will never work, that’s why Utopian Socialists all failed.
Eradicating class will never work, either.
richard as a baby looks like an old man
tbh they both look like they start very old and get younger
I can’t relate to those things ever.
Who cares about grades when you are able to do anything at this age and not land in the jail? Once you are 18 the fun is over and you must be really careful at all times which is boring as fuck. Use these years to the fullest
Can someone finally make a comic that is an ounce relatable?
What do you guys even pursue with these grades of yours with all the bootlicking and effort when simply knowing right people and making them believe in certain version of yourself trumps everythingAre you really so naive to believe that hard work matters? No it is all about connections, knowing right people in right places. You can work hard for 30 years and have shit all but someone knows a certain guy at the top and is your boss in a year.
This is life, adapt or… struggle. The things they tell you in school is all horse shit the real race is in the casinos, nightclubs and parties. Remember that before you feed your kids with bs that good grades will make them successful.
I may regret engaging, but I can say as someone who grew up in Harlan County, KY (one of the poorest places in the USA), hard work and education absolutely do still make a difference. You can get educated in a variety of ways, and you can meet people and lean on those connections even if your family isn’t born with them.
Raging about the world on the internet won’t fix your problems even if it does provide catharsis for a brief time. You’ve got to do some work. Whether that’s learning to grow a garden and giving produce to your neighbors, or learning music to join a band and connecting to others through songs you write. Those things take work. People want to connect with others who have skills, even outside of a capitalist system.
Anecdotally, I “LeArNeD tO cOdE” instead of bitching that all the mines closed, and it’s worked well for me. Wrapping my head around coding concepts when I objectively got one of the worst educations available in this country has been hard work and I’m proud to be where I am. I hope you find something you can work towards.
All I know is that I could easily ignore grades, score good on final test twice in lifetime and leap over all those who worked real hard whole childhood to get to best uni. That kinda changes your perspective.
It’s about putting little jolts of effort where it matters and connections matter vastly more than anything. You can have idiots earning lotta because they know how to party with CEO or know their secrets.
Besides all your hard work matter shit all if you can’t market yourself and that is stretching the reality to your favour no matter the base facts.
I am retired right now at 30
Is it not work to make connections? Is there no value in learning to learn? I think this is a pretty short sighted way to go about life.
You seem like you’re younger than me and also not from the USA, so I can’t understand the exact realities of your situation without more info.
I got straight A’s in school (1992-2005) and found later in life that I was learning what other kids already inherently knew or learned way earlier. My “AP Calculus” was algebra I for the kids in the larger/wealthier cities in the state. Once I got to college/university I made up the difference somewhat, but I still felt very out of place.
Grades are not the end all be all, but learning to learn is important and it shouldn’t be reduced to just “testing once or twice”. How will you pass the test if you don’t know how to study or have at least some underlying knowledge of the test subject? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your meaning.
Learning is just somehow easy for me I don’t know maybe it is skewing my perspective and everyone else must sit there for hours before they grasp stuff.
I just can do things in less time it feels like this sometimes at least and thus have to fill that time and get bored.
Maybe some other people would use that to meet more and more challenges and overcome them but I for some reason always had more nihilistic and cynical mindset.
School always seemed so stupid, uni too. You can learn that stuff in a month by yourself more quickly and efficiently if you felt like you wanted instead of feeding dopamine scrolling phone.
I don’t think education system here was made for me in mind let’s just say. Not for someone who always questioned everything but never got answers but only reprimands and yelling and tons of bad behaviour notices.
I was always surrounded with people who worked hard and I just waltzed there scoring with no effort making their work sorta pointless that probably changed me for the worse.
So yes I don’t relate to these comics or most of the things really except for adhd meme comics yay. Most people are super unrelatable for me anyway.
Few who were, we used way too much substances and done way too overboard things (such as vandalism mainly) to keep them around in a healthy way. If I meet someone I relate to it is the best and worst thing that can happen to me and everyone around as we literally destroy places in a drug fuelled madness and get away with it somehow. In a fun company I have been shooting road signs out of my balcony in the middle of a city with an air rifle for whatever insane reason. Or throwing eggs at the cars while laughing like a total insane person. Can’t say I regret any fun times.
