Humanism Meetup

Democracy is not just showing up to vote every few years. Democracy is something we should practice everyday in all our relationships, discussing, consulting, compromising and trying to arrive at decisions that are both well informed and most people are happy with them. A genuine legitimate authority would only coerce you in exceptional circumstances if there was not time to try to persuade you or persuasion had failed. They would also only use coercion for doing things that are in the best interest of the group, rather than for their own personal gain. Democracy should be practiced in the workplace, in your local community, school, university, church or any organizations you are a part of.

Capitalist businesses are not democracies. The boss is not elected and not accountable. They can hire or fire you, but you cannot hire or fire them. The boss may choose to listen to the worker, but they also might not. Personally I have had very few employers who practiced social skills. They generally act like toddlers, petty, vengeful, uncompromising, hypocritical, lacking in empathy. They will order you to do things that are unhealthy, they will scapegoat you when things go wrong by concidence, they will treat you like you are disposable.

The difference between your true value and what the corporation pays you is the profit for the shareholders. They need you to undervalue yourself, otherwize there are no dividends. They will always treat you as though you are inadequate or inferior they shareholders want their dividends.

This is nonesense. What an absurd economic system.

At the Sydney Humanism Group we look at the great variety of alternatives to Capitalism that people have experimented with, their achievements and failures.

The elite's are perfectly happy for the workers to settle for defeat. It's not in the interest of the Capitalists to offer any constructive criticism or acknowledge any improvements to people's lives that can be acheived without Capitalism. These same elite's also have extensive control over the mediums through which information spreads throughout our society. If you haven't heard of many alternatives to Capitalism, it's because the Capitalists don't want you to hear about them.