if I bust my ass for a company, I deserve an equal portion of the money the company rakes in from whatever it does.
An equal portion of money as every other employee gets. For the parasites in the excusive room, that means much less, but for the people who actually have to work in the company that means a lot more.
I’ve had to have this conversation so many times I feel like I’m losing my mind. Like I need to write a manifesto or blog post that I can reference instead of rewriting it every time.
Markets are not moral.
Market forces are like physical forces - we observe them and use that knowledge to predict the outcomes of situations. But by the same token we need to have a moral framework underpinning the way we use the knowledge, or else we will destroy the world.
Justifying low wages by saying “people are willing to take the job” is just saying “people would rather do this job than be homeless, starve, or be poor_er_.”
I, personally, am fundamentally not okay with an economy that is fully supported by workers essentially being coerced into working from fear of death or despair.
We look at the nuclear bomb and the damage it caused and say “that was bad, let’s not do that”. But we look at inflation, wealth accumulation, class warfare, rampant shameless greed, and don’t immediately see the cause/effect relationship.
Now the conversation about some work being harder, more unpleasant, more stressful, or more valuable than other work is an important one. But in my mind the important part is removing the coersion.
If people had their basic needs met and didn’t fear starvation or homeless, I bet employers would have to give their workers a better shake in order to keep things running.
We look at the nuclear bomb and the damage it caused and say “that was bad, let’s not do that”.
Most people have no idea how horrible it would actually be if WW3 happens. That’s why we need to stop the fighting in ukraine and start the peace talks.
I’m not on either side of that war. I just don’t want the world to become radioactive ashes.
But everything else you said, yes. If you want people to work, you need to pay them. If no one wants to do the job, you need to offer higher pay to make people want to work there.
This is basic supply and demand. Boomers refuse to understand this because they think younger people are entitled for wanting the American dream.
Work is often hard…but the shitter the job is, the higher the pay needs to be.
I cringe everytime money grubbing is normalized. Bloomberg is now building an AI like chatGPT to do their forecasting. They are super proud of that, but instead they should be deeply ashamed. What value are they providing? People are just lining their pockets and other people applaud these people. This is a serious culture flaw.
I’m THRILLED with the promise of technology making human labor obsolete.
Is labor the best use of your limited time?
Why should we design a society where people must labor in order to survive?
However I’m DEEPLY concerned with our blind dedication to the private ownership of everything, exclusively for the purposes of growing the wealth of the few.
I don’t believe we’re in a post-scarcity world yet, and so I don’t think we’re able to stop laboring altogether. But we’ve definitely reached the point where many have stopped laboring and are surviving on the backs of others. Their lessers.
That needs to become embarrassing instead of a point of pride. We need to start shaming people into doing their part.
I am actually a vegan activist, so I am somewhat used to shaming people. Although that is never the purpose. The purpose is to stop people from exploiting animals (killing, breeding, enslaving, using for testing and entertainment) when in today’s world 99% of it is unnecessary. It is very cruel and also is a major factor of climate change.
I digress, what I wanted to say is that this thing that you and I are talking about should have activists too. Money grubbing needs to be shamed endlessly. I just don’t know exactly how. I feel like going onto the streets with thousands of activists like I do with veganism, but I lack a clear movement, message and organization.
I honestly don’t have a systemic solution, like with veganism, which may be the crux of the problem. I just believe people need to be held accountable for what they are or are not bringing to the world.
Would you tell a slave to just focus on responsibility? Why would you tell someone working for a wage something similar? It doesn’t seem hedonistic to me to want to enjoy the fruits of your own labour, or see your community made better by the work you did. Instead a lot of the value of your labour is siphoned off by people you will never meet and only have negative feelings for.
I think different humans have different goals, and as long as those goals don’t infringe on others, that’s perfectly fine. So you wanting to take on responsibility (in whatever way that means for you) is totally chill.
The issue with the current system is that the goals of business owners (the ruling class), infringe upon others, and those other people would prefer to have a system that doesn’t do that, so that everyone can more freely try to achieve their goals without being exploited by a minority of others.
Farming is literally seasonal work. Meaning no, you don’t do it every day. The main events are planting and harvesting.
true happiness is reached through responsibility.
Your main point could just as easily be used to defend capitalism - ie. Paying your bills. Can you get more specific about how I can use responsibility to create happiness in my life?
Many concede as inevitable that work should be miserable.
Yet, some even still cast shame on those who emphasize the misery it causes.
Meanwhile, among those who describe work as miserable, it is common to assume the reason as being that work involves effort, rather than that work, at least the way it is generally imposed, requires the worker being subordinated.
I understand and agree but memes like this and the whole “anti-work movement” are doing irreparable damage to any progress you could hope to make in “work reform”.