One time we were at someone’s house we just grabbed as much wine as we could from the cellar and ran. I shouldn’t miss those times but I do.So yeah any guidelines do not really apply as you can see and I must carve my own way
Learning is just somehow easy for me I don’t know maybe it is skewing my perspective and everyone else must sit there for hours before they grasp stuff.
We talk about systemic problems, not about your personal experience. And not about just “everyone else sitting there for hours before they grasp stuff”, but about not being taught stuff for them to be grasp.
School always seemed so stupid, uni too. You can learn that stuff in a month by yourself more quickly and efficiently if you felt like you wanted instead of feeding dopamine scrolling phone.
If uni was so boring for you, how it comes you are talking about licking some CEO’s ass instead of advancing science in CERN?Frankly I don’t really care about systemic problems not genuinely so but wanted to write lotta words I cannot say aloud to anyone.
You see having someone to confide this stuff is rare usually I have to be acting. Weaving some personas
Just so occasion arises with some semi vaguely connected comic.
So I can just shower ya all with my deepest thoughts without any repercussions. Brutal honesty is what I miss sometimes that was always fun.
I usually am focused on my self improvement journey but once a week I get a cheat meal so to say. This is my cheat meal
Feels good but also is so socially bad lol but hey you have to let loose sometimes
Yeah can’t say them aloud cause no one wants to be near a person that thinks they are superior to everyone else and you at best have only business acquaintances instead of friends?
Stop treating people like toys and tools and thinking it’s fun to be cruel and you won’t be so lonely.
It sounds like you’re a narcissist and psychopath or sociopath. If you’re in the US, you won the jackpot as our wealth-obsessed society allows people with antisocial disorders like that to go very far, especially if they’re intelligent and skilled at masking.
EDIT: After reading more comments of yours further down, you definitely are and are aware of it.
That is I could find easily people I could say it to but like they are disgusting and I ended this phase and no longer have a company of unsavoury types
Now I am a proper citizen, good, kind and all the stuff and my company consists of similar.
I am in lgbt circles now and even socialists so like not the best audience for this sorta talk lol
Cool Gary Stu fan-fiction, bro.
It isn’t tho, that’s the thing. sounds too crazy and pretentious but I swear on my real estate that it is all true
This whole timeline is too crazy to be a random chance I am convinced we are in the simulation and someone like flipped a switch okay give that person this and this whatever they do. Yeah they should be by all means be dead or smh but we need them to test that hypothesis
After all I probably wouldn’t get away with all that if not for the early capitalism woes of eastern bloc that was more like a Russian mindset than western
There is a vast frontier of knowledge and value to be gained in renewable energy, fusion technologies, CRISPR/medical science, systems integrations and automation, environmental cleanup, food science, etc.
These all take hard work and knowledge and aren’t quick fixes, so of course it seems like all the low hanging fruit is gone.
There are a ton of problems that need solving. It’s not the dog eat dog universe you say it is.
I used to be nihilistic and cynical for a time as well. Then I went through a divorce, went deeply into debt, became an alcoholic, lived in my car for a while and got sober and got my shit together. Not to say I recommend it, but the survival instinct is strong, and a wife and kids are a wonderful thing to wake up to every day.
I hope you can get some distance from the drugs and you might also get some perspective.
Your story is at least interesting, and if true, it sounds like you at least have the resources to improve your mindset and lot in life.
“It worked for me, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for everyone”.
As a fellow, “did bad in school, but still doing well compared to my peers” person, I think you are ignoring a lot of the subtle benefits you had in life.
For instance, I grew up with six siblings, and at times not only did I have to share a room with 5 of them, I needed to share a bed with my brother. My parents divorced when I was young as well, which takes away a lot of stability and resources for a child.
