I can see that happening. Thinking about Canada. The other day I calculated it would take 25 hours of work for the minimum wage worker to afford a weekend camping. And I think that's a pretty good indication we're pretty close collapse.
Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.
That’s actually a really interesting metric. Cost of living has really shot up in Canada while wages have stagnated. Everyone knows that housing has increased dramatically. This leads to less disposable income obviously. I’m 40 and grew up in Edmonton. Once or twice a year, as a kid and into my late 20s, my family and and/or I did a hotel type vacation in Banff or Jasper once a year, which seemed expensive at the time, and multiple times camping in the Rockies per year, which basically seemed free. My slightly more wealthy friends’ parents had a cabin and boat.
Now if I were to live in Edmonton again, I could probably still camp as if it were free but I appreciate your assessment that a minimum wage worked could not. Because I certainly could as a minimum wage worker back in the day. And I probably would never justify a domestic hotel type weekend or week long trip within Canada.
I'm in NZ, a few years ago a colleague and I would bitch to each other that we are in the top 10% of salary earners in the country, but we felt not that well off. We were worried about affording a house that wasn't a damp, drafty shit hole. But people in our position a generation or two ago were buying boats and beach houses.
I’ll take the devil’s position: Your are not owed by nature a footprint on the ground, or a weekend camping.
Manille (Manila? Capital of Philippines) has 43079 inhabitants per square kilometer (23sqm per person, including agriculture), China tries to do the same.
The key is nature doesn’t owe you democracy, and governments neither. We can store many people vertically if we remove their personality. What I mean is poverty doesn’t make the system itself collapse, it can actually survive pretty far, even thrive while everyone is expunged.
After all, USSR only collapsed in 1991, 69 years after Stalin took power, after killing probably 1/4 of its population in gulags.
I don't know why I'm replying to someone who thinks governments don't owe us democracy but people are allowed to complain when things get worse and I would prefer if previous policy didn't disallow increasing density in Canada. Incidentally I live in Tokyo now and it's now cheaper than Vancouver and the density (which is actually not as high as people think[1]) is a positive, not a negative.
[1] Just for fun, I checked densities. Tokyo 23 wards (the actual city of Tokyo): 14,500/km^2. Downtown Vancouver: 17,000/km^2. Downtown Edmonton: 5,000/km^2
> Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.
No its not actually. If anything the Soviet system collapsed because the elites didn't really like it that much. The elites had lost interest in preserving the system. Elites didn't like the party discipline.
There is a reason why Soviet collapsed and China didn't. Just having demonstrations and unhappy population does magically lead to successful overthrows of governments.
Workers going on a mass strike across the Easter Block countries in the "Solidarity" movement in the late 80s is how its generally viewed as being the beginning of the end of the soviet system.
The communist governments were put in a position where there were going to have to massacre their own people openly revolting in massive strikes.
I don't think Chinese government would survive another Tiananmen square incident.
Yes and as many historical topics, it a romantic tail that people like to tell rather then a great analysis of the truth.
> The communist governments were put in a position where there were going to have to massacre their own people openly revolting in massive strikes.
That's what many governments in history did. And that's exactly the point, the reason a state fails is when the elites have not enough reason to defend the current system. When they do, then the army shows up. And in Hungary in 1956 they were willing for example.
I like Francis Spufford's comment: Stalin was a gangster who thought he was a social scientist. Krushchev was a gangster who hoped he was a social scientist. Brezhnev and those who came after him were gangsters who only pretended to be social scientists.
We can add to that, after the failed hardliner coup, the country was run by gangsters who didn't even care to pretend they were anything else.
Based on what/ divided how?
Purchasing a tent, utensils, backpack etc ie starting from scratch, or assuming everything already paid for and just 'real costs' ie food, tent-place (ground rent?)?
Decathlon.fr or .co.uk prices can be pretty cheap, but I'm not sure where the costs start.
Based on Canadian Prices, a working guy would spend. And not even going very far from home.
Gas $100
Beer $50
Cigs $15
Ontario Park Campsite $59/night x 2 = $120
Firewood 2 x $15 = $30
Some basic sausages and food = $50
Total $375
Min Wage $15/hour. Hours of work = 25 hours
Actually it would take more than 25 hours, because most likely that person does not live with Grandma and has shelter / food expenses. So might need to save up for a month, if not months.
This has to be some kind of joke post. Or, you've never been camping. Or, more likely, you're just constructing scenarios to fit your perspective instead of being honest with yourself.
- Cigarettes and beer are a necessary part of camping?
- Not going far from home, but using ~23 liters of gas($50 @ 210/L) just to get there?
- Staying at the most expensive camp site(AA fee schedule) in Ontario?