You provided two different names, each representing collections of ideas and objectives that are extremely general and often nebulous or ambiguous, and you complained that someone is pursuing one to the detriment of the other.
No more is plain from the text you wrote.
I am asking you to offer further details over how you personally are understanding the particular terms, and perceiving the conflicts.
Many concede as inevitable that work should be miserable.
There are some jobs that suck, but they’re essential. Like maintaining sewers in big cities. It’s a miserable job, but if no one does it you’re going to have huge problems really fast.
Supply and demand. There’s a high demand for workers of all sorts, but no employers want to pay the high price for having a worker on staff.
It’s not that no one wants to work anymore, it’s that no employers want to pay people enough to live and people don’t want to be forced to work 90% of their week to still not make enough money to live.
Business owners that don’t understand that are entitled and stupid.
Everybody loves cleaning up other people’s poop. In a communist society there would be people queuing around the block to volunteer for that job instead of being an artist or a rock star. Everybody will just do things for fun and be shiny happy people.
You’re trying to argue there isn’t anything inherently nasty about cleaning up literal human shit clogs. What is even the point in engaging with you in good faith? I’d rather take the piss out of your frankly ridiculous position.
My local sewer guy takes pride in his job. Not only does he care enough to know the entire sewer layout for every lot in town, he also cares enough about it to always provide the customer with a good offer. He just wants it done right. But it doesn’t just stop there. He is also the chairman for the sewer industry in the entire country, giving advice to all the other sewer companies, municipalities and other industries.
No, he probably doesn’t particularly enjoy hosing down somebody’s fatberg, but him and his guys usually seem to have fun doing it anyway. He gets paid well be too.
If I got half the pay for having half the fun and being able to take half the pride in what I do, I’d gladly accept the job.
Well my mum’s boyfriends cousin is a sewer clearer and he says it’s terrible and smells like shit and everybody who says otherwise is lying. Who do we believe?
The suggestion was that workers (“we”) should seek to automate processes that workers prefer not to perform.
Your objection was that if such automation were possible to achieve and to implement, then they would have already done so.
Processes of production, and the utilization and development of machinery implicated in production, is determined by business owners, not by workers.
Business owners are bound by the profit motive, not by a motive to improve the experience of workers.
Any activity or objective not supported by the profit motive is simply discarded, under our current systems.
The meaningful suggestion is that workers (“we”) should seek to automate processes that workers prefer not to perform, even if business owners (“they”) have no motive for doing so.
Buddy if you “we” could do that “we” never would have been employees in the first place.
Workers already are the ones who design and build machines, but our capacities are constrained by business owners, who control the resources of society, including the enterprise that conducts research and manufacturing, and who direct the labor of workers for using the resources they control.
If you think automation is not profitable then you vastly underestimate the costs of running a business and hiring human employees.
You are attacking a straw man.
Some automation is profitable, at any particular time, but some automation may improve the experience of workers without being profitable.
Various relevant factors include the availability of technologies previously developed through public investment, the degree by which private enterprise is competitive versus monopolized, the structure of the labor pool especially in its degree of stratification, and the relative profitability of other investment opportunities, such as those more overtly framed around speculation, predation, extraction, or exploitation.
Neither are business owners, who make the decisions within enterprise, about how workers use enterprise.
If business owners decide that engineers would design machines, that factory workers would then build, and that sewer cleaners would then utilize, then the events may occur. Otherwise, not, and the determining force is the profit motive, not the will of workers.
The straw man you attacked was my alleged claim that no automation is ever profitable.
In fact, at any particular time, some automation may be profitable, and some automation may not be profitable.
We are discussing the reasons certain workers may be prevented from having better experiences through automation, even if development, manufacturing, and utilization of relevant automated systems are possible in principle, through the collective capacities of workers as a class.
You asserted the premise that the nonexistence of certain systems of automation is sufficient evidence for us to conclude the impossibility of their being caused to exist.
No, we are discussing why people choose to work cleaning sewers. Then someone suggested we could automate the jobs. Then I suggested if we could, we would have already (because profits). Then you suggested that only sewer workers could automate those kind of jobs because it wasn’t profitable for companies to do so.
I have observed that workers as a class (inclusive of engineers, factory workers, and all others) may have the capacities to provide automated systems either that improve the experience of those working to clean sewers, or that may obviate the social need of anyone to be working as such.
I also have observed that utilization of enterprise, and direction of worker capacities, is currently controlled by business owners, bound by the profit motive.
Your premise is false, that all automation always is supported by the profit motive, and my alleged premise is a straw man, that no automation ever is supported by the profit motive.
Your suggestion, that “if we could, we would have already” “automate[d] the jobs”, is false.