Despite this, I still had massive advantages compared to my peers. My grandfather worked with computers at a university, and that trickled down to me always having access to a computer. My dad was an early adopter of home Internet access, I had cable broadband in the house at least since 2000, and DSL/dial-up way before that. I had both parents, and although they were not very collaborative while raising me, I still got some benefit of having them both. My interpersonal connections through my siblings helped me land a decent retail job, and from there I was able to use connections from my dad to get my foot in the door in IT. I didn’t grow up with much, but I sure as hell grew up with a lot more than many other people, and it’s easy to forget that sometimes.
Wrapping my head around coding concepts when I objectively got one of the worst educations available in this country has been hard work and I’m proud to be where I am. I hope you find something you can work towards.
Well, coding is only a start on path of programming.
Well naturally, but I was and still am a dumb hick from Appalachia, so I didn’t understand that at the time. I’m a senior engineer now who does system integrations. I was speaking of the cliché advice given to people without marketable skills in a bit of a tongue-in-cheek way.
Hopefully the world can change into a peaceful sci-fi world more like Star Trek or Red Dwarf.
Assuming we can successfully transition to Socialism, we will get there! It will just take time.
Although we should always strive for it, I don’t think we have it in us. But I hope I’m wrong.
I think we do, because I’ve been going around convincing people on these forums to act more like it, using Euclidean geometry principles.
People will often worship shapes you give them and use them to change their minds about things.
The alternative is fascism, nuclear apocalypse, or death from climate change (perhaps all 3). It’s up to us to avoid that path and move towards Socialism.
Natives had it right. There is no privilege when the tribe raises a child. Western nepotism has been a plague on this earth for thousands of years.
Go back, read more history books. Nepotism is a dominant trait of every empire on the globe that decayed and fell apart on its own.
“Western nepotism” … Psh.
The whole “noble savage” stereotype is just another form of racism. Natives everywhere had to deal with the same bullshit any other society did.
It was not that long ago that western children were also raised by a village. The strict nuclear family we know today is a modern phenomenon, only made possible by the vast prosperity western civilisations gained over the past couple centuries.
The toddlers look so much like little old people
I once had a machine shop teacher that has a qoute that still lives rent free in my brain.
“I feel bad for the people who grew up rich because they dont know how to do anything themselves and dont know how to fix anything!”
Its pretty true life advice, i wouldnt change the way a grew up even a little bit. Not having alot growing up made me happy to have the small things and take care of the things i already owned. You can be rich with money but the poorest with skills and intelligence and that makes you more sad then ill ever be.
The rich have it better, I feel like that’s just cope.
Money buys time and convenience. Mr.Rich has no interest in fixing his dishwasher, he pays “the help” to do that and he gets the “bonus” of feeling better than someone else when “the help” comes to fix it. He can then go on a run or sit around doing whatever the hell he wants, not having to worry about fixing anything. He bought the time we lose fixing things.
I’ve been “the help” and was literally called as such when a little girl said hi to me and her mother said “dont talk to the help.” We’re so below them and they enjoy that.
Dear Faust, this sounds so fucked.
I absolutely agree with this comic, and in a lot of ways I was the kid on the left.
I struggle with the solution though. Isn’t it the purpose of all life about giving your offspring a better chance?
When we give the kid on the right more opportunity, the left side will keep increasing their investment until it’s lopsided in their favor again.
Maybe it’s not about trying to reach some theoretical absolute equity, but keeping the distribution at a healthy balance so that one side is not completely locked out of the game. That’s healthier for the whole community too since healthy competition ensures there’s progress.
The solution cannot be only based on providing more opportunities to achieve equity of chance. To me, (financial/professional) success cannot and should not be the thing to strive for solely. We cannot all be attorneys and doctors and high achievers. We cannot expect a good life for all if everyone strives to be in the top 10% of society and this is the prerequisite for a good life and success, because by definition, this leaves 90% out.
So if you really want to have a good life for all, we need to stop the idea that you need to attain some artificial definition of professional success in order to have a good life, and provide a livable, worthy life for everyone - especially if they put in the time to work and contribute to society. If a person is working 40 hours a week, i.e. gives up 40 hours of their life and free time, why should it matter whether they work as a cashier, collect trash, or work as an attorney. In every case, they have a crucial role in society.
