It’s less of a pain when the work you do is fun and interesting, but ironically when that’s the case you’re usually making even more money for someone else.
Nothing wrong in making money for someone else, IF you get yourself decent salary and have interesting work.
I dunno, working in construction contracting has taught me that time in man hours is the ultimate pricing value point, that everything can be boiled down to. Someone who gives up their time should reap the most benefits. Someone who owns a business and pays others to work should be heavily taxed.
Earning a bit more does help make it more palatable, but it still isn’t fair.
What is fair? How to define fair?
A common saying is that a fair deal is one that neither party feels happy with, because neither one is taking advantage of the other.
How would you apply the general principle to the employment relationship?
I think employees generally get such a raw deal that a fair deal would be refreshing and positive. However when you look at massively overpriced roles, eg consultants, they’d probably say it wasn’t fair to give them a fair deal.
I generally agree. However, I was curious whether you had any thoughts related more directly to one of the earlier comments, concerning how fairness, within the context of employment, might be evaluated.
But how do you know that “raw deal” is not fair?
Which is what happens when a person is hired? Both parties are happy with the agreement, otherwise they wouldn’t accept, right?
Most people do not have the luxury of turning down a job offer, as the alternative is hunger and homelessness, which the employer uses as leverage to underpay their employee.
If housing and basic food staples were a human right (free) only then would you see fair wages in the open market, as people would have the option to turn down unfair jobs, forcing the employer to make them fair or hire no one.
Therefore, we come back to question: what is fair?
Nope. Both parties benefit. Neither is happy.
I suppose feelings about a deal, after it is reached, are generally determined in some part by the original motive for seeking it.
That’s your definition of fairness?
Yes, everyone loves their job and is happy with their pay for their job. You solved it bud, great work.
You make money for someone else in exchange for the safety of a consistent paycheck. Its like the old feudal system, in theory you are being protected in exchange for your labour.
Of course in practise you are at the mercy of the company, and in the feudal system the protection you were afforded meant you needed to pay for your own armour and fight to the death to protect your owner.
Eh, I’d argue that can make it more palatable, but honestly I do think, at least in most cases (I can think of outliers), it’s generally pretty exploitative to profit off of someone else’s labor that they themselves are not actually wanting to do themselves, especially if the threat of homelessness and hunger is the prime motivator for the person doing the work. Like, it’s not really fair in the grand scheme of things.
A simple way to fix that I guess would be if every company was a co-op. Since then everyone is profiting equally, and no one’s labor is being exploited for the exclusive benefit of another.
If you’re one of the lucky few sure. But then you’re kinda part of the problem. The vast, overwhelming majority of people on the planet work jobs they don’t really like just to keep a roof above their heads.
That’s the issue, not if someone else makes profit or not. If nobody makes profit from your work, but you still work job you really do not like just to keep roof above your head, then what’s the difference?
Why would someone need to work a degrading job simply to remain housed, other than because such impositions support the profit motive for landlords, lenders, and employers?
Why do you think it is because of that? Do you think the temp agriculture jobs, for example, would suddenly become having huge payments if farmers, who hires temp workers, have no profit? Please consider that farming is subsidized in US, because it is difficult to make profits there. Or do you think that cleaners who work in non-profit organizations have huge salaries and interesting job?
I doubt there could be much meaning found in the possibility that corporate farms “suddenly” would have no profits.
Corporate farms are structured around the profit motive, which is supported by the claim they assert for exclusive control over certain plots of the land, and for exclusive ownership of the products from using such land. For farm workers not to be exploited, they must stop upholding respect for such claims. Plainly, their lives would be vastly better in consequence, as the full value of their products would be distributed among themselves, with no share being taken from them by anyone else simply from a claim to private ownership.
Walking barefoot on gravel is less painful than walking barefoot on nails.
The greater difference is in being free.
