Guess what!
There’s a whole generation of old men about to pass away, most of them tradesmen. And in my experience, crotchety and unwilling to teach.Because this generation generally has less interest in trades, likely from being viewed down upon (see above), there is going to be a severe shortage of people working in the trades.
This will possibly mean two things:
Companies are going to scramble desperately to get new apprentices, so -good news- more jobs. But, expect a startling lack of quality in the years to come.There’s a startling lack of quality a lot of the time now, it’s gonna get hella bad when the trades-boomers go.
True enough. I can only hear “NoBoDy WaNtS tO WoRk AnYmOrE” so many times before i figure who’s to blame for that
Exactly. Nobody wants to work for unliveable wages. It’s a wage shortage, not a labour shortage.
Or, after being tired of being lowballed for work and offers to be paid in exposure, “fuck you, pay me.”
A local (and very well off) welding company wanted me to pay for my own courses and equipment when I applied. It would have been hundreds of dollars out of my pocket, for MAYBE a chance to be taken on as an apprentice, if I withstand being the shop bítch for long enough.
PART TIME.yea,
FUCK OFF
Those “small business” owners:
“Buying my third luxury car is so expensive, why are prices going up? Must be the government”
Unreal. What do they expect you to live off?
This is so crazy to me. I got into a low voltage trade and everything was paid for. I brought minor hand tools, but everything over 100$ was provided. And that is like standard around me (for new guys). Also amazing wages once you’re a well experienced worker. (Talking 5 years or so).
Maybe not welding, or electrician, but pipefitters, plumberd, fire guys, all great trades.
What kind of work is that if I were to go looking? I really enjoyed control wiring for HVAC systems, didn’t enjoy lugging boilers up flights of stairs or brazing compressors in place in Manhattan with 1/2sqft of space to work in…
My work specifically i very company dependant, but data wire, access control, fire, cameras, all the fun “low voltage” stuff. Normally you’ll find Access, Security, and Cameras bundled. Sometimes with Fire, sometimes Data. All depends on who ya look for!
The school I went to, you were basically sold to the employer LOL. They paid for your school when they hired you. You just had to agree to work there for a couple of years.
What trade? I’ve heard of that happening to auto techs
That’s the one
lost Italian?
uh
Sorry, it’s just that in Italy it’s the exact, same thing
Most trade jobs don’t pay enough. As an auto tech The offerings are not good, because most dealers keep most of the profits. Nurses are getting screwed left and right too. I tried switching over to being a truck driver and they actually pay less now than they used to, this is after the supposed shortage and I was out 14hrs a day.
??? How can they have a shortage of workers, but try to justify paying people less???
I swear to fucking god, the mental gymnastics these fuckers do is phenomenal
I’m a former auto tech who got into sales, after seeing my complete moron coworkers who knew nothing about their jobs and wrote bad checks that I was supposed to cash, making twice as much money as me.
Or in my case: “cool no one wants to pay me, I guess I’m taking the $1000 out of savings and starting my own businesses.” It’s way more stress, but I’m making enough money that I can think about buying a house and retiring before I die.
Waiting for Lemmy anti-capitalists in 3… 2…
He started a business with a grand and got lucky. How many people wouldn’t be successful with that grand? How many people don’t even have that money to spare?
Skill shortage probably comes the same way as bankruptcy: gradually, then suddenly. We are probably in the slowly running out of tradesmen phase of the craftocalypse.
Lemme explain why that is: When I got into construction, a construction company was an owner/salesman and four guys who did everything from digging the foundation to putting in the last cabinet screw. When the housing boom happened, everyone learned only one part of the process and none of the rest. Capitalism stepped in and said “we need to sell products with the least amount of skill to install them!” and we got shit like wire closet shelving with sheetrock anchors instead of installers who know what a stud is and how to find one. I have to do every trade now, and I also have to deal with guys who needed a job so they ran to Home Depot and bought some tools and are calling themselves handymen without any experience and they’re fucking up everything right and left because they don’t know even the most basic physics concepts. One of them grew and sold weed all his life and now he’s out of business because of legalization. He has no other option but to be a laborer and he’s not smart enough to understand the job he’s doing. Another was a pro water sports guy and he is actually destroying the things he is hired to work on and I am having to redo all of it. He ran plumbing in a house with no P-traps and stunk the house up with sewer gas ffs.