You can definitely do this as well as voting for the party that best represents you. If you don’t vote, it means you leave the choice of who will rule the country to the others. At least vote for the candidate that you think is more likely to listen to your protests, rather than forfeiting the elections in favor of the candidate that you know for sure will never listen to you.
What method are you proposing to establish this?
I think you responded to the wrong comment, could that be?
I pasted the wrong block of text, sorry! Corrected it.
I’m not a political and social science think tank, so I cannot propose anything. I doubt there is one method or approach to just establish this.
I mean I could tell you that I would “just” pay everyone basically the same, have “free” housing standardized for everyone and have them relocate to not further than 15 mins from their work, demolish single family houses, have students paid for studying, have parents paid for parenting, provide “free” necessities and basic foods, and get rid of bullshit jobs and companies that make products for empty consumption. But I mean, “just”. That’s obviously a thought experiment that happens by a complete layman and I doubt that I could win people for this, let alone in a democratic way.
Well the first naive argument against that would be, why would anyone work hard to become an attorney if it doesn’t pay more than anything else? Why spend years in school if it’s not going to get you ahead?
I guess in the star trek universe you do it because you like it?
I want to believe maybe that might work?
Having worked in both low end and high end job I have two answers to that. The first is social status. No matter how much you earn, you will always be seen as more intelligent and more “worthy” because you have a higher status job. I think for a lot of people it’s this admiration that would be enough. The second answer is physical reasons. My sister’s back has been shit since she was 30 because of her endless standing in a barista job. Some jobs are insanely hard and just the comfort of being able to take a coffee break and a chat and sit at your desk is absolutely worth striving for. (There are people who enjoy manual and physical labor, but then again, why punish them financially, if they are willing to do the “harder” jobs?)
And yes, a third answer would be the urge to learn more and be more.engaged mentally. But wanting to do that and that having to do that to achieve success are two very different prerequisites.
why would anyone work hard to become an attorney
Do you really think becoming an attorney is harder than, say, cleaning toilets 40h/week? I finished my master‘s degree in physics recently. Has it been stressful? Sure. But I could mostly choose my own rhythm to work, had a healthy balance of exercise and leisure, and had coffee breaks all the time. I know a carpenter and some farm workers, and I would have chosen uni over their work at any time. And chances are, once I get a „real job“ it will still be less hard than working on a field.
Wages are mostly a measure for how replaceable you are, not for how hard the work is.
These jobs should be rewarded more, but lower-skill jobs should still provide for a decent life, which they don’t. Having to work two jobs is a failure of the system, not the individual.
It’s fine to reward those who’ve spent more time and effort more - as long as we remember and acknowledge that we need everybody else to make society work too, and their baseline is reasonably comfortable.
Isn’t it the purpose of all life about giving your offspring a better chance?
Yeap, but doesn’t mean you willfully or otherwise create a worse situation for someone else
Maybe it’s not about trying to reach some theoretical absolute equity, but keeping the distribution at a healthy balance so that one side is not completely locked out of the game. That’s healthier for the whole community too since healthy competition ensures there’s progress.
Equity is an ideal we may never reach, but the point is we keep trying to reach it. There’s no such thing as a “healthy distribution” of exploitable working class.
The economic models built on exploitation of cheap labor are a relic of the past, and humanity does not need them to ensure future intellectual or cultural growth. We can have capitalism and social welfare together. We can even have Veblen goods without essentially making slaves of other people.
It’s about humility and gratitude. Don’t refuse to build on your advantages, just do what you can to pay it forward and outward.
As someone who (mostly) got this privilege i completely agree with this comic
This comic would be better if on Richard’s recruiter’s screen he was also rejected, but recruiter approved anyway.
All that drawing and they missed the ‘a’ in ‘on a plate’ in Richard’s last panel, which is the title of the comic.
Nah Richard is just so privileged he feels he don’t even have to speak properly
Beware the myth of the self-made man.
"If you wish to make
an apple piea man from scratch, you must first invent the universe. ~Carl SaganYep! Few things are as dangerous as following someone who doesn’t understand that they got lucky.