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Are you sure? Whenever I feel gloomy, I seek company with corporate lawyers. I always feel uplifted by their distinctive mirth and cheer.
yes but a factotum is a person who does general, menial jobs, and Bukowski was writing about his (assumed true) experience finding work after being rejected for
thrww1the WW2 draft. (EDIT: typo)It was WWII, and I don’t know if he actually got rejected, the end of Ham on Rye implies he just didn’t register.
typo, I meant 2.
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Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime
That’s why I poop on company time
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– Rage Against The Machine
Upvoted during the act
Look at Mr. fancy pants, sleeping in until 6:30 every morning.
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?”
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.
“That’s not how the market works.”
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.
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.
100% agreed.
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.
Do you know of a movement? Perhaps degrowth?
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 think it is not particularly helpful to frame the overarching antagonism in our society as one between two groups of different ages.
Most households, including most households of Boomers, are workers, and are also workers who are struggling more than they were forty years ago.
I don’t really enjoy anything anymore. Might as well spend my time doing something.
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 ^^
Not based in the USA but I expect I’d find them helpful if I was, thank you.
You might just look for a mutual aid group in your area.
Stealing this
Debt mainly.
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Money is created from debt and there will always be more debt than money.
It feels somewhat disingenuous to compare the debt implicated in money creation with the debt imposed on ordinary workers simply to live.
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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.
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.
Why do you describe certain jobs, such as the ones you chose to mention, as being inherently miserable?
The motive for my observation was to provoke reflection over the essential factors determining how we experience work.
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Unfortunately, you seem too angry and confused to participate in a meaningful conversation.
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As I say, you seem quite embittered.
You are also attacking a straw man.
Perhaps take a day or so to unwind, and then try reading my question again (including the entirety of the comment).
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What particularly is your grievance?
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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.
It doesn’t really have to be that way, though.
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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.
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Not you.
My neighbors’ eight-year-old son’s dog walker’s second cousin (once removed) says you’re a liar (and always will be).
He said no one. I know one. That’s more than zero.
Your acquaintance is wrong and should find a different job in the lying business.
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I was abducted by interdimensional aliens who told me that vows of truth are only effective in less than half of all cases.
That’s like 10 pinky swears or twice scouts honor. I stand corrected.
You have given no explanation or argument, just an appeal to ignorance.
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OK troll.
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What did you learn from watching the video?
What are your substantive concerns or criticisms with respect to it?
Speak for yourself. This guy does!
Or maybe, we can automate stuff like that, instead of starving artists.
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Not at the level of food service industry, cashier’s and the like. Simply cuz automating gutter cleaning doesn’t make capitalists any money.
We, not they.
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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.
How in the hell could a man work and be asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?
There are a lot of labor issues to discuss but putting a bunch of normal things you do anyway and sticking some face and a name on it is not it folks.
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.
Buckowski is great, but who the hell is out there pooping before work?
Some people poop more than once a day.
I think he means “Why poop on your own time when it can be on company time?”
Aw, man, and I have the literal. Thanks
Still too few, though.
Save ur poop till ur on the clock baby!
With IBS you lose some battles, but you always win the war.
Miners.
I poop before I shower.
And I shower after I poop. The question remains.
I shower before work, so that must mean there is a poop before work.
I’m him.
Your job must be cleaner than mine, or your home dirtier.
I work in an office, but I still rinse off when I get home.
I take short showers too, so water waste really isn’t an issue. Idk, all I know is I’m the guy you were asking about.
And does Bukowski not shower before work?
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!
Thank you, I’m not crazy after all
start your company and maybe you’ll understand where is your place
What do you mean by that?
That managing a company is maybe not for you. Calm down, it is not for me either, I am in the middle of closing mine. Even though I am not bankrupt and have treasury, I will be in debt when closing it.
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Didn’t people do this for centuries to farm and have enough food?
Who said that the goal of humanity is happiness and hedonism? Why not make responsibility your goal?
I can even contend that true happiness is reached through responsibility.
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.
It seems as though you and I read two completely different posts.
Did you intend to put your comment elsewhere?
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.
to farm and have enough food?
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?