One of them grew and sold weed all his life and now he’s out of business because of legalization.
DEY TERK ER JERBS!
Things are built to spec. Everybody wants that 4500sf house but most people don’t know what quality looks like. When I was house shopping, the new construction homes homes already made me very disappointed and leary. I eventually bought an older home with a Stablok panel and felt better about that. 😂 Swapped the panel out after close, I’m not nuts.
I eventually bought an older home with a Stablok panel and felt better about that.
My house had a Bulldog panel with the original 1960s inspection sticker still attached to it. Swapped it for a modern 200 amp panel when I had my solar panels installed.
It’s hard to buy a new house in my area… They’re so expensive, and the quality just isn’t there.
Leery is a synonym of wary. Leary is an angry man named Dennis that we thought was funny for a year or two.
Also a tenured Harvard psychologist turned spiritual guru through drug experimentation.
RIP Timothy Leary.
And apart from that, he’ll be so kind, and consenting to blow your mind
I doubled up on homes too. \o/
I’m 42 now and I left the trades a year ago after getting the life beat out of me for most of my life. It’s not that no one wants to do the work, it’s that no one wants to pay for a good tradesperson. When I left my last job they were only hiring techs for $16-$20 and hour. That was with HVAC certification. It’s laughable.
Matter of fact, the company I worked for withheld raises from one of their teams for 3 years and they pikachu faced when they all left. Literally the best tech team in the company too. (This team had over 100 years of total experience in the trades. Plumbing, electrical, you name it. They’ve done it.)
Not to mention like 99% of the companies require you to own your own tools and will not replace/repair anything that breaks while working for their company. Got a nice new impact and it broke doing a job? That $200 is coming out of your pocket. Always.
Fucking, also, all the jobs that require being on call. Got a family? Fuck you, go fix shit at 2am and then make sure you show up to work on time at 6am with no sleep. Work 10-12 hours, go home, get called the next night too.
A-fucking-men… That’s why I backed out too. Nothing worse than the 2am call, or JUST pulling into your driveway just to get a call and have to go back out for god knows how long.
Yes yes “money.” A little bit sure, but not enough to be ok with a company literally owning all of my potential time.
I thought most tradesmen were independent contractors. Doesn’t that mean that you don’t have to put up with shit like that? That’s what it means in IT…
Nah, you can work for companies and be a W2 employee. There’s a lot of both. I’d say a majority of the ones I’ve met work for a company so insurance is easier. They don’t have to be bonded and insured on their dime because the company does all that.
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Whew, my poor cousin worked for CN Rail a while ago. Absolute worst, most inconvenient on-call hours you could imagine.
On-call jobs can go to hell.
The US has a perplexing set of labour laws, and I understand it varies wildly by state but damn, how is it not a federal standard that if you’re an employee, the employer is required to provide you with all tools to perform your work?
It’s a lot less a law thing as it is a work culture thing. Some jobs provide stuff, but you’re required to have the basics. Some provide everything. It all really depends, but it’s prevalent for companies to expect you to have everything but the big stuff. (Which I mean, even then, some still require you to have your own storage solutions like in the case of mechanics.)
As someone who spent the last 5 years in trades, and is now going to retraining: nobody is willing to pay enough for you to destroy your body by the time you’re 50.
Tried getting into tiling/flooring, could feel it absolutely destroying my knees. Got out of that pretty quick. Totally not worth it.
AND, another instance of my hoping to be taken on as an Apprentice, only for the guy to be a complete prick and take me for a ride. What a waste of my time and energy and physical well being
Yeah apprenticing sucks. All the old guys seem to think apprentices are just floor sweepers and aren’t there to learn. And they all like to brag about what slow learners they are. “It took me twenty years to learn this!” So they refuse to teach you because when you learn faster than them it makes them feel stupid.