But the entire society is conditioned to do it.
We are shown celebrities before we learn to speak. All around us are those recognizable idiots who rarely have benefited humanity in any meaningful way but have very, very marketable faces. All to make us poor pay for their luxuries.
This is one of the best visualizations of this issue. I regularly think back at this comic, awesome!!
And, again, this does not negate the fact that Richard worked hard to get his degree and worked his company’s ranks. It should not be about pushing down the Richards of the world, it should be about pulling up the Paulas, and strive for a world were everyone is a Richard [relating to the comic, not all white men or we would be doomed ':) ]
The problem with getting everyone up to Richard’s level is that it’s just not possible. There are not enough resources. We would need so much slave labour for everyone to enjoy a Richard lifestyle. Maybe some kind of futuristic robots could do it. But I don’t see that happening in this world. Someone could do it, but someone else would grab all the profits for themselves, screwing everyone else over.
The only reason there’s “not enough resources” is because someone is always trying to make money off them. There’s plenty of resources, their distribution just won’t make anyone rich if we share and share alike.
And the pandemic showed that when people value their lives and time properly, minimal wages aren’t enough, which is why the supply of restaurant, hotel and grocery workers was so low. The ceos blamed $1000 checks though while keeping wages lower that needed and raking in profits.
Nah, I think it could be done if billionaires didn’t hoard all the wealth. The wealth of some of these people is enough to live confortably for several lifetimes.
Even at 10 million dollars for a lifetime (which is way more than I’ll make in a lifetime) 1 billion is 100 lifetimes’ worth.
Didn’t Elon Musk spend $45 billion on Twitter after promising to end world hunger if someone gave him a plan to do so? I think that would be a few years’ worth of ending global hunger if the estimate of $8-10 billion per year is even remotely still accurate.
There is more than enough money, food, and shelter in the world. But the rich are using the money they got by exploiting people to buy media companies, yachts, islands, and space rockets.
The problem with ending world hunger is, food abundance allows for more people. If you want to end world hunger, you need to start with healthcare and contraceptives and education, which is more expensive and less “flashy” than just saying “I bought a lifetime supply of rice for poor people in X area”.
The problem with ending world hunger is, food abundance allows for more people.
That is a garbage take… as is all right-wing “overpopulation” bullshittery.
It’s not, there is some nuance here.
The right-wing take is that we should use this potential crisis to lockdown borders, deny aid to others, and have it as an excuse why you don’t have to do anything to fight climate change, becuase people in (pick whatever the current scary country is) are breeding out of control, and coming here and ruining things for us.
The left wing take is to promote healthcare, education, and contraceptive use, while providing aid, making those benefits available to everyone, and empowering yourself and others to act.
The facts about population dynamics is not a right or left wing thing. What you think is the solution to the situation is.
It’s not, there is some nuance here.
Not really. The problem is fundamentally not one of population, but one of consumption. Specifically, the consumption of a small minority of rich people and the capitalist mode of production that keeps them rich. There may be no such thing as “overpopulation,” but there is most definitely such a thing as overconsumption.
The last time I checked, it would take the resources of four earths if everyone on the planet consumed resources at the rate the average USian does, and keep in mind that this metric - average US consumption - is heavily skewed by the batshit insane consumption of the priveleged classes in the US.
Ah yes, the US is the reason why other countries can’t grow enough food.
Yes there is nuance here. It’s idiotic to think that the interaction between population density, climate change, agricultural technology, supply line disruptions, international relationships and literally everything else, impacting the ability to provide food in a specific location on the planet is a black and white issue.
Shit, I should of realized it was you. The naive dogshit logic should have tipped me off.
Based take. I love how this comic depicts problems and privilege and you put it really well. I’m sick of people tearing down Richard.
Careful, thinking like that will get you branded as a communist! /S
We need to make things more equitable for people.
Instead we are left with this:
Richard is LinkedIn in a nutshell
I hate to be that guy, but the title is “on a plate” but it actually says “on plate” in the word bubble. I can’t unsee it.
