Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
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Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
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Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#2 > Since Taylor, management gurus, led by the Toyota Corporation, devised “lean production,” with its systematic hiring, work teams, cross-training, just-in-time inventories, and kaizen. This last, Japanese for “constant improvement,” is an insidious form of continuous speed-up. Management stresses the production system—by, for example, taking away a team member or speeding up an assembly line—and work teams are pressured to keep production running smoothly. Autoworker Ben Hamper, author of Rivethead, described modern auto factories as gulags. And no wonder. Workers must labor 57 seconds of every minute.Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#3> Only a radical change in how work is done and who controls this can make labor once again an integral part of life, one through which we can fully develop our capacities as thinking, acting human beings.
uhh. The article appears to suggest that we change who controls our labor...
#1 - we do, we can quit anytime we want and find another place to work for.
#2 - I assume they are railing against private individuals and private companies. Sorry, no. I've seen how government control of the workforce ends. The books been written. I'll pass, I never liked the horror genre.
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#4> Only a radical change in how work is done and who controls this can make labor once again an integral part of life, one through which we can fully develop our capacities as thinking, acting human beings. uhh. The article appears to suggest that we change who controls our labor... #1 - we do, we can quit anytime we want and find another place to work for. #2 - I assume they are railing against private individuals an…
Why do you assume the only options are being controlled by a different self-serving employer, or having the government regulate everything? After all, shouldn't those who actually form the workforce of a company and shape the products and services it offers be in control? Why not have those who actually do the work collectively control the fate of the company, instead of having to hand over that power to someone else?
Resource 1 by me: https://vladh.net/alternatives-to-wage-labour
Resource 2 by Yanis Varoufakis: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49098225-another-now
More resources: https://vladh.net/wage-labour-resources
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#5If you took all the income from the billionaires and distributed it evenly, the average person wouldn't even get a 2% raise. If you took all the wealth and distributed it evenly, the a average person wouldn't even get $500.
In the US - Billionaires have $1.3T: https://americansfortaxfairness.org/billionaires/
That's ~$3880 per US person. Globally, there's a lot more people, and countries aren't as rich as the US.
Even if you count their entire change in net wealth in good years as income - their best year ever - during the pandemic - Billionaire wealth increased $240B. That's not even $900 per person in the US. Median salary was almost $43k: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_Unite.... That's ~2%.
This is counting billionaire income and realized and unrealized capital gains - cherry picked to the best year ever. It's a massive overstatement.
Even if you cherry pick the best 11-year bull run ever - from 2010-2021 - Billionaire wealth increased $2.57T. That's $697 per year per person. Barely a 1.5% increase.
Even if you try to get exclusionary - let's only include workers - not children, retirees, or the disabled or the poor - you get ~$1400 per person per year - a ~3.3% increase.
And it's a ridiculous idea. If you took all their capital gains starting in 2010 - they wouldn't have compounded. Most of the gains wouldn't have occurred. You'd end up with an even smaller number less than 1% for everyone, less than 2% for workers.
It's not the reason people who work at Google and Intel aren't mega rich.
And even in the US, Billionaires are definitely not the reason that people who work minimum wage or don't work at all are poor.
Billionaires are concentrated disproportionately in rich places like the US and the EU. Globally the true picture disputes this article much more. There's 5x more people on the planet than in just the US and the EU - but the billionaires there have almost 70% of billionaire wealth.
Do billionaires have enough money that it's creating systematic problems and we should do something about it? That's a different question.
They don't have so much money that they're causing everyone else to be poor.
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#6> Only a radical change in how work is done and who controls this can make labor once again an integral part of life, one through which we can fully develop our capacities as thinking, acting human beings. uhh. The article appears to suggest that we change who controls our labor... #1 - we do, we can quit anytime we want and find another place to work for. #2 - I assume they are railing against private individuals an…
We can choose who we work for (sometimes), but we can't choose not to work at all. Our engagement in the capitalist labour market is mandatory; otherwise we starve to death. Doesn't sound like we have much control over our labour to me.
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#7Another Marxist in a new coat. Good analysis, wrong prescription. Been there, done that, ended up badly.
Look into Georgism, that's where the cool kids are now. You don't need a revolution, you need a minor shift in tax code that you haven't thought of yet.
It's not the problem of your employer that prices around you increase, so don't make them a villain that you can't pay your rent. Go complain to your slumlord for riding the inflation wave and tak(x)ing away any raise and disposable income your employer gave you.
Explanation by a game designer: https://youtu.be/FTZH0Y6OS7g
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#8> Only a radical change in how work is done and who controls this can make labor once again an integral part of life, one through which we can fully develop our capacities as thinking, acting human beings. uhh. The article appears to suggest that we change who controls our labor... #1 - we do, we can quit anytime we want and find another place to work for. #2 - I assume they are railing against private individuals an…
We can choose who we work for (sometimes), but we can't choose not to work at all. Our engagement in the capitalist labour market is mandatory; otherwise we starve to death. Doesn't sound like we have much control over our labour to me.
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Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#9As opposed to communism, which will make everyone work like dogs so that the elite party members can be rich (like Maduro's goons).
100,000,000 dead but let's try it again, because that wasn't real communism.
Re: Work, Work, Work – So a Few Can Be Rich
#10> Only a radical change in how work is done and who controls this can make labor once again an integral part of life, one through which we can fully develop our capacities as thinking, acting human beings. uhh. The article appears to suggest that we change who controls our labor... #1 - we do, we can quit anytime we want and find another place to work for. #2 - I assume they are railing against private individuals an…
Why do you assume the only options are being controlled by a different self-serving employer, or having the government regulate everything? After all, shouldn't those who actually form the workforce of a company and shape the products and services it offers be in control? Why not have those who actually do the work collectively control the fate of the company, instead of having to hand over that power to someone else…
Co-ops are quite common but I guess the problem is that if they grow the old co-ops guys becomes the shareholders of a corp. So co-ops stay small or becomes corps.