Its flaw is that it erases the conflict of interest between workers and owners. subsuming both beneath an imaginary monolithic “we”, who would all share the same interests.
In fact, workers and owners have mutually antagonistic interests.
Owners seek to extract the maximal possible value from workers at the minimal possible cost.
Workers seek better conditions, higher wages, and greater freedom and enjoyment in their lives.
Wow even more Russian Soviet KGB dezinformatsiya. Capitalism is the best system the planet has ever seen. It ensures freedom and a just division of resources. Or would you rather than your sustenance depends on some commisar? Better make sure to magnify and sanctify the holy name of Stalin – or else!
In the US, you are free (it’s called right to work, sweaty!) to join and leave any company at any time. Whereas if comrade Stalin had his way, you’d be shipped off to Siberia to work a in a munitions factory while starving.
Capitalism is a system that lets anyone succeed. So perhaps there aren’t that many workers cöoperatives because most working class individuals are simply unfit for leadership positions.
I mean you can’t really expect someone whose job is to wait tables to know how to properly run a restaurant. It takes someone who understands systems and most people don’t.
But you know what. Even the poor have fridges and cars in the USA. Hardly could say the same about North Korea.
So perhaps there aren’t that many workers cöoperatives because most working class individuals are simply unfit for leadership positions.
I mean you can’t really expect someone whose job is to wait tables to know how to properly run a restaurant. It takes someone who understands systems and most people don’t.
Huh? How does being a cooperative preclude those businesses from having capable people in leadership positions? The only difference between a regular business and a coop is that generally coops will vote on who is in that leadership position, and they don’t over-value that leadership position, unlike most CEO’s which take an unjustifiable amount of money for the amount of actual work they contribute to the business.
How does North Korea, an authoritarian and decidedly not socialistic state (the workers do not own the factories in North Korea, the State does, which is bad) relate to any of this?
An unfortunate amount of the poor in the USA become homeless, which takes away access to cars and fridges.
By “just division of resources” are you referring to the monstrous and ever growing wage and wealth inequality gap? I’m not sure how you consider that to be a “just” system.
Everyone gets according to their contribution. That’s something communism and capitalism actually have in common. However capitalism takes into account uniqueness, results, and innovation. In communism you get rewarded just for doing something. No matter how shitty the thing is, no matter how lazy you are.
In capitalism you get according to how critical and innovative your thing is. So yeah, most people aren’t very critical or innovative. So why would they get much?
Oh, you can scan groceries or flip burgers — you should be able to buy an apartment in a large urban city. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit silly?
Also, we need wealth gaps so that people would be motivated to invest and grind and strive.
Communism simply represents any societal system of workers directly controlling enterprise, instead of its being controlled by private owners.
When enterprise is privately controlled, wage remuneration to workers is resolved entirely by the profit motive of private owners.
The employment relationship carries no deeper motive or essential virtue, as you have suggested. It embodies no natural directionality that “takes into account uniqueness, results, and innovation”.
Under private enterprise, all is subsumed under profit, and all that is not profitable is discarded.
When workers control enterprise, they may distribute the value of their product however they choose. No power prevents them from ascribing value to the attributes you have identified as meaningful.
What world are you living in? If capitalism rewarded people for how critical their jobs actually were, teachers wouldn’t be making minimum wage and needing to take multiple jobs to make ends meet. And according to COVID, delivery workers, supermarket employees, restaurant workers, etc, would all be rich seeing as they were deemed essential workers. Pretty sure there weren’t any CEOs deemed essential workers.
Are you trying to say that you are ok with people working a full time job and not being able to afford to live in the place where they work? It strikes me as a bit silly that you expect people to still do those jobs if it doesn’t pay enough to make it worth it. The real fault lies in the companies and corporations taking in record profits but “can’t afford” to increase wages because it’ll cut into their margins by .01%.
Wealth gaps do not motivate anyone to grind and investing money you can’t spare is not a feasible option to escape poverty.
The American Dream where all you needed was hard work and determination and you could buy a house, support your family, and live well, is dead. There are families with 2 adults working 2 or 3 jobs that still need financial assistance in order to afford food or rent. They’re definitely on the grind but that doesn’t work anymore. Now people grind just to survive while the wealthy do nothing and watch their bank accounts overflow.
The difference between the reality now and 30 years ago is the corporations got greedier and focused their energy on squeezing every cent they could out of their workers and their customers to live their own pockets. This is the reality of unregulated capitalism. It’s a fight for the bottom in terms of quality and a race to the top in regards to prices. The only thing that matters is profit above all else.
