For the last couple weeks there have been protests in France that keep ramping up in intensity. There are multiple reasons for them, with it starting with living costs and school conditions, but like all such events in the last decade or two, the anti-immigration narrative and agenda is now being pushed. What I find interesting with the arguments is that problems are pushed onto the immigrants as the cause, without recognising that the system itself is broken. Even when there are close to zero immigrants such as in Japan, there are still economic problems. And they are a socially advanced culture and economy.
The global economy is a dumpster fire.
But because the vast majority of people have almost zero idea about how it functions, all they can do is blame what they see around them, even if it is not the cause at all. For example, the trope of "immigrants are taking our jobs" is not true in the slightest. Yes, they might be filling a position, but they are actually being taken advantage of, because they are getting paid less than who was there before, which is the reason they were given the job. The corporation always looking to maximise profits will find the cheapest labour to do so and nowadays, that is robots and automation, which is taking far more jobs than any migrant group.
And of course, this increases pressure all round and impacts all the social services also, since essentially there is less money to spend on things like public schools. Because those same corporations that are reducing costs and to maximise profits, are not paying their taxes locally. And with less people in the workplaces and them earning less relatively to the growth of the economy (profits), it is a double hit for public finances. Yes, governments are filled with mismanagement and resource waste, but now they are doing it with even less resources, meaning the bits that do work, fail also.
It doesn't matter which way you look at it, or what large-scale problem you consider, the root cause of it all is an unsustainable economic system. For instance, the environmental challenges we have created with pollution pouring into the world, is caused by economic incentives to maximise profit no matter the cost, which means increase consumption and produce as cheaply as possible.
Look at whatever social issue your country faces and you will find that they too are attached to a monetary profit model. Even the governments are tied to the model, where they have shifted their accounting from improving human factors, to improving monetary factors. This shift means that money comes before people, which is the same thing that corporations do, because they are driven to maximise shareholder wealth. And if they do not maximise it, they will fail as a company and shareholders will invest elsewhere.
It is a monetary trap.
Make more money, or die.
But the thing is, it is an unsustainable system, because you can't infinitely make more when the resources to do so are limited. Yes, we can play around with money supplies to hide the problem a bit longer with inflation. And yes, we can create products that don't use a lot of resources like digital services and sell them at a high price, but ultimately - it is unsustainable.
It is unsustainable because regardless of the abundance we have of money in the world, resources are limited. But, there are some fundamental needs that can only be satisfied with real-world resources, like the need for food, water, shelter. I can send you a digital banana, beer and a picture of a house to support you after a tornado took your home, but you will still be hungry, thirsty and in the elements.
The problem is that business doesn't care about people or what happens to them when they don't have work, or if they can't pay their bills, or if they are hungry, thirsty or homeless. Business only cares about whether they can increase profit margins. And in order to do this, they find as many ways as possible to ensure they are able to reduce their costs, no matter what it costs people, or the country.
For instance, let's say a global corporation replaces an employee in France with automation. They were paying them 50K euros a year, and they in turn were paying 20K euros in tax. Now that same person is unemployed and is taking 20K a year in social service money, plus the network of people required to manage it. So a 20K input has swung 40K in the other direction, because now other taxpayers have to cover the new social assistance recipient. That same person will have to change their buying habits, paying less tax again. Not only that, the individual now on social services, has had a reduction in their quality of life and experience.
But the company saved 50K to spread to shareholders, who likely don't even live in the country.
As said, the global economy is a mess, even though it has made some people extremely wealthy. It is a mess because resources can be extracted from a country in the form of money, with very little being put back into that local economy to replace the drain. The current globalised economy is a massive came that is designed to take as much as possible, while giving as little back as possible. We aren't winning as a human species, but if we count the entities of corporations as a species, it is doing very well. And remember, those entities don't die like humans, and never have to pay an inheritance tax - Instead, they are sheltered and offered increasing tax incentives to hire people, *That they are not going to hire because they don't need people anymore.
To start to fix France's issues, everyone should pull their heads out of their agendas and instead focus on fixing the economy. Fixing the economy doesn't mean making more corporate money or reducing costs at the expense of wellbeing. It means, taxing the global corporations fully and locally. The EU should in my opinion, immediately pass a law that says a company has to pay their full tax in the country where they earned that money, before it can move anywhere else. What you will find, is that the majority of the companies that are extracting the most, are US companies, so it isn't going to go down well with the US government.
Fuck them!
If they don't like it, too bad. And if the US government increases tariffs as a response, good. Tariffs aren't paid by the company selling, but by the consumer, which pushes the price up in the US. But, without the hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into the US from Europe through the global corporations not paying their tax, the US can't afford to pay the tariffs, either as business or consumer. Letting the tax income leave Europe is subsidising the US business model. The EU should stop that shit.
Might it end in war?
Maybe. But at the rate we are going, we are going to end in wars anyway, because that is what happens when resources are consolidated into the hands of a few people. It is inevitable. However, if we change the economic systems to focus on providing income, services and purpose for people, that inevitability goes away and we might just be able to live a life together, in relative peace and with enough to get by so we needn't blame each other and get angry at each other, because we aren't to blame. The system has been. The current governments (current or the oppositions) have no appetite to change the systems to support the people, which means that the protests and violence will continue, spread and we will all end up in war, international and civil.
All so shareholders can add some more numbers to their accounts.
Taraz
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