- Paying for firewood instead of just collecting it?
I agree this is a troll, but I'd like to point out a few things:
> - Not going far from home, but using ~23 liters of gas($50 @ 210/L) just to get there?
Absolutely could see this. I live in the US, but the nearest spot I'd like to go camping is probably a $50 round trip. And I'd like to camp in different places, so we're starting to look at $50 being entirely reasonable if I made a list of places I'd like to camp. Not every trip, but certainly within the realm of possibility.
> - Paying for firewood instead of just collecting it?
For what it's worth, this is not allowed in many parks.
> - Spending $25/person/day on food?
This doesn't sound insane in the context of a trip, even a camping trip. You'll probably buy some special meat to grill, marshmallows to roast, some trail mix and maybe stop for food on the way out or back. $25 isn't really that crazy when you're traveling.
Even spending $50 in one direction on gas isn't insane for a weekend camping trip, a couple hours of highway driving at current prices, but I don't think anyone would consider that "not far from home" as OP stated.
> For what it's worth, this is not allowed in many parks.
Sure, but you don't need to camp in parks. That helps save on the $60/night fee as well.
> You'll probably buy some special meat to grill, marshmallows to roast, some trail mix and maybe stop for food on the way out or back.
According to OP it is just a "basic sausage", not even a special meat. I end up spending about $15/day on food and I just pack what I want with no thought to cost.
I guess my point is...none of what OP described is completely unreasonable for a random person's camping trip. But it is completely unreasonable when using this camping trip as an example as to how a person making minimum wage can't even go camping without saving up for weeks.
To me, this post reminds me exactly of things you see on reddit's antiwork sub, where people say something like "You can't live on minimum wage", and to prove it provide a breakdown of how much it would cost to rent a 2BR apartment downtown, $500/month clothing allowance, $400/mo car lease, things like that. Stuff that I don't even do for myself despite making closer to 7 figures than 5. I've never camped at a AA fee schedule spot, never spent $25/day on food(while camping), never drank $25 of beer per day(while camping), never bought cigarettes, etc...
I see your point. But the flip side is how better off people do these silly calculations how they can penny pinch a 10% cheaper price on something the poor person should buy instead of what they want. What they neglect to consider is the experience of trying to penny pinch. And the decreased value of what they end up getting. I can penny pinch and buy a really crappy loaf of bread for $3.5 or pay $6 for sourdough bread with walnuts. Sure one loaf is much cheaper than the other, but you really do get less for less. Same with campsites. Sure I can penny pinch and get a budget campsite, but it won't be in a provincial park with nature. And I wasn't quoting some exuberant travel experience. Just a simple outing, a place a father my want to take his kid camping and fishing one day. The food prices are very realistic for actual real food. Sure you can do it for 10% cheaper, and 30% less of experience, and eating crappy food. But this is someone's vacation. Shouldn't they at least be able to splurge once in a while.
Which campsite costs $59/night? Looking at Algonquin Provincial Park, a full RV hookup comes out to $53.68/night, the most expensive non-hookup is $47.46/night, and the cheapest one is $42.38/night.
Also, I remember being charged a convenience fee for booking online on top of everything.
Even at these prices I still think a provincial park is the best value for what you get. The park will be your entertainment for a full day, as it most likely has access to water for swimming, or places to hike. Unlike a cheaper private campsite.
Also, I personally had a really crappy experience staying at a private campsite before in Northern Ontario. Got yelled at for starting a fire after 11 pm, and subsequently followed around, including when I went to the bathroom. The campsite was run by mennonites, but it felt like I was on some cult's compound. Cameras everywhere and people walking behind you with walkie talkies.
And it wasn't even that much cheaper and had to pay for showers.
> never drank $25 of beer per day(while camping), never bought cigarettes
A bigger problem with the itemization of cigarettes is that listing them as a camping expense implies that you smoke more while camping than you would otherwise, which makes no sense.
I listed beer and cigarettes, because its a common vice of lower class working people. Less so than it used to be. But $15 dollars is just for one pack in Ontario. So the guy is rationing his cigarette pack over 2 days.
People counting and trying to ration how many individual beers this poor guy gets to have on his one camping trip are proving my point. As if that really changes the equation. Also, I'm not sure if you are aware, but they shrank the size of beers.
I listed beer and cigarettes, because its a common vice of lower class working people. Less so than it used to be. But $15 dollars is just for one pack. So the guy is rationing his cigarettes if that makes you feel better.
Also just tanked up, and it was $130. So a $50 would be less than half a tank of gas in my car. It's about a 2 or 3 hour drive one way, if you live in Toronto and go camping up north and/or get stuck in traffic.