In this system, the rich control the “capitalism” and choose who the “rewards” go to. Profits go way up and CEO pay has increased 400% while the worker’s wages have remained the same. They’re doing stock buy backs and lining their own pockets while their employees need second jobs and food stamps to live.
You’re defending a system that constantly looks for new ways to fuck you over if it makes an extra penny. You need to reevaluate your whole schema
None of those workers are really grinding. They come from work and what do they do? They stuff their face with fast food and watch Netflix.
Why not read self help books, hit the gym, start a side hustle? With the savings from not paying for Netflix and eating avocado toast you can buy crypto! The grind is 24/7 my dude. I’m sorry but the majority of people are simply not ambitious enough. Those who rise early and work 24/7 on self betterment are rich. That’s the difference between a CEO and a teacher.
I don’t see how it’s trolling to point out that rich and successful people are just built different. They are superior so they should get more stuff.
Honestly all the haters and losers (sad!) should be lucky they’re not living in any other era of humanity. 500 years ago they’d be subsistence farmers but now they can order food through their phones.
I don’t mind working for someone as I get my due. I am more annoyed by my taxes being thrown to the toilet or given to Ukraine/Israel support (to follow actualities) than working 8+ hours for my employer. I am totally OK that my taxes serve to pay school, hospital, infrastructure, agriculture but these fat and senile representatives, nope!
I think the idea is that while these are things you do anyway, you are rushed to complete them quickly, earlier in the morning than you would likely prefer, all for the benefit of someone else to profit off you (I.e, to be exploited).
I think someone that was in a co-op would not resent those things nearly as much, or at all, since all of that work and effort would be adequately rewarded.
I definitely would not wear a bra if I don’t need to go to the office. Hell, dressing and getting out of bed are also fairly optional, even if working from home and I don’t know anyone who commutes for the fun of it. Also I’d definitely take the full worth of my labor please.
It seems only sensible that someone would want to be paid the full value of their labor.
Yet, in so many of my conversations, someone gives a reasons to justify a share of the value being taken by executives and billionaires.
People are struggling to survive, but they act like their survival is less important than wealth being further accumulated by someone who already has enough wealth for countless lifetimes.
If you have a local DSA chapter, you could give it a visit and see if it’s something you’d be into. They tend to have a good amount of genuinely nice friendly people, and they help people with mutual aid and other activities you may enjoy. Just an idea ^^
Keep in mind that in 1975 the top tax rate was 48%, some sources say the effective rate on corporate was 44%. This message went out right before the largest recorded increase in USA poverty from 1980 to 1983, and the Reagan Administration gutting federal regulatory bodies and slashing the corporate tax rates down to effective 0 rates, sometimes a negative rate if they received corporate welfare.
If anything, bro really jinxed it by saying “it can’t possibly get worse, right?”
Well, if OP ever moves, the old slab could be broken up on site, the base moved, and a new slab cast at the destination. Or just hire the local high school football team at $20/jock/hour—four of them should be able to move it. 😅
I’m saying it’s not a gender specific issue, but I guess you’d rather play a victim. If you want experience from a men’s perspective, I have zero issue with emotional support when I’m talking to girls I can trust.
I’m saying the complete opposite of “be a man” that support is out there for men. Are you even attempting to read comments in good faith, or are you reading some completely different text that isn’t there?
So you disagree with the premise that men who reach out are told by society to be a man instead, and want to bring up women's problems instead of acknowledging the problem because you have 'girls you can trust'. To top it off you respond to someone pointing out your whataboutism by accusing someone of 'playing the victim'.
That is what I am responding to, you dismissing the issue while claiming that are aren't and doing the exact thing being discussed in your responses.
Alright I think this convo is done since you are clearly taking this in bad faith after I clarified multiple times that is nothing close to what I said. Find a strawman somewhere else to argue against.
I think that you are both wrong and right. Societal treatment of mental health issues is indeed quite poor regardless of gender. However, it is important to realize that there ARE differences that relate directly to one’s presenting gender.
Just as women are not taken seriously by health professionals, men are frequently treated as less-than by western culture at-large, if we show anything but chauvinistic bravado. This lack of care has had a profound impact on both young and old men who have any mental illness, leading to isolation, and becoming vulnerable to radicalization by those actively preying on them and using them as tools of violence or suicide.
It’s a real, gender-specific problem that is well-encapsulated in the proverb “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
I think you’re being a little disingenuous. The two conversations are not only both important, but they’re both closely related to each other. It’s impossible to talk about the mental well being of half the population without the other half coming up, since a lot of the problems and their solutions are the same.
It is very possible to focus on half the population being told to 'man up' and the gender specific meaning that phrase has since it does not apply to the other half. Just like we can focus on women being told to smile more without needing to drag men's vaguely related experiences into it.
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