So glad I don’t work with anyone like that anymore.
“It took me twenty years to learn this!”
Shuuuuut the fuck up old man, you grew up in an era where the government was practically THROWING homes, cars, jobs and land at you. Now you’re pissy that a younger generation is just wanting to be treated fairly in a world that’s become increasingly hostile and greedy. Get your head out of your geriatric ass.
“Apprenticing” is shit. Work with a crew starting out, but also spend time with trade magazines, browsing supply stores, make friends with supply personnel. Learn the trade without relying on experience to do it.
Practical experience go a long way though, there’s some things you just don’t learn unless you’re exposed to it.
That being said, the fact that the people who are seemingly obligated to teach these kinds of things don’t want to bother with thatI LOVE teaching it, but sometimes it’s hard to teach. There is a certain amount of basic physics that a person needs to be able to grasp, and some just do NOT get it. It’s also hard to know every situation that you might encounter…I am in an area that only adopted the international building code in 2012 and the situations I encounter here are just wack. (which of course ehould not be an issue in other more civilized areas)
Countries ought to vary your retirement age based on the work you do. It’s absolutely wild that I will retire at 67 (heck you Australia for raising it) after working mostly in an office, but a tradie also only qualifies for the pension at the same age, despite doing back breaking labour their whole life.
Germans have a word for it. Fachkräftemangel
I am seeing 3 words there Fach Kraft Mangel… Germans disapprove of Kraft making manual laundry wringing mechanisms?
I only know what a mangel is called because of a Steven King short story
I didn’t know that meaning of Mangel. In this case it’s just shortage and Fachkraft would be translated to professional.
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No one looks down upon them. They’re just crappy jobs that take a toll on your body and health over time.
- A former tradesman
They try to make it so appealing though, “Oh if you get your Red Seal, you can work anywhere I Canada.”
Great, I can be underpaid in ANY province I want.
Southpark’s latest special covers this.
Nobody knows how to do shit anymore!
I don’t understand why people pick on tradesman as if they’re somehow lesser than them.
There’s lots of skill and knowledge that goes along with doing any trade.
Also, while it’s back breaking work, and you often work overtime, construction workers make bank.
This is an aged and outdated take that devalues the contributions of a very important job.
All jobs are skilled labor.
Everyone shits on blue collar workers until their furnace stops working, their pipes leak, their car breaks, their roof leaks, their foundation cracks, the wiring in their house gives out… Shit, it’s almost like their work is integral to their jaded-ass day to day lives
I don’t. I talk them up to my kids who are under 5 and considering both blue collar and science/academic jobs. I don’t really care what they do anyway, as long as they’re happy and making the world a better place. Manual labor helps me clear my head a lot.
Entitlement seems to be a fundamemtal human condition. Look at how much traditional women’s work is looked down upon. Society is simply not possible without child rearing, yet it is seen as incomparable to wage-generating work.
The fact that universal child care isnt available for parents is another disgusting insight into what the governments priorities are. Generations of people told that the true sign of success is to go to school, buy a home, have a wife and 2 kids… Then when they’re grown up, the game has changed completely.
Also, while it’s back breaking work
This is why. It’s not so much “these people are dumb” as it is “you don’t want to have to do backbreaking labor the rest of your life”.
I completely agree with you, but when I hear my neighbor peel out to go to work at 2AM, I’m so happy to be in I.T.
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They get to create useful things unlike a lot of white collar jobs
That’s not fair. Do you have any idea how hard I work to put adverts into your products without making them crash? God, think next time!
Hey, c’mon those programmers making minecraft mods during their work hours are contributing to society
Maybe some people decided to play Gregtech and got inspired to get a chemistry degree, who knows
The irony is now that the situation is totally inverted.
My STEM degree has got me making a barely livable wage while the GEDs who went straight into a trade are making twice what I make.
