Thread by @dashranyohan

What is politics?

First, you have to ask yourself, what is a government?

There are two classes in society: The ultra-wealthy (factory owners, property developers, owners of chains of private hospitals, etc) & working class.

These classes have conflicting interests.

A *simplified, basic* example:

A factory owner's ideal situation is for laborers to work the longest possible hours for the lowest possible salary.
A worker's ideal situation is to work the shortest possible hours for the highest possible salary.

This is why whenever there are calls to increase minimum wage, fresh grad salary, you will have orgs such as MEF resisting.

This is why when there are calls to make more affordable housing, property developers will resist/come up with excuses, etc.

A government is the mediator between these two opposing forces.

THIS is politics.

Many believe that governments around the world work for their people, period. Hence we vote for them.
Reality is much different. Governments work for whoever funds their political parties.

It is absolutely essential that we understand this.

Why?

Let's look at day-to-day conversations.
You (or your friend) say something like "Urgh! Politics suck. Doesn't improve my life at all." But on that same vein, you/your friend say "my idol is Jeff Bezos."

Or whenever there are billionaire tax evasion news, you get people saying "so smart! These guys know how to screw over the bastard politicians."

What you're saying here is you hate the "mediator" who craft oppressive laws (makes sense) but love the very people who are paying the "mediator" to craft the oppressive laws in the first place (does not make sense).

My friend, ultra-wealthy pay super low taxes and evade taxes easily cause the "mediators" (politicians lah) are funded by them. Laws and loopholes in laws are there for their benefit.

With that in mind, political apathy is understandable but not the solution.

The ultra-wealthy do not want you engaged in politics. Cause if you're not engaged, then they can get their politician friends to come up with oppressive laws in a much more efficient manner.

In fact, they are more than happy to watch us yell and scream about Timah whiskey, for example.
Because that way, we're not yelling about wages, taxation, affordable housing, public transportation.

While we're distracted with political theatre, a bunch of important things happen on auto-pilot: Deforestation, useless mega-projects, lower tax rates on the rich, pointless luxury property developments, etc.

The solution to this is solidarity among the working class. In 2022, this also includes *small* business owners. Grassroots movements, political parties funded by working-class grassroots and only working-class grassroots is absolutely essential.

Only a political party by the people, funded by the people will have the balls to come up with policies that serve the people, simply because there would be no conflict of interest.