We too often look to government to enact worker and environmental protections against greedy corporations. Those same corporations and their majority owners are the ones who buy politicians, shape laws, and of course they do so in ways that give advantage to themselves.
However there is another way that we can go about ensuring that we all have the opportunity for a good life, that the natural resources of this world will not be squandered; voting with our wallets and our time. We can organize into co-ops that produce valuable goods and services, and in so doing direct the nature of those industries. We can choose as consumers who to support and who not to.
Obviously the choices are limited currently. A handful of giant corporations own almost everything, they control production and employment. Most workers and consumers are barely making ends meet. We have to act in whatever little ways we can to increase the choices available to ourselves and others, so as to increase our ability to choose to pay more for better quality, better worker treatment, and less environmental harm. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Even changing what you eat, and where you got the food, for one meal can make a difference.
There are sacrifices we must make to escape the traps that the greedy have set for us. Minimize consumption so we can afford to invest in better options. Targeted boycotts to show we do not voluntarily consent. In these ways we can create an economic environment where corporations have to do better or lose to their competitors.
Most of all we need to be united. The working class produces all necessary value. It is only by dividing us that the capitalist and political classes can devalue our contributions. United we hold all the cards. They cannot feed themselves. They cannot build their own homes. They cannot build or maintain the infrastructure. They need us. They would die without us pampering, feeding, and protecting them.
We must organize so that we don’t rely on their capital. Then we can be free.
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