And the cruel reality is there is not a good way to determine which way this market will go unless you’re one of the 0.01%. And if you were it would make this a mute point.
The meme should go “he’s probably in a union and has job security, health serurity and a living wage”. Fuck that guy. That’s what he gets for being an honest taxpayer.
What STEM path is barely getting by? Programmers and engineers are highly sought after employees rn.
I’m a Medical Laboratory Scientist (bachelor’s degree, nationally certified, and current on my certificate maintenance continuing education requirements) and it has taken 16 years for me to crack 100k/year. I started at 38k. There are not enough MLS out there to staff all the labs in the US. Labs are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing patient care in the face of crippling staffing shortages and yet pay is still shit.
That’s insane. They charge a fucking fortune for lab tests. Who is keeping all the money?
I think we can all guess
Who is keeping all the money?
Can’t be 100% sure so just to be safe let’s beat the entire insurance industry and see what comes out of their pockets.
The mice!!!
Haha!
Absolutely insane. I’ve been workingfor my current company doing customer service for just over 5 years and I am making just shy of $50k/year. 16 years to claw your way to 100k after all the school you surely went through… Boggles my fucking mind. We all deserve better but this is just wrong.
Well I my skill set is in programming, however to date since my graduation, I’ve only managed to get into an adjacent job which was IT.
I’m gonna try and bring my skillset up ther by focusing on network administration, since for me it would appear that my programming skill isn’t really worth that much.
IMO the hard truth is that the niche skills sell, not degrees.
I would not say “right now”. This is the worst that the industry has ever been since maybe the dot com bubble.
There are lay offs everyday, and wages are being openly suppressed. Someone with x yoe should expect 10% lower than 2 years ago.
Was told this nonstop through college, took me a year to find a job paying me way less than most people’s engineering starting wage
Are you in a city with limited STEM opportunities? That has a lot to do with it. I was having an impossible time getting a programming job in my hometown, because they are a behind the times, po-dunk city. I had to move across the country to an area with a thriving tech industry to finally get my career going. It’s unfortunate, but where you live heavily impacts the job opportunities.
Nah I’m literally in Denver lmao, things are looking better now but every single entry level position must be flooded with applicants or something. So much ghosting
Nah I’m literally in Denver lmao, things are looking better now but every single entry level position must be flooded with applicants or something. So much ghosting
I think you mean a moo point
A μ point.
🐄🐮
Construction workers can make bank, mom!
Just have to wreck your back by the age of 35.
Not with strong worker safety laws you don’t
Former safety manager here. Workers are dumb with their toxic masculinity, and safety isn’t baked into the standard of work. Literally, it’s not part of the engineered labor standard.
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Because you’re the minority. I teach these young men that their body is their most important tool and yet they take shortcuts or say, “PPE is for pussies.”
Well you just proved my point then. If these “guys” you’re talking about didn’t take shortcuts with their health and actually wore PPE etc they would be in great shape. It’s not the job it’s them.
I have a near zero probability of getting a hernia or falling from a lethal height. Plus, I have several family members who were tradesmen with destroyed backs and addicted to pain killers by their 40s. One uncle that was in a coma for 9 months from falling from a ladder and another on disability from wear and tare being a roofer.
working out regularly, eating well, and sleeping well. That’s what keep you fit and in shape. That’s it. working a manual labor job gets you the excersize part, you gotta do it properly but that task is fullfilled by having a manual labor job. You still need to eat and sleep well and not get addicted to painkillers (that can happen to anyone). An office job fulfills non of the tasks required to be fit. Sure less chance of injury since you’re in an temp controlled cubicle. Much higher chance of being unfit though.
Figuratively and literally!
Yeah mom. Wtf you on. Also…what YOU doin with your college degree mom?
That construction worker has made more money at his entry level job than you have in the last twenty years mom!
~$24/hr x 2080 = $49,920 x 20 = $998,400. + 36/hr x 520 OT = 18,720 x 20 = 374,400. = $1,372,800 + benefits in 20 years.