Most of Ontario, at least the populated parts, do not have free camping anywhere near, and other places have no trespassing laws.
Cheaper campsites do exist, but really not by that much. $35 is pretty common, at least it was a few years ago. But do you really want to be stuck by the highway listening to cars going by in your budget campsite. I thought Provisional parks were built for the citizens to enjoy nature. And if you're going to save up for camping trip for so long, I hope you at least go to a good place.
You can't collect firewood anywhere you paid for camping. That has been my experience. I definitely would not try collecting firewood in a provincial park. I've read about someone that collected mushrooms in a local park, and they were fined over 5k.
You're also not allowed to bring wood with you.
Also, I just came back from the grocery store. A bag of cherries, which are in season, btw, were $15/kg. Low quality pork sausages (full of fat) are over $10. Salmon or any fresh fish fillet $25+. Real food, or even "processed corn" food prices are sky rocketing in Canada. If it was me going camping, $50 that would even be that much for Friday Evening, Saturday, and Sunday morning.
For someone from the other side of the planet (former USSR), this list feels very weird. I can't imagine paying for a campsite (nobody here does, you just go wherever you want and take whatever place is available), or firewood (you can always find a dry tree trunk somewhere along the road, or there's a friend of a friend who will bring some from his own house).
So although our minimum wages are absolutely atrocious by your standards (officially it's around $100 per month IIRC, but I haven't heard of anybody making below $200), half of this list doesn't apply, and the other half is cheaper by 5-20 times (a pack of cigs is ~$1 if I'm not mistaken, a liter of gasoline around 50 cents, etc). Considering all of this, we've been chugging along just fine… or not, actually. Braces yourselves, I guess.
I'm in North America and the list still feels very weird.
Going camping at a premium campsite alone (e.g. not splitting the bill with friends) only to consume $50 of beer and $15 of cigarettes is kind of a hilarious definition of camping.
FWIW, there are places where open camping is allowed in the Canada and the United States. The OP was using a specific car-camping site with reserved spots and amenities nearby.
I couldn't disagree more. A lot of working class people smoke, and when they go camping they typically drink beer. Let's say its a divorced dad, taking his son camping and fishing on the one weekend he has custody. A fairly common scenario.
He might not drink the full case, but he would probably bring one. Especially if his friends are campsite near by and they might drop by.
There might be places where you can openly camp in Canada and United States. I lived in BC and those where possible to find. In Ontario not anywhere near cities were people live.
this is for how many people? because camping trip fees are split usually. i assume 50 dollars in beer is not for one person in a weekend... when I was there right before the pandemic the beer didn't cost anywhere near that.
One guy definitely can drink a case over a weekend. I dont think you hanged out with many working people. I think most would not bring a 12 pack, but a full case.
But even if they did. Last I rember there was $10 covinince charge for getting the campsite tickets online, which you would want to do. Because you will not drive out there without knowing you have a spot if you saved up for a camping trip.
IDK. Camping can be very cheap. I went on camping trips all the time as a teenager and I had almost no money. Unless by "camping" you are talking about towing a small mobile home into a paved "campground" with electricity, water, showers and bathrooms.
I vaguely remember a magazine biography of an Italian scientist who lived near the mountains. In the summer, he liked to strike out on Friday afternoon with a hunk of bread and a hunk of cheese, think about scientific problems while he hiked around in the mountains, sleep under his jacket, and come home on Saturday or Sunday. In his location he didn't need any more material wealth to "go camping" than he needed to stay at home.
It might be more the opposite, that only in relatively recent times have people been able to get away for a day or two without doing what we would call "camping." If you were a hunter-gatherer you'd grab a buddy (or not), invent some excuse like checking for game in the next valley, and rough it for a night or two. Now if you fuck off for a weekend you can check into a hotel or an AirBNB.
I think they were called "hunting / gathering" for most of human history.
Heck, non-working pets (e.g. herd guardians, vermin control, etc.) were nearly unknown until relatively recently, because who had the wealth to feed a non-productive mouth?
It's more just what they had to do anytime they traveled longer than a day's distance. I'm sure that happened for pleasure, but a trip specifically to camp seems like something that is more relegated to the modern age where you can get to a destination easily without having to just camp along the way.
If the minimum wage worker had free housing, food, electricity, etc. your calculation would make sense. Generally if you are a minimum wage worker who is working full time, a large component of your disposable income goes into those things (living paycheck to paycheck).
So having a disposable income at all is a luxury, even if it's 10% of your income. Assuming that 10% figure, you can multiply those 3 days by 1/10% = 10 and you get 30 days of working for one weekend of camping. Not really great.
