I have a meeting this morning in the city and sitting in an almost empty café in a shopping centre, waiting. While I have been here, there have been several app delivery people come and go, picking up coffees to take to clients. I am old-fashioned and judgmental, but I find the majority of the app delivery mentality to be pretty terrible. The workers are underpaid and in Finland are pretty much all visibly immigrants, who are unable to get work in any other area - even when they are educated and have experience. As I see it, it is a type of economic slavery that preys on their lack of opportunity. None of them do it because they enjoy it.
Consider that for a moment.
Many people would choose not to work if they could, but most people in Finland get some personal value from the work they do, beyond the salary and will even negotiate better conditions that meet their personal desires for work-life balance and reward. Yet, the same people will knowingly and willingly subject others to work the 12-hour days at a menial job for terrible pay, just to make ends meet. And then say, at least they have a job. And then make sure they don't have to actually talk or thank the person bringing the delivery, by having it left at the door.
It is pretty disgusting.
But I believe it fits into the model of the day, where selfishness and personal wants take precedence over a healthy society full of opportunity. Opportunity is only for those who can afford it and the system is designed to keep the majority from ever being able to afford it, by reducing their opportunity. By limiting opportunity, it forces people into situations that make it increasingly difficult to get out of. Yes, some do get out by a mix of work and luck, but most do not. And as it goes for immigrants, because they are put into a situation where they are not treated as part of the community or afforded the same opportunities, integration is even more challenging and unlikely. And then they get blamed for "not integrating" into society.
Can you blame them?
For an experiment on discrimination and taking away opportunity, it might be worth having a read of an overview of the Blue Eye/Brown Eye experiment by Jane Elliot, which segregated children based on the colour of their eyes, where the blue-eyed children were treated as inferior and the brown and green eyed as superior. Very, very quickly the children transformed. The brown-eyed were empowered, the blue-eyed become silent - and angry. While racism and discrimination was the point, what I think it highlights clearly is how quickly can be elevated or diminished by the way we are treated, and how rapidly entitlement or disenfranchisement can become the norm.
Most of us like to believe we have certain moral foundations that we adhere to, often portraying ourselves in a flattering light, but our actions rarely fully align. And then when it is convenient, we will forego our beliefs altogether as we use systems, products and social habits that support the very things we say we stand against. The economy is broken, but what spending habits highlight is what we actually believe. We are against child labour, while fast fashion sales boom.
I heard once from a person here on this platform a long time ago, that he sees prostitution as a form of charity, including underage children, because it might be the only way the family can get income. That is not charity. Charity would be giving the money to the girl or family without getting anything in return except for perhaps a charitable feeling. It is disgusting. Yet, it is an extreme that highlights the type of entitlement that those with, have over those without. People like Epstein are even more extreme in this kind of this behaviour. But a killer is a killer, whether they kill one, or one thousand.
We like to fall back on a position that in order to be successful, people need to overcome adversity, but rarely take into consideration the types and levels of adversities amongst people. And then we will cite those who have overcome adversity as proof, without recognising the millions of people in the same situation, that couldn't overcome the challenges. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail, can come down to dumb luck.
Ultimately, I think that if a country such as Finland wants to improve its overall success, it has to improve opportunity across the board and create a culture of development, not entitlement. Companies shouldn't be rewarded for paying their labour the least possible and if a business model can't sustain itself and pay a fair wage, it isn't sustainable. This is why tipping culture is so insidious, as it allows for a business model to essentially double-dip into customer pockets to stay in business and push the risk to the workers, and the guilt on the customers.
But it isn't just about work opportunity that creates the inequality, it is all areas of the culture that would need to improve. What has been lost is the sense of community and the "all in this mess together" mentality that helps people not only improve their own situations, but help to improve the situations of others, and therefore the community as a whole. The "only in it for me" mindset is what takes the cheapest product wirthout considering the supply chain slavery involved. The one that says "at least they have a job" when supporting business models that take unfair and coercive advantage of their workforce. We could do better, couldn't we?
But many feel entitled enough, not to have to.
Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]
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