Mom = -$200,000 first 4 years in reality -300,000 with interest for college. $9/hr full time job for 2 years outside of your industry. $17/hr first 3 years in your industry. $20/hr next 5 years. $25/hr next 5 years. $23/hr due to salary cuts last 1 year.
-300,000 + 37,440 + 106,080 + 208,000 + 260,000 + 47,840 = $359,360 for mom in 20 years with the good benefits only coming after she gets salaried.
Congrats, this is what the gender pay gap has been about since it was created. Men destroy themselves and off themselves in droves for it.
I mean… At least as a construction worker my retirement plan is three-fold. The trick is to survive long enough and well enough to enjoy retirement.
The three are 401k, annuity, and the unheard of pension.
Granted, I’m also on my fourth pulled back muscle for the year. I really need to stretch more.
Don’t let your job be your only workout. Stretch daily, and then do low weight/high rep strength training in the gym a few times a week, to be stronger than you need to be for your job. You’ll stop pulling muscles so easily. I’m 43 and I don’t have even half the pain that most of the 30 year olds around here complain about.
That’s the thought that crossed my mind. As far as pay, it is being a good stable career option - the very physical trades tend to encounter a lot more injuries and physical consequences. I respect the heck out of the trades and I work with a lot of them on different things for work - but if you look at some of the older/close to retirement folks - physical ailments and shorter life expectancy is a real concern.
Think of the “silent generation” and “baby boomers” you know that are getting up there in years. Everyone I have known that reached their 90s had fairly “cushy” desk jobs. The ones I knew who did skilled labor and trades work lived to their late 70s/early 80s.
I think, at least in the US, that we are going to REALLY feel the decrease in trades like plumbers, electricians, etc. You can teach some trades much quicker when there is a need - but with licensing and such - its going to take time to turn that ship back on course.
The construction dude who dropped out of high-school at 16, never went to college, and makes $90,000 a year at age 25 is doing just fine lol
Until he becomes the construction dude who falls apart like lego every morning at the age of 45
🎼Everything is–hrk!!–awesome…🎵
The sad thing is these jobs do pay so well but are so gruelling that naturally a person wants greater relief from said job…so they spend their lofty earnings like a pirate who just got their share from a merchant vessel raid.
New shiny trucks. Big house. Pricey furniture…
Then the toll catches up when they can’t pull tons of overtime anymore, and all that “wealth” was in depreciating assets when the kids would’ve been better off spending more quality time with construction dad anyway.
Like the guy with steady pay, job security, benefits, and a strong union?
Shit I better stop studying
Are people actually still talking trash about tradesmen? Come on, what year is it supposed to be?
Year is irrelevant, as long as class exists (working, owning, and
middledeluded worker, aka “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”), so will classism.Yea well… Tell that to the Indians. Tradesmen are looked down upon quite a lot here (cuz they also tend to be poor and of the lower castes).
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I didn’t know people were talking trash about them. When I was a kid my parents warned me to do skooll gud so that I could get a cushy office job instead of a low paying back breaking job, not that those professions are shameful or anything like that.
But I think there’s still that implication that those jobs are for less intelligent people and that they’re less desirable.
my parents used that one: “do you want to dig ditches when you get older ?” it took a lot of work for me to lose that attitude towards manual and mechanized labor.
Me: Yes, excavators are fun. (Note: I am not in construction though.)
Those graves aren’t digging by themselves.
Labour adheres to supply/demand. Now that boomers are retiring who primarily made up most of the blue-collar workers, there’s a derth of them and its only going to get worse.
So homeboy with the hardhat is gonna be making 6 figures easily out of 2 year apprenticeship while your fancy university degrees will be competing with all the other Asian students raised with this mentality.
We were all under the assumption automation was going to replace manual labour first, turns out its actually the code monkeys and adminstrators who are biting the bullet.
A 2-year paid apprenticeship no less.
As an ex-programmer that is now in the trades I can say my mental health is way better and my back hurts less these days since I’m not sitting in an expensive “ergonomic” chair all day. There are a lot of high paying trades that are far from back breaking work. Personally I got in to finish carpentry building science labs specifically.
There’s also the added benefit that I like playing with computers again, when it was my day job I wanted nothing to do with them after work.
Finish carpentry building science labs…as an architect who has recently taken an interest in building science, that sounds interesting. The jump from programmer is interesting, too. Like, did you have prior experience in carpentry, or did you go in blind?
I grew up with my dad always doing work in and around the house himself and now as an adult doing the same with my house, so I wasn’t completely going in blind. My last programming job was in the office furniture industry and that gave me a leg up having knowledge about casework, tabletops, etc. My brother in law was also a finish carpenter (now a job superintendent, but we work in fairly different areas/companies) and I had helped him with side work over the years.
As an ex-programmer that is now in the trades
It’s very possible that movie had an influence on my career decisions lol
I’m trying make the opposite switch haha
Godspeed
phone marketing would be more apt job to scare kids with. It brings nothing of value to society and its awful for the worker and those being bothered. Or just skip pointing fingers at any job and just tell the kid they will end up being exploited if they are left with no options.
The union employee who probably makes more than you and dad combined? Sure, I don’t want to end up like him or the garbage man that I know for a fact makes more than both of you combined. Great job employment shaming mom.
While construction workers should absolutely be respected, you definitely don’t want to end up as a construction worker in India. Construction workers earn like 300-400 rupees (3.61 - 4.81 USD) per day of work in the part of India that I live in (which is a very industrious part btw). These people overwhelmingly belong to the lower castes. They don’t have their own home, and live on site in temporarily constructed structures made from metal panels.
These people suffered the most when the COVID lockdowns happened. Their places of employment fired them. They thus lost their temporary home. These people, along with their kids tried to move back to the villages that they migrated to the cities from. However, for quite some time, they weren’t allowed to return back. Thus, thousands of people were immediately made homeless, having to sleep on the streets. Of course, they were harassed by the police a lot. Finally, when special trains were organized for them, there were instances where the police sprayed water into these trains on these people “to clean them”. Watch this documentary by Vice news if you want to learn more about them.
I swear there are so many systems that should have never existed let alone be perpetuated into the current era…
“It’s ok to hate that person, they’re ARBITRARY CLASS NAME.” …ughh
Yeah it’s the same as todays socio-economic classes. Poverty is a viscous cycle and our society makes it impossible to escape. But it’s wrong. The above poster lost some credibility with me for using that language. Their point is still valid but calling out the caste really did not add anything.
There are many methods that the upper socio economic classes used to suppress the lower classes. Casteism in India was one of the most successful methods that suppressed generations of these classes for over a thousand years. Casteism led to further disparity in the socio economic classes. When such is the case, why does mentioning it make me lose my credibility?
Ok I’m not the most educated person on this subject, I know about the brahman and the untouchables at both extremes that’s about it. This is mostly my opinion, but I just can’t help but cringe when anyone uses caste to describe someone else’s status, as it perpetuates the validity of that system. I believe modern India has rejected this idea, even though it’s deeply baked into culture and I’m sure conservatives still believe in it today. You didn’t have to call out that these people are the lowest caste, couldn’t you have said they are the poorest or most disadvantaged group or some other adjective? It horrifies me how successful the caste system was at segregating groups of people and your usage of that language put you in that category of conservative people who believe in it. It was a subconscious thing for me that stood out in your comment, I guess you could say it triggered me a little.
Can’t help but cringe when anyone uses caste to describe someone else’s status, as it perpetuates the validity of that system
The caste that you’re born with decides your life quite a lot unfortunately. Due to historical wrongs done against individuals belonging to the “lower castes”, they are more likely to be born in poverty, thus making them more likely to have life that can be considered of “low quality”. Humans do not have 100% agency in their actions (no matter what stories of “self made” successful individuals would make you believe). Society and culture has a huge influence on the lives of people for the better or for worse. Historical and current wrongs done by the caste system against individuals belonging to the “lower caste” are clearly unjust. This is what I was intending to showcase.
I believe modern India has rejected this idea, even though it’s deeply baked into culture and I’m sure conservatives still believe in it today.
You are contradicting yourself when you say this. Isn’t today’s Indian culture “modern India”? Aren’t the “conservatives” (who have absolute majority in both houses of the Parliament) modern India? Or is your definition of “modern India” that of a utopian India? Cuz lemme tell you mate… India is far for utopian right now.
You didn’t have to call out that these people are the lowest caste, couldn’t you have said they are the poorest or most disadvantaged group or some other adjective?
I absolutely did have to call them “lower caste”. You’re right. The caste system makes 0 sense. It is a social construct. However, this doesn’t mean that its effects aren’t real. Caste affects, and has affected millions of innocent lives terribly for a thousand years. Using “another adjective” according to you, shifts the blame from the caste system onto something else. These aren’t just “poor people”. They’re a large chunk of India who’ve been treated like slaves since a long long time, and are being treated like that today as well, all because of the caste system. I thus have no interest in using euphemisms like “disadvantaged group” or something stupid like that.
It horrifies me how successful the caste system was at segregating groups of people and your usage of that language put you in that category of conservative people who believe in it.
So basically you’re telling me to pretend that the caste system doesn’t exist. “Brahmin? What is that? Never heard of it! Dalit? Never heard of that word!”. As I said before, while segregating people into castes is stupid (and evil), it doesn’t mean that the effects of this segregation don’t exist. Hence, when you have to point at these effects and explain their origin, you HAVE to invoke caste and all language associated with it. Let’s use your language for a second here. These “disadvantaged people” are disadvantaged because of the caste system. They are disadvantaged BECAUSE they belong to the “lower castes”. Why should I lie here?
I should just stop talking, I have a weak opinion on this, I’m not at all equipped to argue Indian politics and culture with you. I just have some close indian friends and what little I know about the caste system was from my asian studies classes in primary school. I live an ignorant easy american life. I was coming at it from the POV that the caste level is a synonym for socio-economic status, but I’m understanding from you that your caste level determines your socio-economic status. Its difficult for me to accept that your caste level is determined at birth, I would just call that the birth lottery. Its random. I just happened to be born into an ok middle class american family, but I could have been born into a shit hole north-korean one just the same. Does that mean I’m in a higher caste and just unaware? What comes first, the caste or the family you are born into? As you said, its a human social construct so maybe its a moot point. Also when I said modern India, I implied a more liberal awareness, while conservative means an old, outdated way of thinking, entrenched in tradition. idk what my point is anymore, sorry for my earlier comment about discrediting your point. I’ll go away now. Thanks for educating this ignoramus.
Hey, sorry for the late reply! No worries mate, even Indians don’t really understand the caste system. I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert in it either. To better explain how being of a 'lower caste" is different than simply being poor, here are some examples:
- You can be in a very good position financially but still face societal discrimination because of belonging to a “lower caste”.
- You can face problems getting places to rent or even getting employment because of your caste.
- Inter-caste marriage is received very poorly by relatives. In India, joint families are still a very real thing, where saying “fuck off” to your relatives isn’t always the best option that people have. In the relatively lawless North Indian States, honor killings for inter caste marriage and stuff like that is very common.
Here’s another way to think about it. Imagine if US civilization (post-genocide, not pre-genocide) was 1000 years old. In these 1000 years, black Americans were slaves in everything but name. Only in the last 100 years, did they lose their slave-ish status legally. However, they still face racism till this date. One very interesting difference between racism and casteism however is that racists can recognise their hated race by looking at the color of people’s skin, while casteists can recognize their hated caste by looking at people’s last names. In almost all cases (except people who have changed their last names), your last name determines your caste. So… yeah. Apply most of the stuff that you know about racism in the US to the caste system to understand the problems associated with it.
